Phillip G. Wiener - Dictionary of The History of Ideas - Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas. 4-Charles Scribner's Sons (1973) PDF

DICTIONARY OF
THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

DICTIONARY
OF THE HISTORY
OF IDEAS
Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
PHILIP p. WIENER
EDITOR IN CHIEF
VOLUME IV
Psychological Ideas in Antiquity
TO
Zeitgeist
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS . NEW YORK

Copyright © 1973 Charles Seribner's Sons
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DICTIONARY OF
THE HISTORY OF IDEAS
PSYCHOLOGICAL IDEAS IN ANTIQUITY
PSYCHOLOGICAL IDEAS There are other words which overlap or go beyond

IN ANTIQUITY these, but Homer does not have a single noun to denote
the soul or personality. Nor does he use a single term
Psychology is a modern term, but its components, for "body." When the Homeric hero is under emotional
psyche and logos, are words whose history goes back stress he may externalize his heart or his thumos,
to the Indo-European parent langiiage. For the philos- scolding it or conversing with it. The notion that emo-
ophers of classical antiquity, giving an "account" tions or intellect are in some sense independent of their
(logos) of the psyche was a necessary part of intellectual possessor is illustrated by the "psychic intervention"
inquiry. Greek philosophy was vitally concerned with (Dodds [1951], pp. 5-16) seen in expressions like "Zeus
many of the problems which exercise modern took away his understanding" or "A god put courage
psychologists, but did not regard "study of the mind" into his heart."
as an autonomous subject with specific terms of refer- The survival of the psyche in Homer appears not
ence. Frequently theories about the psyche were to possess any important ethical or religious associa-
intimately connected with ethical, physical, and meta- tions. Deprived of the body, the psyche lives on in
physical assumptions. Hades, a feeble transformation or residue of the living
In this article means the period of
"antiquity" man. Essentially, the man whose psyche has left the
Greco-Roman civilization (ca. 750 b.c.-a.d. 450), and body is dead. Merely to survive as a psyche did not
"psychological doctrines" means theories held about make him immortal (athanatos). For to be athanatos
the psyche by philosophers. It is necessary to leave the (literally "deathless") is to possess the property of the
term psyche untranslated initially, since it cannot be gods, and the Homeric psyche is so far from being
accurately rendered by a single English word such as divine that it is compared to smoke. The immortality
"soul" or "mind." The meaning of psyche will best of the soul was a concept which Greeks as late as the
appear by examining its functions and what it is used fifth century B.C. found surprising (Herodotus IV, 93fF.).
to denote. Most of this survey is devoted to a chrono- The significance of betweenthe development
logical discussion of the major psychological doctrines, Homeric thought and been
early philosophy has
but a preliminary note on the language and popular admirably analyzed by Snell (Die Entdeckung des
conceptions inherited by philosophers will help to set Geistes, pp. 12ff.); but a caveat is perhaps needed
the scene. against his claim that Homer gives a fully repre-
sentative picture of Greek ways of thinking at a par-
THE LEGACY OF EARLY GREEK ticular time. Homer is the culmination of a long oral
LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT tradition which has its own highly formalized expres-
The Homeric poems (ca. 750-700 B.C.) are the earli- sions. In the lyric poets of the next two centuries psyche
est European literature. In them references to psyche came to be treated as the seat of emotions, in spite
are almost confined to descriptions of death or the of its Homeric associations with death; and it is possible
dead. A man who has lost his psyche is either dead that such a use of the word is not as novel as its absence
or unconscious (through fainting) and it is probable that from Homer might suggest. Eventually intellectual
the word has a primary association with breath. The activity was also ascribed to psyche and by the fifth
precise location of psyche in the body is obscure, century B.C. psyche has changed its relation to other
though there are good reasons for associating it with words and become the name for a single thing to which
the head (R. B. Onians, The Origins of European consciousness and vitality in general belong. How and
Tliought, Cambridge [1951], pp. 95-115). Psyche is why this happened is impossible to answer precisely,
sufficiently corporeal to be "breathed out" through the but it is certain that religious conceptions associated
mouth or through a wound and to survive as a ghost with the names of Orpheus and Pythagoras were highly
when it has left the body. But though essential to the influential.
living man, psyche is not connected in Homer with The essence of these conceptions, which probably
any particular activity. Nous is his favorite word to go back to the sixth century B.C. in northern Greece
describe "mental seeing" or "planning" and it can and southern Italy, is as follows: the psyche is an im-
sometimes be translated "mind." To denote emotions mortal (and therefore divine) being, sullied by incor-
the important word is thumos (physically associated poration into a mortal body but capable by initiation
with breath and blood). A man may "desire in his and ritual observances of becoming pure and eventu-
thunws" or his thumos may "urge him to do some- ally free of its earthly shell. Rebirth in various forms
thing." Though not regarded as "organs" of the body, and final union with the universal divinity are essential
nous and thumos are permanent possessions of the features of this doctrine. It is clear that the Homeric
hving man to which his thinking and feeling belong. concept of psyche has become quite transmuted here. 1
Now, far from signifying merely that which leaves a involved here. First, the soul is now treated as the
man when he dies, psyche must, in order to fulfill the recipient of sense-impressions. Second, it is able, by
religious belief, denote his living self or personality. interpreting these, to grasp a principle which is not
The full significance of this concept was to be devel- strictly empirical. Third, the soul at its best is analogous
oped by Plato, but some earlier philosophers (whether to, if not identical with, the fierv cosmic principle.
or not they accepted the religious belief) now treated Aristotle, much later, was to talk of "the thought which
psyche as the center of consciousness. thinks itself," and the embryo of this notion may be
contained in Heraclitus' belief that the soul is both the
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINES apprehender of logos and in some sense identical with
OF THE PRESOCRATICS hgos. These ideas were not stated in such precise terms
1. Thales and Anaximenes. The first Greek thinkers by Heraclitus himself. Indeed he advised that the soul
who are conventionally called "philosophers" were possesses depths which cannot be grasped (frag. 45).
more interested in cosmogony and cosmology than in But they are reasonable inferences from his oracular
the studv of man. To Thales of Miletus psyche seems fragments. He probably believed that the soul was
to have denoted both and the source of motion.
life immortal, and that excellence of character went along
The concept of psyche as that which moves and ani- with intellectual understanding. In this he anticipated
mates the body is a natiu'al development of the view Plato, but also his near contemporary, Empedocles.
that a dead (motionless) body has lost its psyche. In 3. Empedocles. In Empedocles, science and mysti-
Aristotle's opinion (De anima 411a 7f.) Thales may cism are curiously blended. But though it would be
have believed the world itself to possess psyclie; and improper to draw an absolute distinction between his
many later philosophers certainly took this view. two poems. On \alure and Purifications, the former
Anaximenes, Thales' yoimger fellow-countryman, drew is primarily an attempt to explain the physical world
a specific analogy between the human psyche and the and the latter an account, in the Orphic-Pythagorean
material which he supposed to surround (and control) tradition, of the incarnations, rewards, and punishments
the cosmos (frag. 2). Both were identified with breath of the "soul" (daimon). Since the work On Nature
or air, and the point of the comparison is clearly that accovmts for sense perception, emotion, and thought
the psyche in man possesses a function similar to that in purely material terms, without reference to a psyche,
of air in the world. Psyche or air is the life-principle. it is hard to know what role the immortal soul played
Thales and Anaximenes did not apparently discuss in the mortal body. Empedocles' account of this is
psychology in detail, but the assumption of an affinity confined to the religious poem (in the evidence which
between the human psyche and the cosmic principle survives) and it is safest to assume that he distinguished
belongs to the same climate of ideas which gave rise the source of physical consciousness from the moral,
to beliefs in the psyche as the divine element in man immortal self. If so, Empedocles has come nearer to
and the center of his consciousness. the concept of a soul which is quite distinct from the
2. Heraclitus. In Heraclitus of Ephesus all these body.
concepts occur and they are also associated with an Empedocles gave detailed explanations of sense per-
interest in sense perception and theory of knowledge. ception and thought. It is difficult to summarize these,
To Heraclitus the senses are the first source of informa- since they are intimately connected with his basic
tion about the world, but their witness can be mislead- assumptions about the world. Four elements, earth, air,
ing (frag. 107). If the evidence of the senses is correctly fire, and water, and two polar forces. Love and Strife,
interpreted by the soul (by which psyche will now be constitute all that exists. To perceive is to receive in
translated) it can bring about an understanding of the the pores of the sense organs effluences from the exter-
logos, the principle determining all things. This princi- nal elements,which are recognized by similar elements
ple, which means the unity behind opposition and in the sense organs. Thought takes place primarily in
change, is not directly an object of perception, though the blood, which is composed of a nearly perfect mix-
may have supposed be "drawn by thought
"
Heraclitus it to in ture (frags. 98, 105) of the elements. It is
physically through the senses (Guthrie [1962], p. 430). that we perceive Love and Strife, which are probably
Logos is an object of intellectual apprehension which also embodied in the blood. Empedocles does not ex-
a soul in the right condition can grasp. The principle plain whether or how the evidence of the senses is
has as its material constituent fire, and Heraclitus organized by thought. At about this time a Pythagorean
probably also regarded fire as the fvmdamental material philosopher, Alcmaeon, had traced perception from the
of soul, since "it is death to soul to become water" senses to the brain, but Empedocles may have regarded
(frag. 36), while "a dry [i.e., hot] soul is wisest and thought itself as which has
a category of perception
2 best" (frag. 118). A number of fundamental ideas are as its function receiving through the pores and assimi-
—
lating different combinations of external elements. enced by Socrates and the Pythagoreans. Our knowl-
Even the elements are in some sense "conscious, "
and edge of Socratesis largely based on the works of Plato,
all processes, including emotional and mental activi- but it can be assumed that Socrates advocated and
ties, are referred to their mixture and separation. The practiced rigorous discussion about moral concepts as
naivete of the theory should not obscure its achieve- the means and making it competent
of tending the soul
ments. Empedocles has focused attention on the mech- to control the body and its passions. "Soul" here means
anism of consciousness, and offered an explanation intellectual and moral self. The two attributes go hand
consistent with his theories about the natural world. in hand. For it is only when we know what goodness
Psychology is here related to physiology. The investi- is that we can (and will) become good.
gation of physical phenomena has aroused interest in Dualism. Plato presents this intellectualist position
the physical processes of sensation and thought. most strongly in the Phaedo. Soul and body are alien
4. Parmenides. Other pre-Socratic theories may be substances. It is the aim of the soul, which is simple
discussed more briefly. To Parmenides, whose influence in essence and immortal, to rid itself of the body, for
on Empedocles and subsequent philosophy was pro- while embodied the soul cannot attain perfect
it is
found, the physical world possessed no reality; for it knowledge. The only objects of knowledge are Forms
contained no subject of which "exists" could always unique, incomposite, immaterial entities of which the
be truly asserted. Parmenides was unable to satisfy the particular objects of perception are only fleeting
claims of his logic by reference to changing phenomena During embodiment the soul can apprehend
replicas.
and he rejected the senses in favor of nous, the mind the Forms only by thinking as far as possible inde-
or the application of thought: the onlv existent is an pendently of the body. Soul is the thinking, rational
object of intellectual apprehension. For the history of self in direct opposition to the passions, pleasures, and
psychology this is important. Parmenides set up the sensations associated with the body. It is still part of
intellect as an autonomous faculty, quite independent the soul's job to animate the body during its incarna-
of sense perception. Its physical basis (frag. 16) is tion, but this is a regrettable incursion on its spiritual
obscure and hardly relevant to his main argument. But activity and Plato does not explain how the soul acts
among philosophers like Plato and ,\ristotle, who were on the body.
concerned with the relation between soul and body, Differentiated Soul. This extreme dualism was not
an analogous belief in the primacy and independence Plato's final word. In the Republic (Book IV) soul loses
of the intellectual faculty persists. its unity and becomes divided into nous ("intellect"),
5. Anaxagoras and Democritus. It is improbable thutnos ("passion"), and epithumia ("appetite "). To its
that any pre-Socratic philosopher regarded mind or appetitive part are ascribed bodily desires; thumos is
soul as wholly immaterial. Anaxagoras made nous the the emotional element in virtue of which we feel anger,
first cause of the cosmos and the controlling principle fear, etc.;nous is (or should be) the controlling part
of living things. He called it the "finest and purest of which subjugates the appetites with the help of thumos.
all things" (frag. 12), which suggests that he was Plato seeks justification for this theory on two counts.
coming close to expressing its immateriality. Unlike First, his quest for justice is based on the assumption
Empedocles, Anaxagoras regarded perception as the that the state is a large-scale analogue of the individual,
interaction of contraries; we recognize external heat and therefore the components which sanction the
by virtue of cold in ourselves. He was also an extreme state's division into three classes (artisans, soldiers, and
realist, taking all qualitative differences to be fimda- guardians) are established as categories for analyzing
mental differences in matter itself. This theory was the psychology of the individual. Second, Plato invokes
opposed by his contemporary, Democritus the atomist, the empirical fact of conflict within the individual
who referred all the qualities we perceive to changing (Republic IV, 436ff.). At one and the same time we
states of the body and its interaction with atoms of may both desire to drink and be unwilling to drink.
different shapes. Democritus was consistent with the But the same thing cannot act in opposite ways with
general pre-Socratic position in giving the soul the same part of itself towards the same object at the
(spherical atoms distributed over the body) the same same time. If such conflict is to be referred to the soul
substance as his cosmic principle. as a whole, then the soul must possess different parts
to account for the clash. It is also the case that passion
PLATO and appetite may conflict, for a man may be angry
Plato's psychological theory is fimdamental to his with that in himself which prompts him to do some-
whole philosophy and only its more striking aspects thing shameful. Hence a part of the soul different from
can be indicated here. In regarding "cultivation of the reason and appetite is required. Like the soldiers of
soul" as the primary duty, Plato was certainly influ- the ideal state, passion should be the ally of the 3
governing component. The basic conflict for Plato is to prove in the Meno (81e ff.) by an experiment in
still between bodily and intellect, between
desires sense which an uneducated slave is shown how to "recall"
and reason, but the dualism of the Phaedo has been the answer to the problem, what square has twice the
modified by locating the division which follows from area of that of a given square, by answering a series
incarnation within the soul itself. At the same time of simple questions. Since sensible objects lack the
Plato saw the possibility of reconciliation within the imchanging existence required by Plato of what is fully
divided self, for he asserts that the two lower parts real, he took less interest in the analysis of sensation.
have "following reason" as their function {Republic IX, But in later dialogues the soul is more explicitly related
586e). The true philosopher is one in whom the rule to the body insofar as sensations are described as
of reason is established, and in this situation all parts movements, caused by external phenomena, which are
of the soul conspire together for a united good. Nor transmitted to the soul through the body (Timaeus 43c);
is the rule of reason an e.xercise of cold intellection. and pleasures which have their source in the body
The rational part of the soul wisdom, and is a lover of penetrate to the soul {Republic 457c). Plato also recog-
distinguished from the appetitive part not by the ab- nized a form of "judgment" in which the mind pro-
sence of all desire but by having a different object of nounces rightly or wrongly on what is presented to the
desire; the absolute, intelligible good. senses {Sophist 263d-264b).
This doctrine is presented mythically in the Phaedrus Plato's psychology is not a systematic doctrine,
(246a ff.), where the human soul is pictured as a rigidly adhered to. His view of the soul developed from
charioteer (reason) driving a pair of horses (passion and the imcompromising dualism of the Phaedo to a posi-
appetite). The passionate horse is a clean, upstanding tion in which a unitary self is attainable if harmony
creatiu-e which follows the guide of reason, whereas can be established between reason, emotion, and bodily
its fellow horse is a shaggy, recalcitrant beast which appetite. Bodv and mind are related to each other
tries to drag the chariot down from its heavenly course. through pleasure and sensation. But Plato never aban-
Here the composite nature does not depend on
soul's doned his belief in the priority of reason, the part of
incarnation; but the point of the image is the imperfect man which is akin to the fully real, unchanging world
human soul's moral tension, not its multiplicity of and which has as its essential function apprehending
function. Plato's division of the soul persists in later that world.
works such as the Timaeus. in which the rational part
of the soul is stated to be divine and immortal, and ARISTOTLE
is contrasted with two mortal, irrational parts: passion With .Aristotle, psychology became a subject of sys-
and appetite (69d ff.). The rational part is located in tematic inquiry. He devoted a whole treatise{De
the head and is composed of immaterial ingredients anima) to defining soul and its functions, and a group
blended from the basic principles of the intelligible of smaller works {Parva naturalia) covers specific topics
world and the world of physical change. The irrational such as memory and sleep. .Aristotle regarded psychol-
parts are located in the chest (passion) and the belly ogy as an aspect of physical science, and his own
(appetite). Their activities are associated with the analysis is based on the principles which he lays down
bodily organs which house them. The blood vessels for all study of the natural world. But the De anima
seem by which the different parts
to be the instruments occupies a hmdamental place in his entire philosophy.
of the soul commimicate with each other. The biological works require constant reference to it,
Knowledge and Perception. Soul is self-moving, the and it is highly relevant to the ethics, epistemology,
principle of motion (i.e., animation) both in individual and metaphysics. Aristotle has good claims to be the
living things and in the world itself {Phaedrtis 245c ff.). founder of "psvchology," though the word itself is not
The world is an intelligent, living creature on which used by him. All later Greek psychological theory
man himself is modelled. In its original, discarnate state shows his influence, in both terminology and method.
the human Forms
soul has direct acquaintance with the Soul as Vital Principle. Aristotle began his career
and thus acquires knowledge. This knowledge is for- as a student of Plato, and in his earliest works, of which
gotten when the soul enters a body but it can be only fragments survive, he argued for the preexistence
recalled, at least in part, by "dialectic," rigorous philo- and survival of the whole soul. According to that theory
sophical discussion, and the judgments which we make the relationship of body to soul is temporary and con-
about our perceptions presuppose it. .\11 judgments tingent. But in the De anima, awork of his later years,
entail the use of such terms as "exists," "is the same Aristotle takes body and soul to be two aspects, which
as," "is different from," and these are not objects of are only conceptually distinguishable, of a single sub-
perception (Theaetetus I85a ff.). Learning is a process stance: "a body which possesses life" (II, I). Aristotle
4 of recollecting a priori truths, a doctrine Plato attempts calls these two aspects "matter" and "form." Soul is
the form which animate matter must possess. The complex, since mind and desire may clash; but there
physical matter of an animal is not its soul, for what isno question of man's acting independently of desire
distinguishes animate from inanimate is not physical since all action is prompted by the good, as the agent
matter but "the possession of life.
"
The potentiality sees it. What man can do, if he has himself under
to be alive is a natural property of certain bodies, and control, is to contemplate objects of desire or aversion
it is in virtue of sovil that such bodies realize this without acting in consequence, though physical
potentiality. changes, such as rapid heartbeat, may ensue (De anima
Aristotle defines soul as "the primary actuality of 432b 27-32). He also has the unique capacity to
a natural body which potentially has life" {De anima deliberate and thus establish a goal of action inde-
412a 27-28). By "primary actuality" he means the pendent of his immediate environment and physical
actual possession of the faculties which are necessary state.
to life, just as an eye, in order to be an eve, must possess Sensation and Perception. Aristotle devoted consid-
the faculty of vision. It is clear that with this concep- erable attention to the analysis of sensation and per-
tion body and soul are necessarily related, .\ristotle ception (De anima II, 5-12). His theories here, though
recognizes that emotions, desire, perception — all func- hampered by inadequate physiology (the nervous sys-
tions of the soul — are dependent on the body which tem, commonly confused with the arteries, was dis-
contains them. But the influence of Plato remains covered about sixty years after his death) represent a
strong enough to make
Aristotle regard mind {nous) major advance on previous speculation. Aristotle takes
as a faculty of soul which has no physical ba.se and sense perception to be an activity in which external
which may be capable of existing apart from the body. objects so actupon each sense organ that it receives
Of this more below. their form (perceptible properties) independently of
Faculties of Soul. In the first book of De anima. the matter with which this form is associated in the
Aristotle surveys and criticizes earlier theories of the object itself. Just as wax can be imprinted with various
soul. From them he draws certain general assumptions; impressions, so the sense organ or sense can become
in particular, the soul is the principle responsible for qualified as colored, resonant, hot, etc. Neither the
thought, sensation and perception (Aristotle's single sense nor its (perceptible) object has any actual exist-
word aisthesis covers and movement. His
both), ence except in the act of perception, and this takes
detailed analysis in the next two books is concerned place when the appropriate medium (e.g., light in the
with these functions of soul. case of vision) is acted upon by the external object and
Since soul is that which distinguishes animate from passes on its perceptible properties to the sense organ.
inanimate, Aristotle considers what characteristics are It has been observed that an explanation of aisthesis
He nominates four: nutri-
peculiar to living creatures. as a "process of being acted on "
does not square well
tion (the faculty ofgrowth and reproduction); sensa- with the active notion of "discrimination, " which
tion; locomotion; and thought. The first of these is a Aristotle also attributes to this faculty (Hamlyn,
"form of movement," and it is possessed by every living Classical Quarterly. 9 [1959], 12f.). Part of the difficulty
creature from plants upwards. Only man has all four arisesfrom a lack of terms to distinguish sensation from
faculties, which thus serve as a way of classifying all perception. But Aristotle was not perhaps so confused
living things in ascending order of complexity. as some make out. The organ is so constituted that
This method of analyzing soul is an important ad- it reacts in certain ways to the
objects which fall
vance on Plato's. Aristotle is not dividing the soul into between the ranges, light-dark, soft-hard, etc. (De
parts (a procedure which he opposes) but analyzing anima 423b 30-424a 10). The sense is a "mean" be-
its different fmictions. Possessing aisthesis means tween two extremes and it is in virtue of this mean
possessing at least one (touch) of the five senses, and that we are made aware of (or judge) the different
it also entails imagination, pleasure and pain, and de- properties of objects. Hence the reason, according to
sire. The latter is not a base part of the soul, but a Aristotle, why we are not aware of temperature equiv-
necessary concomitant of perception and sensation. alent to that of our own body.
Aristotle in some wants to
sense is a behaviorist. He A more serious difficulty is how to explain the coor-
know how and why living creatures act, and he dination of information received by the senses and the
analyzes this in terms roughly comparable to stimulus problem of self-consciousness. Aristotle asserts that
and response. Thus an animal moves in space because each sense has its own object, to which it is necessarily
its appetitive faculty is prompted by an object which related. (He seems to exclude the possibility of halluci-
presents itself as desirable (or good), and the animal nation by connecting actual hearing with actual
is then moved to pursue it (De anima III, 432b 15-17; sounding, De anima 425b 26ff.). But there are certain
433a 27-29). In man the psychology of action is more properties such as motion, rest, shape, magnitude, and 5
'
number which are apprehended by more than one nation and the two aspects of mind is very uncertain.
sense. Since there no sixth sense, this "perception
is In its active aspect mind is independent of body,
of common sensibles" is due to the cooperative activity eternal and immortal. It is not engendered in the phys-
of the special senses, i.e., the whole faculty, and ical process of conception but enters the womb "from
Aristotle calls this "common sense" {De anitna 425a outside. But what kind of existence the individual
"
14-425b 11). Whereas we can never, in Aristotle's mind enjoys when separate from the body is not
view, be deceived by the simple qualities (e.g., color, explained. God, for Aristotle, is nothing but an ever-
sound) reported by the special senses, we can make active mind, and man has something of God present
mistakes about the common sensibles; we can also in himself through his active intellect.
relate any object of perception to the wrong external This doctrine does not seriously contradict Aristotle's
object (what .Aristotle calls the "incidental" object of view of soul and body as two aspects of a single sub-
perception), i.e., take what we perceive to be Socrates stance. Soul essentially is that which actualizes the
when it is Plato. For perception does not tell us what body's vital capacities, but the active intellect has no
something is (this is the job of the mind); it gives physical correlate, though it temporarily unites with
information about the qualities of an object. The pre- the passive intellect, which ultimately seems to depend
cise workings of "common sense" are obscure in the on the body. The details of this theory are not
De anima. In the Parva naturalia mention is made Aristotle's main concern in the De anima. There he
of a single, imified sense faculty, probably located in shows how the response of a living creature to its
the heart, by which the data of sense are coordinated environment can be analyzed as a movement, varying
and on which self-awareness, imagination, and dream- in complexity from the single nutritive fimctions of a
ing depend. But if Aristotle envisaged such a role for plant to the behavior of man, who responds by his
"common sense" in the De anima he does not say so. rational and appetitive capacities to the data provided
Thought. Artistotle's accoimt of thought is obscure by the senses and imagination. Knowledge is the
and unsatisfactory. Much of the difficulty derives from formulation of general notions by induction from the
the fact that he takes thought be an activity
to particular objects of perception. This ability to frame
analogous to aistliesis, i.e., a change brought about by concepts provides man with his ethical goals and the
an object, in this case "thinkables ' or "intelligibles subject matter of his scientific inquiries.
(De anima III, 4). Now in sensation the sense organ Aristotle's psychology is a general analysis of the
isacted upon by external phenomena, but these are determinate capacities of the species which fall under
not available to actualize the mind, which "has no the genus animal. It has important metaphysical and
organ." Aristotle takes the mind to be in one respect ethical applications, but unlike Plato, Aristotle
analogous to a blank wax-tablet on which anything can emphasized the organic unity of body and soul, and
be imprinted; in this sense mind is capable of receiving established terms of reference for investigating animal
and becoming identical with any object of thought, behavior.

but it has no actual existence until it thinks. In another
respect, the mind is an ever-active power that POST-ARISTOTELIAN PSYCHOLOGY
actualizes its own capacity for thought in the manner I. Theophrastus and Strata. After Aristotle's death
of light which makes potential colors actual (ibid.. Ill, the philosophical school (Lyceum or Peripatos) associ-
5).This doctrine of an active intellect is necessary, ated with his name won fame as a center of scientific
given Aristotle's theory of potentiality, if the capacity research, under its successive heads, Theophrastus and
of the passive intellect is to result in an actual cognitive Strato. Theophrastus' De sensti, a historical survey of
process. But the active intellect does not apparently theories of sensation and perception, is an invaluable
create its own objects of thought. Where then do they source of information about the pre-Socratics, but the
come from? They cannot be independent substances, little that is known about his own psychological theory
like Plato's Forms. But thought is concerned with suggests that he followed Aristotle in most respects.
"forms" or "essences" — what things really are — and it He did, however, raise questions about the "external"
thinks them with the help of mental images (ibid., 431a origin of intellect and the manner of the association
14-15). Aristotle seems to conceive of imagination as between the active and passive intellect (Themistius,
a faculty, intermediate between aisthesis and thought, In De an. 430a 25). In this context, and for what follows,
which provides the mind with the data in which it Strato is a figure of major importance, a fact which
can conceptualize the essential form of particular has not always been fully appreciated. Evidence about
things, or, in the case of abstract thought, the form him is scanty, but it reveals a thinker of the highest
of, say, triangle without reference to any actual existing scientific quality. Strato departed radically from the
6 triangle. But the precise relationship between imagi- Platonic and Aristotelian tradition in regarding sensa-
tion, perception, emotion, and thought as multiple normal downward movement in empty space collide
aspects of a single, unified consciousness (Plutarch, De and form temporary compound bodies. In living things
libidine et aegritudine 697b). This he located in a the soul itself consists of very fine atoms, resembling
central organ (the front part of the brain) which com- fiery air, which pervade the whole body. No body
municates with the sense organs and the rest of the which lacks a soul can be alive and soul cannot be
body via pneuma ("fine air or breath"). Sensations sentient or cause sensation unless it is housed in a body,
occur not in the organs themselves but in this a doctrine which rules out the survival of consciousness
sensorium, whence they are projected to the particular after death (Letter to Herodotus 63-64). The soul-atoms
part of the body which is affected (Aetius, IV 23, 3). located in the human breast constitute "mind," which
Strato thus provided a firm physiological basis for controls and issues instructions to the rest of the soul
consciousness lacking in Aristotle's system, and com- (Lucretius, III, 136-44). Mind and soul are thus in
pletely abandoned the distinction between and
rational permanent contact with all parts of the body. Sensation
irrational faculties, as well as the belief in an immortal is the result of eidola (effluences exactly reproducing
soul or a transcendent reason. Mind is not peculiar to external objects) striking the sense organs and thus
man; rather, it is a necessary condition of sensation setting up a movement in the mind. And certain par-
and perception, since the data of sense require "atten- ticularly fine "idols" (e.g., from the gods) penetrate
tion" if they are to be registered (Plutarch, De soUertia directly to the mind. All sensations as such are true,
animahum 961a). In this theory, thought is down- and the only source of knowledge; but they inay be
graded to "consciousness," a thoroughly heretical no- misinterpreted by the mind and hence errors arise.
tion in the general context of Greek philosophy. For General ideas are built up by the mind from repeated
his physiology Strato was certainly influenced by med- presentations of the same object, and perception occurs
ical science which, probably shortly after his death, when individual presentations match the general idea.
was revolutionized by the discovery of the nervous Scientific thought seems to operate by the juxtaposition
system. (See F. Solmsen, "Greek Philosophy and the of two sets of atoms within the mind, constituting
Discovery of Nerves," Museum Helveticum, 18 [1961], different concepts (C. Bailey, Epicurus [1926], p. 269),
150-63, 169-97.) Strato's use of pneuma as the carrier but the evidence for this theory is notoriously obscure.
of "messages" (Aristotle in his biological works had In Stoicism the soul also permeates the whole body
already assigned to pneuma the function of trans- and finds its "thinking center" in the heart. It consists
mitting bodily movement) as well as his concept of not of atoms but pneuma ("fiery breath") in a particular
a unified consciousness found further development in For the Stoics, all that exists consists
state of "tension."
the psychology of the Stoics. of bodies differentiated by pneuma, the active force
2. Stoics and Epicureans. In spite of their scientific which binds the passive material qualities, earth and
achievements the Peripatetics were not the major water, into individual things according to its tension.
influence on later Greek thinking in its broader sense. (Like the pre-Socratics, Stoics and Epicureans ex-
Epicurus and Zeno (of Citium), who founded schools plained soul in terms of the basic principle governing
in Athens at the end of the fourth century B.C., inaugu- the imiverse.) Pneuma is not merely a mechanistic
rated two philosophical systems which rapidly acquired concept, like the Epicurean atom, but a dynamic,
rival adherents from a wider range of society than Plato rational force which pervades and activates the whole
and Aristotle had affected. It is customary to invoke world, all which are thus interconnected. In
parts of
the conquests of Alexander the Great and the collapse perception the sense organs are acted upon by objects,
of the Greek city-state in accounts of the origin of these either directly or through a medium, and this sets up
systems. The instability of the times and the inadequacy a presentation (phantasia) which is reported to the
of traditional ethics may well help to explain the suc- central organ by currents of pneuma. The agent has
cessand motivation of Epicurus and Zeno, who both the power to assent or not to the presentation, and
provided a morality which stressed the self-sufficiency his act of assent constitutes perception or "grasping"
of the individual. But the intellectual basis of both the object. The Stoics argued that presentations which
systems is thoroughly Greek and their psychological completely reproduce the object are grasped as true
theories develop ideas already discussed. by men of normal health, and on the basis of these,
These theories may conveniently be studied in con- general ideas are built up by analogy, combination,
cert, for Stoicismand Epicureanism possess striking etc. (Cicero, Academica posteriora I, 41-42; Sextus
similarities as well as contrasts. Both systems are a form Empiricus, Adversus inathematicos VII, 227-60;
of materialism: for Epicurus, following Democritus, all Diogenes Laertius, VII, 45-54). Presentations can also
that exists is atoms, differing in size, shape, and weight occur without an external cause, a theory which ac-
(this last an irmovation), which by deviating from their counts, inter alia, for hallucination. Like the 7
Epicureans the Stoics based their theory of knowledge abandoned bv the last great pagan and early Christian
entirely on perception. philosophers.
Both systems gave special attention to motivation.
For the primary impulse the Stoics took "innate PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE IN LATE
attraction towards those things which are peculiarly ANTIQUITY: PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY
suited to preserve an animal's natural well-being and Between the foundation of Stoicism and Epicurean-
avoidance of their opposites "
(Cicero, De finibus III, ism and the establishment of Christianity as the official
16ff.). All living creatures are endowed with a drive, religion of the Roman empire lies a span of some six
and this is naturally stimulated by awareness of the hundred years. The early part of this period produced
appropriate object. Without tliis drive no action is a ferment of ideas in philosophy and science. But the
possible,and it follows on a mental picture stemming first two hundred years of the Roman Empire, in spite
from something internal or external. What distinguishes of the achievements of the anatomist Galen and the
man from other animals is the possession of reason. astronomer Ptolemy, were not a time in which original
This develops through childhood, and in maturity ena- thought flourished. Much was done to synthesize, mod-
bles a man to control his drives and so make responses ify, or reinterpret existing theories, but the dominance
to the environment which are rational and moral as of Rome, so fniithil in many respects, was not con-
well as appropriate in the instinctive sense. Assent ducive to philosophical speculation, 'i'et there were
plays its part here as a means of determining the mental forces at work which were to produce figures of major
attitude, which is open to the individual's control. importance in the history of ideas, in particular Ploti-
From God's viewpoint all events are predetermined, nus and Augustine. In them classical philosophy and
but so far as human action is concerned the causal the eclecticism of the age combined with .spiritual
factor (as in Aristotle) is primarily the disposition which theology in a remarkable way.
the agent has acquired bv repeatedly acting in a certain 1. Plotinus. As concern with moral conduct became
way. increasingly dominant among philosophers, so interest
"
The Stoics underrated emotions, which they became ever more centered on the "inner man.
regarded as perverted judgments, except in the case Already in Stoicism it was the attitude of mind, the
of the sage. Like Strato they unified all functions of internal disposition, which mattered in ethical judg-
soul.For the Epicureans, by contrast, pleasure and ment, but Stoicism remained earthboiuid by its denial
avoidance of pain are the primary impulse of living of any existence to the incorporeal. In Neo-Platonism,
creatures and the foundation of ethics. They constitute as established by Plotinus, the highest human activity
the objects of desire by which all action is prompted is contemplation of the transcendent Good, which is
(Cicero, De finibtis I, 29ff.). For any action to take the source of various grades of being. Lowest on the
place, mental images in the form of "idols" must strike scale is the material universe, including the human
the mind and obtain its attention. Then the will is body with which the soul forms a mysterious and
activated and movement transferred from the mind to temporary union. This looks similar to Platonic
the limbs (Lucretius, II, 261-8.3). The freedom of the dualism, but in fact it is significantly different. For
will in action is explained by reference to an indeter- Plato embodiment prevents the from fully grasp- soul
minate "swerve "

of atoms (Lucretius, II, 250-60). This ing the Forms. But for Plotinus the body is not a
has generally been taken to imply a spontaneous necessary barrier to union with the One or ultimate
movement of soul atoms for every voluntary act. But Good, the goal of human endeavor. This follows be-
it has recently been argued that the swerve explains cause man's soul in its highest aspect is continually
not particular voluntary acts but merely the fact that engaged in intellection of the Forms: it is "illumined"
character is not wholly determined by antecedent bv Intellect, the principle second only to the One or
causes (D. ]. Furlev, Two Studies in the Greek Atomists. Good. In this activity the soul is not self-conscious,
Princeton [1967], pp. 169-237). since this would detract from its attention to the object
Stoicism and Epicureanism are primarily theories of of contemplation. Plotinus notes that certain activities,
ethics,and their psychology focuses attention on the such as reading, go better if we are unconscious of
motives and processes of human action. Both abandon ourselves as acting. What "comes down to the mate- "
completely any idea of an incorporeal mind: mental rial world and joins with body an irradiation from
is
activity is psychosomatic activity in which the soul acts the higher soul. But this lower soul is incorporeal, and
by physical processes upon the body. Human behavior Plotinus discusses the problem of its relation to the
is necessarily related to the environment, from which body at length {Enneads I, 1, 1-10: IV, 3, 9-23). He
all the data used to form concepts are derived. Such rejects all previous explanations of this relationship in
8 materialism and behaviorism were completely favor of an analogy with light: soul is present to body
The Hving body is "illumined" by soul.

as light to air. looks forward to the Middle Ages. But it is not the
body and reads impres-
In sensation the soul uses the business of this article to chart the subsequent history
sions made on it. Hence there is no action of body of psychology. Needless to say, modern thinking owes
on soul. The two remain "separate but in contact." more than is sometimes acknowledged to ancient psy-
Memory and perception both belong to soul and chology. Between the materialism of Democritus and
depend on its faculty of imaging {Enneads IV, 3, 27). the extreme spirituality of Plotinus runs a line on which
The soul sees when it looks out at externals. In thought intermediate positions are taken by Descartes as well
the faculty of imaging is acted upon by the higher soul, as Plato,by Gilbert Ryle as well as Aristotle. In spite
and this provides the principles with which reason of inadequate technical knowledge the Greeks devel-
works. Memory is a concept of great importance for oped wavs of analyzing mind and body and the re-
Plotinus because it provides (or is) the continuity of sponse of an organism to its environment which con-
self-consciousness.Only by memory does the embodied tinue to shape much of our thinking. They knew no
soul possess an image of itself. It is through desire for "science" of psychology, and were not hampered by
the lower that soul enters into body, and it is by desire having to confine their attention to a neatl)' labeled
for the higher that the soul can recall memory of its set of "mental phenomena."
activity in the intellectual sphere and aspire eventually
to forget all the lower (including self-awareness) in
contemplation of the divine.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2. Augustine. Plotinus was the last great pagan For pre-philosophical psychology the best starting points
philosopher of classical antiquity, but it is no coinci- are Erwin Rhode, Psyche: Seelenkult unit I'nsterblichkeits-
dence that he shares much with Saint Augustine. In glaube der Griechen, 4th ed. (Tubingen, 1970; Engl, trans.
London, 1925); Bruno Snell, Die Entdeckung des Geistes,
interpreting the scriptures Augustine was influenced
3rd ed. (Hamburg, 1955), trans, as The Discovery of the
by an intellectual climate common pagan and
to
Mind (Cambridge, Mass., 1953); E. R. Dodds, The Greeks
Christian; and inner experience as revealed by intro-
and the Irrational (Berkeley. 1951). Texts of the pre-Socratics
spection becomes the key to psychology. In a summary
are collected in H. Dials and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der
it is impossible to do more than indicate some of Vorsokratiker. 6th ed. (Berlin, 1951-52). For an extended
Augustine's major doctrines on the soul. In the De treatment see I. Beare, Greek Theories of Elementary
J.
quantitate animae problems of the soul's relation to Cognition (Oxford, 1906). K. C. Guthrie, A History of
W.
the body, and the nature of sensation and thought are Greek Philosophy. (Cambridge, 1962, 1965) has
Vols. I, II
discussed in dialogue form. The soul is incorporeal and extensive notes and bibliography. For Plato the most im-
its substance cannot be named; rather must it be portant texts are Phaedo, Phaedrus, Philebus, Republic IV-
inferred from the fact that God, its creator, is its proper VII, X; Tlxeaetetus, Timaeus. For bibliography see H.
habitation {Patrologia Latino, 32, 1036). The soul shares Cherniss, Lustrum (1961), 340-82, and for recent discussion
and body. By its presence I. M. Crombie, An Examination of Plato's Doctrines, Vol.

in reason is fitted to rule the
I (London, 1962). Aristotle's psychological theor)' is set out
it vitalizes the body and forms this into a harmonious
in De anima, ed. Hicks (Cambridge, 1907) and Parva
imity. In this doctrine Augustine is closer to Plotinus
naturalia, ed, W. D. Ross (Oxford, 1955); general discussion
than to Aristotle. The soul can take note of the body's
and bibliography in I. Diiring, Aristotles (Heidelberg, 1966).
changes (and this is Augustine's definition of sensus) See also D. \V. Hamlyn, De anima Books II and III, with
but these do not affect the soul itself. In man the soul Certain Passages from Book I (Oxford and New York, 1968).
possesses various grades of being (ibid., 1074ff.), a Some basic texts for post-.^ristotelian psychology are col-
ranking determined by the objects of its attention. lected by C. ]. de Vogel, Greek Philosophy. A Collection
Apprehension of any kind is a result of the mind's of Texts with Notes and Explanations, Vol. Ill (Leiden, 1959).
choosing to attend to something in its field of internal Relevant works of Augustine are De tritiitate, De liberio
vision. God is always present to the mind (whatever arbitrio, De quantitate animae, and of Plotinus, Enneads I,
IV. This period well surveyed by E. Zeller, Die Philos-

its activity) and by His grace the souls of the faithful 1; is
ophic der Griechen, Vol. Ill, 1, 5th. ed. by E. Wellmann

at their highest possess a stable vision of the truth. It
(Leipzig, 1923), and A. H. Armstrong, ed., Cambridge History
is by divine illumination that the soul has standards
of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge,
of judgment "impressed on it, for the divine mind
"
1956).
contains eternal truths {P.L. 42, 1052). Like Plotinus
Augustine laid great weight on "memory," for this is ANTHONY A. LONG
not mere reminiscence but the storehouse of experience [See also Analogy in Early Greek Thought; Atomism;
and the mind's knowledge of itself (ibid., 1048). In Behaviorism; Biological Conceptions in Antiquity; Cosmol-
conversion the mind "remembers" God. ogy; Dualism; Epicureanism; Imprinting; Neo-Platonism;
Augustine, for all his indebtedness to Greek thought, Platonism; Pythagorean . . . ; Rationality; Stoicism.] c/
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCHOOLS IN EUROPEAN THOUGHT
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCHOOLS that lent itself to generalization. This method actually

IN EUROPEAN THOUGHT laid the foundation for introspective psychology which
was to imdergo, in future centuries, countless varia-
them inscribed on the royal road opened
tions, all of
The term "psychology" (from psyche, soul; logos, up by the Athenian philosopher. The limits of Socratic
science), invented only in the sixteenth century by inquiry are the very same ones of clear conscience of
an obscure Marburg professor, Goclenius, was rarely which Socrates was the apostle, and which prevailed
used until the eighteenth century. Furthermore, this in Western thought until the end of the eighteenth
etymological definition, "science of the soul," hardly century.

approaches the present meaning of the term psychol- Under Plato Socratic teaching blossomed into a
ogy, since the word "science" here meant an a priori grandiose metaphysics, affirming the eternity of the
theory which was indifferent to the experimentation soul and its supermundane destiny. In Aristotle there
maintained by scientific psychology around 1860; and was a more clearlv manifested concern to limit the
also, the word "soul" is a term which psychology has field of psychology before it was a proven science; his
generally rejected because of the metaphysical and works, particularly De anima, are rich with observa-
religious overtones it arouses. tions which form the basis of classical psychology.
The idea of the soul, on the other hand, has a much Reproaching Plato for conceiving the soul in the body
longer history which undoubtedly originated in such as a pilot in a boat, Aristotle saw in the soul the active
universal phenomena as: birth and death, sleep, faint- principle of life, the organizing power already present
ing-fits, dreams, delirivims, etc. In primitive thought, in plants which are capable of feeding themselves and
the soul appeared to have a magic correlation — which of growing; the soul guarantees the animal the power
varied in different societies — with forces of life. Soul to desire and to move itself, and guarantees to man
was attributed to animals as well as to man since the power to think and to will. The views of the great
animals also breathe and bleed. For the visible sign idealistic Greek trilogy (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle)
of death is to breathe one's last breath or to bleed to continued to feed the principal current of Western
death. Also in Genesis it is said that the Eternal God, thought from the advent of Christianity imtil the
when He created man out of the dust of the Earth, Renaissance. When it made the shift from ancient
"breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and man culture, Christianity attributed in principle a greater
became a living creature." What becomes of this mys- value to the soul than to earthlv matters; and inasmuch
terious soul which inhabits the body when the body as Christianity emphasized the inner life and examina-
becomes nothing more than a cadaver? The primitive tion of one's conscience, it created a favorable climate
mind answered this question with all sorts of imaginary for the development of introspective psychology,
pictures: a kingdom of spirits, migration of souls, ghosts which Socrates had inaugurated and the Stoics had
of the departed, etc. promoted fiuther.
But the inventive mind of the Greeks opened up
// many other vistas. It was thus that the great physician
In the West, Greece was the cradle of scientific Hippocrates, in the fifth century B.C., appeared to be
knowledge insofar as certain minds, as early as the sLxth the initiator of clinical observation and of character-
century B.C., showed the necessity for a rational ex- ology; and the philosopher Epicurus (.341-270), who,
planation of man and of the world, though, in the in his quest for inward tranquility, concerned himself
beginning aspects of both were still not clearly distin- with interactions between the body and the soul, as
guished. The "Sophists" (Protagoras, Gorgias, et al.) in psvchotherapv. These interactions led him to think
were to be the first to unveil what is today called that the soul and the bodv are of the same nature, that
"human subjectivity," by bringing to light a problem the soul is material like the body, but composed of
inherent in every human being as such, that is to say, more subtle atoms. Such a materialistic solution was
as a subject who has feelings and desires, who is capable to reappear in the modern world.
of asking himself questions about himself and about
///
the world, and whose very existence conditions at the
same time the questions and the answers. Their great With the great discoveries and the new ideals of the
antagonist, Socrates, was to provide moral significance Renaissance there was a transformation in the rela-
for this interrogation of man by himself. Socrates' tionship of man to nature. The cultural upheaval was
dialectical irony (maieutic) inspired by the inscription illustrated by the persecution and burning of Giordano
on the Delphic Temple: "Know thyself" (Gnothi Bruno, apostle of the theory of the infinity and evolu-
10 Seauton) brought to introspective analysis a method tion of tlie world, as well as by the sentence to retract
imposed in 1633 on Galileo Galilei, creator of mathe- In Great Britain, Locke's empiricism paved the way
matical physics. The great supervening transformation for David Hume's theories, which brought to light the
inspired in particular the work of flene Descartes, who role that repetition and habit played in knowledge;
is a better illustration in this period of the breaking and also the theories of John Stuart Mill, author of
away from the ancient Greek and medieval modes of an "associationist " system which was to have great
thought. A mathematician as well as a philosopher, repercussions on the Continent.
Descartes reduced the physical universe to matter and In the meantime the philosopher Immanuel Kant had
space (Body and Extension). Convinced that the laws cut through the Locke-Leibniz debate by revolu-
mo-
of Nature are, in principle, reducible to those of tionizing the epistemological problem (Kritik der
tion, he treated biologv were a branch
as though it reinen Vemunft. 1781). When Kant demonstrated that
of physics. The fimctions of living bodies would thus knowledge is necessarily the result of a synthetic activ-
result mechanically from the arrangement of the ity of the mind, his critics attacked certain illusory
organs. The animal to whom Descartes refused to grant ideas pertaining to spiritual substance, such as the soul
any consciousness him nothing but a machine,
is for or God. Kant's Critiques thus undermined that
an automaton. And what is man? Having discovered ontological psychology which Christian Wolff, in
the basis of all knowledge in Cogito ergo sum and the keeping with the prevailing current of theological
reality of thought, whose immateriality made it impos- philosophical thought in Europe, still superimposed
sible for thought to be reduced to matter and space, (Psijchologia rationalis. 1734) on an empirical psychol-
Descartes attributed a rmique absolute originality to ogy, which he held to be valid on the level of sensory
the soul. By thus affirming the coexistence of the two experience (Psijchologia empirica. 1732).
principles of space (res extensa) and thought (res Though repudiated bv Kant in the domain of knowl-
cogitans). the Cartesian doctrine was also able to foster edge, the value of sensibility (te sens intime) was
the revival of introspective psychology as well as reaffirmed by Maine de Biran (1766-1824) and by the
mathematical physics devoted to the knowledge and protagonists of the French "eclectic "
school including
mastery of the external world. This second mechanistic Victor Cousin, Royer-Collard, and Theodore JoufFroy.
goal was finally to dominate European thought to the Sensibilityand introspection remained the siu-est basis
point where the cogito. and all that Descartes derived for psychology, which they continued to regard as that
from it appeared as a kind of superfluous appendix. part of philosophy whose goal was the study through
His contemporary, Thomas Hobbes, had already direct consciousness of the soul and its aptitudes. In
coimterpoised his naturalistic conception of man in Germany, the Kantian condemnation of metaphysics
which man's soul is assimilated to the physiology of did not prevent it from reemerging, but rather supplied
the brain and nervous system (De corpore. 1655; De metaphysics with the impetus and the motives for an
hoinine, 1656). This one-sided Cartesian development unusually vigorous renewal (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel,
marked French materialism in the eighteenth century. Schopenhauer), giving new life in another form to the
.A work of the physician La Mettrie (L'homme machine. Leibnizian notion of the unconscious.
1748), inspired by Descartes, sanctioned the extension
of automatism to include thought (res cogitans), the IV
mechanism which Descartes had reduced animal
to After this grandiose speculative flight, comparable
consciousness. The theory of conditioned reflexes and only to that of ancient Greece, the human mind seemed
contemporary behaviorism fit well into this perspec- to have had its wings clipped. A sluggishness was
tive. The discussions which Cartesian dualism stirred evident with regard to the great rational systems at
up about the relationships of the soul to the body were the time when the more empirical systems continued
aimed especially at the origin of ideas. When the toadvance and to discredit those conceptions of nature
empiricist John Locke maintained (Essay Concerning evolved by the post-Kantians. Already J.-F. Herbart
Human Understanding. 1690) that all ideas come from (1776-1841), a contemporary adversary of Hegel,
experience, Leibniz, the rationalist, answered (Nou- without claiming to repudiate metaphysics, had
veaux essais sur I'entendement humain, 1714) that opposed the dialectic method of Hegel with the idea
intelligence is a necessary condition for every experi- of psychology as an exact science to which mathe-
ence. The question in point was basically one of know- matics could be applied.
ing if and to what extent reason could dispense with In the new cultural climate, the sciences seemed to
direct observation of facts. Locke's influence, which be assured of having the last word. Under the influence
was very great in France in the eighteenth century, of the transformist hypotheses (inheritance of acquired
had a particularly strong effect on Condillac [Essai sur characteristics) of Lamarck (1744-1829) and especially
I'origine des connaissances humaines, 1746). of Darwin (On the Origin of Species by means of 11
Natural Selection, 1859), the idea that there was only stimulation.To Weber's Law the philosopher G. T.
a difference of degreebetween man and animal, which Fechner (1801-87), who was determined to introduce
had already enticed Hobbes and continued through the measiu-ement into psychology, was to give a more
eighteenth century, prevailed in France. The spiritual- precise mathematical formulation: sensation increases
ist demands seemed to have decay
fallen into a state of or varies directly with the logarithm of the stimulus
and scarcely carried any weight any longer in the face (Etemente der Psijchophysik. 1860).
of the attraction which the evolutionism of Darwin The conclusions of the psychophysicists were to be
and Spencer, as well as Auguste Comte's positivism refuted by the French philosopher Henri Bergson who
(Cours de philosophie positive, 1830-42), exerted on attempted to demonstrate {Essai sur les donnees
minds which had been won over to the idea of universal immediates de la conscience, 1889) that the stimulus
determinism. It was the age when Taine explained could actually be measured but not the sensation itself,
everything by the concomitant influences of race, time, and that the relationship of equivalence established
and place, when Renan wrote on tlie future of science between the two was purely conventional.
{L'aienir de and when in the very
la science, 1860), Psychophysics having revealed its insufficiency, in
coimtry of Hegel the order was issued: Keine Meta- the sense that Weber and Fechner had intended, be-
physik mehr ("No more metaphysics"). It was rather cause it neglected the physiological intermediaries
a question of substituting a metaphysical materialism between physical stimuli and sensations, was to be
for a spiritualistic metaphysics in the manner of dethroned by psychophysiology, hinged exactly on the
Ludwig Buchner (1824-99) and of E. H. Haeckel correlations between physical and physiological states
(I834-19I9), who glorified the ideas of matter and was the direction
(glandular, nervous, cerebral). This
factual experience. In short, the times were ready to in which Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) was going to
claim a scientific psychology inspired by the biology lead psychology. A physiologist of great culture, his
which was making constant progress and conquering ambition was to construct psychology as an experi-
many new areas of knowledge, structure, function, mental science, and its creation is rightly attributed
specific nervous energy, reflex arc, the speed of nerve to him. Under the influence of Cartesianism he claimed
stimulation, the role of certain localized cerebral re- the specificity of the psychic fact against those who
sponses, etc. The creation of psychology as a science tended to absorb it into physiology; he invoked
posed the problem of measurement in a field which "parallelism" for the relationships between psychical
seemed preeminently refractory to measurement, phenomena and their organic, nervous and cerebral
namely, the domain of the creative spirit in philosophy foundation (Crundziige der phijsiologischen Psycholo-
and the sciences; but because scientists in astronomy gie, 1874). When his researches proved to him that the
and in optics were correctly preoccupied with this experimental method, efficacious for the study of the
problem, the transition from physics to psychology was contents of consciousness, did not permit the appli-
encouraged. It had been apparent for a long time that cation of the laws of the higher processes of the
the notations which astronomers used to record the psychical life, he imdertook the study of the psychology
exact moment of the passage of a star to the meridian of peoples by a comparative method {Volkerpsycliolo-
did not agree, and that the same observer always gie, 1900-20). The laboratory which he set up in
reported the same type of error. This personal equation Leipzig in 1879 provided with two assistants and per-
brought about the passage from the external phenom- fectly equipped, attracted many foreign students. Such
ena of sound and light to the implied mental processes, was the case also with G. Stanley Hall and J.
McKeen
that is to say, to the study of hearing and sight; and Cattell, who up laboratories in the
in their turn set
especially to conceive experiments suitable for United States; William James, whose work was to be
measuring reaction time. This is how the illustrious a decisive contribution to the creation of American
scientist Hermann Helmholtz imdertook the explana- psychology, had already established a laboratory at
tion of certain perceptual phenomena in his physio- Harvard.
logical interpretation of Newton's optics and acoiLstics In France Theodule Ribot, who held the works of
(Handhuch der phijsiologischen Optik, 1856-66); this Wundt in great esteem (Im psyclwlogie allemande
led the anatomist and physiologist E. H. Weber contemporaine, 1879), advanced experimental psy-
(1795-1878) to go from physiology to psychology. chology by theoretically endowing the new science,
Weber observed that sensation, under the influence of inspired by the biological sciences, with legal status
an increasing or decreasing continuous stimulation, in a complete break with tradition. In Switzerland
varied in a discontinuous manner, and that the amoimt Theodore Floumoy (1854-1920), a friend of William
of stimulation corresponding to a differential threshold James, who turned his interests toward the new science,
12 is in a constant and determinable relation to the initial became the first one to occupy the chair in experi-
mental psychology at Geneva with a laboratory pro- His ideas were closely related to those of the Swiss
vided for it. His young cousin Edouard Claparede psychologist Pierre Bovet (of Neuchatel). These two
(1873-1940), who studied in the department of the new men together created in 1912 the Jean-Jacques
science before he himself achieved farrie, reported that Rousseau Institute which Jean Piaget now directs under
about half a dozen neophytes, in the wake of Fechner the name of Institut des Sciences de I'Education.
and Wundt, had attempted to record reaction time and Meanwhile, in Great Britain important researches
to determine thresholds of sensation without really were to bring renewed vigor to the development of
understanding the significance of such experiments. the new science. There were, for example, the work
Meanwhile in Germany, about 1885, a new path was of Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton (1822-1911), whose
opened up by certain works, especially by those of H. researches on individual differences and heredity
Ebbinghaus (1850-1909), on memory {Ueber das introduced the statistical method in psychology, and
Gedachlnis, 1885), which demonstrated that it was the work of the illustrious neurologist John Hughlings
possible to study psychical phenomena directly without Jackson (1834-1911), inspired by the evolutionism of
having to study them from the viewpoint of their Spencer, which considered psychical fimctions as form-
physiological concomitants. There were psychologists ing a hierarchy in which "mental illnesses" repre-
at that time who wanted to use the experimental sented disintegration. The views which
of Jackson,
method of introspection which others had wanted to Theodule Ribot (1839-1916) had already adopted in
banish from the laboratories. Wundt estimated that France in his works on mental disturbances, in the sense
such a method was impracticable, and he was to dis- of the inability of the functions themselves to reveal
avow his pupil and assistant Ostwald Kulpe when he the levels of organization imperceptible in the normal
adopted the introspective method to become the leader state (Maladies de la personnalite, 1885), are the most
of researches which, under the name of "Thought- important in psychophysiology and in psychopathol-
psychology" made the reputation of the Wurtzburg ogy. This same kind of medico-psychological approach
School (Kfllpe, Marbe, Ach, Messer, and Biihler). to problems was used again by the great psychologist
Those researches implied raising questions again Pierre Janet (1859-1947) in whose work a hierarchy
about the empiricist and sensualist systems inherited of real fimctions is made evident and is sustained by
from the English and from Condillac, who, intending a synthetic power requiring a psychological force and
to explain the operations of mental life, including its "tension." All these ideas were to play a part in the
connection with ideas and principles of reason, by the reaction which occurred in medicine and in the human
mechanical association of ideas, were able to see in sciences in general against mechanism in favor of a
thought only the end-product of the association of synthetic orientation. This orientation received a deci-
images. To have recourse to experimentally induced sive thrust forward by the works of Sigmund Freud,
introspection was to be content no longer with record- which were at first ignored or contested. He was the
ing the excitation to which a subject was exposed, and discoverer of subconscious mechanisms in psychical life
his reaction. It was asking him to take an active part (Die Traumdeutung, 1900; Zur Psycliopathologie des
in the experiments, to observe, and to give an account Alltagsleben, 1901), and in particular he espoused
of what they produced in him. From their researches, psychosomatic medicine.
conducted in this way, the Wurtzburgians had to con- Besides, the conclusions of the Wurtzburg school had
clude that it was necessary to admit the existence of posed the current psychological problem of thought
a pure thought without pictures or words. and language, that could hardly be separated from
The reaction against the tendency to reduce mental the ideas which stimulated the phenomenological re-
life to a sort of mosaic was equally evident in other searches of Husserl (Logische Untersuchungen, 1901).
places. In France Alfred Binet (1857-1911), who knew He found conflicts between his researches and the
intimately the methods used by the pioneers of scien- current of thought which characterized scientific psy-
tificpsychology in Germany, judged those researches chology in its early stages: the naturalism of Wundt
to be excessively narrow; he was actually the first to and the introspection of Kiilpe. Even in the years when
have used controlled introspection (L'itude experi- Wundt's researches were highly favored in Germany,
mentale de I 'intelligence, 1903). Also, in Switzerland some minds were repelled by the naturalistic concep-
fidouard Claparede envisioned a much broader psy- tion of psychology. One of these was Franz Brentano,
chology capable of explaining mental behavior guided who influenced Husserl by introducing the notion of
by intelligence (L'association des idees, 1903); he was "intention" in psychical facts; also Wilhelm Dilthey
to qualify his own theory as "functional," meaning by strongly opposed psychology as a natural science by
function the relationship between the psychological proposing a "psychology of understanding" (verste-
fact to be explained and the total behavior pattern. hende Psychologic) which was less preoccupied with 13
determining laws than understanding man and his (Wertheimer, Kohler, Koffka) asserted that subjectivity
capacity to attain self-consciousness [Ideen tiber eine could not be eliminated; their argument implied at the
beschreibende uml zerÛedemde Pstjchologie, 1894). same time the holistic idea of Cestalt. Beginning with
Dilthey s views fell in line with Husserl's phenomenol- the study of perception, they showed that its content
ogy, thus hastening the reaction to the objectivist psy- is always a "Gestalt, '
meaning that the content is
chology by the philosophies based on "existence" organized in such a way as to form a whole, and that
(Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre, and N4erleau-Ponty). The the first inmiediately given datmn hirnished through
theme of "understanding" as opposed to "explanation" experience is not the sensation but the "form," meaning
had already appeared in the work of Karl Jaspers in an organization present in physical systems (configura-
1913 in Allgemeine Psijchopatliologie; he distinguished tion, melodies, intelligent acts, reasonings, etc.) as well
in pathological phenomena the organic processes, as an organization in which the properties of the parts
which yield from personality
to causal explanation, depend on the total conte.vt.
developments, which involve a living meaning which The Gestalt theory, as also phenomenology and psy-
it is incumbent upon the psychiatrist to vmderstand. choanalysis, inspired the work of the neurologist Kurt
This same theme again acquired a fimdamental Goldstein, whose description of the organism as a
importance in Freudian psychoanalysis, at one and the imified whole (Der Aufbau das Organismus, 1934) also
same time a therapeutic technique, an investigation contributed to the new synthetic organization of the
of the unconscious, and a theory of man in society, human sciences.
whose implications have upset our cultural life. Split In the same way, in animal psychology, gestaltist
into rival schools, of Alfred .Adler in 1910 and then of views had had decisive repercussions. Wolfgang Kohler,
C. G. Jung in 1913, which branched out from the one of the pioneers, had the opportunity of devoting
original tnmk by challenging the Freudian conception himself during World War I, on the island of Teneriffe,
of the "libido" and sexuality, Freudian psychoanalysis to experimenting with higher apes imder conditions
crops up in American social psychology. The views much less artificial than he had previously had. He
of the American "culturalists" (Karen Homey, H. S. concluded that the apes possessed an "insight," that
Sullivan, Erich Fromm), who have reinterpreted psy- is to say, a total, intuitive, and concrete discernment
choanalysis on the basis of more recent sociological which manifested itself in their ability to reorganize
and anthropological data, have had a considerable the perceived field in order to resolve certain practical
repercussion in continental Europe. These views have problems.
been criticized by Herbert Marcuse {Eros and Ciiili- Previously, aside from the Pavlov experiments and
zation, A Philosophical Inqtiirt/ into Freud, 1955), who those experiments which psychology had never aban-
reproaches them for vulgarizing Freudianism and for doned (destruction of organs or the removal of cerebral
making it lose its corrosiveness by sacrificing it to a regions, etc.), animal psychology had studied animal
kind of conformism. behavior in a manner which intended to prove, through
The current tendency, which American social psy- a kind of fear of anthropomorphism, that all forms of
chology represents, is characteristic of a general intelligence had to be excluded. Thus if was that the
phenomenon in our culture: an eclecticism rooted in interpretations of J.
Loeb {Die Tropismen, 1913) on the
different scientific fields and particularly in psycho- basis of experiments done with lower animals, estab-
logical schools initially opposed to one another in lished the neologist ideas of "phototropism '
(orien-
methodology. For example, the Russian school of Ivan tation or displacement reaction in the direction of
Pavlov arose out of a decidedly neurophysiological light), and of "thermotropism" (reaction directed to-
orientation. His discoveries about the mechanism of wards a source of heat), to explain animal and perhaps
conditioned reflexes, popularized to some extent by the also human behavior. But because it appeared to be
works of W. Bechterew (1857-1927), had such a difficult to refuse to credit the animal with at least
repercussion that many persons believed it would be an activity of its own, which was attested by his group-
possible henceforth to explain the human psyche itself ings and by his progressive adaptation in learning, the
by the role played by conditioning. It was then that experimenters, on the basis of experiments performed
John Watson created "behaviorism," a strongly ob-
B. with contraptions of boxes and labyrinths, chose to
jective psychology {Behavior: an Introduction to Com- include "trial and error" in their theory, according to
parative Psycliology, 1914). He was convinced that the which the animal, in a difficult position in the course
pioneers of the new science had sinned through their of random activities would, by accident, find the effec-
timidity with respect to the spiritualistic tradition. This tive response which is established through reflex action.
tendency which favored the exclusion of subjectivity After the researches of Kohler demonstrated the
14 was shaken when the followers of the Gestalttheorie weakness of conclusions drawn from artificial experi-
ments, animal psychology concerned itself particularly to certain German psychologists that they talked of
with the study of animal behavior in its natural habitat a crisis (K. Biililer, Die Krise der Psychologic, 1927).
(ethology). The researches which they undertook re- Though it might have been a crisis, it did not prevent
vived all the traditionally debated problems concerning the psychological sciences from moving forward, but
the innate nature and the acquired characteristics of at the mercy of a growing complication of problems
the animal, and particularly the problems posed by and proliferation of experiments. There still exists an
Konrad Lorenz, who conducted experiments which led official psychology, which while following in the steps
him to discover "imprinting" (£inpr(igi/ng), i.e.. a sort of the founders has been accumulating an imposing
of "imprint" or "impregnation" at birth such as would mass of works both theoretical and experimental.
cause young birds to cling, as though to their mothers, However, it appears undeniable that if psychology
to the first of those who feed or rear them on being remains confined to laboratory research by making a
hatched. Also, the researches of the Dutch psychologist sort of fetish of experimentation and scientific rigor,
Buvtendijk, who offered in opposition to the method it will lose sight of the forest for the trees; and it risks
of causal explanation a phenomenological interpre- losing contact with concrete, human reality by
tation of animal behavior, opened new avenues of obstinately studying only special processes and func-
approach which lead into the human sciences. tions. The extension of methods and research is a con-
The role which psychoanalytical thought played in stant reminder of the need not to lose sight of the life
the broadening of psychological perspectives cannot of the mind in its concrete manifestations.
be overestimated. The theme of psychoanalytic criti- Moreover, another important aspect of the situation
cism with respect to the "official" psychology, which is the fact that henceforth the psychological sciences
clung to the superstition of the laboratory and consid- are intimately connected with practical life. Psycho-
ered as most essential the determination of the laws logical discoveries are utilized for all sorts of problems:
which govern psychic life in general, was that it wa.s educational, therapeutic, professional, commercial,
necessary to recognize individual differences. As a advertising, military, etc. This situation tends to give
result of this criticism the plan to establish "character- research a purely "operational "
direction or bent; and
ology '
as an autonomous psychology appeared. A the danger here is to confine the mind within the
number of theories were born whose bases varied ac- existing social system, to identify the person with func-
cording to the morphological typologies they dealt tion by reducing the human subject to its ability to
with (Kretschmer, Viola, Pende, Sigaud, MacAuliffe, measure, to experiment, and to calculate. But from the
Louis Gorman, etc.), based on
or they were standpoint of principles, the overlapping of data com-
"properties' of fundamental(Heymans, "factors" ing from rival schools, for example, in the study of the
Wiersma, Le Senne, Gaston Berger), or were opposed whole personality in which we find concepts of various
to "atypical" doctrines inspired by philosophical con- sources, behavioristic (apprenticeship), Gestaltist (unity
ception (Ludwig Klages). of self), psychoanalytical (lived situations), culturalists
In a general way European psychologists are more (socio-cultural environment), etc., a new reflection in
concerned with character than are American psycholo- depth has been imposed and made its appeal.
gists who are more preoccupied with personality and It becomes more and more clear that human behav-
who often consider both terms synonymous (Gordon ior; is so complex that any doctrinal
taken as a whole,
Allport). This means that alongside the tendency to idea claiming to be exclusive is only an illusion; in
discover types made up of basic traits to which any short, it is clear that psychological sciences must guard
individual can be reduced, there is another tendency themselves above all against dehumanizing man, and
to consider personality in its temporal development, must recognize that all their hypotheses are entailed
and which sees in personality the power of integration by an anthropology in perpetual process, and therefore
where the guiding elements can only be grasped in necessarily incomplete.
a dialectical process of interactions. In the first tend-
ency, character is considered an invariant, a funda- BIBLIOGRAPHY
mental structure on which an individual's history is
Edwin G. Boring, A History of Experimental Psychology
grafted; in the second, it is only the expression of a
(New York, 1929). George Sidney Brett, A History of Psy-
crystallized aspect of the personality.
chology. .3 vols. (London and New York. 1912-32), reprinted
The ambiguity in this area reflects that of psychology
in briefer form, ed. (London, 1953). Rudolf
R. S. Peters
in general. Should psychical facts be "explained ' by Eucken, Die Lebensatischauungen der grossen Denker. eine
the method of the natural sciences? Or should person- des Lebensproblems der Menschenheit-Enttvicklungs-
ality rather be understood in development? At one
its geschichte — Don Plato bis zur Cegenwart, 11th ed. (Leipzig,
time the situation of their science appeared so critical 1917). Laignel-Lavastine, ed., Histoire generale de la 15
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES IN AMERICAN THOUGHT
midecine. 3 vols. (Paris, 1938-49). F.-L. Mueller, Histoire encourage migration from the Old World, personal
de la psijclwlogie de Vantiquite a nos jours (Paris, 1960); letters and narratives, or pamphlets addressed to ad
idem. La psychologie contemporaine (Paris, 1963). Maurice hoc political and economic issues. But for the most
Reuclin, Histoire de la psychologic (Paris, 1957). M. F.
part an explicit discussion of human nature was closely
Sciacca, ed., L'Ar\ima (Cremona, 1954), various contributors;
with ecclesiastical approval.
related to three religious movements — to Puritanism,
Quakerism, and Anglicanism. These discussions also
FERN.\ND-LUCIEN MUELLER reflected, to be sure, secular ideas as well as the posi-
[See also Association of Ideas; Behaviorism; Dualism; tion of the writer in the social order; but all of them,
Evolutionism; Man-Machine; Positivism; Psychological notwithstanding differences of interpretation and em-

Ideas in Antiquity; Psychological Theories in American phasis, shared the basic Christian idea of man's dualistic
Thought.] nature: an eternal soul and a corporeal body, often in
conflict since each human being was subject both to
divine and, because of Adam's fall, to satanic direction
and influence. However limited and depraved, man's
human nature still bore some residue of its original
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES composition, that is, some power of reason and moral
IN AMERICAN THOUGHT judgment.
Seventeenth-century Puritanism in New England,
Throughout the greater part ofAmerican intellectual while incorporating portions of classical thought and
history, the term "human natiu-e" was used without Renaissance humanism, and while modifying both the
explicit definition and in various ways, both descriptive theology and politv of Calvinism, nevertheless rested
and normative. It included "mental philosophy," a heavily on that system of thought and faith. If New
term gradually replaced in the later nineteenth century England's intellectual leaders were "advanced" in
by "psychology," which hitherto enjoyed only infre- accepting, in place of traditional Aristotelian logic, the
quent use. It is possible to identify four main usages: system of the Huguenot reformer Petrus Ramus,
those traits that distinguish man from other
"
(1) dualisticand Platonic in character, their "psychology

creatures in "nature" and from angels and God, the was largely medieval and scholastic broadly speaking, —
traits, that is, that give him human identitv; (2) man's the synthesis that Thomas Aquinas made of Aristotle's
original (genetic) equipment at birth, that is, his bio- De anima. of Plato's conception of the soul, and of
logical heritage and his "unlearned" impulses; (.3) man's Hebraic-Christian ideas and traditions. It is important
character and behavior resulting from the interaction to keep in mind the fact that seventeenth-century
of his heredity and his environmental experiences; and sermons varied in emphasizing in greater or lesser
(4) the identification of human natiu-e with the values measure the more rationalistic concept of Aristotle and
and practical measures that different groups, classes, .\quinas and the emotional, intuitive, and even mystical
and factions imiversalize in their desire to perpetuate one of the Cambridge Platonists which anticipated the
or to establish. Of these one or more, and sometimes image of man in such early eighteenth-century figures
several at the same time, figured in theology, political, as the metaphysical poet Edward Taylor and in
economic, and social thought, in literature, and in Jonathan Edwards.

proverbs and folk sayings. It is possible to reconstruct the Puritan overall con-
Ideas in America about the nature of man were for man from John Winthrop's Jour-
cept of the natiu'e of
the greater part of colonial and national experience rtal,from sermons, and from bodies of law and court
eclectic, and in relation to the intellectual history of proceedings. In the main, however, the image of man
Europe, derivative. Nevertheless, long before Ameri- presented by Charles Morton is representative of
cans developed distinctive schools of psychology and prevailing theories of human natiu-e in seventeenth-
the movement known as the behavioral sciences, the century New England. This learned clerg\'man, on
history of ideas about "human natru'e " is important settling in Massachusetts Bay in 1686, brought copies
because of the particular selections from and combina- of his Compendium physicae, which was used for a
tions of ideas accessible to the New World. That history great many years in instruction at Harvard. Indebted
is also important because of the bearings of these in his discussion of "physics" to Robert Boyle and the
choices and combinations of ideas about human nature new spirit of the Roval Academy, Morton was also
on political, social, and economic thought and discus- familiar with Descartes and in a sense tried to reconcile
sion as well as on belles lettres. much of the old with the newer learning. His "psy-
A conception of human nature is implied in colonial chology, "
however, was for the most part traditionally
16 secular writing, whether "promotional literature "
to scholastic.
After discussing the anatomy of the brain and the provided by the intellect, the soul "Closeth with Good,
nature of "animal spirits,
"
Morton attributes, to human and Shuns Evill" in whatever the object or act. In
and a sentiment of the deity, faculties
beings, reason contrast with these primary faculties, man also posses-
which "no brute has, at least to any appearance." If ses the secondary faculties, properties arising from the
some men claimed there is no God, this was the result him from brutes that is,
rationality that differentiate —
of a corrupt will and affections, rather than judgment, speech, admiration, the human passions, and laughter.
which comprised, with the intellect, the faculties God Morton later supplemented this discussion of human
had implanted in man. Since Morton was primarily nature. In The Spirit of Man (1693) he emphasized the
concerned with physics, he felt it necessary to e.xplain general "grayness" of human infirmity, and individual
the inclusion of a discussion of spirits or souls, tradi- differences in mental and moral talents. He also urged
tionally the domain of metaphysics and. more lately, self-analysis and sustained effort for governing one's
of the new "science" of pneumatics. The faculties or spirit, with a recognition of continual need for assist-
properties of the soul, which differentiate man from ance from on High. It was not that man could "expell"
the bnites, depend somewhat, in their operation, on his "nature," but rather that he might "order and
the body, and thus are a proper matter to be included govern" his natural dispositions and inclinations both
in physics. Souls, defined as beings or forms inde- for God's glorv and service and for his own comfort
pendently created by God, are separately infused with and advantage.

the body at the moment of creation, so that original Notwithstanding new movements of thought across
sin proceeds, not from body to body, nor from soul the Atlantic that were greatly to alter ideas about the
to soul, nor from the body to the soul, but from man- nature of man, traditional views persisted in America.
kind to the man. The inorganic faculties, or those As late as 1714 Samuel Johnson, an eighteen-year-old
immediately proceeding from the nature of the soul, tutor at Yale, on the verge of discovering the new
are intellect and will. Neither of these, in contrast with learning that was later to inform his own major philo-
the sensory, appetitive, and locomotive powers, is sophical treatises, made a summary abridgment of the
affixed to any member of the body. The intellect, nev- old scholastic system. In the light of Scripture, reason,
ertheless, is said to reside in the head (according to sense perception, experience, and induction, Johnson
Descartes, the mind acts on the body through the postulated the separate faculties of the "rational soul"
pineal gland), so that one speaks of "a good head." and related these to the members of the corporeal body
Likewise, the will, which primarily manages the which are suited to the operations of the soul, which
appetites and affections, is said to possess the heart in turn is the principle of these operations. The discas-
("I will with all my heart"). sion of the faculty of appetite, by which the animal
power of the reasonable (or reli-
Intellect, or the spirits (which animate emotions, respiration, the beat-
gious) soulwhich enables it to understand the truth, ing of the pulse) are excited, added something to Mor-
could be improved by logic and bv an understanding ton's accoimt. But in summing up Johnson's description
of how ideas are formed. The intellect receives images man, a historian of the early develop-
of the nature of
or "phantasms" that are then cleared by abstraction ment of American psychology was not unfair in
from matter and made "intelligible," as distinct from describing it as "Plato shorn of his poetry, Aristotle
having previously been merely "potential." Morton without his breadth and acuteness of observation and
illustrated this process by reference to the way in his carefully qualified conclusions, Thomas Aquinas
which the idea of a true friend is developed. When without his logical subtlety" (Fay, p. 16).
one thinks of such at first, he has a phantasm of the This Ramean emphasis on the rationality of the
man's person, of the time, circumstances, and nature universe and on the power of the faculty of reason
of his acts of kindness. Intellect transmutes this at least to glimpse God's plan was supplemented by
phantasm into an abstraction from the color, stature, the metaphysical conception of the Covenant of Grace,
featiu'es, and other material conditions that form and the process by which God enabled His "chosen "
or
distinguish the "species " of "the real friend." Having "elect " to become regenerate. Far from being a mere
such an idea, one completes the formal e.xecution out emotional cataclysm, the infusion of grace elevated
of the result that the intellect, acting on the object, reason, purifying it of its corruption and enabling the
hasnow "intellectuated" or made "understood." In redeemed to see, with this spiritual light, further into
many scholastic theories of psychology the intellect is God's plan.
the king of the faculties, the will the queen, but man's The seventeenth-century Puritan conception of uni-
fall, with Adam and Eve's sin, dislocated their proper versal human limitations, greater in some, less in others,
symmetry. Morton defined the will as the power of was reflected in social and economic pronounce-
the reasonable soul, whereby, after the information ments and arrangements. William Bradford justified 17
Plvmoiith's abandonnient of the initial comniiinal ity found expression in both verbal and active protests
econom\' on the ground of the unequal distribution of — Samuel Gorton and Roger Williams are well-known
talents and incentives for achievement. In the Puritan examples.
mind, inequalitv of status reflected inequality of innate Puritan education also reflected the belief in a
endowment and thus of God's favor. In A Brief Exposi- human nature in which intellectual gifts were unevenly
tion with Practical] Observations (1657) John Cotton distriliuted, despite the presence of some part of the
declared that just as the strongest are most able to rational faculty in everyone (the male more than the
battle, just as men knowledge are most apt to win
of female), and in a persisting conflict between reason and
heavenly favor, so men of understanding are most apt the lower passions, the one pointing to tnith, the other
to attain riches. Thomas Hooker (The Soules Vocation to error. Thus Harvard College was designed to pro-
or Effectual Calling to Christ. 1638) never knew a man vide for the cultivation of superior intellects for roles
"desperatelv poor, but his heart was desperately in ecclesiastical and civil leadership. The belief that
proud. While John Eliot could remind the poor that
"
metaphors and adornments in prose writing served the
poverty must ever be an example of the price of sinful pa.ssions, provided a rationale for the "Plain style.
"
The
conduct {The Harmony of the Gospels 1678), . . . , establishment of town schools testified to the belief in
charitable relief was. if carefully hedged, a Christian the possibility and importance of developing such rea-
duty. "For the poor that can work and won't, the best son as God had implanted in His human creatures, in
'
liberality, Cotton Mather wrote, "is to make them.

"
order that they might better imderstand His laws as
On the other hand, in view of universal human deprav- exemplified in the Bible Commonwealth, and thus keep
ity, men might way to an insatiable craving for
give the lower passions in check. What a few mission-
wealth; and with this in mind John Cotton laid down ary-teachers did for the Indians implemented the idea
the tenet that "we are never to desire more than we that these degraded, corrupt, and vicious creatures,
have good use of." Late in the century Cotton Mather whom God had permitted the Devil to rule, still had
emphasized anew the doctrine of the stewardship of capacity for Christian conversion and rational devel-
wealth. God alone is the true owner, hence the rich opment, even if this could be effected only by extermi-
man is merely His steward, to be held to accoimt for nating the majority in a just war, that the remnant
the uses he has made of his riches, and these uses should might be brought to light and civilization.
include charity and gifts for the public weal {Essays Such an oversimplified summary leaves out telling
to Do Good. 1710). In further recognition of human examples of ways in which the seventeenth-century
greed, and in accord with the ethical and economic Puritan image of man was reflected or applied in daily
teachings of Thomas Aquinas, Puritan Massachusetts life: Winthrop's faith that notwithstanding man's total
tried to impose for a time "the just price" as well as depravity, the favorable condition of the isolated envi-
"the just wage." That is, man's innately sinful tenden- ronment of the New World might bring out and en-
cies were to be regulated by the state for the good courage the best human possibilities; Winthrop's fur-
of the whole. ther observation that a woman who had lost her
Political theory likewise reflected the Puritan con- "miderstanding and reason "
because of devotion to
ception of human nature. In denoimcing democracy, reading and writing, should not have meddled "in such
whether in government, John Cotton
church or civil things as are proper for men, whose minds are
(The Pouring Out of the Seven Vials. 1642) declared stronger "
(Journal, II. 225); the rejection of any non-
that corruption always starts from the inherently cor- organic or functional conception of insanity, and the
rupt, stable "people," not from the top. the superiorly consequent attribution of it either to a deformity in
endowed rulers. Similar ideas, reflecting a commitment the brain or to the triumph of the Devil in the perpet-
to the inequality of human beings, found expression ual war he waged for the himian soul; and the
again and again, nowhere, perhaps, more pointedly exemplification of almost every Puritan idea about
than in the Reverend \\'illiani Hubbards Election human nature in the Salem witchcraft outbreak which,
Sermon which he declared that "the greatest
of 1676 in in Perry Miller's words, was "for the seventeenth cen-
"
part of mankind, are but as tools and instrmnents for tury, not only plausible but scientifically rational
others to work by, rather than any proper agents to (Miller [1953], p. 191).
effect anything for themselves. Needing a shepherd to The use in Harvard classes of manuscript copies of
keep them, in time of peace, from destroying them- William Brattle's Compendium logicae secundum
selves by sloth, they need, in war. a shepherd even principia. D. Renati Cartesii for almost half a century
more, lest they permit themselves to be destroyed by before its publication in 1735, was one indication of
others." 'Vet since corruption was universal in human the impact of the Cartesian psychology on the teaching
lo nature, opposition to the imlimited exercise of author- of logic. But the most important shifts in the Puritan
concept of human nature came in the early decades "sensational" psychology of John Locke while he was
of the eighteenth century and were related not only a young student at Yale and in attaching at the same
to the increasing secularization of life in New England time great importance to intuitional truth, Edwards
but to the uses made of both traditional and of new achieved an impressive synthesis of old and new in
movements of thought received from the Old World. which his psychology has special importance.
John Wise's tracts for justifying the older congrega- In rejecting the traditional compartmentalization of
tional organization of the churches and for opposing bodv and mind of most scholastic or faculty psycholo-
assertions of British authority in secular affairs rest in gies, Edwards reduced all reality to a spiritual
good part on a theory of human nature. This by no —
monism and apparently without benefit of Berkeley.
means broke drastically with the past. It recognized At the same time he insisted on the indispensable
the innately good and bad in man, the existence of importance of "sensational' experience as the first step
the elect and of superior talent, and the authority of toward luiderstanding and directing the religious emo-
Scripture. But it emphasized the rational component tions or affections toward the love of God that is, —
in human nature to an even greater extent than had toward "true virtue. The deference to Lockean "en-
been traditionally the case, and it invoked, in explain- vironmentalism was evident in his explanation of why,
"
ing the origin of civil society and in justifying the in view of the ubiquity and identity of human nature
limitation of human authority and a broadly based everywhere, the Greeks developed a great philosophy
consent if not participation in the direction of human of the mind in contrast with the Scythians: Edwards
affairs, a more secular view of natural law. In the state found the answer in the stimulating commercial ex-
of nature. Wise asseverated, men possessed three changes of the Greeks and other peoples {Works, II,
"immunities " imprinted on their very nature: a 477). Recognition of the Lockean psychology also ex-
sufficient reason to discover the law of nature to which plains in part why Edwards used concrete emotion-
man is at all times subject; a rational liberty under provoking rhetoric in his revivalist sermons. Since true
the law of nature; and an equality of condition, to the religion involves both the understanding and the will
extent, at least, that all men are children of God and together with the encircling emotions, Edwards felt
enter and leave the world in the same way. But since it necessary to defend the deterministic implications
men possess self-love and self-interest as well as a of Calvinism which were being challenged by
sociable disposition or "an affection or love to mankind Arminianism. He developed a mediating position
in general," it was expedient to move from the state which held that men are free to will what their strong-
of nature through contract, to the civil state, the better est inclinations (emotions) impel them toward while
to control self-love and self-interest, and to make the they are not free to "will" their inclinations — the free-
more operationally effective the inherent associative dom freedom of the choices to
to choose without the
or affectional gift. The implications of this concept of be chosen. These were major contributions to psycho-
human natiu'e, which Wise made explicit in The logical problems that helped establish Edwards' con-
Churches Quarrel Espoused (1715) and A Vindication temporary reputation at home and abroad as an origi-
of the Govemmetit of New-England Churches (1717, nal thinker —
a reputation meeting with appreciation
1772), pointed toward a more elevated concept of on the part of modern psychologists. Beyond this, the
human nature, capable of coping with life's prob- Great Awakening, in which he played a notable part,
lems through reason to a greater extent than had been contributed to making the emotionally religious expe-
traditionally the case. Wise's portrait of man empha- rience a participatory one for the newly awakened,
sized an innate sociability to a greater degree than had plain people. This sense of individual self-awareness,
Locke's; it repudiated Hobbes's exclusion of the of an immediately felt importance in the sight of God,
efficacy of an innate love for others; and it made ad inspired later revivalists to develop these implications
hoc applications of Pufendorf s natural law philosophy. in promoting both democratic action and humanitar-
A few decades after Wise, Jonathan Edwards, ian reform.
responding to some of the newer movements of Though Puritanism and Anglicanism were similar in
thought, to the concern he felt for the attenuation of a great many ways, the only systematic colonial
Calvinism, and to the religious revivals of the 1740's, formulation by an Anglican brought out important
developed a more systematic and a more original con- differences in the concepts of man. Samuel Johnson,
ception of man's nature. In view of its Platonic element who was Edwards' tutor at group of
Yale, led a small
and of the emotional intensity and anxieties of seven- young men into the Church of England. Like Edwards,
teenth-century Puritanism, Jonathan Edwards' empha- Johnson tried to reconcile orthodox Christian theology
sis on intuition and the religious affections, or on emo- with the new learning of Bacon, Newton, and Locke.
tions, was not entirely new. Yet in accepting the rising The Church of England offered him an opportvmity 19
—
on the one hand to comliat a trend toward "natural alization."John Woolman's religious mysticism, a
rehgion" and "deism" and. on the other hand, to find matter of the inner self, was integrally related to an
a more congenial theology than Calvinism. The philo- outward expression of opposing social evils and the
sophical idealism that Johnson found useful to this end extension of Christian love to all human beings. Since
was that of Bishop Berkeley, who lived for a time in Woolman perceived that customs and opinions re-
Newport. In distinguishing between pure intellect and ceived bv vouth from their parents and other superiors
sensation and in hi.s analysis of intuitive evidence. became like "the natural Produce of a Soil, especially
Johnson went beyond his master. His psychology, when thev are suited to favourite Inclinations," he
which he developed in A Si/stem of Morality (1746) attached great importance to child-rearing and educa-
and more comprehensively in Elementa philosophica tion. In terms of upbringing and social environment
. .which Franklin printed in 1752 as the first Amer-
. ,
he explained why Negroes developed sloth and other
ican textbook in philosophy, indicate familiarity with habits odious to whites. Consideration of "these and
Hobbes, Hume. Leibniz. Locke, and Wolff, an impor- other Circumstances . . . will lessen that too great
tant formulator of faculty psychology, as well as Disparity which some make between us and them."
Berkelev. His references to man's relations with ani- In his emphasis on humanitarianism Woolman
mals and his treatment of the learning process of chil- looked forward to one characteristic of the concept
dren give him a place in the history of genetic psy- of human nature associated with the Enlightenment.
chology; and his discussion of cognition, judgment, At the risk of great oversimplification, it is possible
affection, conation, and the sense of beauty, showed to say that the similarities between what has been
some independence of thinking. In his philosophical thought of as the Age of Reason image of man and
writings and in his sermons, Johnson stressed man's that of Piu-itanism were in some ways greater than the
rationality and natural desire for happiness. The road differences. Both conceived of human nature in static
to happiness, he held, lay in the glorification of God rather than in evolutionary or dynamic terms; both
in a rational manner and in subordinating the imruly gave an important place to reason in man's makeup;
passions to reason and order. Although as an .\rminian and both emphasized the limitations in man's equip-
Johnson made a place for a modified "free will" and —
ment the philosophers of the Enlightenment attach-
moral responsibility, he emphasized, increasingly as he ing even more importance to the lust for power than
grew older, the dependency of man, as a sinner, on had the Puritan writers. Nevertheless the differences
God's grace, which perfected human nature rather than were also of great importance: the .\ge of Reason
transforming some evangelical revivalists held.
it, as rejected the Special Providences or "interference" of
Johnson's philosophy, which was taught at King's Col- God with the laws of nature and man. and emphasized
lege (later Columbia University) during the time he the idea that the universe is a rational order capable
presided over the institution (1754-63), made little of being miderstood by man's reason, if unfettered by
appeal and exercised slight influence even among religious dogma and ifaided by the methods of natural
Anglicans. Yet a historian of American psychology finds science. Several Enlightenment thinkers attached great
nothing superior to it at the time on either side of the importance, in the molding of man, to climate and
Atlantic (Fay, p. 42). social institutions. Among these some held that man's
The most important exemplification of the Quaker irrational behavior resulted from the influence of
theory ofhuman natiu-e is that to be found in John outworn, irrational institutions — monarchical, feudal,
Woolman's Journal and Essays (1774; 1922). Recog- priestlv. Still other Enlightenment thinkers rejected the
nizing as inborn taints and corruptions such powerful ancient dualistic conception of man. substituting for
impulses as pride, vanity, greed, and self-love. Wool- it a monistic and materialistic one.
man nevertheless believed that God had also implanted No one American incorporated in his thinking all
in man the capacity for love of and compassion toward of these ideas. Nor did any .American of the late eigh-
his fellow creatures. Through the power of truth and teenth and early nineteenth centuries develop a sys-
spiritual strength which is possible when the heart is tematic exposition of human nature in terms of the
opened to God. man could wean himself away from assumptions that Enlightenment thinkers had made.
the desire for outward greatness, luxury, and greed Nevertheless these ideas about human nature found
traits that result in such evils as slavery, war. and expression in American thought and some of them
indifference to the impoverishment of one's fellow exerted a direct and positive influence on public action.
men. The unity of mankind would recognize no bar- Broadly speaking, the ideas that may be regarded
riers of race, color, or condition — if the believer lifts as most "innovative or "radical" played a minor role
"
himself above self-deception. Woolman had a keen on the American scene. Such ideological orators as
20 sense of what modem psychology calls "ration- Tunis Wortman did, to be sure, accept the idea of
— 1
human perfectibility. This concept also appealed to of the Human Intellect (1865). Among other things
such writers as Joel Barlow, and
Philip Freneau, James Rush anticipated the later behavioristic concept
Charles Brockden Brown. Another example is worth of thought as subvocal speech.
noting because it both reflected the ideas of William These highly heterodox ideas associated with the
Godwin and his circle in Britain and anticipated the Enlightenment were much less influential than "envi-
Owenite and Fourieristic communitarianism of the ronmentalism '
in both the physical and social sense.
1830's and 1840's. The Utopian "novel, "
Equality; a It derived in large part from Locke's and Hartley's
History of Lithconia, first issued as a serial in 1802 in theories that ideas are the result of sense impressions,
The Temple of Reason, a Philadelphia weekly paper, reflectionson these, and the laws of association. A
was probably written by Dr. James Reynolds, a well-known example of the use of the environmental
democratic activist. The author maintained that the theory in the discussion of race is Samuel Stanhope
causes of the malevolent passions might be uprooted Smith's An Essay on the Causes and Variety of Com-
only in a society which repudiates private property, plexion and Figure in the Human Species (1788).
family pride, and jealousy, along with other prevailing Rejecting the idea that God created diverse races, this
institutions that thwart man's natural endowment of Presbyterian divine and Princeton professor argued in
rational and moral gifts, the realization of which alone favor of one original race and explained differences
could result in happiness. in color and character in terms of climate and social
Nor did the monistic, "materialistic "
and mecha- institutions. Jefferson, stopping short of accounting for
nistic conception of human nature associated with the "inferiority" of Negroes on the basis of historical
Cabanis, Tracy, d'Holbach, Helvetius, and La Mettrie and environmental handicaps, nevertheless also set
become an important or widely held view of man. It great store on the influence of environment, physical
is true that these writers appealed to Thomas Jefferson, and social, in delineating man's character and conduct.
who defined thinking as "a mode of action" and a Holding human nature to be the same on both sides
"particular organization of matter." Such a position of the Atlantic and a "constant over time, Jefferson
"
means
ruled out revealed religion and metaphysics as empirically refuted the absurd contention of Buffon
of understanding the mind, and placed the mind and other prestigious French savants that American
squarely within nature. Religious opposition kept environment accounted for an alleged physical deteri-
Jefferson from appointing Thomas Cooper to the fac- oration of animal species. On the contrary, Jefferson
ulty of the newly founded University of Virginia. found that the .\merican environment was favorable
Cooper shared the materialistic philosophy of Joseph to all species, including the human. If human nature
Priestley and, like him, had fled from the reactionary did not change, the human condition, Jefferson held,
England of the late eighteenth century. Cooper did change under favorable conditions. Thanks to
espoused a strict psychological materialism and trans- America's freedom from the tyranny of kings, nobles,
lated Broussais' On Irritation and Insanity (1831) to and and to its abundant free lands, Jefferson
priests
support his conviction that mental processes are ex- saw American man, particularly in the yeoman,
in the
plicable in terms of the motions of the nervous system. a superior example of the human condition. Given the
A similarly monistic materialism informed the re- continuing availability of free lands and abundant re-
markable if crude book of a Kentucky physician, sources, free schools and a free press Jefferson felt that
inventor, champion of Pestalozzian education, and in America the human condition, despite the menace
empirical investigator of vision —Joseph Buchanan. His of slavery, stood a good chance of further improve-
Philosophy of Human Nature (1812) warranted his ment. In emphasizing the great importance of educa-
reputation as "the earliest native physiological tion, the author of the Declaration of Independence
The much more impor-
psychologist" (Riley, p. 395). expressed one of the most favored ideas associated with
tant Benjamin Rush, who wrote Medical Inquiries and the belief in man's rationality and susceptibility to
Observations Upon the Diseases of the Mind (1812), improvement, through the cultivation of both mind and
might be regarded as a materialist inasmuch as he moral sense.
attributed all operations of the mind to motions excited In some measure Jefferson, despite the optimistic
in the brain. But he did not completely move
in fact view of human nature implied in the Declaration of
away from dualism, since he described "the causes of Independence, shared the preponderant late eight-
insanity" as both physical (diseases, poisoning, injuries) eenth-century idea that man is innately both good and
and mental (intense concentration, worry, anxiety). It bad. To be sure, his political opponents, .Mexander
remained for his little known and eccentric son, James Hamilton, John Adams, and John Marshall, emphasized
Rush, to present a consistently physiological and "ma- to a much greater extent than he did the innate selfish-
terialistic" treatment A Brief Outline of an Analysis ness, vanity, lust for power, and corruptibility of human 2
nature —characteristics deemedinnate and ineradica- of the Scottish Enlightenment. The idea of an innate
ble. In this regard were influenced by the
they moral sense was especially appealing. This idea,
Calvinistic doctrine of depravity and even more by antithetical to Locke's conception of the mind as tabula
Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Mandeville. With such a low rasa at birth had, of course, a long history, reaching
view of human nature it became, in their minds, im- back at least to Stoicism. But it was the Scottish
perative to devise forms of government designed to philosophers. Hutcheson, Reid, and Dugald Stewart,
check man's baser passions: this could best be done along with Shaftesbury, who gave it a modem idiom.
by checks and balances and by allocating power to The popularity in .America of the Scottish common-
a "natural aristocracy" which, however susceptible to sense philosophers can be explained by the search,
man's limitations, nevertheless, by birth, education, and during the reaction against the deism of the Enlighten-
wealth, could be counted on to bring rationality and ment, for a philosophy that would provide support for
morality to bear in the making of public decisions. Such a belief in an innate moral sense, in the unity of the
a position informed discussions in the Constitutional soul, infreedom of the will, and for a more congenial
convention (Lovejoy, Lecture 2), in Tfie Federalist, and image of man than the analytical and atomistic one
in the private correspondence of Hamilton, Jay, of Locke's sensationalism and Hartley's associationism.
Madison, Adams, and, at times, Jefferson. With an The Scots taught that there is an objective reality, the
ingenious svstem of constitutional techniques for proof of which was the existence of principles prior
safeguarding the interests of minorities this image of to and independent of experience (James McCosh, The
man subsequently played an important part in John Scottish Philosophy [1874], pp. 2-10). Thus a phi-
. . .
C. Calhoun's political theory. In The Disqitisition on losophy was at hand that offered a refutation of Hume's
Government (1851) the champion of southern states' skepticism and the materialistic implications of
rights as against federal authority argued the necessity Lockean psychology. The Scottish philosophy was
of meeting the problem created by the fact that rulers popularized by academics who prepared textbooks in
oppress the ruled, human nature being what it is, while mental and moral philosophy that, however simplified
the ruled, when possessing the means for so doing, and eclectic, leaned heavily on it. The more widely
inevitably resist the rulers. This whole emphasis on the used texts included those of Francis Bowen, Francis
imequal distribution of superior faculties in a generally Wayland. Joseph Haven, Asa Mahan, and Mark
vinfavorable portrait of human nature was also a com- Hopkins, to name only a few.
ponent of the pro-slavery argument. The most original of these texts were those of
Benjamin Franklin shared many of his contem- Thomas Upham. professor of mental and moral philos-
poraries' misgivings about human nature. Because he ophy at Bowdoin College and a leading opponent of
has been regarded as "characteristically American" his war and slavery. I'pham borrowed not only from Reid,
views warrant comment. Like others who subscribed Stewart, and Hamilton; he was also familiar with con-
to the naturalistic assimiptions of the Enlightenment, temporary French and German philosophy as well as
Franklin rejected the idea of original sin. He did not, with general literature and travel accounts that antici-
in consequence, assume that man might reach angelic pated later ethnology. Unlike most of his colleagues
heights. -Accepting the idea of the Great Chain of Being in other institutions who prepared texts, he included
he believed that men must operate at the particular an exposition of the nervous system, pathological be-
level in the order of creation to which they are havior, and animal and child psychology. With the help
assigned. Thev might, however, restrain their passions of .'\sa Burton, an obscure but original parson in
and by deliberately cultivating good
irrationality Thetford, Vermont, he conceived a way of distin-
habits, the effect of which would be to promote both guishing between the feelings and the will which put
personal happiness and the well-being of mankind. new life into the tripartite classification of the human
Franklin's own success in overcoming hardships and faculties. He made the faculties of intellect, sensation,
in achieving fame as a self-made man, together with and will interdependent rather than separately operat-
the cheerful "constitution "

with which he apprecia- ing mental functions and in so doing looked forward
tively felt nature had endowed him, explained his belief to what was to become a characteristically American
that, with all human kind might still
man's limitations, emphasis, that is. functional psychology. What also
achieve relative virtue and happiness. Add to this a especially distinguished Upham from the often over-
sense of human equality and the pragmatic character intellectualist tone of his contemporaries was his em-
he ascribed to human thinking at its best, and one has phasis on emotions — here he was looking back, per-
what may fairly be regarded as the most widely held haps, to Jonathan Edwards. "A knowledge of human
common
'
American view of human nature. nature in the apprehension of the phrase,

22 Franklin, like Jefferson, shared many of the concepts Upham wrote, "does not so much imply a knowledge
of perception and reasoning as a knowledge of the an empirical study of the physical manifestations of
springs of action, back of the intellect, which, in the temperaments (nervous, bilious, sanguine, lymphatic)
shape of the emotions and passions, give an impulse and, more importantly, of the anatomy and physiology
and a character to the conduct of both individuals and of the brain which located in its various parts the
communities" {Elements of Mental Philosophy [1831], sensations and the powers of the mind the list of —
II, 26-27). A British reviewer of Upham's Philosophical "propensities" included amativeness, benevolence,
and Practical Treatise of the Will (1834) regarded the combativeness, veneration, and many others. Accord-
book as the most consistent example of the use of the ing to phrenology as it was developed, the desirable
Baconian method in mental science to be found in the propensities might be consciously cultivated, the
English language, while a historian of American psy- undesirable ones, inhibited. The visit of Spurzheim to
chology has discovered in Upham such modern ideas .America, where he died and the subsequent
in 1832,
as mental set, individual differences, introversion and sojourn of the Scottish phrenological leader and moral
extroversion, rationalization, the emergence of sup- philosopher, George Combe [Essay on the Constitution
pressed desires in perverted forms, and the James- Lange of Man. 1828, 1833) aroused the interest of medical
theory of emotions (Fay, pp. 106-08). men and of such leading intellectuals as Benjamin
Until well alter the Civil War the political economy Silliman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Mann, Samuel
taught in American colleges derived support both from Gridlev Howe, Edgar .Allen Poe, Walt Whitman, and
facultv psychology, which held that mind is composed Henry Ward Beecher.
of a number of "powers" or agencies such as memory, and many evangelical leaders
.'Although Calvinists
will,and attention, and from the not incompatible felt that contradicted Scripture, and
phrenology
image of man generally shared by the classical econo- although most physicians became critical, phrenology
mists. In Benthamite terms, this ascribed to human influenced psychiatry, criminology, and pedagogy. In
nature a tendency to avoid pain and to realize pleasure contrast with its career in Europe, phrenology in
with rational calculation of the means of advancing America was democratized as well as commercialized
self-interest. In thewords of Wesley C. Mitchell the through the press, the itinerant lecturer and "demon-
common-sense philosophy saw the prevailing "eco- strator," and such diagnostic and advisory centers as
nomic organization as a beautiful illustration of the those of O. S. Fowler and S. R. Wells in New York
contrivances of the Creator for the benefit of human- Citv. It became a cult which for many years served
ity." Stress was also put on the beautiful harmony of the need the common man felt for a philosophy of
relationships found mider a competitive system which human nature that could be readily understood, as a
indicated precisely that "a man got what he merited practical guide to the selection of proper mates and
and that the institution of private property contributed vocations and, above all, for self-improvement. The
to general well-being by giving everybody a strong appeal of phrenology is further explained by its useful-
inducement produce more than he consumed himself
to ness in the mid-nineteenth-centiu-y atmo,sphere of
in order that he might add to his own ownership" moral optimism, extreme individualism, and the wide-
(Mitchell, p. 115). As one of the best known authorities spread search for and belief in the possibility of
of the time, Francis Bowen of Harvard, put it, "It is achieving worldlv success and happiness.
true that men are usually selfish in the pursuit of Competing images of man challenged the dominant
wealth; but it is a wise and benevolent arrangement mid-nineteenth-century view of human natiu-e as it was
of Providence, that even those who are thinking only presented by the mental and moral philosophers and,
of their own credit and advantage, are led, uncon- on the popular level, bv the phrenologists. Unitarian-
sciously but surely, to benefit others. The contrivance ism, which appealed chiefly to a small, educated and
bv which this end is effected — this reconciliation of well-to-do New England elite, rejected the doctrine
private aims with the public advantage — is often com- of original sin but retained the rational and ethical
plex, far-reaching, and intricate; and thus more strongly components of Calvinism. adopted the natural-
It also
indicates the benevolent purpose of the Designer" ism, environmentalism, optimism, and humanitarianism
{American Political Economy . . . [1890], p. 15). of the Age of Reason. In emphasizing the fatherhood
What the faculty psychology or mental and moral of a loving God it endowed His sons with a larger share
philosophy, with and economic implications,
its ethical of divine attributes — above all with dignity — than was
was to the educated classes, phrenology was to the the ease among the traditional and the more popular
common man. Phrenology removed psychology alto- religious organizations. But the emphasis on reason as
gether from the realm of metaphysics. Originally, as against emotion and on detachment led to another
developed by two Austrian physicians, Franz Joseph protest — transcendentalism. This loosely bound group
Gall and Johann Caspar Spurzheim, phrenology was of ideas attached less importance to the traditional 23
conception of generic man than to the unique individ- suggested that they be regarded as one would regard
ual. The emphasis was also on each individual's capac- the sunlight and raindrops in a rainbow. He denied
ity for imagination, sensibility, ecstasy, on an ability the existence of independent faculties and regarded the
spontaneously and intuitively to experience the uni- growth of the mind as the growth of a plant from a
versal in the concrete, to achieve through self-culture seed. In his view reason and the will function inter-
and rapport with nature the higher self — to become —
dependently the concept of freedom of the will is
one with an organic, living universe, with supreme rejected in view of the influence of environment on
reality, with absolute truth. This way of looking at the mind as well as the influence of the mind on the
human nature was in varying degrees influenced by body and on the environment. The treatise was some-
Platonism and Neo-Platonism, Oriental mysticism, what exceptional in discussing individual, sexual, and
German and a reaction against
idealistic philosophy, racial differences and in delineating the effects of envi-
what appeared to be the excessive materialism of an ronment on temperament, sleep, and dreams.
America engaged in conquering the wilderness and in Laurens P. Hickok's Rational Psycfiology {184Q) was,
building factories, machines, and cities. like Ranch's work, inspired by German idealistic phi-
Such a "transcendentalist" image of man found losophy. Regarded by some as the first profound treat-
expression in the educational ideas and experiments of ment of epistemology in America since Jonathan
Bronson Alcott and Elizabeth Peabody, in the com- Edwards, Hickok's treatise was notable in trying to
munitarianism at Brook Farm and Fruitlands, in reach a priori principles free from the subjectivity of
George Bancroft's historical explanation of the rise of Kantian categories and for stressing the "constructive"
America as the Hegelian unfolding of the world spirit, powers of the mind. Hickok saw in reason, which with
in the aesthetics and the romantic feminism of sensibility and understanding constitute the faculties
Margaret Fuller, in the nature-appreciation and social of the mind, an intuitive insight. His ethical views were
dissent of Henry David Thoreau, in the gnomic poems basically Kantian. Though extended through the writ-
and evocative essays of Emerson, and in the synthesis ings and teaching of his pupil, John Bascom, Hickok's
Walt Whitman made of mystical and ego-centered influence was relatively limited, important though his
views of human nature, on the one hand, and the work was from a technical point of view.
concrete democratic realities of everyday American The generally optimistic tone of all these images of
life, on the other. While the humanitarianism of the man may in part be explained by the objective realities
period owed much to evangelical Christianity, and in American life which supported the belief in
particularly to the revivalism of Charles G. Finney, "progress and by the fact that, save for the Civil War,
"
it was also indebted to the transcendentalist image of the country was spared most of the great tragic experi-
man as expressed in Emerson's remark, "Man is bom —
ences of many other peoples more or less constant
to be a re-former." war, famine, pestilence, and foreign military occupa-
Still other manifestations of the "romantic" impulse tion.
in the discussion of human nature included the The faculty and rational psychology, so central in
Dionysian conflict in Poe's poems of mystery and American assumptions about human nature, continued
beauty and in his gothic tales. The paradox in James to dominate the academic scene long after a revolu-
Fenimore Cooper's novels between primitivism and tionary movement known as "the new psychology got "
civiHzation was another example of a "romantic" imder way in Great Britain and Germany. It began
image of man. even before mid-century with Charles Bell's and
At least two efforts to present systematically a psy- Marshall Hall's investigations of the nervous systems,
chology encompassing some part of this view of human and made rapid strides in Germany where Ernst
nature deserve comment. Frederic Ranch, a German Weber, Gustav Fechner, Hermann von Helmholtz, and,
theologian trained at Marburg and Giessen and a later, Wilhelm Wundt developed laboratory methods
member of Heidelberg's philosophical faculty until he for measuring sensation, memory, and perception. The
was forced to leave, became President of Marshall new scientific study of mental phenomena, known as
College in 1836 and published, five years later, his psychophysics and physiological psychology, rejected
Psychology or a View of the Human Soul, including the traditional view that "mind" could be studied
Anthropology (1841). This was the first work in English abstractly,by introspection alone, and without specific
both to use the term "psychology" in the title and to reference to physics and physiology. It assumed on the
present in modified version the Kantian and post- contrary that mental phenomena could be understood
Kantian, particularly the Hegelian, philosophy of only in terms of the controlled and experimental study
human nature. Rauch expressed dissatisfaction with of the organic, unified human being. While British
24 current views of body and mind as two substances and empiricism and associationism initially provided a
philosophical context for specific laboratory investi- statistical measurements for intelligence. The labora-
gations of mental phenomena and behavior, the publi- tory researches of the European-trained exponents of
cation of Darwin's three works. Origin of Species the new psychology, and of those of their students,
(1859), Descent Man (1871), and

of The Expression of supplemented the work of the Europeans and in time
the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), marked a gave new dimensions to it. By the end of the century
revolutionary shift in theory. The evolutionary hy- the new psychology had largely overshadowed tradi-
dynamic view of human nature
pothesis substituted a tional mental philosophy except in a few centers, nota-
forone that had regarded man's constitution as static bly Catholic institutions. In an address at the Interna-
and unchangeable. The new view provided a new tionalCongress of Arts and Sciences at St. Louis in
setting for the discussion of heredity and environment, 1904 Cattell reflected the optimism of the new psy-
and, in assuming an intimate and genetic relationship chology in declaring that he saw no reason "why the
between the higher primates, human infants, and the application of systematized knowledge to the control
matured individual, stimulated the development of of human nature may not in the course of the present
animal and child psychology. centurv accomplish results commensurate with the
In the United States the first impressive discussion nineteenth-century applications of physical science to
of the new psychology was that of Edward L. Youmans, the natural world" (Popular Science Monthhj, 66
a disciple of Herbert Spencer and an effective popu- [1904-05], 186).
larizer. In an address entitled "Observations on the The evolutionary theory of human nature not only
Scientific Study of Human Nature" {The Culture affected the investigations in the laboratories. It also
Demanded by Modem Life, pp. 373-408) Youmans provided a new context for the discussion of human
rejected the ancient dualism (body as the seat of a nature. To some intellectual leaders the evolutionary
lower material nature, mind that of a higher spiritual theory suggested that what was called human nature
nature). He insisted that problem of study,
"man, as a had changed but little, and that in view of this it was
is simplv an organism of varied powers and activities futile to expect melioristic changes or the elimination
and that the true office of scientific inquiry is to deter- of institutions deeply rooted in human nature. Thus
mine the mechanism, modes, and laws of its action." Henry Ward Beecher, the most celebrated of Protestant
Citing the recent experimental literature and suggest- preachers, said, in commenting on the Franco- Prussian
ing some of the implications of the new movement conflict of 1870, that war is the "remnant in man of
for the treatment of the mentally ill, for education, that old fighting animal from which Mr. Darwin says
and for everyday life, Youmans concluded that the new we sprang. War, he went on, is a constitutional dis-
"
science was only in its infancy. order belonging to human nature. \ presumption in
Within the next two decades young Americans favor of Darwinian theory was the fact that war dem-
sought out the new psychological laboratories in onstrates how much of the animal there is still left in
Germany, especially that of Wilhelm Wundt in man (Sermon of July 30, 1870, in The Plymouth Pulpit).
Leipzig, and returned to set up laboratories in the Similar views were later expressed by William Graham
major American universities. The pioneer American Sumner and William James. Sumner also became a
contribution to the new experimental psychology, leading advocate of the idea that the efforts of society
however, was that of C. S. Peirce and one of his Johns to support the incompetent poor must result in still
Hopkins students, Joseph Jastrow. Interested in further degrading them and in discouraging those who
measm-ing the smallest perceptible differences in sen- had proved their merit by making the most of their
sation, Peirce and Jastrow demonstrated experi- endowments through sustained hard work {Wliat Social
mentally that when slight differences between two Classes Owe to Each Other, 1883). Thus not only so-
stimuli of weights or surfaces were reduced below the cialism but anything pointing to a welfare state was
so-called physiological threshold, a subconscious regis- denounced as contrary to human nature. Such an in-
tration operated. The pressure-balance devised for this terpretation of evolution, largely influenced by Herbert
investigation was the forerunner of all the improved Spencer, was known as Social Darwinism.
pressure-balances later employed, the use of which On the other hand, the dynamic view of man which
confirmed the Peirce-Jastrow finding (Murchison, I, the evolutionary theory substituted for the traditional
135-36). static one suggested that the evolution of human na-
One young American who was to become a leader ture had not come to an end. It was to improve
in the new psychology, James McKeen Cattell, worked partly through direct adaptation, partly through the
not only as a student in the Leipzig laboratory, but survival of the fittest, and above all through the
also went to England to acquaint himself with the inheritance of slowly evolving superior charac-
pioneer work of Francis Galton in devising tests and teristics —characteristics that, according to the almost 25
universally accepted theory of Lamarck,were trans- improvability of human nature through the melioristic
mitted through heredity. was this view that John
It change of the environment was Francis Galton who
Fiske popularized. The most essential and charac- maintained, on the basis of genealogical data and a
teristic feature of the human being, Fiske said, is his pioneer study of identical twins, that natme, not nur-
improvability. Since the first appearance of the human ture, is the dominant force. Galton did not convince
being enormous changes had taken place through nat- such able Americans as Chaimcey Wright, Charles H.
ural selection and adaptation. Inasmuch as civilization Cooley, and William James, who, in a much discussed
thus far had advanced largely through fighting and the The Atlantic Monthhj for 1880, "Great Men,
article in
deadly struggle of competition, quick-wittedness had Great Thoughts, and Their Environment," maintained
developed as a human trait faster than compassion and that while certain geniuses, like murder, "will out,"
kindness. Even so, over the past thirtv centuries strife thiswas by no means always the case. In another epoch
had gradually lessened and cooperation, so necessary Darwin and Spencer might have died "with all their
in an emerging industrial civilization, was to become music in them." The Galton study, in short, James
a dominant trait, since, like all traits that are put to insisted, did not take into account the limiting or
use, it would be strengthened and transmitted through encouraging factors in childhood and the excessive
heredity. "Man is slowly passing from a primitive social complexity of the conditions of effective greatness or
state in which he was little better than a bnite, toward "genius." Yet Galton and his more doctrinaire disciple,
an ultimate social state in which his character shall Karl Pearson, enlisted influential supporters. These
have become so transformed that nothing of the brute included Charles W. Eliot, who in his own way recon-
can be detected in it. The ape and tlie tiger in human and hereditarian ideas with de-
ciled Galton's elitist
nature will become e.xtinct" (The Destiny of Man mocracy, and G. Stanley Hall, whose recapitulation
Viewed in the Light of His Origin [1884], p. 103). theory, borrowed from the hereditarian storehouse,
Lester Frank Ward, more consequential a figure than made every individual relive the experience of the
Fiske because he spoke as both a biologist and a pio- race — a position that for a time influenced the .Ameri-
neer sociologist, projected on the basis of his reading can school curriculum.
of evolutionary theory a similarly progressive im- The experiments with twins and with animal and
provement of human nature. This was to take place child learning that another psychologist, E. L. Thorn-
through the "telic" or purposeful guidance of man's dike, carried through, seemed to lend great weight to
future by the planned use of applied intelligence. the dominant role of heredity. In later years this was
These optimistic interpretations of evolutionar\' also true of the work of other psychologists, notably
theory, resting in part on the Lamarckian theory of Lewis Terman, a student of Hall, whose influential
acquired characteristics, met with a serious challenge development of the Binet intelligence tests and whose
when, in the 1880's, a new theory of heredity reached study of a thousand California youths identified as
America, .although not at once or universally accepted, "geniuses" seemed, to many minds, to establish the
August Weismann's denial of the transmission of superior importance of nature over nurture. On the
acquired characters and insistence that characteristics level of pedigree studiesand field surveys Richard
could be transmitted only through immutable germ Dugdale [The Jukes, 1877), Henry Goddard, and others
plasm, raised a serious question for the reformers who concluded that "poor stock" perpetuated itself in
rested their case in large part on evolutionary theory succeeding generations of criminals, insane, prostitutes,
and the transmission of acquired characteristics. As and other ne'er-do-wells. Despite the faulty records and
Amos Warner, a leading figure in social welfare, wrote, dubious statistical procedures in these studies, they
"If acquired characteristics be inherited, then we have provided support for the eugenics movement initiated
a chance permanently to improve the race inde- in Britain by Galton and his disciples. In several states
pendently of selection, by seeing to it that individuals the eugenicists succeeded in obtaining legislative sup-
acquire characteristics that it is desirable for them to port for the sterilization of the "imfif" — in 1927 the
transmit." But if Weismann is correct, "our onK' hope X'irginia law was upheld by the Supreme Court, Mr.
for the permanent improvement of the human stock Holmes speaking for the majority.
Justice
would then seem to be through exercising an influence The emphasis on heredity as the major factor in
on the selective process" (Amos Warner, American human natiu'e found additional support in the sweeping
Charities [1908], p. 22). Thus the ground was split and imcritical interpretations of the inadequately
between the hereditarians and the environmentalists devised intelligence tests administered to the rank and
for a major controversy in the changing reputation of file of the armed forces during the First World War.
human nature. Before psychologists and such critics as Walter

26 Even more consequential in raising doubt about the Lippmaim showed the inadequacy of the tests, the
results were cited with a note of triumph b\' immigra- ronment is a necessity to the idea of organism, and
tion restrictionists. who had long opposed the accep- with the conception of environment comes the impos-
tance of newcomers from southern and eastern Europe sibility of considering psychical life as an individual,
on the ground of innate inferiority and unassimilability, isolated thing developing in a vacuum" ("The New
and also bv those convinced of the inherent and Psychology"). In 1896 Dewey's famous paper on the
irremediable inferiority of American Negroes. reflex arc, which rejected the mechanistic and dualistic
The contentions of the hereditarians, and the expo- stimulus-response principle, noted that the organism
nents of an unchangeable human nature with inherent is an active, not passive, perceiver of stimuli. Behavior,
class and race met with opposition from
differences, he insisted, is not disjoined into stimuli and responses
humanitarians, including such leaders as Jane Addams, but is continuous, and the sensory and motor aspects
and from sociologists who insisted that unequal of behavior blend continuously with each other. This
achievements and evidences of social ineffectiveness opened the door to technical support for a psychology
and dereliction were explicable in terms of the mores, of motor activity, adjustment, and functional interrela-
and bv the ways in which the environment determined tionships between organism and environment.
the qualities and virtues that the individual in any Meanwhile, in his vividly and racily written Princi-
society tries to attain or the vices that he attempts to ples of Psychology (1890) William James presented the
avoid: in other words, the values in anv society are findings of the "new psychology" but — not without
the formulators of the characters of men. The most critical reservations. With his imaginative, poetical zest
effective refutations in the nature versus nurture con- for imresolved mysteries, exceptional personalities,
troversy of the extreme hereditarian position were peak experiences, and the reality of values no less than
those of a American school of
characteristically that of facts,James felt that "official" psychology was
— —
psychologists the functionalists and of the social only a limited, however useful, means to imderstanding
philosophers and social scientists who shared their basic human nature. His treatment of the nervous system,
image of man. the physiology of sense, the instincts, the emotions, and
The dominant emphasis of Wundt and his disciples the will, together with the central importance he
on the structure or contents of mental experience attached to habit, reflected the purposive or functional
through measurement and introspective analysis met as opposed to the stnictural view. The associationism
with some Europe (Oswald Kiilpe,
opposition in that characterized the structural position of Wundt and
Edouard Claparede, and others). But it was most such American disciples as E. B. Titchener, was
tellingly challenged in America by what came to be rejected for a transitory, fluctuating "stream of con-
known as fimctional psychology. In brief, influenced sciousness," unified rather than atomistic, and related
by evolutionary theory this psychology assimied that to choice. In brief, James's conception of the "mind"
at one or another stage in the history of man the need was that of the functional and dynamic adjustment of
for each mental process had become sufficiently the organism to its environment, including the un-
demanding to result in the emergence of a particular predictable and twilight regions of experience.
process or fimction. Thus sense perception, emotion, The functional psychology achieved its fullest de-
and mental images developed as functions in the orga- velopment at the University of Chicago during
nism's evolution. Thinking resulted when instinct and Dewey's affiliation with it (1894-1904) and in the years
habit failed to resolve a conflict or tension in the effort that followed. George Herbert Mead developed the
of the organism to adjust itself to an environmental idea of the inherent relatedness of self to other selves,
situation. The functionalists attached great importance, which James had touched on, into a major concept (role
as a result, to motor activity, to usefulness of the fimc- theory). Of great importance also was fiis emphasis on
tional operations of the organism (i.e., mind), and to the idea that thinking and social activity are aspects
a dynamic process as opposed to a static equilibrium. of the same basic process, that is, communication or
The first clear and explicit exposition of the func- symbolic behavior as mechanisms for both social con-
tional view seems to have been that of John Dewey trol and social progress. James Rowland Angell showed,
in 1884. He insisted on recognizing mental life as an experimentally, how reaction time is a function of
organic unitary process, not as a theater for the exhibi- attention and explicated the relation of organic
tion of independent autonomous faculties or as a processes to consciousness (James Rowland Angell,
rendezvous in which isolated, atomic sensations and Psy etiology. New
York [1908], with preface to the first
ideas gathered, held "external converse," and then edition, and Murchison, III, 5-29). Others in the
parted forever. In addition, Dewey emphasized the Chicago school applied functional psychology to ethics,
importance of the relationships of an individual life law, and social institutions. Dewey himself, in liis con-
to other lives organized in society. "The idea of envi- tinuing work in logic, education, aesthetics, and social 27
psychology overshadowed his sometime colleagues. dition infants as to develop behavior and personalities
Among the issues to which he addressed himself in later congenial to their taste.
years were the nature-nurture controversy, which he The critics of behaviorism included those who, like
helped resolve by showing that each dependent on is the functionalists, regarded experience as unfrag-
and inseparable from the other (Dewey, 1922; 1939); mented and continuous rather than atomistic and
the contention that such social institutions as war and mechanistic; those who contended that in throwing out
capitalism are the inevitable expression of human na- introspection and consciousness altogether the
ture (or instincts), which he refuted by showing that behaviorists could not possibly explain their awareness
social institutions are expressions of certain inherent of themselves; and those who objected that behaviorism
human impulses or needs that might be channeled into eliminated and ethics in any true sense.
values
other social expressions, as was the case in various Behaviorism as modified by such criticisms and by the
cultures; and the question whether the very term experimental and theoretical work of E. C. Tolman,
human nature was any longer a useful concept, at least Clark Hull, and others was fused into general psychol-
imless it was very carefully defined ("Does Human ogy. What some laymen interpreted as a belated echo
Nature Change?," The Rotarian. 52 [Feb. 1938], was B. F. Skinner's Walden Two (1948). This was about
8-llff.). a model commimity in which elitist masters of the
Functionalism became absorbed into the main conditioned reflex and other behavior techniques had
stream of psychology in America. Several laêr dehumanized (in order to make happy) the men and
emphases did, however, reflect some of its special women who put themselves in the hands of their
aspects. This was true, for example, of the interpersonal benevolent if dictatorial manipulators.
psychiatry of Harry Stack Sullivan, Conceptions of Some of the problems of deviant behavior were
Modern Psychiatry (1956), of the opposition of the illuminated by contributions of varying importance at
Gestalt school to a discrete, atomistic, and mechanistic the hands of such nineteenth-century alienists, psychi-
conception of behavior and, in a sense, of Kurt Lewin's atrists, and neurologists as Isaac Ray, William
field theory, which held that if an individual's behavior Hammond, Weir Mitchell, Oliver Wendell Holmes,
S.
were to be understood it must be in terms of the life George Beard, and Morton Prince. Of special note was
space, i.e., of the relation of the individual to his envi- the work of these and others in neurasthenia, hysteria,
ronment over time and at the particular moment. Even dreams, and other types of unconscious and nonrational
behaviorism, despite important diffêrences and the behavior.
criticisms functionalists and behaviorists had for each The reception of Freudianism was somewhat belated
other,was in some respects an outgrowth of the and markedly mixed. By reason of his concern with
Chicago school. psychopathology, the theory of the unconscious, and
Many insisted that behaviorism was a typically his intellectual hospitality, William James was
.\merican psychology although others related it to a predisposed to give psychoanalysis an open hearing,
long line of forerunners including Democritus, La while G. Stanley Hall's interest in sex and the psychol-
Mettrie, Condillac, and their successors. It was cer- ogy of deviancy led him to invite Freud and Jung to
tainly related to the "connectionist" psychology of a conference at Clark University in 1909. Writing to
E. L. Thorndike who had made the stimulus-response his brother shortly after hearingand talking with the
in the context of neurons and synapses a central feature James expressed the hope that "Freud and his
visitors,
of his concept of learning. Behaviorism also de- pupils will push their ideas to their ultimate limits;
rived a good deal from experimental animal psychology they cannot fail to throw light on human nature"
and from the work of the Russian "objectivists," Pavlov (Henry James, Letters of William James [1920], pp.
and Bekhterev. Though it also had immediate Ameri- 237-38). James, however, distrusted Freud's "obsession
can forerunners other than Thorndike, behaviorism was with fixed ideas." Hall likewise distrusted Freud's way
chiefly associated with John B. Watson of Chicago and of tracing everything to one source, although he later
Johns Hopkins. In his expositions of behaviorism, expressed his conviction that the advent of Freudianism
introspection and consciousness were rejected in favor marked the greatest epoch in the history of psychology.
of an objective, mechanistic interpretation of behavior Academic psychologists, in contrast with such neurol-
in terms of stimulus, response, and the conditioned ogists and psychiatrists as James J. Putnam and A. A.
Watson went further than most psychologists
reflex. Brill, in the main resisted the uncritical acceptance of
inmaking sweeping analogies between animal and Freud's unverified theories. These theories, never-
human behavior and in his dogmatic and flamboyant theless, had begun by the 1920's to exert an important
claim that all human behavior is susceptible to predic- influence not only in psychiatry but in such varied fields
tion and control. His popular vogue rested in part on as social work, social science, labor-management prob-
2o his psychology of child-rearing; parents might so con- lems, advertising, and public relations. In terms of the
bearing of psychoanalysis on ideas about human nature alitv. Several articles on the idea of human nature in west-
the most important contributions of the American ern thought bear on the American discussion of it. The most
neo-Freudians involved an emphasis on the inclusion useful are John Dewey's Encyclopedia of the
article in the
of social and cultural factors in the explanations of Social Sciences (1935), VII, 531-36; James Luther .Adams.
neuroses, psychoses, and other maladjustments. "The Changing Reputation of Human Nature," Journal of
(Autumn 1942), 59-79; 4 (Winter 1943),
Liberal Religion, 4
This broadening of an imported European movement
137-60; and Merle Curti, "Human Nature in American
owed a good deal to several of the men and women
Thought," Political Science Quarterly, 68 (Sept. 1953),
who had come to the United States with early first-hand
354-75; (Dec. 1953), 493-510.
associations with the leaders in what was coming to
In terms of the discussion of the idea of human nature
be called "depth psychology." These revisionists in- in formal psychology the most useful general accounts are
cluded Karen Horney {The Neurotic Personality of our E. G. Boring, A History of Experimental Psychology (New
Time, 1937); Abram Kardiner {The Individual and His York. 1950); Carl Murchison, ed., A
History of Psychology
Society, 1939, and with others Tlie Psychological Fron- in Autobiography, 5 vols. (Worcester, Mass., 1930-52); and
tiersof Society, 1945); Franz .Alexander {Our Age of Henryk Misiak and Virginia Staudt Sexton, History of Psy-
Unreason, 1942); Erich Fromm {Man for Himself . . .
,
chology: —
An Overview (New York, 1966). Notwithstanding
the merits of this specialized account of .American psychol-
1947); and Erik Erikson {Childhood and Society, 1950;
ogy. Jay Warton Fay, American Psychology before William
1968). The Freudian emphasis on sex and a desire to
James (New Brunswick, N.J., 19.39), it is not satisfactory.
test the incidence and character of the sexual act in
Special note should be made of R. C. Davis, ".American
wider samples than those available in clinical reports
Psychology 1800-1885," Psychological Revieiv, 43 (Nov.
led Alfred C. Kinsey of Indiana University to interview
1936), 471-93.
a considerably larger population {Sexual Behavior in For the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the most
theHuman Male, 1949, and Sexual Behavior in the important primary sources are The Journal of John
Human Female, 1953). Winthrop, ed. James K. Hosmer. 2 vols. (New York, 1908);
The emphasis on quantification and on the cross- Charles .Morton. Compendium physicae. Publications of the
fertilization of biology, psychiatry, psychology, sociol- Colonial Society of Massachusetts. .33 Collections (1940), ed.
ogy, and anthropology led to the behavioral science Theodore Hornberger; Thomas Clap, An Essay on the Na-
movement. In 1943 Clark Hull ture and Foundation of Moral Virtue (New Haven, 1765);
{Principles of Belmvior)
Jonathan Edwards, Works, 5 vols. (London, 1840); Paul
expressed the conviction that the successful, systematic
Ramsey's edition of Edwards' Freedom of the Will (New
development of the behavioral sciences must await the
Haven, 1957); Samuel Johnson, President of King's College.
time when students of behavior become adept at
His Career and Writing, ed. Herbert and Carol Schneider,
interpreting their materials in terms of mathematical
4 vols. (New York, 1929); John Woolman, Essays and Jour-
equations. The proliferation of such studies, based on nals (New York, 1922); and titles of sermons and other pieces
ideal types or models and executed with the aid of cited in the text. Benjamin Rush's Medical Inquiries and
complicated computers, made contributions to the Observatiorts upon the Diseases of the Mind (Philadelphia,
prediction and control of behavior, especially in moti- 1812), has been reissued, with an introduction by S. Barnard
vation research. But the inclusion of role theory, sys- Wortis, in the History of Medicine Series, No. 15 (New York,
tems theory, game theory, decision-making, and 1962). It may be supplemented by The Autobiography of
deprivation and reenforcement theory, all precisely Benjamin Rush, ed. George W. Comer, in Memoirs of the
defined in terms of the control of variables, exhibit the American Philosophical Society, 45 (Princeton, 1951).
Secondary material includes Perry Miller, The New
large scope of the behavioral sciences movement. It
England Mind. The Seventeenth Century, (New York, 1938),
is true that some social scientists and virtually all
esp. Ch. 9; and idem. The New England Mind, From Colony
humanists expressed skepticism about the more ex-
to Province (Cambridge, Mass., 1953); Claude M. Newlin,
treme claims of the movement. The concern deepened Philosophy and Religion in Colonial America (New York,
when investigations in molar biology and micro- 1962), and the earlier work of I. Woodbridge Riley, Ameri-
genetics suggested that the genes of inheritance might can Philosophy. The Early Schools (New York, 1907). The
be controlled or modified, thus opening somewhat second chapter in Arthur O. Lovejoy's Reflections on Human
frightening possibilities for those committed to indi- Nature (Baltimore, 1961), shows how theories of human
vidualism and democracy. nature entered into the making of the Constitution of the
United States. Also useful is Adrienne Koch, The Philosophy
of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1943). An interesting exam-
ple of an effort to apply modem psychological concepts
BIBLIOGRAPHY
to an eighteenth-century American's thought about the
The only general survey is Don
H. Wolfe, The Image of nature of man is Richard I. Bushman, "On the Use of
Man in America (Dallas, 1957; New York, 1970), which, Psychology: Conflict and Conciliation
in Benjamin
drawing on both social science material and belles lettres, Franklin," History and Theory, 5 (1966), 225-40. For the
focuses on ideas about "creativity" in the human person- use by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century historians of Jia
PYTHAGOREAN DOCTRINES TO 300 R.C.
concepts of human nature see Merle Curti, Human Nature "Principles of Purposive Behavior, " in S. Koch, ed.. Psy-
in American Historical Thought (Columbia, Mo., 1968). chology: a Study of a Science. 3 vols. (New York, 1959),
The discussion of human nature in the literature of II, 92-157; and B. F Skinner, Walden Tivo (New York, 1948);
transcendentalism can best be understood through the writ- idem. Science and Human Behavior (New Y'ork, 1953). See,
ings of the transcendentalists themselves, although the among secondary studies, John C. Burnham, "The Origins
standard biographies are also useful. Joseph Dorfman's Tlie of Behaviorism," Journal of the History of the Beliavioral
Econoinic Mind in American Civilization, 5 vols. (New York, Sciences, 4 (April 1968), 143-51; and Gustav Bergniann,
1946-59), is a good guide to the economic writings in which "The Contribution ofB. Watson," in John M. Seher,
John
theories of human nature are explicitly or implicitly ed., Vwories of the Mind (New York, 1962), pp. 674-87.
accessible. .Also relevant is Wesley C. Mitchell's Lecture Mention should be made of Donald H. Fleming's introduc-
Notes on Econmnic Theory (New York, 1949). The standard tion to Jacques Loeb, Vie Mechanistic Conception of Life
authoritv on phrenology is John D. Davies, Phrenology: Fad (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), which is a basic contribution to
and Science: A 19th Century American Crusade (New behaviorism.
Haven, 1955). For the reception and influence of Freud consult John
Edward Youmans' essay in The Culture
Also important are C. Burnham, Psychoanalysis and American Medicine
Demanded by Modem Life (New York, 1867; 1900), and John 1894-1918, Psychological Issues, Monograph 20 (Pittsburgh,
Dewev's "The New Psychology," Andover Revieu:, 2 (Sept. 1968); and idem "The New Psychology: From Narcissism
1884), 278-91. Much basic material is at hand in the to Social Control." in Braeman, Bremner, and Brody, eds..
autobiographies of pioneer psychologists, in Carl Murchison, Change and Continuity in Twentieth-Century America: the
cited above; in R. B. Perry, Life and Letters of William 1920s (Columbus, Ohio, 1968), pp. .351-98; Clarence P.
James, 2 vols. (Boston, 1935); and in G. Stanley Hall, Life Oberndorf, A History of Psychoanalysis in .înerica (New
and Confessions of a Psychologist (New York, 192.3). The York,1953); Merle Curti, "The American E.vploration of
files of the American Journal of Psyclwlogy (1887 and — ) Dreams and Dreamers," Journal of the History of Ideas, 27
the Psychological Review (1894 —
are, of course, indis-
) (July-Sept. 1966), .391-416. Frederick J.
Hoffman, Freudian-
pensable. ism and the Literary Mind (Baton Rouge, 1945); and idem.
The most useful brief account of the relation between The Twenties; American VVriHng in the Post-War Decade
Darwinism and concepts of human nature is E. G. Boring, (New York, 1955).
"The Influence of Evolutionary Theory upon Psychological The literature of the behavioral sciences is too vast to
Thought in America," in Stow Persons, ed.. Evolutionary do more than offer a very few samples: Leonard D. White,
Thought in America (New York, 1956), pp. 268-98. The best ed.. The State of the Social Sciences (Chicago, 1956); idem.
analysis of Chauncey Wright, William James, C. S. Peirce, The Social Studies and the Social Sciences (New York, 1962);
and John Fiske in the context of their evolutionary, prag- and Merle Curti, "The Changing Concept of "Human Na-
matic, and idealistic philosophy in relation to the idea of ture in the Literature of American .Advertising," Business
human nature is that of Philip P. Wiener, Evolution and History ReiHew, 41 (Winter 1967), 335-57. For a criticism
theFounders of Pragmatism (Cambridge, Mass., 1949), pp. of the behavioral sciences from a "humanistic" point of view
31ff. Richard Hofstadter, Social Danvinism in Ainerican consult Floyd W. Watson, The Broken Image, Man, Science
Thought 1860-1915 (New York, 1944: 1959); and Mark and Society (New York, 1964).
Eugenics; Hereditarian Attitudes in American
Haller,
MERLE CURTI
Tlwught (New Bmnswick, N.J., 1963), are standard accounts.
Nicholas Pastore, The Nature-Nurture Controversy (New [See also Deism; Education; Evolutionism; Genetic Con-
York, 1949), documents the conservative-liberal alignment tinuity; Inheritance of .Acquired Characteristics; Man-
of hereditariansand environmentalists. Machine; Organicism; Perfectibility; Philanthropy; Prag-
For the functional psychology see James R. Angell, "The matism; Progress; Psychological Schools in European
Province of Functional Psychology," Psyclwlogical Review, Thought; Sin and Salvation.]
14 (March 1907), 61-91. Benjamin Wolstein's "Dewey's
Theory of Human Nature," Psychiatry, 12 (Feb. 1949),
77-85, is, one of a great many valuable
of course, only
commentaries on Dewey's philosophy, social ideas, and
psychological contributions. Dewey's own most relevant PYTHAGOREAN DOCTRINES
writings are Human Nature and Conduct (New York, 1922), TO 300 B.C.
and Freedom and Culture {New York, 1939).
Watson's most important writings are Psyclwlogy from The historian of Pythagoreanism in the sixth and fifth
the Standpoint of the Behaviorist (Philadelphia, 1919; 2nd
centuries must make his bricks without straw. He can
and Behaviorism (New York, 1925; rev. ed., 1930).
ed, 1929),
give us an account not of persons, events, doctrines,
For more recent developments see the papers in "Psychol-
but only of more or less plausible reconstructions and
ogy: a Behavioral Reinterpretation," Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Society, 108 (Dec. 1964), 151-85; of between disparate positions. The
controversies
and C. L. Hull, Principles of Behavior (New York, 1943); historian of ideas is in a more fortimate position. He
30 idem, A Behavior System (New Haven, 1952); E. C. Tolman, may accept what no one doubts, that Pythagoras lived
.
PYTHAGOREAN DOCTRINES TO 300 B.C.
and that he played in his time a role analogous to that monastic character of which we hear so much from
of founders of religions or sects whose impact and Neo-Pythagorean sources (Philip [1966a], pp. 24-34).
whose message survive their persons. Nor need he The Symbola or Tokens which Aristotle (frags. 5-7)
question the general nature of Pythagoras' message: has preserved for us are not any rule of a community
first, a doctrine of the soul and, second, an arithmologi- but merely a collection of superstitious injunctions not
cal theory of the physical world. peculiar to any one sect, nor indeed to any one country.
These two themes, soul and number, characterized When at the end of the fifth century B.C. the
Pythagoreanism throughout antiquity. We have no Pythagoreans emerge in the light of history, Plato
reason to believe that a connection was established {Republic 600A) and Isocrates (Busiris 28) regard them
between them in the early period. The soul doctrine with respect for their conduct and discipline. However,
determined moral conduct. The number theory the New Comedy (Vors. I, 278-80) treats them as
purported to explain aspects of the structure of the figures of fun because of their rigors in diet and cloth-
physical world. Thev were first related by Plato, when ing. We may assume that the asceticism (askesis) they
he made of soul an intermediate between intelligibles practiced arose from beliefs about the soul: that was it
and sensibles, both of these mathematically deter- entombed in the body (Plato, Corgias 493A) in the
mined. We may therefore pursue the two themes sepa- sense in which Socrates says {Phaedo 64A) that '"philos-
rately up to the time when they are conjoined. ophy is a practice of dying and of the state of being
Until a generation ago Erwin Rohde's account of dead." If the body is nothing but a temporary habita-
Greek doctrines of the soul in his great study. Psyche tion for a soul pilgriming through earthly and other
(1925), found very general acceptance. It was beheved than earthly existences towards a final reward or pun-
that when Pythagoras migrated from Ionia to Magna ishment, then our concern must be to "care for the
Graecia he found there a flourishing sect of the soul." A frequent corollary of care for the soul is ne-
worshippers of Dionysus known
Orphics (Rohde, pp. as glect of the body. It would appear that early
335-61; Jaeger, pp. 55-89), and that of this Orphic Pythagoreanism was not altogether exempt from this
sect Pythagoras and his followers formed an offshoot excess. Neglect of the body characterized also the
observance. But in 1941 Linforth reexamined critically Orphics of the fourth century, but what marked off
all the evidence for this belief; and since tlien skepti- Pythagoreans from Orphics was that the Pythagorean
cism about it has grown, until now Dodds (p. 147) can askesis had an intellectual character. Care for the soul
remark: "T must confess that I know very Uttle about implied for them a discipline not only of the body but
early Orphism, and the more I read about it the more also of the mind.
my knowledge diminishes. Whatever our assessment
"
The revolutionary aspect of Pythagoras' doctrine of
of the evidence may be, it seems clear that if the soul was not transmigration, nor a system of re-
Pythagoras found beUefs about the soul abroad in wards and punishments — characteristics we find in
Magna Graecia he transformed them for his purpose. other sects —but the notion of personal and intellectual
Nothing ecstatic or dionysiac remained. Even a con- askesis. It may be that Pythagoras as an Ionian found
nection with the worship of Dionysus seems im- the ecstatic practices of the mysteries uncongenial. He
probable. Pythagoras is said to have claimed divine cultivated pursuits of an intellectual character
status (Aristotle, frag. I) as an incarnation of Apollo, (Herachtus, Vors.22B 40) and a serious demeanor
not of Dionysus, and our whole tradition connects him and these were a part of the heritage of
(gravitas),
with Apollo. For him the soul which lodges in our Pythagoreanism
bodies has come from a previous existence and is pro- Among the thinkers of the fifth century Empedocles
ceeding to further existences. It may pass into an ani- alone taught a similar doctrine of the soul and its
mal body (Xenophanes, Vors. 2 IB 7). It may in the end migrations. Although he was only a generation older
achieve divinity. Its migrations are linked to rewards than Socrates, his thought has the characteristics of an
and punishments. It is held responsible for the deeds earlier period in which each thinker faced ex novo the
and the fate of the person. problems of the universe, making use of the ideas of
We do not know what were the formal and external his predecessors only as stimuli. Empedocles' great
aspects of Pythagoreanism during the life of Pythagoras poem On Nature falls into two parts so disparate that
and, subsequently, through the fifth century. In the late scholars have sought to explain the yawning gap be-
sixth and in the first half of the fifth century tween them by the hypothesis of a conversion. One
Pythagoreans engaged in political activities in Magna part presents a theory of the physical world, the other
Graecia, and apparently became a dominant faction concerns Purifications. The piu'ifications deal with the
in Croton, Metapontum, and elsewhere. But there is soul, its migrations through plant and animal bodies,
no evidence for the brotherhood having the quasi- and the means we may take to escape from this cycle ol
tYTHAGUHEAN UUCTRINES TO 300 B.C.
to divine status. So in Empedocles as in Pythagoras no evidence. It is much more probable that

we have two concomitant but apparently unrelated Parmenides' "One" was a revolutionary elaboration of
doctrines, one of the physical world and one concern- the nous of Xenophanes that "sees as a whole, thinks
ing the soul. as a whole, hears as a whole" {Vors. 21B 24). But we
That Empedocles was influenced by some Pythago- may not assume that this nous/mind is simply a cosmic
rean tradition we may assume if a famous fragment extension of the psyche/soul of Pythagoras. Even when
(Vors. 31B 129) alludes, as is generally thought, to later nous is situated within or as a function of soul,
Pythagoras. But the influence is remote. Empedocles the two concepts remain distinct. Psyche for Homer
is animated by a horror of the pollution incurred in and Hesiod is what imparts life to bodies. Its later role
eating flesh. His aim is, by avoiding such pollution, as the cause of motion develops from its more primitive
to achieve again the godhead from which he is fallen function, motion being the primary manifestation of
{Vors. 32B 115). There is no trace of the personal life. \ous on the other hand is from the beginning
askesis that is a mark of Pythagoreanism, nor is there intellective or cognitive, expressive of seeing as
in the poem On Nature any trace of arithmological knowing. Plato would appear to have been the first
speculation except for two and

forces, four elements, to relate the two by locating, as he does, nous within
similar hints such as Homer. We know
we find also in soul both in the macrocosm and the microcosm.
that in Empedocles' city, Acragas, Orphic ideas were Our tradition then suggests that the twin doctrines
current (Pindar, Ol. 2, 62-83) ideas to which we may— of Pythagoras, in spite of their potential importance,
reasonably suppose that Empedocles subscribed. remained philosophically dormant throughout the fifth
Though his notions of soul derive from the same century, professed as a way of life rather than as theory
cultural miheu as those of Pythagoras, his poems do by whatever persons may have espoused them. They
not reveal Pythagorean influence. The peculiarly acquired philosophical importance and the form in
Pythagorean notion of soul, with its corollary for con- which they were transmitted to later antiquity only
duct, did not so far as we know find philosophical when Plato encountered them. But what of Philolaus?
expression in the fifth century, and no more did the He is the one Pythagorean of the fifth century having
arithmological doctrines. was
Pythagoras' message a clear title to philosophical stature and of whom we
"Care for and endeavour to penetrate the
your soul, have extensive fragments. It is therefore not surprising
mysteries of the imiverse by observing numerical cor- that controversies regarding early Pythagoreanism
respondences." The time was not yet ripe for a philo- center around Philolaus. His fragments have had their
sophical development of such teachings. It was only defenders, but a majority of scholars has pronounced
with the emergence of mathematics as a science that them falsifications (Burkert, p. 206, n. 17). Recently
number mysticism could acquire philosophical impor- however Burkert has presented an able defense of a
tance; and it was only when the investigation of ethical group of them, and the question is again open. How-
concepts began that thinkers had to concern themselves ever the question may be decided, we must observe,
with the soul that enjoined respect of those principles. first, that Philolaus' main interests, astronomy and
The fifth-century vacuum in Pythagoreanism has physiology, are peripheral to Pythagoreanism; second,
excited the attention of scholars since antiquity. The that having apparently hved in exile from his youth
Neo-Pythagoreans sought either by invention or adop- imtil advanced years, his knowledge of Pythagoreanism
tion to people that vacuum, and lamblichus gives us must have been slight; and, third, that the fragments,
a list of their names. A century ago an attempt was if genuine, do not inspire any high opinion of Philolaus'
made to construct for a hypothetical Pythagorean philosophical grasp. They are no foundation for a
brotherhood a theory of number atomism by reaction reconstmction of fifth-century Pythagoreanism.
to which the monism of Parmenides, as a dissident The Pythagoreans of the fifth century are insub-
Pythagorean, could be explained. Tannery, the stantial figures owing such character as they exhibit
originator of this thesis, has been followed by several to Neo-Platonic fabulation (Guthrie, I, 319-33).
scholars, among them Cornford Von Fritz fur-
(p. 62). UnUke them Archytas an historical person, known
is
ther argues that Hippasus of Metapontum, a dubious repeatedly to have held the highest office in Tarentum.
and shadowy Pythagorean, discovered incommensura- He was a contemporary of Plato's and a friend cer-
But increasingly of late, doubt has been cast on
bility. tainly from the time of Plato's second voyage to Sicily
these and similar theses on the grounds that they are (366 B.C.) and probably from the time of his first voyage
on questionable hypotheses (Philip [1966a], p. 2).
built (388 B.C.). It is often suggested that the Republic,
They assume a formal development of the mathe- written between the two journeys, was influenced by
matical discipUnes earlier than is historically possible, Plato's encounter with Archytas and the Pythagoreans
and they impute a mathematical character to the of Magna Graecia. If the encounter provoked a signifi-
•J^ thought of Parmenides and Zeno for which there is cant change in the complexion of Plato's thought, we
must ask ourselves what new ideas he may have met a metaphysical role, and number-things have had to
with.It is unlikely that he found current in Tarentum accommodate themselves to a chorismos or separation
doctrines of the soul unfamiliar to him. There were of intelligibles and sensibles. This is that mathematiza-
Orphic adepts in his own Attica {Republic 364E) and tion of philosophy against which Aristotle protests so
a few persons, some of them probably known to him, vigorously. It represents in its main lines the thought
calling themselves Pythagoreans {Vors. 52, 1). He may not only of Speusippus and Xenocrates but also, as far
have been impressed by the mathematical abilities of as we can discern, that of Plato in the agraplm dogmata
Archytas, but the fragments suggest not an adept of or "unwritten doctrines" (Ross, pp. 142-53; Merlan,
arithmology, of which there is no trace, but an original pp. 11-33; Kramer, pp. 1-2; Gaiser with frags.).
mind engaged in mathematical investigations. Plato Can Plato himself have transformed in this manner
had about him in Athens mathematicians of genius who the simpler tenets ascribed by Aristotle to "the
were the peers of Archytas. But .\rchytas may have Pythagoreans"? We observe in the dialogues how he
communicated to Plato arcane doctrines of the moves from the Socratic form of refutation (elenchus)
Pythagoreans. had been the case Aristotle, who
If this and a Socratic form of definition, especially of ethical
wrote a on the philosophy of .Archvtas in three
treatise ideas or concepts, towards a metaphysical structure in
books (Diogenes Laertius, V. 25), could hardly have which these ideas can, as it were, be anchored. We
failed to have pointed out Plato's dependence on him observe how he between the knowledge
differentiates
when in the Metaphysics he was discussing the origins we can have of such intelhgibles and the knowledge,
of Plato's thought. There however (987a 29-31) he tells or better beUef, we can have of sensibles. We observe
us simply that Plato's thought was in the main a devel- his struggle to clarify the relation between intelligibles
opment of Pythagorean doctrines. If we can discover and sensibles. But can we believe that Plato was ready
no individual Pythagorean whom Plato could have to adopt a whole metaphysical structure, at best im-
regarded as a master, and we have no evidence for plicit darkly in the dialogues, and that his dialogues
a "brotherhood" professing a body of doctrine, what serve to hnk and explain that structure in a way the
can Aristotle mean? dialogues hardly adumbrate?
We can attempt to answer this question only when We can attempt to answer that question in two ways;
we have first ascertained what doctrines Aristotle first, by asking whether the history of Greek thought,
imputes to the Pythagoreans. He tells us that from of which we have from Plato himself the first percep-
Limit and Unlimited as first principles there proceeds tive and imaginative accounts, would authorize any
a One, and from the One somehow the numbers that such hypothesis and, second, whether Aristotle's ac-
are things {Metaphysics 986a 17-21). Further, he coimt of the manner in which Plato's thought evolved
ascribes to the Pythagoreans doctrines, not of a philo- either confirms or at least does not contradict our
sophical nature, about the soul {De anima 404a 17). hypothesis. If this proves to be the case we may then
That there were in Plato's time Pythagoreans who consider Speusippus and Xenocrates, as to whose spec-
professed such doctrines, and that these derived ulation we are perhaps better informed, to see if their
ultimately from Pythagoras himself we may easily metaphysics may reasonably be supposed to have
believe. But this seems an inadequate basis for what evolved from Plato's agrapha dogmata.
passes as Pythagoreanism at the end of the fourth We are imputing to Plato a revolutionary rethinking
century, after Plato's death, unless we assume that of the two basic Pythagorean tenets. That someone in
Plato himself, in rethinking, transformed them. By the early fourth century should rethink their number
the end of the century Pythagoreanism had acquired notionsis entirely plausible. For at about that time
important tenets of which we have no trace in the early mathematics became an organized discipline and,
period but which continue to characterize Pythago- shortly thereafter, made tremendous strides in all its
reanism thereafter. In particular the two principal branches. In the .\cademy of Plato there were a num-
tenets are substantially modified. Soul now no longer ber of eminent mathematicians (Proclus, in Euclid.
animates only the human person, plants, and animals. 64-68, Friedlein), and our tradition tells us that Plato
It also animates the universe. It has acquired mathe- furthered their pursuits. His own works are a testimony
matical characteristics, the souls of macrocosm and to his mathematical interests. What could have been
microcosm both being structured according to mathe- more natural than that he should modify the crude
matical ratios. Fvuther, nimibers have ceased to be notion of number-things to adapt it to his two-realm
things. For the universe is now divided into the realm theory? How he did so is still a matter of debate, but
of the intelligible and the sensible, and numbers apper- it would appear that he recognized a class of mathe-
tain primarily to the former. matical intermediate between intelligibles and sensi-
We have the two basic Pythagorean doctrines
still bles, and that in the Timaeus he regarded sensibles as
of soul and of number-things. But soul has been given somehow consisting of geometrical configurations, oo
How histwo ultimate principles the One or unity — of first principles, and numbers constituting things.
and the dyad or the great-and-sniall gen-

indefinite — There is no mention of soul, probably because Pythag-
erated this universe and what was the relation between orean notions of soul are not at the level of theory.
them we need not attempt to determine here. Nor need Plato's philosophy, says Aristotle, in most respects
we hazard a guess whether the atomism of Democritus followed after and conformed to Pythagorean doc-
in part suggested such a development. trines. But it had also its own peculiar characteristic.
The Pythagorean soul-tenet we find similarly ex- Plato believed, with the Heracliteans, that there was
tended and transformed. For Pythagoras the soul was no knowledge of sensibles because they exhibited no
what animates the body. It apparently had no cosmic constant state, but that there was knowledge of uni-
function nor was it a first principle of motion, .\ristotle versals and in particular of the sort of universals that
tells us {De anima 405a 29) that Alcmaeon saw soul Socrates sought to define. His universals Plato called
as immortal because it was in motion, like the heavenly "ideas." (Aristotle's polemic against the ideas arises out
bodies. Motion is a property of everything ensouled, of this separation or diorismos of intelligibles and
but soul is not therefore a principle of motion (cf. sensibles. Metaphysics 1040b 28 and passim.) Aristotle
Skemp, pp. .36-64), and Plato is the first thinker known goes on to explain that there were differences between
to us who explicitly regards soul as the first principle Plato and the Pythagoreans in matters of immanence
of motion [kinesis). But he extends the notion of soul and transcendence (how the Pythagoreans with their
also in another direction. Soul animates not only all number-things could hold any such doctrines he does
fiving creatures but also that living creature par excel- not suggest) and that though they agreed on the One
lence, the universe. How did Plato move from the as being, Plato modified the initial contrariety, substi-
individual migrating soul to the soul of the universe? tuting for the Unlimited the indefinite dyad.
He may have taken a hint from Anaxagoras. For in Another important difference .\ristotle sees is the
the account Socrates gives of his own intellectual de- fact that, whereas for the Pythagoreans things are
velopment in the Phaedo, nous is the cause of motion. numbers, for Platonists there exist mathematicals in-
The relations between noiis and pstjche in Plato are termecfiate between ideas and sensibles and these me-
a problem fraught with difficulties; but it is clear that diate tlie realitv we find in sensibles in respect of their
the passage from noiis as cosmic mover to the world idea paradigms. So Plato, according to .\ristotle, has
soul of the Timaeus is an easy one and, if the theory adopted the theory of dual first principles and the
is to leave room not only for intellection but also for number-substance notion of the Pythagoreans. But as
perception, a necessary one. his Heraclitean views compelled Plato to recognize a
Let us concede for the moment that, within the gradational reality, downwards to sensibles, he modi-
historical framework of preceding thought, a modifica- fied their theories so as to achieve a procession of being
tion of Pythagorean tenets in the sense we have sug- from first principles and the mediation of mathe-
gested is a possible one, and let us ask ourselves how maticals between ideas and particulars.
Aristotle's account of the development of Plato's The remarks on the origin of Platonic
general
thought is consonant with this scheme. theories in Book A of the Metaphysics has as its com-
In the Metaphysics (987a 29-988a 17) he gives us plement in Books M and N a long and involved argu-
a concise account of Plato's philosophy, in the context ment against the doctrine of idea numbers propounded
of a survey of preceding views about first principles by Plato, Speusippus, and Xenocrates. Though Aristotle
or causes. In the course of his survey .Aristotle discusses makes little reference to persons it is possible to distin-
"those who go by the name of Pythagoreans." These, guish the aspects of the doctrine we must ascribe to
he says, regard number as first principle and as material the latter two (Ross, p. 152), and its substance remains
substrate (986a 16-21). Number they hold to proceed imputable to Plato. Unless therefore we are willing to
from an ultimate duality. Limited and Unfimited, from maintain that the whole complex structure is a fantasy
which derives the One, and thence come the numbers of Aristotle's built on a few tentative hints in the
that constitute the physical universe. Apparently some dialogues, we must concede that Plato, at least in his
Pythagoreans cfifFered from this account in that thev later years, professed a number doctrine which was
recognized not one pair of opposites but a table of a modification of more primitive Pythagorean teaching,
opposite pairs. As their table begins with Limited and and that he was indeed the author of the astonishing
Unfimited, as its pairs are not logically or derivatively svnthesis —
a unique product of historical, mathe-
related, and as they are obviously padded to reach the matical, and metaphvsical imagination or insight.
number of the decad .\ristotle is doubtless correct in If we find Speusippus and Xenocrates taking as their
thinking theirs only a later variant of the original point of departure a doctrine such as we have ascribed
34 doctrine. So we have for the Pythagoreans a duality to Plato, and if we discover that their teachings were
reputed to be Pythagorean, we may regard this as part of the treatise is more interesting for our purposes,
substantially confirming the hypothesis of a Platonic and lamlilichus paraphrases the words of Speusippus.
rethinking of basic Pythagorean doctrines. Let us then Speusippus' theme is the decad. He treats it not, as
turn to these two thinkers, successors to Plato in the we might expect, by seeking for "correspondences"
headship of the Academy: the first a nephew who after the Pythagorean manner familiar to us from
succeeded probably by Plato's nomination, the second Aristotle {Metaphysics1092b 8- 1093b 29) and by find-
regarded as his most faithful disciple. We find to our is rather an essay in the
ing mystical significances. His
surprise that both of them abandon basic Platonic theory of number that we later encounter in Nico-
tenets, including belief in the ideas, and that they machus of Gerasa the mathematician (end of first cen-
apparently do so under the pressure of criticism (Meta- tury A.D.) and the Neo-Pythagoreans. In this he may
physics 1086a 2). That some of this criticism came from be their precursor.
Aristotle we cannot doubt. He was a member of the If then we have ample warrant for regarding
Academy until his departure for .\ssos on Plato's death. Speusippus as a Platonist having marked and confessed
If he ever subscribed to the theory of ideas he had Pythagorean leanings, let us now consider how he
long ceased to do so, and the Metaphysics give us modified Plato's doctrines, and whether his modifica-
repeatedly and on many covmts resumes of his objections may be regarded as "Pythagorean." It is notorious
tions which must have been worked out in discussion that he abandoned the ideas (Lang, frag. 30) and to-
within the Academy. That Aristotle e-xtorted conces- gether with them one of the two Platonic first princi-
sions is however less surprising than the fact that both ples, the indefinite dyad. In its place he recognized
men appear to have retreated to Pythagorean positions. plurality as thecompanion principle of the One. From
Let us consider the two thinkers separately, observing these two principles proceeded number, the whole
both the ground they yield and the positions they take. cosmos of intelligibles and sensibles consisting of
To Speusippus (ca. 395-339 b.c.) and his Encomium number. For Speusippus did not abandon the two-
of Plato (Diogenes Laertius 3.2), we owe the curious realm theory of Plato (Lang, frag. 29). But the "com-
tale tliat Plato's father, Ariston, attempted to force his mon groimd" (Lang, frag. 4) on which he established
own wife Perictione, but to no avail. When he desisted association of intelligible universals and sensible par-
he had a vision of .4pollo. and thereupon refrained from ticulars was number. Now if particulars too were
intercourse with her rmtil Plato was born. As essentially number it could no longer be denied that
Wilamowitz has observed, this tale strikes us, and they also were knowable. So Speusippus conceded that,
probably would strike an Athenian of the fourth cen- as a scientific rationality {ratio) in us enables us to know
tury, as bizarre and not in the best of taste. It might intelligibles, so a scientific perception — a judging fac-
even strike an Athenian as ludicrous. For Plato was ulty or criterion — enables us to know sensibles. So we
the youngest child of four, and gods traditionally have of them not behef {doxa) as Plato taught, but
favored virgins. However the point of Speusippus' tale knowledge in the full sense.
may be quite a different one. lamblichus {Vita Pijthag- Why then did Speusippus not abandon the notion
orica 4. 6) and probably also Porphyry {Vita Pytliagorae of separate substance? We are told {Metaphysics 1090a
2) recount similar tales of Pythagoras' paternity, that 3-37) that he held that as objects of science they must
he was fathered by Apollo. If this tradition goes back be separate. But if he was prepared to use Ockham's
to the foiu-th century or earUer, then what Speusippus razor on the ideas why should he cling to a realm of
means us to infer is that Plato is a Pythagoras redivivus. transcendent number? Much of his philosophical
In any event Apollinian paternity connects him with activity was devoted to the discovery of similarities
the Pythagorean tradition. {homoia), and his longest work, in ten books, bore that
That Speusippus had for Aristotle peculiarly title. Though his classifications bore a strong resem-
Pythagorean associations we see from the way in which blance to, and in some instances anticipated, Aristotle's
he couples the names "Speusippus and the Pythago- biological classification, they were not in intent bio-
reans " {Metaphysics 1072b 30, Nicomachean Ethics logical but were apparently meant to e.xhibit the struc-
1096b 5) and frequently alludes to common doctrine. ture of reality, to show how a plurality of particulars
We need not question Aristotle's testimony here, for constitutes a imitv and class. The niunbers constituting
our longest fragment (Lang, frag. 4) comes from classes and exemplified in particulars are not them-
Speusippus' treatise On Pythagorean Numbers. The first selves subject to process as are the particulars, and this
part deals with the numbers involved in the derivation was the criterion on which Plato established his two
of solids and with the five cosmic figures which, as Eva realms {Timaeus 2TD). But whereas for Plato soul
Sachs (pp. 42-48) has shown, are to be ascribed as mediated between these two realms, for Speusippus
mathematical constructions to Theaetetus. The second soul became "the form of the everywhere extended "
35
(Lang, frag. 40). This formula seems to imply a mathe- connotations. Such a theory however might lead to
matical penetration of both realms, the fact of process consequences such as those on which Aristotle remarks
being the only difference between them. It could be (Metaphysics 1028b 18), that differing first principles
made to apply to microcosm as well as macrocosm, have to be recognized for numbers, magnitudes, soul,
but it is difficult to see how such a soul could be the and so forth. Instead of a coherent system we have
cause of motion; and indeed when Diogenes Laertius episodes, as in a bad tragedy (Metaphysics 1075b 37).
attributes the definition of Speusippus to Plato he So we may conclude that in abandoning Platonic
interprets this soul as pneuma (Diogenes Laertius, 3. doctrines Speusippus reverts to simpler Pythagorean
67). ones, especially towards the thesis that "things are
Ingenious but unsuccessful attempts have been made, number" —a position of which Aristotle says that
in particular by Frank (pp. 130-34) to reconstruct the though it is an impossible one it has the merit of being
system of Speusippus. For this the fragments do not consistent. If he had abandoned it to achieve some new
afford us sufficient knowledge of detail. But one aspect synthesis of his own he would no doubt have professed
of this system is of special interest to us. Aristotle himself a Platonist, as Plotinus did later. But it would
[Nicomachean Ethics 1096b 5) tells us that "the appear that Speusippus was driven from his Platonic
Pythagoreans .seem to me to give a more convincing positions and took refuge in a profession of Pythago-
account (of the Good) when they situate the One on reanism, a Pythagoreanism to which he himself had
the good side of their column of opposites. Speusippus contributed.
apparently conforms to this doctrine of theirs." With Xenocrates (ca. 406-315 B.C.) we are on more
Aristotle recognizes (Metaphysics 1091a 36) that difficult ground. He pythagorized, as Speusippus and
Speusippus is meeting a real difficulty here, but a Plato himself had pythagorized before him. But
difficulty which, according to Aristotle, arises from mak- whereas Speusippus, in departing from Platonic doc-
ing the One a first principle and principle of number, trines, was an overt pythagorizer, Xenocrates professed
not from equating with the Good. The Pythagoreans

it orthodox Platonism but modified Platonic metaphysics
and Speusippus did not predicate goodness of their in order to render some positions less vulnerable, and
One, Aristotle says [Metaphysics 1072b .30), because to systematize. His modifications may have been natu-
they observed that in plants and animals the good was ral developments of the "unwritten doctrines." In part
a telos ("goal" or "end") achieved only in the course they may have been countenanced by Plato himself.
of development. But Theophrastus' account (Meta- What positions did Xenocrates take up in respect
physics 11a 24) suggests that this was only an argument of the twin themes of soul and number? He defined
to buttress their case. The real reason, as ,\ristotle phrase that became widely current, as "self-
soul, in a
recognized (Metaphysics 1091b 30), was that if one of moving number." This definition Plutarch attributes to
a pair ofopposed first principles was said to be good Xenocrates (Heinze, frag. 68), but according to Proclus
or theGood, then the other must be recognized as evil. (Heinze, frag. 62) Xenocrates himself attributes it to
"So he [Speusippus] used to avoid predicating good Plato. (It is attributed by the doxography, charac-
of the One, on the grounds that, since process occurs teristically, to Pythagoras— Dox. Gr. 386a 13, 651.11.)
from opposites, then necessarily pliu'ality would be evil If it was meant as a summary definition of the world
itself." (For the problems here see L. G. P., pp. 25-27.) soul of the Timaeus. it was an inadequate one. Its
Speusippus (and the Pythagoreans) may have difficulties Aristotle does not fail to point out (De
thought that this difficulty was adequately met by a anima 408b 32), and some of the commentators, in
pair of number first principles from which numbers particular Philoponus (Heinze, frag. 65), argue in
proceeded, their physical manifestations achieving Xenocrates' defense that no one who had "dipped into
their good only in the course of development. But it mathematics with the tips of a finger" could define soul
is possible that he met it also by recognizing a One so naively.
above and beyond his primary contrariety, as Plato's We may relate his definition of soul as self-moving
Good was epekeina ("above and beyond"). Proclus number to his other famous definition of the ideas as
(Comm. in Partnen.. Klibansky 38.34) tells us that "paradigmatic causes of physical objects as and when
Speusippus held a doctrine he ascribed to "the an- they occur" (Heinze, frag. 30). These ideas he identified
cients" (Pythagoreans?) —a doctrine differentiating with the idea numbers (Heinze, frag. 48). So both soul
between a first One not participating in being and a and intelfigibles are nuniber-structured. We know fur-
One in which existents participate, we assume as one ther that he derived physical magnitudes numerically
of a pair of first principles. If there is a One from which (Heinze, frags. 37-39; cf. Phifip [1966a], p. 2), indivis-
the two first principles proceed, it is easier to think ible Unes being the atomic unit of derivation (Heinze,
oD of them as purely mathematical and having no value frags. 41-49; Pines, passim.). That he should have
modified and developed Platonic doctrines seems cred- was later. It is only with Plato that we find the notion
ible. He survived Plato by thirty-three years, Aristotle of soul achieving philosophical importance and cosmic
by seven. So it seems clear that his modifications were fimctions. It does so in a universe where things are
in the direction of greater mathematization, and so of not numbers but number-stnictured. We conclude that
pythagorizing. Plato seized on two basic Pythagorean notions, soul
How his system of derivation, from first principles and number, and used them (together with other hints
to physical particulars, was articulated is still a matter from earlier thinkers) in the construction of his own
of controversy (Kramer, 2, 21-101). On one vital issue metaphysics. Plato however did not publish in detail
he seems to have been an innovator (Heinze, frags. and as a system his metaphysical doctrines. They
140-42). Plato had been singularly reticent about the remained largely "imwritten "
partly because he
relations of nous and psyche. That they were to be believed they could not and should not be communi-
regarded as distinct is implied in the Sophistes (249a cated by the written word.
2),and the Philebus (28c 7) in speaking of nous as "king Plato's closest disciples were less reticent. They
of heaven and earth" assigns it some exalted though published notes on a lecture or lectures of Plato's On
undefined status, as does the Laws. Xenocrates has a the Good, and they developed in treatises their own
single supreme first principle, nous, above the One and metaphysical doctrines, modifying what may be
the dyad. This nous is also the monad and is identified inferred to have been Plato's position. They did so in
with the Zeus of popular religion. This new doctrine, the direction of a Pythagoreanism Plato himself had
which had for later Platonism consequences Xenocrates not merely espoused but in a measure had endowed
could not foresee, may derive in part from Plato's One with its characteristic tenets. When with Arcesilaus (ca.
and the Good. It had no Pythagorean origins. Never- 250 B.C.) there occurred in the Academy a reaction
theless we may say of Xenocrates that, faithhil Platonist towards a supposedly Socratic skepticism (Burkert, p.
though he may have held himself to be, such modifica- 8,3) pythagorizing became an embarrassment. Platonic
tions of Plato's later metaphysics as he admitted were doctrines supposed to be tinged with Pythagoreanism
in the direction of pythagorizing. He commanded the ceased to be imputed to Plato and were attributed
respect of his contemporaries as much for his manners holus-bolus to Pythagoras. But Plato's reorientation of
and morals as for his thought, thus conforming to the thought towards mathematization and towards a doc-
Pythagorean ideal of the sage. trine of mind/soul continued to be fruitful of conse-
To sum up, we have in Pythagoras a great precursor quences, even when the course of its development is
to whom is ascribed a doctrine of soul having implica- concealed by the endless mystifications of later
tions for ethical conduct and a doctrine of number as pythagorizers.
the nature of the universe. It wa.s not to these teachings
however that he owed his authority. Instead, his moral
BIBLIOGRAPHY
dominance lent credit to his teachings. After his death
Aristotle, Fragmenta ed. W. D. Ross (Oxford,
his partisans formed the ruling clique of many city
selecta,
1955). VV. Burkert, Weisheit und Wissenschaft (Niimberg,

states of Magna Graecia and remained in power for
1962). F. M. Comford, Plato and Parmenides (London, 1939).
half a century. During this period we hear little of
C. de Vogel, Pythagoras and Early Pythagoreanism
his doctrines and know of no Pythagorean of philo-
J.
(Utrecht, 1966); idem, Philosophia, Part I (Assen, 1970). H.

sophical eminence. Some time about the middle of the Dials, see Vors. E. R. Dodds, Tlie Greeks and the Irrational
fifth century a wave of opposition swept the Pythago-
(Berkeley, 1951). Diogenes Laertius, Vita philosophorum, ed.
reans out of office and into exile, if they came off with H. S. Long (Oxford, 1964). E. Frank, Plato und die
their lives. As a political party they never returned sogenannte Pythagoreer (Halle, 1923). K. C. Gaiser, Platons
to power and it appears to have been only towards Ungeschreibene Lehre (Stuttgart, 1963). W. K. C. Guthrie,
the end of the century that their return from exile was A History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge, Vol. 1, 1962;
tolerated. was under a democratic regime that

It Vol. 2, 1965). R. Heinze, Xenokrates (Leipzig, 1892).
Archytas, a Pythagorean, became chief magistrate of lamblichus. Pythagorica, ed. L. Duebner (Leipzig,
Vita
1937). VV. Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philoso-
Tarentum about 375 B.C.
phers (0.xford, 1947). H. J. Kramer, Arete bei Platon und
The fifth century was productive of great thinkers
in the West —
Parmenides, Zeno, Empedocles, perhaps
Aristoteles (Heidelberg, 1959); idem, Der Urspning der
Geistesmetaphysik (.Amsterdam, 1964). R Lang, De
Leucippus. But the only Pythagorean of some stature
Speusippi academici .^criptis, diss. (Bonn, 1911). L. G. P.,
is Philolaus. He enjoys a dubious reputation as an Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. D. H.
astronomer, and for physiological speculation. His .\rmstrong (Cambridge, 1967). P. Merlan, From Platonism
teaching was as peripheral to what we must regard to Neoplatonism, 2nd ed. (The Hague, 1950). J.
A. Philip,
as central Pythagorean doctrines as that of Archytas Pythagoras and Early Pythagoreanism (Toronto, 1966a); o7
—
PYTHAGOREAN HARMONY OF THE UNIVERSE
idem. "The 'Pythagorean' Theory of the Derivation of Mag- with real, i.e., spatial, existence, the discovery of musi-
nitudes," Phoenix, 20 (1966b), 32-50. S. Pines, .A netv fraf^- cal laws — more tangible than vague analogies
ment of Xenocrates APS (Philadelphia, 1961}. Porphyrins, governing the whole of creation, and especially the
Vita Pythagome in Porphyrii Opusnila, ed. O. Nauck, 2nd starry universe, was an intoxicating one, and in its
ed. (Leipzig, 1886). Proclus, In primimi Euclid, comin., ed.
precise and extended mathematical elaboration a
G. Friedlein (Leipzig, 1873). E. Rohde, Psyche, trans. W. B.
peculiarly Greek one.
Hillis (London, 1925). W. D. Ross, Plato's Theory of Ideas
Orientaland Near-Eastern cosmologies all show
(O.vford, 1951). E. Sachs, Die ftinf platonische Korper (Berlin,
some ordering principles at work, principles in many
1917). J.
B. Skemp, The Theory of Motion in Plato's Later
Dialogues (Cambridge, 1942). Vors., Die Fragmente der instances exerting influence on terrestrial life. The
VorsokraHker. ed. H. Diels and W. Kranz (Berlin, 1938: 1952) Greeks did not know where these ideas came from,
but Plutarch referred to the "Chaldeans" (De anim.
JAMES PHILIP
procr. 1028), and so did Philo Judaeus, who described
[See also Analogy; Harmony or Rapture; Idea; Music and the Chaldeans (or Babylonians) as having set up ". . .
Science; Neo-Platonism; Number; Platonism; Pythagorean aharmony between things on earth and things on high,
Harmony.]
between heavenly things and earthly. Following as it
were the laws of musical proportion (Sia (iouoiktjs
Xoyuv), they have exhibited the universe as a perfect
concord or symphony produced by a sympathetic
affinity between its parts, separated indeed in space,
PYTHAGOREAN HARMONY but housemates in kinship" (De migrat. Abrahami
OF THE UNIVERSE X.\XII, 177f., trans. F. H. Colson). It is possible that
not only Greek cosmologies but also Jewi.sh beliefs in
In the course of summarizing Pythagorean contri- an ordered universe hymning the praises of its
butions to Greek thought, .\ristotle, having pointed out Maker — expressed in the Psalms, in the visions of Isaiah
the importance of mathematics to the Pythagoreans, and of Ezekiel, and especially in the Talmudic book
adds that "since . . . they saw that the modifications of lioma —
may have been influenced by Babylonian
and the ratios of the musical scales (ap/xocdoc) were lore. The same Philo who credited the Chaldeans with
expressible in numbers; — since, then, all other things discovering cosmic harmony wrote a lengthy commen-
seemed in their whole nature to be modelled in tary on the six days of Creation (De opificio mundi)
numbers, and numbers seemed to be the first things with constant allusions to Pythagorean theories, thus
in the whole of natiu'e, they supposed the elements what was for him the common parentage of
stressing
of numbers to be the elements of all things, and the Greek and Jewish cosmology.
whole heaven to be a scale and a number" (Meta- Among the fragments of pre-Socratic philosophy
physica A 5 986a, trans. W. D. Ross). Aristotle was there are a few references to symphonious order in
probably describing the views of fifth- and fourth- the heavens. Anaximander (b. 610 B.C.), for whom the
century Pythagoreans such as Archytas of Tarentum, planets were wheels of fire visible through "breathing-
under whom the doctrine of a universe ordered by the holes,
"
posited relative sizes of 27, 18, and (presuma-
same numerical proportions that govern musical bly) 9, thus 3-2-1, for the sun, moon, and "stars"
harmonies was developed. (planets?) with respect to the earth. This graduated
How much the semimythical Pythagoras of Samos order was not accompanied by musical soimd; but
(late sixth had to do with formulating the
century B.C.) Anaximander did compare the "breathing-holes" in his
laws of cosmic harmony is not known; he is credited fiery circles to the holes of musical pipes. In the Proem
by Diogenes Laertius with having discovered that the of the fifth-century Parmenides' "Way of Truth" the
principal musical consonances result from the sounding axle of a fast-moving heavenly chariot glows in its
of proportionate lengths of a stretched string, so that socket and sings out Uke a pipe; a surviving portion
within the series 1-4 (the sacred Pythagorean tetraktys) (frag. 12, Diels) of the second part, the "Way of Opin-
simple ratios give forth the octave (2:1), the fifth (3:2), ion," of the poem suggests further connection with
and the fourth (4:3). In these same proportions and .\na.ximander's cosmology whUe at the same time
their multiples, and particularly in the "means" foimd prefiguring one of the great statements of the music
within multiples of the duple proportion (arithme- of the spheres, the Myth
of Er in Plato's Republic.
tic = 2:3:4; geometric = 1:2:4; harmonic = 3:4:6), Finally, the mysterious "attunement of opposites of '
lay for subsequent Pythagorean thinkers the rela- Heraclitus (frag. 51, Diels) was related both to the
between all sorts of natural phenomena. Since
tionships cosmos (by Plutarch, De anim. procr. 1026 B) and to
OO numbers were for them not abstractions but quantities music (by Plato, Symposium 187).
To return to Pythagoras himself, impossible to "the whole heaven to be a scale and a number,
"
it is its
sort out historical truth from the welter of myth sur- paradigm made out of a kind of celestial monochord.
rounding this figure. But according to the doxographer No one knows whether Plato in the Titnaeus was
Hippolvtus, Pythagoras is said to have taught that the himself thinking as a Pythagorean or was reporting
universe is put together by means of harmonic laws current theories not originated, perhaps not even fully
and so produces, through the motion of the seven believed, by him. But the Timaeus main is for us the
planets, rhythm and melody (see Diels, Doxographi source of Pythagorean cosmology; and so was for it
Craeci [1879], p. 555). The very enthusiastic Neo- the later ancient world as well. A large surviving body
Pvthagorean lamblichus went so far as to claim that of commentary by Neo-Platonic and Neo-Pythagorean
Pythagoras could actually hear the cosmic music writers (the fullest and best is that of Proclus in the
inaudible to other mortals. And since all discoveries fifth century a.d.) shows what fascination Plato's work
about the Pythagorean cosmos were dependent on the had — as well as how unclear his meaning was. Tlirough
numerical ratios sounded by the stretched string or the Latin commentary of Chalcidius the Timaeus was
monochord, it was reported by the Neo- Platonic musi- known in the Middle Ages, and Renaissance Neo-
cal theorist Aristides Quintilianus (third century a.d.) such as Marsilio Ficino, added to the body
Platonists,
that Pythagoras' dving injunction to his students was of work seeking to amplify and explicate Plato's ac-
fioi'oxopSiêiv ("work the monochord "). count. The tuning system outlined in the Timaeus
It is not from Pythagoras himself, nor yet from any became a regular part of Creek musical theory, given
of his direct followers, that we get a full and circum- hill statement Kavovos (ca. 300 B.C.)
in the kototoiut/
stantial account of the formation of the universe by attributed to and included in the musical
Euclid,
the laws of harmony; the first such account — and treatise of the great astronomer Ptolemy (second cen-
certainly the most important — is that given in Plato's tury A.D.), whose celestial harmonies are an elaborate
Timaeus. In this dialogue Timaeus the Locrian is scientific restatement of Plato's cosmic sketch.
spokesman for Plato's version of Pythagorean cosmic Plato does not describe his harmoniously conceived
doctrine. (On the basis of a spurious .Alexandrian dia- imiverse as sonorous in the Timaeus — the musical the-
logue paraphrasing Plato, "Timaeus of Locris was " ory outlined there belongs to the Greek discipline of
long thought to be the source of Plato's Pythagorizing harmonics, the timing of intervals, rather than to music
views.) The wondrous tale of the Demiurge fashioning itself. What is known to us as the ""music of the
the World- Soul is told (Timaeus 35-36); after this spheres comes from another source in Plato, the Myth
"
psychogony has been completed it serves as model of Er at the end of the Republic. Er the Pamphylian,
(napabeiyfia) for the creation of the corporeal world. a hero slain in battle, was given the privilege of seeing
Out of a material blended of Sameness and Difference, the next world and then returning to life to describe
ideal and bodily Existence, the Demiurge constnicts what he had seen. The vision of Er includes once again
a model for the universe. The psychic material is cut a model of the universe, a set of concentric rings or
or marked into proportionate lengths before being split whorls — the planets —hung on the spindle of Necessity.
and bent into circles illustrating the makeup of the The rims of these whorls are of different sizes and
planetary system. It is these proportions, yielding the colors, and they revolve at different speeds — all the
series 1-2-3-4-9-8-27, a compound of two geometric iimer ones in opposition to the movement of the outer
series (1-3-9-27and 2-4-8), that outline the Pythagorean rim, the firmament. The Pythagorean proportions of
harmonic world. Plato forms a scale that "sounds his " the Timaeus are lacking here; but present is actual
ideal celestial distances. Within the two geometric music, for as the spindle turns, "on the upper surface
series are placed arithmetic and harmonic means, of each circle is a siren, who goes roimd with them,
creating proportions of 3:2, 4:3, and (their difference) hymning a single tone or note. The eight together form
9:8. The proportion 4:3 (in musical terms an interval one harmony {apixoiiai')" {Republic X. 617, trans. B.
of a fourth) is filled in, or marked off, with intervals Jowett).
of the size 9:8 (in music, a whole tone), leaving in Thus for Plato the universe was designed according
each fourth a small difference (\np.fxa), or semitone, to harmonious proportions, and this intellectual har-
of 256:243. The result is a musical scale, based on a mony could be described, in the metaphoric language
tuning of intervals that has ever since been termed of a dream-vision, as soimding music. Whether or not
Pythagorean, of nearly five octaves tmly universal, — the cosmic myths of the Timaeus and the Republic
since by far greater in compass than any scale
it is were meant by their author to be related, most people
given by Greek musical theorists. Out of material in the ancient world took them to be so. Since the
marked with this scale, then, the Demiurge forms the term harmonia could mean, among other things, the
World- Model, and thus it is that one could suppose interval of the octave, some commentators made of 09
—
the Sirens' music a single octave of the Timaeus scale the octave, to the midpoint of a monochord (see M,
sounding simultaneously but audible successively to Vogler in Festschrift ]. Schmiilt-Oorg [1957], pp.
anyone privileged to move through the planetary 377-82). Where human actions are concerned the line
realms (such a voyage is described in a long didactic between cosmic harmony and astrology is a fine one;
poem by the encyclopedist Martianus Capella in the indeed there was no real distinction lietween the two
fifth century a.d.). Whether the scale went up or down for ancient writers, although the more vulgar aspects
from outer to inner planets, whether the motionless of astrological belief were scorned by serious thinkers.
earth "sounded "
in this celestial scale — these and simi- The third book of Ptolemv's Hannonics. devoted to
lar questions were treated in detail by Neo- cosmic analogies of all kinds, shows a distinction be-
Pythagorean writers. And despite Aristotle's rejection tween apfioi'ia Koafiov and (ip/iocia ipvxfi'i; these
of sounding planetary rims (in favor of his own silent, categories, rendered in the Latin of Boethius' De
frictionless spheres; see De caelo 290-91) belief
II. 9. musica (early musica mundana and
sixth century) as
continued strong in a literally musical universe, with musica humana, are joined with the music simg and
the harmonious gradation of sound produced by the plaved by men {musica instrumentalii) to form a
differing planetary speeds. These speeds in turn are tripartite division of the science and art of music that
regulated by the distances of the planets from earth, was to be canonical for the next thousand years in
the center of the .system, or from the firmament, its academic circles. In fact, the place of music in the
outer rim. curriculum, as a part of the quadrivium (along with
Plato's Pythagorean imiverse was studied, com- geometry, astronomy, and arithmetic) is really due to
mented upon, and imitated; one of the most popular the central importance of Pythagorean views of the
and long-lived imitations was Cicero's Somnium subject in late antiquity. It should be remembered that
Scipionis, a dream-vision placed at the end of his De academic study of music was primarily the study of
reptiblica in direct imitation of Plato. For Cicero it —
harmonics of tuning systems and of musical arithme-
is the motion of the spheres that produces the "great tic, the properties of the numerus sonorus.
and pleasing sound "

of the universe. This sound is a For the Church Fathers Pythagorean beliefs were
concord of "carefully proportioned intervals, "
there acceptable as long as biblical parallels could be found
being seven tones in all; these seven planetary tones for them; and for notions of cosmic harmony there
were equated and other later commen-
(by Macrobius were, as scholars like Philo discovered, plenty of paral-
tators) with the seven numbers of Plato's geometric lels. The second-century Alexandrian philosopher
series in the Timaeus. Mortal beings, accustomed from Numenius went so far as to say "For what is Plato,
birth to the sound of the cosmos, cannot ordinarilv hear but Moses speaking in Attic Creek? words quoted "
—
it; only in a vision, or after death, does its sublime bv Clement of Alexandria and other Fathers; and ac-
harmony, of which terrestrial music is an imitation, cording to Josephus (Contra Apionem I, xxii), Pythag-
reveal itself. oras himself was an admirer and imitator of Jewish
The core of Pythagorean belief in universal harmony beliefs. Acceptance of the literal reality of the music
is the music — heard or inaudible — of the celestial ele- of the spheres varied from writer to writer, but re-
ments. But the subkuiarv world also partook of this ceived a great boost when Saint Jerome translated from
harmony: the elements of fire, air, water, and earth; the Book of Job a passage (.38:.37) dealing with rain-
the seasons; the days of the week; the flow of rivers clouds as concentum cocli Cjitis dormire faciei, "who
and the tides of the sea; the direction of winds; the can make the harmony of heaven to sleep?" (Douay
growth of plants. These and many other earthly trans.).
phenomena were viewed as directly related to the Jerome, in making this translation, drew upon the
heavens, and so governed by the same principles of Creek version of Symmachus, a member of an early
harmonics or musical mathematics. An elaborate set Judeo-Christian sect with strong Cnostic tendencies.
of these correspondences is given by the late Creek Pythagorean cosmic ideas as developed by Cnostic
theorist Aristides Quintihanus (Ikpi MoDai^^)s, Book writers took on a much more obvious astrological cast,
III). Man, the microcosm, shares in this harmony: with the planets becoming deities invoked by mystic
everything from the gestation period of the hmnan hymns using music "proper" to each planet. This sort
embryo and bodily proportions to the smallest details of thing was strongly opposed by orthodox Christian
of human behavior is governed by analogy with, or writers, but, as in the case of Jerome's translation, it
dependence upon, celestial harmony. Even such may occasionally have exerted some influence. Jewish
apparently prosy dicta as apx'I 5f toi iijuioju wai'Tos belief in the angelic habitation of the universe, colored
(freely rendered as "once begun is half done ") could by Cnostic angelology and given orthodox standing by
40 be related to the proportion 1:2, to the interval of the sixth century (when the nine angelic hierarchies
—"
of Dionysius the Areopagite became accepted), proportions in architecture, perhaps practiced in
ultimately led to belief in a musica coelestis, angel- antiquity, was revived in the building of the Gothic
music in or above the starry heavens. This form of cathedrals, and became a preoccupation with archi-
cosmic harmony persisted even in the later Middle tects from the time of Alberti (mid-fifteenth century).
Ages, when Pythagorean thinking was rather dis- The Venetian monk Francesco di Giorgio, author of
credited because of the scholastic adherence to the an enormous, relentlessly Pythagorean treatise called
anti-Pythagorean Aristotle in all things; and in Dante's De harmonia totius mundi (1525), wrote a memoran-
Paradiso one finds musica mimdana and musica dum recommending the use of the Timaeus series in
coelestis combined in a blazing vision of light and the building of a church. A generation later, when
sound. Andrea PaUadio completed the facade of this church
In general, Pythagorean ideas were repeated and (S. Francesco della Vigna), he used a scheme of 27
elaborated whenever currents of Neo-Platonism were moduli, thus Plato's outer limit, for its width.
strong: in the sixth-century commentaries of Boethius Pythagorean ideas seem to have a less vivid appeal
and Cassiodorus; in the ninth-century Carolingian re- after the Renaissance. But before retreating, diiven by
vival (John Scotus Erigena, Regino of Priun); in the seventeenth-century rationalism into poetic metaphor,
writings of the Chartres school of the twelfth century the Platonic-Pythagorean cosmos received a splendid,
(Guillaume de Conches, Alain de Lille). Cultivation of consummatory restatement in Kepler's Hannonices
Neo-Platonic thought in the medieval Arab world was mundi (1619), which Kepler himself describes as a work
marked by preoccupation with musica humana the — picking up where Ptolemy left off. It separates the
harmonious makeup and workings of the human body Copernican spheres by intervals defined by the five
resulting in theories about the curative powers of music regular solids of Greek geometry, and finds harmonic
that were taken literally enough to cause music to be proportions expressible in nnisical terms a seven- —
played as a therapeutic agent in hospitals. The great teenth-century chordal complex rather than a Greek
revival of Neo-Platonism among fifteenth-century scale — in the relationships between the movements of
humanists led to some imaginative restatements of planets and their respective medium distances from the
Pythagorean cosmic belief by such men as Giorgio sun. Kepler, like Ptolemy, includes a whole treatise on
Anselmi of Parma [Dialoghi, 1434) and MarsiUo Ficino musical theory to lay the groundwork for his theories
(in a number of works, but most fully in a commentary of cosmic harmony.
on the Timaeus). as well as to encyclopedic compi- In the Vtriusque cosmi (1617) of Robert Fludd, con-
lations of everything the ancients said on the subject, temporary and archenemy of Kepler, the Ptolemaic
the fullest being that of the theorist-composer Fran- systemis still the basis for an elaboration, lengthy and
chino Gafori (Theorica musicae, 2nd ed. [1492], I, i, formless, of Pythagorean ideas. In seventeenth-centiu-y
"De musica mundana"). Italy Mario 1641-42) and
Bettini {Apiaria, Giambat-
Although the acceptance of the Pythagorean
literal tista (Almagestum novum, 1651)
Riccioli presented
cosmos in the early Renaissance was tempered with traditional Pythagorean cosmologies with Keplerian
a certain sophisticated skepticism in the sixteenth cen- refinements tacked on. Polymaths such as Marin
tury, enthusiastic restatements of the old beliefs con- Mersenne in France {Harmonie universelle, 1636) and
tinued to appear; a work hke Pontus de Tyard's Soli- the German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher {Musurgia
taire second (1555) contained a 200-page exposition of universalis, 1650) continued the process of summariz-
musique mondaine 6- musique humaine. Universal ing, and in a way bringing up to date, Pythagorean
harmony was described in poetry: Italian, French, and lore.
especially English. .\nd it was depicted in fetes and Elements of Pythagorean thought have persisted
intermedi; Leonardo da Vinci designed the planetary among philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers.
sets and celestial mechanism for a Festa del Paradiso Leibniz, for example, was fond of Pythagorean imagery
given at Milan in 1490. No music for this survives; (see R. Haase, "Leibniz und die pythagoreisch-
but a score showing how a Renaissance musician harmonikale Tradition," Antaios. 4 [1962], 368-76),
thought of cosmic harmony does exist for a tableau and his doctrine of "pre-established harmony" might
staged as part of the festivities at a Medici wedding be seen as a new version of musica mundana/ humana.
in Florence in 1589. This tableau, designed by In the nineteenth century Platonic cosmology was
Giovanni de' Bardi, was called "L'Armonia delh sfere, much studied, especially by German scholars; and
and contemporary accounts make it clear that Bardi philosophers like Schopenhauer took up the old images
was trying to depict on the stage Plato's Myth of Er. of world harmony once more. One of the most inter-
Other aspects of Renaissance culture were touched esting of nineteenth-century cosmological studies is A.
by Pythagorean doctrine. The use of "harmonious

"
von Thimus' Die liannonikale Symbolik des Alterthums 41

RAMISM
(1868-76), in which the presence of esoteric numero- RAMISM

logical lore is traced in the records of ancient cultures
aroiuid the uorld. The term "Ramism '
is used to designate the intellec-
The estabhshnient by the German astronomer J. E. tual trends, in part philosophical and in part pedagogi-
Bode 11747-1826) oi a simple arithmetic series to rep- cal, associated with the work of Pierre de la Ramee,
resent planetary distances from the sun,and the later better known as Petrus Ramus, or Peter Ramus
inclusion of the newly-discovered planet Neptune in (1515-72). Ramism was a mixture of scholasticism and
the series (see Duhem, Systeme, II, 15-17) carried humanism which spread in the sixteenth and seven-
forward Keplerian ideas of harmony; in the stellar teenth centuries through norlnern Europe and the
twentieth century a new system of harmoniously pro- British colonies in North .\merica. Avowedly anti-
portionate planetary distances was worked out by the Aristotelian, it drives toward simplification of all
cosmologist VVilhelni Kaiser (Ceometrischeii Vorstel- knowledge through a kind of noetic bookeeping, anti-
lungen in der Astronomie. Kosmos und Menschen- iconographic and diagrammatic in form, implemented
wesen. 1930), while at the microscopic level V. Gold- bv the new art of t\ pography. Its confident rationalism
schmidt h;is found die proportions of the musical scale allies Ramism with the Cartesianism and Enctjclo-
in the relative dimensions of crystals (Veber Hannonie pedisme which followed it.
und Complication, 1931). The cosmos of the Timaeus 1. Ramus' Ramus was a polymath at the
Career.
has found twentieth-century admirers such as Sir University of Paris,where he came as a boy from his
Arthur Eddington and A. N. Whitehead; and one can native Picard village of Cuts (Oise), and where he
call twentieth-centurv scholais like Hans Kayser received his master of arts degree, taught, became
(Lehrbuch der Hannonik, 1950) genuine Neo- principal of the College de Presles, and in 1551 was
Pythagoreans, in that their aim is to reinterpret and named Regius Professor of Eloquence and Philosophy.
to reestablish, with the support of modern scientific .\round 1562 he embraced the Protestant Reformation.
knowledge, the basic Pythagorean concepts of world Following a sojourn in Germany and Switzerland in
harmony. 1568-70, he returned to the University of Paris, where

he was murdered August 26, 1572, in the third day
of the St. Bartholomew's Massacre.
Ramus was widely erudite, patient in working
through difficult subjects, and seriously committed to
BIBLIOGRAPHY the intellectual lifeand even more to educational re-
Still of the first modern inves-
fundamental importance is
form, though his original contributions to knowledge
"Uber die Bildung der

tigation of the subject, A. Boeckh, were slight. His published works range over dialectic
Weltseele im Timaeos des Platon," Gesammelte Heine (logic), rhetoric, grammar (Latin, Greek, and even
Schriften (Leipzig, 1866), III, 109-80. See also: R. S. French), .\ristotelian physics and metaphysics (both of
Brumbaugh, Plato's Mathematical Imagination {Blooming- which he ridicules), arithmetic, algebra, and geometry,
ton, Ind., 1954); F. Cosmology (New
M. Cornford, Plato's and include also a few Latin translations from the
York, 1937); R. Crocker, "Pythagorean Mathematics and
Greek, classical commentaries, some of which bear on
Music." Jottrnal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 22 (19631,
legal and military science, as well as academic orations
189-98, 325-35; P. Duhem, Le systeme dn monde. Histoire
and prefaces and remonstrances and letters, and a
des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon a Copernic, 10 vols.
posthumously published systematization of Christian
(Paris, 1913-59); E. Frank, Plato tind die sogenannten
doctrine. His works add up to around sixty titles and
Pythagoreer (Halle, 19231; M. Ghyka. Le nombre d'or. Rites
et rythmes pythagoriciens dans le developpement de la

those of his academic associate and lieutenant Omer
civilisation occidentale (Paris, 19321, R. Hammerstein, Die Talon or .\udomarus Talaeus (ca. 1510-62) to some
Musik der Engel (Bern, 1962); J.
Haiidschin, Der Toncharah- thirteen more. Talon did the initial work on the Ramist
ter (Zurich, 1948); J.
Hutton, "Some English Poems in Praise reform of rhetoric, under Ramus' supervision. Nearly
of .Music," English Miscellany, ed. .\1. Praz (Rome, 1951), 800 extant editions of works of the two men have been
II, 1-63; H. Kayser, Lehrbuch der Hannonik (Zurich, 1950); identified — or, if the various works in collected editions
L. Spitzer, "Classical and Christian Ideas of World Har- are counted separately, over 1 which some 450
100, of
mony: Prolegomena to an Interpretation of the Word
are editions of the works on logic and rhetoric.
Stimmung,' Traditio, 2 (1944), 409-64; 3 (1945), .307-64.
'
2. Ramus' Significance. Ramus' significance and

JAMES HAAR on his reorganization of dialectic or
influence hinge
[See also Cosmic Images; Cosmologv; Harmonv or Rapture; which a reorganization of rhetoric was tied.
logic, to
Macrocosm and Microcosm; Neo-Platonism; Pythagorean Ramus had been educated at the University of Paris
42 Doctrines.] at a time when the highly formalized, scientific logic
RAMISM
of the Middle Ages was falling into desuetude, in great discovery of all arguments and their arrangement to
part because of the attraction of the studia human- the one sole "art" which he styled indifferently dialec-
itatl'i. the studies centered on the human "lifeworld," tic or logic, maintained adamantly that logic was logic,
rather than on exact science, which lie at the center the same in poetry as in mathematics.
of the Renaissance. Logic {or dialectic — the terms were The new Ramist arrangement made up in forth-
for themost part synonymous, though carehil thinkers rightness and simplicity for what it lacked in accuracy
could distinguish them, as explained below) should be and suppleness, and this gave it its appeal. Once
something close to common sense, accessible to all, not dialectic or logic was divided into invention and judg-
a skill for speciahsts. This attitude was common ment, each of these was itself subdivided into two parts.
throughout the humanist tradition and is found in Invention thus split into invention of "artificial" argu-
Rudolph Agricola (Roelof Huusnian, 1444-85), with ments (intrinsic or analytic argiunents such as causes
whose work to a degree Ramus work connects. and effects, subjects, adjuncts, disparates, contraries,
Ramus' logic rejects the works in the ."Aristotelian etc.) and invention of "inartificial "
argiunents (extrinsic
Organon, substituting as an approach to his subject argimients, such as testimonw less cogent than the
Agricola's Ciceronian division of dialectic into inven- artificial). These "parts "
or headings are basically the
tion (inventio)and judgment {indicium}, and using this loci or topoi (topics or "places "
or commonplaces)
division as a means of annexing some areas of instruc- treated bv Aristotle in his Topics and Rhetoric, by
tion previously assigned to rhetoric. The classic Boethius, and by countless others. They constitute
Ciceronian rhetoric had been divided into five "parts": "seats "
(sedes) or areas
— "headings" they could be
invention {inventio. discovery of "argimients"), judg- styled today — where one might find arguments to
ment or arrangement (indicium or dispositio, assem- prove a point. Judgment or arrangement was likewise
blage or composition of the material discovered), style dichotomized into axiomatic judgment (enunciations)
(ehcutio), memory {memoria), and delivery {pronun- and dianoetic judgment (reasoning processes).
tiatio). Maintaining that rhetorical invention and Each of these subdivisions was further divided,
composition were needless duplications. Ramus excised always into two parts, and the resulting subdivisions
these "parts" from his (and Talon's) treatment of again dichotomized and subdichotomized until all pos-
rhetoric, relegating them to dialectic only. He also sibihtv of further division was exhausted. The bipartite
dropped memorv from rhetoric, giving as his reason division employed here was itself accounted for in
that if one followed the "natural" or methodical order Ramist dialectic: it was, in fact, "method, one of the "
demanded by logic in the development of thought, two types of reasoning processes, of which the other
memory was hardly a problem. This left rhetoric with was syllogism. Syllogism handled shorter structures of
style and delivery. Style meant the use of tropes and thought, method all longer structures, whether scien-
figures and became in effect the whole of rhetoric, for tific treatises (including those on dialectic itself), class-
delivery was given onlv token treatment. Since delivery room teaching, orations (including sermons), letters,
meant oral presentation, it was in fact losing relevance narrations, and poetry. Method in any and all subjects
in a world more addicted to writing than Cicero's or genres ideally moved always from the general to
world had been and recently coming under the sway the "particular." Deviations from method, proceeding
of print, although this quite real reason for the atrophy from the particular to the general ("cryptic method), "
of delivery, and the licjuidation of memory, was seldom were advisable or tolerable only when the audience
if ever adverted to. was recalcitrant or ignorant or otherwise ill-prepared.
Some earlier thinkers had distinguished various Although Aristotle, Galen, and others had discussed
logics in terms of degrees of logical necessity in their methodos in senses more or less related to the modern
procedures. Scientific logic, such as that in mathe- term "method, the textbook association of method and
"
matics, proceeded to necessary or inevitable ctjnclu- logic which Descartes learned in school and trans-
sions. Other kinds of logic dealt rather with proba- mitted to subsequent generations of thinkers is trace-
bilities: dialectic was concerned with arguing for the able directiv to Ramus and
contemporaries Johann
his
more probable two opposed positions, as in a formal
of Sturm and Philipp Melanchthon. Between the years
was concerned with argumentation
debate; rhetoric 1543 and 1547 all three introduced sections on method
probable enough to conduce to action; poetry was into their textbooks on dialectic or logic. (Melanchthon
concerned with verisimilitude. As a kind of sub- had done a bit with method slightly earlier.)
probability or reverse probability at the bottom of this Ramist method differed from Sturm's and Melanch-
scale lay sophistry, concerned with specious argumen- thoii's most effectively in its attractive diagrammatic
tation, falsehood proposed as truth. Ramus jettisoned simplicity. From classical antiquity, in academic tradi-
all such attention to probabilities and, assigning the tion the oration or public address had served as the 43
RAMISM
chief paradigm for all prose composition, often even memory systems, running from Cicero to Giordano
for letter-writing. Ramist method provided as an alter- Bruno, are deployed in the imagination in set spatial
native to this old oral organization of thought and patterns to expedite retrieval of the knowledge associ-
expression a design more adapted to print (and to ated with them. Ramism adapts this tradition. It retains
writing, too, although until print, writing had failed the practice of deploying material in spatial patterns
to modify many of the basically oral structures of to expedite recall, but eliminates all iconography, sub-
primitive human culture). The typical product of stituting for statues of .Athena, Zeus, and the like mere
Fâmist method would be the modem encyclopedia printed words connected to one another by lines in
article. an extremely simple binary pattern forming the
All the curriculum subjects, not merely dialectic or dichotomized Ramist charts of "methodized '
noetic
logic, could be methodized and were, if not by Ramus material. These correspond exactly to the "flow charts"
then by his followers. Indeed, to the Ramist mind, with which a computer is programmed today. This
classroom teaching, which was both highly analytic and Ramist substitution of lettered words for iconographic
polemically colored, thus became somehow the figures Frances Yates styles "inner iconoclasm" (p. 235).
paradigm and expression. By extension,
for all thought From another point of view, the Ramist dichot-
the entire universe of learning and indeed the entire omized charts and the mode of thought which bred
physical imiverse, which the arts mirror or picture, them show connections with the medieval logic which
becomes susceptible of neat diagrammatic analysis in Ramists and humanists generally in principle detested.
dichotomized outline form. In his edition of some of It is now known that by comparison with Aristotelian
Ramus' works entitled Professio regia (1576), Ramus' logic medieval logic was highU' quantified in very
disciple Johann Thomas Freige (Freigius) so analyzes advanced ways. The quantifying heritage finds a new
Cicero's —
career the first dichotomy is life/death but bizarre outlet in the Ramist charting of k-nowledge,
(vita/mors) —
and another disciple, Theodor Zwinger now imder the encouragement of print, which removed
the Elder (1533-88), in his Methodus apodetnica (1577) words more than ever from their natural habitat in
produces a dichotomized logical analysis of the the oral world and made them maneuverable items in
V'errocchio equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni space.

in Venice (diagrammed in terms of intrinsic causes and 3. Range of Ramus' Influence. Ramism penetrated
extrinsic causes, and so on). chiefly Germany, the British Isles, Switzerland and
The impetus to diagrammatic treatment of this sort Alsace, France, the Low Comitries, and to some degree
is of course old. Diagrams such as the Tree of Porphyry Scandinavia, as well as the British Colonies in North
can be found in the pretypographical manuscript tra- America, particularly New England. In all these places
dition. But elaborate outlines of the sort that spread it tended be most favored where Calvinism was
to
through thousands of pages of Ramist-inspired works favored, not so much because of Ramus' late-espoused
on all subjects are extremely difficult to reproduce Protestantism as because of the temper of his thought,
accurately in manuscript. On a printing press they which admirably suited the rising bourgeoisie from
were no more difficult to run than were pages of ordi- which Calvinism drew so many of its recruits. The
nary text. Hence it is understandable that after the noniconographic and neat structures which Ramism
development of typography they flood the world of imposed on knowledge appealed to those who liked
learning. Insofar as its model of knowledge and of to keep account books straight and who also hated all
actuality is one which is eminently adaptable to print, "idols. In New England, Ramist modes of organizing
"
Ramism is thus a post-Gutenberg phenomenon. and expoimding knowledge are evident in Increase
Ramist method isalso a memory system of a special Mather, Cotton Mather, Samuel Johnson, John EHot
sort. Before print made massive indexing feasible by (who translated Ramus' Dialectic into Algonquian), and
locking words into exactly the same places in thousands others. Significantly, Ramism exercised its greatest ap-
of copies of a given book, even in cultures with writing, peal at the pre-imiversity level of education, although
knowledge had
to be organized to implement it left its often unacknowledged mark on many a uni-
mnemonic and heavily symbolic or allegorical
recall, versity mind
figures such as Athena and her owl, Zeus and his 4. Effects of Ramism. Ramism affected virtually all
thunderbolts, Merciuy and his wand and winged knowledge with the possible exception of medicine,
sandals, are noetically fimctional as well as aesthet- which vigorously resisted Ramus' anti-,\ristotelianism.
ically pleasing. From the remotest antiquity through Making a great deal of clarity and distinctness and of
the Renaissance, knowledge was commonly stored for analysis of all sorts —
the term "logical analysis" was
recall by being associated with such mythological or recognized in the sixteenth century as a charac-
44 otherwise iconographic figures, which, in various teristically Ramist term — Ramism considered branches
RAMISM
of knowledge to be totally separated from one another demic interest to new areas and fostered a juncture
in themselves, however united in use. In the lower of academic learning and artisan know-how, as can be
curriculum ranges encouraged schematization of
it seen in the development of printing. But Ramism did
Latin and Greek grammar —
and often of vernacular not share equally all humanist enthusiasms. The
grammar, even though this was not taught in school. imaginative interest in the human which marked much
Because it placed a high premium on logic, regardless in the Renaissance and which eventuallv helped gener-
of what kind of expression was involved, Ramism dis- ate the modern fields of cultural history, sociology,
couraged ornateness of expression and encouraged a anthropology, and psychology, and much else, is weak
"plain style." This was not the "low style" of classical in the Ramist milieu. The resonances of human life
and medieval rhetoric but rather an expository mode were not congenial to this anti-iconographic, diagram-
of expression, highly cerebral and analvtic, developed matic, encyclopedic cast of mind, which produced
out of habits of composing in or while writing (instead singularly few poets.
of using writing to "put down" what was orally Ramus himself engaged in endless controversies, at
composed), quite impossible in an oral culture, a style least seven of which broke into printed exchanges,
of the sort which Thomas Sprat reports the Royal sometimes running over several years. His followers
Society encouraged in the immediately post-Ramist age were equally contentious, and out of the learned world
of the late seventeenth century, as near "mathematical" of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries some 500
expression as possible. persons have been listed as Ramists, anti-Ramists, and
In philosophyRamism encouraged a systematization semi-Ramists or svncretists, who undertook to
which went beyond medieval achievements or even
far harmonize Ramist and Aristotelian or other competing
ambitions. It encouraged a corresponding systematiza- logics.
tion in theology, where Johannes Piscator (1546-1625)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
imdertook to do a logical analysis of every book of
the Bible, clearly separating what it really "argued" The most
extensive treatment of Ramus and Ramism is
from the rhetorical finery with which its logical ma- tobe found in Walter J. Ong, Ramus, Method, and the Decay
chinery was purportedly draped. of Dialogue (Cambridge, Mass., 19581, which contains an
exhaustive bibliography. The same author's Ramus and
The main thrust of Ramus' reform of learning was
Talon Inventonj (Cambridge, Mass., 1958) locates in quan-
not toward what later became modern science. That
tity copies of editions of these authors' works, catalogues
is, it was not toward experimental observation con-
the Ramist controversies, and gives a list of hundreds of
joined with the application of mathematics to physics. Ramists, anti-Ramists, and semi-Ramists or svncretists; this
Ramus' reform drove toward simplified analvtic order work is being enlarged by the author to include new discov-
in presentation of subject matter and toward an eries. M. Bochenski, A Hisfori/o/Forma/Logic (Notre Dame,
I.
empiricism in teaching methods which skirted abstruse Ind., 1961), and VVilhelm Risse, Die Logik derNeuzeit, Vol. I,
details. However, the practical drive which produced (Stuttgart, 1964), situate Ramus' logic in the history of the
Ramist simplification and empiricism did also open new science. The Art of Memory, by Frances A. 'iates {Chicago,
intellectual horizons. It encouraged giving studious 1966), places Ramism in the history of mnemonics and
attention to matters previously regarded as beneath

discusses the Bnmo-Dicson-Perkins dispute omitted by Ong
from his catalogue of Ramist controversies. R. Hooykaas,
formal academic concern. Ramus himself, although he
Humanisme, science, et refonne: Pierre de la Ramee (Leiden,
took for granted with virtually all his contemporaries
1958), treats Ramus and the artisan-technology world. \V.
that Latinwould remain the dominant language of the
S. Howell's Logic and Rhetoric in England, 1500-1700
was interested also in the vernacular
intellectual world,
(Princeton, 1956) situates Ramus' work in one of the major
and published a French grammar in reformed spelling. national traditions. The history of method is discussed in
Close, if sometimes ambiguous, connections exist be- Neal W. Gilbert, ReTmis,sance Concepts of Method (New
tween Ramism and the manual arts and crafts of the York, 1960). Petnis Ratnus en de Wiskunde, by
J. ].
V'erdonk
bourgeois world where Ramism had so much appeal. (Assen, 1966), exhaustively studies Ramus' place in the
At a deeper level, the Ramist tendency to dissociate history of mathematics. See also Ong, "Peter Ramus and
thought from the human context of discourse and make the Naming of Methodism," Journal of the History of Ideas,
it into a kind of thing —

a tendency derivative from
14 (1953), 235-48; idem, "Ramist Classroom Procedure and
the Nature of Reality," Studies in English Literature, I
but not entirely continuous with the quantification in
medieval logic —favored the growing tendency to view (1961), 31-47;
cial
and idem, "Ramist Method and the Commer-
Mind," Studies in the Renaissance, 8 (1961), 155-72.
the universe as basically an aggregate of neutral objects
rather than as something vaguely animistic. WALTER JACKSON ONG
Ramus' work belongs in part to the enlarging world [See also Iconography; Necessity; Flatonism; Renaissance
of humanism. Renaissance humanism extended aca- Humanism; Rhetoric] 45
RATIONALITY AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS
RATIONALITY AMONG THE This may why it was that the Greeks,
help to explain
GREEKS AND ROMANS rather than other nations,were the first to put forward
theories about the natural world which could be criti-
When E. R. Dodds chose to entitle his 1949 Sather cized on rational criteria. The Milesians (Tliales,
Lectures "The Greeks and the Irrational," his intention Anaximander, and ,\naximenes) in the sixth century B.C.
was doubtless to present a paradox. For the Greeks explained the origin of the world, not by the mating
are generally taken to be the discoverers of rationality, of powerful divinities, but as a natural process of
or at least to have made the first giant steps on the growth from a simple substance to a complex form.
path of rational inquirv into the nature of the universe They explained the relationship of the constituent parts
and the good man. Some such generalization
life for of the world b\' using analogies drawn from men's
as this is certainly acceptable. But it is not easy to pick social experience (such as justice or war), or arts and
out and describe those qualities exhibited by extant crafts, in such a way that reasons could be offered for
Greek writers which entitle them to be called "ra- preferring one theory to another. The Milesians did
tional," without being vague and trivial. And there is not explain what the difference was between their
no single equivalent in Greek for "rationality" such theories and the stories about the natiu'al world told
that one could examine its uses and leave it at that; in the myths; but it is clear that they operated with
the word /ogos comes near it. bvit it covers a wider an idea of rationality which was well advanced, even
range of meanings. It seems best therefore to concen- if not explicitly formulated.
trate on certain definite topics which fall within the Towards the end of the sixth century, a significant
field, in the knowledge that other quite different arti- step forward was taken by .Xenophanes of Colophon,
cles might be written under the same heading. who criticized the theology of the Homeric poems and
Section 1 describes some of the stages of the devel- Hesiod. The surviving fragments give his criticisms and
opment from myth to rationality. The criterion that assertions without the reasoning. "Homer and Hesiod
has been kept in mind to distinguish rationality is the attribute all things to the gods that among men are
presence of reasoned argument for preferring one al- a shame and a disgrace" (frag. II). "God is one, greatest
ternative to others. Section II reviews the theories of among gods and among men, in no wa\ like men in
Greek and Roman moralists who, in some way or other, form and thought" (frag. 23). "Always he remains in
teach that to be virtuous is to be rational. Section III the same [place], moving not at all, nor is it fitting
discusses theories that find rationality in the cosmos for him to move, now here, now there" (frag. 26). "If
and in the workings of nature. oxen and horses and lions had hands or could paint
There is little space, and the author lacks the and make things with their hands like men. then they
competence, to include other topics which might well would paint the forms of gods and make their bodies
find a place under his heading, such as the origin and each according to their own shapes, horses like horses,
development of logic, the various manifestations of oxen like o.xen" (frag. 15). The basis of his criticism
irrationalism in the Greco-Roman world, such as magic appears to have been that he saw an inconsistency
and astrology, and the "rationalism" of classical Greek between the concept of god as something different
art and architecture. from man, and the stories told about the gods, which
made them behave as men do.
/. FROM MYTH TO REASON Contemporary with .Xenophanes, Pythagoras moved
The earliest surviving Greek Uterature is in the realm in a new direction to explain the phenomenal world
of myth, which rationalit\ is not much to be

in in terms of a rational structure behind appearances.
expected. Even here, however, it has often and cor- "Things are numbers. It is notoriouslv hard to know
rectly been observed that Greek myth, as compared what was the precise meaning and range of the theory
with that of other nations, contains a striking degree propoimded by the founder of the Pvthagorean school;
of rationality. For example, thepowers of the gods in but he certainly began the way of thought later fol-
the Homeric poems, though supernatural, are never- lowed bv Plato and all mathematical physicists in
theless distributed according to a pattern in which seeking for a rational svstem, expressible in mathe-
reason can be seen. The cosmogonical myths, too, in matical concepts, which would unify the multifarious
Homer and Hesiod are not so extravagantly inconsist- changing appearances presented to the senses. In the
ent and some of the myths of the Near
fiintastic as earliest form of this theory, it seems that there was
East. It noteworthy that Hesiod's Theogonij includes
is a demand for extreme simplicity: the whole world was
among the lists of gods several personifications of con- to be explained without using more than the first few
cepts drawn from human society — Wisdom, Right, integers in the number series. It was a piece of bravado
46 Lawfulness, Justice, Peace. typical of the pre-Socratics to claim that such a vast
and complex object as the cosmos itself could be the Forms, perfect, unchanging, and intelligible, and
reduced to the simplest elements in this way, and so the "unreal phenomena of the sensible world.
could be understood by the human mind. It was Parmenides was thus led bv the exigencies of his
Pythagoras, according to one tradition, who used the reasoning to reject the evidence of the senses com-
word cosmos for the world for the first time, as part pletely. According to Plato (Pannenides 12Sd), some
an orderly pattern
of his claim that there is in the world made fun of the argimient "b\ showing that it led to
which can be understood and expressed. many absurdities and contradictions"; Parmenides"
In this early period of Greek philosophy, the idea pupil, Zeno, then came to the help of his master with
began to emerge that there is an order, a reasona- arguments to show that the opponents' supposition that
bleness, in the natural world, which somehow corre- there is plurality leads to even more absurd conse-
sponds with the human mind. Perhaps the idea was quences. .According to this view of them (which is
formulated as early as Anaximenes of Miletus, who hkely to be historically correct), Zeno's paradoxes had
identified the stuff of which the world is made with as their aim a reductio ad absurdum of the proposition
the human psyche, saying that both are air. It ap- that there are many things in existence. The paradoxes
pears unmistakably in the work of Heraclitus (ca. themselves, e.g., Achilles and the tortoise, the flight
500 B.C.), who professed to be the mouthpiece of of an arrow, etc., and other reductio ad absurdum
the Logos according to which all things come to pass illustrations of change and diversity, are too well
(frag. 1). known to need description. They are typical of Eleatic
The earliest fully conscious plea for consistenc) in philosophy as a whole, which succeeded in issuing a
philosophical theory (or at least, the earliest that has great intellectual challenge to all who wanted to phi-
survived) is the poem of Parmenides of Elea, "On losophize about the nature of the world. The Eleatics
Nature" (riepi <l>iJoEto9; first half of the fifth century). showed that concepts must be examined with a new
One of the striking peculiarities of this work is its rigor, and inferences must be free from contradictions.
mixtm-e of myth and reason. The content is presented It has sometimes been asserted that the work of the
as a revelation that was granted to Parmenides bv an philosophers of Elea shows the influence of mathe-
unnamed goddess. But at the same time it is a closely maticians, in that the structure of their arguments is
reasoned argument, and the goddess says "judge by similar to that of mathematics, especially of geometry.
reason (logos) the hard hitting criticism that I have However, the state of mathematics in the fifth century
spoken" (frag. 7.5). The criticism is aimed at earlier is very obscure. Some believe that by the middle of
theories, such as those of the Milesians and Heraclitus, the century (approximately when Zeno was writing),
which asserted of things that they "are and are not." there already existed a system of geometry in which
Parmenides shows clearly a characteristic that is deeply theorems were deduced from a few postulates and
rooted in Greek thought: the desire that the words used axioms, by means of a few explicit rules of inference.
to describe the world shall pick out with absolute and Others claim that the first "Elements" must be put
inviolable clarity the objects they are intended to iden- much nearer the date of Euclid (ca. .300 B.C.). It seems
tify. A statement about something in the world should reasonable to say that to explain the characteristics of
state what is the case in such a way that its truth is Eleatic philosophy by assuming a connection with
not affected by circumstances like change of time or mathematical reasoning is to explain ignotum per
change of the place of observation or change in the igiiotius.
observer. Parmenides carried this demand so far that However this may be, the Eleatics, in the earlier
he denied the reality of the changing world. To say its strongest form
half of the fifth century, adopted in
that something "is not" is to say nothing about it, or a position thatwas responsible for both the strengths
rather it is to talk about nothing; and such talk is and the weaknesses of Greek philosophy; they were
nonsensical. Hence one can only say "it is." But all confident that by reasoning or "pure thought" one
descriptions of change must necessarily say that some- might be entitled in theory to ignore and reject the
thing (the state of affairs before the change) "is not," evidence of sense perception.
and hence they all contain this element of nonsense: We must now look at the growth of coasciousness
"So coming to be is extinguished, and destruction is about method in fields of Greek thought other than
unintelligible" (frag. 8.21). He went on to make a sharp philosophy.
distinction between "the way of truth," which says only Two of the medical writings attributed to Hippocra-
that "it and cannot not be
is, one, continuous, . . . tes, generally thought to belong to the late fifth cen-
and the "way of seeming," a deceitful way, in which tury, are particularly interesting for their recom-
there is plurality and variation. It is a distinction very mendations about method. Airs, Waters, Places begins:
similar in its intention to Plato's distinction between "Whoever wishes to pursue properly the science of 47
medicine must proceed thus." The recommendation is of the conduct of peoples and their leaders is fully
to take careful note of the effects of geographical developed in Thucydides.

conditions and climate upon health. The statement of It is clear that in the second half of the fifth century
these effects is highly dogmatic; but the work shows the audience for whom the Greek writers wrote be-
clearly a remarkable interest in comparative observa- came accustomed, very new standards of
rapidly, to
tions of different peoples, and a desire to do better rationahtv in all fields human creativity. Traditions
of
than rely on trachtional lore and crude trial and error. once taken on trust were now questioned and criti-
The doctor, savs the author, mvist have a rational the- cized. The organization of society and even its religious
ory of health, as affected by environment. The Sacred institutions became subjects for debate. In .Athens at
Disease is well known for its insistence on natural least, it appears that arguing became a favorite
causes of the disease in question, and its rejection of pastime, and the subject matter might be anything
superstitious ideas about its origin and attempts to cure imder the sim.
itby "purifications and incantations." There is no point in seeking for a simple explanation
Sometimes it has been said that there is a striking phenomenon; all that can be done is to mention
of this
difference between the kind of reasoning employed by some of its manifestations. One was the Sophistic
the Hippocratic doctors and that of the early Greek movement. The Sophists, that is, Protagoras, Hippias,
philosophers (a particularly notable expression of this Prodicus, Antiphon, Thrasymachus, and others less
view is F. M. Comford's Principium sapientiae). The famous, found that they could earn a living by teach-
philosophers, it is said, demonstrated a ruthless ining young men various subjects, especially the art of
difference to empirical evidence, and were prepared public speaking. There had previously been no
to generalize extraordinarily widely on the basis of one organized higher education, and the Sophists found a
or two observations or ideas. The doctors, on the other ready market. The young men responded with alacrity
hand, resisted such all-embracing theories and recog- to the invitation to join in questioning traditional
nized the need for detailed observation and even ex- beliefs and customs. The Sophists came from many
periment. The Hippocratic treatise On AncietU Med- parts of the Greek world and were widely travelled;
icine begins who base
with a denimciation of those their pupils learnt that the way of life in their own
their work on a "hypothesis"
— "heat, cold, moisture,
all
city-statewas not the only one possible. The fact that

dryness, or anything else that they may fancy" — ignor- there were wide differences in morality among differ-
ing the professional discoveries and records of earher ent societies suggested that all moral rules might be
practitioners. However, this is a difference that should —
questioned and criticized and rejected if they could
not be overstated. The medical writers denounced the not be rationally defended. The literature of the period
"hypotheses" of the philosophers, but could not free contains many references to the distinction between
themselves from other, equally sweeping and imcon- nature and custom: some Sophists claimed that the
troUed, generalizations. Scientific research into an- only universally applicable moral rules were those
atomy, and pathology, controlled by
physiology imposed by nature; all others were "merely" a matter
systematic observation, began rather later, with Aris- of conventional agreement.
totle and his successors, and the medical writers of Naturally such a widespread questioning of tradition
the Hellenistic period, e.g., Erasistratus (third cen- aroused opposition. Aristophanes" Clouds is a comic
tury B.C.). poet's version of the conflict. The pupil of the Sophist
The second half of the fifth centiu-y saw the begin- (Aristophanes uses Socrates as the representative of the
ning of historiography, and the advance from Sophists, ignoring certain essential differences) learns
straightforward storyteUing to a reasoned analysis of that not Zeus but "Vortex" is the ruler of the world,
events was dramatically swift. The begirmings of a he learns to reject the convention of filial obedience,
critical approach can already be seen in Herodotus, and he learns to use argument with skillful dexterity
who wrote: "I must tell what is told me, but I need to get what he wants. Much more seriously, there were
not believe it entirely" (7, 152). He does indeed include several trials in .Athens for "impiety," the most famous
some wildly improbable stories in his history, especially of course being those of Protagoras, Anaxagoras, and
about the more remote regions of the earth; but he Socrates. The charge against Socrates, according to
often sounds a note of rational skepticism about what Plato's Apology, was that he was 'guilty of corrupting
he has been told. He can sometimes, although not the youth, and of believing not in the gods whom the
always, make allowances for a biased source. state believes in but in other new divinities. "
What
Thucydides, by contrast, frames his story largely to lay behind tfiis charge, according to Plato, was the
bring out his own analysis of cause and effect, and of resentment caused by Socrates' questioning of the tra-
the motives — often the hidden motives —of the partic- ditional sources of morality, and his encouragement of
4o ipants. The idea of applying reason to the explanation his young listeners to do the same.
The literature of the period in which the Sophistic dation is set out in the Rcpubhc. The ideal state is
movement arose (or at least, Athenian literature) shows described as wholly devoted to instilling knowledge
one outstanding characteristic: an extraordinary taste into those who will be rulers of the state, and to making
for and skill in argument. The Sophists themselves sure that they will always be in a position to bring
taught the technique of arguing both sides of a ques- their knowledge on the life of the community.
to bear
tion, as a method of imparting skill in speaking. The The objects knowledge form a far more
of their
common occurrence of two-sided debates in Greek integrated structure than Socrates envisaged, and the
tragedy, especially in Euripides, shows the popularity method of acquiring it was to be a long and single-
of this kind of contest. The surviving law court minded educational process far different from the cas-
speeches are of course only a small proportion of the ual conversation of Socrates and his friends. The
speeches composed diu-ing this time; Athens suffered proposals of the Republic are accompanied bv an anal-
from litigation as from some endemic disease. What is ysis of the human psyche into three parts: the intellect,
to be noticed in the surviving speeches is an emphasis the spirited part, and the appetite. Goodness of char-
on rational argument, on what is "probable" or "rea- acter consists in the subordination of the two "lower"
sonable" (eulogon), as opposed to irrational methods parts to the intellect, just as the virtue of the state
of persuasion, such as swearing oaths or offering one's consists in the subordination of the two lower classes
slaves to be questioned on the rack. armed forces and the producers, to the
of citizens, the
philosophic rulers. The object of the knowledge thus
//. RATIONALITY AS AN ETHICAL NORM enthroned, both in the individual and in the state, is
"Socrates," Aristotle wrote, "believed all the virtues nothing in the sensible world: it is the eternal Forms
to be forms of knowledge, so that to know justice of Plato's theory, "the Good itself, " "Beauty itself,"
once we have learnt geometry

entails being just; for accessible only to the eye of reason after a long training
and architecture we are geometers and architects" in mathematics and dialectic.
{Eudemian Ethics, Book 1, Ch. 5, 1216b 7). That this Aristotle differed considerably from Plato in his view
was truly a belief of Socrates is confirmed by the of the place of reason in ethics. He made a distinction
portrait of him given in Plato's earlier dialogues. It between theoretical reason and practical reason. It was
is far from clear, however, how the paradox is to be a mistake, he thought, to expect in ethics the same
interpreted. What kind of knowledge is virtue? The kind of precision that is required in the subjects studied
analogy with the arts and crafts suggested by Aristotle by the theoretical sciences. Ethics deals with individual
and often used by the Platonic Socrates suggests some cases. Universal propositions are of course possible, and
kind of skill derived from practice and instruction. But necessary, but their application tohuman behavior will
the Socratic method illustrated by Plato's dialogues was never be direct and simple. The man of practical wis-
rather a search for definitions, conducted as a rule dom is one who has much experience of human affairs,
between two people, by question and answer. Socrates and has learnt how to act both bv studying the precepts
encouraged his listeners to ask and trv to answer such and examples of others and by having acted himself.
questions as "What is piety?" (Euthyphro), "What is In spite of this distinction between the theoretical
courage?" (Laches). The implication is that if one could intellect and practical thought, Aristotle returns in the
give a satisfactory answer, then he would have the end to an almost Platonic evaluation of the life of pure
corresponding virtue. "No man willingly, does wrong." thought. It turns out that although moral goodness is
That is to say, if a man knows what is the right and not dependent on theoretical knowledge, yet the best
virtuous thing to do in given circumstances, he will hfe for man is the life of "theory" or contemplation.
do it; failures are due to some kind of ignorance. This is because such a life is the most godlike. The
The most important feature, perhaps, of Socrates' characteristic virtue of man, according to this Hue of
belief was that it led to searching inquiries into ethical thought, is the functioning of the highest part of the
concepts and the relations between them, inquiries that soul; plantshave only a nutritive and reproductive soul,
had consistency as their first demand. Socrates in the animals have this and a sensitive soul in addition, and
Platonic dialogues is often engaged in showing one of only men (and gods) have souls which are also capable
his interlocutors that some proposition advanced by of reasoning. Reason is therefore the highest of men's
him is inconsistent with something else that he wants faculties, and the exercise of reason is the best life for
to assert, or with something that has alreadv been a man.

agreed. A set of propositions about what the virtues Rationality as a virtue was emphasized most of all
are which was free of such inconsistencies would by the Stoic school, beginning in the third century B.C.
apparently constitute the knowledge that makes a man and adopted with much enthusiasm by many Roman
virtuous. thinkers. The Stoics based this emphasis, more thor-
Plato's elaborate structure upon this Socratic foun- oughly than Aristotle, on a view of man as part of 49
nature. The rational soul of man was declared to be The Timaeus cosmology is in the form of a nivth,
part of a universal reason (logos), whicli interpenetrated so that it is not easy to know how it is to be interpreted.
the whole of the cosmos form of pneuma. The

in the Aristotle, however, used a similar distinction, and in
proper aim of a man's was defined as "to live in
life a much more literal way. His model for explanation
accordance with nature"; but since the whole of nature of events in the natural world is still human craftsman-
was directed by the universal reason, this aim could ship, but he is clear, as Plato is not, that this is only
also be described as living according to reason. In a model, and not to be taken at face value; there is
practice, this ideal, which could probably in theory no craftsman who made the cosmos, because the cos-
be interpreted in an almost infinite variety of ways, mos had no beginning and will have no end. Nature
turned out to have two important consequences for is like art. in that it is piu-posive: explanations of the
Stoic moral theory. First, it gave substance to the phenomena of nature will therefore seek first for the
notion that those actions are morally correct for which purpose "
or end that they serve. Not everything is
reasons can be given; this played an important part purposive; the rest must be explained as coming from
in shaping the Stoic list of "duties "
(ofjicia) and in the "necessity "
of matter.
determining the Stoics' attitude to them. Secondlv. the .Aristotle's conviction that nature works "for an end"
verv high value placed on reason went along with a amoimts to a belief in the rationality of the cosmos,
devaluation of the emotions, which were held to be since the end is always what would be chosen if the
merely "disturbances of the soul." The ideal Stoic, the natural process were directed by a rational agent.
wise man, is described by Cicero (De finibus 3, 75-76): Aristotle's idea of the activity of god was that he is
once reason has taught him that moral goodness is the perpetually engaged in thinking. Since his god's activ-
onlv thing of any real value, he is happy forever; he ity is the cause of the continuity of motion in the
is more trulv a king than Tarquin, who could not rule cosmos, primarily the motion of the stars and other
either himself or his people; more trulv a leader than heavenlv bodies and derivativelv of the continual in-
Sulla, who was a leader in vice; more free than anvone, terchange of the earthlv elements, it might appear that
because his mind is not enslaved bv desires and cannot the rationalitv of natiu-e could be simply explained as
be chained. the deliberate choice of a rational god. But it is clear
that this connection was not made by Aristotle or at —
///. THE RATIONALITY OF THE COSMOS any rate not in his most mature and serious work on
It word "cos-
has already been mentioned that the cosmology. The rational working of nature is simply
mos" was first applied to the universe bv Pythagoras, a fact; it has alwavs been so, and so it does not call
if is correct, and that his purpose
the traditional storv for any genetic e.\-planation.
was to indicate the orderliness of the imiverse. From The Stoic school came closer to Plato in explaining
that time on, two aspects of order fascinated the the rationality of nature as the work of a rational god.
philosophers: the regularity of the motions of the stars, They went, in fact, as far along this path as it is possible
and moon, with the attendant seasons and
planets, sun, to go. God is identified as a rational spirit which
seasonal changes on earth; and the evidences of permeates, as a physical presence, every part of the
purposiveness in nature, especially in the structure of cosmos, and causes all the changes which take place
living things. The explanation of these two aspects of in the cosmos, according to a providential plan. This
order was a dominating theme in the natural philoso- faith in the rationality ofeverything in natiu-e, backed
phy of the Greco-Roman world. up bv the collection of evidences (see especially Cicero,
Anaxagoras (mid-fifth century b.c.1 first named Mind De natiira ileorum II), was a necessary presupposition
as the originator of the cosmos. It appears, however, of the Stoic moral doctrine which taught that the right
that he used this concept only to explain how the world wav to live was "in conformity with nature."
was first set in motion, and did not go on to explain
how the cosmic mind organized tlie cosmos into its
orderly and purposive form. Plato's Timaeus is the first

Let my first Emperor Marcus
conviction be [wrote the
Aurelius, Meditations X Whole which
6] that am part of a
surviving account of this. He represents the world as
I
is under Nature's governance; and my second, that a bond

the product of two causes: mind (or reason) and neces-
of kinship exists between myself and all other similar parts.
sity. Mind is put into the world bv the divine Demiurge
If I bear these two thoughts in mind, then in the first place
who created it; necessity is a property of the material
... 1 shall cheerfully accept whatever may be my lot; in
with which he had to work. Mind is responsible for the second place. I shall do nothing which might injure
the orderly and regular features of the cosmos. Neces- the common welfare of my fellow parts. . . . Thus doing,
sity, also called "the wandering cause," for the irregu- 1 cannot but find the current of my life flowing smoothly
50 larities of the cosmos. (trans. Ma.xwell Staniforth, Baltimore, 1964).
REALISM IN LITERATURE
The Platonists. Aristotelians, and Stoics represent, A. S. Pease, "Caeli enarrant," Harvard Theological Review,
for all the considerable differences between them, a 34 (1941). Max Pohlenz. Die Stoa (Gottingen. 1948). Karl
common tradition in their assumption of rationality in R. Popper, "Back to the Presocratics," in his Conjectures
the cosmos. An alternative was offered bv the atomists, and Refutations (London and New York. 1962). Gerasimos
Santas, "The Socratic Paradoxes," Philosophical Review, 73
first Leucippiis and Democritus in the late fifth century,
(1964), 147-64. Bruno Sneil. Die Entdeckiing des Geistes
and later Epicurus and his Roman follower Lucretius.
(Hamburg, 1948); trans. T. G. Rosenmeyer as The Discovery
The atomists did not deny that rational explanations
of the Mind (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass., 1953). G.
could be given for natural events; indeed they insisted
Vlastos: see Cornford. lames L. Walsh, Aristotle 's Conception
on But they denied that nature works for an end.
of Moral Weakness (New York and London, 1963).
it.
They explained everything as the outcome of collisions

of atoms, moving at random in the infinite void, with
DAVID FURLEY
no mind of their own and no god to steer them. They (.See also Historiography; Irrationalism; Necessity; Plato-
did not deny the regularities and signs of purposiveness nism; Pre-PIatonic Conceptions; Pythagorean Doctrines,
in the world. They offered the motions of atoms as Harmony; Stoicism.]
an alternative explanation of the regularities; and the

evidences of purpose they explained as having emerged
by natural processes in the course of time, by natural
selection, or trial and error. It is curious that the only

words of Leucippus that survive a.sserl that "nothing REALISM IN LITERATURE
happens random, but everything from reason (logos)
at
and necessity." It can only be supposed that he meant The term "realism" was originally used by the
that every event has an explanation in previous events; thirteenth-century scholastics as meaning a belief in
there are no completely spontaneous or uncaused the reality of ideas; it was contrasted with
events. "nominalism" which supported the doctrine that ideas
The atomists attempted to depart from the model are only names or abstractions. In the eighteenth cen-
of human reason in talking about the natural world. tury meaning was practically reversed; in Thomas
its
But the model had too strong a hold. Their mode of Reid, in Kant, and in Schelling reaUsm means the
explanation remained less plausible in the ancient opposite of idealism. As a literary term, realism occurs
world than the teleology of Aristotle or the Stoics, and first in a letter of Friedrich Schiller to Goethe (April
atomists were on tlie whole an eccentric minority. The 27, 1798) asserting that "realism cannot make a poet."
chief reason for this (apart from the fact that the atomic Friedrich Schlegel, in the same vear ("Ideen," No. 6)
theory was wedded to a peculiar moral theory by formulated the paradox that "all philosophy is idealism
Epicurus) was that the theory could not explain the and there is no true realism except that of poetry."
regularities of the cosmos and the artistry of nature SchelUng in his Vortesungen iiber die Methode des
without any knowledge of elementary laws of motion ahadeinischen Studiums (1802) refers to Plato's
and without exact measurement. "polemic against poetic realism." The term was rather
frequent in German romantic aesthetics but does not
mean either specific writers or a specific period or
BIBLIOGRAPHY school. It is simply used as the opposite of idealism.
.\rthiir W. H. Adkins, Merit and Responsibility: a Studij The term appears next in France as early as 1826.
in Greek Values (Oxford, 1960). H. Boeder, "Der friihgriech- A writer in the Merciire franqals even prophesied that
ische Wortgebrauch von Logos und Aletheia, Archil fiir ' "this doctrine which leads to faithful imitation not of
Begrijfsgeschichte. 4 (1959), 82-209. F. M. Cornford, the masterworks of art but of the originals offered by
Principium sapientiae (Cambridge, 1952); see the review bv nature" will be the "Hterature of the nineteenth cen-
G. Vlastos, Gnomon, 27 (1955), 65-76. E. R. Dodds, The tury, the literature of the true" (Borgerhoff, 1938).
Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley, 1951). Ludwig Gustave Planche, in his time an influential antiromantic
Edelstein, Ancient Medicine (Baltimore, 1967). A. -J.
critic, used the term "realism" from about 18.33 onward
Festugiere, La revelation d'Hernies Tristnegiste, Vol. II, Le
almost as an equivalent of materialism, particularly for
dieu cosinique (Paris, 1949). W. K. C. Guthrie, A History
the minute description of costumes and customs in
of Greek Philosophy, 3 (Cambridge and New York,
vols.
historical novels.Realism is concerned, he says, with
1962; 1965; 1970). G. S. Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning and
Function in Ancient and Other Cultures (Cambridge and "what escutcheon is placed over the door of a castle,
Berkeley, 1970), esp. pp. 238-51. Gilbert Murray, Five what device is inscribed on a standard, and what colors
Stages of Greek Religion. 3rd ed. (New York, 1951). Wilhelm are borne by a lovesick knight" ("Moralite de la
Nestle, Venn Mythos zum Logos, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1942). poesie," in Revite des deux mondes, 4th ser., 1 [1835], 51
250). Clearly with Planche realism means almost the a local school of realistic writing. The situation in the
same as "local color," exactitude of description. main countries varies greatly in this respect. In
Hippolyte Fortoul, in 1834, complains for instance of England there was no realist movement of that name
a novel by A. Thouret that it is written "with an before George Moore and George Gissing, late in the
exaggeration of realism which he borrowed from the eighties.
manner of M. Hugo" ("Revue Htteraire du mois," in Still, the terms "realism" and "realist" occur in an
Revue des deux mondes, 4th ser. [1 Nov. 1834], 339). article on Balzac as early as 1853, and Thackeray was
Realism at that time is thus merely a feature observed called, rather casually, "chief of the Realist school"
in the method of writers whom we would today call in 1851. George Henry Lewes was the first English
"romantic," in Scott, in Hugo, or in Merimee. Soon critic who systematically applied standards of realism,
the term was transferred to the minute description of for instance, in a severe review, "Reahsm in Art: Re-
contemporary manners in Balzac and Murger, but its cent German Fiction" (1858). There Lewes boldly
meaning cr)'stallized only in the great debates which proclaims ". . . ReaHsm the basis of all Art." In David
arose in the fifties around the paintings of Courbet, Masson's British Novelists and their Styles (1859),
and through the assiduous activity of a mediocre Thackeray is contrasted as "a novelist of what is called
novelist, Champfleur)', who in 1857 published a volume the Real school" with Dickens, "a novelist of the Ideal
of essays with the title Le realisme. while a friend of or Romantic school," and the "growth among novel-
his, Duranty, edited a short-lived review Realisme writers of a wholesome spirit of Realism" is welcomed.
between July 1856 and May 1857. (See Bernard Wein- Realistic criteria such as truth of observation and a
berg, 1937; H. U. Forest, "'Realisme,' Journal de depiction of commonplace events, characters, and set-
Duranty," Modem Philology, 24 [1926], 463-79.) In tings are almost universal in Victorian novel criticism.
these writings a definite literary creed is formulated ("Balzac and his Writings," Westminster Review, 60
which centers on a very few simple ideas. Art should [July and October 1853], 203, 212, 214; "William
give a truthful representation of the real world: it Makepeace Thackeray and Arthur Pendennis, Es-
should therefore study contemporary life and manners 43 [January 1851], 86; G.
quires," Eraser's Magazine,
by observing meticulously and analyzing carefully. It H. Lewes, Westminster Review, 70 [October 1858],
should do so dispassionately, impersonally, objectively. 448-518, esp. 493; D. Masson, op. cit., Cambridge
What had been a widely used term for any faithful [1859], pp. 248, 257; see Richard Stang [1959].)
representation of nature now becomes associated with The situation in the United States was very similar:
specific writers and is claimed as a slogan for a group in 1864 Henry James recommended "the famous "real-
or movement. istic system'
"
—
obviously referring to the French for —
There was wide agreement that Merimee, Stendhal, study to a fellow novehst, Miss Harriet Prescott, who,
Balzac, Monnier, and Charles de Bernard were the he complained, had not "sufficiently cultivated a deU-
precursors, while Champfleury and later Flaubert, cate perception of the actual" {Notes and Reviews, ed.
Feydeau, the Goncourts, and the yomiger Dumas were Pierre de Chaignon La Rose, Cambridge, Mass. [1921],
the exponents of the school, though Flaubert, for in- W. Dean Howells, writing in 1882,
pp. 23, 32). But" only
stance, was annoyed atthe designation and never speaks of Henry James as the "chief exemplar" of an
accepted it for himself. (On Flaubert see Maxime du American school of realism and from 1886 onwards
Camp, Revue des deux mondes, 51 [June 1882], 791: propagated realism as a movement of which he
Le mot [Realisme] le blessa et, dans son for interieur, counted himself and James as the chief proponents
it ne la pmais admis.) There is a remarkable, tire- ("Henry James, Jr.," Century Magazine, 25 [1882],
somely monotonous agreement in the contemporary 26-28).'
discussion of the main features of realism. Its numerous In Germany there was no self-conscious realist
enemies judged the same traits negatively, complain- movement, though the term was used occasionally. In
ing, for instance, about the excessive use of minute 1850 Hermann Hettner spoke of Goethe's realism, in
external detail, of the neglect of the ideal, and seeing "Die romantische Schule, Schriften zur Literatur
"
the vaunted impersonality and objectivity as a cloak (Berlin [1959], p. 66). Otto Ludwig devised the term
for cynicism and immorality. With the trial of Flaubert poetischer Realismus in order to contrast Shakespeare
in 1857 for Madame Bovanj the term was completely with the contemporary French movement (Cesamtnelte
estabhshed in France. Stem, Leipzig [1891], 26411.). Julian
Schriften, ed. A.
The French debate soon found its echoes in other Schmidt used the term in articles in Die Grenzboten
countries. We must, however, distinguish between the from 1856, and in his history of German Literature
use of the term "realism" in reporting French develop- (1867) for what is usually called "Das Junge Deutsch-
52 ments and the adoption of the term as a slogan for land" {Die Grenzboten, 14 [1856], 486ff.; "Die
Realisten 1835-1841" in Julian Schmidt, Geschichte der Tolstoy disapproved of the radical critics and showed
deutschen Literatur seit Lessings Tod, Vol. 3, Die a violent distaste for Flaubert though, surprisingly
Gegenwart, 1814-1867, 5th ed., Leipzig [1867]). Even enough, he praised Maupassant ajid wrote an introduc-
in Marxist theory the term emerges very late. It cannot tion to a Russian translation. Though truth and truth
be found pronouncements of either Marx or
in earlv of emotion is mandatory for Tolstoy in \V7iaf is Art?,
Ejigels. It was not till 1888 that Engels, in an English the word "realism" does not occur in his writings
letter to Miss Harkness commenting on her novel, The prominently at all; e.g., Tolstoy's introduction to S. T.
City Girl, complains that it is ". . . not quite realistic Semenov's Peasant Stories (1894) ridicules La legende
enough. Reality, to my mind, implies, besides truth to de Julien I'liospitalier {Vtlwt is Art? and ILssays on Art,
detail, the truthful reproduction of typical circum- trans. A. Maude, Oxford [1930], pp. 17-18; the intro-
stances" (Uber Kunst und Literatur, ed. Michail duction to Maupassant [1894], ibid., pp. 20-45).
Lipschitz, BerHn [1948], pp. 103-04). The term "naturahsm" was in constant competition
In Italy, Francesco De Sanctis defended Zola in with "realism" and was often identified with it. It is
1878, and thought reaUsm an "excellent antidote for an ancient philosophical term for materialism,
a fantastic race fond of phrasemaking and display." epicureanism, or any secularism. In a literary sense it
The Italian reaUstic novehsts invented a new term, can be found again in Schiller, in the preface to Die
verismo, though Luigi Capuana, the most prominent Braut von Messina (1803), as something which Schiller
theorist of the group, came to reject all "isms" both finds worth combatting, as in "poetry everything is only
for himself and his friend Giovanni Verga: Cli 'ismi' a symbol of the real" (Samtliche Werke, ed. Giintter-
contemporanei {Verismo, simbolismo, idealismo, cosmo- Wi'tkowski, Leipzig [1909-11], 20, 254). Heine, in a
politismo) ed altri saggi (Catania, 1898). passage of the 1831 Salon which profoundly impressed
In Russia the situation was again different: there Baudelaire, proclaimed himseff a "supernaturahst in
Vissarion Belinsky had adopted Friedrich Schlegel's art" in contrast to his "naturalism" in religion {Salon
term "real poetry" as early as 1836; he apphed it to [1831], in Werke, ed. O. Walzel, Leipzig [1912-15],
Shakespeare, who "reconciled poetry with real Hfe," 6, 25: In der Kunst bin ich Supematuralist). But again
and Walter Scott, "the second Shakespeare, who the term crystallized as a specific literary slogan only
achieved the union of poetry with life" (Sobranie in France. It had been used before in Russia by Belinsky
sochinenii, ed. F. M. Golovenchenko, 1, Moscow who usually spoke of the "natural" school in Russian
[1948], 103, 107-08). After 1846 Behnsky spoke of hterature headed by Gogol, but who in the 1847 "Sur-
Russian writers such as Gogol as the "natural school" vey of Russian Literature" used "naturalism" expressly
(ibid., 3, 649; see note on p. 902 referring to Bulgarin's as an opposite of "rhetorism" {Sobranie sochinenii, ed.
use of the term earlier in the same year). Belinsky Golovenchenko, Moscow [1948], 3, 775, 776, 789). In
determined the views of the radical critics of the sixiies French, as in EngUsh, naturalist means, of course, sim-
but, among them, only Dimitri Pisarev used the term ply student of nature, and the analogy between the
as a slogan. Realism for him is, however, simply analy- writer and the naturalist, specifically the botanist and
sis, criticism. "A reaUst is a thinking worker" zoologist, was ready at hand. Without using the term
(Sochineniya. Polnoe sobranie, ed. F. Pavlenkov, 4th Balzac had made the parallel between writer and
ed., St. Petersburg [1904-07], 4, 68). Dostoevsky zoologist the central metaphor of his preface to the
attacked the radical critics sharply in 1863. He always Comedie humaine (1842). Taine, in his essay on Balzac
disapproved of photographic naturalism and defended (1858), draws the comparison expUcitly when he says
the interest in the fantastic and exceptional. In two that "the naturaUst lacks any ideal; even more so does
well-known letters Dostoevsky asserted that he had the naturalist Balzac lack one." Hugo in the preface,
"quite different conceptions of reahty and realism than to La legende des siecles (1859) drew another parallel.
our and critics. My idealism is more real than

realists "A poet or a philosopher isnot forbidden to attempt
their reahsm." His realism is pure, a realism in depth with social facts what a natiuâhst attempts with
while theirs is of the surface. N. N. Strakhov, in his zoological facts; the reconstruction of a monster ac-
biography, reports Dostoevsky as saying: "they call me cording to the imprint of a nail or the cavity of a
a psychologist: mistakenly. I am rather a realist in a tooth." Cuvier's speculations on extinct antediluvian
higher sense, i.e. I depict all the depths of the human fauna had struck the imagination of his contemporaries
soul" (Letter to A. N. Maykov, 11/23 Dec. 1868, in forcibly. It is this parallel that both the early and the
Pisriia, ed. A. S, Dolinin, 2, Moscow [1928-34], 150, late Zola has in mind. "Today," Zola wrote in 1866,
and letter to N. N. Strakhov, 26 Feb./lO March 1869, "in literary and artistic criticism we must imitate the
ibid., 169; N. N. Strakhov and O. Miller, Biografiya, naturaUsts: we have the duty of finding the men behind
pisina . . . , St. Petersburg [1883], p. 373). Similarly, their works, to reconstruct the societies in their real 53
KEALlbM IN LITERATURE
life, with the aid of a book or a picture" (J.

W. J.
In American Uterary scholarship the position is quite
Hemmings, The
"
1964). and the

critic novelist, Zola the reverse of the English position. There "realism
argues, do not differ basically and both are, or should is firmly established, mainly since Vernon Parrington
be, scientists. In the Preface to a new edition of his gave the title. The Beginnings of Critical Healmn
novel, Therese Raquin (1866), Zola proclaimed the (19.30), to the third volume of his Main Currents of
naturahst creed most boldly. The book is "an analytical American Thought. There is a collective volume, Tran-
labor on two living bodies like that of a surgeon on sitions ill American Literary History (1954), which
corpses." This is substantially what Zola later ex- manipulates the period concept almost with the assur-
pounded as the method of his "experimental novel." ance of a German literary historian. Realism, unlike
The preface ends with Zola claiming "the honor of naturalism, is not primarily engaged in social criticism,
belonging to the group of naturalist writers." But the it is argued, but concerns itself with the conflict be-
distinction between "realism" and "naturalism" was tween the inherited .\mericari ideals of faith in man
not stabilized for a long time. Ferdinand Brunetiere and the individual and the pessimistic, deterministic
in his Le roinan iwturaliste (1883) discusses Flaubert, creed of modern science (Robert O. Falk, "The Rise
Daudet, Maupassant, and George Eliot as well as Zola of Realism, in Transitions in American Literary His-
"
under this title. The separation of the terms is a work tory, ed. H. H. Clark, Durham, N.C. [1954]). Charles
of modern literary scholarship. Child Walcutt in American Literary Naturalism
Thus the contemporary uses of the terms "realism" (Minneapolis [1956], p. 9) has well described what he
and "naturalism" should be distinguished from the called its "divided stream, "the mixture of fervid
"
process by which modern literary research has imposed exhortation with concepts of majestic inevitableness."
the term "realism" or "reahst period" on the past. The In German, two recent refonnulations of the concept
two processes are, of course, not independent of each of reaH.sm have attracted much attention. Erich
other: the original suggestion comes from the contem- Auerbach's A4ime.iis: Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der
porary debates. But still the two are not entirely the abendldndischen Literatur (1946) sketches the history
same. Again, the situation varies greatly in different of realism from Homer to Proust, always using short
countries. texts as springboards for brilliant stylistic, intellectual
In France the term "realism" with a distinct later and sociological analyses. But it is hard to discover
stage of "naturalism" seems firmly established. In par- what he means by "realism. He "
tells us himself that
books by Pierre Martino, Le roman realiste
ticular the he would like to have written his book without using
(1913) and Le ncitiiralisme franqais (1923), have con- any "general expressions. "
.\uerbach tries later to
firmed the distinction: "naturalism" is the doctrine of combine two contradictory conceptions of realism;
Zola; it implies a scientific approach, it requires a first something which might be called existentialism:
philosophy of deterministic materialism while the older the agonizing revelations of reality in moments of
realists were far less clear or unified in their philo- supreme decisions, in "hmiting situations Abraham
":
sophical affiliations. In France there one good book,is about to sacrifice Isaac, Madame du Chastel deciding
Gustave Reynier's Les origines du roman realiste (1912), not to rescue her son from execution, the Duke of
which traces the method of reahsm from the Satyricon Saint-Simon asking the Jesuit negotiator how old he
of Petronius to Rabelais, to the Spanish Celestina, and is.There is, however, a second realism in Auerbach,
to the French literature about peasants and beggars the French nineteenth-century realism, which he
in the sixteenth century. defines as depicting contemporary reality, immersed
In England the use of the term "realism" as a period in the dynamic concreteness of the stream of fiistory.
concept is still very rare. The standard histories of Historicism contradicts existentialism. Existentialism
EngUsh literature of the early twentieth century, the sees man exposed in his nakedness and solitude, it is
Cambridge History of English Literature and Garnett unhistorical, even antihistorical. These two sides of
and Gosse, use the term only very occasionally. Gissing Auerbach s conception of realism differ also in their
is called a "realist" because of Zola's influence and we historical provenience. "Existence " descends from
hear that "Ben Jonson set out to be what we now call Kierkegaard, whose whole philosophy was a protest
a realist' or 'naturalist.' (On Gissing see Cambridge
"
against Hegel, the ancestor of historicism and Geistes-
History of English Literature, 14, 458; on Ben Jonson geschichte. In Auerbach's sensitive and learned book
see R. Garnett and E. Gosse, English Literature. An "realism" has assumed a very special meaning; realism
Illustrated Record [1903-04], 2, 310.) It needed an must not be didactic, moralistic, rhetorical, idyllic, or
American scholar, Norman Foerster, to suggest that comic. Thus he has little to say of the bourgeois drama
the term "Victorian" should be replaced by "realist," or the English realistic novel of the eighteenth and
in his The Reinterpretation of Victorian Literature (ed. nineteenth century; the Russians are excluded and so
54 Joseph E. Baker, Princeton [1950], pp. 58-59). are all the Germans of the nineteenth century as either
didactic or idyllic. Only passages in the Bible and tive Theory of Literature [Teoriya literatury, Moscow
Dante, and among moderns, Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, [1938]) is the "fulfilment of all art and hterature."
and Zola live up to Auerbach's requirements. (See R. "Socialist realism" propounds a consciously contra-
Wellek, "Auerbach's Special Realism, "
Kenyan Re- dictory concept: the writer ought to describe society
view, 16 [1954], 299-307.) as it is but he must also describe it as it should and
Richard Brinkmann's Wirklichkeit unci Illusion will be. The writer must be faithful to reality but at
(Tiibingen, 1957) also arrives at an idiosyncratic con- the same time be imbued with "party-spirit" (partij-
clusion. He ignores the historical debate and focuses nost). The contradiction is solved by the demand for
on an ingenious analysis of three German stories: a "positive hero," for a prescriptive model or even
Grillparzer'sArme Spielmann (1848), Otto Ludwig's ideal "type," which, e.g., Georgi Malenkov, in a speech
Zwischen Himmel und Erde (1855), and Edward von at the nineteenth Party Congress (1952) called "the
Keyserling's Beate und Mareile (1903). Brinkmann central, political problem of realism." Russian writers
argues that the acme of realism is reached in are literally told to find and to describe the heroes
Keyserling's story, as there the narrator limits himself whose imitation in real life would help in transforming
to the representation of the feelings of a single fictional societv toward the goal of communism.
figure (a Prussian Junker wavering between two Among the Marxists who are not mere mouthpieces
women). Realism or rather reality is found ultimately of the party line, the Hungarian Georg Lukacs (1885-
in the stream of consciousness technique, in the attempt 1971) developed the most coherent theory of realism.
to "dramatize the mind, "
a technique which actually It starts with the dogma that all literature is a "reflec-
achieved the most radical dissolution of ordinary real- tion of reality" (a phrase which Lukacs repeats over
ity. Brinkmann is well aware of the paradox of this a thousand times in the first volume of his Aesthetik,
"reversal, by which the attention to the factual and
" 1962), and that it will be the truest mirror if it fully
development, that
"
the individual finally led to something as "unrealistic reflects the contradictions of social
in the traditional sense as Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and is, in practice, if the author shows an insight into the
Faulkner. The conclusion that "the subjective experi- structure of society and the future direction of its
ence ... is the only objective experience" (op. cit., evolution. Naturalism is rejected as concerned with the
p. 298) identifies impressionism, the exact notation of surface of everyday life and with the average, while
mental states of mind, with realism and proclaims it realism creates tvpes which are both representative and
the only true realism. The accepted nineteenth-century prophetic. Lukacs assembles a number of criteria which
meaning of realism is thus turned upside down. It is allow him to judge literatiu'e in terms of its "progres-
replaced by an individualizing, atomistic, subjective siveness" (which might be unconscious, even contrary
realism that refuses to recognize an objective order of to the pohtical opinions of the author) and in terms
things: it is even soUpsism in the sense of Pater or of the all-inclusiveness, representativeness, self-
Proust. The individual is called the "only reality" as consciousness, and anticipatory power of the figures
in existential philosophy. Lieutenant Custl by Arthur created by the great realists. Though there is much
Schnitzler rather than Die Buddenhrooks, both dated purely political polemic in Lukacs and the criteria are
1901, is the culminating point of German realism. predominantly ideological, "popular front," and later
Bergson rather than Taine or Comte would be its "cold war," Lukacs at his best reformulates the "con-
philosopher. crete universal" and renews the "ideal type" problem
In Germany, everybody is on his own and looks for so closely in relation with the main tradition of German
realism wherever he wants to find it. In Italy, with aesthetics that Peter Demetz could speak of him as
the exception of Marxist critics, there is no problem achieving "a renaissance of originally idealistic aes-
of reaUsm. Croce has taken care of that: there isno thetics in themask of Marxism" ("Zwischen Klassik
nature or reality outside the mind and the artist need und Bolschewismus. Georg Lukacs als Theoretiker der
not worry about the relationship. "Realism "
is (like Dichtung," Merkur, 12 [1958], 501-15).
romanticism) only a pseudo-concept, a category of Thus, the concept of realism vacillates today be-
obsolete rhetoric. (See B. Croce, Estetica, Bari [1950], tween the old meaning formulated in the nineteenth
p. 118; "Breviario di estetica," in Nuovi saî di century as "an objective description of contemporary
estetica, Bari [1948], pp. 39-40; "Aestetica in mice," social reality" and more widely divergent recent con-
in Ultimi saggi, Bari [1948], p. 21.) cepts which either, as in Marxism, give realism a more
In Russia, reaUsm is everything. Pushkin and Gogol specific meaning of a grasp of the social structure and
are considered realists, and as in Germany they argue its future trends or, as often in the West, show a more
about "critical reahsm," "radical democratic realism," sophisticated awareness of the difficulties raised by the
"proletarian reaUsm," and "socialist realism," its last concept of reaUty.
stage, which according to L. I. Timofeyev's authorita- Recent theorists try to redefine it either in terms of 55
RECAPITULATION
a historistic or existentialist concept of the nature of a prominent embryologist stated categorically in a

realitv. While in Marxism "realism" is the only right textbook of embryology: "Today there remains no
procedure of art, most Western theorists see "realism" reasonable doubt about the fundamental fact that
as only one trend of modem literature, vying but not developing vertebrates pass through series of stages
necessarily surpassing other styles such as classicism, which in general recapitulate the evolutionary
romanticism, or symbolism. progression" (Witschi, 1956). He added some qualifi-
cations, and such a statement is rare in middle and

BIBLIOGRAPHY late twentieth-century treatises, but the dogma hngers.
Before Darwin crystallized the idea that all orga-
George J.
Becker, ed.. Documents of Literary Realism
(Princeton, an anthology. E. B. O. BorgerhofF, nisms are related genealogically, the concept that or-
1963),
"Realisme and Kindred Words: Their Use as a Term of ganisms could be ranked from low to high on a Scale
Literary Criticism in the First Half of the Nineteenth Cen- of Beings imbued the thought of philosophers and
tury," in PMLA. 53 (1938), 837-43. Emile Bouvier, La scientists. When this theory carried authority, similari-
bataille realiste (1844-1857) (Paris, 1914). F. W. J. between embryos of one form and adults of another
ties
Hemmings, "The Origin of the Terms Naturalisme, Natural- were described in generaUzations that lacked evolu-
iste." inFrench Studies, 8 (1954). 109-21. Harry Levin, ed., tionarv cormotations. Some historians trace such con-
"A Symposium on Realism," in Comparative Literature, 3 cepts back to .Aristotle, who believed that man during
(1951), 193-285; idem. Vie Gates of Horn. A Study of Five
his development had first the soul of a plant, then that
French Realists (New York, 1963), contains much on the
of an animal, before finally acquiring his rational soul.
history of the concept. Richard Stang, The Theory of the
This was a metaphysical concept rather than a biologi-
Novel in England. 1850-1870 (London, 1959). Bernard
Weinberg, Frer\ch Realism: The Critical Reaction, 1830-1870 cal one, as perhaps also was William Harvey's expres-
(New York, 1937). Ren^ Wellek, "The Concept of Realism sion of a parallel between embryos and animals
in Literary Scholarship." in Corwepts of Criticism (New ascending the Scale of Beings. "Nature," wrote Harvey,
Haven, 1963), pp. 222-55, appeared in Neophilologus. 44 "ever perfect and divine, doing nothing in vain, has
(1960), 1-20. neither given a heart where it was not required, nor
ren£ wellek produced one before its office became necessary; but
by the same stages in the development of every animal,
[See also Existentialism; Historicism; Impressionism; Marx-
passing tfirough the constitutions of all, as I may say
ism; Naturalism in Art; Socialism.]
(ovum, worm, foetus) it acquires perfection in each"
(Harvey, 1628).
The concept, metaphysical or otherwise, was alive
apart from biological thought during the years when

itbegan to attract scientific attention. For instance,
RECAPITULATION William Blake, describing the development of Ore in
the womb of Enitharmon, put it thus (Blake, 1794):
The theory of recapitulation, designated the Bio-
Many sorrows and dismal throes,
genetic Law by Ernst Heinrich Haeckel in 1872
Many forms of fish, bird & beast
(1872a), stated in brief that ontogeny, the development
Brought forth an Infant form
of the individual, recapitulates phytogeny, the evolu-
Where was a worm before.
tionary history of the stock to which the individual
belongs. The fact that it is still appropriate to discuss It was during Blake's time, however, that the concept
it in the 1970's is a tribute to the viabiUty of an idea began to acquire scientific status. Kohlbrugge (1911)
that was only tenuously supported by scientific evi- presented a hst of over seventy-two writers, begiiming
dence when put to the test of validity. with Goethe and Autenrieth, who expressed ideas of
The concept attained its greatest vigor after the parallelism or recapitulation between 1797 and 1866,
publication of Darwin's Origin of Species (1859). When the year that Haeckel formulated the recapitulation
at the end of the nineteenth century a new science, theory in a few catchwords that were to become a
experimental embryology, demonstrated that particu- slogan.
lar developmental processes might be analyzed in Johann Friedrich Meckel was one of the most im-
terms of more proximate events, embryological interest portant of many who expounded laws of parallelism
in the concept waned. When in the twentieth century during the nineteenth century. He wrote in his treatise
the science of genetics developed and coalesced with on comparative anatomy, when comparative anatomy
the study of evolution, investigators in these fields also was becoming a dominant biological disciphne: "An
56 lost interest in recapitulation, yet as late as the 1950's embryo of higher animals passes through a number
"
RECAPITULATION
of stages before it attains its complete development; development of existing forms. This view accords
it is be demonstrated here that these different
to admirably well with our theory" (Darwin, 1872).
stages correspond to those at which lower animals Haeckel read the first edition of the Origin of Species
are arrested throughout their whole lives" (Meckel, in German away by
translation in 1860, and, carried
1821). it, became Darwin's champion and popularizer in
Meckel's generalization was soon to be disputed by Germany. He went far beyond Darwin, and sometimes
a master as great as himself. Within five years, Karl far beyond fact —
he was accused of falsifying pictorial
von Baer wrote in an article that; "It has been
EJTist illustrations to support his theories (His, 1874) — in
concluded by a bold generalization from a few analo- attempting to synthesize all that was known of nature
gies, that the higher animals run in the course of their in a single scheme based on evolutionary theory.
development through the lower animal grades, and In his first and possibly most important general work,
sometimes tacitly and sometimes expressly they have Generelle Morphologie der Organismen (1866; General
been supposed to take their way through all forms. Morphology of Organisms), Haeckel began to relate
We hold this to be not only untrue, but also impossible" ontogeny to phylogeny (words that he invented);
(von Baer, 1827). Von Baer's treatise Ueber Ent- "Ontogenesis or the development of the organic indi-
wicklungsgeschichte der Thiere {On the Embryology vidual, as the series of changes in form which every
of Animals), which established comparative embryol- individual passes during the whole period of its indi-
ogy as a discipline that was soon to supplant compara- vidual existence, is immediately conditioned [bedingt]
tive anatomy as the most important zoological science, by the phylogenesis or the development of the organic
devoted one of its most important sections to a refuta- stock (Phylon) to which it belongs. Ontogenesis . . .
tion of the law of parallelism. In he deduced on the

it is the short and rapid recapitulation of phylogenesis,
basis of his own careful observations what he called caused by the physiological functions of inheritance
"the law of individual development, 1. That the more (reproduction) and adaptation (nourishment). Already "
general characters of a large group of animals appear in this first of his generalizations Haeckel impUed
earlier in their embryos than the more special charac- through the use of the verb bedingen a causal rela-
ters. ... 2. From
the most general forms the less gen- tionship between ontogenesis and phylogenesis. When
eral are developed, and so on, until finally the most in the late 1860's embryologists such as Wilhelm His
special arises. ... 3. Every embryo of a given animal (whom Haeckel singled out for particular anathema)
form, instead of passing tfirough the other forms, rather attempted to explain the development of particular
becomes separated from them. Fundamentally, . . . organs in terms of such mechanical factors as the fold-
therefore, the embryo of a higher form never resembles ing of embryonic layers caused by unequal growth,
any other form, but only its embryo" (von Baer, 1828). Haeckel (1874) replied by insisting that; "Phylogenesis
As one recent authoritative critic of recapitulation is the mechanical cause of ontogenesis," and would
theory has paraphrased it; "Instead ... of passing tolerate no opposition.

through the adults of other stages of other animals Haeckel was wary of claiming absolute applicability
during its ontogeny, a developing animal moves away for the biogenetic law and often wrote of recapitula-
from them, and the ontogenetic stages do not run tion as "short," "rapid," or "abbreviated." It was
parallel to the sequence of forms of the scale of beings" known by the 1860's that various nutritive, respiratory,
(de Beer, 1958). and excretory organs (yolk-sac, allantois) characteristic
Ironically, the law of recapittilation is often of embryos are lacking in all adults. Haeckel (1875)
attributed to von Baer in spite of his vehement denial took cognizance of such facts by classifying as
of the validity of the law of parallelism. This may be palingenetic the embryonic processes that are trans-
accounted for by the fact that Darwin, in the last four mitted by heredity from ancestral forms, in contrast
editions of the Origin of Species quoted a statement to coenogenetic ones which appear through adaptation
by von Baer to the effect that: " 'Embryos of birds, to the needs of embryonic or larval Ufe.
lizards, and snakes, probably also of chelonia are in He felt that in spite of these limitations, the clues
their earliest states exceeding like one another' given by embryos concerning the ancestry of their Une
(Darwin, 1861, 1872), and Darwin himself in the final were intelligible, and he constructed elaborate geneal-
edition withdrew some earher reservations and stated ogies on the basis of the study of embryonic form.
categorically that; "Several highly competent
. . . When there were gaps in his postulated schemes of
judges insist that ancient animals resemble to a certain evolutionary relationships, he was not above inventing
extent the embryos of recent animals belonging to the animals to fill them. Leaning heavily on the nine-
same classes; and that the geological succession of teenth-century concept of fixity of origin and differen-
extinct forms is nearly parallel with the embryological tiation of the embryonic germ-layers (ectoderm, 57
RECAPITULATION
mesoderm, endoderm), he postulated a two-layered theorv, literature, psychology, and even history itself,
organism named Gastraea as the ancestor of all many- .^n example of its influence on cultural history is pro-
celled animals (Haeckel, 1872b). vided by an organic analogy used by John W. Draper:
One of the most fruitful results of his forceful expo- "The march of individual existence shadows forth the
sition and vehement defense of the biogenetic law was march of race-existence, being, indeed, its repre-
that others, like himself, studied embryos in order to sentative on a little scale. ... A national type pursues
ascertain the ancestry of various species, and whether its way physically and intellectually through changes
or not the premisses from which these studies devel- and developments answering to those of the individual,
oped were sound, a great corpus of embryological and being represented by Infancy, Childhood. Y'outh,
knowledge was established. .Manhood, Old \ge, and Deatli respectively. Na- . . .
A number of factors contributed, during the late tions must undergo obliteration as do the transitional
nineteenth and earlv twentieth centuries, toward the forms offered bv the animal series. There is no more
decline of embrvologists' interest in recapitulation, .'^s an immortalitv for them than there is an immobility
biology in general concentrated less on evolution and for an embryo in any one of the manifold forms passed
more on experimental physiology, embryologists be- through in its progress of development" (Draper, 1876).
came more interested in experimental than in theoret- Draper's thought was of considerable significance in
ical approaches to the study of developmental me- its influence on the development of intellectual history.
chanics. The comparabihty and fixity of the M a much more popular level, the transfer of the idea
germ-layers in different animals were challenged by of recapitulation into general thinking is exemplified
experimental evidence. As genetic data accimiulated. in its expression in abook on child care that was a
coenogenesis became leis acceptable as an explanation handbook in many thousands of American homes in
of deviations from strict recapitulation, since it implied the mid-twentieth century. "Each child," wrote
the inheritance of acquired characters, the Lamarckian Benjamin Spock, "as he develops is retracing the whole
theory, which was unacceptable to the new genetics. history of mankind, physically and spiritually, step by
In other ways also, it became clear that coenogenesis step. A baby starts off in the womb as a single tiny
could not suffice to e.xplain deviations from the rule. cell, just wav the first living thing appeared in the
the
In some groups of insects, species imlike in adult form ocean. Weeks later, as he lies in the amniotic fluid in
have similar larvae; in otliers, unlike larvae develop the womb, he has gills like a fish" (Spock, 1968).
into similar adults (de Beer, 1958). Embrvos of one The concept of recapitulation was especially influ-
order of molluscs, the cephalopods (squid, cuttlefish, ential in psychology, in which Haeckel himself was
octopus) have a unique type of development; they pass particularly interested. During the early part of the
through no stages comparable to those of other twentieth centuryit was incorporated into psychology
molluscs and no other molluscs pass through stages by Carl Gustav Jung, who adopted the theory in sup-
comparable to those of cephalopods. In such organisms, port of his own ideas about the "race rmconscious":
genetic changes have been introduced early in the life
Experience suggests to us that we draw a parallel between
history; Haeckel's concept called for them to occur the phantastical. mythological thinking of antiquity and the
at the end of the embryonic period. similar thinking of children, between the lower human races
The occurrence of mutation in genes that act early and dreams. This train of thought is quite familiar . . .
in development is a primary factor leading to the through our knowledge of comparative anatomy and the
divergencies of development emphasized nearly a cen- historv of development, which shows us how the structure
tury and a half ago by von Baer. Since differences in and function of the human body are the results of a series
development lead to differences in adults, modification of embryonic changes which correspond to similar changes
of ontogeny produces new raw materials for natural in the historv of the race. Therefore, the supposition is
justified that ontogenesis corresponds in psychology to

selection to work upon. From this point of view
phylogenesis. Consequently, it would be true, as well, that
(Garstang, 1922), most biologists of the late twentieth
the state of infantile thinking in the child's psychic life,
century consider ontogeny the cause of phylogeny,
as well as in dreams, is nothing but a re-echo of the prehis-
rather than the reverse, on the few occasions when toric and ancient (Jung, 1916; trans. 1927).
they consider such relationships at all.
Haeckel's ideas about recapitulation appealed not Jung first developed his idea of the race or collective
only to biologists, but also to many others who became unconscious through the consideration of dreams, and
aware of them because of the popularity of the books confirmed it by his analogy to the development of the
he addressed to general readers. Like many aspects of body. Analogy between the development of mind and
Darwinian theory, Haeckel's concept of recapitulation body, on the basis of recapitulation, was made as early
5o had its impact on anthropology, criminology, political as 1866 by Haeckel in his General Morphology: "The
RECAPITULATION
psychic life of man obeys completely the same laws Leopoldino-Carolinae Naturae Curiosorum, XIII, Part 2
as the psychic life of other animals. . . . Like all com- (1827), 525-762. Part was translated by T. H. Huxley in
plicated phenomena in higher organisms, so the mind, Scientific Memoirs, ed. A. Henfrey and T. H. Huxley
(London, 1853); the quotation is from Huxley's translation,
as the most complicated and highest function of all
p. 184; idem, Ueber Entwicklungsgeschichte der Tiere, 2 vols.
. . . can be understood only by comparing it with
(Konigsberg, 1828; 1837), I, 224; the quotation is from
simpler and less complete phenomena of the same sort
Huxley's translation. Scientific Memoirs, op. eit., p. 214.
in lower animals and by following its gradual develop-
G. R. de Beer, Embryos and Ancestors, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1958),
ment step by step. We must return here not only to is the most recent full critique of recapitulation theory. W.
the biontic but also to phyletic development." Blake, The Book of Urizen, Etched 1 794, in Poetry and
First
Wilhelm Preyer, Professor of Physiology at Jena Prose of William Blake, ed. G. Keynes (London, 1927), p.
during twenty-seven of Haeckel's years in the same 254. C. R. Darwin, Origin of Species .... 3rd ed. (London,
university, extended Haeckel's ideas to child psychol- 1861), pp. 470-71. Darwin's quotation from von Baer is from
ogy. "The mind of the new-bom child," he wrote in Huxley's translation. Scientific Memoirs, op. cit., p. 210; The
the preface to the first edition of Die Seele des Kindes Origin of Species . . . , 6th ed. (London, 1872). The quota-
Mind of the Child), "does not resemble a tion from the 6th ed. is taken from the reprint (New York,
(1882; The
1902), II, 120. W. Draper, History of the Intellectual
tabula rasa upon which the senses first write their J.
Development of Europe, rev. ed., 2 vols. (New York, 1876),

impressions, . . . but the tablet is already written upon
1, 12, 14, 17-18. W. Garstang, "The Theory of Recapitula-
before birth, with many illegible, even unrecognizable
Law," Jour-
tion. A Critical Restatement of the Biogenetic
and invisible marks, traces of the imprint of comitless
nal of the Linnaean Society of London, Zoology, 35 (1922),
sense impressions of long past generations." .\nd Preyer 81-101. E. H. Haeckel, "Die Gastraeatheorie, die physio-
went further than Haeckel to extend the concept to logische Klassifikation des Tierreichs und die Homologie der
more specific aspects of mentality, including memory, Keimblatter," Jenaische Zeitschrift fiir Naturwissenschaften,
'
as Jung also was to do later. "I call [personal memory], 8 (1874), 6; idem, "Die Gastrula und die Eifurchung der
wrote Preyer, "the memory formed by means of indi- Tiere," Jenaische Zeitschrift fiir Natunvissenschaften, 9
vidual impressions, occurrences, experience, in contrast (1875), 402-19; idem, Generelle Morphologic der Orga-
with phyletic memory, or instinct, the memory of the nismen, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1866), II, 300, 344; Die Kalk-
race, which results from the inheritance of the traces schwdmme. Biologic der Kalkschwdmme, 3 vols. (Berlin,
1872b), I, 484; idem, Natiirliche Schopfungsgeschichte, 3rd

of individual experiences of ancestors."
ed. (Berlin, 1872a), p. xxxv. W. Harvey, "An Anatomical
Preyer may not have been the only writer in his
Disquisition on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in
time to believe that the life of the psyche obeys the
Animals," in The Works of William Harvey, M.D., ed. and
same laws development as the life of the body,
in its
trans. R. WilHs (London, 1847), p. 82. The original essay
according to the law of recapitulation, but his Mind is in Latin. G. Heberer, ed., Der gerechtfertigte Haeckel
of the Child was an influential book, a pioneering (Stuttgart, 1968). This is the most comprehensive modem
analysis of child psychology. It may well have been work available summarizing Haeckel's thought; it has ex-
read by Jung during his formative years, and Jung, of tensive bibliographies. While it discusses the whole body
course, like so many of his contemporaries, may also of his work, it devotes considerable space to recapitulation.
have read books by Haeckel. Be that as it may, it was The major portion of the volume consists of long extracts
of critical importance for the subsequent history of from Haeckel's own writings. W. His, Vnsere Korperform
embryology itself that The Mind of the Child was read und das physiologische Problem ihrer Entstehung (Leipzig,
by Hans Spemann, who was to perform in the first 1874), pp. 168-71. C. J. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious,
trans. B.M. Hinkle (New York, 1927), pp. 27-28. J. H. F.
quarter of the twentieth century the experiments on
Kohlbrugge, "Das biogenetische Grundgesetz. Eine
embryonic induction that were so fateful for the subse-
historische Studie," Zoologischer Anzeiger, 37 (I9I1),'
quent development of experimental embryology.
447-53. J.
F. Meckel, System der vergleichenden Anatomic,
Spemann stated specifically in his autobiography that
6 vols. (Halle, 1821-33), I, 396-97. W. Preyer, Die Seele
he was first drawn into biology as a result of reading des Kindes (Leipzig, 1884), pp. vi-vii, 260-61. H. Spemann,
The Mind of the Child. It is ironic that the same ideas Forschung und Lehen (Stuttgart, 1943). B. Spock, Baby and
that so strongly influenced psychology through Jung's Child Care, rev. ed. (New York, 1968), p. 229. E. Witschi,
acceptance of the recapitulation doctrine were also to Development of Vertebrates (Philadelphia, 1956), p. 6.
lead up to the experimental analysis which finally
JANE OPPENHEIMER
destroyed the concept for biology proper.
BlBLlOGKAPHy [See also Biological Conceptions in Antiquity; Chain of
K. von Baer, "Beitrage zur Kenntnis der niedem

E. Being; Evolutionism; Inheritance of Acquired Characteris-
Thiere," Nova Acta Physico-medica Academiae Caesareae tics; Macrocosm and Microcosm.] D"
REFORMATION
REFORMATION The advocates and carriers of individual and social
reformation in the sixteenth century reached a

Although the concept of reformation is popularly so prominence never again equalled in history, but the
exclusively associated with the Protestant Reformation religious idea of reformation has remained a vital force
of the sixteenth century, "the hinge," James Froude down to the present time.
declared, "on which all modern history turns," the 1. Reformation and Renewal. The idea of reforma-
religious idea of reformation is of great antiquity and tion looms largest and is most persistently recurrent
of equally great complexity. It requires careful defini- in Christian thought, but it is a variant of more general
tion in order to distinguish it from other forms of renewal ideologies and has antecedents in pre-Christian
renewal, renovation, revolution, rebirth, or restoration. literature, especially Greco-Roman, and even in pre-
The idea of reformation must be distinguished from hterate religious belief. Reformation must be distin-
deterministic, naturalistic, or supematuralistic con- guished from other types of renewal conceptions which
ceptions of renewal. Reformation is a free act or a were more prominent in the pre-Christian era and
repeated series of actions which are intended by the occurred sporadically also in later times. Gerhart
reformer to recover, reestablish, augment, and perfect Ladner, distinguished authority on the idea of reform
certain essential values which at one time existed in in patristic thought, categorizes the more significant
human society but which subsequently were lost or renewal ideas to be distinguished from reformation and
impaired by willful neglect or due to a general decline reform as the (a) cosmological, (b) vitalistic, (c)
(Ladner, 1959). To be sure, ideas of renaissance and millenarian, and (d) conversion ideologies (Ladner,
renewal were frequently amalgamated with the idea 1959).
of reformation. Nor did programs for reformation (a) Cosmological renewal ideas are very closely re-
always correspond to the supposed historical original lated to and derived from the cyclical patterns of
or come up to the hoped-for potential reality. Never- diurnal and seasonal change and the life, death, and
theless, reformation was always characterized by man's procreative pattern of organic beings. The myth of the
evocative and creative effort to restore a more perfect eternal return reenacted in primitive rehgious rites and
condition which the reformer believed to have existed reflected in early folklore and mythology was derived
at some previous time. Hut while the reformer from the beliefs in antiquity about the perpetual
emphasized recovery and restoration, remaking so as cyclical recurrence of identical or at least very similar
to eradicate defects, he in some cases viewed reforma- situations, persons, and occurrences. The archaic men-
tion as an essential preUminary to further advance. tality sought to negate the inexorable passage of time
Thus in Western history the idea of a return to a golden and the inevitable corrosion and destruction which
age has often been associated with a theology of hope, accompanies it by positing a theory of new beginnings.
an eschatological expectation that the kingdom of God All archaic and traditional societies seem to have felt
might be realized in whole or in part as a result of the need for a periodical regeneration of the cosmos
successful reformation. The words "reformation" and lest entropv reduce all to a state of equilibrium and
"reform" in certain contexts are interchangeable when usher in the stillness of death (Eliade, 1965). Examples
used in the general sense of improvement or restoration in classical culture are plentiful, such as the Stoic
of a better condition. But the term "reformation" has doctrine of cosmic destruction and renewal, Hesiod's
come to be preferred for a movement which has myth of the Golden Age at the beginning of time, or
effected significant changes or improvements particu- the Platonic cyclical correspondences and the Neo-
larly in morals or religious tenets and practices. "Re- Pythagorean notion of a new world year introducing
form" is preferred for an attempt to correct corrupt cosmic renewal. This recurrence idea strikingly
practices, remove abuses, and change for the better symbolized bv New Year celebrations, which
most in its
in any way and can be applied to a specific amend- radical form assumed the eternal cyclical and numeri-
ment, frequently a political or legislative act, as the cally repetitive renewal of the cosmos and with this
term "reformation" cannot. the renewal of humanity, could not be essentially
The idea of reformation in Western intellectual his- harmonized with the Christian view of history. It was
tory was essentially a Judeo-Christian conception asso- cvclical rather than linear, and deterministic rather
ciated first of all with personal regeneration and the than taking into account man's freedom and the mean-
reformed Life of the individual, secondly with the res- ing of his actions in history.
toration of the ideal community life in the monastic (b) The vitalistic renewal ideas are related generi-
movement, and thirdly with a reform given institu- cally to the human life processes of procreation and
tional status within the Church as the papacy under- growth. Thus the ideas of renaissance or rebirth and
60 took to make the world safe for ecclesiastical ideals. of upward evolutionary development in social or
REFORMATION
cultural history are by analogy based upon these refonnare and reformatio had already occurred in
processes of life. The cosmological and vitalistic re- classical literature and were known in that context to
newal ideas did at times fuse with each other and medieval students of the classics and to lienaissance
combined with yet a third set of ideas. humanists. But the major sources of this terminology
(c) The millenarian renewal ideas were Utopian and in the medieval and Reformation periods were un-
messianic, looking forward to a period of perfection. mistakably religious and specifically biblical.
The millenarian expectations were derived from the In classical usage the verb refonnare and the novm
eschatological hopes raised by the New Testament reformatio, which appeared a little later in the litera-
references to the thousand-year reign of Christ and the ture, did not initially suggest the active and willful
saints at theend of time and were related to certain reestablishing of a former state of things or the creation
apocalyptic notions expressed in the Old Testament of a new value related to the old. In Ovid's Metamor-
prophets (especially Daniel) and developed further in phoses (an adaptation of the Greek ii[Tan6fHJ>uois)
the intertestamental period and expressed in the reformare refers to a miraculous physical restoration
Apocrypha. The millenarian hope anticipates a perfect and to a sudden rejuvenation of an old man for one
kingdom, in contrast to ideas of reformation which day. In Seneca and Pliny the younger reformatio refers
were historically relative rather than absolute, and of to a moral, educational, and political restoration. In
limited objective rather than perfectionist in goal. the Antonine and Severan periods of Roman history
(d) Within the Christian tradition the idea of spirit- the great jurists applied the term reformatio to legal
ual renewal through baptism, which is a "washing of and institutional reform. Cicero, Livy, and postclassical
regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost," is authors used the terms renovatio and renovare to refer
related to personal rebirth and a beginning of the to renewal in various contexts (Ladner, 1959).
sanctified life. But while a personal reformation with There were Old Testament examples of individual
imphcations for social improvement is associated with reform, the restoration of the law in the days of King
the regeneration in Baptism, it is a product and is not Josiah (620 B.C., cf. II Kings 22, 23), and many
identical with the spiritual rebirth itself, given the prophetic admonitions to repentance and reform. The
divine initiative in the Sacrament. prophets were often in their own persons reformer
Various renewal ideologies, because of their deter- types. They foretold the new heaven and the new earth
ministic and cyclical nature, proved to be incompatible in which even the wild beasts would honor the Lord.
am doing a new thing.
"
with the Judeo-Christian conception of time and his- Isaiah 43:19 reads: "Behold, I
tory moving in a linear and irrepeatable direction and But the terminology current throughout Western reli-
with the assumptions about man's genuine, if limited, gious was drawn predominantly from the
history
freedom to make history. Yet, at times certain aspects gospels and from the epistles of Saint Paul. The New
of renewal ideology were adapted to and fiLsed with Testament tied in the idea of rebirth with an eschato-
reformation ideas. The idea of reformation held up a logical expectation of the coming of the kingdom and
picture drawn from the past of the goal to be achieved a new paradise. Thus Matthew 19:28 reads: "Jesus said
and called for a return to a better condition once to them, 'Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when
known by man. But it also presupposed that if man's the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne. ..."
intentions and will were properly applied, man could The gospels also associate the spiritual regeneration
make progress in reforming himself, the Church, and of the individual through faith and in baptism with
society in at least a limited but real way. fitness for entering the kingdom of God. In John 3:3
2. Medieval, Classical, and Biblical Terminology. Jesus says: "Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is bom
The terminology used for reformation was not always anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (renatus
clearly distinguished from the language of renewal fuerit denuo; ytvvqOi) avudev). Saint Paul called for the
ideologies so that the substance of the conception and transformation of individual Christians, the improve-
the program for its reaUzation need to be examined ment in morals and return to their first love of the
in their historical context before a judgment is ventured congregation, and the preparation in the present for
as to whether a movement in question constitutes the perfection of the post-resurrection life. Romans
reformation, renewal, or a combination of both ideas. 12:2 reads: "Do not be conformed to this world but
Medieval linguistic usage employed the words be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you
reformare and reformatio in a way parallel to such may prove what is the will of God, what is good and
words as regenerare (regeneratio, TraXcyyenoia), acceptable and perfect "
(Burdach, 1918). The Vulgate
renovare, innovare {nova vita), suscitare, resuscitare, Latin used in the West rendered the Greek
restituere, instituere, surgere, renasci, reviviscere ("to (ifTafiofxpovodai as reformare or reformari. The two
revive "), revirescere ("to grow green again"). The terms nouns most common for reformation and renewal were ol
lEFORMATION
translated as follows: jufTafi6p((>w<jis = reformatio; relative here in time and is perfected only in eternity.
(XpaKawoiOt^ = renovatio. The prefix fier^ in Greek can The Greek and Latin patristic writers derived their
be understood to imply a change or reversal rather concept of reformation directly from the New Testa-
than a simple direct-line transformation and thus a ment, but they developed the idea with slight varia-
reformation rather than a simple renewal is suggested. tions in emphasis.
In Latin patristic writings things that are defuncta and The Greek church fathers cultivated the idea of
defonnata need to be reformed. personal reformation as a restoration of the image of

3. Reformation as Personal Reform. During the God and likeness of Christ. With a strong emphasis
patristic period of the Christian era reformation upon the centrality of the incarnation the imagery of
referred predominantly to individual reform or per- the recovery of man's primal condition through the
sonal renewal. Reformation in the strictest sense of the man by faith in Christ was strongly
spiritualization of
word meant the return to a previously established emphasized. Together with the recovery of the primal
norm, looking backward to something given rather condition imagery, the Greek fathers cultivated also
than forward to a goal still awaited. The norm in a the notion of a return to paradise, man's first estate
Christian context was a religious norm, the restoration before the fall. Man's final return to the paradise of
in sinful man
the original image of God, and
of heaven could be anticipated by mystical participation
specifically theconforming to the Ukeness of Christ. in the here and now. They also viewed the repre-
Through spiritual regeneration and growth in sanctifi- sentational embodiment of the kingdom of God on
cation and hoUness of hfe, the individual Christian is earth in the Church, the mystical body of Christ, as
restored in part to that original image and similitude an ongoing reformation of the world. This conception
ofGod which had been bestowed upon man, but which was more meliorist than optimist, for the prayer that
had been lost by the fall of man into sin. Genesis the Lord's kingdom should come implied an ongoing
1:26-27 reads: "Then God said, 'Let us make man in process of becoming until the Parousia at the end of
our image, after our likeness. . .
.'" Genesis 3:1-24 time. The Christian emperor and the monastic groups
records the fall of man. The restoration of the image were chief guardians and most dedicated promoters
of God in the new dispensation was given a concrete of the kingdom ideal.
and more tangible definition as the restoration of the While the creational and incarnational emphases of
image of Christ. Through baptism, faith, and growth Eastern thought are not absent from the Latin patristic
in sanctification or holiness of life man is reformed after writings, a greater stress upon reformation in terms
the likeness of Christ, God-incamate, the first-born of restoration imderstood morally and legally is appar-
among the sons of God. The imitation of Christ entails ent. The shift in emphasis is evident in their very
patterning the new man after the person of Christ, who vocabulary. Tertulhan (ca. 155-220), for example, used
was in every respect perfect, loving, forgiving, and the word reformare to designate a return to a previous
gracious. The reformation of the individual in the condition, applying the term also to the general repe-
Ukeness of Christ remains partial and imperfect in this titiousness of the universe. He was possibly the first
present time, but will be consummated in the world to use the phrase in melius reformare, to reform for
to come. the better. Cyprian, Arnobius, and Lactantius, a
Two Scripture passages from the writings of Saint fourth-century Christian poet who wrote on the dignity
Paul will serve to illustrate this conception of personal of man, conceived of personal moral meliorism as
reformation and renewal patterned after Christ. I reform. Lactantius, fond of phoenix imagery, tied in
Corinthians 3:18 reads: "And we all, with unveiled the idea of reformation with his notion of a coming
face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being golden age and a glorious millennium at the end of
changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to time. Thus, just as in the early phase of the eighteenth-
another; for this comes from the Lord who is the century romantic movement, restoration, through re-
Spirit." Philippians 3:20-21 reads: "But our common- form, of a golden age in the past was seen as a move
wealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, toward a more perfect condition yet to be realized
the Lord Jesus Christ, who wiU change our lowly body (Ladner, 1959).
to be like his glorious body, by the power which ena- Two heretical movements in Western Christendom
bles him even to subject all things to himself" The made substantial contributions to the concept of refor-
concept of reformation as a willed and intentional mation. The Donatists insisted that the vahdity of the
return of the individual to the perfect norm, the image sacrament was affected by the administrant's state of
of God and likeness of Christ, is amalgamated with grace and opposed the readmission to the Church of
the idea of the spiritual renewal effected by the Spirit the lapsi or fallen, those who had denied their faith
62 on the divine initiative. Reformation is partial and in times of persecution. The Donatists were arch-
REFORMATION
Puritans or purists who held up absolute ideals of reforming activity not only into every cathedral but
conduct and insisted that the entire Church had to be into every village chapel in Christendom. The priest
reformed from top to bottom. The Pelagians undertook at the preparation of the cup for Mass recited the
a reformation within the Church and stressed the pos- words: "God who has marvelously created the dignity
sibility for an individual Christian to will his own moral of human substance and has more wondrously reformed
reform and for groups of Christians to order social life it." Not only did the idea of renewal and reform play
according to Christian moral law. Erasmus, and before an important part in sacramental theology, but also
him Lorenzo Valla, learned from Jerome to pay tribute in restoring ecclesiastical order through periodic re-
to the contribution of heretics to Christian thought. forms of canon law. The revision of older conciHar
Not least of their contributions was the negative stim- canons by later councils became a regular reformatory
ulation thev gave to Saint Augustine. As Robert of procedure. But the predominant and most charac-
Melun observed in the twelfth century, what the holy teristic expression of the idea of reformation during
fathers did not find controverted they did not defend. the medieval period was in the constantly recurring
In Augustine the orthodox idea of reformation found monastic reform movements.

an articulate spokesman. For him the reformation of 4. Monastic Reform. In the long evolution of the
man meant a great deal more than the return of an monastic ideal, the theme reformata refomianda. things
individual to the creational integrity of Adam, first man reformed must be reformed again, recurred constantly.
in paradise. All historical reformations are related to With its hermitic and cenobitic antecedents, monasti-
a creational process of formation which includes the cism developed in the East, but received a vmique
nontemporal act of conversion to God. Augustine, of direction in the West. The monks withdrew from soci-
course, referred often to the restoration of the individ- ety not only because it was easier to live a more perfect
ual to the image of God or likeness of Christ. He ascetic life, but because there they could in isolation
speculated upon the nature of time and the role of anticipate the perfect life of devotion to God which
numbers in leading man back toGod. But above all would ultimately be consummated in heaven. In the
the idea of reformation in Augustine was given a dy- West Saint Benedict linked monasticism with labor and
namic character by its association with his grand the- made of it a most valuable instrument of social and
ology of history. The two kingdoms theory of his City economic progress. The glorification of work, however,
of Cod. in which the "two churches" of Cain and Abel had a subversive by-product, for remunerative toil
and their followers served as the matrix for his idea produced wealth and no rules or regulations devised
of reformation and provided the prevailing medieval by the order could prevent the monks from enjoying
context for the concept, proved to be one of the great the fruits of their labors. The passion for solitude, the
formative forces in Western intellectual history. In the desire to reform monasticism by a return to primitive
final stages of Augustines writings, stimulated by the poverty, drove the Benedictines into remote regions
Pelagian controversy from a.d. 412 on, he developed and dense forests, but a few generations later the her-
a grand scheme of double succession, one line derived mitage had become a crowded monastery surrounded
from Cain and another from Abel. Reformation in this by serfs and tenants. For eight hundred years the
scheme, whether of a single person or of the collective, monastic tide rose and fell, with reformation followed
meant rejecting Cain and returning to Abel. Reforma- by decadence and a new effort at reconstruction
tion is conservative and even antirevolutionary, for (Workman, 1918).
Augustine saw it as a conservation and renovation, a The first of the great Benedictine reforms was inau-
return to that God-given and God-pleasing state of man
"
gurated by Benedict of Aniane, the "second founder

and order of society which in history has been con- of Western monasticism. A narrow escape from
stantly threatened by the city of man, but never wholly drowning while serving as a soldier in Italy under
lost. A subtle change in the idea of reformation is Charlemagne led him to enter the monastery of St.
introduced by Augustine sufficiently significant for later Seine in Burgundy. He found the monasteries in a
history to merit notice. His fixation on the virtue of deplorable condition, lands alienated to laymen, domi-
monastic fife as a superior Christian way prompted him nation by cruel superiors, and disorder everywhere. He
to speak of reform in terms not only of the indwelling withdrew an isolated gorge on the Aniane in
to
Christ and of the imitation of Christ's person, but in Aquitaine and soon established a reputation as a pious
terms of obedience to "the law of Christ." reformer. In 817 he presided over the important
Augustine's association of the Church with the city Council of Aachen which aimed at a thorough refor-
of God, the two never being coterminous, pointed up mation of the monastic discipline. His rule was overly
the Church's role as a carrier of permanent reform. rigid and a reaction toward decadence soon set in. In
The Missale Romanum conveyed the message of God's order to counteract this decay Duke Wilhani IX of 63
REFORMATION
Aquitaine around the year 910 founded a monastery The decay of Cluny evoked yet another monastic
at Cluny in Burgundy. This house followed a strict reformation by the "white monks" or Cistercians, a
interpretation of the Rule of Saint Benedict. With the nobleman Robert of Champagne initiating the reform
Cluniac reform movement, however, a new principle effort. Once again as the Enghshman Stephen Harding,
entered the picture. abbot of Citeaux from 1109 to 1134, set it forth, the
The reform of the eleventh century in the brief span keynote of the Cistercian reform was a retiom to the
of two generations completely altered the ecclesiastical literal observance of Saint Benedict's rule. The real fall
structure and its relation to the political order. of monasticism, however, as an independent force may
Monasticism had often been cornipted by the intrusion be ascribed to its papal dependence, for when it be-
of worldly materiahsm and poHtical domination, just came the auxiliary of Rome, it had clearly outlived
as the proprietary church arrangement imposed the its initial religious purpose. Bernard of Clairvaux
control of secular lords on the local churches. If tlie (1091-1153) saw the dangers of ecclesiastical central-
Cluniac monks could improve the secular clergy by ization and in a treatise De consideratione, addressed
impressing their ideals upon the entire chm-ch and if to Pope Eugene III, he warned against bureaucracy
the Church could in turn exercise a real power and and fiscalism. He urged as an alternative a reformation
influence upon worldly rulers, then the Church could that would be ministerial and personal rather than
uplift the world rather than the world corrupt the authoritarian and merely institutional. Because of his
Church. The great Pope Gregory VII plotted the strat- stress on service and spirituality he was a kind of
egy for the "Hildebrandine Reform." He conceived of transitional figure between Gregorian reform and the
it as "the struggle for the right order of things in the mendicant movement.
world," a moral crusade to free the Church from About the time of the Cluniac and Cistercian reform
subservience to theocratic royal government and lay movements, other efforts were being made to reform
ownership of ecclesiastical institutions. The Cluniac by a return to more primitive eremetical life
monasteries provided the spiritual inspiration and reminiscent of Eastern monasticism. Among these
dynamism movement, but the actual institu-
for the orders may be mentioned the Camaldulians founded
tional direction came from the Gregorian reformers by Romuald of Ravenna (d. 1027), the Vallombrosians
who aimed at a universal reform of the Church in a founded by Gualbert in the Appenines, the Carthusians
legal-institutional and Rome-centered plan of action. founded bv Bruno of Cologne at Chartreuse in 1084.
The program for the establishment of truth and justice Ivo of Chartres (d. 1117) in the eleventh and early
was based upon old Church law, the lex Christi incor- twelfth centuries attempted
once again to bring
porated in the decretiim of Gratian and other decretals collegiate churches and cathedrals under monastic dis-
of canon law. The Gregorian reformation aimed at cipline. The Canons Regular of Saint Augustine
eliminating simony, clerical concubinage and marriage, combined monastic and clerical callings in churches,
and lay investiture, and strove in a positive way to schools, and hospitals. But none of the efforts at refor-
spiritualize the entire hierarchy from lowest cleric to mation within monasticism were of permanent dura-
the supreme pontiff. The Climiac and Gregorian re- tion. Nor were the mendicant orders able to establish
form movements met with astonishing success, and yet a lasting reformation of the Church.
they were not without serious defects which became The history of monasticism was the history of
evident in due course. The Cluniac movement suffered constantly renewed reforms. The individual monk best
from an institutional defect, for the burden of discipline incorporated the "form" of Christ and the monastic
rested too exclusively upon the abbot of Climy. The community best represented the body of Christ. Both
Gregorian reform suffered from an analogous flaw, but as individuals and communities the monks were to
with a different effect. The assertion of Petrine or papal fulfill as best they could the "law of Christ." For the
jurisdictional primacy paved the way for those extrav- mendicant friars this law was best expressed in the
agant claims to plenitudo potestatis asserted in behalf commission to the disciples in Matthew 10 to go into
of the papacy by some popes, canon lawyers, and the highways and byways to serve and to save the lost.
theologians in the later Middle Ages. The hierocratic Christ gave to Francis the great commission to reform
conception of his office held by Innocent III, vertis the Church in the well-known words: "Repair my
imperator, who presided over the grand Fourth Lateran house, because it is, as you can see, in the process of
Council of and the extravagant claims to
1215, being completely destroyed." Saint Francis initially
preeminence asserted by Boniface VIII in the bull understood these words quite literally and with his own
Unam Sanctam (1302), prompted fierce opposition on hands rebuilt a number of churches. Soon, however,
the part of secular rulers and precipitated the he came to see his vocation in spiritual terms so that
Avignonese captivity and the great schism (Ladner, his conception of reformation called for personal
64 1964). penitence, poverty, humiUty, and a life of service to
REFORMATION
mankind Unlike various heretical groups or the Malorum Avaritia = ROMA; love of money is the root
pauperes Christi in the late eleventh and twelfth of all evil. In 1410 Dietrich of Niem in his treatise
centuries, who emphasized absolute poverty as the De modis uniendi et refonnandi ecclesiam in concilia
supreme good, Saint Francis stressed conversion as a universali argued that healing the schism had to be
change of heart, the need to emulate Christ's life of accompanied by the cleansing of the Church. The
love and to lead the vita apostolica as a life of devotion powers usurped by the papacy had to be taken away,
and service. In the Rules of 1221 and 1223 as well the beneficiary and financial policy had to be com-
as in his Testament Saint Francis insisted upon faithful pletely reformed, and the Church restored to the via
participation in the sacraments and humble obedience antiqua, its former condition.
to the hierarchical Church. His was to be a reformation The pre-reformers or "forerunners of the Reforma-
very personal and individual within the structure of tion" had their individual diagnoses of and pro- ills
the Church. grams Middle Ages there was

for reform. In the late
As the conventual Franciscans in their turn grew still general agreement that the reform of the Church
wealthy and worldly, the spiritual Franciscans became was the work of God Himself, acting through spiritual
"reformers, "
lu^ging the return to apostolic poverty and men. There was considerably less agreement as to
the simple spirituality of Saint Francis. In the adherents which spiritually quickened members of the bod) of
to Joachim of Floris' philosophy of history an Christ were authorized to lead an authentic reforma-
apocalyptic-Utopian strain which threatened to lose all tion or what the best method for effecting a reform
historical concreteness developed. Joachim and his might be. Marsiglio of Padua in his Defensor pacis
commentator Gerard described the three ages of world (1324) not only roundly assaulted abuses in the Church,
history as the Ages of the Father, the Son, and the but proposed constitutional changes, on the analogy
Holy Spirit. Gerard predicted the advent of the age of the city-state, which would diminish the
of the Holy Spirit for 1260, a new age in which the monarchical episcopate and introduce representative
Spirit, assisted bv the Spiritual Franciscans, would rule. principles. The new constitution of the Church would
Some Joachimite tendencies were even tied in with not be democratic in honoring majority rule in terms
extravagant and bizarre ideas such as Johannes von of numbers, but would take into account representation
Lichtenberger's astrological calculations. If reforma- by quality of office, order, and estate. William of
tion in the monastic tradition had meant moral purifi- Ockham joined the Franciscans and protested in favor
cation and a return to the norm of pristine purity, the of "evangelical poverty." He was a severe critic of the
attempts to purge and reform among the spiritualists worldliness and wealth of Pope John XXII. Ockham
were intended as preparation for the new and final saw service as a basic character of the Church which
stage of human history. All eschatological expectation had the power of law, service to Christ first of all. The
concentrated on a breakthrough of an ideal time. Ref- external church whose societal structure involves her
ormation signified the second decisive turning point in the sphere of worldly power must constantly be
in human history and would inaugurate the third and pressed to conform to the "true church" of service.
final era of world history. John Wycliffe (1328-84) believed that zealous laymen,
5. Late Medieval Reform. The call for reformation sovereign rulers who are worthy Christians, must as-
at the end of the Middle Ages was very different from sume the task of reforming where worldly and wicked
that sounded earlier. It was more shrill, strident, urgent. churchmen have defaulted and should be deposed.
It would be difficult to overestimate the devastating Everyone whom the Holy Spirit moves is called to act
impact on all areas of thought and life of the in behalf of the Church. Every Christian who lives
"Babylonian Captivity" of the papacy Avignon at according to Christ's will becomes a reformer
(1309-77) and of the Great Schism, when there were automatically in the sphere of his personal hfe. In this
two or three claimants to the papal see at once tradition the Bohemian reformer John Hus (1369-1415)
(1378-1417). Shocked reformers of various kinds exclaimed, "O Christ, it will take a long time before
responded to the confused situation. William Durand the proud priests will become so humble as to subject
coined the phrase refonnatio in capite et in metnlms, themselves to the Church for sin, as thou, being
calling for reform in head and members. The concili- innocent, hast subjected thyself "
(Schmidt, 1964).
arists placed the blame primarily on the papacy and Wessel Gansfort (ca. 1420-89) conceived of reform in
curia and worked for administrative and constitutional terms of a greater spiritualization of rehgious rites and
change. Typical of this criticism were the Speculum dogma, exercizing a considerable influence upon
aureum de titulis beneficionim. a "golden mirror" Luther, at least by way of confirming him in stressing
reflecting the abuses of the benefices, and the Squalores the inwardness of religion.
curiae Romanae. A popular acrostic device which An example of the way in which the religious idea
appeared often in the literature was Radix Omnium of reformation fused in the sacramental kingship con- o5
—
REFORMATION
cept is provided by the fifteenth-century document creation of something new only in the context of the
known as the Reformatio Sigismundi. This widely reform of the universities and its faculties. He rarely
circulated treatise purported to be an account of a spoke of himself as a reformer or an innovator, seeing
vision of Emperor Sigismund which came to him as himself rather as a mere vehicle used by Christ the
he lay dreaming on his bed near the dawn. In the vision Word to effect change. He wished to "let the Word
Sigismund was commissioned to prepare a road for the rule" and not personally to lead a reform. While he
coming of the divine order, for all written law lacks drank beer with Amsdorf, he opined, the Word of God
righteousness. The coming of the priest-king Frederick went forth world creating tumults. Only in
into the
is foretold, who will bring into being God's own order his early years did Luther use the term reformation
by promoting a spiritual and secular reform program. at all. The young Luther made his most comprehensive
The document was clearly intended to support the statement regarding "reformation" in his Resolution
efforts of Emperor Sigismund (1410-37) to see the to Thesis 89: "The Church is in need of a reform
Council of Basel (1431-49) succeed John of in reform. which is not the duty of one man, the pontiff, or of
Segovia, chronicler of the council, wrote: "Reform can many cardinals (as the most recent council has proved
be imderstood either as the extirpation of evil or as both points), but of the whole world, even of God
the increase of the gifts of the Holy Spirit " (Koller, alone. But the time of this reform is known to Him
1964; Oberman, 1966). alone who has founded the times" {Weimar Ausgabe,
The concept of reformation was given an imme- I, 627, 27ff.; Schmidt, 1964). Luther did not exult about
diately practical technical meaning in the Empire effecting a reformation of the Church nor did he hope
during the fifteenth century. Not only did poets and to achieve it once for all times.
pamphleteers demand "reformation," but lawyers The term "reformation" was appUed to the new
worked on the revival of Roman law (important from evangelical church orders which replaced the pre-
the twelfth century on) and the reform of the imperial Reformation territorial ecclesiastical orders. In 1526
order, city and law. The gravamina or
territorial Luther himself drew up "The German Mass and Order
grievances of the Empire articulated regularly at the of Divine Service" in which he laid down the principle
Diets throughout the fifteenth cenhory were often that every church order had to promote faith and love.
coupled with appeals to the "good old law" and the When it ceased to do so, ithad to be set aside quickly
superior condition of things in former times. Thus the and decisively in favor of one more conducive to true
Diet of Eger "reformed" feuding law and coinage in spiritual life. An evangeUcal church order should never
1436. In the reform of city ordinances (Nuremberg, lend itself to legalism or to hierarchical tyranny as in
1479; Worms, 1498; Frankfurt, 1509, etc.), the renewal the case of the papal order with its canon law. Uniform
and restoration of the "good old law and customs was '
church orders were justified only insofar as they were
the program. The term "reformation" was given a legal necessary for right doctrinal and sacramental practice.
application in the modernizing of territorial law as in The church orders usually contained first a section on
the case of the 1518 "reformation of Bavarian territo- dogma in which the agreement of the territorial church
rial law." The lethargic Emperor Frederick III codified with the general Lutheran confessions was demon-
a "reformation of the territorial peace" in 1442 strated. There followed then the rules for liturgy, hold-
(Maurer, 1961). ing of church offices, organization of church govern-
6. Reformation as a Historical Period. The idea of ment, discipline, marriage laws, school ordinances,
reformation has come to be very closely associated with and the like. The adoption of the new
salaries, alms,
the Protestant movement as an historical epoch. In church orders (Kirchenordnungen) in territories as they
more recent ecumenical days the term "counter- turned Protestant was viewed as a formahzation of
reformation" has given way in historical literature to ecclesiastical reformation and occasionally, as in the
the more generous designation of "CathoUc Reforma- case of the "Cologne Reformation" of 1543, the term
tion" in order to bring out the positive side of the was specifically used.
Cathohc response to Protestantism. How the concept Phihpp Melanchthon (1497-1560) was reticent about
came to be used so exclusively to designate not only using the term "reformation" even in the old legal
a development within church history but as a term for sense. In the document of the Schmalkald Diet of 1537
an entire era of European history in general is an the superscription De iure reformandi comes from a
interesting question and not at all so obvious as one strange hand. Only when the emperor in his proposal
might suppose. For Luther himself did not use the term of 1544 announced a Christian reformation did the
to describe his movement as a whole. Luther used the Saxons feel jusiified in assembling their recom-
concept ill the old legal sense and not in a Utopian mendations in the "Wittenberger Reformation" of
DO apocalyptic sense. He spoke of reformation as the 1545. At the Diet of Augsburg in 1548 a Reformation
REFORMATION
guter policey was established. In the battle against the ture is Jesus Christ; and the Gospel is the Word of
Leipzig Interim in 1550 Pfeffinger and the conservative God which confers faith. Calvin answered the question
Lutheran Flacius Illyricus undertook "the reformation" of the religious meaning of "reformation" very
of various rites such as confirmation. In his funeral explicitly in a treatise On Reforming
the Necessity for
oration for Luther and again on the second anniversary the Church (1543). He described Luther as a prophet
of Luther's death, Melanchthon evaluated Luther's who spoke out for the Gospel against apostasy. He
work and the reform effort, but without using the term denied the charge that the reformers were disturbing
"reformation. He distinguished five periods of church
"
the peace, laying the blame on those who had brought
history each of which was characterized by certain key the Church to a low spiritual estate, citing the words
people and outstanding accomplishments. In the final of Elijah to .\hab: "I have not troubled Israel, but thou
fifth period of church history Luther, Melanchthon and thy father's house in that ye have forsaken the
asserted, had relit the hght of the gospel, but it was commandments of the Lord." The reformers, he held,
really God who called the Church back to the pure were merely obedient to their vocation to preach the
sources in the apostles and prophets. He still viewed Gospel. For Calvin, then, "reformation" meant pro-
Luther as standing in a long line of teachers in the claiming the Gospel of "good news of salvation" and
one Church extending through all the past centuries leaving the consequences to God. In doctrine and
(Maurer. 1961). practice the Church had come to diminish the purity
The Lutheran church adopted this position
historians of the gospel by impairing the glory of Christ. The
on the place of Luther and work
in church history.
his saints were invoked instead of Christ alone. Men were
Flacius Illyricus in his Zeugen der Wahrheit [Catalogus led to rely upon their own works of righteousness
testium veritatis, 1556; "Witnesses of Truth" and the ) rather than upon Christ's all-sufficient merit and mercy.
Magdeburg Centuries (begun in 1559) referred to ref- Sacramental practice was so distorted as to minimize
ormations in the Middle Ages in the old legal sense the importance of Christ as the central reality. Refor-
and saw the late medieval reform ordinances as mation for Calvin, as for Luther, meant the rediscovery
prophetic of Luther's work. The Lutheran historian and renewed proclamation of the Gospel (Gerrish,
Veit Ludwig von Seckendorf, author of the famous 1967).
Historia Lutheranismi, first equated Lutheranism and A somewhat different emphasis is evident in the case
Reformation, In 1688 he wrote against the Jesuit Louis of the Zurich reformer. The Zwinglian "reformed"
Maimbourg of the Lutheran movement as the reforma- reading of the reformation was rooted in the Erasmian
tio religiotiis ductu Dr. Martini Lutheri. He spoke of notion of a "renaissance of Christendom." Zwingli
the Reformation as the "purification of the condition himself spoke of a "restoration of Christendom." In
of the church." By this time general historians were later years after the Zurich and Genevan Swiss
operating with the concept of modern times as distin- Protestant movements had been amalgamated in com-
guished from the Middle Ages, with the Reformation mon confessions, this way of looking at the reformation
and the Renaissance as twin sources of modernity. In was given expression also by men in the Calvin tradi-
1685 the Lutheran historian Cellarius, schooled in tion. In 1580, for example, Theodore Beza in his church
humanist cultural values, referred to the Middle Ages history referred to the "renaissance and growth" of the
as the medium aet>um. reformed churches.

Like Luther and the other magisterial reformers, The radical or left-wing reformers, very commonly
Calvin was concerned with the substance of Christian in that centurv lumped together under the term
reform, not with personally leading a movement as Anabaptists, had a bewildering variety of reformation
such. His intention was to affirm the preeminence of conceptions. A few ideas appear, however, with con~
Jesus Christ against all corruptions in religion which siderable regularity and consistency. They expected
diminish the centrality and sufficiency of Christ in that in their sectarian groups, having separated from
theology and in and form of the Church. His
the life official church and state, they would anticipate in the
teaching was not a new gloomy predes-
legalism or a here and now the coming of the kingdom of God. They
tinarianism, but his aim was to promote the truth of were for the most part pacifists and sought to imitate
the gospel and the proper form of the church, as he Christ and to reestablish the pristine piu-ity of the
patiently explained in his Reply to Sadoleto (1539). In primitive church. "Whether Anabaptists, Spiritualists,
his preface to Olivetan's New Testament (1535) Calvin or Evangehcal Rationalists, the radical reformers were
already laid down the determinative ideas of his theol- alike in their dissatisfaction with the Lutheran-
ogy which remained the leading themes to the final Zwinglian-Calvinist forensic formulation of justifica-
edition of his Institutes: man's blessedness is acknowl- tionand original sin or predestination that seemed to
edging God as the source of good; the heart of Scrip- them to undercut the significance of their personal 67
REFORMATION
religious experience. They believed that holiness or into the eighteenth century. Pietism flourished as a
be achieved by the
sanctification could saints in the religious movement in Germany, Switzerland, and the
here and now. They were martyr-minded like the early Netherlands. It was reformatory in the sense of making
Christians and society obliged them by persecuting an earnest, practical application of the abstract staad-
them horribly But they persisted in
as subversives. ards of orthodoxy to private life and to Christian com-
exercising those personal and corporate disciplines by munity. When the Enlightenment and a loss of ardor
which thev strove to imitate in their midst what they within the Church of England proved to be corrosive
construed from the New Testament texts to have been of personal piety and lively faith, John Wesley's
the life of the original apostolic commimity (Williams, Methodism served to revive religion in a way not
1962). unlike the manner in which Puritanism in its day had
If the Lutheran church historians contributed to the quickened religious fervor, largely within the structure
development of the idea of the Fieformation as an of the official AngUcan church. The Moravian Brother-
historical epoch, the Swiss reformed church historians hood served as a link between Pietism and Methodism.
also contributed to this usage. In the historiography The evangelical revival in the Church of England was
of the reformed churches tlie Reformation was most reminiscent of Luther's own reform efforts. Wesley was
often dated from 1516 witli Zwingli as "the first of a classical reformer late in time.
all to reform the church." The eighteenth-centurv The Society of Friends with its Spirit-driven move-
Enlightenment church historians accepted the Refor- ment was analogous to some of the small sects of the
mation as a period, and added new motifs of inter- sixteenth century. In the nineteenth century various
pretation. With Johann Lorenz Mosheim, the "founder members of the Oxford Movement referred to the effort
of modem church history," the view of the Reforma- of the Tractarians to rekindle the flame in Anglicanism
tion as a general European phenomenon gained wider as a "reformation." In America the Great Awakening
currency. He introduced the conception of the church (especially in 1830-31), following the indifference to
as a kind of sociological entity and stressed the impor- religion of the revolutionary war period, was conceived
tance of political factors. The Groningen professor of as a reformation in the sense of an evangelical
Daniel Gerde in his Geschichte des im 16. Jahrhundert revival. It, too, was influenced by Pietism's stress on
allenthalben in Europe emeuerten Evangeliums (1744) feeling. Charles Finney's Lectures on Revivak of Reli-
gave to the Reformation a trans-confessional character gion (1835) was the most powerful theoretical state-
and treated it as a European movement. During the ment of the revival experience.
nineteenth century as a result of the fervor generated Within the Roman Catholic communion there have
by the wars of liberation and the rise of nationalism, been two large-scale efforts to renew theology within
the Reformation was viewed once again as a German, this century prior to the second Vatican Council. The
French, or English phenomenon by many historians. first was the movement known as modernism which
Historicism and a stress upon the social aspects of the started before the turn of the century and was cut short
Reformation introduced new emphases. Thus the idea by Pope Pius X in 1907. The second came right after
of the Reformation as an historical conception was the second World War, the so-called "new theology."
enlarged from the narrower religious and ecclesiastical This theological revival now in progress may well be
framework to include the entire social, political, and more lasting, for it has a broader base throughout the
cultural development of Europe at the beginning of Church and the seriousness of the Church's situation
"modern times." in the world is more clearly recognized. In Catholicism
7. Reformation in Post-Reformation Times. The as in Protestantism, the Ecumenical Movement has

classical Reformation of the sixteenth century made been hailed as an important part of the "New Refor-
such a tremendous impact upon the Western mind that mation of the whole Christian church on earth, the
"
the religious idea of reformation was thereafter con- una sancta. The council Vatican II in its "Decree on
sistently conceived in terms derived from it. Two spe- Ecumenism" referred "to that continual reformation
of which she [the Church] always has need.
"
cial emphases predominated in modern times. The one

was traditional in nature, namely, criticism of abuses The application of religion to the reformation of
or of indifference within the Church accompanied by society was a more characteristic expression of the
a new call to revive the faith and fervor of the early Anglo-Saxon world than of continental Christianity. In
Christians and
of the cla.ssical reformers or founding England one by-product of the new Methodistic piety
fathers of each denomination. The second was the was pressure against slavery, child labor, and other
persistent effort to apply religion to the reformation social ills. The Sunday School, Bible Society, and mis-
of society. sionary movements were effects of reUgion's power to
Do In the second half of the seventeenth century and reform the world. The wedding of nondogmatic
REFORMATION
Christianity withAmerican pragmatism in American was prom-

Christian communities, regular and secular,
Christianity — John Fiske's Costnic Evolution
e.g., in
— inent; and that in very modern times the reform of
produced such efforts as the social gospel movement. society seems to loom large as the primary concern
Following the lead of such nineteenth-century of religious men in the West. The religious idea of
theologians as Samuel Harris and Horace Bushnell, who reformation has at all times been a powerful force in
believed that America had a special destiny and mission history. Luther, the magisterial reformer, caught the
in realizing the kingdom on earth, the advo-
of Christ paradox implied in the religious idea of reformation.
He emphasized God "works
"
cates of the social gospel undertook the application strongly that within us
of the "social principles of Jesus" to American urban but not "without us." Reformation is God's work, but
and industrial society, de-emphasizing personal justifi- at the same time it is man's work. To Luther the world
cation and religious experience of a traditional kind. was "'the sphere of faith's works, "
one of the most
Washington Gladden (1836-1918), Josiah Strong powerful organizing thoughts, Wilhelm Dilthey ob-
(1847-1916), and, above all, Walter Rauschenbusch served, that a man has ever had (Gesammelte Schriften,
(1861-1918), author of the highly influential lecture 4th ed., Leipzig and Berlin [1940], II, 61).
series A
Theology of the Social Gospel (1918), conceived
of the Church's task as the reformation of society
according to the will of God, whose kingdom is one
of peace, justice, and love. The Christian socialist

movement in Europe was a response to similar reform- BIBLIOGRAPHY
ing impulses, although in part apologetic in aim in that The principal authority on the subject is Gerhart B.
it was offered as an alternative to Marxist materialism. Ladner, Vie Idea of Reform: Impact on Christian
Its
In the late nineteenth century American Christianity Thought and Action in the Age of the Fathers (Cambridge,
joined hands with Europe in pressing ahead with a Mass., 1959), pp. 35, 9-34, 39-44, 63-107, 133-42; "Refor-
matio," S. H. Miller and G. E. Wright, eds.. Ecumenical
worldwide program. John R. Mott, founder of the
Dialogue at Harvard (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), pp. 170-90,
Worlds Student Christian Federation 1895), called for (
" especially 172-81. Other helpful titles include; Konrad

the "evangelization of the world in this generation
Burdach, Reformation. Renaissance, Humanismus (Berlin,
and offered to mankind Protestant Christianity and
1918; 1926), pp. 37-42; William Clebsch, From Sacred to
democracy as two sides of the same coin. In the America (New Delumeau,
Profane York, 1968); Jean
twentieth century churchmen have turned to solving Naissance et affirmation de la reforme (Paris, 1965); Mircea
problems of a social nature with energy, pressing for Le mythe de Teternel retour (Paris, 1949); idem. The
Eliade,
involvement in issues of peace, civil rights, race rela- Two and the One (London, 1965), p. 148; Wallace K.
tions, education, and income for the imderprivileged, Ferguson, Tlie Renaissance in Historical Thought (Boston,
urban renewal, farm labor, and a host of similar issues. 1948); Brian Gerrish, ""John Calvin and the Meaning of
In the words of the American theologian Robert Reformation," McCormick Quarterly. 21 (Nov. 1967),
McAfee Brown, the Reformation of the sixteenth cen- 1 14-22; Heinrich KoUer, ed.. Reformation Kaiser Sigismunds
(Stuttgart, 1964), pp. 4-5; Wilhelm Maurer, "Reformation,"
tury consisted of the rediscovery of the Church, while
Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, V (Tubingen,
the Reformation of the twentieth century centers in
1961), cols. 858-73, 861-63;Heiko Oberman, Forerunners
the rediscovery of the world.
of the Reformation (New York, 1966); Robert D. Preus, The
While history shows that the content of the reHgious
Theology of Post-Reformation Ltitheranism (St. Louis, 1970);
idea of reformation has through the ages been subjected
Martin Schmidt, "Who Reforms the Church?"' in S. H.
to varying modalities, certain elements have been Miller and G. E. Wright, eds.. Ecumenical Dialogue at
recurrent, if not constant. For reformation in Western Harvard (Cambridge, Mass., 1964). pp. 191-206; Lewis W.
thought has indeed stressed man's intentional efforts, Spitz, ed.. —
The Reformation Material or Spiritual? (Boston,
multiple, repeated, and variegated, to reassert good old 1962); idem, The Renaissance and Reformation Movements
values and by personal regeneration and individual (Chicago, 1971); Charles Trinkaus, "In our Image and Like-
reform by the restoration and improvement
as well as ness": Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Tliought.
the Church and the world to hft 2 vols. (Chicago, 1970); George H. Williams, The Radical
of commimity life in
Reformation (Philadelphia, 1962), p. 865; Herbert Workman,
man above low levels to which he has periodically
77ie Evolution of the Monastic Ideal (London, 1918), pp.
fallen. If one were to take a bold look at the whole
219-24.
sweep of history, one might venture to conclude that
in the early centuries of the Christian era renewal LEWIS W. SPITZ
elements were very strong in combination with ideas [See also Christianity in History; Cycles; Enlightenment;
of personal reformation; that in the medieval and Ref- Faith; God; Heresy; Hierarchy; Perfectibility; Primitivism;
ormation eras reformation of the individual and of the Prophecy; Renaissance; Revolution.] 69
RELATIVISM IN ETHICS
RELATIVISM IN ETHICS incidents described have been taken from the lives of
some of the most admired .Athenians, except for the
The term "ethical relativism" may refer to any one assassination, which is based on the killing of Caesar
of a number of related views. Distinguishing these will by Brutus.

not solve the very difficult questions involved but will Examples of this kind do not, however, settle the
at least make clearer what the problems are. Most matter. Hume's is to defend the thesis
piu'pose, indeed,
commonly, a relativist is taken to assert that there are that atbottom all men have the same moral attitudes.
incompatible ultimate moral behefs in different cul- The most extreme differences in actual codes of con-
tures, and that there is no sense in which one set of duct do not necessarily establish that ultimate moral
beliefs can be said to be correct and another mistaken. beliefs differ; for the same general principle may dic-
Moral behefs, that is to say, are relative to a particular tate very different behavior in differing circumstances.
culture, much as the rules of etiquette are. We can "Had you asked a parent at Athens, Hume says, "why
"
say that it is "correct" to wear black at a funeral in he bereaved his child of that life which he had so lately
some communities but not in others; there is no point given it, it is because I love it, he would reply; and re-
in asking which is "really" correct, apart from the gard the poverty which it must inherit from me as a
customs of this or that community. In the same way, greater evil than death, which it is not capable of dread-
it is contended, in some communities it is right to have ing, feeling or resenting." Again, homosexual attach-
several wives, or to kill someone who has insulted your ments "were recommended, though absurdly, as the
family; in others it is wrong. Different communities source of friendship, sympathy, mutual attachment, and
have different moral codes; and there are no objective fidelity; qualities esteemed in all nations and all ages."
criteria by which we can judge these codes themselves A similar point was made by Francis Hutcheson, who
as right or wrong. pointed out that apparent moral diversity often sprang
It will be seen that two distinct claims are being from difference of opinion about the facts involved.
made here: a factual claim and a philosophical claim. He instances differing estimates of what makes for
The factual claim is that different cultures do in fact happiness; differing opinions about the motives of other
have different ultimate moral beliefs. The philosophical men, particularly members of other races, and so about
claim is that, this being so, there are no criteria by how they deserve to be treated; and differing religious
which to decide between them. These need to be beliefs, especially about what God commands. It is not
considered separately. clear, however, that these are altogether disagreements

Let us take the factual claim first. Do different cul- about fact rather than about value: our opinions about
tures have different ultimate moral beliefs? At first sight what makes men happy, or what God commands, may
it might seem obvious that they do. The crimes or sins well depend on —
or at least be influenced by our —
of one community (e.g., suicide, infanticide, abortion, beliefs about what is good or right.
homosexuality, wife-lending, dueling) may be blame- In the next century very much the same line was
less, or even laudable, in another. Even within a single taken by W. E. H. Lecky in his History of European
cultiu-e moral judgments may differ radically. As Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne (2 vols., 1869).
Bertrand Russell has pointed out (1935), "Conscience Moral diversity, he argued, could be accounted for by
leads some to condemn the spoliation of the rich by differing beliefs about matters of fact (such as the
the poor, as advocated by communists; and others to existence of a life after death in which heretics are
condemn exploitation of the poor by the rich, as punished, or the precise stage at which an embryo
practised by capitalists. It tells one man that he ought becomes a separate individual) or by the misapplication
to defend his country in case of invasion, while it tells of moral principles universally held. Since then, it has
another that all participation in warfare is wicked" become possible to assess the available evidence more
{Religion and Science [1935], p. 225). One of the char- thoroughly, but it is not clear that the question has
acters in David Hume's Dialogue, appended to Enquiry been settled. Some of the earlier anthropologists, like
concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) gives an L. l^vy-Bruhl (1857-1939), were impressed by the
amusing account of an imaginary country whose most extent of moral diversity and were inclined to conclude
esteemed public figure kills both his infant child and that "theoretical ethics" had been exploded by "sci-
his best friend, marries his own sister, who indulges ence": "What scientific ethical speculation can there
him in his homosexual amours, and finally hangs him- henceforth be except the comparative study of ethical
self. "So virtuous and noble a life" say his countrymen, systems that exist or have existed?" {Ethics and Moral
"could not be better crowned than by so noble an end." Science, p. 169). Levy-Bruhl's main point, however, is
When another character says indignantly that there that moral behefs are wholly the result of social condi-
70 could be no such country it is pointed out that all the tioning, and he does not nJe out the possibility that
different cultures may same basic moral

share the Lecky, in commenting on the glacfiatorial shows of
beliefs. "It mav be and
that the characteristics of duty, Imperial Rome, remarks: "The Roman sought to make
of the conscience in general, are the result of a whole men brave and fearless, rather than gentle and humane,
mass of conditions, nearly similar, which are found in and in his eyes that spectacle was to be applauded
all fairly civihzed human societies" (ibid., p. 121). which steeled the heart against the fear of death, even
Westermarck agrees with earlier writers that much at the sacrifice of the affections" (History of European
moral disagreement depends on "knowledge or Morals. 1, 287). Granted that in most cultures both
ignorance of facts, on specific religious or superstitious bravery and compassion are applauded, difference of
beliefs, on different degrees of reflection, or on different opinion about which should take precedence may still
'
conditions of life or other external circumstances represent a quite hmdamental difference in moral atti-
(Ethical Relativity, p. 196). He thinks, however, that tude. It is a difference, incidentally, which may well
there one striking difference that cannot be explained
is divide men even within the same culture. And there
away: "Savage rules of morality" have "broadly speak- are other differences of the same kind.
ing, only reference to members of the same community But it is clear that the philosophical question
or tribe" (ibid., p. 197). Murder, theft, lying, and the (whether moral beliefs are objective or relative in the
infliction of other injuries will be disapproved of when way that rules of etiquette are relative) is an inde-
the victim is a member of the tribe, but condoned or pendent one. For if fundamental beliefs do vary, it is
even applauded if he is an alien. This fact was, how- still possible that some of them are mistaken. Moreover,
ever, regarded by Hobhouse as evidence not of even if they don't vary, it might still be the case that
irreconcilable moral diversity, but of moral evolution: they are not objective.
progress in morals consisted in the gradual widening The last point comes out clearly in the eighteenth-
of the sphere of application of moral rules. More re- century controversy between the moral sense school
cently, Raymond Firth has suggested that the (notably Hutcheson and Hume) and their opponents.
anthropological evidence points to the existence of As we have seen, Hutcheson and Hume believed that
standards of right and wrong in all hiunan societies. all men have, at bottom, the same moral sense. An
While these vary, behind the variation there is "a real analogy may be drawn with secondary quahties like
measure of uniformity." No society can exist without color. To say that a buttercup is yellow is to say that
some regulation or restraint in sexual affairs, and with- it will cause an impression of yellow when light-rays
out some curbs on violence. There must, then, be "some from it stimulate a certain kind of sense organ. An
general principles about the relative value of non- animal with different eyes might well see it as a differ-
violence and overt harmony in social actions." He adds ent color. In the same way, to say that something is
that the anthropologist "does not abjure moral univer- good is, according to the moral sense school, to say
sals. He seeks them in the very nature of his social that it rouses a particular emotion (approval) in beings
material" (Elements of Social Organization, p. 214). with certain predispositions.
The factual question, then (whether cultures differ On this account moral judgments are relative, but
in fundamental moral beliefs) has not been decisively at the same time they are in a sense objective. It is
answered, mainly because of the difficulty of deciding objectively true that buttercups are yellow, in the sense
which moral fundamental. Those who argue
beliefs are that they appear yellow to all men with normal eye-
for uniformity have usually been content to show that sight. This does not, however, prevent color from being
eccentric moral beliefs can be derived from some more relative to the sense of sight, nor does it mean that
normal befief. Approval of human sacrifice, for exam- the color is a quality of the buttercup. What the
ple, becomes at least understandable in a man who buttercup has is the different quafity of reflecting
believes that he isat the mercy of evil spirits who will Ught-waves of a particular wavelength. It is in this way
afflict the whole community unless they are appeased that moral judgments are, according to Hutcheson,
in some way. If this kind of explanation is accepted relative to the moral sense; and it was this view that
it will follow that moral beliefs do not differ as much led Hume to say that moral judgments, rightly under-
as might seem at first sight: the basic moral premiss stood, do not ascribe a quality or relation to the thing
becomes, not the utterly incomprehensible one that judged, but express a sentiment in the breast of the
human sacrifice is good, but the understandable (if still person judging.
controversial) one that it is permissible to sacrifice one It would seem from this that to say that morality
innocent person for the good of the whole community. is relative is not, after all, to say that moral statements
There may still, however, be a large area of disagree- are not objective. This is the case, however, only in
ment, particularly about which of two conflicting con- one sense of "objective." It is objectively true that
siderations should take precedence. For example. buttercups are yellow only ff we are prepared to take 71
as our standard the judgments of men with normal Both of them would agree with Hobbes that moral
sight. The buttercup is yellow, seen through human beliefs are human nature. If men were
relative to
eyes; to a creature with different eyes it might not be. would be different. It was just this that
different, thev
Similarly an action is, according to the moral .sense their opponents would not concede.
school, wrong, seen (metaphorically speaking) through Some philosophers, however, have argued that in
human eyes; but to a creature with a different kind Hobbes or Hume relativism is attenuated to the
of moral sense it might not be wrong. And to a neutral vanishing point. Hume says, in a striking phrase, that
observer —someone who was able to transcend the men "invented the laws of nature" (Treatise of HurrMn
limits of his own physical or mental constitution — it Nature, 111, 11, viii), but he also says that they could
would be neither right nor wrong: it would simply have hardly have invented any other laws than those they
certain characteristics capable of arousing approval in did invent. It may be argued that this is not really a
one kind of creature and disapproval in another. contingent matter. Any moral rule presupposes the
Once this is realized, the fact (if it is a fact) that possibility of breaking it; but it is another matter to
men have the same basic moral beliefs becomes irrele- suppose that everyone could break it all the time, and
vant. It is at least logically possible that men might still another to suppose that the rule might not exist.
(perhaps on another planet) have different basic moral It would, in a sense, be logically impossible for every-
beliefs. And it would seem to follow that if they did, one always to tell lies. If I say "no" whenever I mean
there would be no reason for preferring one set to "yes" my "no" will be taken to mean "yes" and I will
another. Consequently John Balguy (1686-1748), au- in effect only be using words eccentrically. If everyone
thor of The Foundation of Moral Goodness, asks said "no" when he meant "yes," the words would
Hutcheson, very shrewdly, whether God had any rea- merely change their meaning. The rule about truth-
son for endowing men with the moral sense they have telling, in short, is one of the conditions of communi-
instead of one which, let us say, made them approve cation. But the same may be said of the laws of logic;
of cruelty and disapprove of kindness. If he had a and it is not really conceivable that they could be
reason, then there is a reason, quite apart from human different. To say that moral rules are the conditions
dispositions, for preferring kindness to cruelty. Kind- of successful cooperation in society, then, may lead to
ness really is better than cruelty in the eyes of God, the conclusion, not that they are contingent or "rela-
that is, to a being who sees things as they are, and tive," but that thev are somehow rooted in the nature
not as colored by the peculiarities of the human consti- of things. Something like this seems to be the position
tution. If God had no reason, then it would seem to of P. Winch (1959-60).
follow that moral beliefs have no objective validity. The more
usual view, however, has been that the
\s against this, however, it may be argued that view of Hobbes, or the moral sense view, avoids the
Hutcheson and Himie are in this position only because absurdities of complete relativism only by, as it were,
they regard morality as relative to a particular human a lucky accident. Men happen to have the same moral
emotion, or sentiment — the sentiment of approval. sense; but they might not have had. Human nature
Suppose it is said instead that morality is relative to might have been different. It is at least conceivable
human purposes and the conditions of their realization. that we might be confronted with a tribe in which,
This would seem to give moral principles at least the let us say, torturing slaves for sport was approved of.
objectivity of sociological laws. Hobbes, for example, It would seem to follow that we could not rationally
regarded moral rules as stating the conditions which condemn such a tribe. We would, of course, think their
made harmonious cooperation in society possible. Since behavior wrong, since our own attitude to torture is
the conditions were the same whatever the ends one of disapproval, but we would have to admit, on
cooperation was intended to achieve, this made moral- reflection, that theywould have the same reason for
ity "eternal and immutable" even though human de- thinking our reaction wrong. We would call them cruel
sires themselves were highly mutable. This position is and they would call us squeamish. To an impartial
not, however, essentially different from that of observer it would not even make sense to ask which
Hutcheson and Hume. Although they said that "X is of us was mistaken. "We should no more call the moral
right" amounts to "I have an approving attitude to sense morally good or evil," Hutcheson admitted, "than
X" they did not mean that such attitudes were we call the .sense of tasting, savoury or unsavoiu'y,
arbitrary, or could be adopted at will. For Hutcheson sweet or bitter" (Essay .... 3rd ed. [1742], p. 239).
our feelings of approval are as fixed a part of human Moral judgments arise only within a particular moral
nature as oiu- sense of smell, or of taste. This is also system, in which certain moral rules or axioms are
true of Hume, though he is more inclined than presupposed. We cannot apply moral epithets to those
Hutcheson to concede that custom and conditioning systems, or those axioms, themselves. The consequences
72 play a part in the development of the moral sense. are, of course, even more serious for those relativists
who say that men's basic moral beliefs do actually knows to be wrong. Perhaps, however, this merely
differ. They must conclude that, objectively considered, means that the wrongdoer does not realize the truth
a Hitler or a Genghis Khan is no worse than a Saint of a different proposition, namely, that it is wrong to
Francis or a Gandhi. act against one's beliefs about what is right? If so, he
This supposed consequence has always been the chief is still being condemned for an intellectual error. If
objection to relativism. It may be argued, however, not, it is hard to escape the conclusion that he is being
that the objection rests on a confusion. The contention condemned for being a certain kind of man: the kind
is that, according to the relativist, nothing is really of man who deliberately chooses to do what he believes
right or wrong. But why should the relativist say this? to be wrong. But the subjectivist, too, would say that
He is forced to say it only if he concedes an objectivist in the last analysis he condemns the wrongdoer for
premiss which he expressly repudiates: that notliing being a certain kind of man. To say that a man has
is "really "
right or wrong unless it is objectively right certain fundamental preferences or attitudes is to say
or wrong. that he is a certain kind of man. he prefers toughness

If
A cultural relativist, for example, believes that moral to compassion (to resort to an earlier example) he will
attitudes arise out of the whole complex of institutions arouse disapproval, and perhaps active opposition, in
and beliefs that constitute a culture. It is argued that, someone whose hmdamental preferences are different.
when confronted with the members of a different com- The objectivist will say that we are only justified in
munitv whose moral attitudes differ from his own, he disapproving if it is an objective fact tliat compassion
is logically committed to discounting his own moral is better than toughness; but (apart from the difficulty
revulsion from their behavior. What this implies, how- of seeing what kind of fact this could be) the relativist
ever, is that a moral belief or attitude that is merely will ask: What added justification does this give?
a function of a culture ought to be disregarded. In other The other question is whether it is fair to blame a
words, the relativist who draws this conclusion is not man having certain fimdamental attitudes if those
for
really assuming that all moral beliefs are the function attitudes are the inevitable result of his being reared
of a culture, but only that mistaken ones are. A consist- ill a particular culture. But this is a separate, and not
ent relativist, on the other hand, would presumably really relevant, question; for it arises equally on an
say that "X is wrong" amounts to saying "X is not in objectivist theory of ethics. If "X is wrong" states a
accordance with my own fundamental moral attitudes" special kind of fact, it may still be the case that men
and that there is no other sense of "wrong " which willbeheve it or disbelieve it as a result of conditioning
would entitle us to add: "In that case, X cannot be of one kind or another. On any ethical theory, it is
necessary to distinguish the question whether a given
"
"really' wrong.
This reply may seem to commit the relativist to an action is wrong from the question whether a man is
even less acceptable position. For, may be said, he
it to be blamed for doing it.
is now claiming the right to condemn others simply Whether or not moral relativism is true, it is at least
because they happen to disagree with him, or perhaps not as clearly false, nor as destructive of morality, as
because they happen to belong to a different culture. has often been maintained. In considering it, however,
There are, however, two separate questions which need we have found it necessary to distinguish between the
to be disentangled here. The principal one is what we following questions: 1) Are fundamental moral beliefs
are actually saying when we say that a given course sometimes different in different cultures, or between
of conduct is wrong. It would be common ground that different individuals within a culture? 2) Would it
we mean that the behavior is not in accordance with follow, if they are, that morality is not objective? 3)
certain fundamental principles. The question at issue Are moral beliefs relative to human piu-poses (the
is how these fundamental principles are arrived at. purposes of mankind in general) and to the conditions
According to the objectivist, they are statements of of their reaUzation? 4) Are moral beliefs relative to
objective moral facts. According to the subjectivist, the particular desires or attitudes of individual men?
they express fundamental attitudes or preferences. That 5) Are moral As we have seen, there
beliefs arbitrary?
is to say, they are not absolute, but relative to the has been no quick and easy answer to any of these
attitudes or preferences of the person making the judg- questions.
ment. If it is argued that we are not entitled to con-
demn a man simply for having certain fundamental BIBLIOGRAPHY
attitudes, it may be asked whether we are entitled to On the nature and implications of variations in moral
condemn him for an intellectual error about a matter beliefs: E. Westermarck, Origin and Development I'f the
of fact. The objectivist may perhaps reply that he does Moral Ideas, 2 vols. (London, 1906); idem. Ethical Relativiiti
not condemn a wrongdoer for believing something to (London, 1932); L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution
be right that is in fact wrong, but for doing what he (London, 1906); L. Levy-Bruhl, Ethics and Moral Science 73
RELATIVITY
(London, 1905); W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals In the nineteenth centwy, optical and electromag-
from Augustus to Charlemagne, 5th ed., 2 vols. (London, netic theory had seemed to invalidate the principle.
1882); A. MacBeath, Experiments in Living (London, 1952); Reaffirming it and later generalizing it were thus revo-
R. B. Brandt, Hopi Ethics (Chicago, 1954); ]. Ladd, The
lutionary acts. Their drastic scientific consequences,
Structure of a Moral Code (Cambridge, Mass., 1957).
affecting the basic concepts of time and space, were
The main texts for the seventeenth- and eighteenth-
worked out in the twentieth century, principally by
century controversy are: T. Hobbes, Leviathan (London,
Einstein.
1651); F. Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of our
Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (London, 1725); idem. Essay
//
on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections
with Illustrations upon the Moral Sense (London, 1728; The considerable success of the Ptolemaic system
3rd. ed., London, 1745); D. Hume, Treatise of Human Na- had brought high respectability to the intuitive concept
ture (London. 1739-40); idem. Enquiry concerning the of a fixed earth, a doctrine strongly reinforced by the
Principles of Morals (London, 1751); J. Balguy, Foundation influence of Aristotle, the dogma of the Church, and
of Moral Goodness (London, 1728-29); R. Price, Review of the vanity of man.
the Principal Questions in Morals (1758; 3rd ed., London, Copernicus foimd the idea of a moving earth in the
1787).
writings of the ancients. In the dedication of his book,
Some recent discussions of the philosophical problems are
De revolutionibus to Pope Paul III, he said that at
contained in: P. Edwards, Logic of Moral Discourse
first he had thought it at3surd. His greatness does not
(Glencoe, 111., 1955); R. B. Brandt, Ethical Theory
reside primarily in his daring to take it seriously but
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1959); R. M. Hare, The Language
in his constructing a mathematically detailed system
of Morals (Oxford and New York, 1952); D. H. Monro,
Empiricism and Ethics (Cambridge, 1967); Charles Steven- capable of challenging the formidable geocentric sys-
son, Ethics and Language (New Haven, 1960); P. Winch, tem expounded by Ptolemy. Like Ptolemy, he used
"Nature and Convention," Aristotelian Society Proceedings, epicycles (Figure 1), and his system was far from sim-
1959-60. 60 (London, 1961), 231-52. ple. And though he held that the sun was fixed at the
D. H. MONRO center of the Universe, the pivotal point of the plane-

tary motions in his system was not the center of the
[See also Evil; Mathematical Rigor; Right and Good;
svm but an empty place that we may conveniently call
Utilitarianism.]
the center of the earth's orbit. In this sense the earth,
though relegated to the role of a planet, retained a
certain supremacy.
Dethronement of the earth was Kepler's doing, and
with it came beauty. The planets now moved in ellip-
RELATIVITY tical orbits about a fixed sun at a common focus, their
speeds varying in orbit in such a way that the line
from the sun to a planet traces out equal areas in equal
Essentially, Einstein's theory of relativity has its roots times (Figure 2). No longer was there need for in-
in the questions: Where are we? How are we moving? tricate epicycles either for shape of orbit or speed in
In connection with our present purposes, these ques- orbit. Simplicity had taken their place.
tions posed no profound problems so long as men
believed that the earth is the fixed center of the uni-
verse. With the astronomical hypotliesis of a moving
eartli, however, the questions began to become dis-
turbing, not only theologically but also scientifically.
This article is concerned with the scientific aspects of
the problem.
In the seventeenth-century concepts of Galileo, and
more sharply in those of Newton, one already finds
a "principle of relativity," though the phrase itself did
not come into being until late in the nineteenth cen-
tury. We can say that the principle has to do with the
impossibility of detecting absolute motion. But to this
Figure Epicycle. Planet P moves on circle (called epicycle) whose
statement we have changing caveats whose
to attach
1.
center B moves on circle (called deferent) with center A. In

nature will not become apparent until we have dis- Ptolemaic system Earth was at A. In Copemican system A was a
74 cussed the matter in detail. point near the sun.
RELATIVITY
Orbit of Planet But only seemingly. By themselves, Newton's laws

made no sense. Take the first law, for example. What
"
does the phrase "imiform motion in a straight line

mean'? Imagine a bead on a straight wire marked off
in inches. If the bead traverses equal distances along
the wire in equal times we can certainly claim that
it is moving imiformly in a straight line. But our claim
will be superficial and ill-foimded. What, for instance,
Figure 2. Here the ellipticity of the orbit is highly exaggerated.
if the clock with which we timed the bead had been
In the solar system the principal planetary orbits are close to
being circular. unreliable'? Or the wire had been whirling and reeling
— say with the Keplerian earth?
Newton was acutely aware of such problems. In his
In the drudgery of his lifelong search for laws of Principia, before stating his laws of motion, he carefully
planetary motion Kepler was sustained by a deep, prepared a conceptual setting which they could take in
religious belief in the underlying harmony and beauty on meaning. Saying disarmingly "I do not define time,
of the heavens. Let us not forget, though, that a seeking space, place, and motion [since they are] well known
after beauty had motivated Copernicus, as it had the to all," he nevertheless proceeded to define their abso-
founders of the Ptolemaic system, who believed, with lute as distinguished from their relative aspects:
Plato, that uniform circular motion was the only one "Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and
worthy of the perfection of the heavens. These aes- from its own nature, flows equably without relation
thetic aspects of their work and the work of Kepler to anything external. . . .
need to be stressed, for just such seemingly nonscientific "Absolute space, in its own nature, without relation
considerations will be playing a crucial role in the to anything external, remains always similar and im-
developments waiting to be told, and we shall see that movable. . .
."
science in its highest manifestations is more akin to These are basic assertions, not operational defini-
art than to the popular misconceptions concerning its For example, they provide no method of deciding
tions.
nature. which of our clocks comes closest to ticking uniformly.
Ill Spurred by penetrating criticisms by Berkeley and

In the seventeenth century Galileo and Descartes Leibniz, Newton added a famous Scholium in a later
adumbrated the law of inertia, which later became edition of the Principia. Here is a short excerpt: "[God]
Newton's first law of motion: every body continues in is not eternity and infinity, but eternal and infinite;
its of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line,

state he is not duration or space, but he . . . endures forever
unless it is compelled to change that state by forces and is everywhere present; and by existing always and
"
impressed upon it. That this had not been formulated everywhere he constitutes duration and space.
millennia earlier should not surprise us, for terrestrial For Newton, absolute time and absolute space were
experience strongly suggests that bodies left to them- vividly present. Without them, as we have seen, his
selves come to rest, and that force is needed to maintain laws would be meaningless. With them he could form
them in motion. True, the celestial motions seemed to cosmic concepts of absolute rest, of absolute uniform
continue indefinitely, but these motions were for the motion in a straight line, and of absolute deviations
most part circular, and it was natural for the Greeks from such motion.
to believe that the heavens were subject to laws far By noting the centrifugal effects of rotation, among
different from those that held sway on the earth. them the concavity of the surface of rotating water
It is hard to overestimate the importance of the first in his famous bucket experiment, Newton had con-
law. Uniform motion in a straight line was now the vinced himself that rotation is absolute, in powerful
natiu"al motion, needing no external cause. Bodies, agreement with his concept of absolute space. How-
being possessed of an innate inertia, resisted change ever, his laws of motion did not faithfully mirror the
of motion; and only change of motion demanded the absoluteness of their setting. To appreciate this, let us
presence of external force. Because of this new view- begin with everyday experience. In a vehicle, we feel
point Newton was able to create a conceptual system no motion when the velocity is steady. We feel the
that brought together the dynamics of the heavens and changesin motion—the accelerations or decelerations
the earth in a mighty synthesis built seemingly on just —when the vehicle speeds up, or swerves, or jerks, or
his three laws of motion and his law of imiversal gravi- slows down. If we look out of the window we can learn
tation. of our relative motion, but when a sudden acceleration 75
RELATIVITY
throws us off balance we need no view of the scenery to could hardly arise. But in retrospect, once we accept
convince us that the ride has been unsteady. the idea of a moving earth, the very opposition to it
Because of this, we sense that acceleration differs argues strongly in favor of a dynamical principle of
significantly from velocity and from rest. But we have relativity. For if one could vividly feel the earth's
been speaking in terrestrial terms. Newton's laws were motion or intuitively recognize dynamical effects of
set in absolute space and absolute time, which cosmically the motion, would men have been likely to have re-
implied absolute rest, absolute velocity, and absolute garded the earth as fixed?
acceleration. Yet the laws, while making acceleration Evidently the earth's velocity has no noticeable
(which term includes rotation) absolute, provided no dynamical effect, and this is implicit in the Newtonian
way of detecting absolute rest or absolute velocity. Ac- principle of relativity. As for the earth's acceleration,
cording to the laws, although acceleration was absolute, we realize in the fight of Newton's theory that it does
both rest and velocity were, dynamically, always rela- have dynamical effects; but in everyday life these are
tive. Newton presented this as an almost immediate either too small to be noticed or else do not present
consequence of his laws. His Corollary V reads "The themselves to common sense as manifestations of the
motions of bodies included in a given space [i.e. refer- acceleration. The path to the concept of a moving
ence si/stcrn] are the same among themselves whether earth had not been an easy one. Following Aristotle,
that space is at rest, or moves uniformly forward in a Ptolemy had argued powerfully against it, saying, for
straight line without any circular motion." We shall example, that objects thrown in the air would be left
refer to this as the Newtonian principle of relativity, behind by a moving earth. argued that a rota- He also
though a better phrase might well be the Newtonian ting earth would fly apart, to which argument Coper-
dilemma. It troubled Newton. nicus retorted that Ptolemy should have worried rather
Since his laws did not provide absolute location, about the survival of the far larger sphere of the stars
absolute rest, or absolute velocity, he introduced an if that sphere and not the earth were rotating once
extraneous "Hypothesis I: That the center of the system a day.
of the world is immovable." This unmoving center Among the dynamical "proofs" advanced against the
could not be the center of the sun, since the sun, pulled hypothesis of a moving earth was that heavy bodies
by the planets this wav and that, would be intricately when dropped ought to fall obliquely. By way of illus-
accelerated. A fortiori, no point primarily related to tration it was said that if one dropped a stone from
the earth could fill the role of the fixed center of the the top of the mast of a ship at rest itwould land
world. at the foot of the mast, but if the ship was in rapid
The solar system did, however, have a theoretical motion the stone would "obviously" land closer to the
sort of balance point that we would now call its center stem. Against this Galileo argued that the stone would
of mass; and Newton argued that according to his laws share the impetus of the moving ship and thus
the center of mass of the solar system would be unac- (neglecting air resistance) would land at the foot of
celerated. It would thus be either at rest or in uniform the mast after all. In his Dialogues on the Two World
—
motion in a straight line the laws could not say which. Systems he presents the point vividly in these words
Transcending his laws, Newton now declared that this of Salviati (emphasis added):
center of mass of the solar system, this abstract disem- Shut yourself up with some friend in the largest room below
bodied point never far from the sun, was the center decks of some large ship and there procure gnats, flies, and
of the world, and ipso facto immovable. such other small winged creatures. Also get a great tub full
With the solar system pinned like a collector's but- of water and within it put certain fishes; let also a certain
bottlebe hung up, which drop by drop lets forth water
terflv to the immovable center of the world, absolute
into another narrow-necked bottle placed underneath.
location, rest, and velocity acquired human vividness.
Then, the ship lyirtg still, observe how these small winged
Yet they did so only through Newton's ad hoc inter-
animals fly with like velocities towards all parts of the room;
vention. Had Newton allowed the center of mass of
how the fishes swim indifferently towards all sides; and how
the solar system to move uniformly in a straight
the distilling drops into the bottle placed underneath.
—
all fall
line —
as it had every right to do under the laws there .\nd casting anything towards your friend, you need not
would have been no dynamical effect of this motion. throw it with more force one way than another, provided
A word of caution, though. In the above we have the distances be equal [Now] make the ship move with
. . .
followed Newton in ignoring the possible dynamical what velocity you please, so long as the motion is uniform.
effects of the distant stars. . You shall not be able to discern the least alteration
. .
in all the forenamed effects, nor can you gather by any
IV of them whether the ship moves or stands still. . . .
Having reached this stage, we may profitably regress Galileo then has Sagredo drive the point home by
76 awhile. With a fixed earth the problem of relativity remarking:
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... I remember that being in my cabin I have wondered of the absolute motion of the "stationary "
ship, they
a hundred times whether the ship moved or stood still; and would be duplicated in the ship moving uniformly
sometimes I have imagined that it moved one way, when relative to it. Thus in retrospect we may say that
it moved the other way. . . .
Galileo, and later Huygens, did indeed have the New-
tonian principle of relativity, though they could not
The extent to which this is an anticipation of the have realized its Newtonian subtleties at the time.
Newtonian principle of relativity needs clarification.

It can be interpreted in terms of the idea of inertia,
but on this Galileo was somewhat confused, being Though Newton regarded action at a distance as
unable wholly to emancipate himself from the Platonic absurd, hewas unable to find a satisfactory physical
belief in circular inertia as the basic law. Certainly model that would lead to his inverse square law of
the ship argument had powerful consequences. For gravitation. According to that law, every particle in
example, the parabolic motion of projectiles, a major the Universe attracts everv other particle with a gravi-
discovery of Galileo's, could have been deduced from tational force that is utterly unaffected by intervening
it right away. For if, relative to the moving ship, the matter. Or, to put it succinctly, gravitation does not
stone fell vertically with uniform acceleration, then as cast shadows.
viewed from the shore the path would indeed be Light does cast shadows, however, and this indicates
parabolic, being compounded of a vertical fall and a that it is something propagated. That it has finite speed
uniform horizontal motion. is by no means obvious. Important men like Kepler

Some twenty years before the Principia appeared, and Descartes believed its speed infinite. Galileo's
Huygens had used this principle of relativity brilliantly pioneering experiment to measure its speed was incon-
in deducing laws of perfectly elastic impact by consid- clusive, and the first evidence that its speed was finite
ering simple collisions taking place on shore and asking came in 1676, when floenier, to account for annual
how they would appear when viewed from a imiformly variations observed in the rhvthm of the eclipses of
moving Huygens realized, the first law
boat. Indeed, as the innermost moon of Jupiter, proposed that light is
of motion could have been deduced directly from the propagated "gradually. Since astronomical data
"
Newtonian principle of relativity had that principle available at the time implied, if Roemer was correct,
been taken as basic. For a free body at rest in one a speed of some 130,000 miles per second, the word
frame of reference would be moving uniformly as "gradually "
may sound like an understatement. Rela-
viewed from a frame in uniform motion relative to tivity will reveal in an unexpected irony.
it
the first. For the most part, Roemer's idea met with little
But Newton relegated this principle of relativity to favor, though Huygens and Newton were among those
the minor role of a Corollanj, and did his best to thwart who took it seriously. Not till 1728 was independent
it, as we have seen. His intellectual and emotional need corroboration found of the finite yet stupendous speed
for absolute space was overwhelming. How else could of Hght. In that year Bradley deduced from the aberra-
he have had absolute acceleration? Besides, the tion of light (tiny annual elliptic apparent motions of
Galilean argument of the ships was not wholly satis- the stars) a speed close to the currently accepted value
factory. It compared phenomena on a stationary ship of some 186,300 miles per second. Since aberration has
with those on a ship in uniform motion, though such an important role to play, we briefly describe its es-
ships could hardly exist on a spinning earth in orbit sence. If we stand still, vertically falling rain falls on
around the sun. our hat. If, remaining upright, we run forward, it
As we have seen, Newton had avoided this sort of strikes our face. If we ran in a circle, the rain would
difficulty by setting his laws in absolute space and time. seem to come from an ever-changing direction always
It is strange, therefore, that in commenting on his somewhat ahead of us. Analogously, because of the
Corollary V he himself used the illustration of station- orbital motion of the earth, light from a star seems
ary and uniformly moving ships. And this becomes even to come to us from a position always somewhat ahead
more surprising when one notes that only a few pages ofwhere we would see it if we were not orbiting. The
earlier, in defining absolute space, he had specifically seem to move in tiny ellipses once a year,
stars thus
discussed how the motion of the earth is involved in and from the size of the effect Bradley calculated the
the absolute motion of a ship. ratio of the orbital speed of the earth to the speed
The Galilean argument of the ships can be defended. of light.
Newton's laws imply that the uniform part of the The discovery that Ught has a finite speed was to
motion in absolute space of a ship or other reference prove of world-shaking importance. It lies at the heart
frame is not detectable within the reference frame. of tlie modern theory of relativity, with all its conse-
Therefore, whatever the effects of the nonuniform part quences. That the discovery came from astronomers, i /
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as did the basis of Newton's law of gravitation, under- freely through Moreover the amount of aether en-
it.
lines the enormous practical consequences of the trapped in, sav,had to depend on the wavelength
glass
astronomers' seemingly ivory-tower pursuits. of the light passing through it, so that if various wave-
Ingenious laboratory methods have been devised for lengths were present, as they certainly were, the
measuring the speed of light with extraordinary preci- amoimt of entrapped aether was given by a self-
sion, but the details need not concern us. It suffices contradictory formula. Fresnel's extraordinary hypoth-
to know that the speed is finite and can be measured esis, which goes by the misleading name partial aether
in the laboratory. drag, proved highly successful. Without hurting the

theory of aberration, it implied that every feasible
VI first-order experiment to detect the earth's motion
In optics Newton developed a powerful particle- through the aether would fail. And since, over the
and-wave theory of light that, if misread, can seem years, all such experiments did fail, Fresnel's hypothesis
an extraordinary foreshadowing of the modern quan- had to be taken seriously. Indeed, it was confirmed by
tum theory. His rejection of the pure wave theory difficult laboratory experiments on the speed of light
propounded by his contemporary Huygens and others, in streaming water.
and the superiority of his own theory in accounting
for the optical phenomena known at the time were V7/
major reasons for the neglect of the wave theory during The experimenter Faraday, being unskilled in math-
the eighteenth century. ematics, created simple pictorial concepts to help him
In the early nineteenth century, however. Young and interpret his pioneering researches in electromagnet-
Fresnel brilliantly revived the wave theory and brought ism. The theorists had been content to find mathe-
it to victory over the prevalent particle theory. The matical, action-at-a-distance formulas for the forces
rise of the wave theory, with its ubiquitous aether as exerted by magnets and electric charges. But Faraday
the bearer of the waves, brought a threat to the New- created a revolution in physics by consistently envi-
tonian principle of relativity, and one that Newton sioning a magnet or charge as surrounded by a "field"
would probably have welcomed. For aberration im- of tentacle-like lines of force reaching through space,
plied an aether essentially undisturbed by the passage so that all space became the domain of the important
of matter through it. The aether could thus be consid- aspects of electromagnetic phenomena.
ered stationary, so that though mechanical experiments Building on Faraday's work. Maxwell imagined an
were powerless, optical experiments had a chance to electromagnetic aether with a pseudo-mechanical
succeed in detecting absolute rest and absolute velocity structure so bizarre that he himself did not take it
— meaning now rest and velocity relative to the sta- seriously. Nevertheless he took it just seriously enough
tionary, all-pervading aether. to extract from it electromagnetic field equations that
The aether was not what one might reasonably con- play a key role in the development of the theory of
sider a credible concept. Because of the phenomenon relativity. Since Maxwell required an electric current
of polarization, light waves were taken to be trans- — his crucial "displacement current
"
— in free space,
verse, and the aether to be an elastic solid. Yet it had where there was no electiic charge, his theory hardly
to offer no perceptible impediment to the motions of seemed credible to physicists. Yet the displacement
the planets, for these motions were in excellent accord ciurent gave an elegant mathematical symmetry to
with Newton's system of mechanics. Nevertheless, since Maxwell's equations and because of it his theory pre-
the wave theory of light, developed in detail by dicted the existence of transverse electromagnetic
Fresnel, was as successful in encompassing the intricate waves moving with the speed of light; and when in
phenomena of optics as Newton's laws were in encom- 1888, nine years after his death, these waves were
passing the intricate phenomena of celestial and ter- detected by Hertz, Maxwell's theory could no longer
restrial mechanics, the aether could hardly be ignored, be easily resisted. It yielded a superb imification of the
for all its conflicting properties. hitherto disparate disciplines of optics and electro-
If V is the speed of the earth through the aether magnetism, with visible light occupying a narrow band
and c the speed of light, an experiment to detect the of wavelengths in a broad spectrum of electromagnetic
quantity v/c is said to be of the first order, as distin- radiation. It also dispensed with electromagnetic action
guished from a second-order experiment designed to at a distance by having electromagnetic effects trans-
detect v^/c^. A first-order experiment was soon permitted by the aether acting as intermediary. As for
formed, but it failed to detect v/c. To account for the the all-important aether. Maxwell's equations deline-
failure, Fresnel proposed that matter carries aether ated for it an inner structure that could not be en-
78 wholly entrapped within it yet allows aether to pass visaged in credible Newtonian mechanical terms.
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Gradually physicists, becoming accustomed to its moving uniformly through the aether with velocity v,
mathematical properties, learned to live with it, and and to do so in such a way that, to the first order,
an era of mechanistic physics faded. the V did not show up. But the Maxwell equations were
far from being pliable. In the moving frame they more
VIII or less forced Lorentz to replace the t representing
By analogy with water waves and sound waves, and the time by a new mathematical quantity that he called
more specifically because of Maxwell's equations, we "local time" because it was not the same everywhere.
can expect light waves to travel through free aether By incorporating the contraction of lengths, he was
with a fixed speed. If, in our laboratory, we find that able to account for the null result of the Michelson-
light waves have different speeds in different directions, Morlev experiment without spoiling the theory of ab-
we can conclude that we are moving through the erration. But again the Maxwell equations forced his
aether. Suppose, for example, that we find that their hand, causing him to introduce with the contraction
greatest speed is 186,600 miles per second in this di- a corresponding dilatation, or slowing down, of the
rection -^ and their least speed 186,000 miles per local time. Specifically, he found in 1904 what we now
second in this direction <— Then we can say that our
. call the Lorentz transformation, a name given it by
laboratory is moving through the aether in this direc- Poincare in 1905. Consider two reference frames simi-
tion —» at 300 miles per second (half the difference larly oriented, one at rest in the aether and the other
of the speeds), and that the light waves are travelling moving with imiform speed v in the common i-direc-
tlirough the aether at 186,300 miles per second (half tion. Ordinarily one would have related the coordinates
the sum). Thus we shall have discovered our absolute (.V, y. z) of the former to the coordinates (r", y', z') of
velocity, and this despite Fresnel. But in speaking of the latter by what P. Frank named the Galilean trans-
Fresnel's so-called aether drag, we said it implied that formation:

every feasible first order experiment would fail. The
x' = X — vt, y' = y, z' = z. (1)
above is not feasible. The direct laboratory methods
of measuring the speed of light have involved not But the Lorentz transformation relates (i, y, z) and the
one-way but round-trip speeds. true time t to (x', y', z') and the local time f of the
Shortly before his death. Maxwell outlined a way moving frame as follows:
to measure the earth's velocity through the aether by
comparing not one-way but round-trip speeds of light x' = (x - vt)/y/\ -v^/c?, y' = y. z' (2)
in various directions in the laboratory. But since there = (t~ ux/c2)/ Vl - uVc^.
f
would be only a residual effect of the second order — if
V is the earth's orbital speed and the sun is at rest v"/c^ By means of these equations, Lorentz succeeded, ex-
is about 10"* — he dismissed the effect as "far too small cept for a small blemish removed by Poincare in 1905,
to be observed.
"
in transferring the Maxwell equations to the moving

In 1881, however, Michelson succeeded in perform- reference frame in such a way that they remained
ing the experiment with borderline accuracy for de- unchanged in form. Since no trace of the v survived,
tecting the orbital speed. And in 1887, with Morley, neither the Michelson-Morley nor any other electro-
he repeated the experiment, this time with ample magnetic experiment could now be expected to yield
accuracy. It gave a null result, and thereby precipitated a value for v.
a crisis. For it suggested, and this was indeed Michel- It is of interest that the Lorentz transformation, (2),
son's own interpretation, that the earth carries the had already been obtained on electromagnetic groimds
nearby aether along with it. But aberration implied by Larmor in 1898, and its essentials by Voigt on the
that the earth does not. basis of wave propagation as early as 1887, the very
To resolve the conflict, FitzGerald, and later Lorentz year of the Michelson-Morley experiment.
independently, proposed that objects moving through
the aether contract by an amount of the second order /X
in the direction of their motion. The background has now been presented for Ein-
Lorentz, assuming a fixed aether, untrapped and stein'saccomplishments of 1905, which we shall con-
undragged, had nevertheless obtained an electromag- sider in conjunction with the accomplishments of
netic derivation of Fresnel's formula far more con- Poincare. Along with the later fame of Einstein there
vincing than that given by Fresnel. Thus Lorentz could grew a popular mythology correctly attributing the
account for the null results of the feasible first-order theory of relativity to him, but seriously slighting the
experiments to detect absolute motion. His task was work of Poincare. A considerable controversy was
to express Maxwell's equations in a reference frame created when Whittaker claimed that the 1905 theory 79
RELATIVITY
of relativity was clue to Poincare and Lorentz, with The phrase was not wholly new with Poincari. In
Einstein playing a negligible role. Whittaker was justi- 1877 Maxwell, in his little book Matter and Motion,
fied in seeking to bring the situation into better per- had spoken of "the doctrine of relativity of all physical
spective, but in his zeal he went too far, forsaking his phenomena," which he proceeded to explain in these
usually impeccable scholarship. This led to a counter- eloquent words (emphasis added): "There are no land-
reaction that has also sometimes gone too far. And marks in space; one portion of space is exactly like
meanwhile the work of Larmor has received less rec- every other portion, so that we cannot tell where we
ognition than it merits. are. We are, as it were, on an tinniffled sea, without
Maxwell led Larmor, Lorentz, and Poincare to stars, tide, and we cannot
compass, soundings, wind or
mathematical equations identical with equations be- tell in what direction we are going. We have no log
longing to the theory of relativity. Poincare had so which we can cast out to take a dead reckoning by;
many of the crucial ideas that, in retrospect, it seems we may compute our rate of motion with respect to
amazing that he did not put them together to create the neighboring bodies but we do not know how these
the theory of relativity. He raised aesthetic objection bodies may be moving in space."
to the piecemeal, ad hoc patching up of theory to meet It is surprising that these words should have come
emergencies — Fresnel's entrapped aether to account from Ma.xwell. Not only did he build his electromag-
for the null results of first order experiments, and the netic field theory on the concept of an aether but, in
contraction to account for the second order experiment later propounding the idea that led to the Michelson-
of Michelson and Morley — and as early as 1895 Morley experiment, he was envisaging the light waves
Poincare adumbrated a principle of relativity that that ruffle the ethereal sea as a means for determining
denied the possibility of detecting uniform motion our motion through the aether. It is not clear precisely
through the aether. His were the aesthetic strictures what Maxwell had mind when speaking of the rela-
in
that led Lorentz to seek a transformation to a moving tivity of all physical phenomena. There is in the phrase
frame that would leave Ma.\weirs equations invariant an echo of the views of Berkeley, of which more later.
in form. Since, for example, the Lorentz contraction Perhaps Maxwell was not here regarding the aether
factor vl — v^/c^ reduces lengths to zero when as kinematic-ally synonymous with absolute space. But
V = Lorentz had limited the application of his 1904
c, later in the book, citing Newton's bucket experiment
theory to systems moving through the aether with and the Foucault pendulum, he specifically contradicts
speeds less than c: it was Poincare who suggested in the "all" by affirming the absoluteness of rotation.
1904 the need for a new dynamics in which speeds Poincare's concept of the principle of relativity, hke
exceeding c would be impossible. .'\nd in 1905 he wrote Einstein's, went beyond what, for convenience, we
a major article, sent in almost simultaneously with that have been referring to as the Newtonian principle of
of Einstein, in which extraordinary amoimts of the relativity. That principle referred to the impossibility
mathematics of relativity are explicitly developed. of detecting one's absolute unifonn motion by dynam-
Einstein, in his epoch-making paper of 1905 "On ical means. The new principle, while retaining the
the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," introduced a restriction to uniform motion, extended the impossi-
new viewpoint. He began by discussing an aesthetic bility to include the use of all physical means, particu-
blemish in electromagnetic theory as then conceived. larly the optical. 'Yet it is fair to say that in Newton's
When a magnet and a wire loop are in relative motion, time, in the absence of a generally accepted wave
there is an induced electric current in the wire. But theory of light, the Newtonian principle of relativity
the explanation differed according as the magnet or could have been thought of as implying the impotence
the wire was at rest. A moving magnet was accompa- of all physical phenomena to detect one's absolute
nied by an electric was not present when
field that uniform motion. If so, the Newtonian principle, after
the magnet was at rest and the wire moving. Thus what a period of grave doubt as to its validity, was now
was essentially one phenomenon had physically differ- being reaffirmed. But, as will appear, its reaffirmation
ent explanations within the same theory. in the Ma.xwellian context played havoc with funda-
Because the phenomenon depended on the relative mental tenets of Newtonian mechanics.
motion of magnet and wire and not on any absolute In speaking of the principle of relativity, Poincare
motion through the aether, and becaiLse experiments had an aether in mind. But Einstein declared that in
to detect motion through the aether had given null his theory the introduction of an aether would be
results, Einstein postulated as a basic principle that "superfluous "
since he would not need an "absolute
there is no way of determining absolute rest or uniform stationary space." Moreover, unlike Poincare, Einstein
motion —he worded it more technically — and he called audaciously treated the principle of relativity as a
80 it the principle of relativity, as Poincare had done. fundamental axiom suggested by the experimental hints
•
RELATIVITY
light waves from L
S' constant speed

(
I V relative to S
light waves from L'
Figure 3
already available but not in itself subject to question. Viewing this without reference to the aether, we see
Einstein next introduced a second postulate: that the from Einstein's two postulates that no matter how fast
speed of light in vacuo is constant and independent we away from a source of light, the
travel towards or
of the —
motion of its source again he expressed it more light waves same speed c. Clearly
will pass us with the
technically. In terms of an aether, this postulate seems this is impossible within the context of Newtonian
almost a truism. For a wave, once generated, is on its physics. Either we must give up the first postulate or
own. It has severed its connection with the sources that else give up the second. But Einstein retained both,
gave it birth and moves according to the dictates of and found a way to keep them in harmony by giving
the medium through which it travels. up instead one of our most cherished beliefs about the
On two principles Einstein built his theory.
these nature of time.
Each by itself seemed reasonable and innocent. But,
as Einstein well realized, they formed an explosive
compound. This is easy to see, especially if. for con- Einstein reexamined the concept of simultaneity.
venience, we begin by talking in terms of an aether. Accepting it as intuitively clear for events occurring
Imagine two imaccelerated spaceships, S and S', far at the same what meaning could be
place, he asked
from earth and in uniform relative motion (Figure 3). given to it when the events were at different places.
In S and S' are lamps L, L' and experimenters E, E' Realizing that this must be a matter of convention,
as indicated. Assume that S happens to be at rest in he proposed a definition that we shall now illustrate.
the aether. E measures the speed with which the light Imagine the spaceships S, S' equipped with identi-
waves from L pass him and obtains the value c. In cally constructed clocks fore and aft, as shown (Figure
S' a similar measurement is performed by E' using light 4). Pretend that c is small, or that the spaceships are
waves from L'. What value does E' find? Since the of enormous length, so that we can use convenient
speed of the light waves is independent of the motion numbers in what follows. When clock C, reads noon,
of their sources, the waves from L and L' keep pace E sends a light signal from C, to C, where it is reflected
with one another. And since S' is moving towards the back to Cj. Suppose that the light reached clock Cj
waves with speed v we expect him to find that they when Cj read I second after noon, and returned to
pass him with speed c + v. But the principle of rela- C[ when Cj read 3 seconds after noon. Then Einstein
tivity forbids this. For if E' found the value c -I- u, he would have E say that his clocks Cj and Cj were not
could place another lamp at the opposite end of S' synchronized. To synchronize the clocks Einstein
and measure the speed of the light waves in the oppo- would have E advance Cj by half a second so that
site direction, obtaining the value c — v. By taking half according to the readings of Cj and C; the light would
the difference of these values he could find his speed take equal times for the outward and return journeys.
through the aether, in violation of the principle of With C] and Cj thus synchronized, if events occurred
relativity. Therefore he must obtain not c + v, nor at Cj and Cj when these clocks read the same time,
c — V, no matter how great his speed

but simply c, the events would be deemed simultaneous.
V relative to S, or indeed relative to any source of light had already questioned the concept
In 1898 Poincare
towards which, or away from which, he is moving. of simultaneity at different locations, and in 1900 he 81
RELATIVITY
c;
t^ E' constant speed

V relative to S
Figure 4
had considered the use of light signals for adjusting being dependent on the reference frame. By so doing
clocks in a manner strikingly similar to that used by he gave up Newtonian universal absolute time.
Einstein in 1905. However, Poincar6 was concerned Previously we spoke of measurements of the one-way
with adjusting rather than synchronizing clocks. More- speed of light as not being feasible, deliberately sug-
over, he did not build on two kinematical postulates gesting by the wording that this might be because of
but worked in terms of the Maxwell equations; nor practical difficulties. The lack of feasibility can now
did he take the following step, and it is things such be seen to have a deeper significance. To measure the
as these that set Einstein's work sharply apart. one-way speed of light over a path AB in a given
Consider E and E' synchronizing the clocks in their reference frame we need synchronized clocks at A and
respective spaceships S and S'. E arranges Cj and Cj B by which to time the journey of the light. With the
so that they indicate equal durations for the forward synchronization itself performed by means of light, the
and return light journeys, and declares them synchro- measurement of the one-way speed of light becomes,
nized. But E', watching him from S', sees S moving in principle, a tautology. The mode of synchronization
backwards with speed i; relative to him. Therefore, is a convention permitting the convenient spreading
according to S', the light signals sent by E did not travel of a time coordinate over the reference frame one uses.
equal distances there and back (Figure 5), but unequal What can be said to transcend convention (with apolo-
distances (Figure 6). And so, according to E', the very gies to conventionalists) is the rejection of Newtonian
fact thatCj and Cj indicated equal durations for the absolute time, with its absolute simultaneity.
forward and backward tight journeys showed that Cj Once the concept of time is changed, havoc spreads
and Cj were not synchronized. throughout science and philosophy. Speed, for exam-
However, E' has synchronized his own clocks, CJ, ple, is altered, and acceleration too, and with it force,
Cj, according to Einstein's recipe, and E says they are and work, and energy, and mass, so that we wonder
not synchronized, since relative to S the light signals if anything can remain unaffected.
used by E' travel unequal distances there and back Not even distance remains unscathed, as is easily
(Figure 7). seen. Imagine the spaceships S and S' marked off in
With E and E' disagreeing about synchronization yard lengths by E and E' respectively. E measures a
we naturally ask which of them is correct. But the yard length of S' by noting where the ends of the yard
principle of relativity, as Einstein rather than Poincare are at some particular time. Since E and E' disagree
viewed it, one over the other. E
forbids our favoring about simultaneity, E' accuses E of noting the positions
and E' are on an equal footing, and we have to regard of the yard marks non-simultaneously, thus obtaining
both as correct. Since events simultaneous according an incorrect value for the length. When the roles are
to E are not simultaneous according to E', and vice reversed, E similarly accuses E'. Because of the princi-
versa, Einstein concluded that simultaneity is relative. ple of relativity, both are adjudged correct. Thus once
3
82 Figure 5 Figure 6
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Figure 7
simultaneity is relative, so too is length. Indeed, the

disagreement as to lengths corresponds in magnitude
E"s clocks E 's clocks
to the FitzGerald-Lorentz contraction, but here it is
according to E according to E'
a purely kinematical effect of relative motion and not
an absolute effect arising from motion relative to a fixed Figure 9
aether. While E says that the yards of E' are con-
tracted, E' says the same about those of E. the other's relative lengths are contracted in the
Let X, y, z, and t denote the coordinates and syn- direction of the relative motion by this same factor
chronized clock times used by E in his spaceship refer- \/l — u^/c^, for otherwise the ratio distance/time for
ence frame S; and let *', y\ z', and t' denote the corre- light would not be c for both.
sponding quantities used by E' in S'. Einstein derived A fiu-ther kinematical consequence is easily deduced
directly two postulates a mathematical rela-
from his directly from Einstein's postulates. We begin by noting
tion between these quantities, and it turned out to be that no matter how fast E' moves relative to E, light
the Lorentz transformation (2).The interpretation, waves recede from him with speed c: he cannot over-
though, was different, because E and E' were now on take them. But these light waves also move with speed
an equal footing: f, for example, was just as good a c relative to E. Therefore E' cannot move relative to
time as t. E with a speed greater than c. Nor can any material

Because of the principle of relativity, the rela- object relative to any other: c is the speed limit. (It
tionships between E and E' are reciprocal. We have has been proposed that particles exist that move faster
already discussed this in connection with lengths. It than light. They have been named tachyons. According
is instructive to consider it in relation to time: when to the Lorentz transformation, tachyons can never
E and compare clock rates each says the other's
E' move slower than light; their speed exceeds c in all
clocks go the more slowly. This, like the reciprocal reference frames.)
contractions of lengths, is immediately derivable from
the Lorentz transformation in its new interpretation. XI
It can be understood more vividly by giving E and An immediate victim of relativity was Newton's law
E' "clocks, " each of which consists of a framework of gravitation with its instantaneous action at a dis-
holding facing parallel mirrors with light reflected tance; for with simultaneity relative, one could no
tick-tock between them. Each experimenter regards his longer accept a force acting with absolute simultaneity
own clocks as using light paths as indicated (Figure 8). on separated bodies. We can safely ignore the routine
But because of the relative motion of E and E', we modifications of Newton's law that were proposed to
have the situation shown (Figure 9). Since these longer let it fit into the relativistic framework; Einstein's by
light paths are also traversed with speed c, each ex- no means routine theory of gravitation will be de-
perimenter finds the other's clocks ticking more slowly scribed later.
than his own, Indeed, a simple, yet subtle, application That the startling relativistic kinematics, of which
of Pythagoras' theorem to the above diagrams yields we have just seen samples, did not also play havoc with
the mutual time dilatation factor t/I — v'^/c^- More- Maxwell's equations need not surprise us. Larmor,
over, since E' and E, in addition to agreeing to dis- Lorentz, and Poincare had shown the intimate rela-
agree, agree about the speed of light, each says that tionship between Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz
transformation. We can now appreciate the achieve-
ments of Fresnel and Maxwell: Fresnel's self-contra-
„i,,j,>iiii, mirror dictory "aether drag" was a relativistic effect, as too
was Maxwell's displacement current. Little wonder
that these concepts had seemed incredible. They were
valiant attempts to fit relativistic effects into the
kinematics of Newtonian absolute space and absolute
time. In retrospect the work of Fresnel and Maxwell
iijifjri/,/A mirror
takes on that aspect of inspired madness that is the
Figure 8 highest form of the art we call science. So too does 83
RELATIVITY
the work of Einstein, for his theory of 1905 was itself The Galilean transformation (1) exhibits the aloof
huilt on a contradiction: its basic principles assumed absoluteness of Newtonian time. Though t enters the
reference frames made out of rigid rods while denying transformation of x (and, more generally, of y and of
their possibility. For a rigid rod would transmit impacts remains untouched: one does not even bother
z), it itself
instantly and could be used to synchronize clocks in to write t' = t. In the Lorentz transformation (2), x
a manner conflicting with that proposed by Einstein. mixes with ( as intimately as t does with x; and in more
general Lorentz transformations x, i/, ;, and t thor-
XII oughly intermingle.
Relativistic kinematics required a relativistic dy- In ordinary analytical geometry, if a point P has
namics for which Newtonian concepts were not well coordinates (x, y, z) its distance, OP, from the origin,
suited. But the success of Newtonian dynamics for O, is given by
speeds small compared with c had created habits of
OP2 = x2 + y- + ;2 (3)
thought that could not be easily broken. Accordingly,
Einstein and others sought to distort Newtonian con- If we rotate the reference frame about O to a different
cepts to fit relativistic kinematics. Mass became rela- orientation, the coordinates of P change, say to (x', y',
tive, increasing in value with increasing relative speed. z'), but the value of the sum of their squares remains
Thus the greater the relative speed of an object, the the same:
greater its change in its speed.
inertial resistance to
yz
OP2 X'2 -I- !/'2 .
: x^ + y^ + (4)
If the object could attain speed c its mass would be-
:
come infinite, and no increase in speed would be possi- Under the Lorentz transformation (2) there is an
ble. While this sounds like dynamics and uses Newto- analogous quantity .s such that
nian concepts, it is basically a reflection of the existence
s^ = x'^ + y'2 + l'2 - c2C2 (5)
of the speed limit c, which, as we saw, an immediate
is
= x2 -I- y2 -h 22 - C^t^.
kinematic consequence of Einstein's two postulates.
(For ordinary matter and radiation, c is the upper speed The analogy with (4), already close, can be made even
limit. For tachyons, if they exist, c is the lower speed closer by introducing t = \/~ 1 ct,T' = \/ - 1 ct',
limit. In either case, c is a speed limit.) for now
In a second paper on relativity in 1905 Einstein
s'^ = x'^ + y'^ + z'^ + t'2 (6)
made a daring extrapolation. He began by showing
x2 + 1/2 + Z- + T^,
mathematically that if a body gives off an amount of
energy L in the form of electromagnetic radiation, its and the Lorentz transformation (2) can be envisaged
mass decreases by L/'c'^. Now came these momentous as a change to a'new foiu'-dimensional reference frame
words: "The fact that the energy . . . [is] energy of obtained by rotating the first about O to a different
radiation evidently makes no difference. "
Therefore, orientation. While (6) may give us initial confidence
Einstein concluded, all energy, of whatever sort, has that relativity pertains to a four-dimensional world in
mass. And herein lay the germ of the famous equation which time is a fourth dimension, the nature of this
E = mc^. four-dimensional world is more vividly seen by avoid-
In 1907 Einstein completed the derivation by a ing V—1 and returning to (5).
further daring step. Arguing that a body of mass m Let E in his spaceship S press button A on his instru-
has the same inertia as an amount of energy mc'^. and ment panel, and a minute later, according to his clock,
one should not make a distinction between "real
"
that press a neighboring button B; and let us refer to these

and "apparent" mass, he concluded that all mass should pressings as events A and B. According to E, the spatial
be regarded as a reservoir of energy. At the time, and distance between events A and B is a matter of inches.
for many years after, there was not the slightest direct According to E', because of the rapid relative motion
experimental evidence for this, yet Einstein not only of S and S', events A and B are separated by many
asserted the equivalence of mass and energy, but rec- miles; also, according to E', who says the clocks in S
ognized it in 1907 as a result of extraordinary theoret- go more slowly than his own, the time interval between
ical importance. events A and B is very slightly longer than a minute.
The importance of (5) is that, despite these disparities,
XIII it affords a basis of agreement between E and E'. If
In 1907 Minkowski showed in detail that the nattiral each calculates for events A and B the quantity
habitat of the equations of relativity a four-dimen-
is
ds2 = (spatial distaiice)^ — c2(time interval)^ (7)
sional "space-time," an idea already explicitly fore-
84 shadowed by Poincare in 1905. he will get the same result as the other. The large
RELATIVITY
discrepancy in the spatial distances is offset by the very within all the light cones belonging to the points on it.
small discrepancy in the time intervals, this latter being An event M within the light cone at O can be
greatly magnified by the factor c^. reached by an influence from event O moving with
Take two other events: E switching on a lamp in a speed less than c, and can thus be caused by the
S, and the light from the lamp reaching a point on event O. It turns out that in all reference frames, event
the opposite wall. Here (7) gives ds = for both E M is later than event O.
and E', since for each of them the distance travelled An event N outside the light cone at O cannot be
by light is the travel time multiplied by c. similarly reached: the speed would have to exceed c.
The quantity rfs is the relativistic analogue of dis- Thus O could not cause N. This is intimately related
tance, but the effect of the minus sign in (5) is drastic. to the theorem that in some reference frames O is
This is easily seen if we ignore two spatial dimensions, earlier than N and in others it is later. We have here
use X and ct as coordinates and try to fit the resulting been using the word "cause" rather loosely. The con-
two-dimensional Minkowskian geometry onto the fa- cept of causality poses enormous problems, but the
miliar Euclidean geometry of this page. We draw a situation here is superficially simple: if for some exper-
imit "circle," all of whose points are such that the imenters O is earlier than N while for others it is later,
magnitude of ds^ equals 1. Because ds = along the we are not likely to regard it as a possible cause of N.
lines OL, OL' given by x = ±ct, this "circle" obviously The light cone at an event O separates space-time
cannot cut these lines. It actually has the shape shown, into three regions: the absolute future of O, the abso-
consisting of two hyperbolas (Figure 10). When we add lute past of O, and a limbo that is neither the one nor
a spatial dimension the lines OL, OL' blossom into a the other.
cone. When we add a further spatial dimension, so that In Minkowski space-time the mutual contractions of
we have the x, y, z, ct of the four-dimensional Min- yardsticks and the mutual slowing of clocks become
kowski world, the cone becomes a three-dimensional mere perspective foreshortenings. Also, the hitherto
conical hypersurface — do not waste time trying to unrelated laws of conservation of energy and momen-
visualize it. Since it represents the progress of a wave- tum become welded together into a single space-time
front of light sent out from O, it is called the light law. As for the hard-won Maxwell equations, they take
cone; there is one at each point of Minkowski space- on a special elegance. One could almost have obtained
time. them uniquely by writing down the simplest nontrivial
Because a particle has duration, it is represented not equations for a four-dimensional mathematical quantity
by a point but a line, called its world line. If it is at (called an antisymmetric tensor of the second order)
rest relative to the reference frame used, its world line thatcombines electricity and magnetism into a single
is parallel to the ct axis. If itmoves relative to the Minkowskian These are but samples of the
entity.
frame, its world line slants away from the ct direction, beauty of the theory in its Minkowskian setting. Space
the greater the speed the greater the slant. Since the does not permit a discussion of the many triumphs of
speed cannot exceed c —we are ignoring the possi- the theory of relativity, either by itself or when applied
bility of tachyons here — the world line must remain to the quantum theory.
No matter in what theory, the symbol t is at best
a pale shadow of time, lacking what, for want of better

words, we may call time's nowness and flow. In treating
time as a fourth dimension, Minkowski presented the

bustling world as something static, laid out for all
eternity in frozen immobility. This geometrization of
time, however, was crucial for the development of
Einstein's general theory of relativity, of which we must
now tell.
XIV
The absence of absolute rest and of absolute uniform
motion becomes intuitively acceptable if we assume
that space is featureless. In that case, though, how
could there be absolute acceleration?
Berkeley, in Newton's day, had insisted that all mo-
tion must be relative and that absolute space was a
Figure 10 fiction. As for the seemingly absolute centrifugal effects 85
RELATIVITY
of rotation, he argued that they must indicate not acceleration g
absolute rotation but rotation relative to the stars.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Mach

subjected the Newtonian theory to a searching epis-
temological analysis that was to have a profound effect
on Einstein. Amplifying Berkeley's kinematical views,
Mach gave them dynamical substance by proposing
that inertia — which gives rise to the seemingly absolute
effects of rotation and other types of acceleration — is
due to a physical interaction involving all matter in

the universe. In Newton's theory, acceleration was
Figure II
referred to absolute space. Thus absolute space had
inertial dynamical effects on bodies, yet despite New-
ton's third law that to every action there is an equal In K' all free bodies fall with acceleration g. Where
opposite reaction, there was no corresponding reaction K is, though, all free bodies are unaccelerated; but
by the bodies on absolute space. This anomalous, one- because of the "upward" acceleration of K, they "fall"
way dynamical influence of absolute space on matter relative to K with acceleration g. It is a simple exercise
was aesthetically and epistemologically unpleasant. Y'et in Newtonian mechanics to show that, so far as purely
Einstein's theory of relativity suffered from an analo- mechanical experiments within K and K' are con-
gous defect. It had replaced Newton's absolute space cerned, there is no way of distinguishing between K
and absolute time by a space-time in which, though and K'.
the essence of the Newtonian principle of relativity Now came the stroke of genius: Einstein propounded
was retained, acceleration was nevertheless absolute. a principle of equivalence stating that no experiment
As early as 1907 Einstein was attacking the problem of any sort within the laboratories could distinguish
of acceleration. Aesthetically, one would like to extend between K and
At once this permitted a general
K'.
the principle of relativity not just kinematically but principle of relativity embracing all motion, for if an
physically to include all motion. But despite the pro- experimenter in K, or in K', could no longer determine
posals of Berkeley and Mach, experience and experi- the extent to which physical effects were due to
ment had hitherto seemed sharply against this. Follow- uniform acceleration and to what extent to uniform
ing the dictates of aesthetics, Einstein was able to show gravitation, acceleration need no longer be regarded
how experiment could be made to serve the ends of as absolute. Indeed, acceleration was now seen to be
beauty. His weapon was the well-known observation, intimately linked to gravitation. In addition, the equal-
going back to Galileo and earlier, that all dropped ity of gravitational and inertial mass took on the aspect
bodies fall to the earth with the same acceleration g of a truism. For, consider equal particles suspended
(neglecting air resistance and assuming everyday from equal springs in K and K'. In K, because of the
heights). Newton had incorporated this by giving mass acceleration, the inertia of the particle causes the
two and gravitational. The gravi-
roles to play: inertial stretching of the spring. In K', there being no acceler-
tational pull of the earth on a body was proportional ation, inertia does not come into play. Instead the
to the mass of the body, and thus to its inertia. The stretching is due mass of the parti-
to the gravitational
larger the mass, the larger the pull but also the larger cle. By the principle of equivalence, one cannot distin-
the inertia, with the result that the acceleration re- guish between these gravitational and inertial effects.
mained independent of the mass. Suppose, further, that each particle absorbs energy,
That the gravitational mass of a body should be thus gaining inertial mass. Since the spring in K is now
proportional to its inertial mass was an extraneous extended further than before, so too, according to the
assumption having no inherent Newtonian raison principle of equivalence, must the spring in K' be. Thus
d'etre. Einstein made it a cornerstone of his new the- the inertial mass of the energy must also have an
ory. equivalent gravitational mass.
Starting in Newtonian terms, Einstein
purely If one looks too closely at the principle of equiva-
imagined a laboratory K, far removed from external lence as Einstein initially used it one finds inconsisten-
gravitational influence, moving with uniform acceler- cies. Yet its fertility was extraordinary. Consider, as a
ation g as indicated. He compared it with a similar further example of this, a ray of light sent laterally
laboratory K' at rest in a uniform gravitational field across K. The K causes the path of the
acceleration of
which, for convenience, we may pretend is fiu'nished light to be curved "downwards" relative to
appear to
86 by the earth (Figure U). K. Therefore light rays must be correspondingly bent
RELATIVITY
by the gravitational field in K'. Moreover, just as the pendently made a momentous discovery: that if one
bending of a light ray passing from air to glass implies denies the fifth postulate by assuming more than one
a decreased speed of propagation of the light waves, P parallel to a viable geometry
straight line through 1,
so too does the gravitational bending of light rays imply Riemann found a different non-Euclid-
results. Later,
a slowingdown by gravitation of the speed of light. ean geometry in which there are no parallel lines. Thus
Thus the 1905 theory, now called the special theory Euclidean geometry could no longer be logically re-
of relativity, could hold only approximately in the garded as God-given or existing a priori.
presence of gravitation. The Cartesian coordinates indicated by the familiar

Again, let Cj, Cj, Cj, Q, as shown in K and K', be uniform net of lines on ordinary graph paper have two
"standard" clocks, by which we mean that they are properties of interest: first, the squares are all of unit
ticking at identical rates. At each tick of C, a light size, so that for two neighboring points with coordi-
signal is sent from Cj towards Co. Because K is moving nates (x, y) and (r + dx, y + dy) the coordinate differ-
faster and faster, each light signal has farther to travel ences dx and dy give direct measures of distances: and
than its predecessor to reach the receding Cj. So the second, by Pythagoras' theorem, the distance ds be-
light signals reach C2 separated by greater time inter- tween the two points is given by
vals than the time intervals separating the ticks of C,.
ds^ = dx^ H- dy'^ (8)
When compared by means of light signals, there-
thus
fore, clock Cj, which ticks at the same rate as clock If we change to a coordinate mesh of wavy, irregu-
C2, nevertheless seems to be going more slowly than larlv-spaced lines, the new dx and dy will not give
Cj. The principle of equivalence now requires that the direct measures of distance, and (8) will take the more
same shall hold for CJ and Ci in K', so that standard complicated form
clock CJ seems to go more slowly than standard clock
*^ = giif'^^ + 2gi2rf*rf!/ + g22dy'^' (9)
C2 because of gravitation. Einstein argued that the
spectral frequencies of light emitted by atoms can be where, in general, the values of the coefficients gjj,
regarded as standard time-keepers, and thus as substi- §12' S.2-> change from place to place. This
complexity
tutes for CJ and Cj Therefore spectral lines arriving
. arises from our perversity in distorting the coordinate
at C2 from CJ would have lower frequencies than those mesh. But often such distortion is unavoidable: for
in the spectra produced locally by Cj, which would example, we
cannot spread the familiar graph-paper
mean that they were shifted towards the red end of mesh, without stretching, on a sphere, though we can
the spectrum. This is the famous gravitational red shift. on a cylinder. In studying the geometry of surfaces,
But the most important lesson to be learned here is therefore, Gauss spread on them quite general coordi-
that gravitation warps time. nate meshes having no direct metrical significance and
worked with formula (9), though with different nota-
XV tion. Moreover, he found a mathematical quantity, now
At this stage we must pause to consider the imposing called the Gaussian curvature of a surface, that is of
edifice of Euclidean geometry on which Newton and major importance. If this curvature is zero everywhere
Maxwell had based their theories. The Greeks had built on the surface, as it is for a plane or a cylinder or
it on idealized concepts like sizeless points and any other shape that unstretched graph paper can take,
breadthless lines, and postulates concerning them. The one can spread a coordinate mesh on the surface in
naturalness of these postulates so deeply impressed such a way that (8) holds everywhere, in which case
Kant that he regarded Euclidean geometry as inescap- the intrinsic two-dimensional geometry of the surface
able and existing a priori. Yet, from the start, Euclid's is essentially Euclidean. If the Gaussian curvature is
fifth had caused disquiet. In context it implied

postulate not everywhere zero, one cannot find such coordinates,
that through a point P not on a line there is one
1 and the intrinsic two-dimensional geometry is not
and only one line parallel to 1. Because parallelism Euclidean. The crux of Gauss's discovery was that the
entered the dangerous realm of infinity, where intuition curvature, being expressible in terms of the g's, is itself
is particularly fallible, numerous attempts were made intrinsic,and can be determined at any point of the
to avoid the fifth postulate or deduce it from the other surface bv measurements made solely on the surface,
postulates. without appeal to an external dimension.
In 1733 Saccheri sought a reductio ad absurdum This powerful result led Riemann to envisage intrin-
proof of the postulate bv assuming it untrue, and sically curved three-dimensional spaces; and, thus
managed to convince himself that the consequences emboldened, he considered curved spaces
intrinsically
were unacceptable. However, in the early nineteenth of higher dimensions. In three and more dimensions
century. Gauss, Lobachevsky, and Bolyai inde- the intrinsic curvature at a point, though still expres- o7
RELATIVITY
sible solely in terms of the corresponding g's, is no Wliat was important was Einstein's valid conclusion
longer a single number but has many components that space-time coordinates could not, in general, have
(involving six numbers in three dimensions, and twenty direct metrological significance. Faced with this shat-
in four). It is represented by what we now call the tering realization, and bolstered by his conviction that
Riemann-Christolfel curvature tensor and denoted by all motion must be relative, Einstein decided that all
the symbol fi^^^^. coordinate systems in space-time must be on an equal

Gauss had already concluded that geometry is a footing.He therefore enunciated a principle of general
branch of theoretical physics subject to experimental covariance according to which the general laws of
verification, and had even made an inconclusive nature are to be expressed by equations that hold good
geodetic experiment to determine whether space is for all systems of space-time coordinates. Three points
indeed Euclidean or not. Riemann, and more specifi- need to be made concerning this principle:
cally Cliflford, conjectured that forces and matter might (a) A general system of space-time coordinates could
be local irregularities in the curvature of space, and consist of cheap, inaccurate, unsynchronized clocks
in this they were strikingly prophetic, though for their embedded in a highly flexible scaffolding in wild and
pains they were dismissed at the time as visionaries. writhing motion. The principle relegates the role of
coordinates to that of the mere labelling of events in
.\V7 space-time, much as the general coordinates of Gauss
We now return to Einstein. It took him ten years label the points of a surface. To be able to accept such
to find the way from the special theory of relativity general four-dimensional coordinates as a basis for a
of 1905 to the general theory of relativity. To arrive physical theory, Einstein had first to arrive at a pro-
at the general theory he had first to realize that found insight: that physical measurements are essen-
yardsticks and standard clocks could not be used to tially the observation of coincidences of events, such
lay out in space-time a coordinate mesh of the Car- as the arrival of a particle when the hands of the local
tesian sort that would directly show distances and clock point to certain marks on its dial. Such coinci-
time intervals. dences clearly remain coincidences no matter what
This radical break with his previous habits of thought coordinate system is used.
was, by his own admission, one of his most difficult (b) The principle of general covariance can be said
steps towards the general theory of relativity. A pow- to be devoid of content. As Kretschmann pointed out
erful stimulus was the effect of gravitation on the in 1917, ani/ physical theory capable of being expressed
comparison of clock rates as deduced from the princi- mathematically in terms of coordinates can be ex-
ple of equivalence. Another was the following argu- pressed in a form obeying the principle of general
ment: Consider a nonrotating reference frame K and covariance.
a rotating reference frame K' having the same origin (c) Nevertheless the principle was a cornerstone of
and ;-axis. On the .ri/plane of K, draw a large circle the general theory of relativity.
with its center at the origin. By symmetry, it will be This seeming paradox is resolved when one takes
regarded as a circle in K'. Measure it in K' with a account of Einstein's powerful aesthetic sense, which
measuring chain, and view the process from the nonro- made If one uses
the general theory a thing of beauty.
tating frame K. Relative to K, the chain will appear a simple reference frame in the special theory of rela-
contracted in length when the circumference is being tivity, the space-time interval ds between events (x,
measured, but not when the diameter is being y, z, t) and (.t+ dx, y + dy, z + dz,t + dt) Is given by
measured. Therefore the circumference, as measured
ds^ = dx^ + dy^ + dz^ - cMfl. (10)
by the shrunken links, will have a greater value than
that given by a similar measuring chain at rest in K. If one goes over to a more complicated reference frame
So the ratio of circumference to diameter as measured writhing and accelerated relative to the former, (10)
in K' will be greater than w, which means that the takes a more complicated form analogous to (9),
spatialgeometry in K' is non-Euclidean. namely
That this argument can be faulted is of small conse-
quence. It served its purpose well. Einstein seems to
have known intuitively the path he had to follow and
2go^dtdx + 2go2dtdy + ig^^dtdz + 2gi2dxdy +
then to have found plausible, comforting arguments
2g^3dxdz + Zg^sdydz, (11)
that would give him the courage to proceed. In the where the values of the ten g's change from place to
nature of things, he could not use impeccable argu- place in space-time. These ten coefficients, by which
ments since they had to be based on theories that the one converts coordinate differences into space-time
oo general theory was destined to supersede. distances, are denoted collectively by the symbol g^^
RELATIVITY
and are referred to as components of the metrical tensor xvn

of space-time. A convenient mathematical shorthand We may now consider the general theory of relativ-
lets (11) be written in the compact form ity in terms of its own concepts rather than the tenta-
tive, groping concepts on which was built. It treats
cfc2 = g^dx-dx". (12)
it
gravitation as an intrinsic curvature of space-time, the

With the principle of equivalence Einstein had special theory of relativity becoming a limiting case
linked gravitation with acceleration and thus with valid in regions small enough for the effects of the
inertia. Since acceleration manifests itself in g^j,, so too curvature to be negligible. The special theory, like the
should gravitation. Einstein therefore took the mo- Newtonian theory, can be expressed in terms of tensors,
mentous step of regarding g^^ as representing gravita- in conformity with the principle of general covariance.
tion, and by this act he gave gravitation a geometrical But the Kretschmann process of making equations
significance. In assigning to the metrical tensor a dual generally covariant usually involved introducing addi-
role, he did more than achieve an aesthetically satisfy- tional physical quantities. The principle of general
ing economy in the building material of his theory. covariance took on importance when
Einstein argued
For he was now able to force the seemingly empty that gravitation per se must be represented solely in
principle of general covariance to take on powerful terms of the metrical tensor g^, without the introduc-
heuristic content and lead him directly to his goal. This tion of additional physical quantities (other than the
he had done instinctively, since Kretschmann's argu- sources T^^}. This did more than link gravitation with
ment came only after the theory was formulated. How geometry: it forced the seemingly impotent principle
the principle of general covariance lost its seeming of general covariance to impose limitations so powerful
impotence will be explained later. that the complicated field equations of gravitation
The mathematical fool, now called the Tensor Cal- could be obtained essentially uniquely.
culus, for writing equations valid for all coordinate In linking inertia, via acceleration, to gravitation,
systems had already been created by Ricci (he started, Einstein extended the ideas of Berkeley and Mach by
interestingly enough, in the year 1887 that saw the regarding inertia as a gravitational interaction. Ac-
Michelson-Morley experiment and Voigt's introduction cordingly he gave the name "Mach's Principle" to the
of a transformation akin to that of Lorentz). requirement that which defines the geometry of
g^^,
Einstein therefore sought tensor equations for the space-time, should be determined solely by the gravi-
law of gravitation, and ultimately imposed three con- tational sources T^. Ironically, Einstein's theory turned
ditions: (a) that in free space the equations should out not to embrace Mach's principle unequivocally.
involve only tensors formed from the metrical tensor To avoid this irony Einstein proposed a desperate
and and second derivatives, (b) that the equa-
its first remedy that did not work. Nevertheless the attempt
tions, ten in number, should be linear in the second led him to a major development that will not be con-
derivatives of the ten g's (so as to keep as close as sidered here since it belongs to, and indeed inaugurates,
possible to the highly successful Newtonian theory, the the subject of relativistic cosmology.
basic equation of which was linear in the second deriv- In the special theory of relativity, as in the theory
atives of a single gravitational potential), and (c) that of Newton, space and time are unaffected by their
the equations be linked by four relations corresponding contents. In the general theory space and time are no
to the law of conservation of energy and momentum longer aloof. They mirror by their curvature the gravi-
(four relations being anvway necessary mathematically tational presence of matter, energy, and the like.
to ensure that the equations have nontrivial solutions, Geometry — four-dimensional — thus becomes, more
as was pointed out by Hilbert). than ever before, a branch of physics; and space-time-
What is remarkable is that the intricate equations, becomes a physical entity subject to field laws.
which involve millions of terms, were now essentially The problem of action at a distance no longer arises.
uniquely determined. Naturally, they come in compact Space-time itself is the mediator — the "aether" — and,
notation. From the components of the four-dimensional in three-dimensional parlance, gravitational effects are
Riemann-Christoffel curvature tensor R\^^, combina- propagated with speed c. Also, the self-contradiction
tions are formed denoted by R^ (the Flicci tensor) and in the special theory regarding the use of rigid rods
R (the curvature scalar). The totality of matter, stress, does not apply so harshly to the general theory, since
radiation, etc. acting as the "sources" of the gravita- coordinate meshes are no longer constructed of rigid
tional field is denoted by Tjj^. Then Einstein's field rods and standard clocks.
equations for gravitation can be written In Newton's theory the law of inertia states that a
free particle moves in a straight line with constant
R. y2gabfl= -Tst (13) speed. This law holds, also, in the special theory of 89
RELATIVITY
relativity, where it is expressed by saying that a free gravitational pull replaced by space-time curvature,
particle has a straight world Minkowski space-
line in the concept of weight becomes quite subtle.
time. Einstein essentially carried this law over into the Perhaps one may say that the gist of the situation
curved space-time of the general theory by postulating is this: the astronaut, being in free fall around the earth,
that the world line of a simple free particle therein is tracing out a geodesic world line in space-time and
is a geodesic, the closest available analogue of a straight not only feels weightless but also has zero weight.
line. The law now acquired powerful new significance. When the rockets of his spaceship are firing, the astro-
Consider, for example, the curved space-time associ- naut, being no longer in free flight, departs from trac-
ated with the gravitational field of the sun. Calculation ing out a geodesic. Accordingly, he acquires weight,
showed that the geodesies of particles representing and with it the sensation of having weight.
planets corkscrew around the world line of the sun in A man (regarded here as a point) when standing on
such a way that, in three-dimensional language, the the earth does not trace out a geodesic world line. But
particles move around the sun in curves very closely he does, momentarily, if he jumps. Thus we reach the
appro.ximating ellipses with the sun at a focus, their somewhat startling conclusion that in the course of his
orbital speeds varying in the Keplerian manner. Re- jump the man has zero weight.
member: we are speaking of "free" particles. Thus Since the world line of an astronaut in flight differs
there is no longer need to introduce a gravitational from that of his twin on the ground, the relativistic
force. Newton's first law, the law of inertia, when lengths, s, of the portions of their world lines between
adapted to Einstein's curved space-time, itself suffices departure and return are clearly unequal. Since these
to account for the gravitational influence of the sun lengths happen to measure the amounts of time the
on the motions of the planets. Indeed, all the triumphs twins have lived between meetings, the twins will not
of the Newtonian theory are inherited by the theory be the same age when the astronaut returns. By imag-
of Einstein. ining flights that are not yet feasible, one can infer
But Einstein's theory went further than Newton's. spectacular possibilities: for example, the astronaut
It accounted for a previously puzzling residual advance retiuning to find himself twenty years younger than
of the perihelion of Mercury by some 43 seconds of his stay-at-home twin. Much fuss has been stirred up
arc per century. Moreover it implied the gravitational by this so-called "paradox" of the twins. But so far
bending of light rays (giving twice the value that as the theory of relativity is concerned, it is no more
Einstein had obtained bv his preliminarv argument paradoxical than that the total length of two sides of
using the principle of equivalence) and also the gravi- a triangle is not equal to the length of the third. No
tational red shift of spectral lines (giving essentially useful purpose will be served in discussing the matter
the value he had obtained from the principle of equiv- further here, except for the following remark: The
alence). Observations confirm the existence of these astronautical twin would seem to have a longer rather
effects, but there has been a fluctuating discussion as than a shorter world line than his stay-at-home brother,
which the observations are in numerical
to the extent to and thus one might expect him to be the older rather
agreement with the predictions. Major technological than the younger on his return. Actually his world line,
advances in the half-century since the theory was as measured relativistically, is the shorter. We have to
formulated have brought within range of measurement take account of the sort of distortion already en-
not only more precise evaluations of the above effects countered when we tried to draw a Minkowskian unit
but also other effects hitherto beyond the reach of circle on a Euclidean page.
observation. Of particular interest is Weber's apparatus
designed to detect gravitational waves. XIX
By treating gravitation as space-time curvature,
xvm Einstein had geometrized a major branch of physics.
An orbiting astronaut feels weightless. Does this In 1918 Wevl sought to carry this process of geometri-
mean that he has zero weight? Some physicists say no. zation further. In curved space-time, where we have
They define weight as the pull of gravitation, and argue to make do with geodesies as substitutes for straight
that the astronaut is not free of the gravitational pull lines, directions are affected by the curvature. Weyl
of the earth and other bodies. The astronaut, they say, devised a more general space-time geometry in which
feels weightless becai'.se inertial effects balance the not only directions but also lengths are affected; and
gravitational pull. he showed how one could thereby obtain the equations
Actually the concept of weight by no means easy
is of Maxwell in a natru-al way alongside those of Einstein.
to define satisfactorily even in Newtonian terms. In the Unfortunately, as Einstein pointed out, the idea en-
general theory of relativity, with gravitation and iner- coimtered physical difficulties.
90 tia linked by the principle of equivalence, and with Weyl's ingenious attempt was one of the first of a
RELATIVITY
long succession of unified field theories seeking to link hypotheses. Indeed, thiseconomy proved to be even
gravitation and electromagnetism geometrically. One more impressive than was originally beheved: the
trend was initiated in 1921 by Kaluza, who proposed geodesic hypothesis was found not to be needed after
a five-dimensional theory that was later given a four- all, the motions of bodies being inherent in the field
dimensional interpretation. Another trend, growing equations themselves. This discovery, by Einstein and
from Weyl's work, involved introducing various geo- collaborators among others, revealed the general the-
metrical features, such as torsion, directly into space- ory of relativity as unique among field theories in that
time, a notableexample being the theory, based on all others had to be supplemented by special rules
an unsymmetric g^^^, on which Einstein was working linking the motions of bodies to the field.
at the time of his death. Like every physical theory, the general theory of
Since electromagnetism has energy, it has a gravita- relativity faces great epistemological and internal diffi-
tional effect. In 1925 Rainich showed that electromag- culties. Among the latter are solutions of its equations
netism leaves so characteristic a gravitational imprint that seem like physical nonsense, and powerful
on the curvature of space-time that the curvature itself theorems discovered by Penrose, Hawkins, and others
can suffice to represent electromagnetism as well as indicating that its equations carry the taint of imavoid-
gravitation. In this sense, the general theory of relativ- able breakdown.
itycould be said to be "already unified." More important are the epistemological difficulties,
Because of the exuberant proliferation of unified field especially in relation to the quantum theory. Bohr was
theories of gravitationand electromagnetism and their of the opinion that there was no need to apply quantum
failure to yield new physical insights comparable to concepts to the general theory of relativity; he re-
those of the special and general theories of relativity, garded the latter as an essentially macroscopic theory
there arose a tendency to deride attempts to reduce linked to the macroscopic aspects of matter. Other
means of unified field theories.
physics to geometry by physicists, however, have sought to quantize Einstein's
This tendency was enhanced when atomic physicists gravitational theory much as Maxwell's theory of light
discovered additional fimdamental fields, even though, has been quantized. In the latter the electromagnetic
in principle, the discovery of these fields made the field is regarded as consisting of quantum-mechanical
problem of unification, if anything, more urgent. particles called photons. Accordingly one attempts to
Whether the path to unification will be via the treat the gravitational field as consisting of quantum-
geometrization of physics is a moot point since one mechanical particles to which the name graviton has
cannot define the boundaries of geometry. Thus, been given. Two difficulties arise. The first has to do
nuclear physicists use geometrical concepts with strik- with the sheer complexity of Einstein's field equations
ing success in attempting to unify the theory of funda- (13) when written out in detail. While this inner com-
mental particles, but these geometrical concepts are plexity underscores Einstein's genius in obtaining the
not confined to space-time. equations essentially uniquely, it also prevents a
It is worth remarking that there have been highly straightforward application of the familiar techniques
successful unifications lying within the special theory of quantization. The second difficulty is more funda-
of relativity. For example, Dirac found relativistic mental: if one quantizes gravitation in Einstein's the-
equations for the electron that not only contained the ory, one automatically quantizes the metrical tensor
spin of the electron as a kinematical consequence of and thus the very basis of space-time geometry. The
Minkowskian geometry but also linked the electron to epistemological problems posed by a quantized geom-
the not-then-detected positron, thus initiating the con- etry are formidable indeed.
cept of antimatter. Minkowski, in his four-dimensional Even on a more superficial level the quantum theory
treatment of Maxwell's equations, had already created raisesdeep problems concerning measurement in the
an elegant unified field theory of electricity and mag- general theory of relativity. The light cones, which are
netism long before the term "unified field theory" was crucial ingredients of the geometry of space-time, are
coined. And we can hardly deny that the special theory defined directly by g^^ and represent the propagation
of relativity is itself a unified theory of space and time, of infinitely sharp pulses of light. But, as Einstein
as too is the general theory. realized, such pulses would involve infinitely high fre-
quencies and thus, according to the quantum relation
XX E = hr (energy equals Planck's constant times fre-
Transcending the triumphs of Einstein's theory is its quency) infinitely high energies. These in turn would
monumental quality. This quality is manifest in the imply, among other calamities, infinitely large gravita-
naturalness and seeming inevitability of the theory's tional curvatures not present in the original g^^.
growth, the beauty and structural simphcity of its From the two basic constants, the speed of light and
architecture, and the interlocking economy of its basic the Newtonian gravitational constant, that enter the 91
RELIGION, ORIGINS OF
general theory of relativity, we cannot form a quantity Poincar^ and the Principle of Relativity," ibid., 32 (1964),
representing a length. The theory thus has no built-in 672-78.
scale of size. If we introduce Planck's constant, how- W. Pauli's highly mathematical Theory of Relativity,
trans. C. Field (London, 1959), was famous in 1921 as an
ever, we can form a fundamental length. It turns out
encyclopedia article and remains outstanding in its updated
to be lO^^^cm. The diameter of an atomic nucleus is
form. It contains an abundance of references.
enormously larger, being of the order 10^'^cm.
Of the books of medium mathematical difficulty, M.
Wheeler has therefore proposed that space-time, so
Bom's Einstein's Theory of Relativity (New York, 1962;
seemingly smooth, has a spongy structure of enormous various reprints), is of particular interest here because of
complexity when envisaged at the 10"^^cm level. its historical approach. Note that it work of
scants the
It may well be that the general theory of relativity Poincare, as do other books listed below. Complementing
is a macroscopic theory that breaks down at the mi- Bom's book, and admirable in its own right, is W. Rindler's
croscopic level. Or that it survives there in an almost Essential Relativity (New The
York, 1969). Einstein's book.
unrecognizable foamlike form. But all our basic physi- Meaning of Relativity, 5th ed. (Princeton, 1956), is particu-
common malaise: even when larly recommended to those who are able to follow the
cal theories suffer from a
mathematics.
they seek to avoid the idea of a space-time continuum,
.\s to nontechnical books, nobody has bettered Einstein's
they use .v, i/, z, t in their equations and treat them
own popular exposition. Relativity (New York, 1920; later
as continuous quantities. The reason is simple: no one
reprints). P. W. Bridgman, A Sophisticate's Primer of Rela-
has yet found a satisfactory way of doing without thorn.
(Middletown, Conn., 1962; reprint New York), gives
tivity
Perhaps, as Einstein hoped, space and time are fun- important insights into the special theory but unfortunately
damental things out of which matter is made. Perhaps, assumes without analysis the existence of rigid rods. M.
though, matter, or something else, is the more fimda- Jammer, Concepts o/ Space (Cambridge, Mass., 1954; 2nded.
mental, with space and time mere macroscopic reflec- 1969), contains numerous references. A. D'Abro, The Evolu-
tions of its deeper regularities. Fundamental or not, tion of Scientific Thought (New York, 1927; reprint 1950),
space and time remain the very essence of our being. gives a detailed nonmathematical account of the whole
And Einstein's theory, for all its problems and whatever development of the theory. Also recommended are A.
its fate, will endure as a towering masterpiece in one
Einstein and L. Infeld, Tlie Evolution of Physics (New York,
1938; also reprint), and P. Bergmann, The Riddle of Gravi-
of the most difficult and demanding of art forms: theo-
tation (New York, 1968). P. Frank, Einstein: His Life and
retical physics.
Times (New York, 1947; 1953), contains both biographical
and philosophical material of particular interest. For J. A.
Wheeler's engrossing, speculative, ideas about foamlike
BIBLIOGRAPHY if
space and the concept of superspace, see his book (in

Galileo Galilei, Dialogue on the Great World Systems, ed. German) Einsteins Vision (Berlin, 1968). Mention may also
G. de Santillana {Chicago, 1953), is a classic; this edition be made of Banesh Hoffmann, with Helen Dukas, Albert
contains illuminating editorial notes. Newton's Principia, Einstein, Creator and Rebel (New York, 1972).
trans. A. Motte, 2 vols. (Berkeley, 1962), also has editorial
notes but unfortunately no index. Of other pre-relativity
BANESH HOFFMANN
works, the following are particularly relevant to this article: [See also Causation; Cosmic Images; Cosmology since 1850;
J.
C. Maxwell, Matter and Motion (London, 1877; reprint, Mathematical Rigor; Matter; Space; Time and Measure-
New York, n.d.), see in particular pp. 80-88; also E. Mach, ment; Unity of Science.]
The Science of Mechanics, trans. T. J.
McCormack, 6th ed.
(La Salle, 111., 1960).
The collection of essays in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-
Scientist, ed. P. A. Schilpp (Evanston, 1949), is indispensable;
the book contains Einstein's scientific autobiography and
a bibliography of his writings. Key technical papers in the
ORIGINS OF RELIGION
development of Einstein's theory are reprinted in The Prin-
ciple of Relativity (1923); reprint, .New York, n.d.). One of A CMTiCAL awareness of religion as a peculiar
the most important historical surveys is E. T. Whittaker's phenomenon of human behavior first appears, so far
A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity (1910; as the extant evidence shows, in the writings of the
New York, 1951; and later reprint), see especially Vol. IL Greek philosopher Xenophanes (sixth century b.c). As
This highly technical work is unfortunately biased in its
the following fragments disclose, Xenophanes had
account of the special theory of relativity, though not of
perceived the ethnic relativity of the personification
the general theory. For an antidote, see the article by G.
of deity, as well as its innate anthropomorphism:
Holton "On the Origins of the Special Theory of Relativity,"
American Journal of Physics, 28 (1960), 627-36; but in this Mortals think that the gods are bom, and wear clothes like
92 connection see the article by C. Scribner, Jr. "Henri their own, and have a voice and bodies. But if oxen and
horses or lions had hands and could draw with them and of Religion (1757), that religion stemmed from human
make works men do, horses would draw the shapes
[of art] as needs and fears.
of gods like horses, oxen like oxen; each would make their The critical attitude towards religion, evident in
bodies according to their own forms. The Ethiopians say these attempts to find rationalistic explanations of it,
that their gods are flat-nosedand black; the Thracians that represented the views of an intellectual minority in
theirs are grey-eyed and have red hair (Kirk and Raven, Greek and Roman society. Other attempts of a theo-
pp. 168-69). logical kind were also made in the ancient world to
account for the beginnings of reUgion. But these efforts
Sometimes this critical attitude was even more radical took the form of naive cosmogonies, notably in Egypt
and involved the rejection of orthodox religious con- and Mesopotamia, which severally presented some
cepts; thus, about 450 b.c, Anaxagoras shocked con- particular god as the creator of the universe, including
servative opinion in Athens by declaring that the sun other gods and mankind, and told how this creator-god
and moon were red-hot stones, which meant that they arranged for mankind to build temples and serve the
could not be divinities. About 300 B.C., Euhemerus of gods. There was also a movement towards syncretism,
Messene explained the origin of the gods in a so-called which in the Greco-Roman world found such notable
"Sacred History" which was really a fictitious expression as the attempt of Apuleius (second century
travelogue adapted for the presentation of his theory. A.D.) to see the Egyptian goddess Isis, who was
He told how he had visited a majestic temple of Zeus, worshipped under different names by other peoples,
built on an island in the Indian Ocean, where he had as the principle of all life (The Golden Ass, XI. 305).
found an inscription concerning the exploits of Zeus, The establishment of Christianity as the official reh-
and of Uranos and Kronos whom Greek tradition gion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century re-
regarded as divine rulers of the universe before Zeus. sulted in the forcible suppression of paganism. Until
According to his accomit of the inscription, it was was achieved. Christian thinkers had
that final victory
recorded that these gods were originally great kings been obUged to answers to pagan criticism of their
find
ofremote antiquity who had subsequently been deified. faith. One of their chief points of concern was the
Other deities were similarly accounted for, including newness of Christianity compared with the great
Aphrodite, who, first of courtesans, had been deified antiquity of the pagan cults. This objection was met
by her lover Cinyras, king of Cyprus. This theory, by the formulation in the third and fourth centiu-ies
though a fantastic explanation of the Greek deities with of a philosophy of history, to which Julius Africanus,
which it deals, did unwittingly touch upon a process Eusebius of Caesarea, and Augustine of Hippo made
that has operated to produce deities in various reli- the most notable contributions. By taking over the
gions; for example, Imhotep, the architect of the Step Hebrew scriptures as their own legitimate heritage.
Pyramid (ca. 2780 b.c.) at Saqqara in Egypt, who was Christians were able to show to their own satisfaction
venerated for his wisdom and was eventually

ability, that their religion could be traced back to the very
transformed into a healing-god in Greco-Roman Egypt. Creation. This philosophy of history, together with
In more sophisticated forms, "Euhemerism" has often their exclusive soteriology, provided medieval Chris-
recurred in modem theories about the origin of reli- tians with a completely adequate account of the origin
gion, notably in the ancestor-worship thesis held by of rehgion, since for them there was only one true
the sociologist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). religion, and that was their own. Of the other religions
The Latin poet Lucretius (first century B.C.) ex- which they knew, they had sufficient explanations:
plained the origin of religion along other lines. A Judaism was due to the culpable obduracy of the Jews
follower of the philosopher Epicurus, whom he in rejecting Jesus as the true Messiah and persisting
regarded as the true savior of mankind since he had in the now-superseded Old Covenant, which the com-
exposed the pernicious nature of rehgion, Lucretius in ing of Christ had made obsolete; the broken cults of
his De rerum natura taught that men had dreamed of Greece and Rome had been inventions of the Devil
gods, to whom they omnipotence and
attributed and the sinful blindness of men; the new religion of
immortality. Unable to account for natural phenomena, Islam was a false heresy. Of the great rehgions of Asia,
especially in its more terrifying aspects, men had gone such as Buddhism, medieval Christians had scarcely any
on to ascribe all such things to the gods, whom they knowledge, and these religions had no part in their
consequently feared and sought to propitiate. Lucretius Weltanschauung.
did not deny the existence of gods, but he held that The Renaissance and maritime exploration, from the
they had no contact at all with the world and mankind. fifteenth onwards, gradually changed
century the
Lucretius anticipated by some seventeen centuries the parochial outlook of medieval Christendom. The new
view of David Hume, expressed in The Natural History interest in ancient Greece and Rome, which charac- 93
terized the Renaissance, meant that the pagan gods Hebrew people. This equipment was, however,
were no longer regarded as devils. Their antique statues gradually being provided. Already, by the end of the
were now admired, and the Renaissance artists were century, knowledge of Sanskrit and Avestan Persian
eager to make these deities subjects of their paintings had been acquired by Eiu'opean scholars, and during
and sculptures, while scholars familiarized themselves the first half of the next century much progress was
and others with their legends. Maritime exploration, made in the deciphering of the lost languages of
and the trade and colonization which resulted from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. This philological
it,brought contact with the great civilizations of Asia interest soon found expression in the study of religious
and their religions, together with knowledge of the origins, most notably in the work of Friedrich Max
primitive peoples of Africa, Australasia, and the Miiller (1823-1900), who came to Oxford as a young
Americas. All this new information gradually stirred man to translate certain ancient religious texts of India
the minds of educated men in Europe, making them Company, and settled there as Pro-
for the East India
aware of the diversity and complexity of the cultures Comparative Philology. Miiller greatly pro-
fessor of
of mankind, many of them far older than that of Chris- moted the comparative study of rehgion, especially by
tian Europe and of equal achievement in many things. his initiating of the celebrated series of translations
The effects of this new knowledge and interest, so far entitled The Sacred Books of the East. The origin of
as the evaluation of religion is concerned, began to religion he traced to the mind of man:
find notable literary expression during the eighteenth
No doubt there existed in the human mind, from the very
century.
beginning, something, whether we call it a suspicion, an
In 1724 a Jesuit priest, Joseph Fran9ois Lafitau,
innate idea, an intuition, or a sense of the Divine. What
published a book in Paris entitled Moeiirs des sainages
distinguishes man from the rest of the animal creation is
ameriquains comparees aux nweurs des premiers temps. dependence and reliance
chiefly that ineradicable feeling of
It was significant for the thesis which its author had upon some higher power, a consciousness of bondage from
formulated from what he knew of the religions of the which the very name of "religion" was derived {Chips from
American Indians, of pagan antiquity, and of his own a Gertnan Workshop. 2 vols., London [1867], I, 239).
Cathohc Christianity. By comparing these faiths, he
was led to conclude from certain basic similarities According to Miiller, the first form of religion was
which he discerned, that all religions had stemmed henotheism or cathenotheism. which signified a vague
from one original revelation. Another attempt to ex- conception of deity that found expression in the
plain the origin of religion, or its common primitive attribution of divine qualities to whatever manifesta-
form, was made in 1760 by Charles de Brosses in a tion ofpower an individual happened to be concerned
work entitled Du culte des dieux fetiches ou parallele with on a particular occasion. From such a primordial
de I'ancienne religion de I'tLgypte avec la religion actu- conception both polytheism and monotheism later
elle de Nigrite. His definition of fetishism, which he derived. Mythology also greatly occupied the attention
regarded as the common primitive form of religion, of Max Miiller, particularly that of the Indo-European
is imprecise; but the following statement is significant: peoples, which he sought to interpret by means of
it defined fetishism as "the cult of animals or of comparative philology. To him mythology was "a dis-
inanimate earthly beings" {fappelle en general de ce ease of language." He believed tliat the various names
nom toute Religion qui a pour objet de cidte des for God could be traced back to a common origin in
animaux ou des etres terrestres inanimes). Another human speech. It was from the names given to gods
notable effort at explaining the origin of rehgion, or and goddesses, according to him, that the various con-
at least a significant part of it, was made by Charles- ceptions stemmed; thus, if the sim was deified and the
Frangois Dupuis in his Origine de tons les cultes (1795). name for "sun" in a particular language was masculine,
He maintained that Christ, Osiris, Bacchus, and Mithra the sun-god was thought of as a male being and actions
were onlv allegorical personifications of the sun and and conduct appropriate to a male being of super-
its annual career. Of interest, too, is the view of natural power were ascribed to him. Hence, in process
Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), who in his Srienza of time, there developed the complex mythologies
nuova noted that rituals concerning birth, marriage, found in most reUgions.
and death constitute a common factor in all religions. Although the influence of Max Miiller was consid-
These eighteenth-century interpretations were erable, comparative philology was generally con-
characterized by the rationalizing spirit of the age; but sidered as having only a limited use for research into
as yet scholars lacked the linguistic equipment to read the origins of religion — it should be noted that the
the religious literature of the ancient civilizations, method has been vigorously employed in the last two
94 except that of Greece and Rome and that of the decades by Georges Dum^zil in investigating the reli-
gions of the ancient Indo-European peoples, but his Since certain forms of natiu-al phenomena manifested
interpretations have also encountered much opposition great and terrifying power, these forms, thus personi-
(see Bibliography: "Dumezil, Georges," in Dictionary fied, became the great gods or daemons whom he
of Comparative Religion). The development of sought to appease. It was from such primitive
anthropological or ethnological studies next seemed to polydaemonism or polytheism, so Tylor maintained,
provide the opportunity of reaching back to the begin- that subsequent rationalization produced the idea of
nings of religion. This anthropological approach was monotheism.
also inspired, as was so much nineteenth-century Tylor was able to cite an impressive amount of
scientific thinking, by the evolutionary principle which anthropological material in support of his thesis, and
had been so impressively employed to account for the Animism as an explanation of the origin and evolution
origin of the natural species. Increasing acquaintance- of religion became widely influential. It inevitably
ship with the so-called "primitive" races of the world, encountered criticism, most notably from a later holder
which resulted from exploration and colonization, of Tylor's Chair of Anthropology at Oxford, namely,
seemed to provide evidence of what human culture R. R. Marett, who argued that Tylor's theory pre-
must have been like in the remotest antiquity; there supposed an awareness of personality that was unlikely
was a natural tendency to equate culture that was to have existed at the selected primordial stage of
comparatively primitive by nineteenth-century stand- human culture. Marett sought for an even earlier and
ards with what was chronologically primitive. more primitive stage, such as was indicated by the idea
A leading exponent of the anthropological approach of mana, i.e., an impersonal supernatural power
to the origins of religion was Sir Edward B. Tylor, who envisaged by certain savage peoples, with which con-
published in 1871 in England a great work entitled temporary anthropologists had become much con-
Primitive Culture which was widely influential. In this cerned. According to Marett,
work Tylor set forth, as the "minimum definition" of
religion, the tlieory of Animism. The term was derived
The question is whether apart from ideas of spirit, ghost,
soul, and the like, and before such ideas have become
from the Latin words animus and anima, which
the dominant factors in the constituent experience, a
denoted life, soul, spirit, concepts closely associated
rudimentarv' religion can exist. It will suffice to prove that
with the life-breath (Greek pneuma) that animates the
supernaturalism, the attitude of the mind dictated by awe
body. Tylor explained how the idea of an anima first
of the mysterious, which provides religion with its raw
came to be formed: material, may exist apart from animism, and. further, may
provide a basis on which animistic doctrine is subsequently
It as though thinking men, as yet at a low level of
seems
constructed {The Threshold of Religion, 1914).
culture, were deeply impressed by two groups of biological
problems. In the first place, what is it that makes the
To define this pre-personalized stage in the evolution
difference between a living body and a dead one; what
of religion, Marett invented the term "Animalism."
causes waking, sleep, trance, disease, death? In the second
place, what are these human shapes which appear in dreams The greatest name in this early anthropological quest
and visions? Looking at these two groups of phenomena, for the origin and essential nature of religion is that
the ancient savage philosophers probably made their first of James George Frazer (1854-1941). His output of
step by the obvious inference that every man has two things important works was prodigious. His magnum opus
belonging to him, namely, a life and a phantom. These two entitled The Golden Bough comprises twelve volumes,
are evidently in close connexion with the body, the life as an index and bibliographical volume, and a volume
enabling it to feel and think and act, the phantom as being
called Aftermath. The influence which he has had on
its image or second self; both, also, are perceived to be
modern thinking about religion has been very great;
things separable from the body, the life as being able to
although many of his interpretations are now out-
go away and leave it insensible or dead, the phantom as
moded, works remain a treasiu-y of information
his
appearing to people at a distance from it [Primitive Culture,
I, 428).
about the religious customs and beliefs of mankind. In
The Golden Bough (The Magic Art, 3rd. ed., I, 222)
From this initial concept of an animating principle he set forth his definition of religion as being "a
within man, according to Tylor, religion derived. For propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man
primitive man was led on to conclude that all natural which are believed to direct and control the course
phenomena, endowed with apparent vitality and of nature and of human life." He held that man's
movement, such as trees, streams, fire, the sim, moon, knowledge of God was inferential, being derived "ei-
and stars, also possessed souls or spirits. Hence primi- ther by meditating on the operations of his own mind,
tive man populated the natural world with a vast host or by observing the processes of external nature . . .
of spirits, some friendly and some inimical to himself. it is the imperious need of tracing the causes of events 95
which has driven man to discover or invent a deity." The data provided by anthropological research
However, Frazer regarded religion as representing the impressed other scholars in the early years of the pres-
second stage in the evolution of man's relations with ent century with the importance of the factor of com-
the superior powers of the natural world. The first stage mimal or collective consciousness in primitive society.
he designated the Age of Magic, unknowingly devel- Emile Diu-kheim (1858-1917), preeminent among
oping an idea of Hegel's. The transition from the Age French sociologists, saw in the institution of totemism,
of Magic to the Age of Religion he accounted for as then a popular topic of concern among anthropologists,
follows: a concept of basic significance for imderstanding the
social origins of religion. He wrote accordingly:
It becomes probable that magic arose before religion in the
evolution of our race, and that man essayed to bend nature The god of the clan, the totemic principle, can therefore
to his wishes by the sheer force of spells and enchantments be nothing else than the clan itself, personified and repre-
before he strove to coax and mollify a coy, capricious, or sented to the imagination under the visible form of the
irascible deitv by the soft insinuation of prayer and sacrifice animal or vegetable which serves as totem (Elementary
(op. cit., I, 2i34). Forms of the Religious Life [1915], p. 206).
Another notable contribution made by Frazer to the Jane Harrison, a classical scholar eager to use
study of religious origins was his exposition of the anthropological material, produced a somewhat similar
economic factor in the evolution of rehgious idea^ and theory of the emergence of the concept of a deity
practices. He showed that man, as an agricultiualist, (Dionysus) from the communal consciousness created
became profoundly concerned with the annual hfe- by ritual dancing in early Greece: "The leader of the
cycle of vegetation upon which his food supply band of kotiroi {Kovpoi}, of yoimg men, the real actual
—
depended with the drama implicit in the burying of leader, has become by remembrance and abstraction
the seed-corn in the earth, its germination, the upward ... a daimon, or spirit, at the head of a band of spirits,
surge of its new life in spring, its cutting down at and he brings in the new year at spring {Ancient Art "
harvest and transformation into food. It was from man's and Ritual [1918], p. 115).
personification of the principle of vegetation, accord- The drawing of attention to the communal factor
ing to Frazer, that the idea of a god who dies and in primitive religion was an understandable reaction
rises again originated, finding expression in such to the hitherto prevailing disposition to contemplate
celebrated deities as Attis, Adonis, Osiris, and Christ. the origin of religion in terms of individual ratiocina-
It may be noted that Paul Radin later {Primitive Reli- tion. now began to be made in other directions,
Search
gion: Nature and Origin. 1937) also stressed the
its most notably in human psychology or in some supposed
importance of lack of economic security as a factor precognitive stage in human development. Sigmund
in religious origination, and derived religion from Freud (1856-1939), whose pioneering work in psy-
magic. chology and psychoanalysis has had such profound
The tendency of the early anthropologists to seek influence on modern thought, sought to explain the
for evidence of the origin of religion in the supposed origin of religion or its primordial form in terms of
attempts of primitive man to rationalize his experience deep-seated psychological impulses, particularly in the
of the natural world produced yet another inter- human male. To him religion was essentially "an infan-
pretation. .'\ndrew Lang (1844-1912), stressing the fact tile obsessional neurosis "
centered mainly on the primal
that many "primitive "
peoples believed in a supreme father-figiu'e. In his Totem and Taboo (1918), Freud
creator-deity, a 'High God" or "All-Father," argued propounded his thesis that "the beginnings of religion,
that monotheism was the earliest form of religion and ethics, societv, and art meet in the Oedipus complex."
that animism represented a degeneration from this He imagined a primordial state of human society
original conception. This idea of a primeval composed of a "primitive horde," dominated by a
monotheism found its most devoted exponent in Father father who kept all females for himself and repelled
Wilhebn Schmidt (1868-1954), who maintained his his growing sons. The latter banded together to slay
case in a twelve-volume work, Der Ursprtmg der their father, whom they both hated and admired. They
Gottesidee (1926-55). He beheved that this primeval ate their victim, to identify themselves with him and
monotheism also involved a primeval moraUty which absorb his strength. After their parricide, remorse set
included the practice of monogamy; he consequently in and a sense of guilt formed. Rituals of expiation were
saw both polytheism and polygamy as degenerate devised, centered on the totem as the "father substi-
forms of the earlier faith and practice. Although this tute.
"
Hence, according to Freud, the institutions of
interpretation was so obviously congenial to Christian primitive society, namely, totemism, incest, taboos,
theology, Schmidt did not however posit an original exogamy, the ritual totem meal, originated from the
yb divine revelation for his primeval monotheism. Oedipus complex. Although Freud took his ethnologi-
cal examples from Australian aboriginal society, his distinguished as the Mysterium tremendum and the
reconstruction of tliis primeval drama had the sanction Mysterium fascinans. The former aspect, as the desig-
of no archeological or anthropological evidence; how- nation indicates, causes terror in the one who appre-
ever, its novel interpretation of the sex-instinct as the hends it; but it is a terror induced by its "otherness,"
source of rehgion caused much excitement and gave or uncanny, eerie nature. Yet, while the numinous
it a publicity which it did not deserve on scientific presence terrified, it could also fascinate, and strangely
grounds. Among Freud's followers, the most distin- attract to closer contact with itself. It was this sense
guished was C. J. Jung (1875-1961), who developed of the numinous, so Otto maintained, that constituted
his own distinctive interpretation of man's mental and the essence of hohness. Its presence made a place or
emotional life. Jvmg defined religion as anything associated with and contact with it
it holy,
had to be controlled by taboos. Otto accounted for the
a peculiar attitude of mind which could be formulated in
various forms of primitive religion (e.g., daemonism,
accordance with the original use of the word "religio,"
totemism, worship of tlie dead) by the rationalization
which means a careful consideration and observation of
of man's experience of the numinous. Otto's book
certain dynamic factors, that are conceived as "powers";
clearly reveals his theological interest in devising this
spirits, demons, gods, laws, ideals, or whatever name man
has given to such factors in his world as he has found explanation of the origin of religion, and his work has
powerful, dangerous, or helpful enough to be taken into been much appreciated by theologians.
careful consideration, or grand, beautiful, and meaningful Of considerable significance, both in view of their
enough to be devoutly worshipped and loved (Jung, p. 8). author's eminence as a philosopher and their intrinsic
percipience, are the statements of Affred Nortfi
Jvmg was, however, more concerned with tlie forms Whitehead (1861-1947) on the beginnings of religion
in which religion has expressed itself than with its and its essential nature. He saw religion as stemming
origin. For him tliose forms expressed "the living proc- fundamentally from personal experience:
ess of the unconscious in the form of the drama of
Iêligion is what the individual does with his own solitari-
repentance, sacrifice, and redemption" (op. cit., p. 46).
ness. It runs through three stages, if it evolves to its final
He concentrated on the interpretation of myths as
satisfaction. It is the transition from Cod the void to God
expressions of the collective unconscious, discerning
the enemy, and from God the enemy to God the companion.
therein certain "archetypes" or primordial images that . . . Collective enthusiasms, revivals, institutions, churches,
exercise a formative influence upon human thought and rituals, bibles, codes of behavior, are the trappings of reli-
behavior. The principal archetypes he named the gion, its passing forms. They may be useful, or harmful;
persona, the shadow, the anima and animus, (he old they may be authoritatively ordained, or merely temporary
wise man, the earth mother, and theself. For him, "The expedients. But the end of rehgion is beyond all this
religious myth is one of man's greatest and most (Whitehead, pp. 6-7).
significant achievements, giving him the security and
The emergence of rehgion he described as follows:
inner strength not to be crushed by the monstrousness
of the universe" {Symbols of Transformation [1956], Religion, so far as it receives external expression in human
p. 231). history, exhibits four factors or sides of itself. These factors
These psychological interpretations of the origin of are ritual, emotion, belief, rationalisation. . . . But all these
religion, and its fundamental nature, placed the source four factors are not of equal influence throughout all his-
of religion below the level of the conscious self and

torical epochs. The religious idea emerged gradually into
human life, at first barely disengaged from other human
its ratiocination. Another notable endeavor of similar
interests. The order of the emergence of these factors was
intent, but of a very different approach, was made by
in the inverse order of the depth of their religious impor-
Rudolf Otto (1869-1937), a German philosopher of
tance: first ritual, then emotion, then belief, then rationalisa-
religion, in his widely influential book Das Heilige
tion {op. cit., p. 8).
(1917), which was translated into English as The Idea
of the Holy (1923). Otto was concerned to emphasize Whitehead saw the "great rational religions" as ex-
the nonrational nature of religious experience. To this pressive of a imiversal religious consciousness, in con-
end he postulated the existence within man of a sense trast to religious consciousness at the tribal or social
of the numinous, i.e., the abiUty to become aware of level. This universality he identified with "the note of
the presence of an entity "wholly other "
than all else solitariness" which he perceived as a basic factor in
in the world of his experience. Otto derived the term "rational religion" (op. cit., pp. 37ff.).
"numinous "
from the Latin word numen, which More recently it has been proposed to trace the
denoted a supernatural nonpersonalized being. Ac- origin of religion to a source hitherto unexplored,
cording to Otto, the numinous presence apprehended
is viz., man's consciousness of time (cf. Brandon, 1959,
under two different forms of manifestation, which he 1965, 1966). Human time-consciousness is seen as 97
an essential factor of human rationality; for awareness all a priori theories about religious origins must
of the temporal categories of past, present, and fu- ultimately be checked against the earliest evidence that
ture is basic to the sense of self-identity. Time-con- archeology can provide.
sciousness, moreover, has given mankind success in It is, accordingly, significant that the so-called
the struggle for existence by enabling it to draw upon Neanderthal or Mousterian Man, the immediate pre-
past experience in the present, to plan for future con- cursor of true man {Homo sapiens), buried his dead,
tingencies: no other animal possesses such an effective possibly providing with food. The burial of
them also
sense of time. Man's awareness of time has, however, the dead is human custom, implying
exclusively a
had an ambivalent effect. By enabling him to anticipate special concern about death and the dead. Where
future events, it has made him aware of his own mor- funerary provision of food and other equipment is
tality. Hence it has bred within him a sense of funda- made, some idea of a post-mortem existence may be
mental insecurity, which prevents him from immersing reasonably assumed. Concern with death and the dead,
himself wholly in the enjoyment of present experience thus adumbrated by the practice of Neanderthal Man,
as other animals do. He knows that the passage of time finds more elaborate expression in the burial customs
inevitably brings change, decay, and death. This time- of Homo sapiens in the Upper Palaeolithic era (ca.
consciousness has emerged pari passu with the devel- 30,000-10,000 B.C.). .\nd diversity of mortuary practice
opment of the human mind; evidence of its operation then indicates also the existence of a variety of con-
is to be found in the earliest remains of human culture. cepts about death and post-mortem existence. Further
Man's reaction to the prospect of his own demise has significant evidence is to be seen in the carved repre-
taken the form of seeking security from death, or sentations, found on PalaeoUthic sites, of women with
beyond death, by attachment to what is deemed eternal the maternal attributes grossly emphasized but the
or unchanging. Thus in the earliest written documents, faces left blank: such images surely indicate a concern
the Pyramid Texts of Egypt (ca. 2400 B.C.), this urge with fertility and birth. The celebrated cave-art of the
finds expression in ritual identification with the resur- Palaeolithic era is also important in this connection;
rected god Osiris or by joining the sun-god Re on his for it is generally interpreted as magical in purpose,
everlasting journey through the heavens. On analysis, being concerned with the promotion of successful
every religion is found to be primarily concerned with hunting and the fertility of the animals which furnished
offering to its devotees some form of post-mortem the chief source of food for the community. Palaeo-
security. This is the basic raison d'etre of all religion, Uthic archaeology suggests, therefore, that men at this
to which all other concerns are subsidiary. remote period were concerned with three issues of
The purpose of this article has been to trace out basic significance: birth, death, and food. In deaUng
the liistory of ideas about the origin of reUgion where with these issues, these remote ancestors had already
those ideas have represented significant attempts to developed practices, compounded of rehgio-magical
appraise rehgion objectively. Some passing reference elements, to assist their own practical abihties. How
was made to early Christian thought in this context, far these practices involved the conception of deity
since it was necessary to account for the apparent is necessarily unknown; but there is some possible
hiatus in curiosity about the origin of rehgion that evidence of the deification of woman as the source of
occurs from the end of pagan Greco-Roman culture life —a kind of Palaeolithic prototype of the Great
until the Renaissance. The theologians and scholars of Goddess so prominent in the later religions of the
most of the other great religions have also been con- ancient Near East and India.
cerned with the origins of their own respective faiths; Future progress of prehistoric archaeology will
but their thinking has generally been conditioned by doubtless throw more light on the earliest forms of
the assumption that their own faith is the true religion, religion, as it did in the 1960's at Catal Hiiyiik for the
and that ithad been divinely revealed to, or by, their early Neolithic period. But it will surely never be able
founder. Thus Judaism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, to reveal the actual chronological origins of religion;
Islam, and Manichaeism respectively trace their ori- indeed, it is impossible to conceive of archaeological
gins back to a unique founder, and by that very fact evidence of any kind that could do so. Archaeology
claim to embody an exclusive revelation concerning has done invaluable service in indicating how man
man and his destiny. The study of such claims, is, endeavored cope with the mysterious unknown that
to
however, the concern of the history and comparative surrounded and threatened him at the earUest known
study of religions. stage of culture. But behind his crude rehgio-magical
This survey may appropriately close with a brief practices, such as his burial of the dead, reside mental
account of what may be inferred about the earliest and emotional factors which can only be surmised, not
98 form of religion evidenced by archeological data. For reached by archaeological research. Attempts to un-
RELIGION, RITUAL IN
derstand these factors are likely to continue because of the variety of grades of significance in the typical
of the intrinsic interest and significance of the subject; examples cited, that some forms of ritual action may
but the quest, by reason of its very nature, must represent a tradition of conventional behavior, care-
inevitably remain inconclusive. fully observed and valued but not awakening any deep
personal concern on the part of the participants.
BIBLIOGRAPHY In view of the variety and complexity of ritual action
current in the modern world, and the obvious antiquity
There is no monograph on the subject, but information
will be found in the following works. E. Pinard de la
of its an a priori definition of ritual is
practice,
Boullaye, L'ehide comparee des religions. 2 vols. (Paris, hazardous. However, the following definition might
1948); S. G. F. Brandon, Dictionanj of Comparative Religion serve as a working formula, to be checked against the
(London and New York, 1970); M. Eliade, Patterns in Com- empirical study of notable examples of ritual practice
parative Religion (New York, 1958; also reprint); E. O. which follows. Such a tentative definition is necessary,
James, Comparative Religion (London, 1938); L. H. Jordan, since the subject has been comparatively neglected and
Comparative Religion: Its Genesis and Growth (London, there are no clearlv established conclusions to give
1908); C. G. Jung, Psychology and Religion (New Haven, guidance. With this qualification, ritual may, accord-
1958); G. S. Kirk and J.
The Presocratic Philoso-
E. Raven, ingly,be defined as action of an imitative or symbolical
phers (Cambridge, I960); G. van der Leeuw, Im religion
kind designed to achieve some end, often of a super-
(Paris, 1948); A. O. Lovejoy, "Religion and the Time-
natural character, that could not be achieved through
Process," American Journal of Theology, 6 (1902); A. de Waal
normal means by the person who performs it or on
Malefijt, Religion and Cidture (New York, 1968); F. M.
Miiller, Chips from a German Workshop, 2 vols. (London,
behalf of whom it is performed.
1867); E. J. Sharpe, One Hundred Years of Comparative
Ritual action, when encountered today or through
Religion (London, 1972); J. Wach, The Comparative Study documents of the past, is invariably regulated by tra-
of Religion (New York, 1958); A. N. Whitehead, Religion ditional prescription — indeed, its efficacy is usually
in the Making (Cambridge, 1927). deemed to depend essentiallv upon its careful con-
For the consciousness of time, see S. G. F. Brandon, formity to the traditional pattern.
and Deity (Manchester and New York, 1965);
History, Time, The statement in the definition concerning the
idem, Man and his Destiny in the Great Religions
imitative or symbolical character of ritual action may
(Manchester, 1963); see also "The Origin of Religion,"
justly be regarded as preempting a decision about the
Hibbert Journal, 57 (1959); "Time and the Destiny of Man,"
essential nature of ritual; but it is made designedly,
Voices of Time, ed. J.
T. Fraser (New York, 1966).
in order to introduce the fundamental issue of the
S. G. F. BRANDON origin of ritual. We shall presently consider the earliest
[See also Buddhism; Christianity in History; Death and known evidence of ritual action; but the archaeological
Immortality; Evolutionism; God; Islamic Conception; Myth; record, though it starts at the dawn of human culture,
Primitivism; Religion, Ritual in; Sin and Salvation; Time.] cannot reveal the actual origins of ritual which lie back
in a remote undocumented past. The original nature
of ritual, therefore, is inevitably a matter for specula-
tion only; though fortunately it can be informed spec-
ulation that can be checked against the most ancient
RITUAL IN RELIGION evidence. Thus it is reasonable to assume, from what
seems to be common experience, that a human being,
Ritual action finds expression in a wide variety of when some particular thing
intensely desiring that
forms in both primitive societies and sophisticated should happen, which he cannot actually achieve by
modem states. It can be either of a religious or secular his own effort, will tend instinctively to imitate action
character, ranging (for example and in an increasing calculated to achieve what he desires, perhaps through
secular sequence) from the Catholic High Mass through another agent. Such reaction will be familiar to most
coronation services and university degree ceremonies spectators of adrama or athletic contest with which
to the ceremonial of the modem Olympic Games. they have become emotionally involved: the urge will
Action so diverse in inspiration and expression, yet often be felt to assist action by some corresponding
qualifying to be described as "ritual," suggests the gesture. It a natural extension of such imitative action
is
existence of some common generic factor that should in primitive minds to believe that the achievement of
be identifiable. It also suggests that such a factor may desired results can be assisted by consciously imitative
stem from some deep-seated human need or represent action; for example, that the sprinkling of water on
an instinctive response to situations embodying some the ground will help rain to fall; or the lighting of
similarity of challenge. It is Ukely, however, in view fires in mid-winter, as was done by certain primitive 99
RELIGION, RITUAL IN
northern peoples, would strengthen the weakening sun this time of sympathetic magic in the well-known form
during the crisis of the winter solstice. The principle of cave-art. Moreover, it constitutes an intelligible
involved may be described as that of imitative magic, anticipation of a form of a ritual action which is strik-
that like will produce like. ingly evidenced in the earliest written texts, namely,
What appears to be the earliest evidence of such the Pyramid Texts of Egypt. These Texts, which are
ritual action dates from the Upper Palaeolithic era inscribed on the interior walls of the pyramids of cer-
(30,(X)0- 10,000 B.C.). It is provided notably by a strange tain pharaohs of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (ca.
figure depicted on the wall of an inner cavern of the 2425-2300 b.c), were designed to secure the safe pas-
Cave of the Trois Freres, in the departeinent of Ariege, sage of the.se monarchs from this world to the next.
France. The figure is anthropoid in form, but has the To this end the Texts incorporate a mortiiary ritual
attributes of a beast: the head is surmounted by the which has proved of the greatest significance for the
antlers of a stag, with furr)' ears, owl-like eyes and a history of religions. It constitutes both the earliest and
long tongue or beard; the body is covered with a hairy the classic example of ritual action based on the prin-
pelt and tail, and the genitals are those of a male ciple of imitative magic. This mortuary ritual was
animal. The posture of the figure suggests the action patterned on the legend of Osiris, which formed the
of dancing, and it is knowii as the "Dancing Sorcerer." rationale of the rites. According to the legend, which
This descriptive title indicates the interpretation that was of great antiquity, Osiris, a good king of Egypt
has generally been given to it. It is taken to represent in the remote past, had been murdered by his evil
a man, disguised as an animal, engaged in a ritual dance brother Set, and his body left to perish. It was foimd
in which he imitates characteristic movements of an bv the goddesses Isis and Nephthys, who took action
animal, for some specific purpose. There is other to save it from physical decomposition. His body being
Palaeolithic evidence of men, disguised as animals and thus preserved against corruption, the dead Osiris was
performing mimetic dances, to prove that the "Danc- revivified by the sun-god Atvun-Re and other deities.
ing Sorcerer," though the most striking, is not a unique The origin of this legend has been much discussed by
conception. Such dances were undoubtedly connected scholars, without any agreed conclusion being estab-
with the chief economic activity of these peoples, hshed. But what is certain is that the Pyramid Texts
namely, hunting, and constituted a form of hunting show that was believed that a dead king could be
it
magic designed both to promote the fertility of the resurrected to a new life, if he were ritually assimilated
animals and ensure successful hunts. Evidence of ritual to Osiris. Consequently, a mortuary ritual was devel-
dances, in which men simulate animals, is found else- oped, according to which the embalmment of the
where, in primitive, though chronologically later, cul- pharaoh reproduced ritually what was supposed to
tures; for example, in the plays of the ancient Greek have been done to preserve the corpse of Osiris. This
dramatist Aristophanes, where the chorus were dressed ritual of embalmment was followed by other rites
as birds or beasts and mimed their movements, and calculated to revivify the deceased as Osiris had been
in the ritual imitating of kangaroos which was practi- revivified. The following passages illustrate the modus
ced by men of the Kangaroo-tribe among Australian operandi of this ritual action, presupposing the
aborigines. assimilation of the dead king to Osiris. The first takes
No means exist of knowing how the Palaeolithic the form of an incantation addressed to the god Atum:
peoples explained the purpose and mechanism of their it was recited over the embalmed body of the dead
magical dances, if indeed their minds were equipped king (his name in this text was Unas), in order to
to make such an objective assessment of what they revivify him; it assumes that Unas is so essentially
probably did instinctively. But view of the instinc-
in identified with Osiris that he will participate in the
tive nature of imitative gesture, as was noted above, resurrection of Osiris through its ritual re-presentation:
these Palaeolithic figures may reasonably be inter- "Recite: 'O .\tum, it is thy son — this one here, Osiris,
preted as showing that already, remote period,

at this whom thou has caused to live (and) to remain in life.
ritual actions were being performed, based upon the He liveth (and) this Unas (also) liveth; he (i.e. Osiris)
principle of imitative or sympathetic magic. Inspiring dieth not, (and) this Unas (also) dieth not'" (Pyramid
such actions was undoubtedly the belief that assimila- Texts, 167a-c). In another passage Osiris is directly
tion to an animal by wearing its skin and other items, reminded of the consequences of the assimilation of
and by the miming of its movements, would decisively the dead Unas with himself: "Thy body is the body
affect some issue, such as a hunt, which greatly con- of this Unas. Thy flesh is the flesh of this Unas. Thy
cerned the well-being of the community. bones are the bones of this Unas. (If) thou walkest,
The interpretation of this PalaeoUthic evidence must this Unas walks; (if) this Unas walks, thou walkest"
necessarily remain tentative; but it is consistent with (Pyramid Texts 193a-c).
100 other archaeological data attesting to the practice at The Pyramid Texts do not describe the ritual acts
RELIGION, RITUAL IN
that accompanied these invocations, but of another directed by the ancient mortuary god Anubis towards
related ceremony graphic illustrations do exist. This an Osirian figure to his right. The theme of the depic-
is the "Opening of the Mouth, which was intended
"
tion is evidently that of the transformation of the
to restore to the embalmed body its faculties of seeing, deceased into an Osiris, a concept that had long found
breathing, and receiving food (a similar ritual was used expression in the custom of adding the name "Osiris"
to animate cult-statues). The Pyramid Texts give the to the personal name of the deceased in funerary in-
formulae of the rites, mentioning various acts and the scriptions and papyri.
implements used {Pyratnid Texts 12c-14d), and in the The is adumbrated
imitative factor in ritual, which
later Book of the Dead (ca. 1400 B.C.), which documents in Palaeolithic culture and forms the basic principle
the Osirian mortuary ritual when it had become of the Egyptian mortuary cultus, finds abimdant
democratized, the ritual is depicted in a vignette; the expression in other religions. The ne.xt examples are
mimimy of the deceased, held upright, is touched on representative of the variety of purpose which such
the appropriate parts of its face by a priest with a ritual action could serve. Thus the principle of magical
curious sickle-shaped implement, while another assimilation is clearly evident in the following ancient
officiant recites the corresponding formulae. This par- Mesopotamian healing ritual. Its rationale was pro-
ticular ceremony, also, was supposed to reproduce vided by the myth of the goddess Ishtar and her divine
what had been done for Osiris.
originally lover Tammuz, whom she rescued from the under-
,\n important concomitant of the ritual action, as world. The rites concerned took place in the month
the Pyramid Texts show, was the recitation of a kind of Tammuz, when the death of Tammuz was annu-
of libretto that accompanied the performance of the ally mourned and the goddess was believed to be espe-
rites. Generally this speaking-part consisted of for- cially attentive. The directions given in the text deal
mulae explanatory of the ritual action that was being with the healing of a sick man, and they are based up-
performed, and it contains much mythological refer- on the supposition that Ishtar would save a man from
ence, e.g., and resurrection of Osiris. This
to the death certain specific afflictions, if he were identified with
relation between the myth and the ritual is important, Tammuz. The following rubrics, dealing with the cru-
and it will be discussed below. cial part of the ceremony, vividly present the ritual
The extant evidence gives no indication that the action of assimilating the patient to Tammuz:
Egyptians ever produced a "theology" of this mortuary The sick man shall enter to the foot of the couch, his face
ritual, i.e., sought to explain how the gods concerned covered (and) his gaze directed to the foot (of the couch).
in it had sanctioned such a means of enabling human With a rush (?) with seven knots touch him seven times,
beings to obtain resurrection from death. The underly- .^s soon as he is touched, he has exchanged his own self
ing assumption of the rites seems to have been that {raman-su-us-pil). Then say: 'Ishtar, thy beloved, may he
their proper performance alone would automatically go by thy side!' He should go forth from the foot of the
produce the desired results. And no reference was couch . . . clothed in a sa/i/iii-garment, beat his arms seven
apparently made to the will of the gods concerning times to the right; seven times to the left turn himself, and
at the confessional kneel down and also say: 'Ishtar, at thy
the applicability of the transaction to any specific
confessional I kneel (before) thee: save thy man!' (Ebeling,
individual. The invocations addressed to the gods,
pp. 55-56).
which accompany the ritual action, have rather the
appearance of commands and thus attest to the funda- Afterwards the officiating priest is directed to tear off
mentally magical character of the rites. It is also some hair from the forehead of the sick man and take
significant that,whereas there is no mention in this his girdle, and to cast them, together with an offering
mortuary ritual of the moral qualifications of the de- of loaves and fine meal, into the river. This action had
ceased, there grew up in conjunction with it a belief imdoubtedly an apotropaic intention.
in a post-mortem judgment that would determine the The factor of assimilation is less realistically pre-
eternal destiny of the individual. These dual themes sented here than in the Egyptian mortuary ritual, and
of the Egyptian mortuary namely of salvation
cultus, it seems an even less convincing transaction. For the
and judgment, resulted in the anomalous conception goddess Ishtar appears to be misled into accepting the
of Osiris as both the savior and the judge of the dead. sick man as Tammuz, unless, what seems to be very
Towards the end of Egyptian culture, about the improbable, the ritual assimilation was regarded as
second century a.d., it would seem that some attempt effecting a mystical transformation so complete that
was made to represent pictorially the effect of the the sick man virtually became Tammuz in his devotion
mortuary ritual. It took the form of representing on to Ishtar. However that may be, it is evident the an-
certain mimimy-shrouds three figures interrelated in a cient Mesopotamians also beheved in the efficacy of
ritual transaction. The central figure is that of the ritual assimilation.
deceased in his ordinary attire, and he is shown as being A notable Greek instance of ritual action of an 101
RELIGION, RITUAL IN
imitative kind merits a brief description, particularly enological pattern approximates to that evident in the
since it serves to introduce another aspect of ritual. ritual practice of other religions.
The famous Eleusinian Mysteries, which promised ini- The Christian rite of initiation, namely, baptism, in
tiates a happy post-mortem existence, had as their its earliest presentation by the .Apostle Paul, strikingly
rationale the myth of the Rape of Persephone, the exhibits the principle of ritual imitation and assimila-
daughter of the corn-goddess Demeter, and the quest tion. Paul's exposition is of such basic importance for
of the sorrowing mother for her lost daughter; for it the study of ritual that it must be quoted in extenso.
was explained that Demeter had instituted the It occurs in the sixth chapter of his Epistle to the
Mysteries at Eleiisis as a token of her gratitude for her Romans (verses 3-5), and was written about a.d. 54.
kind reception there. Information about the actual rites

Do you that all of us who have been baptized
not know
is scarce and imprecise; but there is evidence for
into Christ Jesuswere baptized into his death? We were
thinking that the initiates or mijstae ritually imitated
buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that
or re-presented various traditional episodes of
as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Demeter's search for Persephone. Thus they fasted as
Father, we too might walk in the newness of life. For if
Demeter had done in her grief, they wandered about we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall
at night with torches as she had done in seeking for certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his
her daughter, they tasted of the kykeon, a mystic drink (R.S.V.).
for which Demeter had asked at Eleusis. The purpose

of such ritual acts can only be surmised; but it seems According to Paul, therefore, the Christian neophyte
likely that thev fostered a sense of communion between was assimilated by baptism to Christ in his death. In
the mystae and Demeter. The acts, however, have a other words, baptism ritually re-presented the death
further significance, for they point to another aspect of Christ, and by descending beneath the waters of
of ritual action, closelyconnected with that of the baptism the neophyte was imited with Christ in his
imitative or sympathetic magic which has been distin- death. This ritual imion or assimilation, in turn, quali-
guished as its original and basic The ritual
principle. fied the neophyte to participate with Christ in his
actions of the Eleusinian Mysteries were known as resurrection from death. The parallel which this pre-
dromena. "things done," and they were evidently sentation of baptism constitutes to the Osirian mortu-
regarded as necessary and efficacious. So far as the is obvious and very remarkable; however,
ary ritual
evidence goes, would appear that some of these
it there no evidence that Paul derived his conception
is
dromena, possibly all, were designed to re-present the from the ancient Egyptian practice; the parallel is
original drania of Demeter and Persephone for the significant as witnessing to the similarity of phenom-
purpose of renewing or perpetuating what was be- enological pattern produced by two wholly inde-
heved to be its original soteriological efficacy. The idea pendent religious traditions.
that inspired such action is an intelUgible one in terms This Pauline doctrine found dramatic expression in
of primitive logic, and it may be defined as the "ritual the baptismal ritual of the Early Church. Special
perpetuation of the past." It was based on the belief baptisteries were constructed which enabled the
that some event in the career of a divine being, who neophytes to descend into the water. They divested
hved on earth long before, had generated a beneficial themselves of their clothes, which symbolized a dying
efficacy of some kind, and that this efficacy could be to their former selves. On emerging from the baptismal
made available in the present by ritually re-presenting water, they were clothed in white robes, received a
the original event. The principle was clearly operative new name and were given mystic food of milk and
also in the Egyptian mortuary ritual, since the rites honey, thus proclaiming their rebirth by baptism to
made what had once happened
essential reference to a new life in Christ. This initiatory rite has been held
had
to Osiris: the ritual re-presentation of the acts that by Christians to be absolutely essential to salvation,
resurrected Osiris, when enacted on behalf of a dead for the subsequent formulation of the doctrine of Orig-
person identified with Osiris, was believed to generate inal Sin implied that the unbaptized are wholly in a
or reproduce the same effect in that person. state of spiritual perdition. The ritual of baptism,
The two major rites of Christianity attest to the accordingly, when properly administered (the correct
vitality of what has been distinguished here as the "form and matter" have been both carefully defined
primordial form of ritual action, and also to the opera- and disputed), is believed to effect a transformation
tion of the principle of the ritual perpetuation of the of the neophyte which cannot be achieved in any other
past. These rites have, of course, been invested with way. Moreover, the wording of the baptismal service
a high spiritual significance and divine authorization clearly synchronizes the moment of spiritual rebirth
102 has been claimed for them; but their basic phenom- with the act of baptizing. Other requirements have
RELIGION, RITUAL IN
been incorporated into the rite of baptism, such as evidence of the operation of the principle from the
attestation of faith in Christ and abjuration of the Palaeolithic era down to modern times, though natu-
Devil, with confession of sins; but these are ancillary rally with varying degrees of sophistication. This aspect
to the ritual action of baptizing in water, with the of ritual, aptly denoted by the Greek word dwmenon,
accompanying formula pronouncing that the neophyte a "thing done " to achieve some specific end, may
is being baptized in the threefold name of the Trinity. reasonably be regarded as constituting its essential
The other rite constitutes the central act of worship raison d'etre. Characteristic also of this ritual action
in Catholic Christianity, namely, the Mass, Eucharist, is its reference back to some signal event of the past,
or Liturgy as it is variously known in the Western and deemed have a soteriological virtue, which can be
to
Eastern Churches. Historically, the rite derives from made a present reahty by ritually re-presenting it
the Last Supper or Passover that Christ partook with according to a prescribed form. There are, however,
his disciples before his Crucifixion. The earliest accoimt other forms of ritual action which, though not con-
of its institution is given bv Paul in his First Epistle ceived as activitv that automatically achieves some-
to the Corinthians (1L23-26), and dates from about thing, usuallv of a soteriological kind, have had consid-
55 A.D. According to Paul's statement, erable cultural importance and are still practiced
today. The following are some of the more notable
. . . the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took
instances.
bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said,
Commemorative ritual, which is practiced to pre-
"This my body which is [broken] for you. Do this in
is
serve the memory of some notable event, is a well-
remembrance me." In the same way also the cup, after
of
known form in both religious and secular life. A
supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
celebrated religious example is the Jewish Passover.
Do this, as often as vou drink it. in remembrance of me."
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you The origin of the rite is graphically described in the
proclaim the Lord's death until he comes (R.S.V.). Book of Ejtodus (12:lff.): the ritual killing and eating
of the lamb is explained as perpetuating the memory
The later Gospels (except that of John) record the of the apotropaic action that the Israelites were
institution of the rite with some variations of detail. commanded to take by Yahweh on the night that he
From its primitive form the rite gradually developed passed over Egypt, slaying the first-bom of the
an elaborate ceremonial setting such as found today is Egyptians. The eating of unleavened bread, as part of
in the Latin High Mass and the Greek Liturgy. But the Passover ritual, is accounted for by the fact that
the quintessence of the rite has continued to inhere the Israelites fled so hastily from Egypt that they had
in the ritual representation of Christ's original action no time to leaven the dough for their bread. This
at the Last Supper; the blessing and breaking of the elaborate and carefully articulated account of the ori-
bread and the blessing of the wine, accompanied by gin of the Passover is particularly interesting, because
the solemn recitation of his words of institution. The it provides an historicized interpretation of two ancient
repetition of this ritual action of imitation, each time rituals of which the original meaning had probably
the Mass is celebrated, is held to reproduce the same been forgotten; for the evidence indicates that the
change of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood killing of the Passover lamb derived from a primitive
of Christ as occurred at the Last Supper. Moreover, pastoral custom of sacrificing the first-born of the herds
the development of the doctrine of the Sacrifice of the as an apotropaic act, while the ritual eating of un-
Mass has meant that Catholic Christians also believe leavened bread originated in another apotropaic cus-
that at each celebration of the Mass the sacrifice of tom made from
of refraining from the use of leaven
Christ, made through his crucifixion, is re-presented last year's bread produced from the new corn
com in
to God. In other words, the Mass or Eucharist consti- of the next harvest. Examples from many other reU-
tutes the classic example of the ritual perpetuation of gions could be cited of historicized interpretations of
the past; for it is believed that the proper performance primitive rituals.
of the ritual, by a duly authorized priest, and with the Another form of ritual action foimd in many religions
right intention, perpetuates, and makes available to is that of the substitutionary sacrifice, in which a victim
those assisting, the efficacy of the original Last Supper is killed, or in some other way disposed of, instead of
and the sacrificial Death of Christ outside Jerusalem another person or persons. Two examples may be cited
about A.D. 30. for illustration. In ancient Rome, on the Ides of May,
In this article, so far, an attempt has been made to puppets representing old men boimd hand and foot,
show that ritual originates in imitative action done in which were called Argei. werp solemnly thrown by
the instinctive belief that like will (re)produce like. The Vestal Virgins from the Pons Sublicius into the river
examples chosen by way of illustration have provided Tiber. The exact meaning of the rites is unknown, but lUo
RELIGION, RITUAL IN
it is probable that the Argei substituted for human accompanying ritual action was ancillary to the sacri-
victims once ottered to the river-god in compensation fice and was not a dromenon, in the sense of effecting
for the building of the bridge. In ancient Hebrew something by its own enactment as in the rituals previ-
religion the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement ously examined.
formed an elaborate ritual scheme of substitutionary An important attempt to discern a common "culture-
sacrifice. One of its most striking rites concerned the pattern" in the annual agricultural festivals of the
scapegoat; the Book of Leviticus (16:20-22) gives de- ancient Near East was put forward in 19.3.3 in a collab-
tailed instructions for the ritual transference of the sins orative work entitled Myth and Ritual, edited by
of Israel to this goat: "Aaron shall lay both his hands S. H. Hooke. The thesis won considerable support and
upon the head of the and confess over him
live goat, is still influential in some quarters; but it has also
all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their encountered much criticism. According to its expo-
transgressions, all their sins: and he shall put them upon nents, the "pattern" found its expression in an annual
the head of the goat, and send him away into the festival, inwhich a sacred king represented the ritual
wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness." life-cycle deity. Upon the solemn
of a vegetation
In ancient India, Brahmanic speculation came to enactment of this ritual each year it was believed that
evaluate the ritual action of sacrifice as providing the the prosperity and well-being of the huid and people
very basis of cosmic existence. According to the depended. The ritual drama, which is supposed to have
Purusha-sukla. the universe had been formed from the been performed at the New Year festival, had five
body of a sacrificial victim Piu'usha, conceived of as successive episodes: the representation of the death and
a giant primordial Man. This primeval sacrifice was resurrection of the god; the recitation or symbolic
the prototype of all sacrifices which continuously representation of the myth of creation; the ritual com-
renew and sustain the cosmos. In process of time, bat, depicting tlie triumph of the god over his enemies;
doubtless due to the sacerdotal interests of the the sacred marriage; the triumphal procession of the
Brahmins, the ritual of sacrifice was imagined as god, followed by a train of other related deities. The
generating its cosmic power e.v opere operato, being ritual-pattern, a.ssimied here, is an intelligible one; but
thus wholly independent of the gods. nowhere in the extant documents is there evidence of
The idea of the cosmic significance of ritual action its existence as an integrated whole in any ancient Near
has been much emphasized by certain scholars who Eastern reUgion. The "pattern" has, in fact, been
believe that many primitive peoples annually per- pieced together from ritual episodes foimd in various
formed ceremonies designed to renew or maintain the religions of this area. Certainly fertility and harvest
world-order for the ensuing year. In support of this rituals were connected with vegetation gods such as
view, the akitu or New Year Festival, celebrated in Tammuz, Attis, Adonis, Osiris (in one aspect of his
ancient Babylon, is usually cited, especially since the being), and Baal, which were related to the annual
enuma elvih or Babylonian Creation Epic was solemnly life-cycle of vegetation, and in some places a divine
recited during the ceremonies. However, closer study or sacred king played an important part in them. But
of the festival shows that its real theme was the ex- kingship seems to have varied much in the ancient
planatory commemoration of the lordship of Marduk, Near East, and only in Egypt is there sufficient evi-
the tiitelary god of Babylon, over the other Mesopo- dence for imderstanding what royal divinity meant;
tamian gods, together with the propitiation of Marduk imfortimately it is in Egypt that certain crucial epi-
who was believed to determine the fate of the state sodes of the supposed ritual-pattern do not appear.
at this time for another year. But, even if the idea of There are many other areas of human life and
cosmic renewal at such festivals is thus problematic, activity which, both in the past and the present, have
special rites, performed at critical points in Nature's been controlled by ritual action primarily concerned
year, have had an important role in the cultural life with the safety and well-being of the community. For
of many A notable example is the great annual
peoples. example, death and funeral customs among many peo-
sacrificewhich the emperor of China used to perform ples have an essentially apotropaic function. Death
to Shang Ti, the supreme Deity, at the winter solstice being instinctively feared, the dead are regarded as
on behalf of the people. The ceremonies, which took dangerous and their departure from among the living
place at the .'Vltar of Heaven, near the Temple of the must be expedited; moreover, contact with them causes
Prosperous Year in Peking, were an elaborate complex contagion. Consequently, much funerary ritual has
of ritual action, including such striking acts as the been designed to protect the living, and to purify those
placing of a sceptre of blue jade before the shrine of whose contact with the dead has rendered them un-
Shang Ti, in token of his cosmic supremacy. However, clean and potentially dangerous. Birth also has gener-
in ceremonies of this kind, in which sacrifice was ally been regarded as making those involved namely,
iU4 offered to a deity for some specific purpose, the the mother and child, ritually unclean, probably be-
RELIGION, RITUAL IN
cause of their involvement with blood, the "Hfe- tmiately, does not exist to prove this reasonable but
substance." Hence in many religions, including a priori assumption of the chronological priority of
Christianity, bothmother and child have to be purified ritual to myth. The earhest extant evidence, which has
bv a prescribed ceremony before they can be received been cited here, namely the Pyramid Texts, shows that
back into the community. It may also be noted that ritual action was already accompanied by the recita-
among nianv peoples adolescents have to imdergo a tion of explanatory formulae. How the two evolved
rite de passage before being admitted to adult mem- in the imdocumented period that went before is a
bership of the community. The rituals practiced by matter for surmise only; however, as the example of
some primitive peoples are elaborate, and often involve the Hebrew Passover indicates, some primitive rituals
severe ordeals. Their performance changes the status have subsequently been given historicized explanations.
of the individuals concerned; but the modus operandi There also exists, in this connection, a quaint but
seems rather to consist of tests of fitness and the significant Mesopotamian text dealing with toothache:
imparting of knowledge of the mores of adult life than before the ancient dentist could begin his practical
of a magical transformation into another state of being. operations, he had to recite a myth in which the origin
Ritual has often taken the form of the solemn per- of the worm believed to cause dental decay was traced
formance of the practical activities of life in the service back to the creation of the world.
of deities. For example, in ancient Egypt the daily
tendance of the cult-image in temples included toilet BIBLIOGRAPHY
ceremonies, modelled on those of the
probably
E. Bendann, Death Customs (London, 1930). H. Bonnet,
pharaoh; in most religions, where the presence of deity Reallexikon der agijptischen Religionsgeschichte (Berlin,
is located in a cult-image, worship has included the 1952). S. G. F.Brandon, Creation Legends of the Ancient
and the burn-
daily offering of food, flowers, unguents Sear East (London, 1963); idem. History, Time ami Deity
ing of incense before the image actions obviously — (Manchester, 1963); idem. The Judgment of the Dead
calculated to please the god as if he were a human (London and New York, 1967-68); idem, "The Ritual Per-
potentate. In China, and to a lesser degree in some petuation of the Past," Mumen, 7 (Leiden, 1959); idem, "The
other lands, a traditional system of ritual action, relat- Ritual Technique of Salvation in the .\ncient Near East,"
Tlie Savior Cod, ed. S. G. F. Brandon (Manchester, 1963);
ing to both religious and secular life, has been regarded
idem, Dictionary of Comparative ReUgion (London and
ed..
as constituting a pattern of correct behavior fimda-
New York, 1970); idem, Man and Cod in Art and Ritual
mental to the well-being of the individual, the family
(New York, 1973). E. Ebeling, Tod und Leben nach der
and society. Confucius laid the utmost importance on Vorstellungen der Babylonier, Band I (Berlin and Leipzig,
ritual ili). In his Analects (xii:l-2), he equates goodness 1931). M. Eliade, Le mythe de Teternel retour (Paris, 1949);
(jen) with submission to ritual, defining it as "To look idem, Traite d'histoire des religions (Paris, 1949). J.
G. Frazer,
at nothing in defiance of ritual, to listen to nothing Tlie Magic Art (The Golden Bough), 3rd ed., 2 vols. (London,
in defiance of ritual, to speak of nothing in defiance 1936). G. Furiani, Riti babilonesi e assiri (Udine, 1940).
of ritual, never to stir hand or foot in defiance of T. H. Gaster, Thespis (New York, 1950). J. Harrison, Ancient
ritual." This ritual is embodied in three books of rites,
Art and Ritual. 5th ed. (London, 1935). S. H. Hooke, The
Origins of Earli/ Semitic Ritual (London, 1938); idem, ed..
the Li Chi, the / Li, and the Chou Li, which attest
Myth arui Ritual (Oxford, 1933); idem, ed.. Myth, Ritual
to the Chinese conception that the harmonious balance
and Kingship (Oxford, 1958). E. O. James, Christian Myth
of the vmiverse depended upon a complex of rela-
and Ritual (London, 1933); idem. Myth and Ritual in the
tionships in heaven and earth which had to be main-
Ancient Near East (London, 1958); idem. Seasonal Feasts
tained by the proper performance of the requisite and Festivals (London, 1961). G. E. Mylonas, Eleusis and
ritual. the Eleusinian Mysteries (Princeton, 1961). For Pyramid
The antiquity and ubiquity of ritual wicness to the Texts, see K. Sethe, Die altagyptischen Pyramidentexten
fundamental character of the need in human nature (reprint Hildesheim, 1960). C. H. Ratschow, Magie und
to which it is the practical response. A. N. Whitehead Religion (Giitersloh, 1955); Sources orientates. Vol. VII,
placed ritual first among the four factors or aspects Le monde du sorcier (Paris, 1966). D. H. Smith, Chinese
which he distinguished as exhibited by religion in Religion (London, 1968). P.

J.
Ucko and A. Rosenfeld,
Palaeolithic Cave .\rt (London, 1967). A. van Gennep, Les
human history: "These factors are ritual, emotion,
rites de passage (Paris, 1909). A. N. Whitehead, ReUgion
belief, rationalization" (Religion in the Making, p. 8).
in the Making (Cambridge, 1927). R. C. Zaehner, Hinduism
He also sagely observed that "Mere ritual and emotion
(London, 1962).
cannot maintain themselves untouched by intellectu-
ality. . . . Men found themselves practising various S. G. F. BRANDON
rituals, and found rituals generating emotions. The [See also Chrisdanily in History; Creation; Death and
myth explains the purpose both of the ritual and of Immortality; Mimesis; Myth; Religion, Origins of; Sin and
the emotion" (op. cit., p. 13). The evidence, unfor- Salvation.] 105
RELIGION AND SCIENCE, NINETEENTH CENTURY
RELIGION AND SCIENCE IN importance during the middle years of the century that,
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY especially in Germany and France, it looked as though
it might be the only road to truth, and therefore in
In many languages other than English the word "sci- both Germany and France appeared an association
ence," when used in the phrase "Science and Religion," between the students of the natural scientists and a
means all rational knowledge. The English language philosophy of materialism; as though sooner or later
uses the word science to mean the study of the natural physical science might be able to bring the brain and
or physical sciences, and which concerns us
it is that then the conscience and even the aesthetic sense under
in this article. The English use has caused a measure its own laws of predictability. In England this was
of confusion. During the nineteenth century there was never quite so strong as Germany and France; but
in
a conflict between science and religion. At bottom this in one form through Auguste Comte and in another
conflict consisted of a contrast between the philos- form through Herbert Spencer, similar associations of
ophies dominant in that age and a religious view of ideas had a significant influence on English thought
the world. But in England men often talked as though between 1850 and 1880. The idea that the moral or
the conflict between science and religion was a contrast aesthetic judgments could be brought under scientific
between the conclusions of the natural sciences and laws never commended itself to a majority of the
the teaching of Christianity. Such a contrast existed; educated in England or .\merica. Nevertheless, it
but it was a smaller part of a far bigger contrast be- combined with the historical investigation of the Bible
tween philosophy and Christianity. Nevertheless the to cast doubt upon the miraculous element in
advance of the physical sciences contributed to the Christianity, so far at least as that element consisted
sense of contrast. in miracles which appeared to be breaches in "the laws
1.Geology proved the passage of an enormous span of nature." Christian thinkers of the mid-century, e.g.,
of time before man evolved. Here was direct conflict James B. Mozley and the Duke of Argyll, examined
between the evidence of scientific enquiry and that the idea of laws of nature and showed its fallaciousness
literal understanding of Genesis and the Old Testament if understood to mean anything but probabilities arising
which many Christians still held. In England this con- from what had been in many instances observed. Intel-
flict was particularly important because it gave the ligent scientists saw that the natural sciences could
Enghsh an impression that the natural scientists, rather never disprove a miracle or miracles. But the habit
than the empirical or idealistic philosophers, tended and method of scientific enquiry made them much
to hold views contrary to religion, and to hold those prefer the idea of "the not-yet-explained ' to the idea
views because of their scientific enquiry. This first of the supernatural, and therefore caused many
impinged on a wide public after the publication (1844) educated people to become agnostic about the mirac-
of Vestiges of Creatior^,by the Scottish journalist R. ulous. In this way the development of the sciences
Chambers, which was not a scholarly book but helped to compel the churches to consider how far
brilhantly popularized a crude Lamarckian doctrine the faith which they taught was dependent upon a
of evolution and a prehistory of the world as seen in belief in the miraculous, and whether they could admit
the record of the rocks. to membership, or (where that was answered in the
Members were therefore compelled

of the churches affirmative) to ministry, persons who claimed to be
to drop such theories as that the world was only six faithful Christians but who could not profess a belief
thousand years old, or that the story of Noah was a in the miraculous.
literal history of a universal flood. In Germany and 3. The scientific method could not allow itself any
in England this was done easily between 1820 and limit. It could not regard any area as exempt from its
1860. But in the moment that parts of Genesis were enquiry. The worst between science and
of the conflict
admitted to be not history, a great impetus was given religion occurred between 1859 and 1877. The conflict
to the historical investigation already started of the was then at its worst because some churches or
biblical books, their origins and dates and validity, churchmen could not accept this unlimited possibifity
especially the early books of the Old Testament. Thus of enquirv, and some scientists believed that their
the churches spent much time during the sixties and freedom to be scientists was at stake. Moderate
seventies in internal tension over the historicity of the churchmen were content to see appearance of dis-
biblical record; and conservatives were apt to blame harmony between the word of God and the works of
science for these tensions when properly speaking the God, to accept gladly what the scientists discovered,
physical sciences gave only a subsidiary impetus to and to expect that in course of time they would be
historical enquiry. able to move towards a reconciliation. Conservative
106 2. The scientific method produced results of such churchmen were inclined to put the truths derived
from dogmas as obstacles to what the scientist was slowly faded during the sixties into agnosticism, he
doing; and some scientists (in England, above all, T. H. remained a modest and reverent enquirer with no
Huxley and John Tyndall) regarded themselves as desire for conflict. But the book, by promulgating the
fighting for light and reason against the armies of theory of natural selection, suddenly made the theory
superstition and obscurantism. Nothing did more than of evolution more probable than any other theory; and
this to give the conflict of these years its pecuUar though in later editions of the Origin he substantially
intensity. Such a view among was encouraged
scientists modified his exclusive reliance on natural selection as
in the sixties and seventies, all over Europe and the cause of evolution, the theory of evolution was
America, by the attitude of the Fioman Catholic found probable in most educated minds during the
Church imder Pope Pius IX, which seemed determined seventies. The theory thus came in a form likely to
to concede nothing to the developments of modern emphasize a large element of purposelessness or useless
science and historical criticism. suffering in the process by which man had come to
In England the famous and symbolic battle along be. The theodicy of the churches was long familiar with
these lines was the debate between Bishop Samuel the problems of pain and determinism, but the theory
Wilberforce and T. H. Huxley at the meeting in Oxford forced them to contemplate these problems in a new
of the British .\ssociation, July 1860; where Wilber- context. In this way Darwin, without intending the
force debated against Darwinism partly with real result, strengthened existing tendencies towards mate-
arguments for the perpetuitv of the species, iuid partly rialistic views, and in his Descent of Man ( 1871) seemed
by an appeal to the moral feeling that men are not himself to take a long step in the direction of such
brutes; and Huxley's famous retort exposed this second a philosophy as that advocated by Herbert Spencer,
appeal as a rhetorical consideration which the scientist by whom indeed the book appeared to be influenced.
could not {qua scientist) allow to influence the debate The doctrine of evolution in it.self, however, perturbed
on a purely physical question. Posterity saw the debate the churches little. It quickly became acceptable
through Huxlev's eyes, as scientific enlightenment vs. among educated Christians, though for a time, espe-
ecclesiastical obscurantism. cially in the Roman Catholic Church, some sought to
In the sixties therefore men began to write histories exclude man from Darwin was buried
the process.
of the conflict between science and religion. The first (1882) in Westminster Abbey with an excellent sermon
important history was that by the American J. W. from a bishop afterwards. The final mark of accepta-
Draper. In The Intellectual Development of Europe bility in England occurred in 1896 when Frederick
(1864) and History of the Conflict between Sciertce and Temple, well known as one who accepted the theory
Religion (1874) he described two mysterious entities, of evolution, was made archbishop of Canterbiu-y.
one called Science and the other called Religion, one 5. The acceptance of evolution laid the foundation
light and one dark, struggling for mastery throughout for the science of anthropology, which began to make
the history of man. Shortly afterwards a better scholar, rapid strides during the si.xties. It became an axiom
A. D. White, president of Cornell, formed the aim of that the primitive peoples still existing in various parts
publishing a book on the same theme; its final form of the world could afford evidence of earlier stages
was published in 1896, entitled A History of the War- of human development. Here was an additional ground
fare of Sciertce with Theology in Christendom. The of conflict, though a minor ground. Christianity taught
object of the book, which was pursued with a wealth that man was fallen, mitil recently connected this fall
of learning and fascinating illustrations, was to show with remote events, and believed that sin was no
that religious interference with scientific investigation integral part of human nature. The anthropologists
harms both religion and science; and that the freedom worked upon a doctrine that man had risen from the
end help religion as well
of the scientist will in the savage and the savage from the brute, and therefore
as science. The books of Draper and White did not the animal looked an integral element in human con-
ultimately come to seem important as contributions stitution. Therefore the churches needed to free their
to the history of European ideas. But they were mo- doctrine of original sin from any historical reference
mentous as arising from the characteristic attitudes (which in any case they were already doing, because
generated by the arguments of the and seventies,
si.xties of historical enquiry into biblical texts) and see "origi-
and as themselves contributing to harden these atti- nal sin" in terms of environment and heredity.
tudes by seeking to give them a historical justification. Thus the development of the natural sciences:
4. Among particular discoveries or theories nothing (a) encouraged the historical criticism of the Bible;
did more to stimulate the conflict than Charles (b) strengthened already existing materialistic phi-
Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859). This was not losophies, especially in France and Germany;
because Darwin was a fighter. Though his own theism (c) insisted that no dogma could be allowed to stand 107
in its way, and therefore encouraged churches to allow ural theology overboard; that is, to cease to claim that
reinterpretation of dogmas in the light of better infor- an argument could be made towards God from an
mation; examination of the physical world. This was not true
(d) strengthened an already existing attitude hostile of Roman Catholic divinity, which was then committed
to miracle, and thereby encouraged the churches to to some form of Thomist philosophy and claimed to
adapt or restate their ideas of revelation; use the old "proofs" of God's existence from the neces-
(e) laid more stress upon the brute in human nature, sity of the idea of a creation, or the design evident
because the scientific method could do no other than in the universe. But much Protestant theology ceased
examine man as a physical object, not excluding the to base the claim of revelation upon any argument
brain or psyche from that definition. derived from the observation of nature, and turned to
The natural scientists themselves, with certain some form or other) on the
lay the ultimate stress (in
eminent exceptions (e.g., E. H. Haeckel, Karl Pearson, inward properties of the human being, the nature of
Huxley), were not hostile to the Christian religion, religious experience, the intimate connection between
especially in England and .America, where manv of the religious feeling and the sense of moral duty, the feel-
leading scientists continued throughout the nineteenth ing of awe or wonder aroused by the world, or some-
century to be professing members of their churches: times the nature of the aesthetic judgment. This tend-
men like Faraday, Asa Gray, Clerk Maxwell, Lister, ency existed already in the thought of Schleiermacher
Kelvin, and Stokes. But because the public had a pic- before the conflict proper between science and reli-
ture of "science" as antagonistic to "religion," people gion. The development of the conflict gave great
began to be surprised when an eminent scientist was encouragement to the tendency, and in the later years
also found to be a religious man. It was noticeable that of the century elevated Schleiermacher to be the
godly men, as in America Asa Gray and in England seminal mind of liberal divinity.
Clerk Maxwell, were treated as exhibits, when a gen-
eration before they would have been assumed to be
typical of scientists. The impact upon European reh-
gious thought was made less by the scientists them-
selves than by philosophers or theologians using the BIBLIOGRAPHY
physical results which they proposed. For the relation to the philosophical background in
The consequences for Christian theology were of the Germany: F. A. Lange, Ceschichte des Matcrialismus ....
first importance in two especial directions: Thomas as The History of
2 vols. (1865-66), trans. E. C.
(a) the doctrine of God's immanence within the Materialism .... 3rd ed. (London, 1925). For the pre-
world received a greater emphasis than ever before Darwinians: Charles C. Gillispie, Genesis and Geology
in religious history. Since the theory of evolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1951); R. Hooykaas, Statural Law and
worked against the notion that God created the world Divine Miracle: The Principle of Uniformity in Geology,
Biology and 'Tlwology (Leyden, 1963); for Chambers: M.
and each animal by a series of (miraculous) creative
Millhauser, Just Before Darwin (Middletown, Conn., 1959).
acts,God must be seen more as within the process than
For Darwin and the Darwinians: Dartvin's Autobiography,
as wholly external to the process and interfering from
ed. N. Barlow (London, 1958); A. Ellegard, Darwin and the
time to time. Many writers laid more emphasis upon General Reader (Goteborg, 1958); G. de Beer, Charles
God as vital force, or as sustainer, and upon creation Dancin (London, 1963); W. Irvine, Apes. Angelsand
less as an act than as a continuous creativity.Some Victorians (London, 1955); G. Himmelfarb, Darwin and the
Christian thinkers (like Otto Pfleiderer in Germany or Darwinian Revolution (London, 1959); A. H. Dupree, Asa
R. Campbell in England) carried the doctrine of im-
J.
Gray (Cambridge. Mass., 1959); H. C. Bibby, T. H. Huxley
manence so far as to provoke protests that the doc- (London, 1959); W. B. Turrill, /. D. Hooker (London, 1964);
trine ofGod as father, and therefore of his transcend- A. S. Eve and C. H. Creasey, Life and Work of John Tyndall
ence and independence of the world, was of the essence (London, 1945); E. Lurie, Louis Agassiz: A Life in Scierwe
(Chicago, 1960). For the historical aspect: D. H. Fleming,
of Christianity and was being endangered by the
/. U' Draper and the Religion of Science (Philadelphia,
weight placed upon divine immanence, as if an exclu-
1950); A. D. White, Autobiography (London, 1905). In gen-
sive stress laid upon God within the world would lead
eral: Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church Part Two (Lon-
to pantheism or some philosophy like that of Spinoza
don and New York, 1970).
which could not be reconciled with a Christian view
of the world. W. OWEN CHADWICK
Under the impact of scientific development,
(b) [See also Agnosticisin; Christianity in History; Creation;
lUo Christianity showed a strong inclination to throw nat- Evolutionism; Primitivism.]
RELIGIOUS ENLIGHTENMENT IN AMERICAN THOUGHT
RELIGIOUS ENLIGHTENMENT //. THE ENLIGHTENMENT OF

IN AMERICAN THOUGHT JONATHAN EDWARDS
The enthusiasmof the Great Awakening was
/. THE ILLUMIMST TRADITION opposed by the sober Puritans as well as by Yankee
The Augustinian philosophical tradition, especially liberals. The basic charge against all such illuminism
after the twelfth century when contacts between had been formulated by Bishop Bossuet in his conflict
monks and laymen grew more frequent and respect- with Archbishop Fenelon: "Pure love is opposed to
able, became the intellectual source of new types of the essence of love which always desires the enjoyment
devotion and religious philosophy. The career and of its object, and also to the natiu'e of man who neces-
mind of Augustine himself served as a vivid pattern. sarily desires happiness." Fenelon, Pascal, and other
The contrast between his experience of the trans- philosophers made elaborate and critical efforts to
formation of sexual passion into an intimate com- meet this double charge radically. Among the most
mimion with Perfect Being and the Augustinian theol- radical was Jonathan Edwards.
ogy of Grace as a predestined election into "the City As a child, Jonathan Edwards had been accustomed
of God" was in itself a dramatization of the difference to accepting the sovereignty of the Almighty as a
between an emotional conversion and a moral necessary, grim truth; and he had made repeated vain
regeneration. Gradually there developed under efforts to love this Sovereign Lord as he was presented
Augustine's influence, especially among laymen, three in Puritan pulpits and literature. His first philosophical
types of "enthusiasm," that is, of having an "indwelling emancipation came from reading Locke's Essay con-
Holy Spirit" as a channel of Grace independent of the cerning Human Understanding. The chapter on
sacraments. This experience was interpreted as a mid- "Power" taught him that it is not the will that does
dleway between the mystics of the Neo-Platonic type the willing, but it is the "soul" or self that does it.
and the Aristotelian rationalizations of the scholastics Will and "inclination "
are the same and in a prudent
and the Jesuits. One type found expression in religious person are by nature "subject to the last dictate of the
love iphilia): the Beguines (Dutch and Flemish nuns understanding." This insight impUed that if, as he
who hve in convents without taking vows), Brethren believed, the will is depraved, unable to enjoy its true
of the Free Spirit, The Friends of God (devotio Good, the "affections "
are also benighted, and there-
modema). Christian Brotherhoods {collegia pietatis), fore the rational understanding is hopelessly led astray
Societies of Friends, and "theophilanthropy." Another from normal "hght of nature. Hence, the best that
its
"
type centered in the covenant relationship: French and a prudent understanding can do is to direct the "heart"
Swiss Huguenots, Scottish Presbyterians, Puritans, (affêctions, inclinations, will) toward an enUghtened
Covenanters, Federalists, and Christian Common- self-love and a social benevolence. But to achieve "true
wealth Men. A third type believed that an inner hght virtue" or "pure love "
to Perfect Being is naturally
(not the "hght of nature," reason) kindled in them a impossible. Being a sensitive, highly emotional youth,
holy love of Perfect Being. Such love is quite distinct he became desperate, for the chances of being
from friendship, secular benevolence, charity, and "elected" by Grace were, on Calvinistic calculations,
enlightened self-love. These were called Illuminists. very slight.
Among the philosophers who were and signifi-

directly He was under this tension when, after graduating
cantly influenced by this type of enhghtenment were: from Yale in 1720, he accepted his first charge as a
Tommaso Campanella, Vico, Malebranche, Pascal, minister of a Presbyterian congregation in New York.
Fenelon, Francis Hutcheson, Jonathan Edwards, The family of John Smith, with which he boarded, was
Pestalozzi. influenced by "new light" pietism and he soon found
This article describes the ideology of one brief, local himself in intimate relations with religiously enlight-
movement within the long history of religious enlightened laymen. His own description of what happened
enment. It arose among a small group of New England to him during those months in New York and imme-
Puritans and among the "new light" Presbyterians in diately following is a vivid account of illumination:
New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. It served
as Awaken-
the philosophical explanation of the Great
My sense of divine things seemed gradually to increase, until
ing during a few decades after 1730, and it was sub-
I went to preach in Newyork [sic] . . . and while I was
merged under a deluge of evangelical piety and theo- there I felt them, very sensibly, in a much higher degree
logical wrangling early in the nineteenth century. The than I had done before. My longings after God and holiness
philosophical leader of this movement was Jonathan were much increased. Pure and humble, holy and heavenly
Edwards (1703-58). Christianity, appeared exceeding amiable to me. The . . . 109
inward ardor of my soul, seemed to be hindered and pent based not only on his own experience and on the Great
up. and could not freely flame out as it would. Holiness . . . Awakening but also on his wide reading in the litera-
. appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming,
. .
ture of illuminism. especially Scottish and Dutch. At
serene, calm nature, which brought an inexpressible purity, the time of his death in Princeton he was planning
brightness, peacefulness and ravishment of the soul. . . . On to supplement his philosophical treatises and essays by
January 12. 1723 1 made a solemn dedication of myself to
a systematic exposition of "Lovely Christianity." It is
God. The sweetest joys and delights I have experienced,
possible that his curious sketch on "The Trinity" was
. . .
have not been those that have arisen from a hope of my

intended for this systematic work of Pietist philosophy.
own good estate, but in a direct view of the glorious things
It begins:
of the gospel. ... I have manv times had a sense of the
glorv of the third person in the Trinity, in his office of Tis common when speaking of the Divine happiness to say
Sanctifier. in his holy operations, communicating divine that God is Infinitely Happy in the Enjoyment of himself,
light and life to the soul. . . . as an infinite fountain of divine in Perfectlv beholding and Infinitelv loving, and Rejoicing
glory . . . like the sun in its glory, sweetly and pleasantly in, his own Essence and Perfections, and accordingly it must
diffusing light and life {Narrative of his Conversion, ca. be supposed that God perpetually and Eternally has a most
1740). Perfect Idea of hiniself, and from hence arises a most
. . .
pure and Perfect act or energy in the Godhead, which is
the divine Love. Complacence and Joy (Representative

Edwards outlined his doctrine of enlighten-
In 1734
Selections, eds. Faust and Johnson, p. .375).
ment sermon published under the
in a philosophical
title: A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately This is obviously a portrait of Self -enlightened Perfect
Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of Cod. He was now Being. It attempts to express in terms of the new
ready to develop the philosophy of divine illumination, psychology a formal definition of the Divine Essence
but he was distracted by the Great Awakening. For and Glory.
a decade, he devoted himself to the practical problems
and efforts of the revival, .\fter the enthusiasm had ///. ECLIPSE
somewhat abated, he returned to his theoretical analy- While Edwards during the last years of his short life
sis and in 1746 published his Treatise concerning Reli- was attempting a philosophical formulation of religious
gious Affections. Part I is devoted to the thesis that enlightenment, his associates in the New Light move-
religion is at bottom an affair of "the heart" and that ment were dragging him back into the theological
emotional forms of religious expression must be polemics of Calvinism. He was compelled by their
analyzed for evidences of divine Grace. Part II is a polemics to write The Great Christian Doctrine of
critique of those "signs" that are not evidence of Original Sin Defended (1758 published posthu- —
enlightenment. Part III states and defends the follow- mously). His closest colleague, Joseph Bellamy of
ing major conclusions: Bethlehem, Conn., published in 1750 True Religion
(1) God is amiable because of his "inherent" excel- delir\eated: or experimental Religion, as distinguished
lence rather than on account of his "objective" from Formality on the one hand, and Enthusiasm on
attributes. Holy love is the sense of this beauty, har- the other, set in a scriptural and rational Light. This
mony, and hght. was followed in 1758 by his four sermons, including
(2) True virtue is such enjoyment; it is not the "nat- The Wisdom of Cod in the Permission of Sin. Bellamy
ural" calculated judgment of conscience, nor is it a explained that God "permitted," without "causing," sin
gratitude for divine benevolence. The "moral sense" in the imiverse because was to the ultimate "advan-
it
as it is emphasized bv the Scottish Enlightenment is tage" of mankind. Edwards had maintained that God
only an approximation to divinely enhghtened love. permitted sin to enter for tlie sake of his own glory,
Holy love is a prerequisite for the "witness of
(3) and Samuel Hopkins maintained only that sin is an
the Spirit" which is central to the "covenant of Grace." "advantage to the universe. Both Bellamy and '
(4) This is a "rebirth in the Spirit" and not a Hopkins became involved in a desperate attempt to
"regeneration" of the will. defend the "moral government" or justice of God, and
(5) This is not mysticism. "Gracious affections are this led them to assert not only God's "disinterested
attended with a reasonable and spiritual conviction of benevolence but also his "disinterested malice toward
"
the judgment" (Part III, Sec. V). sin." They were then compelled by the insistent pro-
"Holy practice" must be pursued with "highest
(6) tests of several kinds of liberals to try to defend the
earnestness" and a convert with an enlightened heart endless punishment of infants. Edwards had hoped to
makes "religion eminently his work and business" (Part let the doctrine that "infinite sin" leads to "infinite
III. Sec. XII). punishment" remain an abstract conception of justice.
110 Jonathan Edwards' theory of enlightenment was But now the Edwardeans were pushed into defencUng
the endless torture of innocent infants. The more they terminology: perfect love, rebirth, supernatural light,
wrote on this subject the more incredible they became. mediatorial system, and Holy Spirit.
They were pushed into other absurdities on the Similar vestiges appear in Channing's Boston neigh-
subject of the Church Covenant. Edwards had sug- bor, Theodore Parker. He preached that all theologies
gested, without getting into a theological argument, are transient, but that "affectional piety" and the "ab-
that the Covenant of Grace was more essential to solute love of God" are "permanent" in man. This
religion than the "external"covenant of the Church. doctrine he used as a basis for promoting social reforms.
His followers, however, insisted on enforcing the He conceived "transcendentalism" to mean that life,
Puritan rules of strict communion, making regeneration love, and piety transcend knowledge. Though he ap-
a prerequisite. This revived the old problem of distin- propriated the concepts of enlightened pietism, he
guishing "visible" from "invisible" saints, and the devoted much of his time and energy to rational criti-
question whether men's "natural" moral strivings and cism of scriptures and traditions.
"exercises" toward salvation could be interpreted as The most influential vestige is to be found in James
"gracious affections. '
Nathanael Emmons of Franklin, Marsh, a Presbyterian New Light and President of the
Mass. became hopelessly involved in the problem, so University of Vermont, Deeply concerned over the
that he did not know how to distinguish between those growing gap between philosophy and tlieology, seeking
who profess apparent holiness and those who are a new ground for "experimental religion," he found
apparently but not professedly really holy, or those in Coleridge's Aids to Reflection a conception of
who neither appear nor profess to be holy but really "spirit " that met his needs. In his long essay prefacing
are holy. The most significant predicament into which his edition of this volume, he apphed Coleridge's idea
the New Light theologians drifted was their tendency of spirituality as a way of life, not of doctrine, to
to portray human nature as thoroughly damnable in philosophical reflection, to theology, and to piety. This
order to give the whole "glory" to the Divine Light. was a fresh enlightenment to him and rapidly became
Edwards had approved of the "moral sense" theory one of the major sources of New England transcen-
of the Scottish Enlightenment and agreed that self-love dentalism. The blending of the religious enlightenment
could generate a disinterested benevolence under the with the new transcendentalism is evident in typical
guidance of prudent judgment, but he insisted that such passages like the following:
social benevolence is only an "image" of true virtue
The world of spirit enters into the life of nature. ... In
and pure love. But his theologically entangled and its own essence, and in its proper right, it is supernatural,
wrangling followers were forced by an increasing lib- and paramount to all the powers of nature.
eral opposition to make caricatures both of hiunan It is only by freeing the spiritual principle from the
nature and of supernatural light. By 1833, after a limitations of that narrow and individual end which the
protracted between Nathaniel Taylor and
debate individual nature prescribes, and placing it under that
Bennett Tyler, the theologies of both New Sides and spiritual law which is congenial to its own essence, that
Old Sides Presbyterians had become so absurd to others it can be truly free. When brought into the liberty with
that the whole issue was labelled "strictly contro-

which the Spirit of God clothes it, it freely strives after
those noble and glorious ends which reason and the Spirit
versial" and the enhghtenment went into eclipse.
of God prescribe (Marsh, Renwins .... pp. 383, 389).
IV. AFTERGLOW Such adaptation of religious enlightenment to the

An inquisitive historian may detect scattered vestiges "newness of romantic ideahsm became a common
"
of philosophical pietism inAmerica after it had lapsed feature of transcendentalism; it is also in the immediate
into unenlightened theology and evangelical revival- background of Josiah Royce's contrast between "the
ism. The most direct vestige is to be found in the Rev. world of appreciation" and "the world of description."
William Ellery Channing, leader of the New England From 1835 to 1855 Oberhn College in Ohio was
Unitarians. He rediscovered "likeness to God" in the a center of Christian Perfectionism or the philosophy
human soul.Two New Light influences on him were of "sanctification, "
which, though critical of Edwards'
the theory of benevolence in the works of Francis identification of "will"and "inclination," was a direct
Hutcheson, and the personal benevolence of Samuel descendant of the New Light theology and of its em-
Hopkins, whose character seemed to be in striking phasis on disinterested benevolence. The combined
contrast to his theology. These suggested to him that influence of Charles Firmey (New Light evangelist) and
there is an element of holiness in the human soul which Asa Mahan (author of Christian Perfectionism, 1839),
enables man to achieve self-culture. He appealed to who were the first Presidents of Oberlin College, made
this aspect of the self as motivation for "social regener- this institution well-known as a center of sanctification
ation" by "diffusive charity." He used the Edwardean doctrine and anti-slavery reform. Theii intuitionist or 111
RELIGIOUS TOLERATION
illuminist theory of benevolence, in opposition to RELIGIOUS TOLERATION

utilitarian ethics, served as a sanction for a vigorous
reform movement and for civil disobedience to the Lexicology tells up to the beginning of the
us that
fugitive slave laws. eighteenth century word "tolerance" had, in
the
A curious vestige of Edwards' psychology of the will French, a pejorative meaning: a lax complacency
is foimd in the development of psychology America in towards evil. In 1691, in his admonition to Protestants
during the nineteenth century. The terms "wiU" and {Vie avertissement aux protestants, III, ix) Bossuet still
"inclination" were used by Edwards as technical syno- proudly described Catholicism as the least tolerant of
nyms for "heart" as over against "head." The all reUgions and, asif to compete with this proud boast,
Edwardeans in their theological polemics used the term the Walloon Synod of Leyden (an overwhelming ma-
"propensities" in place of Edwards "inclinations," and jority of whose members were Huguenot refugees)
distinguished these from both "will" and "imder- firmly condemned rehgious toleration as a heresv. In
standing," thus creating a "three-faculty psychology." the course of the crucial years of "the crisis of the
When Nathanael Emmons began to use the term "ex- European conscience," the century-old meaning of the
ercises" to refer to the "strivings" of seekers for Grace, two words was reversed: intolerance became a vice
others, referred back to Edwards' use of the term and tolerance a virtue; an opinion which had previ-
"taste "
to describe the affectional faculty of the mind. ously been held only by isolated and suspect theoreti-
The first psychologist to embody this "three-faculty" cians was suddenly widespread and became part of the
doctrine in his text of 1824 was the Rev. Asa Burton common language. Thus the ideal of rehgious tolera-
of Thetford, Vermont and Dartmouth College. This led tion had emerged through a delayed reaction to the
to a long controversv about the relation between taste natrual propensity of groups to penalize those members
and will. Burton identified "taste "
with "heart "
and who departed from the beliefs and practices of the
called it "the principle of action "
as well as of "pleas- majority, represented by those of the ruling classes, so
ure and pain." Subsequently "taste "
became "con- that the majority or dominant view acquired ipso facto
sciousness" in addition to volition and cognition. Thus, the character of an imperative rule.
at least indirectly, the theory of tlie affections which The appear as
pleas for religious toleration initially
developed during the Great Awakening led to the protests against the measures taken by the authorities
preoccupation of WilUam James with the emotions, against dissenters, and later, as refutations of arguments
especially in his Varieties of Religious Experience. advanced to authorize or encourage the use of force
against dissenters.
As regards persecution, theory follows practice as
is often the case in the history of ideas; theory is
advanced to explain practice, to authorize it, to defend

BIBLIOGRAPHY
it against its critics, and in that way the theorists of
J.
E. Dirks, Theology of Theodore Parker (New
The Critical intolerance could have helped, extended, and
York, 1948). Jonathan Edwards, Representative Selections.
aggravated its practice, but they were not its insti-
With Introduction. Bibliography and Notes, eds. C. H. Faust
gators. Likewise the partisans of religious tolerance
and T. H. Johnson (New York, 1935; rev. ed. 1962), useful
have probably been successful at times in alleviating
for basic writings, critical introduction, references, and
notes; idem. Treatise on the Religions Affections (Boston,

the severity of some punishments inflicted on minori-
1746), also a new edition, ed. J. E. Smith (New Haven, 1959).
ties. They may have speeded the end of persecutions
Haroutunian. Piety versus Moralisin; The Passing of the and discriminatory practices. Sometimes even, by their
J.
New England Theology (New York. 1932). F. Hutcheson, A ii influence on a prince, they played a role in establishing
Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue a precarious and tiny pocket of liberalism, although
(Glasgow, 1723). E. H. Madden, Civil Disobedience and in these cases we must be careful not to lend too much
Moral Law in Nineteenth Century American Philosophy weight to purely theoretical considerations. The end
(Seattle, 1968), especially useful for the history of Oberlin of rehgious persecution depended first of all upon the
College. Marsh, The Remains of the Rev. James Marsh,
J. evolution of Western societies; i.e., their seculariza-
ed. J.
Torrey (Boston, 1843). H. A. Pochmann, German
Culture in Atnerica (Madison, 1957), best account of Marsh's
tion — associated with a growing realization of their
temporal interests, and consisting of a steady weaken-
philosophy. H. \V. Schneider, The Puritan Mind (New York,
ing of the once intimate solidarity between Church
1930), does not do justice to the illuminism and pietism
in Edwards, but describes his early enlightenment. and State — gradually relegated the question of an indi-
vidual's religious affiliation to the domain of private
HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER life, that sphere of liberty which the community is able
1 iZ [See also Enlightenment; God; Holy; Love.] to leave to the individual without endangering itself.
Then the varieties of behef of its members no longer political system backed by military force, the result
appeared as a menace to the loyalty required by the is a crusade or holy war; or else, internally, with respect
group's concern for security and prosperity. to dissenters, schismatics and heretics (those who
This evolution has had its ups and downs in different choose, as indicated bv etymology, and whose faith,
tempos in various countries in Europe. Only recently institutions, or other rites show some differences from
has a Jesuit been able to enter Sweden; theoretically those of the prevalent party), the result is persecution.
Switzerland is still closed to him; the few Spanish The first form of intolerance — that of Charlemagne
Protestants still suffer nowadays from discriminatory against the Saxons, for example, who were given the
measures, and in countries where parties calling them- choice between baptism and death — is easy enough to
selves Marxist are in power the practice of religion interpret. It is the ideological side of a bellicose dis-
is seriously hindered. On the other hand, already in pute, the warfare bringing not only two tribes or two
the sixteenth century there were some islands of nations, but also their gods into conflict. In the case
significant religious pluralism in Eastern Europe of conquest followed bv colonization, the example of
(Transylvania and Poland, particularly). Each of these the Romans shows the adaptability of polytheism: it
instances is related to local conditions and particular easily accommodates a multiplicity of deities, so that
historical antecedents. Besides, the historian should not in the end the initial conflict gives way to a religious
be content with reading the laws. In each instance he coalescence. On the other hand, the unique and "jeal-
must determine the actual practice of carrying
try to ous" nature of the God of Judeo-Christian monotheism
out laws before drawing a conclusion, because, espe- forbade his faithful ones that "sacrifice to idols which
"
cially mider the Old Regime, it turns out that this the imperial Roman authorities regarded above all as
practice deviated appreciably, in one way or another, evidence of political loyalty. (Incidentally, the conflict
from the letter of the law. Thus, aroiuid 1680, in the between the Huguenots and the power which insisted
Netherlands' United Provinces, in spite of the fact that upon their recanting, under Louis XIV, produced a
the restrictive legislation concerning Roman Catholics misunderstanding of the same type. For the Huguenot,
had not been revoked, a religious tolerance reigned, to convert to Catholicism was to embrace "the papist
immatched by any other country in Eiu'ope, for the idolatry and therefore to commit a frightful sin, while
"
restrictions were simply not enforced. from the viewpoint of authorities, the adoption of one
At the same time, although the Edict of Nantes was form of Christianity rather than another was such a
still law in France, the Protestants came under pres- trivial affair that the royal power felt justified in
suies, legal chicaneries, and annoyances which already suspecting some sort of subversion among those who
bordered upon religious persecution, because the orig- refused to obey and who thus deserved the most dire
inal meaning of the text of the Edict was reduced to punishment.)
almost nil by means of the belittling casuistic inter- A new element arose with monotheism: theology,
pretation of "the letter of the law." It is enough, then, with the notion of a creed, of a precise and articulated
for us to recall the extreme complexity of the evolution doctrinal belief corresponding to absolute Truth (since
which led Western countries from their initial practices revealed). Simultaneously there appeared the possi-
of persecution to their current and sometimes rather bility of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, of correct wording
limited respect for the religious freedom of their citi- —
and erroneous wording by accretion, suppression, or
zens. The tortuous path of this journey can be analyzed modification, even if it were of only one article of faith.
only if one pays careful attention to its close ties to As soon as rituals cease to be self-sufficient, as in an-
different national histories. Thus, for example, the cient paganism, and are no longer akin to traditional
Huguenot improved when France was at war:
situation festivities —
such as we still have in Christmas trees and
for one thing, the internal problems of the realm be- —
Easter eggs the notion of sacrament becomes
came of secondary consideration; on the other hand, inseparably associated with acts, intentions, and
the fear of an alliance of French Protestants witli the speculative content.
enemy — in the eighteenth century a particular night- So long as the profession of Christianity was inter-
mare to the authorities — made a point of wisdom
it mittently exposed to measures of persecution by the
not to push them to despair; so that the oscillations political authorities. Christian writers defended reU-
of European foreign pohcy had repercussions even in gious liberty, and many passages from the Church
the daily life of peasants in remote corners of Fathers eloquently justify it. However, soon after the
Languedoc. imperial throne was won over to Christianity, the
Religious intolerance can assert itself in two direc- Church hastened to enUst the secular arm against
tions: externally, when a persecuting religion faces heretics. Saint Augustine in particular followed that
believers in another religion, belonging to a separate path. In spite of his original hostility towards con- 113
—
straint, he ended up as its theoretician, owing to the position to modify. \s bad luck would have it for so
successes that penal sanctions had against the Donatists. many heretics in the course of the centuries, the condi-
Quickly the pagans, in their turn, became victims of tions guaranteeing the validity of the sacrament of
persecution. It would be an anachronism to denounce baptism were defined very generously: even if admin-
outrageously the mifairness of such a double standard. istered according to a heretical rite, baptism is valid
Our modern relativistic attitude tends to make us re- if only it includes a minimal trinitarian formula which,
luctant to recognize the reality, both in concept and effectively, is present in almost all Christian baptismal
in experience, of a view of things in which absolute liturgies. From this fact there readily arises the prob-
truth — which one felt sure one possessed has quite — lem, not only of individuals who, born into the "true
a different weight and status than error. For age after religion," depart of their own volition as adults and
age appeared dazzingly evident that Truth, bv
it ought either to be punished for their defection or
definition, enjoys rights of its own and that it would — compelled to retiu-n to the fold, but also of those who,
be grotesque, unthinkable, criminal to even think of born in the bosom of heresy and having never known
extending these rights to "errors." If we do not try another form of Christianity, by the fact of their
to gain a sympathetic understanding of this ingenuous baptism and often unknown to themselves, fall imder
principle, a fimdamental tendency in ancient cultures, the power and authority of the "True Church." In our
we are doomed to superficiality, and bv implicitly ecumenical age, this conception of baptism creates a
assuming the problem solved, we ignore the slow fink between all the "separated brethren" of various
and difficult awakening of the ideal of toleration. denominations, but until quite recently (cf. the decree
The most instructive type of religious intolerance, on ecimienism of Vatican II) this sacrament, common
and that which is peculiar to various monotheisms (for to all Christians, provided the proper base for the
Islam has known it also) is persecution directed against inalienable rights that the Roman Church arrogated
internal dissent, against heretics. According to Aquinas to itself over all the baptized, without considering the
(it goes without saying that the facts were far from opinion of the persons involved. Still, in 1857, in the
being always true to his doctrinal views), one ought Mortara affair, Pius IX strictly applied the traditional
not to use constraint to convert pagans and infidels, doctrine.
who should be brought to Christianity only bv a free In other words, the Church was
membership in
conversion, moved by
and example.
preaching established by was sealed by the
birth, because it
Although the Jews ought technically to be considered earliest sacrament. "We are Christians by the same title
as infidels, tlieir dispersion within Christian countries as we are either Perigordians or Germans" observes
made them liable too often to be dealt with simply Montaigne {Essays, II, xii). A man acquires his reUgion
as heretics of the worst kind. The religious affinities as he learns his language, the sphere par excellence
created by a common respect for the Old Testament of pure tradition. The concept of "implicit" faith
unleashed against them a fratricidal hostility. The allowed the authorities to consider as orthodox anyone
sources of Western anti-Semitism are far from being showing obedience to the priesthood, and the unity
wholly religious, but a theological concept such as that of faith played a role somewhat akin to that played
of deicide has played a significant role in investing with by the "one party system" in many countries of the
respectability and legitimacy the sociological fury of Third World. The prevailing point of view considered
conformity, that is to say, the normative value attri- the masses as a herd which their shepherds had the
buted to the characteristics of the statistical majority. task of leading; the flock was regarded, if not literally,
Nevertheless, had followed theory, the condi-
if fact as beings of an inferior sort to that of tlie rulers
tion of the Jews would have been a little less harsh nobiUty and clergy — at least as Httle, or backward,
than that of the heretics (which had often been the children committed to the care and decisions of adults.
case in Rome and in the papal States). The justification We, in the West, now adopt a different attitude.
of intolerance toward the dissenter rests, in fact, on Citizens are reputedly mature beings, equal and re-
the notion of the indelible stamp given by baptism: sponsible. But both viewpoints are equally unrealistic,
the compelle intrare is precisely a compelle remanere even though the first appears static, the second, dy-
("Compel them to come in" means exactly "compel namic. The social reality does not coincide with the
them to remain"). .\s one is a priest eternally, one is theory. Many citizens in our democracies behave as
a Christian forever. The means of constraint are minors, manipulated and manipulable by publicity and
destined to compel the heretic to honor his tacit cove- propaganda, and conversely, powerful personalities
nant and to make, as it were, his concrete mode of flourished in the Middle Ages and under the Old
existence coincide with that essence which he received Regime, even outside of the privileged classes and the
1 14 with the seal of baptism and which he is not in any very small number of educated elite. Personalities exist
in all centuries and all cultures, but,on the other hand, having rendered the term "Manichean '
synonymous
the abstract concept of an autonomous individual is with "heretic," these impressive texts lent authority
scarcely meaningful in a civiUzation defined by a to the extirpation of heresy by fetter and by fire.
marked hierarchical stratification (family, parish, cor- It is well known that the greater part of medieval
poration, etc.) and by economical and technical struc- heresies included economically and socially subversive
tures of a pre-capitahstic nature. elements, and that they appealed particularly to the
, In the past, the need for social conformity, gained disinherited. In the repression which heretics incurred,
and maintained, should the occasion demand, by force motives born out of social conservatism compounded
(fines, imprisonments, banishments, executions) and the the zeal to defend religious orthodoxy. The recrurence
spontaneous repression of deviant and disruptive through centuries of the shock and horror felt by the
tendencies, operated all the more intensely and privileged at a program suggesting even the faintest
selectively in the religious realm, because for a long hint of commimism iswell known, as are the bright
time that was the only area in which centralizing hopes that it usually awakens in the poor. Thus there
tendencies operated without too much hindrance. It are some historians who consider Marxism, in some
is not an accident that the practice of a certain reli- respects, a Christian heresy because in spite of the
gious toleration progressed — although in fits and evident paradoxical nature of that label, many of the
starts — at the same time as the constitution of national characteristics of the communist movements allow for
states, the birth of capitalism, and the rise of modern some curious parallels with the heresies of the past.
science. The consensus, once acquired in the new Let us go back to the Renaissance. Medieval law
areas— political loyalty, the demands of economic ad- had itself also justified the most dire penalties against
vance and social mobility, the mechanistic inter- heretics. Likened to the poisoner of wells, the arsonist,
pretation of Nature — became necessary on the
less the counterfeiter, and the murderer — the heresiarch
religious level, as if that which was required socio- and the votaries whom he enticed were pictured as
logically was a certain area of general agreement, with public pests which the authorities had the solemn
little concern about which particular area. obligation to purge from the face of the earth. To the
In defense of this minimal conformity, arguments initial idea of extirpation and punishment expiatory —
multiplied —often sophistically invoked: they were —
and exemplary was joined, particularly in the case
scriptural arguments,drawn either from the precepts of the disciples of mischief, the desire to correct and
of Old Testament against idolators and blas-
the to lead into the right path, by means of minor penalties,
phemers, or from the "Compel them to come in" of the lambs who had strayed.
the Parable of the Wedding Feast (Luke 14:23) an — These texts and these ideas of such diverse historical
exegesis advanced by Saint Augustine and revived origin all concurred, at least as they were interpreted,
—
secondarily by Calvin or, even stranger yet, from the in authorizing the idea that religious conformity,
Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Matthew obtained, if necessary, by force, was a beneficent re-
13:24-30, 36-43). Although the sense of this parable quirement at all levels. It was advantageous for the
seems to be exactly the opposite, it was supposed that individual concerned that he be constrained to return
it commends long-suffering only when the distinction to eternal salvation, (for "Outside the Church there
between the wheat and the tares is elusive (as in the is no salvation," as Saint Cyprian had and it was
said),
case of sinners); but that the obvious characteristics profitable for the collectivity, for God had not given
which patently identify the heretic, permit without risk the sword to the princes in vain, and the heretic is
of error his being uprooted from the field of Christian- the most dangerous of all criminals since he is a threat
ity and command that he be committed to the flames. to the highest good, the salvation of the soul. Finally,
In other respects the revival of the study of Roman since his situation was reduced to that of the blas-
Law, encouraged by the Renaissance, furnished judicial phemer and idolator, the heretic, guilty of divine lese-
arguments and precedents, based on a multitude of majeste, was assumed to offend God himself, and the
laws of the late Empire. Present-day historians surmise vindication of God's glory was vital, both to piety and
that these laws were a means of intimidation in their inorder to protect the group from the terrible punish-
times and that they were rarely enforced.They observe ments of the Lord. For a long time, in fact, the
that the death penalty with which those laws threat- historians explained disasters — epidemics, floods,
ened the Manicheans had political explanations, for the military defeats, etc. — as the results of divine wrath,
seat of this heresy was in Persia, a dangerous enemy which it was not wise to provoke by a careless indul-
of the Eastern Empire. But in the Renaissance this gence —a "tolerance" —toward the "enemies of God."
legislation was taken Uterally, and, the dualistic char- If one reflects upon it, one is struck by the coherence
acter of the greater part of the medieval heresies and doctrinal consistency of the ideological justifica- 115
—
tions provided for the practice of religious intolerance. ward as the threat of punishment, and the former
The system of justification stands up admirably on all course was not neglected in France, with respect to
levels,and the unavoidable sociological necessity for the Protestants, until about 1679.) Only an authori-
a minimum consensus gives it an imperative accent. tarian and paternalistic culture, prone to liken the
This necessity for consensus has not disappeared from profession of a rehgion to a respectful submission, was
among us, but its field of application is more concerned apt to encourage faith in disciplinary procedures to
with political or racial questions than with religious induce genuine conversions. Moreover, the theoretical
ones. We know that in most countries certain political scheme imrealistically demands a constant interplay of
parties are outlawed, that immigration is controlled, sanctions and preaching: but —
whence the musty odor
that certain minorities — or majorities in the case of of hypocrisy which these justifications of constraint
South .\frica — have to endure multiple discriminations, emit —
no one can ignore the fact that the Huguenots
often verv harshlv applied. But the contemporary ex- saw more dragoons than missionaries worthy of that
ample which can help us best to penetrate the mental- name.
ity of the most reHective and convinced religious per- .^11 the hterature of propaganda, which prepared and
secutors is that of the laws of prophylaxis and hygiene extolled the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
(vaccination, quarantines, etc.) which the civil authori- eloquently attests to a perceptible evolution of mental
ties impose upon the citizens. The persecutors were attitudes — contrary to what appears at first glance —for
as convinced that they were doing their duty and it tries hard to justify the means of constraint that
acting for the common good (and, incidentally, for that previously had seemed too natural to need explanation.
of the dissidents themselves) as the governments which This so long-delayed Counter-Reformation that France
in our day establish decrees in order to control an experienced, had something artificial and anachronistic
epidemic; in the first case the theologians, and in the about it. When it happened, the ecclesiastical
second the physicians, are the competent experts who authorities took pains to give it an emphatic religious
guide the action of the "secular arm." overtone, and to add to their credit the crushing of
Considered as punishments, the penalties inflicted French Protestantism; but it seems clear that the
on heretics do not present any particular problem. Revocation responded mostly to certain demands
They aim at checking a certain delinquency (as was ineptly vmderstood, but that is of little importance
the case with punishments inflicted on sorcerers). It here —of raison d'etat, of judicial modernism (the Edict
is when constraint is supposed to call the heterodox applied to a corporate body, not to individuals), and
back into the right path that an explanation becomes of an increased internal security of the Realm, ensured
necessary. Indeed, to penalize an error is not to refute by its religious imity.
it, and the partisans of toleration would constantly The primary importance of that aspect of the prob-
stress this point. They would also observe that perse- lem is demonstrated by a counterproof. The majority
cution creates the problems which it claims to solve: of the theoreticians of religious toleration, who were
the only alternative left to the dissident group is that all Protestants, regularly making an exception of
of armed revolt. On the individual level, it creates only Roman Catholics, because of their allegiance to the
martyrs or hypocrites. This kind of objection, conse- Pope (a foreign sovereign capable of releasing them
quently, makes a point of showing the complete from their requirement of fidelity to their prince),
inappropriateness of the intended goals of intolerance. justified their subjection to certain discriminatory
It is belatedlv, toward the time of the revocation measures (of. in England, the Test Act, 1673). It was
of the Edict of Nantes (1685), that the theorists of not their religious convictions in themselves which
persecution presented more minutely detailed analyses were penahzed, but the potential political conse-
which go back to Saint Augustine. They made a pre- quences which were attributed to them as in the case —
liminary assumption, which is astonishingly naive, of the Huguenots, who were basically called to account
namely, that any searching comparison of their respec- for their liaisons and sympathies with England and the
tive dogmas allows anyone to discern clearly the truth United Provinces. An analogous perspective explains
of orthodoxy and the error of heresy. The stubbornness why the majority of authors excluded atheists from the
of the dissident implies then that he "cUngs tenaciously toleration which they advocated: without behef in
to his opinions" through either conceit or indolence. divine sanction beyond the grave, people suspected
The penalties which are inflicted on him are destined that the individual would be a sort of outlaw with no
to counteract his obstinacy or his laziness by fostering "brake" on the road to sin. It required a whole evolu-
the conditions of persuasion, but not directly to enforce tion of ideas to recognize that, in fact, morality and
conversion. (Inspired by a rudimentary pedagogy, this civic-mindedness are not as necessarily integrated with
llo scheme can just as well commend the promise of re- religious convictions as had been traditionally assumed.
or as long as ethics and political theory have remained simply with nonviolent fervor; however, in general, the
inextricably mingled with religious dogmas. condition of being persecuted fostered a critical ap-
Such a mentality was so dominant and so unques- proach. It was among the sectarians that we find re-
tioned that we meet it again in the schismatics and vived a conception (held formerly by the early Church
the heretics themselves; which is understandable since Fathers facing the Roman pagans) which, undergoing
they claimed "to be carrying away the true Church" development and secularization, was to play an out-
with them Huguenots picturesquely put it),
(as certain standing role in the theory of tolerance; this conception
and since their original aim had been to reform can be described in modem terms as the distinction
integrally the Christian Church. The events which between Church and State and between ecclesiastical
allowed the different forms of Protestantism to domi- and political tolerance. The small sectarian groups
nate, at least partially, in Northern Europe frustrated claimed to assemble only the elect, and consequently,
the hopes of the two factions, both dedicated to the contrary to the Churches with their territorial parishes,
ideal of the unity of the Church. The conviction that they did not aim at being coextensive with the total
it is the duty of the Christian magistrate to rebuke population. This was enough to make the sectarians
heresy had, however, consequences somewhat less distinguish expressly civil society, with its purely
sanguinary on the Protestant side than on the Catholic. earthly ends, from the little band of the "Righteous,"
It is well known that Italy, Spain, and a part of the and to make them dissociate completely the second
German and Slavic countries were held or won back from the first (thus, originally. Anabaptists and
to obedience to Rome by methods which were too Socinians refused to bear arms and to take cases to
often cruel. On the other hand, while the executions court). The ecclesiastical intolerance of the Anabap-
of Catholics —heretics from the point of view of a on the other hand, was maximal. It brought about
tists,
Protestant — were regularly enough associated with schisms, which were accompanied by reciprocal
issues of a political order. Catholics were in fact more excommunications, frequently enough within the
often armoyed, persecuted, or exiled, rather than put bosom of their groups.
to death. Other sectarians, often dominated by eschatological
Nevertheless, the great reformed confessions (the preoccupations, deprecated the State as a sinful insti-
established churches) for a long time harshly perse- tution. They were then from conceiving the idea
far
cuted the followers of (who were
sects, Antitrinitarians of a legitimate but religiously neutral State. However,
subject to death in the lands of the Holy Roman Empire with time, their conceptions of millennium became
after 1532),and Anabaptists. In the case of the latter, more sober. Their distinction between the political and
once again considerations of social conservatism often the religious realm, and their voluntaristic notion of
played a significant role. The heretic and the revolu- ecclesiastical affihation as the explicit choice of an
tionary are indistinguishable in many cases, and it is adult individual, have been the essential ingredients
difficult to know which two characters is re-
of the of the liberal doctrine of religious toleration. Indeed,
sponsible for the mercilessness on the part of the they necessarily implied that the ideas which led
authorities and of public opinion. The drownings at inevitably to persecution had to be modified. In
Zurich, the decapitations at Berne, the biu^ning at the denying to theologians the right to motion the
set in
stake of Servetus in Geneva, etc., eloquently attest that secular arm, the very possibility of the constraint of
the same fundamental principles of intolerance were conscience disappeared.
shared by all the authorities of Europe. That the perse- Another direction of thought tried to accomplish the
cutions carried out in Protestant States had been on same purpose by an about-face which brought about
the whole less bloody and less prolonged than those a marked subordination of the Church to the State
urged upon the authorities by the Society of Jesus and namely, the Erastian tendency, which had meaning
the Spanish Inquisition remains an ancillary statement only in Protestant countries, and to which rallied the
of fact from the strict point of view of the history of Arminian minority in the Netherlands. It shows a
ideas. somewhat exaggerated trust (if we think of the revoca-
The more or less clandestine presence of sectarians tion of the Edict of Nantes) in the breadth of views
in Protestant countries and the relative freedom of the of civil authorities, themselves rehgiously involved, the
press which often existed there, explain why after the magistrate being the minister of God. This trust is
Council of Trent it would only be from the reformed explained by the observation, repeated a hundred
side of the religious frontier dividing Europe that one times, that the persecuting charges were always
would meet writers arguing in favor of tolerance. Some delivered by the clergy and fostered by their incurable
sects, to be sure, considering that to suffer persecution pretentions to theocracy. We shall return below to
is the "mark" of the true Church, responded to it Erastianism, with regard to the separation which it 117
stated between the deep inner convictions of a man (1623-62) who in a fragment of a treatise on the vac-
and their outward expression, a postulate which uum {Vn fragment d'un traite du vide) advocated a
psvchologically seemed scarcely reahstic. break between the area in which authority rules with-
On the whole, the enormous conceptual structure out compromise, in which total renunciation is "sweet"
which justified the practices of persecution as an obli- (theology), and that of natural sciences in which ex-
gation of sovereigns was a colossus with feet of clay. acting reason, powerful and critical, interpreting the
The argument from authority is only efficient as a testimony of experience, has the sole right to be heard.
sledgehammer argument, as long as it is not recognized This difficult balance constituted a real issue only dur-
for what it is: it is effective only when it does not have ing a rather short cultural period. Inevitably, from the
to be accompanied by authoritarianism to impose itself, domain of science where one tended to isolate it, or
because that which is, in fact, tradition, is perceived from the private conviction which it was unwise to
as an unchallenged truth, and consequently held as make public, rational method and bold criticisms were
indisputable. Kn argument from authority which re- extended and dominated the touchy areas of scriptural
quires a justification, or even a simple explanation, is exegesis and political theory, which the older genera-
already virtually on the defensive and condemned in tions had thought they could keep them from entering.
the long run. We camiot here become involved in Many writers, however, as far back as the sixteenth
analysis, as brief as it might be, of the many factors century, directly challenged the practices dictated by
which have shaken the ingenious ethnocentricity of religious intolerance. Each of them argued in his own
medieval culture, at the dawn of modern times, way and used arguments differing in emphasis. But we
through the social upheavals which they brought about. ought to restrict ourselves here to setting out the main
It is sufficient remind ourselves that the religious
to themes of specific indictments followed by these
division of Europe, caused by the Reformation, was courageous pioneers.
to deUver a mortal blow to the principle of authority A first direction, moral or irenic, distinguishes those
which neither of the two camps had questioned. In who consider the use of violence as a monstrous incon-
fact, as soon as authority no longer had a monopoly, sistency on the part of Christians, since the Gospel
with its stranglehold broken, the initiative inevitably preaches only love and gentleness. As do all rigorists,
went to the individual, whose examination was to these authors refused to allow that that which is a
decide the choice to be made among the authorities crime on the individual level becomes legitimate when
competing to solicit his obedience. The Peace of it done in the name of the group. It is significant
is
Augsburg (1555) with its principle cujus regio ejus that Erasmus condemned war even more decidedly
religio recognized the freedom of conscience of the than persecution. Such a perspective serves to distin-
rulers. Just as when in ancient Egypt, immortality, guish ethics, which is the heart of the Gospel, from
initially available to the Pharoah alone, was eventually speculative dogmas which one can elaborate from
offered to all the inhabitants of the Nile Valley, the Scripture, and gives preference to "orthopraxis" over
principle included in the Peace of Augsburg, led, "orthodoxy." One should be very careful to note that
inevitably, to the subsequent opening up of the although such a current of thought was able, at the
freedom of individual conscience. end of two hundred years, to influence the thought of
The argument from authority had been contested, a man fike Voltaire (supremely indifferent to the con-
on the theoretical level, by all the forms of rationalism tent of dogmas,which he considered pure rubbish), its
which contributed so powerfully to the emancipa- first had theological truth much at
representatives
tion —in a way, to the creation —
of "the individual," heart. They were religious and pious men, and if obe-
if only in challenging the law of the greatest number. dience to the moral precepts of the Gospel seemed
However, many authors deliberately excluded criticism to them to surpass any other consideration, the dog-
of practical questions from the field of their investi- matic formulation retained great significance for them.
gations: they wanted
be faithful and obedient sub-
to But it appeared to them as the object of a humble and
jects to their absolute prince and fideistic in religious fervent quest rather than knowledge transmitted from
matters. This characteristic was common to men who the past. Unity became for them an ideal to strive for,
were otherwise quite different. It was the case with which ought to now by fraternal
be prefigured here and
Descartes. It was also the case with the "erudite relations among Christians. Attentive to the frailties
Libertines," unbelieving, well-read persons, in whom of the human spirit, they avoided arrogantly imposing
an aristocratic egoism and a fearful scorn of bad taste on others personal convictions which they had been
resulted in anoutward conformity which hid the ironic able to approach —
partial, approximate truths, not
skepticism of their private thoughts. Finally, it was the absolute ones (Castellion). To their eyes the free inter-
118 case with a man as ardently refigious as Pascal change of ideas was a fruitful method of investigation,
a
and in all areas of thought the truth could only gain On the one hand, the list of "fimdamental articles"
by it (Milton). Heresies themselves had been useful to ought to have been all the shorter in order to get the
the early Church, in helping it to sharpen its dogmatic greatest agreement, but the more traditional parties
tenets. Religious pluralism benefited each of the com- steadfastly attributed a "fundamental" character to
peting confessions by fostering emulation in virtue and some articles which the imifiers exerted themselves in
knowledge (Acontius). The indomitable freedom of vain to put forth as "optional." Moreover, unknown
spirit made appeals to physical constraint completely to its promoters, this kind of effort challenged the
absurd, since force can lead to lip service but never cardinal principle of intolerance less than its point of
to theforming of a conviction. application. "None shall have wit, but we and our
Another direction of thought brought together friends," as Moliere said in another context; the circle
people perhaps less sensitive to the suffering of the was expanded, but not opened to all. They still
victims of intolerance than concerned about peace and remained within the confines of a Bergsonian "closed
public order, not only on the practical level, as the religion," of a Church outside which there is no salva-
Third Party of the Politiques who, in France, supported tion. That is to say one did not truly accept the other
Henry IV and backed the Edict of Nantes, but on the as different, as a being distinct from oneself, but one
theoretical level as well. These writers tried to redis- would strive, not without naively generous intentions,
cover the lost doctrinal unity by digging below differ- to see in one's fellow being an alter ego, a counterpart
ences, in order to bring to light the common root. They of oneself.
gave a privileged status to the dogmas on which the It is instructive to note that the two works which
main churches were agreed, and proposed to hold as canonized the ideal of religious tolerance (and by
optional the doctrines on which they differed (some- which the authors who vulgarized it in the eighteenth
what in the manner followed by the Council of Trent, centurv were inspired) had been published a few years
which had distinguished between points of dogma and apart, in Holland, where there was a freedom of the
scholastic opinions). press unequalled at that time. They had been written
This tendency resulted quickly enough in the idea (independently) by two refugees who were also laymen
of Natural Religion — the which niled from
religion — the Huguenot Pierre Bayle (Ccnnmentaire philo-
Adam to Abraham, but which the
also the religion of sophique sur ces paroles de Jesus-Christ contrains-les
conclusions are available to reason alone, at once d'entrer, 4 vols., Amsterdam, 1686-88) and the Whig
extolhng the principles of Natural Law and Natural John Locke (Epistola de tolerantia, Gouda, 1689, and
Ethics; thus the passage to pure Deism was carried soon translated into English and Dutch, and later into
out imperceptibly. Other theorists challenged the ne- French). It is also noteworthy that the two books had
cessity of a strict correlation between internal convic- appeared without bearing the name of their authors.
tion and external practice. Acknowledging the individ- Bayle's treatise, in a sense, closed a period. It exhaus-
ual's full liberty of conscience, they asked him to tively refuted all the arguments ever put forward to
comply in the matter of the expression of his convic- justify persecutions, which the new propaganda cam-
tions in gestures and in ritual — treated consequently paign, associated with the revocation of the Edict of
as adiaphora — with the rules promulgated by civil Nantes, had provided the occasion to e.\pound. Useless
authorities. It was the Erastian solution, which we have for the public good, immoral, contrary to the precepts
already mentioned and which was defended, among of reason and the gospel, founded on erroneous
others,by Hobbes and Spinoza. All believers, from this psychological analyses, absurd and vain such is the —
point of view, can and should to a certain extent put way religious intolerance appeared under this search-
up with the reigning ecclesiastical organization — ing indictment. But Bayle did not stop there. He
stand which curiously (for the basic motives of the two affirmed that far from being a legitimate way to serve
breeds of writers were extremely different) meets the God, persecution essentially offends Him.
approval of the "spirituals," mystics who favored the Bayle in effect posed the problem no longer from
inner life and to whom faith mattered infinitely more the traditional point of view of "objective truth," but
than religion. The attempts at reunion, pursued with from that of the subjective perception made by the
perseverance during the seventeenth century, either individual. Inverting an .\ugustinian phrase, he wrote:
among confessions drifting from the Reformation, or "What matters is not to which end constraint is used,
among all Christian churches, gathered together, mo- but whether it is used at all" {Commentaire philo-
mentarily, deeply religious irenics and politically sophique. III, xvii), which is wrong because to seek
minded men, primarily concerned with civil peace. to weaken the fideUty of anyone to his inner convic-
A posteriori, it is easy enough to see the major theo- tions is a sacrilegious affront to the laws of God himself,
retical obstacles with which such efforts were faced. who, in consideration of the intention, forgives the 119
error. Bayle's point of view is profoundly religious so argimient from the commercial advantages which tol-
the tolerance which he defines covers the heretic, the erance brings: money has no smell, and the contrast
innovator, the prophet of coming revelations — and the between the misery of Spain and the opulence of the
missionary of whatever religion —an exceptionally lib- United Provinces was to become a matter of great
eral attitude. Bayle also extended tolerance to the persuasive eloquence in the eighteenth century.
atheist as an individual, while accepting somewhat To sum up, the evolution of ideas consisted, on the
reluctantly that the civil authorities could forbid him level of social structures, in making religious confes-
to proselytize. A man aware of the problems of his sions pass from the status of a "church of multitude"
times, he also authorized, on the basis of purely politi- (with territorial pretentions and in which membership
cal considerations, certain safety measures against is established by birth) to that of a church of professing
Roman CathoUcs, as, for example, their ineUgibility for believers (held together, no longer automatically and
certain civic responsibilities. Finally he decided that passively, but by choice). On the level of values, it goes
immoral and antisocial and acts should be
theories from the idea of absolute Truth as a sacred legacy
was
subject to penal sanctions. In this case "fanaticism" received from the past, to the idea of truth as a quest
not prosecuted as a heresy, but simply on grounds of and a constant reformulation in the language of
the danger that the conduct which it inspired in its cultural evolution —a reformulation which is always
followers might involve for the physical security of approximate and relative, and which implies a keen
their fellow citizens. awareness of the weakness and radical inadequacies of
As for the work of Locke, it is the end-product of the human mind, as well as a more and more modest
all the intellectual ferment concerning political theory agnosticism. In a more limited way this evolution oc-
and tolerance which had seethed in England during casioned a which brought "the heretic" close to
shift
the seventeenth century. Locke himself at the start "the infidel" (renouncing then compelle remanere) and
poses the problem in terms which contain its solution, dogmatic error close to ignorance (more and more
whence the brevity of the pamphlet for he makes a — liberally considered invincible, this being the only case
formal distinction between State and Church (which where it is innocent, and no longer, as formerly, con-
is equivalent to defining the latter in sociological lan- sidered a guilt calling for punishment). This entire
guage, as a "sect") from which civil tolerance logically evolution of secularization, because of the resistance
follows. Less religious than Bayle's (which demanded which it encountered, made way for an anticlericaUsm
that we respect the image of God in all men), the all the more powerful and diffuse as its sources and
doctrine of Locke had more realistic foundations inas- its forms multipUed. But above all the doctrine of
much as his view appealed to a more easily understood religious tolerance appeared linked to a general split-
interest: an Englishman, fervent defender of liberties ting up, which, destroying the warm solidarities of
which he showed to be inseparably linked together, communities and ancestral traditions, has set up the
Locke asks each man to make certain that there would modern individual as autonomous, and, as it were, the
be no encroachment upon his own rights, and in order seat of authority in the midst of social mobility. This
to achieve that, to abandon the regimenting of the splitting up suggested too many worldly goals for the
convictions of others. There we already have the indi- individual's appetitesand ambitions for the reUgious
vidualism and utihtarianism of the eighteenth century: values to continue to dominate his mental world and
"enlightened self-interest." If he granted to Roman hence express his will to power and his aggression.
Catholicism a full Uberty of conscience, Locke coupled
it nevertheless with certain restrictions in civil matters,
for almost the same reasons any rehgion
as Bayle:
BIBLIOGRAPHY
which threatens to violate the distinction between the For important statements of the theory of persecution,
political and the spiritual spheres warrants a certain see Theodore de B^ze [Beza], Traits de I'autoriti du
amount of suspicion. But quite differently from Bayle, magistral en la punition des hirdtiques (1560), the original
Locke does not tolerate the atheist, who is incapable Latin text of which had appeared in 1554, as De haereticis
of taking an oath, and is thus an asocial being. His

a civili tnagistratu puniendis Ubellis. . . . For the Roman
Catholic side, see, for instance. La conformity de la conduite
disciples of the EnUghtenment follow him on this point
de Vt.glise de France pour ramener les Protestants avec celle
and put the atheist next to the religious innovator,
de l't,glise d'Afrique pour ramener les Donatistes d l'£glise
whom they will urge the authorities to imprison or
Catholique (Paris, 1685); and Traits de IVnit^ de Itglise
banish before he can gather any followers. The problem et desmoyens que les Princes chrMens ont employes pour
here is indeed much more pohtical than religious.
y faire rentrer ceux qui en itoient sortis, 2 vols. (Paris,
Tranquility and collective prosperity are the supreme 1686-88), by the Oratorian Louis Thomassin. (A posthumous
120 values, as is shown by the importance given to the enlarged second edition appeared in 1700 under a different
—
RENAISSANCE, IDEA OF
title: Traite dogmatique et historique des (.dits . . . , 3 vols.) rest of Europe in the late fifteenth century, coloring
This is a serene and scholarly defense of persecution. See and perhaps conditioning many fundamental assump-
also, as late as the mid-eighteenth century, the different tions about art, scholarship, and morality until at least
books of .\bb^ Caveirac. the eighteenth century. The word is also applied to
One finds a comprehensive general bibliography in Father the period when these innovations occurred and
Joseph Lecler, S. J., Toleration and the Reformation (London, assumed a dominant position. The word, as commonly
1960); originally. Histoire de la tolerance au siecle de la
used in the English-speaking world, follows the French
Reforme (Paris, 1955). There is a useful, shorter bibliography
in Henry Kamen, The Rise of Toleration (New York, 1967);
form. Some writers in English — they are a minority
prefer "Renascence." The French word is used in
see also idem. The Spanish Inquisition (London, 1965) and
Leon Poliakov, Histoire de iantisemitisme, 3 vols. (Paris, German and many other Eiu-opean languages save
1955); Volume 4 in preparation. where Rinascita first emerged (see below) and
Italian,
In Persecution and Libertij. essays in honor of George where the alternative Rinascimento is now also used,
Lincoln Burn (New York, 1931), one finds several papers especially for the purposes of periodization.
of great value, specially one by R. H. Sainton on Castellion, As a synoptic abstraction both for cultural change
with respect to which, for the sake of brevity, it is enough and for an epoch the word is unlike similar expressions
to mention that practically all of Bainton's production is in being both autonomous and contemporary with the
of prime importance for the present subject. In Autour de By "autononioas we mean that
events it describes. '
Michel Servet et de Sebastien Castellion, ed. B. Becker

it had no earlier employment. No classical Latin word
(Haarlem, 1953), appear studies in four different languages,
for rebirth existed. Christian doctrine is based on the
according to the nationality of the different collaborators.
Stankiewicz, Politics and Religion in Seventeenth-
notion of rebirth and regeneratio is used in the New
W. J.
Century France (Berkeley, 1960) should be noted; and

Testament, and was thence monopolized by the litera-
Hirisies et societes dans I 'Europe prîndustrielle, Xle-X Vllle ture of the theologians. The metaphor was, of course,
siecles,CoUoque de Royaumont presente par Jacques Le obvious enough both in the loose sense of "renewal"
Goff (Paris and The Hague, 1968), assembles also a number (e.g., the renovatio imperii), in the regular opposition
of scholarly studies on its theme. of day and night, sleeping and reawaking, and the cycle
There is a recent critical reissue of the original Latin of the seasons, as well as in scriptural exegesis and
text of Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration in French, homiletics where the terms regeneration and resurrec-
Italian, Polish, as well as English-German translation, all
tion were available. A few writers in the fourteenth
of them published under sponsorship of the Federation
and fifteenth centuries invented Latin words {renacium,
Internationale des Societes de Philosophic and of UNESCO,
renascentia, renascitura) which summarized the
in the collection "Philosophic et Communaute Mondiale."
processes, but none of this would have led to the
Another important edition is Epistola de tolerantia, trans.
W. Gough, with an introduction by Raymond Klibansky subsequent employment of "Renaissance" had there
J.
(Oxford, 1968). The latest printing of Bayle's Commentaire not arisen the need for a word to describe the aware-
philosophique is more than two centuries old, but it is ness of intellectuals in the fifteenth century and later
included in the second volume of his Oeuvres diverses, that their world was characteristically different from
recently photographically reissued in Germany. what had gone before, and that their times had spiritual
Other works include: J.
\V. Hauer, Toleranz und Inloleranz and perhaps historical affinities with an antiquity of
in der nichtchristlichen Religionen (Stuttgart, 1961); Guido which they were witnessing the rebirth. "Rebirth" was
Kisch, "Toleranz und Menschenwiirde," Miscellanea
to be the term which prevailed, rather than "renova-
Mediaevalia, 4 (Berlin, 1966); and H. R. Schlette,
tion," "reflowering," "renewal," or others. "Regenera-
"Toleranz," Handbuch theologischer Grundbegriffe. Vol. II,
tion" was presumably too closely associated with the
ed. Heinrich Fries (Munich, 1963).
usage of the divines, "renewal" too colorless.
ELISABETH LABROUSSE Such an awareness has been traced in a number of
[See also Agnosticism; Church as an Institution; Deism; fourteenth-century Italians and in particular it was
Freedom; God; Heresy; Individualism; Law, Natural; Refor- provoked by the life and work of Petrarch (Francesco
mation; Sin and Salvation; Skepticism; Utilitarianism.) Petrarca).To the accepted educational and theological
conventions of his day Petrarch deliberately opposed
an urgent plea for the cultivation of Latin literature
and of a moral philosophy closely based on classical
IDEA OF RENAISSANCE models. Traditionally the Church had frowned on the
study of Roman writers and thinkers save as means for
Today the word "Renaissance" (rebirth) is generally teaching the clergy to be proficient in the service of
apphed to a series of cultural changes which began a religion whose scriptures (the Vulgate) and whose
in Italy in the fourteenth century and spread to the service books were written in Latin. It is true that 121
classical elements were prominent in speculation, the state) beginning with Coluccio Salutati in 1375;
artistic literature,and the fine arts of Europe between the most influential of these officials was Leonardo
the fall of Rome and the fourteenth century; and it Bruni, chancellor in 1410-11 and from 1427 to his
is also true that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries death in 1444. At the same time there were scores of
the works of Aristotle had come to play a dominant scholars and citizens eager to participate in the debates
role in the study and teaching of logic, metaphysics, and researches of the leading thinkers and writers. This
and theology. But Greek and Roman influences were, coincided with an astonishing development in the fine
at least in theory, subordinated to the requirements arts, painting, sculpture, and architecture, which was
of clerical education: Ovid was "moralized," Aristotle to transform the structure and the decoration of
reigned in the university schools at the price of his Florentine buildings in the first half of the fifteenth
rationalism being lost to view. century.
Interest in pagan authors beyond such pedagogical None of this could have happened without the active
and professional uses was only justified on the principle support of the leading oligarchs of the citv, hardheaded
of spoiling the Egyptians and this dangerous and businessmen intent on prosecuting their own interests
tempting procedvire had from the start had its puri- and the welfare of the city whose affairs they managed.
tanical critics. Of course there had always been men To explain this phenomenon it has been argued that
(many of them clergy) who had enjoyed self-expression the political threat to Florence of the Milanese state
in the vernaculars and in Latin regardless of censure, under the Visconti acted as a spur. Progressively
just as there had always been heretics in the religious isolated, the Republic and its citizens were forced to
sphere. But such men had been a minority without ask themselves why resistance to the Visconti was
significant public support. For Petrarch, for his grow- wortliwhile. Humanists answered his questions with an
ing number of disciples, and friends and for a steadily analysis of the unique qualities of the commune: the
widening audience, both lay and clerical, the cultural inspiration of republican liberty as against Caesarian
achievements of Greece and Rome acquired fresh absolutism, the superiority of the active as against the
relevance. "Poetry" was defended as morally inspiring. contemplative life, an acceptance of wealth and beauty
"Philosophy" should be cultivated, not in the arid as God-given elements in the human situation in spite
syllogisms of the schools, but as a devout love of wis- of the long-standing reverence for the merit of poverty
dom. Literature thus became a vehicle for the good and the contempt for seductive art. Stimulated in these
life, its perfection the duty and the joy of the literate ways the consciousness of renewal was regularly dis-
Christian. While Petrarch was far from overthrowing played by contemporaries. For example, here is Matteo
all the conventions of his own times and although he Palmieri in his Vita civile (ca. 1436):
was somewhat contemptuous of the culture of his

Where was the painter's art till Giotto tardilv restored it?
contemporaries, his convictions did lead him to despise
. . . Sculpture and architecture, for long years sunk to the
the barbarism of an earlier epoch and thus prepared
merest travesty of are only today in process of rescue
—ancient, middle,
art,
the way for a tripartite periodization from obscurity; only now are they being brought to a new
modern —which had a development concomitant with pitch of perfection by men of genius and erudition. Of
that of the idea of renewal or rebirth. This notion is Letters and liberal studies at large it were best to be silent
explicit in Petrarch's friend Giovanni Boccaccio who altogether. For these, the real guides to distinction in all
referred to Dante as the man who had brought the the arts, the solid foundation of all civilization, have been
Muses back to Italy and to Giotto as the restorer of lost to mankind for 800 years or more. It is but in our own
the art of painting. Even more telling is the conviction day that men dare boast that they see the dawn of better
of a renewal evident in the pages of the chronicler things. Now indeed may ever)' thoughtful spirit thank
. . .
God that it has been permitted him to be bom in this new

Filippo Villani writing towards the end of the four-
age, so full of hope and promise, which already rejoices
teenth centiu-y an account of the great men of
in a greater array of nobly-gifted souls than the world has
Florence. The idea was beginning to leave the learned
seen in the thousand years that have preceded it (trans.
coteriesand establish itself as part of the mythology W. H. Woodward).
of a major Italian city.
Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio were all Florentines, In this passage the Florentine merchant indicated most
though Dante lived much of his later life in exile and of the elements in the Renaissance concept: the sense
Petrarch was the son of another baimed citizen. The of belonging to a new age, the antecedent period of
association of new moral, scholarly, and artistic atti- darkness, and behind that the ancient world of light;
tudes with Florence grew ever stronger in the decades the assumption that Latin letters are the basis for all
on either side of 1400. The Republic appointed a series cultural activity, in the fine arts as well as in literature.
122 of humanist chancellors (the executive secretaries of The notion of renewal, the figure of rebirth meet one
RENAISSANCE, IDEA Op
constantly in the literature of the fifteenth century, and courts of princes, but everything else was welcome.
not only in Florentine sources, but in other parts of A new generation of emerged to staff
civil servants
Italy and in Northern Europe among scholars in touch chanceries and diplomatic posts and a new kind of
with Italian developments. schoolmaster educated princes, courtiers, and their men
It was, however, to be, if not another Florentine, of business in the techniques now felt to be essential
at least another Tuscan, the painter and architect for good government and the good life. The basis was
Giorgio Vasari (151 1-74), who finally invented the word Latin; the aim was the perfection of what we would
"Renaissance" (Rinascita) in his Lives of the Most nowadays call "communication"; Cicero filled the
Excellent Italian Architects, Painters and Sculptors educational role which had been occupied in the
from Cimabue to our own Times, which was first pub- schools of the Middle .'^ges by Aristotle. The slow and
lished at Florence in 1550. In the Preface to this influ- subtle adaptation of Renaissance techniques and atti-
ential work Vasari explains the origin of art in the tudes in France and Germany, in England and Spain,
divine gift of God and briefly traces its manifestations produced endless variations of the basic theme; as
down to the perfection it reached with the ancient indeed had the earlier reception in the various Italian
Greeks and the high esteem in which it was held by centers. But the assumption that all culture depended
the Romans. Then, in the later Roman Empire, decline on a mastery of Latin (for scholars Greek was added),
set in: "when human affairs begin to decline, they grow and a thorough knowledge of the main classical writers
steadily worse comes when they can no
until the time was pervasive and was to color European society for
longer deteriorate any further." This decline was fol- centuries to come. A gentleman was by definition well
lowed by the final destruction which followed the educated in the "humanities." The humanities were (to
barbarian invasions. Triumphant Christianity obliter- quote a canonical definition) "grammar, rhetoric, his-
ated pagan monuments and rifled old buildings for new tory, poetry, and moral philosophy" studied in the
churches. A long period of barbaric insensitivity then "standard ancient writers in Latin and, to a lesser
followed, with some better work being occasionally extent, in Greek." The aim was an illuminated and
produced, as for example by Nicola Pisano (ca. public-spirited elite.
1220-87), but no reversal of the trend, no consistent Clearly the non-Italian peoples of Europe identified
attempt to study the "admirable sculptures and paint- themselves less passionately with classical Rome than
ings buried in the ruins of Italy." He concludes by the Italianshad done. Indeed the Germsins, the French,
stressing that "the arts resemble nature as shown in and the rest looked back to an antiquity in which their
our human bodies; and have their birth, growth, age ancestors had been subjugated by the legions. Nothing
and death." "I hope," he writes, "by this means they is more remarkable therefore than the rapid and
[the artists of his own day] will be enabled more easily irrevocable penetration of Italian ideas and practices
to recognise the progress of the renaissance (rinascita) among the "barbarians," as the Italian writers referred
of the arts and the perfection to which they have to them, some of whom were currently invading the
attained in our own time." peninsula.The concept of rebirth may sometimes (as
Vasari's Renaissance was strictly applied to the fine in Germany) have provoked anti-Roman and nationalist
arts but, as we have seen, the metaphor of rebirth had sentiment; but the gymnasia of Philip Melanchthon
earlier and regularly been applied also to literature (1497-1560) bore tribute to a new educational ideal.
and scholarship as well; fleetingly in Petrarch and The "battle of the books" might lead the French to
Machiavelli even to political situations. But what was dispute the primacy in all fields of Italians or even
to gain rapid acceptance for the term was the extension Romans but everywhere among the literate there was
far beyond Florence and Tuscany of the phenomena an acceptance of the proposition that, so far as schol-
epitomized in the idea. One after another the courts arship, literature, and the fine arts were concerned, the
of Italy accepted the new learning and literature, the new age had recovered a sophistication and a mastery
new painting and architecture, and the new moral which had been lost for centuries. Obviously the ten-
value which they exemplified. First the smaller centers sions produced in the Middle Ages by an official con-
(Urbino, Mantua, Ferrara), then the papal court from demnation of the world and natural beauty, of artistic
the mid-fifteenth century and finally the capitals of the achievement as an end in itself, of wealth and educa-
Neapolitan kingdom and the Sforza dukes. In the early tion as more than mere embellishments or social dis-
sixteenth century Rome was the greatest center of play (noblesse oblige) — obviously these tensions be-
scholarship and artistic patronage and Venice had tween how men actually lived, and how they ought
begun to understand the message. By this time trans- to have lived, were by no means confined to Italy, and
Alpine Europe was beginning to be interested. The this is the ultimate explanation for the sure finality with
republicanism of Florence found little sympathy in the which the Florentine discoveries moved from Tuscany 123
to Italy and from Italy to Europe. Italy (on this sole 1774-81). Soon another revolution was to disturb these
occasion) solved the moral problems of the Continent. well-established platitudes.
It was to be in the North that the word Renaissance The events in France in and after 1789, the social
was regiilarlv applied to more than the painting, and emotional developments which flowed from them
sculpture, and architecture of Vasari's usage. It was, throughout Europe, coincided with a further and inde-
in fact, Erasmus who first stressed the rebirth of "good pendent enrichment of the Renaissance: its association
literature," reflecting the earlv interest of humanists with the "Greek spirit." It was, of course, the case that
in Paris in the literary developments in Italy, and the scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had
recapturing in his affirmation of a docta pietas some- cultivated Greek scholarship, but it was never as im-
thing of Petrarch's spirit. The movement was. however, portant an inspiration as Rome had been and Greek
more broadly based than it had been in the Italy of scholarship had so far failed to attain the expertise of
the mid-Trecento. A new conviction of the remarkable Latin learning. Knowledge of ancient Greek history
certainty afforded by philological scholarship enriched (for example) was rudimentary compared with the
both patristic and classical studies; and soon the elan scientific study of Rome.
of the neo-Latinists was taken over into the vernacu- From the mid-eighteenth centurv onwards this situ-
lars, producing the "golden" prose and poetry of the ation changed. \ new and profounder attempt to un-
second half of the sixteenth centurv in English, French, derstand die art and the literature of the Greek world
and Spanish. From this was to come a generalized isassociated with Winckelmann, Lessing, and Friedrich
sentiment that there was a renaissance des lettres August Wolf, The living embodiment of much of this
alongside the artistic Renaissance. Such a view was was Goethe. Under the influence of these writers a fresh
explicit by the end of the seventeenth century, in the interpretation of aesthetics emerged (neo-classicism)
dictionaries of Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) and of the and the traditional "humanities" began to assume a
French Academy. Such a view was generally accepted different aspect as "humanism" (the word Humanismus
in Evu'ope (and North America). The e-xcitement was was apparently first used by F. J. Niethammer in 1808).
now dimmed. A Reformation had occurred (for some A humanist in the Renaissance period itself had meant
the Renaissance had been its John the Baptist). But a teacher or student of the himianities (as defined
Roman Catholics and most varieties of Protestants above). From the start of the nineteenth century
agreed on canons of artistic style and of literary "humanist" began to acquire its alternative and vaguer
relevance (the Bible together with the classics of meaning as a sympathizer with a human as opposed
Greece and Rome), scholarly precision and the morality to a divine set of values. The "spirit of Greece" con-
of public service. tributed largely to the idealization of Man. Lessing
Such a dominated the
series of related convictions even attacked Latin: ". the monks let loose on us
. .
eighteenth century. By then the existence of a Middle [theGermans] the barbarous deluge of Latin literature,
Age was an accepted part of the mental furnitiu-e of Latin religion, and Latin speculation. Latin, being
. . .
the educated. This benighted period ran from the Sack considered as an end in itself, is ruining our education."
of Rome (a.d. 410) to the Fall of Constantinople (1453), Such opinions would have been incomprehensible to
when (so ran the legend) the escaping Greeks carried Petrarch, Bruni, or Erasmus.
their manuscripts and wisdom to the West. For Voltaire The Renaissance school curriculum survived such
there was surprise that so much ilkmiination had come criticism,and it siu'vived too the forces released by
out of an Italy politically divided and sub-divided: "it the French Revolution which were to lead to the re-
may appear somewhat extraordinary that so many placement of the social and political dominance of the
great geniuses should have started up of a sudden in gentleman and the courtier, trained to be citizens of
Italy." But in reality he did not find it so extraordinary, the world, by that of the middle class, urban-based and
because it was right, and because "the pest of religious marked by a bitter chauvinistic nationalism. All of this
controversy left Italy on one side," enabling Italians was to produce, both in sympathy and hostility, men
to cultivate "the never fading glory of the fine arts." who looked back at the now receding Renaissance with
These obiter dicta (from the Essai sur les moeurs of new eyes. They had, of course, all been educated tradi-
1756) are echoed in most of the writers of the Enlight- tionally enough in hjcees. gymnasia, and grammar
enment. One of them, Thomas Warton, described what schools. The art they admired, however much it seemed
had occurred as a "revolution." This transformation, to them daringlv to break new ground, was firmly
he felt, "was the most fortunate and important" in linked to the Italian masters of the Quattrocento and
breaking the "bonds of barbarism ... in which the Cinquecento. Stendhal, Michelet, Voigt, Burckhardt
mouldering Gothic fabrics of false religion and false were products of a Renaissance world, even if by their
124 philosophy fell together" (History of English Poetry, day it was a world of shadows from the past. The call
of Italy and the attraction of the Renaissance centuries movement forward. . . . The discovery of Italy had an
were often drenched in romanticism and associated infinitely greater effect on the sixteenth century than that
with contemporary poHtical and artistic aspirations. of America. All the nations followed in France's footsteps,
Genius was what mattered. National genius was an to be initiated in their turn and to see clearly by the light
of this new sun (trans. A. R. Press).
identifiable commodity. There was a "spirit of
Germany," and of France, as well as a "Greek .spirit."
Such a sentiment was to further the final stage in the One is tempted to go on quoting from the tempestuous
evolution of the notion of the Renaissance: its identifi- words, not least because they are so refreshingly imlike
cation whole civilization. This had many
with a the careful academic precisions of our own prosaic day.
antecedents. two brightest apostles were French-

Its Yet the academic was already pressing forward with
men, Stendhal (Henri Beyle, 1783-1842) and Jules detailed studies which were to fill in the picture. In
Michelet (1798-1874). Stendhal, novelist and art critic, art history the most influential figures were Franz
foimd in Italy and especially in Renaissance Italy an Kugler (Handbook of the History of Painting, 1837; 2nd
antidote for the bourgeois philistinism and mediocrity ed. 1847) and John Ruskin (Lectures on Architecture
of the France of the post-Napoleonic period. His Italy and Painting, 1854), for both of whom in different ways
was a world of men of virtit: Cesare Borgia was the the Renaissance marked a watershed. In the history
type who dared everything. of literature and scholarship the greatest work of the
mid-nineteenth century was Georg Voigt's Revival of
In Italy, a man distinguished himself by all forms of merit
Classical Antiquity which was published in German
. . . and a woman of the si.\teenth century loved a man
in 1859. This solid and imaginative book covers the
learned in Greek as well as, if not more than, she would
have loved a man famous for his martial valour. Then one history of humanism from Petrarch down to die early
saw and not the habit of gallantry. That is the

passions, fifteenth century and is still a mine of exact informa-
great difference between Italy and France (Abbesse de . . .
tion. Its assumption was, however, a broad generaliza-
Castro, trans. Scott-MoncriefF). tion. "At this moment there developed in Italy the seed
of a new civilization, which was to bear its fruits first
In these lines we see the identification of a Renaissance
in the literary and artistic field and later to gather
period and the assumption that the fimdamental ele-
under the standard of literature and scholarship not
ments in it are based on national characteristics. Simi-
merely Italy but the whole civilized world." He ex-
larly the historian Michelet poured fire into the
plained that the "heart of this change "was the
"
Renaissance in the volume so entitled of his Histoire

adoption of humanitas, all that was uniquely human
de France. He came to this section of the work after
in the spirit and soul of man, human in the Greek and
completing the Middle Ages (1833-44) and the Reio-
Roman sense, and so in contradiction to the outlook
httton (1847-53). In this last section (Renaissance to
of Christendom and the Church." This, he adds, could
Revolution, 1855-67) his prose-poetry is wilder and an
only have taken place in Italy: "In Italy such [classical]
attempt has been made to relate the vehemence of his
studies aroused sentiment and passion, and became
approach to a crisis in his own emotional life. However "
matters of flesh and blood.

that may be, the pages of glowing generalization were
After all this blood and thmider, coloring even the
to be remarkably influential. The traditional achieve-
curious to read the
ments of the Renaissance a new art and the renewal — precise erudition of Voigt,
Civilization [Kulttir] of the Renaissance in Italy
it is
by
of classical studies —
Michelet sweeps aside: such was
Jacob Burckhardt. Published first at Basel in 1860, this
a mere arabesque, a nothingness.
was to be the most significant single treatment of its
So great a power of will is said to have remained fruitless. subject. It defined a period and its content. All subse-
What could be more discouraging for human thought! quent discussion of the Renaissance turns on this re-
Only these over-prejudiced minds have forgotten two markable work. Burckhardt was born and brought up
things, two little things, which belong to that age more than in Basel. Thoroughly groimded in the classics at school,
to any of its predecessors: the discovery of the world and
he read theology at the university. He later studied
the discovery of man.
history with Ranke at Berlin before developing the
. . .
.'Vnd, definitively, the Middle .'^ges are at death's door

interest in art history which was to be his main concern
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the blazing
in later years. After a period of sporadic teaching and
beacons of printing, of classical antiquity, of America, the
journalism, undertaken to finance visits to Italy, he
Orient and the true system of the world converge on them
their withering light. . . .
became professor of history at Basel in 1858 and taught
A had taken place. The world was changed.

vast event there almost to the end of his life. By the time of his
Not one state in Europe, even the most immobile of them, appointment he had published a revised and extended
but did not find itself, now, involved in a wholly novel version of Kugler's Handbook (1847), The Age of 125
Constantine the Great (1853), and the Cicerone (1855). detailed description: it will be sufficient to indicate its
Though some of his other works were to appear after contents in a few words. Part i is devoted to "the State
his death, the Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy as a work of art," and summarizes the Italian history
was to be the last major book pubUshed in his hfetime. of the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries in terms
Burckhardt saw his Renaissance "essay" (for this is his of tyrannies and republics, with a heavy priority to
emphatic description of it) gradually acquire a world the former. Part ii is devoted to "the development of
reputation. He never revised it, though he allowed the individual" and in it Burckhardt contrasts medieval
others to annotate it —
the eruditi for whom he felt anonymity with "universal men" and the idea of fame.
boredom tinged with contempt. The monumental con- Part iii deals with "the revival of antiquity," that is
troversies the work was to produce, the mountains of the humanists, their care for texts, their scholarship,
commentary and analysis, were far from being to his and their literary exercises. Part iv, entitled from
taste. Michelet's phrase "the discovery of the world and of
In a profound way the sympathies of this lonely man man," discusses natural science, the appreciation of
lay with Goethe and not with the professors and their natural beauty, the desire to analyze the human situa-
diligent seminars. It is one of the most curious of tion and describe the human scene. Part v, "society
paradoxes that the scholar who, more than any other, and festivals," deals partly with the social structure
delineated the Renaissance for the next three genera- of peninsular society, partly with outward display.
tions lost interest in the subject. In view of this one Finally in Part vi Burckhardt turns to "morality and
must ask why Burckhardt's interpretation has, on the religion," and assembles evidence for mounting super-
whole, stood the test of time. The reason is partly the stition and a steady erosion of Christian morality.
artistry and subtlety of his style, partly the novelty of Throughout the work the author is dealing consciously
his technique of research and exposition, partly the with the spirit of Italy, the "genius of the Italian peo-
happy coincidence in his synthesis of many elements ple," who are "the first bom among the sons of
which had already proved enduring. What earlier Europe," ushering in the modem world and paying
writers had often enunciated as shattering truths, were for their priority with the harsh and cynical situation
filledby Burckhardt with cautious qualifications. His of the sixteenth century, moderated by the syncretism
approach to his subject was total all the sources — of Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. "Echoes of medie-
readily accessible to him were ransacked for a view val mysticism here flow into one current with Platonic
of society and culture in the round; no such balanced doctrines, and with a characteristically modem spirit.
and integrated view of a whole epoch in all its aspects One knowledge of
of the most precious fruits of the
had been attempted. As for his indebtedness to earlier the world and of man here comes to maturity, on whose
writers we cannot do better than to quote the following account alone the Italian Renaissance must be called
words of Wallace K. Ferguson: the leader of the modem ages." These are the final
The time was ripe for a new idealization of the Renaissance sentences in the book.
analogous to the neo-classical idealization of ancient Greece Burckhardtfairly and firmly asserted four proposi-
or the Romantic rehabilitation of the Middle Ages. . . . The tions; therewas indeed a Renaissance, a definable and
closely associated currents of liberalism, new humanism and important moment in the spiritual and material evolu-
German idealism in nineteenth-century thought had tion of Western man; this moment was sharply opposed
combined to establish as essential attributes of modern to the Middle Ages (which accordingly came into
progress the growth of individual freedom of thought and clearer focus from the acceptance of this view); the
expression, the full development of self-conscious person- Renaissance inaugurated the modem world; and it was
ality, and the evolution of moral autonomy founded upon
a product initially of the Italian people (though its
a high conception of the dignity of man. .\nd by the
ultimate relevance was to be worldwide). These as-
. . .
middle of the nineteenth century, a long series of inter-

sumptions were soon challenged, and so were many
pretations, approaching the problem from various angles,
had taught men to see in the Renaissance, bounded on one of the subsidiary arguments of the book. The studies
side by the Middle .\ges and on the other by the Reforma- by Wallace K. Ferguson, Franco Simone, and others
tion and Counter-Reformation, the age in which all these referred to in the Bibliography below form a guide
traits of the modern world had first appeared and had to the ensuing debates, which cannot be rehearsed here.
flourished with youthful vigor. Burckhardt's decisive contri- Some points must, however, be briefly touched on if
bution was to gather all these trends of interpretation to- the reader is to be aware of the present status of the
gether into one coherent synthesis, based upon a respectable idea of the Renaissance.
foundation of historical scholarship (Ferguson, pp. 180, 182).
One of the assumptions of Burckhardt and his con-
The book, encountered in our own days by most temporaries has been commonly and quietly aban-
126 students in survey courses, is too familiar to need doned. No one coiJd now pretend that the Renaissance
ushered in the modern world if by modern we mean centuries. For example the love of nature has been
the world of the twentieth century. The notion of traced to Saint Francis. Or again, the medievalist has
popular sovereignty to which all governments pay at been able to show that a high degree of repre-
any rate lip service, the aim of universal education, sentational art can be found in the thirteenth century.
the abandonment in educational practice of the teach- Gilson went further and argued that in Abelard was
ing of the old "humanities," these are only a few of to be seen a "Renaissance man" and that therefore the
the ways in which the Renaissance world, still lingering category was meaningless. Much of this, while illumi-
on in nineteenth-century Europe, has now been left nating, even (in the case of Gilson) deeply moving, is
behind.To them we may add the art and architecture beside the point. One swallow does not make a sum-
of our own times which no longer look back to mer. But those scholars who have stressed the "revival
Masaccio and Michelangelo, to Bramante and Palladio. of antiquity" as the essential ingredient of the Renais-
Even more important, we entirely lack any one sance have been forced to admit that there were earlier
accepted style in the arts or in literature. We enjoy examples of a conscious attempt to resuscitate ancient
(or pretend to) a Greek vase alongside a medieval (Latin) language and ideals. Did this not happen among
altarpiece, a statue by Bernini along with a jocular the scholars at the court of Charlemagne? Is there not
construction by Picasso. We admire (or pretend to) at plentiful evidence of such interests among the contem-
the same instant the Decameron and Finnegans Wake. poraries of John of Salisbury (ca. 1115-80) at Chartres
Our model is to have all models or no model. It was and Paris? So have emerged the "Carolingian Renais-
not thus as late as Reynolds and Dr. Johnson, even as sance" and the "Renaissance of the Twelfth Century."
late as Burckhardt. Yet the passing of Renaissance From these researches much light has been shed on
values as an influence has naturally lent definition to the rich tapestry of medieval thought and art. Yet, as
the periodic concept. We have now, at any rate in our with the exceptional Abelard, so with Alcuin and his
centers of so-called higher learning, digested the friends, so with John of Salisbury's circle, one fails to
European past, not into the tripartite division of the find thewide support, the association with the new
humanist, but into four divisions: ancient, medieval. ideas of themen who were politically and socially of
Renaissance, and modem. It is true that much nice weight. These medieval Latinizers were antiquaries,
argument has revolved round the delimitation of fron- they were not involving antiquity in the pursuit of
tiers; boundary commissioners regularly snarl at each solutions of current dilemmas.
other. And it is probably the case that the Renaissance The rival "Renaissances" are perhaps by now
as a period has found readier recognition in the superannuated. Not so the question of the Renaissance
academies of North America than in those of Europe, as a fundamental reorientation of the human predica-
where university departments labelled "Renaissance" ment. If it was significant (so runs the argvunent) then
are to be found, if at all, in literature rather than in it must have been significant in the fields of politics,
history or the fine arts. None of this has much signifi- of science, of religion, as well as in those of literature,
cance, being the small change in which dons delight. morality, and the arts. Yet it is not difficult to show
The acceptance that the Renaissance dead and gone
is that in these spheres the innovations of the Italians,
is, however, important as it has removed at any rate even as developed at large through Europe, had little
some of the acerbities from the discussion of this part direct influence. The devices of governments were
of the past. We may still feel inspiration or relevance perhaps enriched a little by the humanities, but they
in fifteenth- and sixteenth-centiu'y situations. We need were hardly transformed. Princes employed laymen
no longer feel that this involves identifying ourselves educated in the new Latin instead of clerks educated
with them. in the old Latin: a significant change but hardly catas-
Two aspects of post-Burckhardt Renaissance argu- trophic. We can no longer pretend that Machiavelli's
ment are sufficiently important to merit a further word: which was new rather than
Prince described a situation
the emergence of other Renaissances besides that which one of which the were Cain and
earliest protagonists
started in Italy in the Trecento; and the problem of Abel. That he dotted the i's and crossed the t's was
the Renaissance as a radical transformation of society important, and so was the aversion he provoked in
in all its aspects. many decent conventional men. But none of this ex-
It was natural that writers interested in medieval actly altered the structure of politics.
history and culture should react sharply to the deni- It is not so different with the case of religion. It
gration of their period by Burckhardt and scores of would be generally conceded that the new philology
lesser men. This reaction has taken many forms. It has contributed something towards the Reformation and
been argued that the roots of all that occurred in the so did the equation of wisdom with book-learning. But
time of Petrarch and later are to be found in earlier Burckhardt's assumption, shared by many of his con- 127
temporaries and followers, that the Renaissance was nourishes this general awareness of the Renaissance.
in some sense "pagan" does not bear examination. Millions of Germans, Swiss, Austrians, French, British,
Atheists are rarissimi among the humanists, though the and .Americans still pour into the peninsula each year,
charge was happily bandied about (along with illegit- though fewer of them live there for long periods, as
imacy) acrimony of learned diatribe. In
in the they did before the First World War. .\nd the Italy
Protestant as in Catholic Europe (after the Reforma- which meets the visitor's eye is overwhelmingly an
tion) a basic acceptance of the Christian verities Italy of the late Renaissance. The relatively tidy con-
prevailed and it is hard, if not impossible, to discern cept of the Renaissance currently held by academics
any important change directly due to the Renaissance. must be placed against this larger, amorphous but
Science is in a somewhat special category. We are, influential popular feeling.
and since the nineteenth century have been, in a
"modern" world largely determined by the physical BIBLIOGRAPHY
scientists. If this is our modernity and the Renaissance
There is a vast literature, to which a number of special-
contributed nothing to it, was there a Renaissance?
ized reviews and bibliographies are now devoted: e.g.,
Some (Lynn Thomdike was one) would say No. The
Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance (Geneva, since
humanist of the fifteenth and si.\teenth centuries cer-
1941), and earlier as Humanisine et Renaissance (Paris,
tainly contributed very little to the stock of ideas from 1934-41); Renaissance Xeus (New York, since 1948), and
which Galileo and Newton were to nourish themselves. Studies in the Renaissatice (New York, since 1954); Bibli-
We can no longer regard, with Bacon, the compass, ographic internationale d'Humanisme et de Renaissance
gimpowder, and the printing press as occurring sud- (Geneva, since 1966). The indispensable guide to the history
denly or as constituting the instruments of sudden of the idea is Wallace K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in
change. It is fair to add, however, that there were HistoricalThought (Boston, 1948), which should be read in
scientists at work in the Renaissance period and their
conjunction with Franco Simone, La coscienza della
Rinascita negli umanisti francesi (Rome, 1949), and //
activities are in this sense "Renaissance."
Rinascimento francese (Turin. 1961). For Burckhardt, see
Overall it seems therefore inescapable that the
W. Kaegi, Jacob Burckhardt, cine Biographie. 4 vols. (Basel,
Renaissance can no longer arrogate to itself all the
1947-67). .\ recent discussion of the word itself will be found
elements which were to influence subsequent history. Renaissance (Rome,
in B. L. Ullman, Studies in the Italian
It was a profound change, affecting public life in many 1955), pp. 11-25. For philosophical aspects see the many
of its aspects, but not in all of them. Its modes of works of P. O. Kristeller and of E. Garin. Kristeller's defini-
thought, its aesthetic standards, its techniques of edu- tion of humanism is quoted above from The Classics and
cation, and the and moral principles on which
social Renaissance Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1955), reprinted
all these rested were to be long-lived, but they became as Renaissance Thought: The Classic. Scholastic and
irrelevant in the course of the nineteenth centiu-y. Humanist Strains (New York, 1961). Recent fimdamenta!
,\t a more popular level the Renaissance idea has studies of the structure of Renaissance concepts are by Hans
Baron, Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance, 2nd rev. ed.
percolated to many areas of vulgarization, high and
(Princeton, 1966), together with earlier papers of which two
low. Besides the competing Renaissances of scholars
may be instanced: "Cicero and the Roman Civic Spirit in
mentioned above it is not uncommon for the word to
the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance," Bull. ]. Rylands
be applied loosely to any revival: "the Renaissance of
Library, 22 (1938), and "Franciscan Poverty and Civic
Scottish literature," "the Renaissance of Irish drama." Wealth in Humanistic Thought," Speculum, 13 (1938). See
As used in this way the word has often little meaning. Engenio Garin, L'umanesimo italiano (Bari, 1952; trans.
Such a use of the word is often equivalent to "birth," Mimz, Oxford, The best single study of educational
1965).
rather than "rebirth," as no antecedent period or cul- theory remains W. H. Woodward, Studies in Education
ture is in question. More important is the persistence during the .^ge of the Renaissance (Camhridge, 1906; reprint
of the Renaissance as the symbol of a spiritual state. New York, 1967). For the revival of antiquity, besides Voigt
As has been noted, this goes back to early nine- as in the text above, see J.
E. Sandys, A History of Classical
Scholarship, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1903-08); R. R. Bolgar, The
teenth-century writers like Stendhal. The concepts of
Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries (Cambridge, 1954).
freedom and paganism, of men of unbridled genius and
For the debate over the earlier "Renaissances" two brilliant
of miiversal men have had a secure place in literary
books are: C. H. Haskins, Tlie Renaissance of the Twelfth
tradition since Burckhardt and (for the English-
Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1927), and E. Gilson, HMoise
speaking world) since John Addington Symonds' large Ann Arbor, 1960);
etAbelard (Paris, 1938; trans. L. K. Shook,
scale Retiaissance m Itahj (7 vols., 1875-86). Such see in general E. Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences
myths remain impervious to scholarly criticism and are in Western Art (Stockholm, 1960). For discussion of the
lying about to be put to use by novelists and film Renaissance and politics see, inter alia, F. Chabod's contri-
128 producers. The continued physical attraction of Italy bution to Actes du colloque .sur la Reruiissance (Paris, 1958);
RENAISSANCE HUMANISM
the matter really needs to be studied, so to speak, on the his Familiares ("Familiar Letters"), he placed among
ground: e.g., F. Gilbert, MachiavelH and Guicciardini the first some letters which contained a stringent criti-
(Princeton, 1965). There is nothing adequate on religion in cism of this type of philosophy. It seemed to Petrarch
the Renaissance, but there is an elaborate bibliography by to be a dialectic in the worst sense of the word; that
C. Angeleri, // problema religioso del Rinascimento
is, not a genuine logic, but a sophistic artifice aimed
(Florence, 1952). Lynn Thomdike's criticism from the point
at routing the adversary without respect for tnith. The
of view of a historian of science is briefly presented in
questions treated by this dialectic appeared futile and
"Renaissance or Prenaissance," in Journal of the History of
Ideas. 4 (1943), 65-74. idle to Petrarch, imworthy of the attention of men
preoccupied with attaining true wisdom. True wisdom
DENYS HAY concerns mankind and his deeds, the conduct of private
[See also Classicism in Literature; Cycles; Enlightenment: life and the governance of the state, the enjoyment
Gothic; Humanism in Italy; Nationalism; Periodization; of beauty and the contemplation of truth. These have
Reformation; Renaissance Humanism; Romanticism; Virtii.] always been the ends which the classical philosophers
pursued. Modern philosophers disregard these ends and
mistakenly take dialectic, which is a simple means of
inquiry, for an end in itself. But if it is useful for
training youth in discussion, it becomes a futile and
RENAISSANCE HUMANISM ridiculous game in the hands of mature men who ought
to confront the real problems of life.
Two Interpretations. Renaissance humanism is the This polemical position was renewed by all the
name for an intellectual movement that developed in Italian humanists between the fourteenth and fifteenth
Italyfrom the middle of the fourteenth centiu-y to the centuries.
end of the fifteenth, and which had as its aim a new Coluccio Salutati, who was chancel-
for thirty years
evaluation of man, of his place in nature and in history, lor of the Signoria of Florence, Leonardo Bruni, and
and of the disciplines which concern him. The first Lorenzo Valla to name only the major figures, took
characteristic feature of this movement is that it origi- over as their task Petrarch's condemnation, and insisted
nated and was carried on not by professional philoso- on the necessity of a man's education being based on
phers but by men of letters, historians, moralists, and the disciplines which are closely connected with the
statesmen, in dispute with the philosophers of the time, nature and conduct of man, such as poetry, eloquence,
to whom they opposed the aurea sapientia ("golden history, philosophy, ethics, politics, and economics; on
wisdom") of the philosophers and writers of the classi- those disciplines, in short, which already in Cicero's
cal period. The philosophers of that time who were time, Aulus Gellius {Noctes Atticae. XIII, 17) had
teaching in the Italian universities, or in those of Paris maintained constituted the true paideia and humanitas,
or Oxford, were to all intents and purposes Ockhamists, that is, the education of man as man, insofar as he is
followers of the logica moderna, that is of nominalistic distinguished from all the other animals.
or terministic logic. Very often they used this logic in This debate between humanists and Scholastics
treating physical and mathematical questions and es- might at first sight seem like a debate between the "two
pecially in the solution of the difficulties inherent in cultures, " that is, between a culture of a scientific
the concept of infinite quantity; that is, of a quantity tendency and one of a rhetorical or literary tendency.
which can be made greater or smaller than any given In fact, that is how it has been interpreted by some
quantity. The De sensu composite et diviso ("Of who have seen in humanism an "essentially medieval
Compounded and Divided Meaning") of Heytesbury and essentially Christian phenomenon; hence the
"
(fl. 1340) and above all the Liber calculationwn ("Book continuation and elaboration of a doctrine that had
of Calculation") of Swineshead (fl. 1.340) (also called already been prevalent (Bush, p. 30).
Suseth or Suiseth) found in the Italian schools of the From this point of view humanism has no specific
second half of the fourteenth century numerous character. Already in the thirteenth century there had
imitators and followers, and there was a proliferation been a rebirth of classical culture and especially of the
of Sophismata, Insolubilia, and Obligationes which theological conceptions of Plato and Aristotle, to which
claimed to solve itmumerable paradoxes; from the more Saint Thomas had given a new form. Werner Jaeger
ancient ones, characteristic of the Megarian-Stoic in particular on this point in an essay
insisted
School (like that of the liar), to the later ones connected Humanism and Tlieology (Milwaukee, 1943), which has
with the augmentation or diminution ad infinitum of thrown light upon the close connection between
size, intensity, motion, velocity, weight, etc. classical theology and the concept of paideia, that is,
When between 1351 and 1353 Petrarch collected humanistic education. A corollary of this interpretation 129
is that far from aiding in the birth of modem science Put in this form the problem becomes susceptible
— which coincided with the work of Leonardo and of a solution which takes account of all the funda-
Gahleo — humanism really constituted a retarding mental facts. Let us begin by considering the primary
influence; that it is thus a "counter-Renaissance," and most obvious aspect of humanism: the rebirth of
actually a counter-humanism, according to Hiram classical studies. These certainly had not been
Haydn (The Counter-Renaissance, 1950); and that the neglected in the preceding centuries, which had indeed
antecedents of science should be sought (as Duhem had used them as the principal source of their culture. But
already done) in the development of medieval Aris- when Lorenzo Valla, in his celebrated De falsa credita
totehanism. Even the latter had been retarded, and not et ementita Constantini donatione Declamatio (1440),
promoted, by Renaissance humanism (M. C. Clagett, proved the falsity of the donation that the Emperor
1959; John H. Randall, Jr., 1961). Constantine was supposed to have made to Pope
This interpretation, however, is opposed not only Silvester, the donation of the supreme political author-
to the explicit assertions of the humanists, who believed ity over the whole Roman Empire. In order to show
they were living in a new epoch, but also to the other the "stupidity of the concepts and words" which
interpretation which takes literally the assertions of the emerged from this document, that is, their incongruity
humanists seeking to by showing that
justify its validity and inexactitude, he made use of the lack of reliable
if humanistic culture has from many points of view testimony or other historical sources which would have
the same content as medieval cultm-e, it has a different validated it and of its contrast with Roman, Hebrew,
fonn which shows a new spirit, that is, a new attitude and Christian law. He thus showed that he knew how
towards the world. This thesis has been sustained in to make use of all the instruments of which modern
works (Burckhardt, Dilthey, Voigt, Cassirer), and
classic historical investigation still avails itself. The discovery
has been taken up with renewed vigor and greater and use of these instruments was the first great conquest
balance by competent scholars, both Italian and non- of Italian humanism.
Italian. In its more aware and modern form this inter- The humanists did not accept classical antiquity in
pretation does not take literally all the theses of the the form which it had assumed during the preceding
humanists.It does not deny the historical continuity centuries. They wished to discover its authenticity and
between medieval and humanistic culture which are its original sources, both in their true perspective. The
both fed from the same sources, those of classical medieval writers ignored this perspective, just as me-
antiquity. It does not deny the permanence in dieval painting ignored optical perspective, which was
humanism of the theological presuppositions that developed in the great painting of the Renaissance. For
classical antiquity and medieval philosophy had made them, the "ancients" were contemporaries or, better,
their own. It does not agree with those humanists when were out of time and history, as, in fact, they felt
they pretend that the whole medieval period was an themselves to be. The perception of historical distance,
epoch of barbarism, and that man's every effort must which is an indispensable condition of historiographical
be directed towards emerging from this state of work, hence of the situation of a work, of a person,
barbarism, and entering into the promised land of truth and place,
of a fact of any sort, in a determinate time
and freedom. At the same time they retain the idea was lacking almost entirely. The humanists acquired
thathumanism constituted a force of radical iimovation this perception and made the best possible use of it.
and it alone had laid the foundations of what today

that The humanists found medieval language "barbarous,"
we call "the modern world." because was a deformation or corruption of classical
it
The Historical Method. The comparison and critical Latin. They sawthat the interpretation which medieval
evaluation of these two interpretations, which in their writers had given of ancient works was weakened by
extreme or simplified form are antithetical, can be ignorance of the genuine texts, and of many works
made not by expoimding merely the ideas of the which they did not possess or of which they took no
humanists but also and above all by considering if and notice, by their confusion of doctrines and diverse
how far they form a turning point in the civilization points of view, and by their inability to recognize in
of their time, and if they have indicated the directions their true nature the writers (or the works), of classical
along which civilization developed in the centuries that antiquity. They continued, it is true, like all medieval
followed. The crucial problem of Italian humanism can authors, to esteem such writers as the masters of all
be expressed then as follows: has this humanism made wisdom, as models of all art, of all poetry, and of all
a decisive contribution to the historv of the ideas that human achievement. But they were far from accepting
still today constitute the patrimony of western civili- them just as they stood, from attempting to imitate
loU zation, and in what does this contribution consist? them. They wished to rediscover them as guides and
masters of a kind of work which had been initiated Pico della Mirandola, and Marsilio Ficino take their
by them, and which, interrupted by "barbarism," cue from the old discussions of free will precisely in
should be taken up again and carried forward. order to show that capacity in mankind. Manetti
There is no doubt that these demands have been expressed the significance of human life with the for-
answered at times adequately and at times inade- mula, Agere et which he imderstood as
intelligere,
quately. But there is no doubt either that these de- meaning "to know how and to be able to govern and
mands, just as they were formulated, still constitute rule the world which was made for man." In Pico's
the directives today of historiography. oration, De dignitate hominis (1486), which has been
Freedom. But the rebirth of classical studies was not called the "Manifesto of the Italian Renaissance," he
an end in itself for the humanists. Nor was its range speaks of man as a being who, unlike all others, has
limited to the domain of language, of literature, of art, no fi.xed location nor aspect, nor determined form, nor
and of history. Its main scope was that of returning laws which determine his natiu'e; but is one who can
to man capacities, powers, and attitudes that medie\al choose for himself his location or nature, or whatever
cultvire had obscured or negated. The humanists were form he wishes, and give his own laws to himself. Man
aware that they were living in a world which was can, says Pico, either degenerate among inferior beings
rapidly changing and in which the medieval structures or be regenerated among superior and divine beings.
(the Empire, the Church, feudalism) had lost their .^11 depends on his choice.
validity. The Italian republics and signorial states were This confidence is shared by all the humanists and
headed by the new bourgeois class which, moreover, not only the Italians. As has been said, it is only par-
was beginning to acquire political importance also in tially an expression of the historical situation in which
the great monarchies of France, England, and Spain. humanism flourished, a situation in which, while new
It was the era in which trade, voyages, and exchanges forces were arising, the old forces of traditional institu-
of all sorts came to the forefront: the era which starts tions and beliefs still fought vigorously and often had
with Columbus' undertaking the discovery of the new the upper hand. It was rather a seed sown for the
world. future, a new plan of life for man and human society,
In these circumstances the humanists claim for man a new model of the relations that should be established
a new position in the world. The old political between man and the world of nature and of history.
hierarchies, which held themselves to be repre- It is an optimistic plan of which, now at a distance
sentatives and guardians of a cosmic order, ordained of centuries, we can perceive the naivete, because we
and established directly by God, still made their force know that the real possibilities that are offered to man
felt; fires were still kindled for witches and heretics, are not infinite, but subject to restrictive conditions
and life itself in the Italian cities was lacerated by of all kinds. In any event the humanists, making their
internecine quarrels. The Golden Age, the peaceful own the maxim Agere et inteUigere. set as their first
and happy republic of which Plato had spoken, was aim a principle which we can hardly doubt today: the
very remote from the realitv in which the humanists limits of human planning are the same as the limits
lived. But they held that man could and should work of human knowledge.
to construct it. The Return to Origins. It is a fact that the humanists
This is the significance of the "discovery of man" maintained the theological conception substantially
in which many historians have seen the principal ac- intact. They held that the natural world has an order
complisfmient of humanism. The humanists had faith which is rational and that the origin of this order is
in man's power to plan his life in the world, to com- God. Their preference went nevertheless towards
mand his destiny and direct it towards freedom, justice, Plato, or better towards Neo-Platonism, although
and peace. All Christian, patristic, and scholastic phi- Aristotelianism had an important role in the
also
losophy had defended "free will," and had made thought of the Renaissance (to which we shall return
countless attempts to reconcile it with divine provi- below). The foundation of the Platonic Academy in
dence and the immutable cosmic order in which it is Florence and the work of Marsilio Ficino and his
manifested. The humanists frequently took over these followers are the best evidence of the preference of
attempts and repeated more or less the same solutions. the humanists for Platonism. What were the reasons
But what truly interested them was not free will as for this preference?
an attribute inseparable from nature and the human Platonism was better suited than Aristotelianism to
will, but what free will makes it possible for man to placing man in the ideal center of the world. In the
be and to do, the capacity which him of trans-

it gives Theologia platonica (1482) Marsilio Ficino distin-
forming himself and his world. Giannozzo Manetti, guished five levels of reality: body, quality, soul, the 131
angel, and God. The at the middle point and

soul is there was nothing similar. The return to origins was
is the third median essence; whether
essence or only the mystic ascesii for the reunification of the soul
ascending from body to God or descending from God with God.
to body, it is on the third level. Thus it is the living But outside of Platonism the return to origins
knot of reality. God and body are at the two extremes assumed a definitely worldly and historical character.
of realityand neitlier the angels nor quality mediate Machiavelli understood it as the instrument which
these two extremes, because the angels are turned human communities used to renew themselves and to
towards God, and quality towards body. As a creature recapture their primordial strength. In states, he says,
endowed with soul, man can therefore txirn either the reduction to origins is brought about by extrinsic
towards corporeal things or towards divine things and accident or intrinsic prudence. In ancient Rome defeats
is thus free, because what he is or becomes depends (in battle) were often the cause of men's seeking to
on his choice. return to the original order of their community; these
These features of Ficino's Platonism, which recur were extrinsic accidents. And appropriate institutions,
also in his numerous followers, have nothing in com- such as that of the tribimes of the people or of the
mon with classical and medieval Platonism. The con- censors, as well as the work of individuals of excep-
ceptual structiues of Platonism remain, but are utilized tional virtue, had the ta.sk of recalling the citizens to
only in granting to man a specific capacity, a freedom their original virtue; this was the intrinsic prudence
of choice not even known to beings superior to man. of the Roman state. But also, religious commimities
The second reason for the diffusion of Platonism The Chris-
are saved only by a return to their origins.
among the humanists is that the doctrine furnished would have dwindled to nought if it had
tian religion
them with a theme which returns like a leitmotiv in not been returned to its origin by Saint Francis and
their writings: that of the return to origins. In ancient Saint Dominic, who with the poverty and example of
and medieval Neo-Platonism this theme is of a strictly the life of Christ, restored its primitive strength
religious nature. The origin is God and the return to (Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. Ill, Ch. I).
this origin consists in reversing the emanative process And in fact the historical research of Machia\elli was
which goes from God to things, in remounting the carried on precisely as a model by which the Italian
pathway upward and in tending to identify oneself with community, finding new knowledge of itself in its
God. This religious meaning remains in the works of original political orders, might renew itself and regain
the humanists, but to it is joined, or at times substituted, strength and political unity. In Renaissance humanism
a worldly and historical meaning, according to which these innovative graftings of new interpretations on
the origin to which one should return is not God but old tnmks are very frequent. If one looks only at the
the earthly origin of man and the human world. old tnmks, one does not see the originality of
Already Dante had written in the Convivio (IV, 12), humanism. But if one sees what has been grafted onto
"The highest desire of each thing, and the first given the tnmks, its originality and its modernity emerge as
by nature, is the retvun to its origin." Pico della obvious.
Mirandola in De ente et uno defined happiness as "the Naturalism. If one considers the frequent polemics
return to the origin," which is also the return to the that the humanists conducted against the study of
primordial knowledge of man; this knowledge is and particularK' that of .\ristotle, humanism
physics,
diffused and diversified through the many channels of would appear to be an antinaturalism. In his De
his history, but remains one in its substance and in its nobilitate legum et medicinae Coluccio Salutati put the
vmity, and ought to be reintegrated by reconciling study of law, which concerns men and their interrela-
religion and philosophy, Platonism and Aristotelianism, tions, above that of medicine, and in general above
moral science and natural philosophy, natural philoso- the sciences of nature, which are concerned with
phy and theology. things. In the hagogicon moralis disciplinae Leonardo
With the return to origins, according to Pico, au- Bruni asserted that those who passed over moral phi-
thentic religious peace can be realized, because it can losophy and devoted themselves, on the contrary, to
be seen that all and the most
religions, all philosophies, physical science, seemed, so to speak, to be occupied
diverse forms of wisdom which humanity possesses with matters that are foreign to them while neglecting
derive from a single source which is God Himself. those that are close. .Analogous ideas were expressed
Renaissance humanism means by religious tolerance by Matteo Palmieri in his work Della vita civile (ca.
not the peaceful coexistence of different religious pro- 1440) and Bartolommeo de' Sacchi in De optima cive.
fessions, but something founded on the unity of origin All these humanists contrast the "moral Aristotle" with
which deprives religious differences of any value. the "physical Aristotle." The same Leonardo Bruni
132 Obviously in classical Platonism or Neo-Platonism translated from Greek into Latin the Nicomathean
Ethics, the Politics, and the Economics of Aristotle, with his home and thereby recognize that the fundamental
the polemical purpose of calling attention to that part needs of his life bind him to it. The humanists in
of Aristotle's work that deals precisely with man and general did not deny the transcendent end of man, his
and which had been neglected or
his life in society supernatural life and beatitude. But they set up a new
even ignored by the medieval writers. evaluation of man's needs and of the relations that bind
But this polemical attitude did not prevent the him to nature, and hence they tried from this point
humanists from finding, translating, or retranslating, of view to modify radically the scale of moral values.
and circulating the basic texts of ancient science. The The De vohiptate (14.31) of Lorenzo Valla is the basic
De medicina of Celsus (42 b.c.-a.d. 37), unknown in document concerning this point. The thesis of the work
the Middle Ages, had just been discovered in 1426 by is that only pleasure is the authentic good of man and
Guarino and was then widely circulated and studied that all the other goods can be reduced to pleasure.
(printed in 1476, English trans., 1876). It was quoted It is the end that nature herself has indicated to man,
by Leonardo da Vinci. The writings of Hippocrates furnishing him also with the means of obtaining it.
and Galen were, still in the fifteenth century, retrans- External goods, like riches, health, honor, power, are
lated and provided with commentaries. The works of desirable only because of their being sources of pleas-
Archimedes already circulated in Greek in the first m'e. Music, song, wine are sources of pleasine that one
decades of the fifteenth century and were translated need not depreciate; and vice is an evil because it does
towards the middle of the century. From these works not leave the soul in peace but disturbs it by the
Galileo obtained decisive inspiration for his own work. memory of that which has been done. The heroic
Precisely through the knowledge of these texts, pro- sacrifices of which both ancients and moderns speak
vided by the humanists, the renewal of science was have also been made for pleasure; because he who is
being prepared. "Endeavoring to see in nature what placed in the impossibility of finding it seeks at least,
Greek writers had declared to be there, European in subordinate order, to avoid the pain of its privation.
"
scientists slowly came to see what really was there Glory and contemplative life are likewise desired for
(Marie Boas, p. 49). the pleasure that they confer. And Valla does not
At the same time the flowering of painting with its hesitate to say that "courtesans and harlots are more
new perspective, of architecture, and of craftsmanship deserving of humankind than holy and chaste virgins"
in many forms and refinements, demonstrated the {De vohiptate. I). On pleasure is fomided human
increasing search for new techniques and for the solidarity itself, because since the origins of humanity
knowledge which was indispensable for putting them no one has desired or seen with joy another's evil, but
into practice. The ideal approach towards art, in that on the contrary has desired the good of another and
period, and towards the Renaissance itself, is charac- has rejoiced when it has befallen him. One can miscal-
terized by a return to nature, in contention against the culate and desire something that seems to be
all this
stereotyped svmbolic forms of medieval art; that is, a pleasure both for oneself and others, and then reveals
by a tendency to seek in nature and to represent in itself on the contrary to be a pain and an evil. But
art the authentic aspects of nature herself, no longer the error can be avoided by prudent calculation.
mediated by the symbolic-linguistic forms that the These ideas of Lorenzo Valla have inspired a vast
Middle Ages had used. humanistic literature in which the polemic against
However, the same Renaissance Aristotelianisni that asceticism, held to be one of the basic values in medie-
had flourished between 1400 and 1600, above all in val life, was united to a reevaluation of Epicurus,
the school of Padua, drew its sustenance from the texts whose doctrine was believed in the Middle Ages to
rescued by the humanists, and from their researches be synonymous with impiety and immorality, and
and contributions to the affirmation of scientific whom on the contrary the humanists recognized as a
natiu"alism; especiallv in their refusal admit tlie

to true master of human wisdom. "Epicurus, "
said Cosma
possibility of miracles, and their insistence on the nec- Raimondi, "put the highest good in pleasure because
essary order which governs all natural objects. he examined more deeply the force of nature and
But notwithstanding the polemics against the study understood that we have been formed by natiu-e in such
of Aristotelian physics, a studywhich the humanists a way that nothing is more akin to us than having all
thought of as a pietiner sur place ("marking time ") and the members of the body whole and healthy and pre-
incapable of leading to knowledge that was really new serving them in this condition without being affected
and useful to man, Italian Renaissance humanism can by any spiritual or corporeal evil."
be considered as a naturalism in the most exact sense When one contrasts the literary and rhetorical char-
of the term, i.e., the belief that man is not a casual acter of humanism with the scientific interest which
guest of the natural world but must make of this world had animated certain scholastics of the fourteenth cen- loo
tiiry (John Buridan, Nicolas of Oresme, Albert of hiunanists that man is part of nature and that in her
Saxony), and from this comparison concludes that there we must and work; without the close connection
live
was a retarding action of hiumanism on natural science, that humanism established between man and his
which would have been better promoted by these worldly activity, and not only with literature and art,
Scholastics, an important fact is neglected: the Scho- but also with the crafts and daily labor, the empirical
lasticism of the fourteenth century derives its interest which avails itself primarily of
investigation of nature
from being a critique of traditional Aristotelianism, and direct observationwould not have been initiated, or
from having initiated its dissolution. The theory of would have been initiated onlv much later. The scho-
itnpetus which Buridan applied to the motion of the lastic doctors, at whom the humanists shot their arrows,
heavens and which thus rendered useless the moving made many fine speeches on cosmology and .Aristotel-
intelligence assumed bv .'\ristotle to explain this mo- ian physics, but did not put a hand to operations of
tion; the doubts of Nicolas of Oresme expressed in his research.The polemic of Galileo against "the paper
Commentario (ca. 1377) on the De caelo, on the entire world" of the Aristotelians, which gave rise to modern
.\ristotelian cosmology; and in general the empiricist science, continued and carried to its legitimate conclu-
and which the major Scholastics of
critical orientation sion the battle of the humanists.
the fourteenth century showed in their .Aristotelian Towards a New Logic. A methodological consid-
commentaries, constituted decisive attacks on the au- eration regarding the historiographic approach to a
thority of .Aristotle. But it is precisely against this phenomenon like Italian hmnanism of the Renaissance
authority that the humanists' criticism was directed. (or any other historical phenomenon) might perhaps
The Dialecticae disputationes (1439) of Lorenzo Valla be appropriate here. Some historians emphasize with
attacked the Scholastics who accepted supinely the good reasons the continuity of humanism with the
authority of .\ristotle and induced their pupils to swear Christian philosophy of the Middle .Ages; others with
not to discuss him. These, says Valla, are superstitious equally good reasons insist on the discontinuittj be-
and nonsensical men who depreciate their own merits tween the two phenomena, hence on the originality
and deprive themselves of the faculty of seeking the of humanism itself. The contrast between the two
truth. That which, in the Scholasticism of the four- schools derives principally from the ambiguousness of
teenth century, indicated the beginning of an inde- the concept of "continuity." If by continuity is meant
pendent investigation of the natural world, found a the existence of discoverable relations between the
support, not an obstacle, in the humanistic critique of recurrent theses of humanism and those of Christian
Aristotle. medieval philosophy, it is imdeniable. But relations are
We
must finally recall that the first steps of modern not only of similarity and identitv. They can be of a
science were taken by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo different nature.
and were guided by the belief that nature has a mathe- Thev can be the result of a greater or lesser impor-
matical order or, as Galileo says, "The book of nature tance attributed to certain conceptions; and of the use
is written in mathematical characters." This belief is which is made of them and of the polemical ends to
an integral part of the Platonic tradition which the which they are subordinated. The revival of Platonism,
humanists brought back to life. And it was this belief for example, is not the simple repetition of medieval
which inspired the work of Leonardo da Vinci, who Platonism; takes issue with the Aristotelian concep-
it
called himself "a man without letters," whose only tion of the world and tends to disseminate another
intention was to read "the book of nature." He main- conception in which the position of man and his ca-
tained that this book could be read onlv bv consulting pacity for planning have a determining part. The har-
experience directly and that through experience can mony, in which the humanists believed, between faith
be discovered the reason which operates in nature, a and reason, between the teachings of Christianity and
reason that is made manifest in immutable laws which, the results of philosophic research, is another trait
however, can be interpreted and understood only in which binds them to the medieval world; but this
terms of number, weight, and measure (numero, harmony served Saint Thomas, for instance, to subor-
pondere, et mensura). dinate reason to faith while it served the humanists
On the other hand the sympathy that the humanists to give reason a new dimension of freedom. The sub-
showed for magic was inspired especiallv by the active stantial identity which Pico maintained existed be-
or operative character of the magical practices, i.e., tween different faiths and different philosophies would
of their capacity for intervening in natural events, have been a heresy in the medieval world; but this
putting them, to a certain extent, under the control was the interpretation which he gave to the principle
of man, of harmony between reason and faith that had been
134 Most probably without the proclamation of the predominant in that world.
When one opposes to Renaissance humanism — as, at least elucidated the indubitable principles of that
for instance, Haydn does in the book already science. As Lorenzo Valla compared
for the syllogism,
mentioned — a "coimter-Renaissance," in which, in the it making bread: the three parts that
to the art of
polemic against the humanists enthronement of the compose it, the major premiss (propositio), and the
intellect and reason as normative principles in every minor premiss (assumptio) are the water and the flour
sector of life, an almost exclusive value is attributed from which the baker makes the dough, the conclusion
to faith, to natural instinct, to "the facts," to what is yconclusio), which is good if its components are good.
empirically real; and when Machiavelli, Montaigne, Valla's controversy led to this new approach toward
Luther (and in general the whole Protestant Reforma- logic, which a century later was to be developed in
tion) are designated as representatives of this counter- the work of Peter Ramus; to the contrast between the
Renaissance, one forgets the manifold relations which logic of inveiUion, which aimed at disciplining human
bind these figures and movements to Renaissance discourse and which was directed towards the dis-
hiunanism. Machiavelli shared substantially with the covery of new truths, and syllogistic logic, which was
humanists their interest in the world of humanity and capable only of giving order to truths already known.
the principle of the "return to origins." Montaigne like It is certainly to the criticism of Lorenzo Valla (or
the himianists turned back to classical wisdom and of his many followers) that Galileo refers when in the
obtained from it (and especially from Stoicism and First Day {Prima Giomata) of the Two Main Systems
Skepticism) data for interpreting the human condition. . (Due massimi sistemi .... 1632) he asserted that
. .
And the entire Protestant Reformation (the real pre- if is the instnuiient with which one philosophizes,
logic
cursor of which was the humanist Erasmus) was an one learns to plav the instniment from him who knows
attempt to bring Christianity back to its sources, i.e., how to play it and not from the instrument maker.
to reattach it directly to the Bible, setting aside the .\nd so demonstration is learned by reading books full
ecclesiastical tradition which had constituted the base of demonstrations, which are those of mathematicians
of medieval religion. The reevaluation of social life, and not of logicians.
of work, of human activity as the only "divine service" In conclusion, if Italian Renaissance humanism was
liy which the Christian bore witness to his inner faith, not an explosion of absolute novelty in the history of
is another humanistic aspect of the work of Luther. ideas (and perhaps no movement in this history is an
On the other hand, the criticism of the intellect and explosion of this kind), neither was it merely the con-
of reason which is common to the cohorts of the so- tinuation of the ideas that dominated the medieval
called Coimter-Renaissance is in reality the critique of world. It was, in the first place, an attempt to regain
the intellect and of reason in the Aristotelian sense of possession of the authentic legacy of the classical world
those terms, that is, of the intellect as the faculty and hence of the techniques suitable to discovering this
of apprehending first principles as self-evident, and of legacy. In the second place, it was an effort to rescue
reason as the faculty of deducing or drawing necessary human knowledge from the authority which still
conclusions by means of the syllogism from those prin- oppressed it and to vindicate its freedom. In the third
ciples. But the critique of those faculties thus imder- place, it was the first attempt to construct a body of
stood was initiated actually by the humanists. In the knowledge which met the demands of man's daily life,
Dialecticae disputationes of Lorenzo Valla, which is private and public, and therefore could serve as an
a fundamental text in this respect, logic is conceived effective instrument for his plans in the future.
as an artwhich does not have absolute principles at From the distance of centuries, we can recognize
its disposal and does not guarantee the truth of its that the attempt made by the humanists to break with
demonstrations. merely an organoti, i.e., an instru-
It is their recent past, open to man the possibility
and to
ment and coherence to human language,
to give order of a different kind of was not in vain. This attempt
life,
to the discourse which men commonly use in their has not always been maintained along the lines which
affairs. Aristotle, according to Valla, had been wrong they indicated, and even when it has, there have been
in his failure to concern himself with these affairs, and deviations and stagnations; but when all is said and
thus his logic is useless for the purpose of disciplining done it is still the direction followed by human knowl-
communication among men, communication which edge today.
deals with objectives such as the administration of
provinces, the leading of armies, the discussion of law- BIBLIOGRAPHY
suits, the practice of medicine, legislation, the writing For a systematic bibliography, see Hans Baron, "Renais-
of history, or the composition of poems. Superior to sance in Italy, " Archiv fiir Kultt,trgeschichte, Band XVII
Aristotle have been those who, like Hippocrates and (1927), 266ff.; Band XXI (1931), 95f. P. O. Kristeller and
Euclid, restricted themselves to a single science but J.
H. Randall, Jr., "The Study of the Philosophies of the 135
'
RENAISSANCE IDEA OF THE DIGNITY OF MAN
Renaissance." Juurnul of the History of Ideas, 2 (1941), on the contrarv. is developed bv study and reflection. . . .
449-96. W. K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical From this we may learn that sensual pleasure is wholly
Thought (Cambridge. Mass.. 1948). unworthy of the dignitij of the human race (emphasis added).
For references in the article see Marie Boas. The Scientific
Renaissance. 1450-1630 (London. 1962); Douglas Bush. Passages such as this were well known to the Italian
Renaissance and English Humanism (London. 1939);
humanists, and following Cicero's precedent, they were
Marshall C. Clagett, The Science of Mechanics in the Middle
able to identify the dignity of man with humanitas
Ages: 1200-1400 (Madison. 1959), Hiram Haydn. Counter-
itself, the quality of being most truly human which
Renaissance (New York. 1950); John H. Randall. Jr.. The
was to be acquired through the study of the liberal
School of Padua and the Emergence of Modem Science
(Padua. 1961). arts — the studia htimanitatis. from which they derived
The following books by Eugenio Garin probably contain their name. The notion of the dignity of man is thus
the most balanced and documented interpretation of in its origins linked with the Petrarchan ideal of the
humanism: L'umanesimo italiano (Bari, 1952). trans. P. liri illustres stressing high civic or military achieve-
Munz as Italian llumaitism (New York. 1966); Medioevo e ment to be attained through emulation of Roman
Rinascimento (Bari. 1954); La cultura filosofica del heroes, i.e.. with the pursuit of glory or fame.
Rinascimento italiano (Bari. 1961); La cultura del Moreover. Renaissance humanists found in Cicero
Rinascimento (Bari. 1967). On the same subject see also
another even more precise depiction of the excellence
Cesare Vasoli. La dialetticu <- hi retorica deU'umancsimo
of the human species, and this one also derived from
(Milan. 1968).
Stoic-Middle Platonist Greek sources, most likely
NICOL.\ ABBAGNANO Posidonius. After discussing the rationality, design, and
[See also Ancients and Moderns; Education; Humanism in providential character of the cosmos as a whole and
"
Italy; Machiavellism; Platonism in the Renaissance; its inanimate and animate parts, the Stoic, "Balbus,
Ramism; Reformation; Renaissance.] presents his arginnents "that the human race has been
the especial beneficiary of the immortal gods" (De na-
tura deorum II, 54-66). Man excels in the intricacy and
fimctional aptness of his organs and physiology, in his
erect posture from which he contemplates the heavens,
RENAISSANCE IDEA in the mind and intellect,
acuteness of his senses, in his
OF THE DIGNITY OF MAN in his gift of speech, in the pliancy and ingenuity of
his hands with which he creates the works of civili-

The dignity of mail attained its greatest prominence zation, has dominion over the earth, and sets about
and was given its characteristic meaning in the Italian "the fashioning of another world, as it were, within
Renaissance. As an idea it is usually ill-defined and the bounds and precincts of the one we have." .Knd
tends to express a complex of notions, classical and all of this is the outcome of a general providence with
Christian, which writers of the period desired to assert. which divinity looks after the human race and of a
The word dignitas is a Latin rhetorical and political special concern for individuals who are even assigned
term indicating either the possession of high political particular gods as their guardians.
or social rank or the moral qualities associated with This analysis of the excellence of man, as presented
it. It is used with great frequency by Cicero who begins by Cicero, may be regarded as the most fully developed
to give it some of the connotations of general worthi- classical laudation of the dignity of man that has
ness it acquired during the Renaissance. It is derived survived, and as representative of Greek rationalism
from the same root as decus and decorum (Sanskrit and optimism at its peak. Whether it is a direct trans-
dac-as. "fame"). Cicero discusses dignity as the quality position of the ideas of Posidonius or a Ciceronian
of masculine beauty as a subtopic to the fourth, but synthesis of other sources, it was to have a direct and
most emphasized, virtue to be sought by man, decorttm, powerful influence on Renaissance humanist treatises
or propriety, which he derives from Panaetias" concept, on the dignity of man. But long before this happened,
to preport (De ofjiciis, I. 27, 36). In the course of this in antiquity, this cluster of ideas was blended with
discussion Cicero applies the term "dignity" to the biblical conceptions of the natm-e and role of man in
human race, as that quality which distinguishes it from the imiverse within the history of the Judeo-Christian
animals (ibid., I. 30): tradition. From the combination of these two traditions
But in every investigation into the nature of duty, it is

the Renaissance idea of the dignity of man specifically
vitallv necessary for us to remember always how vastly developed.

superior is man's nature to that of cattle and other animals: The critical text was Genesis 1:26, "And God said,
i«3C) their only thought is for bodily satisfactions. . . . Man's mind Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . .
,
supplemented by 1:28, "And God blessed them, and Gregory of Nyssa's most specific treatment of the
God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and status of man was his De ojnficio hominis (On the
replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion Creation of Man), extending his brother Basil's uncom-
over the fish of the sea, and the fowl of the air, and pleted commentary on the creation, his Hexaemeron,
over everv living thing that moveth upon the earth." to the divine work of the sixth day. Gregory's treatise
The was that of Philo Judaeus. His

critical exegesis was translated into Latin in the late fifth century by
first-centiu'V Hellenistic Greek synthesis of the Old Dionysius Exiguus and again by Scotus Erigena in the
Testament and the current tendencies in classical ninth, and thus was available in the Latin West as a
thought blending Stoicism, Platonism. and Peripateti- model for successive schools of Christian Platonism.
cism seems indeed to have anticipated important ele- Somewhat out of the main line of Greek develop-
ments of pagan Neo-Platonism, and even certain
later ment, but also influential in the West through eleventh-
man and the creation.
aspects of the Hermetic mvths of and twelfth-century translations by Alfanus and by
Unquestionably, and more importantly for our subject, Burgimdio of Pisa, was the late fourth-century treatise
it had a strong influence in shaping the analogous of Nemesius of Emesa, De nutura hominis, ordinarily
efforts of Alexandrian Christian thinkers of the second confused by Latin copyists with the treatise of Gregory
and third century to integrate acceptable elements of just mentioned. Man, in his own person, joins mortals
classical thought with their scriptural faith. with immortals, rational beings with irrational; as a
In his commentary on Genesis, The Mosaic Creation microcosm {mikros kosmos) he reflects the whole crea-
Storij (De opificio mundi), Philo stresses that the divine tion; bv divine providence all creatures have their
image inman is the mind. Molded after the archetype being for him; for man's sake God became man so that
of the Mind of the miiverse, the human mind is like man might reign on high being made in the image and
a god in man. Man was created by God for the double likeness of God: "how can we exaggerate the dignity
purpose of utilizing the universe and contemplating of his place in the creation?" Echoing Sophocles'
its maker; therefore, it was necessary that the rest of Antigone, Nemesius proclaims:
the universe be already created and that man be made
on the sixth day. God "desired that on coming into Man crosses the mighty deep, contemplates the range of
the world man might at once find both a banquet and the heavens, notes the motion, position, and size of the stars,
a most sacred display. ." Since man's mind was

. .
and reaps a harvest from both land and sea, learns all kinds
of knowledge, gains skill in arts, pursues scientific inquiry.
created out of divine breath and man's body from clay,
... He gives order to creation. Devils are subject to him.
"man is the borderland between mortal and immortal He
He e.xplores the nature of every kind of being. busies
nature ," an idea repeated both by ancient and God and Cod's house and
himself with the knowing of
. . .
is
Renaissance Neo-Platonists. temple (De natura hominis. trans. W. Telfer, Library of

The Greek Fathers to
principal contributions of the Christian Classics, Philadelphia (1955], IV, 254-55).
the development of this theme were made by Clement
of Alexandria and Origen in proximate dependence on Stressing man's this-w'orldly role and powers, as well
Philo, and by Basil and Gregory of Nyssa in less direct as his eschatological ends, drawing on a wider range
dependence on him. Although important variations of classical sources than Gregory, and certainly
were present among them, all four were heavily influ- dependent on the Stoic tradition associated with
enced by Platonism. A central emphasis was on man's Posidonius, and on Galen and the Peripatetics,
"similitude" to God, which in the Greek word of the Nemesius was a rich source of both classical and Chris-
Septuagint, liomoiosis, connoted the dynamic process tian ideas about the nature of man. His treatise was
of becoming like God, or Platonic "assimilation." Man's available and used by twelfth- and thirteenth-century
creation in the divine "image "
indicated his original theologians. In its emphasis on both the sacred and
state of perfection, whereas, after the Fall, man was secular goals of man, it clearly anticipates the Renais-
involved, through the Incarnation, in a process of sance conception of the dignity of man. It enjoyed
movement toward a restoration of the "image "
in a be included in the library pre-
sufficient prestige to
heavenly state, finally fulfilling man's creation in the pared for Federigo, Duke of Urbino (Bibliotheca Vati-
image and likeness of God. This process was a mimesis cana. Codex Urbinatus latinus 485), and among the
of God or of Christ. Regarding the soul as a "mirror," Greek manuscripts assembled by Giaimozzo Manetti
Gregory of Nyssa teaches that by "seeing" and (Palatinus graecus 385), himself a principal author of
"knowing" God in one's self, by assimilation, man the genre among die Italian humanists. An even more
becomes like God, theopoiesis or theosis. moving from popular and widely diffused Greek patristic work in
homoiosis or praxis of virtue and purification to theoria Latin translation in the Western Middle Ages and
or gnosis in an infinite mystical progression. Renaissance contained generous excerpts from that of 137
Nemesiiis, John Damascene's Dc orthodoxa fide. Thus His De Cenesi ad litteram is a carefully analytical
there was no lack of texts offering models of the Greek exegetic work that provided answers for most of the
Fathers' synthesis of Platonic and Stoic conceptions of thorny questions raised by the complicated language
the key position of man in the universe with the of Genesis as well as by the twofold accomit of man's
biblicaland Christian visions of man's dignity based creation. Subsequent medieval exegetes relied heavily
on his Creation and on the Incarnation. upon it; it was a major authority for Peter Lombard's
It was, however, the teachings of the Latin Fathers Sententia, for example. In his work Augustine inter-
which, through the depth of their influence within the prets the use of the plural in "Let us make man in
Western theological tradition and through the constant our image . .
." as indicating th„l uic entire Trinity
availabilitv of texts, contributed in the most formative participated in man's creation, a thought that was
wav to the development of the Renaissance idea of seized upon later as further evidence of the great honor
the dignity of man. The great and dominating figure paid man by his Maker. The Fall was interpreted as
was, of course, Augustine of Hippo. But prior to Saint seriously and severely corrupting the "image of God "
Augustine significant differences from the strongly in man but not entirely obliterating it, whereas man's
established Greek theological tradition became appar- similitude, which lay in his capacity to perform virtues,
ent in the works of Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius, was entirely lost mitil restored by the divine grace of
and .\nibrose. Greek patristic thought in its depend- the Atonement.
ence on Platonism tended to regard the creation in A deeper and more significant influence came from
emanationist terms, so that in a sense the presence of Augustine's De Trinitate, a work which not only sought
the divine image in man was an estrangement of the to establish the nature of the divine Trinity but also
divine nature; the reformation of man toward his divine examined all of the creaturely trinities to be foimd in
origins, after the Fall, through incarnational grace, was immanent in the creation. Chief
the vestigia of divinity
a return to an original perfection. Latin patristic among was the trinity in man. Augustine saw
these
stress on creatio ex nihilo, where
thought placed greater a correspondence between Father, Son, and Spirit and
even the uirformed matter of corporeality and earth the divine mind or memory, the divine intellect, and
had a value in a divine order, and the justification of tlie divine will or love. In the most particular sense
man through the atonement meant a refonnatio in man's possession of the image of God meant that his
meliore. In place of a cyclical "renewal" ideology, the soul also was triune in the simultaneous and inseparable
germs of a notion of eschatological and even historical possession of these three faculties.
progress were present. Perhaps these differences were .Mthough man with his trinitarian soul was a spiritual
due to the circumstances that Western theologians being (as were also God and the angels), it is significant
tended to be jurists and rhetoricians rather than that Augustine gave full and equal value to the affects
philosophers, as such more influenced by Stoic notions and passions of the will, along with memory and intel-
of an immanent justice and order in human affairs, and lect. Intellect were regarded as equally
and will
more oriented toward "action" as a fulfillment of ideals imbued with goodness or subject to sin, depending on
rather than contemplation or mysticism as a release the direction of their exercise, good if directed toward
from and transcendence of material chaos. Even though divinity, the creative power of the imiverse, defective
strongly Platonist elements were present in Cicero's and thus evil if turned away. In this respect .\ugustine
eclectic adaptation of Greek philosophy to rhetorical and the Western theological anthropology influenced
uses, it may well be argued that Western Church Fa- by him were closer to the Latin rhetorical tradition
than to Hellenistic intellectualism and mysticism.
"
thers tended to be "Ciceronian" rather than "Platonist

in the classical influences operating upon them. Moreover, though not denving the existence, need, and
For .\ugustine the notion of man's creation in the value of mysticism and contemplation, there is an
"image" of God was far more crucial than his "simili- inherent stress on dynamic action in which the himian
tude to his Maker, which was a quality of an image.
"
will acts co-efficiently with divine grace.
Whereas creation according to an "image" was a di- ,\ugustine managed to avoid the opposite dangers
rectly purposive act that established a specific rela- of gnostic dualism and Pelagianism by this conception.
tionship between creator and creature, "similitude" Moreover, his view of the body and of matter accepts
signified a formal relationship only, which of course their full validity in their properly subordinated role
could increase with a man's progress toward his ulti- within the totality of the divinely sanctified creation.
mate fruition. Two works of Augustine were central Thus he regarded both an unformed spirit and body
in establishing the tradition of Western thought con- as present in the initial creation of man in God's image
cerning the nature and dignity of man as a consequence and likeness, which, possessing rationes seminales. are
138 of the character of his creation in the "image" of God. given their form in man's second creation out of clay
and divine breath. It is in the discovery of the beauty The problem of the theme of the dignity of man
of form and the vestiges of divinity even in corporeal in the Latin Middle Ages is complex and by no means
things that man in his terrestrial existence is drawn adequately investigated. Certain major tendencies or
toward the Creator, but for this he needs the illmiiina- occasions for discussing it may be distinguished as well
tion of grace. Thus while an authentic structure of as certain chronological phases which did not neces-
Neo-Platonism is at the core of ."Vugustine's thought, sarilv influence succeeding ones in a developmental
derived from the influence of Victorinus and Ambrose, way. The first of four tendencies or occasions lay in the
and from his direct reading of the Platonists, this struc- continuing efforts at exegesis of Genesis and the com-
ture was significantly modified in a way that differed pilation of works entitled Hexaemeron or On the Six
from the Christian Platonism of the Greek Fathers and Days' Work. Here Augustine's interpretations from the
which can be regarded as coming from his familiarity De Genesi ad litteram were formative. Medieval
with the attitudes of Roman Stoicism embodied in the hexameral literature is extensive and by no means
rhetorical tradition, above all those of Cicero. .sufficiently studied, though an obvious means of tracing
Other classical ideas concerning the nature and cos- the historv of cosmological, physical, and anthropolog-
mic and destiny of man were transmitted to the
role ical ideas. One may mention Bede's, .Abelard's, Thierry
Latin West (as well as to Byzantine East, medieval of Chartres', and Robert Grosseteste's versions, all of
Judaism, and, soon, the Arab world). Works such as which were influential. Works of this nature were not
Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, Macrobius' confined to a single line of interpretation but reflected
Saturnalia, and especially his Commentary on the the controversies and movements of their particular
Dream of Scipio (an excerpt from Cicero's De ages.
republica) were late classical compilations containing A second type of speculation that gave rise to dis-
a melange of ancient notions on creation, the eternity cussions of man's dignity and place in the cosmos were
of the world, the place of man, his goals, and destiny the efforts to construct a Platonic-Christian theology
that fed into and influenced medieval as well as utilizing essentially Greek patristic and non-Christian
Renaissance ideas. Strikingly important among these Neo-Platonic sources rather than Augustine's prec-
sources for future attempts to look at the dignity of edents and version of Neo-Platonism. Unquestionably
man's creation, nature, redemption, and even deifica- the most important figure among those engaged in
tion were the legendary writings of Hermes Tris- tvpe was the ninth-century theologian
efforts of this
megistus, regarded as an Egyptian prophet-sage of Scotus Erigena. His own work De divisione naturae
equal sanctity with the sybils as early as Lactantius. was an original Christian Platonist theology which
These writings, dating from the first to the third placed man centrally in the cosmic hierarchy as a link
centuries a.d., were broadly concerned with the role between the spiritual and corporeal worlds. Moreover,
of man in the universe in relation to the Great God he added to the sources of Christian Platonism avail-
and to the lesser gods; mythological in mode of pres- able in the West by his translation of Gregory of Nyssa's
entation, they purported to be early revelations of De opificio homirm referred to above, and, most
Hermes, a supposed contemporary of Moses. significantly, of the writings of the fifth-century Greek
The corpus in large extent survived in the Greek theologian who is known as (Pseudo-) Dionysius the
East. In the West a translation of a portion of it known Areopagite. These, with their emphasis on a celestial
as Aesculapius and attributed to Apuleius circulated and an ecclesiastical hierarchy mirroring the former,
as early as the time of Augustine who quotes it exten- on the epistemological difficulties of passing from the
sively in book eight of The City of God. A number of imcertainties of human knowledge of visibles to a
passages attributing divine powers and a destiny of knowledge of divine invisibles, had a wide and varied
deification to man were frequently cited by medieval influence not only on the three major phases of a
discussants of the theme of the dignity of man as well revival of Christian Platonism, the Carolingian, the
as by such Renaissance luminaries as Ficino and Pico Chartrain, and the Florentine, but also on the Christian
della Mirandola who begins his famous oration with Aristotelianism of the scholastic period. These latter
the quotation "A great miracle, Aesculapius, is man." thinkers found a certain parallel between the Christian
Other works and translations of a
later classical Platonist hierarchical thinking of the Pseudo-Dionysius
Neo-Platonic provenance also entered into the body and the concern with hierarchy among the Arabic
of writings associated with discussions of our theme. commentators, both the Neo-Platonic and their
A work attributed also to the same Apuleius, On the Aristotelian opponents. But in all these instances the
Cod of Socrates and Chalcidius' partial translation and question of the place of man in the chain of being
commentary on Plato's Timaeus were among the few became crucial.
available Platonic writings in the Latin West. Twelfth-centurv Chartrain Platonism was indebted 139
to Scotus Erigena both lor his own writings and his lasticismand the preponderant influence of Aristotelian
More important were the number of
translations. and metaphvsical modes of speculation in the thir-
attempted new syntheses of Platonism and Christianity, teenth centiu-v. Even though there remain certain
returning again, on the model of the Greek Fathers, influences of the earlier Augustinian and Neo-Platonic
to the problem of man as an image of the divine interpretations, even though the same critical sources
engaged in a process of assimilation in the recovery are known and quoted by the scholastics, a major new
of the lost glorv of his creation and in a progress toward emphasis, even among the anti-Aristotelians, is placed
a new, higher sanctification through the Incarnation on a more naturalistic treatment of the nature and
and the Among
Atonement. the twelfth-century powers of man, directly dependent upon .Aristotle's De
Platonists who discussed man as both a microcosm and anima. .\long with the formal consideration of the
a being able to ascend to the divine or descend to the nature and powers of the different parts of the soul,
brute were Bernard Silvester in his De universitate there remains some concern with man's position in the
mundi, Alain of Lille in his De planctu naturae, universe, but regarded essentially in static,
this is
Thierrv of Chartres in his De sex dienim operibus, hieratic terms rather than as a dynamic, operative
William of Conches in his Phitosophia and his com- potential for restoration of the divine image, or for
mentaries on the Timaeus and on Boethius. Outside irremediable bestialization. While it would be ridicu-
of the more strictlv Neo-Platonic circles the theme of lous to argue that there was a decline in concern for
man's creation in the divine image and likeness, his the pastoral and homiletic role of theology in the cure
falland the recovery of the divine image through the of souls, the impetus toward discovering a philosophic,
incarnate Christ found expression in the writings of metaphysical, or scientific basis for the Christian vision
such diverse figures as Honorius of Autun, Peter of the world was so powerful as to all but overshadow
Abelard, William of St. Thierry, Hugh of St. Victor, the more traditional emphasis.
and most importantly Peter Lombard who attempts Typically the dignity of man was discussed in the
a systematization of earlier, chiefly Augustinian, Chris- many commentaries on the Sentences of Peter
tian thought on the meaning and dignity of man's Lombard, not at Book I, Distinction II, Question VII,
creation. "In what way is the image of the Trinity in the soul?,"
A third thematic direction became manifest in the the traditional .\ugustinian occasion for stressing man's
late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. As early dignity, but at Book II, Distinctions XVI and XVII,
as Lactantius' fourth-century laudation of man in his "On the creation of man," and "On the creation of
Divine Institutes and Cod's Creation, an opposing the soul," where the question is typically raised of
genre to the dignitv of man, namely, the topic of "the whether the dignity of man, or the image of God in
miserv of the human condition "
was to be found in man, is more excellent than in the angel. The answers
Arnobius' Contra nationes. and Lactantius' work seems vary with subtlety.
to have been a direct refutation. In both .Arnobius and Thomas Aquinas may be cited as one out of many
Lactantius theme and counter-theme are arrayed discussions:
against each other. When at the end of the twelfth

properly and principalh' the image follows the intellec-
centurv the deacon, Lotario de' Conti, the future Pope
. . .
tual nature; . . where the intellectual nature is more

famous De conteinptu mundi,
.
Innocent III, wrote his

image is more express, and thus, since
perfect, there the
seu de miseria humanae conditionis libri Ires, he also the intellectual nature is of far greater dignity in angels
promised, but failed, to write a companion treatise on than in man, ... it is necessary that the image of God is
the dignitv of man. Bv this time these two themes had more express in angels than in the soul. . . . The image of
become recognized literary genres. Earlier in the cen- God is also assigned to man, but not so properly, with
tury a Cistercian follower of Saint Bernard of reference to certain subsequent properties, such as that man
Clairvaux, Alcherus of had written a
Clairvaux, dominates the inferior creatures . . . and according to this
treatise, De spiritu et anima, and had entitled the and other conditions of this sort, nothing prevents man from
humanae being more in the image of God than the angel. But this
thirtv-fifth chapter, De dignitate conditionis;
is relatively [secundum quid] and not absolutely because
the workwhole was a miscellaneous compilation
as a
the judgment of similitude and diversity which is assumed
of quotationson the soul, and this chapter repeats the
from the essentials of a thing is much more firm {Com-
theme of the nobility of man's creation. The chapter mentum in quattuor libros sententiarum. Lib. II, D. XVI,
in question itself closely paralleled a little work Parma 526; passage translated by
Q. I, art. iii, [1856], I,
attributed to .\mbrose (but more likely Alcuin's) of the Charles Trinkaus).

same title.
.\ fourth aspect of the medieval consideration of the Nominalist theology in the fourteenth and fifteenth
140 dignity of man comes with the development of scho- centiu-ies, in keeping with its premisses, was skeptical
of such discussions. Gabriel Biel, for example, in his sance thought and expression through its capacity to
commentary on the Sentences, avers: "Properly speak- offer a resolution of this tension.
ing no creature is a vestige of the Trinity hut only The TrecentoItalian humanist and poet, Francesco
improperly, metaphorically, or by assumption because Petrarca, was the first Renaissance figure to write on
it accords with a corporeal vestige in many things." this theme, and his circumstances and motivation are
While the theme of the dignity of man had a varie- revealing. He was perennially concerned with the
gated history and Christian antiquity and
in classical troubled consciousness and consciences of his own age,
in the Latin Middle Ages, it had not been developed its formlessness, its lack of depth of Christian commit-
into either a clearly defined literary form or an ment, its morally and spiritually ruinous materialism,
internally consistent set of ideas. its need for a sense of historical direction, its emotional
There were, on the other hand, certain elements in volatility, its shallow and shortsighted vanity, and its
the history and culture of the Renaissance which intense personal and religious despair, .\4ore signifi-
favored its development into a definitive literary and cantly, he also felt that he knew where the remedy
philosophical genre. One such element, certainly, was lay, or at least the direction in which it could he sought.
the humanist movement, which in its commitment to A work of his old age, On His Own Ignorance and
a revival of classical motifs in literature (rhetoric and that of Many Others, was a diatribe against the
poetry) and classical attitudes in history and moral preoccupation of the established intellectuals of his day
philosophy was eager to demonstrate its equally strong with Aristotelian natural philosophy. He was not so
conviction that antique rhetoric, poetry, hi.story, and nivich opposed to Aristotle as to the unrelatedne.ss of
philosophy were not in conflict with Christianity but his study to the moral and spiritual anguish of his
could actually strengthen religion. The available theme contemporaries. By this he aligned himself against both
of the dignity of man, a genuine blend of classical and the physicians and other lay intellectuals of the univer-
Christian ideas and topics in its inherited forms, fitted sity arts faculties and against the scholastic theologians
perfectly this requirement. for this remoteness from the pastoral role of the clergy.
In the second place the very notion of "dignity" He cast himself into the new role of a lay moral
involved the question of relative status, as its medieval counselor to his contemporaries and called on others
comparison of man and angel had shown; it thus fitted to adopt this role as well, offering as models Seneca,
with equal ease into the spread of a rhetorical outlook Cicero, Livy, Vergil, and Horace, who as Roman moral
through the influence of humanism in which the fimc- philosophers, rhetoricians, historians, and poets had
tion of the arts is seen to be to praise or blame, the cast themselves into similar roles. He sought to emulate
encomium and the diatribe, and to establish the place the work of these figures in his own writings. His
of the individual in the eyes of contemporaries, poster- numerous letters to contemporaries are full of moral
ity, and ultimately eternity by this means. counsel. His major historical work De viris iUustribus
In a moral order guided by rhetoric there is, more- offered the lives of great Roman statesmen as examples
over, an emphasis on individual achievement in action of men of dignity to be emulated for their moral virtues
as well as on inner moral worth as manifested out- by His epic poem, Africa, was to
his contemporaries.
wardly by virtue. Whether the so-called individualism offer Scipio Africanus as a new Roman-Italian culture-
of the Renaissance was the cause or the consequence hero.
of the rhetorical outlook, there can be no doubt of its In turning to the pagan Romans as models of the
existence, and this also, with its stress on freedom of moral elevation, Petrarch had
utilization of cultm-e for
choice, was to find appropriate expression in the theme no confusion (despite many scholars' perplexity over
of the dignity of man. his seeming ambiguity) about the fimdamentally
Finally, it may be argued, there was an inherent Christian character of his enterprise. Petrarch was
tension between the increasing secularism manifested deeply Cfiristian and deeply religious. He was quite
in the expanding economic, political, and social activi- clear and quite aware that these classical authors were
ties of late medieval Europe and those elements of not. An even more compelling and admired mentor
medieval Christianity which stressed asceticism, with- was Saint Augustine who had foimd for himself and
drawal, contemplation, poverty, humility, the anguish, offered to the world a way of reconciling the Christian
homo viator, earthly man.
misery, and worthlessness of revelation with those values of the ancients which were
There was no such tension between these new mani- cultiu-ally, morally, and politically necessary for re-
festations of the historical dynamism of human energy sponsible life in the chaotic historical and natural
and the equally Christian vision of the dignity and world. In his Secret Conflict of My Cares, Petrarch
excellence of man. This theme must therefore be portrays himself, for the benefit of his contemporaries,
considered as a deeply formative pattern of Renais- as experiencing a similar conflict to that resolved by 141
Augustine in his Confessions. The resokition lay, he for the further development and a more general
thought, in a religious renewal of faith and a tmst in acceptance and explicit expression of the theme of the
salvation by grace that could overcome the prevailing dignity of man when it was resumed some eight dec-
self-doubt and despair — and should be combined
this ades after Petrarch in the mid-Quattrocento. Coluccio
with a secular renewal of self-confidence in man's Salutati's De fato et fortuna of the 1390's sought a
ability to perform morally and socially worthy actions reconciliation of the Stoic philosophy of the rela-
as exemplified by the sense of civic responsibility of tionship of the individual and "providence " with the
the virtuous pagans. To stand firm and virtuous in the contemporary Christian discussions of the theme. It
midst of the blows of Fortime was more than to achieve was again the ideas of Augustine that gave him his
individual security or material success. It meant the cue. As did Petrarch and many other humanists,
restoration of man's inner spiritual dignity without Salutati affirmed the primacy of the will, and found
which he would sink into and become part of the the basic creative force in the universe to be divine
chaotic morass of sin and disorder that were the condi- providence as the manifestation of divine will. Within
tions of earthly existence. meant the retention of
It it and in fulfillment of it human will acted creatively
a spiritual self-confidence that was identical with a in organizing the affairs of men in this world, and by
confidence in the ever-available, divine mercy of the the very definition of will had to be free. Yet it was
Creator. The great perils in the life of man, which totally in harmony with divine providence. Through
endangered him in this world and the next, were the being vokmtarily operative in the world, man ex-
superficial elation of superbia. when by whatever acci- pressed his condition of having been created in the
dent Fortune favored him, and the ruinous desperation image of God.
of accidia and dolor, when Fortune frowned. It was Man would seek worthy ends both for this life and
essential for man to know his true condition and his the next and would manifest his active, providential,
true worth. voluntarist nature as the image of God, but he would
Such were the motivations that led him to seize upon also accept the limitation of being God-like but not
the fragmentary elements of the theme of the dignity KT-od, Himself. In the ultimate deification of heavenly
of man that were present in the medieval and classical fruition, however, he would attain the full realization
sources known to him and to give them a literary of his dignitywhich he could only partially attain in
formulation that anticipated the Renaissance develop- this life in God and fulfillment of his role
emulation of
ment of this theme in its central aspects if it did not as an image of God.
necessarily serve as its specific model. .Appropriately, Although, for both Petrarch and Salutati, salvation
on the dignity of man occurred as a chapter
his treatise was a matter of supernatural grace whose actuality
in hismost popular work. The Remedies of Both Kinds man should fully accept to avoid the catastrophe of
of Fortune (II, 93, De tristitia et tniseria). despair and willful defection from his nature, men were
Later humanist and Platonist discussions of the dig- susceptible to rhetorical inducements to rational be-
nity of man were more extensive and elaborate, havior and could be moved to love and dignity by the
involving more complex theological and philosophical incitements of their wills. For both humanists the
concepts. Through all their variations, however, the Roman Stoicism of Cicero and Seneca had shown the
two basic arguments presented by Petrarch with way, though ignorance of Christ had left them blind
rhetorical succinctness remained fundamentals. Theo- to the tnie faith.
logically and philosophically, man's dignity derived Lorenzo Valla, on the other hand, found in Augustine
from the character and purpose of his creation and certain eudaimonistic elements which he transformed
the resulting position and role this gave man in the into a Christianized Epicureanism and into a rhetorical
universe, from the freedom and the capacity to ascend theology that was radically vohmtaristic and even
toward the divine, conditions inherent in the image erotic in its basic conception of human nature. Man,
of God in which he was created and restored to man in the image and likeness of God, was a trinitarian spirit
in the Incarnation. Historically and existentially, man's or soul, a single substance with the three qualities of
dignity derived from his individual and collective ac- energy, intellect, emotion. Energy and emotion, weak
tions and creations in this world from which came his or strong, guided the intellect in its determinations,
earthly fame and greatness, tokens of the individual's used it as an instrument of their purpoiies, distorted
contributions to the high cultures and civilizations it out of extremes of cowardice or rage. Thus man acted
mankind invented and constructed. upon the world in pursuit of his pleasures, in fulfillment
The writings of two Italian humanists on the nature and his love. If he possessed
of the urges of his passions
and powers of man and his goals and place in the faithand the hope of heavenly fulfillment, the divine
142 universe were particularly critical in preparing the way pleasures of fruition and the love of God for the sake
of the loving, not for His own sake, were his goals. Manetti's much more elaborate, erudite, and laudatory
If, as after the Fall, and before the Advent, man had treatise. On the Dignity and Excellence of Man (De
no knowledge of the Christian promises, or other more dignitate et excellentia hominis libri IV). Manetti was
powerful allures weakened or suppressed his faith in apparently prompted by King Alfonso of Naples to
them, he became pleasure-seeking and utilitarian in his write the treatise because Facio had dedicated his to
instrumental use of the things of this world for gratifi- Pope Nicholas V, and it was completed by late 1452
cation. Valla was a striking apostle and advocate of or early the next year in the version in which we have
the power of man, when armed with faith, to transcend received it in manuscript. However, the same Antonio
all the basically animal-like qualities of his nature and da Barga mentions in another work of his of 1449 that
to rise to the semi-divine. He laid great stress upon Manetti had written a work De dignitate hominis ad
action, pa.s,sionate and providential, in which man not Antlwnium Bargensem. Thus da Barga, who was
only emulated God but fulfilled his nature and dignity certainly a friend of Manetti, may also have urged him
as the divine image and likeness. to write a now-lost earlier version.
The most precise and straightforward statement of Manetti retains all of the traditional religious
these views of human nature is contained in the first arguments for man's dignity to which he adds any that
book of Valla's Dialectical Disputations (in its first he can draw from classical sources such as Cicero, On
redaction called Repastinatio dialecticae et philo- the Nature of the Gods, Aristotle's De anima and Ethics.
sophiae). On the other hand, he defended Epicureanism Moreover, he makes a number of assertions that are
obliquely in his On True Good (De vera bono, or De quite clearly original. However, as in his other writings,
voluptate in its first version). In dialogue form he pre- he tries to mask his own originality behind lengthy
sents first a Stoic's complaint of the ills of life to be citations. He also utilizes a far wider range of sources
remedied bv virtue, then an Epicurean's refutation of than he admits to or cites directly, sources which he
virtue as an end and his praise of pleasure, and finally possessed in his extensive library of Latin, Greek, and
a Christian's defense of heavenly pleasure as the true Hebrew philosophical, theological, and exegetical
good of man. The first version was written by 1432 works which he read in all three languages. His back-
and the third and final one by 1442. In 1445 or 1446 ground as a Florentine merchant, statesman, civic-
Bartolomeo Facio wrote On the Happiness of Life (De humanist, pupil, and follower of .^mbrogio Traversari
vitae felicitate) as a hostile imitation of Valla, defending (followed later after the composition of this work by
Stoicism and refuting Epicureanism but setting man's his role as advisor to both Nicholas V and King Alfonso)
true good in a Christian-Stoic vision of true happiness undoubtedly helped to influence the much more
as residing in the restoration of man's immortal soul appreciative view of man's this-worldly dignity and
to its heavenly place of origin after a life of virtuous achievements which he incorporated into his theolog-
restraint among the miseries of this life. ical conception of the dignity of man. There is no
Discussions such as these of man's happiness and true question that Manetti made explicit the new concep-
good, as also those on free will and fate and fortune, tion ofman, which was already implicit in Petrarch,
were centrally concerned with the problem of the and Valla and which was supportable from
Salutati,
nature and status of man in the cosmos and in this life, both Greek and Latin classical and patristic texts.
and they led straight into the renewed treatment of Manetti, of course, sought to project a new Christian
the theme of the dignity of man. In 1447 the same synthesis of these sources, and this determined the form
Bartolomeo Facio was sent an outline of a treatise on of his work.
the dignitv of man composed by an Olivetan monk, Manetti's was not a profound work, but it was an
Antonia da Barga (Libellus de dignitate et excellentia insistent and an impressive one for the completeness
humanae vitae). Da Barga urged Facio to take this of its arguments on behalf of the dignity of man and
treatise and add the polish and elegance a humanist for the fullness and almost lack of restraint in their
could give it, and thus produce the treatise on the assertion. It was significant also as indicating that the
dignity of man that Innocent III had promised and cultural environment, within which the Platonists'
never completed. Facio did' so, and his On the Excel- views of the dignity of man were shortly to follow,
lence of Man (De excellentia Iwminis) appeared in was already highly receptive to their ideas. Other
1448, dedicated to Pope Nicholas V, but making no important humanist defenses of human greatness and
mention of Antonio da Barga. Facio's treatise follows progress were also being produced, such as the
da Barga's quite closely, introducing, however, some Bolognese humanist Benedetto Morandi's defense of
amplifications and variants, some of which were man against Giovanni Garzoni's repetition of the tra-
borrowed from his own De vitae felicitate. ditional view of human misery (in two works of
Facio's was promptly followed by Giannozzo 1468-70, De humana felicitate and Secunda reluctatio 143
contra calwnniatonin natiirue humanae) of especial Medici, did not by any means produce what modern
interestbecause of Morandi's clear projection of the philosophers could recognize as a pure and historically
doctrine of progress under human guidance. Another accurate interpretation of Plato in his own philo-
important defense of man came in the 1480's by sophical writings. He was, on the contrary, deeply
Aurelio Brandolini, an Italian humanist at the court affected by a number of influences operating upon him.
of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary {Dialogus de huma- One was the tradition of lay piety of which the
nae vitae conditione et toleranda corporis aegritudine). humanist writings on the dignity of man had been a
The theme of the dignity of man, which had thus notable expression and within which Ficino, ordained
been given a definite literary form by the Italian as a priest in 1473, had always actively participated.
humanists, derived from and contained within itself Another was the humanist movement, itself, with its
two divergent theological and philosophical positions. zeal for the recovery of classical texts and monuments
Man's dignity lay in his creation in the image and to which Ficino's many important translations not only
likeness of God, which could be interpreted as meaning of the corpus of Plato but of the principal Neo-Platonic
either that it was mans destiny to transcend the philosophers, the Hermetic Poimandres, the Orphic
limitations of his image-likeness and to ascend to Hymns, and the Chaldaic Oracles made a major con-
eventual deification by a progress toward perfect tribution. A third was the Western Latin theological
assimilation of image and model, or that man thought, tradition within which Augustine, of course, played a
felt, and actedin a godlike manner in his domination, leading role as a model of a Christian Platonist, but
utilization, guidance, and reconstruction of the world which also influenced Ficino through his early scholas-
of sub-human nature. The first position was both Neo- tic training and subsequent studies, so that he was very
Platonist and Greek patristic in its provenance, the well versed in the varying currents of Latin theology.
second was more closely related to a loose syncretism Moreover, though the influence of Aristotle had been
of Stoicism and MiJole Platonism best expressed in dominant in thirteenth-century scholastic theology and
Roman rhetorical philosophizing but which also could continued to be within the Thomist tradition, this was
find some confirmation in a literal interpretation of to a high degree permeated with the hierarchical ideas
certain biblical passages. of the Christian Neo-Platonist, the Pseudo-Dionysius,

The Italian humanist movement foimd it natural to as well as bv those of the Arabic commentators. It was
juxtapose the two positions contained in the traditional not difficult to "Platonize what was already so Neo-
"
treatments of the theme without necessarily providing Platonic.

any logical or systematic reconciliation, and in fact That these were the dominant movements shaping
Augustine had wrought a theologically more integrated Ficino's thought is significant because from them the
reconciliation of the transcendental and immanent impulse toward a reconciliation of the transcendental
elements in the theme which was a precedent and a and immanentist elements in the theme of the dignity
model for the humanists. This humanist juxtaposition of man could be found, especially in Augustine and
or merelv rhetorical reconciliation was of great his- the humanists. It is notable that, although he knew of
torical significance for it provided a system of thinking them, Ficino seems not to have been especially influ-
whereby sanction and justification could be offered to enced by the medieval Neo-Platonism of Chartres or
a life of activism and worldly achievement which was of his near-contemporary Nicholas of Cusa, or by con-
at the same time incorporated into traditional religious temporary Byzantine Platonic doctrines such as
values and goals. The humanists, prompted by the Plethon's or Bessarion's. What he wrought was an
needs of their contemporaries, sought and devised a original synthesis of Christianity and ancient Platonism
wav to make the best of both worlds, as it were. and Neo-Platonism, but one that also definitely
It was however, the revival of Platonism, which reflected the Augustinian departures from Greek
occurred in Florence in the '70's, "80's, and '90's of patristic thought and the Renaissance humanists' stress
the Quattrocento and was widely disseminated from on the validity and importance of the this-worldly
there, that provided a philosophical and systematic dignity of man within the framework of his continuous
integration of these two motifs involved in the consid- pursuit and ultimate achievement of immortality and
eration of the dignity of man. The principal author deification. But this was a fully articulated and unified
of this new synthesis, which indeed pulled together philosophy rather than merely rhetorical juxtaposition
disparate elements within the biblical-Christian tradi- as in the case of the humanists.
tion as well as within the classical tradition and then This position was manifested in two aspects of
sought parallel elements in the two, was Marsilio Ficino's thought. One was the stress on the role of
Ficino. Ficino, who had been set to work young as a reason in man, as a free faculty, not bound into any
144 man translating the works of Plato by Cosimo de' of the traditional Plotinian determinist systems
projected by Ficino — providence to which man was contemplative otherworldliness, as it is frequently
tied by his highest faculty of the intelHgence, fate claimed, but complete an intellectual response to a
operating through astral influences to which man was basic need for a mode of reconciliation of the expand-
tied by his faculty of imagination, and natiu'c which ing secular goals and activities of the men of the period
claimed man's senses and corporeality as a part. Thus with their still fervently held religious piety and other-
while man contained within himself and was worldly ends, a need which found expression and par-
dynamically linked to all parts of the universe, was tial fulfillment in the humanist treatises on the dignity
itsnode and coupling, through reason and the cognate of man which preceded and accompanied the Platonist
will man could freely favor and resist any of these movement.
levels of being. This meant that although man was part The best known expression of the Renaissance theme
of and had a place in the universal hierarchy, he could of the dignity of man occurs in Giovanni Pico della
also transcend it and escape from it and had a more Mirandola's Oration of 1486, introducing the theses he
dignified role than anv other created being, approach- offered for debate. .Although Ficino preceded him in
ing in freedom and creativity the state of divinity, projecting man's transcendence of the hierarchy by a
itself. multi-level freedom which determined its being by its
The second aspect of Ficino's thought which mani- operative choice (Ficino's Theologia Platonica was
fested his position on the dignity of man was his stress published 1482, probably composed by 1474), Pico
on man's natural appetite for immortality and deifica- gave the position a unique dramatic and rhetorical
tion. This could be discovered in the character of man's sharpness and clarity, and followed it up by an even
thought and actions which Ficino analyzed system- wider-ranging pursuit of a imiversalitv of human striv-
atically into twelve characteristics of God which man ing for fulfillment in the historical, religious, magical,
was driven by his will to make actual. In delineating and intellectual traditions known to him. It is signifi-
man's pursuit of these divine qualities, however, he cant that the theme of the dignity of man had been
becomes certainly as eloquent as the humanists, if he carried since antiquity in the form of an exegesis of
does not surpass them, in his depictions of the glories Genesis 1:26, for Pico's comments in his Oration are
of man's actionsand ideas in all areas of this-worldly applied to Adam and the mode of God's creation of
experience. While it is true that Ficino also emphasizes man, and he followed this in 1488-89 with his
many magical and supernatural powers, with which Heptaplus, which is an extension of the traditional
he believes man is endowed, this is not at the expense Hexaemeron, or six days work, to the seventh which
of or in diminution of hisdeep appreciation of man's includes the divine and human sabbatical. Pico presents
secular this-worldly achievements as signs of man's a Neo-Platonic cosmology and anthropology in this
natural appetite to become God. work, but one that was notably modified by his knowl-
edge of the medieval Jewish magical tradition, itself
The entire striving in our soul is that it become God. Such
containing \eo-Platonic elements, the Cabala. To the
striving is no less natural to men than the effort to flight
three worlds of nature, the planets, and the intelli-
is to birds. For it is always men everywhere. Likewise
in
gences, Pico adds the Cabalistic fourth world of man,
it is not a contingent quality of some men but follows the
nature itself of the species (Theologica Platonica XIV, I;
which is outside the others, yet utilizes them, is their
ed. Marcel, II, 247), fulfillment. The and the dignity of man is
deification
central to each of the six days work of creation and
It may, thus, be argued that Ficino gave philo- is related in the sixth chapter to each of the seven
sophical and theological form and system to central books, for man was created on the sixth day. Thus Pico
attitudes of the Renaissance humanist tradition, partic- restores the theme of the dignity of man to the
ularly to those associated with the theme of the dignity hexameral tradition but renews this exegetical tradition
of man. It may also be argued that this emphasis, with new Cabalistic, Hermetic, Averroist, and Neo-
together with his pursuit of a universal theology and Platonic ideas.
anthropology to be found in all human traditions and A final reference may be made to the work of the
religions,pagan and Christian alike, constitute the Augustinian preacher and theologian, Egidio da
central themes of his philosophy. Both these themes, Viterbo (Giles of Viterbo), general of his order, of great
the dignity of man in his pursuit of deification, and influence in Christian Neo-
propagating Ficino's
the universality of all human traditions in this pursuit, Platonism at the courts of Julius and Leo X and at II
were development of Renaissance
also central to the the Lateran Council. His commentary on the Sentences
culture. Ficinoand the Renaissance Platonists, in other "ad mentem Flatonis" reverts to the scholastic argu-
words, do not represent a divergence from the major ment as to whether the dignity of man exceeds that
historical impulses of the Renaissance toward a of the angel. Egidio without hesitation projects man's 145
dignity as higher not only because of Christ's Incarna- Baeumker Beitrage. Ill (Miinster, 1900). Ludwig Edelstein,
tion asman, but because of the dynamic freedom of The Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquity (Baltimore, 1967);
man's striving to become God. which contrasts with idem, 'The Philosophical System of Posidonius," American
the static, hierarchical fixity of the angels' position. Journal of Philology. 57 (1936), 286-325. A.-J. Festugiere,
The idea of the dignit\' of man did not cease to find

La revelation d'Hennes Trismegiste. 4 vols. (Paris, 1950-54).
Eugenio Garin, "La 'Dignitas Hominis' e la letteratura
exponents among both philosophers and writers in the
patristica." La flinascita, I (1938), 102-46; idem, ed., Testi
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Italy and else-
umanistici sul "De anima" (Padua, 1951); idem, Giovanni
where. The influences of both Italian humanism and
Pico della Mirandola (Florence, 1937). Giovanni Gentile, "II
Florentine Platonism were too potent for these char- concetto dell'uonio nel Rinascimento" (1916). reprinted in
acteristic ideasand forms of discussion of man to be idem, // pensiero italiano del Rinascimento (Florence. 1940),
lost. However, its subsequent history is beyond the pp. 47-113. P. Gerlitz, "Der mystische Bildbegriff {c'lKuf
scope of this article. One observation only may be und imago) in der friihchristlichen Geistesgeschichte,"
permitted. Histories of single ideas or clusters of ideas Zeitschrift fiir Religion.<i- und Geistesgeschichte. 15 (1963),
are difficult to delimit because thev ordinarily embody 244ff. Karl Gronau, Poseidonios und die judisch-christliche
entire complexes of notions that are subject to greatly Genesis-exegese (Leipzig, 1914). J.
Gross, La divinisation du
varying interpretations in different philosophical and Chretien d'apres les peres grecs (Paris, 1938). Klaus Heit-
mann, Fortuna und Virtus. Eine Studie zu Petrarcas
literary schools and currents. Though the dignity of
Lebensxveisheit (Cologne and Graz, 1958). Werner Jaeger,
man was it had its
not primarily an Aristotelian idea,
S'emesius von Emesa. Quellenforschung zum Neuplato-
Aristotelian supporters, and even such an austere
nismus und seinen Anfangen bei Poseidonios (Berlin. 1914).
Stoic-Aristotelian as Pietro Pomponazzi felt compelled
Robert Javelet. Image et ressemblance au douzieme siecle
to polemicize against it. But ultimately more important de saint .\nselme a Alain de Lille, 2 vols. (Strasbourg, 1967).
than its involvement in the debates of Platonists and Imago Dei: Genesis 1:26 f im Spatjudentum, in
Jervell.
J.
was to be the impact of the Protestant
.\ristotelians der Gnosis und in den Paulinischen Briefen (Gottingen,
Reformation and Catholic Reform, on tlie one hand, 1960). P. O. Kristeller, "Ficino and Pomponazzi on the Place
and of the emergence of the new science, on the other. of Man in the Universe," Journal of the History of Ideas,
Both these sixteenth-century developments were to 5 (1944), 220-26, reprinted in Studies in Renaissance
drastically alter the conception of man and his place Thought and Letters (Rome, 1956), pp. 279-86; idem, "The
Philosophy of Man in the Italian Renaissance," Italica, 24
in the universe and consequently the entire conception
(1947), 93-112. reprinted in Studies in Renaissance Thought
of the dignity of man, though the Renaissance concept
and Letters, pp. 261-78; idem. The Philosophy of Marsilio
of man itself had important implications for both these
Ficino (New York. 1943), Italian trans., 7/ pensiero filosofico
developments.
di Marsilio Ficino (Florence, 1953). Gerhart B. Ladner, "The
Concept of the Image
Greek Fathers and the Byzan-
in the
tine Iconoclastic Controversy," Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 7
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(1953), Iff.; idem. Ad iynaginem Dei: The Image of Man in
Charles Trinkaus, "In Our Image and Likeness": Human- Medieval Art (Latrobe, Pa., 1965); idem, "Homo Viator:
ity and DiviniUj Humanist Thought (London and
in Italian Medieval Ideas on .\lienation and Order," Spectdum, 42
Chicago, 1970), for principal text.s discussed and bibliogra- (1967), 233-59; idem. Idea of Reform (Cambridge, Mass.,
phy. See also the following works, and especially those by: 1959; rev. ed. New York, 1967), Chapters II, V; idem, "The
Cassirer, Garin. Gentile, Javelet, Kristeller, Ladner, Di Philosophical Anthropology of St. Gregory of Nyssa,"
Napoli, Paparelli, and Yates. Javelet. Ladner {Idea of Re- Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 12 (1958). Michael Landmann, et
form), and Landmann have important bibliographies. al., DE HOMINE, Der Mensch im Spiegel seines Gedanken
Henschel Baker, The Image of Man: A Study of Human (Freiburg and Munich, 1962). R. Leys, L'image de Dieu
Dignity in Classical Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the chez Saint Gregoire de Xysse (Brussels and Paris, 1951).
Renaissance {Cambridge, .Mass., 1947; reprint New York. R. A. Markus, " 'Imago' and 'Similitude' in .\ugustine,"
Individuum und Kosmos in der Philos-
1961). Ernst Cassirer, Revue des etudes augustiniennes. 10 (1964), 125ff. F. Masai,
ophie der Renaissance (Leipzig and Berlin. 1927; trans. Plethon et le platonisine de Mistra (Paris. 1956). E. Massa,
New York, 1964); idem, "Giovanni Pico della Mirandola." "L'anima e I'uomo in Egidio Viterbo e nelle fonte classiche
Journal of the History of Ideas. 3 (1942), 123-44, 319-54; e medievali," in Testi umanistici sul 'De anima. ' H. Merki,
reprinted in P. O. Kristeller and P. P. Wiener, eds.. Renais- OMOIflSIS 0ES2: Von der platonischen Angleichen an Gott
sance Essays (New York, 1968), 11-60. Ernst Cassirer, Paul zur Cottdhnlichkeit bei Gregor von S'yssa. Paradosis VII
Oskar John Herman Randall, Jr.. eds.. The
Kristeller, (Fribourg, Switzerland, 1952). Rodolfo Mondolfo, La com-
Renaissance Philosophy of Man (Chicago, 1948). Y M. J. prensione del soggetto umano neU'antichita classica
Congar. "Le theme de Dieu-Createur et les explications de (Florence, 1958). J.
T. Muckle, "The Doctrine of Gregory
rHexameron dans la tradition chretienne," in L'homme of .Nyssa on Man as the Image of God," Mediaeval Studies,
devant Dieu: Melanges offerts au Pere Henri de Lubac (Paris, 7 (1945), 55-84. Giovanni di Napoli, "'Contemptus Mundi'
14o 1963), pp. 189fF. B. Domanski, Die Psychologic des S'emesius, e Dignitas Hominis' nel Rinascimento, " Rivista di filosofia
RENAISSANCE LITERATURE AND HISTORIOGRAPHY
neoscolastica, 48 (1956), 9-41; idem, L'immortalita always to end up, not as a step toward international
dell'anima nel Rinascimento (Turin, 1963). Gioacchino understanding, but as a weapon in the raw hands of
Paparelli, Feritas. Humanitas, Dwinitas: Le componenti chauvinism and xenophobia.
deliUmanesimo (Messina and Florence, 1960). F. E. Seen from the scarcely serene heights of the late
Robbins, The Hexaemeral Literature: A Study of Greek and twentieth century, the brute energy which the Renais-
Latin Commentaries on Genesis (Chicago, 1912). A. Struker,
sance expended and the ingenious means which it
Die Gottesebenbitdlichkeit des Menschen in der attchrist- womb
employed to tear itself out of the reluctant of
lichen Literatur der ersten zwei Jahrhunderte (Miinster,
the Middle Ages have an almost mesmeric effect. The
1913). J.
E. Sullivan, The Image of God: The Doctrine of
Renaissance rewrote history with a ruthless hand, but,
St. Augustine and Its Influence (Dubuque, Iowa, 1963). R.
as we see, history is now taking its ironic revenge. For
McL. Wilson, "The Early History of the Exegesis of Genesis
1:26," Studia 420ff. Frances Yates,
Patristica. 1 (1957), if we think of the Renaissance as ultimately the revolu-
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London and tionary force which succeeded in destroying a static,
Chicago, 1964; reprint New York, 1969). hierarchical, and reactionary mode of thought and
behavior and replaced it with one which broke open
CHARLES TRINKAUS
the way to the comparatively unhindered exercise of
[See also Hermeticism; Hierarchy; Macrocosm and
private and public that
individual virtit in life alike;
Micrososm; Neo-Platonism; Platonism in the Renaissance;
is, the freedom, if not always the possibility, of the
Progress; Renaissance Humanism; Stoicism.]
person to move in many directions, economic, social,
political, emotional, intellectual, and moral; that is,
towards capitalism, a bourgeois form of society, repre-

sentative government, science, freedom of conscience
and belief, faith in the rational, the supremacy of the
RENAISSANCE LITERATURE authentic and self-justifying self,and devotion to the
AND HISTORIOGRAPHY word as the highest form of expression; then we must
be prepared to admit that that world is now in process
History is a mirror by means of which the present of ending, if it has not already done so, under the
peers into the past in order to see itself as it would impact of new (or should we not say renewed?) modes
wish to be seen by the future. The present either abuses of thought and behavior: the power of the collectivity
the past by attributing to it unworthy qualities from over the individual, of feeling over expression, of
which it has been able triumphanth' to cleanse itself touching over speaking, of action over persuasion, of
and thus to create its own character, rather in the shapelessness over structure, of things over thoughts.
manner of the jealous son slaying his father so that emergence of the Renaissance
In short, the story of the
he can take his place, or it uses the past as an ideal tells it comes too late to be of
a story which, though
by which it whips the present and finds its own self use (assuming the lesson could or would be used) is,
wanting; in neither case is the present able to see the nevertheless, a plot whose mythos is well worth
past as it was, dooming itself in effect to a like failure remembering.
of comprehension when its turn inevitably comes. Thus In the history of ideas, there will always be found
the Church Fathers pagan heritage
either abjured their a number of assumptions about the course of history,
altogether or, contrariwise, claimed they were its only that is way men act and mider what im-
to say, the
legitimate descendants, a technique of eating the cake pulses, whether recognized by them or not, which help
of the past and having it too subsequently employed to explain the attitudes they take toward major histori-
by all succeeding radical movements, religious or po- cal problems; sometimes these assumptions are explicit,
litical. The Renaissance deprecated the Middle Ages but more often they are implicit in the work itself.
(which it had first to invent before it could destroy) By this is meant that men have certain ways of looking
in order to assert its own identity; the neo-classicists at and judging past events which enable them to make
had to find their predecessors crude and unpolished; intelligible patterns out of the flux of phenomena, for
the romantics were bound to reject neo-classicism as in dealing with history, the recognition and judgment
unnatural and to shatter its cosmopolitanism into na- of events implies some sort of preconceived way of
tional fragments; their own needs forced the Victorians looking at and evaluating them which is applied to
to invent rational Greeks, contented medieval peasants, the interpretation of the material. Now, in the Renais-
and passionate Renaissance men; and T. S. Eliot had sance there were a number of methodological assump-
to rewrite the history of English literature so as to tions about the course of history which in varying
support the legitimacy of his style. It is worth noting degrees affected contemporary thinking about the past
in passing that the comparative method seems almost and about the Renaissance itself. Of these, six are 147
especially significant; they are the idea of progress, the sance were concerned, the Middle Ages were a blank;
theory of perfectibility, the climate theory, the cyclical they looked on themselves as the inheritors and con-
theory of history, the doctrine of uniforniitarianism, tinuers of a tradition which had lapsed, and it would
and the idea of decline. not be putting it too strongly to say that they felt
These six ideas are not of equal importance and the themselves the contemporaries of the ancients.
last three are in fact in ideological opposition to the Now, there was another group of men whose faces
first three. Nevertheless, all are fundamental to our were not turned backward but rather forward. They
understanding of the ways in which the Renaissance too thought that the ancients had accomplished great
thought. Of the six, the idea of progress is of the most things; they too thought that the Middle Ages had been
consequence, for it is involved in the rise of the idea imfruitful, but what distinguishes them is the fact that
of science which marks out the modern world from they thought their own age was different both from
The concept of modernity, of the
the preceding eras. the classical period and the Middle .'Vges. In other
modern world emerging in the Renaissance and con- words, it was their belief that the era of the Renaissance
tinuing as a unity, but with variations within it, to the represented a way of life which was unique and which
present day, is at bottom the consequence of the rise had never before existed on the face of the earth. In
of the idea of science,and therefore of the Renaissance their estimation, what distinguished the modern period
itself. But the triumph of the idea of science was not was the rise of science, which to them meant the
an easy one; it had to meet the opposition of a number discoveries and the new information thev uncovered,
of powerful counter-ideas before it was accepted. The the invention of instruments the ancients had not
conflict between the idea of progress and the theory known, the effects of these inventions, and finally the
of perfectibility on the one hand and the cyclical application of science toward more discoveries and
theory of history, the doctrine of uniformitarianism, inventions in increasing numbers of disciplines so that
and the idea of decline on the other is but the first the outlook for the future was not one of sameness
stage of a controversy which reached its height and but of continuous change and change to the better.
was resolved with the victory of science in the seven- Louis Le Roy sets the pattern which the modems
teenth century. followed and elaborated on. If, he proposes, we take
The attack on the doctrine of the superiority of the a balance, no previous age has done more in the arts
ancients, theovercoming of the attitude of skepticism and sciences than this, neither the age of Cyrus, nor
toward the achievements of the moderns, the refutation of Alexander the Great, nor of the Arabs, because
of criticisms directed against the idea of progress, the within the last hundred years that which had been
opposition to the pessimism inherent in the cyclical covered by the shades of ignorance has come into the
theory of history and the idea of decline, all these light, but also much which had never been known has
measures had to be taken in the seventeenth century emerged: new fashions of men, laws, costumes; new
before the idea of science could be securely established. plants, trees, minerals; new inventions such as printing,
But the genesis of this struggle goes back to the six- weapons of war, instruments of navigation; lost lan-
teenth century when it was first given its character guages restored (Le Roy, Considerations, pp. 7-9).
and direction. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out According to Etienne Pasquier (II, 605-06), the foun-
that the conflict of ideas described in this paper is of dations of a new method of inquiry superior to that
late Renaissance origin. Up to the second half of the of the were laid down by Copernicus,
ancients
sixteenth century, the Renaissance still believed in the Paracelsus, and Ramus, and in such fields as far apart
authority of the ancients. But imder the impact of the as surgery and the investigation of magnetism, their
discoveries and inventions and of the great changes in leading exponents could each claim superiority over
the economic structure of society, the influence of the the ancients (Pare, A4 recto; Gilbert, pp. ii recto-ii
ancients was gradually undermined, though the con- verso).Thus the way toward a complete working out
tention lasted for over a centiu^y. of the methods and implications of science was sur-
The humanists have usually been depicted as men veyed before Francis Bacon. Alvarez, Ramus, Surius,
who looked backward; to them the revival of learning and Postel agree with Le Roy that their century has
was literally a return to the world of a way of life seen greater progress in men and learning than has
which had disappeared for a thousand years but which been seen in the whole course of the previous fourteen
now was back. It is as though the ancient civilization centuries.
had flourished, had disappeared, and had reappeared Now, on what basis did they make this astounding
without change, except that the man of the Renaissance claim? There no doubt that their optimism and
is
looked up to the ancients for the wonders they had confidence are based on their belief in progress
148 achieved. So far as many of the writers of the Renais- grounded on science. In his Of the Interchangeable
Course, or Variety of Things (1594), Le Roy has worked to its invention, and describes the process. He con-
out the philosophy of progress in relation to science cludes with a recital of its accomplishments: it has
which is the manifesto of the moderns. The book is come from God to abolish the papal tyranny, to confute
in essence a complete statement of the argument of the Church of Rome, and to bring about the victory
the modems: progress, scientific method, perfectibility, of the truth; it has diflûsed knowledge, reduced the
the plenitude of nature, the attack on decay, even the price of books, made learning and reading more easily
very title itself of the most complete exposition of the accessible, has encouraged the composition of worth-
aims and methods of the moderns. So hopeful is his while books, and has caused God's word to prevail (III,
vision of the future that it inspires Le Roy to the 718-22).

heights of eloquence: "The greatest things are difficult, The result of this activity in the sciences was the
and long in comming. How many haue bin first
. . . formulation of a doctrine of progress. It was held that
knowen and found out in this age? I say, new lands, the modern world was different from previous worlds
new seas, new formes of men, manners, lawes, and because it knew more, did more, and hoped to accom-
custonies; new diseases, and new remedies; new waies plish more. The future seemed to promise ever in-
of the Heauen, and of the Ocean, and new starres
. . . creasing inventions and discoveries of such magnitude
seen? That which is now hidden, with time will
. . . as made the present achievements seem small by
come to light; and our successours will wonder that comparison, not that the present was bad, but that the
wee were ignorant of them" (Variety, pp. 127 recto- future would be better. There therefore was no turning
127 verso). back to the past for only the future mattered. The rise
Of the innovations made by the rise of science none of science, then, introduced a new element into the
received more attention than the discoveries and the Renaissance idea of times. Men were aware
its own
invention of gunpowder, the compass, and printing. of their era not because was like another periodit
Typical is this sentence from Jerome Cardan's auto- which had died away and was reborn but because it
biography. "Among the extraordinary, though quite was different from any other era; its uniqueness was
natural circumstances of my life, the first and most its mark.
imusual is that I was bom in this century in which Those who apply the idea of progress to natiu-e hold
the whole world became known; whereas the ancients that, contrary to the beliefs of those who hold to the
were familiar with but little more than a third part idea of retrogression, nature is not nmning down, that
of it" (pp. 189-90). This note of intense self-awareness men are as good as thev once were, and that it is
is repeated in Amerigo Vespucci's letter to Lorenzo perfectly just to expect continued improvements in the
Pietro de' Medici relating his own discoveries (p. 1). arts and sciences. This point of view is in reality an
In his Histoire Generalle des Indes Occidentales ih attack on the doctrine of the superiority of the an-
Terres Neuues (1552), Francisco Lopez de Gomara cients; at the same time, it makes possible, as we have
delivers a scathing attack on the ancients' knowledge seen in the work of Le Roy, a justification for the study
of geography. He shows that the world is round, that of science. For if nature has mn down, there is nothing
it is inhabited, that there are inhabitants on the other new to discover, and if men's wits are becoming
hemispheres, and that the ancients did notknow how feebler, there is no possibility of increasing knowledge.
to compute correctly longitude and latitude. Le Roy Gabriel Harvey argues that reason still functions as
lists the new things whith have come into the world well as italways did and goes so far as to assert that
as a result of the discoveries: sugar, pearls, spices, herbs, the first age was not the golden age; he cites Jean Bodin
and gold. George Best makes a similar list
trees, fruit, to declare that the golden age is now (pp. 85-86).
and shows how the discoveries have brought about an Richard Eden points out that the great advances
economy of abundance (I, 14). made in geometry, astronomy, architecture, music,
The importance of the invention of printing was soon painting, arms, inventions, and the like in modern times
recognized, especially from the point of view of its are an indication that men can now be superior to the
effects on the Reformation. Many writers of the ancients, for they have the same abilities as the an-
Renaissance discuss the significance of printing, and the cients; furthermore, since the number of things to be
consensus is that printing has brought about a great found out is infinite, so the number of inventions and
increase in the diffusion of knowledge and has been discoveries is infinite (pp. xlvi-xlvii). Le Roy reports
itself. But it is John
instnmiental in causing the revival that there is a frequent complaint to the effect that
Foxe who brings the praise of the printing press to manners are getting worse daily, but if this were so,
its highest pitch. In a section called "The Invention he asks, then men should ". ere this haue come to . .
and Benefit of Printing," Foxe discusses the date of the the height of iniquitie; and there should now be no
invention of the press, considers the various claimants more integrities in them: which is not tme." Bodin 149
makes a strong attack on the idea of retrogression in There is a variable course and revolution of all things.
his Methodus (pp. 308-407). What the theory of Summer gettith the upperhande of wynter, and wynter
perfectibihty contributed to the idea of the Renaissance agavne of summer. Nature herselfe is changeable, and most
was the behef that it was possible to equal, if not of all delightid with vanitye; and arte, after a sorte her ape,
overtake, the ancients. conformith to the like mutabilitye.
According to the climate theory of history, the influ- Similar exemplifications of the cvclical theory are
ence of the elements may bring about changes in men's found in Guicciardini (I, 2) and Vasari (1, 20-21, 32-33).
affairs.Thus Giorgio Vasari points out that the air the Le Roy attributes the greatness of the several notable
early painters breathed stimulatedthem to produce the eras in history, including the Renaissance, to the
works of art which help bring about the revival of the cyclical course of events:
arts. While Bodin is most closely identified with this
the excellency of armes, and learning, to haue bin
idea, it was not unknown to other writers, such as
. . .
first
in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and .\sia the lesser: consequently

Thomas Proctor (p. iiir), and Fulke Greville (iv, 78-79).
in Greece, Italie. and Sarasmenia: and finallie in this age,
Bodin makes the point that a concurrence of the proper
in which we see almost all auncient, liberal, and Mechanical
climatic conditions will bring about changes in historv .\rts to be restored with the tongues; after that they had
and that certain areas are more favorable for the bin lost almost twelue hundred veares, and other new,
cultivation of the arts and sciences than others; he does inuented in their places.
not, however, work this out in connection with his own
As a dynamic theory of history, the idea that events
times.
have their rise, flourishing state, and fall enabled the
The assumption about the course of human history
writers of the Renaissance to account for the
which is most widely held in the Renaissance is the
emergence of a new way of life when, in their estima-
cyclical or tide theory. According to this point of view,
men and nations and the arts have their origin, rise,
tion, there had been no changes in human affairs for
a millennium.
flourishing, and decay; when the process is once
The central doctrine of the theory of uniformitarian-
completed, it does not stop but repeats itself over and
over again. Or we
ism holds that human nature never changes, that men
if take the tide image, civilizations
at all times and places have always been the same,
ebb and flow, and ebb and flow, and again the process
and that therefore there is nothing new under the sun.
is a continuous one. Seen in the relation to the idea
Thus Montaigne makes the point that the world is
of the Renaissance, this theory may be a help or a
neither in a state of decrepitude nor in a state of
hindrance to its development, depending on the point
progress; it is as it always has been, and nature has
in the cycle at which an historian wishes to place it.
neither lost its power nor suddenly produced men of
If the Renaissance is seen as part of the ascending
outstanding qualities (III, 115-16). And Pierre Charron
curve, it will be described as the apex of human histor\'
takes the very evidence which led Le Rov to announce
up on the other hand, if it is part of
to that point;
the doctrine of progress to arrive at the conclusion that
the descending arc, it will be looked on as a state of
the world has not seen nor ever will see anything new:
decay in comparison with the peak reached by the
ancients; in point of fact, both approaches are to be That this great body which we call the world, is ... in
found. perpetual flux and reflux; That there is nothing said, held,
Niccolo Machiavelli expresses the idea of cyclical believed at one time, and in one place, which is not Ukewise
change in The History of Florence (1532) and Gabriel said, held, believed in another year, and contradicted,
Harvey applies the cyclical theory to the course of reproved, condemned elsewhere; . . . That all things are
learning and especially to its history in his own lifetime.

setled and comprehended in their course and revolution of
nature, subject to encrease, changing ending, to the muta-
Indeed, the imagery which both use to express the
tion of times, places, climates, heavens, airs, countries (p.
cyclical theory is strikingly similar. Machiavelli writes:
231).
For since it is ordained by Providence that there should

By denving the possibility of change or progress, the
be a continual ebb and flow in the things of this world;
doctrine of uniformitarianism helped to put a damper
as soon as they arrive at their utmost perfection and can
ascend no higher, they must of necessity decline; and on
on the enthusiasm for the achievements of the modern
the other hand, when they have fallen, through any disorder, world. Its influence was more pervasive than indicated
to the lowest degree that is possible, can sink no lower, here and it continued to exercise a retarding effect on
they begin to rise again (I, 213-14). the idea of progress into the seventeenth century.
Finally, there is the idea of decay, which held that
150 He is echoed by Harvey: the world was on the downgrade. The best period in
historyhad been at the beginning of the world, and ideas are widespread. They are both English and Con-
historywas but the record of the increasing degeneracy tinental in scope, and range over the length of the late
of man and his works. Nature itself was running down Renaissance as it is ordinarily conceived. A second
and there was no hope for the present, and certainly point to be noticed is that they are not confined to
none at all for the future. Thus there is developed a any particular type of intellectual activity but are to
strong strain of pessimism which, when applied to the be found in all fields of Renaissance endeavor. Another
idea of the Renaissance, denied either the uniqueness conclusion is that these are not new ideas; their origins
or the advances made in modern times. If we add to are deep in classical culture and some of them have,
this the theological opposition to the things of this for the most part, a vigorous history through the Mid-
world and its insistence on the depravity of man, we dle .Ages. This fact suggests that much of Renaissance
get a steady counter-current to the idea of progress. thinking is not altogether the jumble of ideas it is
Basic to the idea of decay is the belief in the exist- usually thought to be. What is new about the Renais-
ence of a past golden age from which all subsequent sance is not so much the ideas themselves, but the ways
history is judged and found wanting; Edmund Spenser in which they were recombined into new intellectual
writes: constructions. The clue for historical research then is
not so much to seek original ideas as to discover the

So oft as I with state of present time. cumulative flow of old ideas, and to analyze what new
The image of the antique world compare.
combinations have been made and under the impetus
When as mans age was in his freshest prime
of what new needs and forces. The ideas themselves
.\nd the first blossome of fair vertue bare.
retain certain fairly constant characters; what changes
Such oddes I finde twist those, and these which are.
As that, through long continuance of his course.
as a result of new demands is the forms of recombina-
Me seemes the world is runne quite out of square. tion of old ideas.
From the first point of his appointed sourse. Revived from late classical antiquity and locked
And being once amisse growes daily wourse and wourse together in the Renaissance mind, the idea of progress
(Faerie Queene, V, stanza 1 of the Proem.). and the cyclical theory of history, reinforced when
need be by the doctrine of uniformitarianism and the
And he is echoed by Fulke Greville's "A Treatise of concept of perfectibility, were welded together to form
Monarchy" (I, 5-6, 11-12). the idea of science as the basis of a continuously
The golden age theme brings with it a feeling of expanding future; that is, of an ever-spreading
pessimism, of lack of faith in progress and in the ability modernity to which there could be no end. It is worth
of human reason to deal adequately with the problems asking the question: Why, if the idea of progress and
which confront man; and this is a strain of anti- the cyclical theory of history were of classical origin,
intellectualism which merges very easily into theolog- did they fall into disuse, and why did their potential
ical distrust of the reason, as in the poems of John have to wait for recognition and use until the
Davies and John Norden. The Renaissance has been Renaissance? The answer, it appears, lies in yet another
described as the optimistic age; it is also the pessimistic clustering of ideas within the Renaissance mind: the
age, for on all sides one hears the cry; "We are fallen fusion, this time, of the idea of science with two ideas
into the barren age of the worlde," and "Our age, and unique to the Renaissance, the idea of nationalism and
aged world, even doating olde," and ". the world . . the idea of capitalism. Nationalism gave the Renais-
declineth to an old age, and bringeth not forth his sance its force, the motivating energy which moved
fruites with that vigor and vertue it hath done in times men to action; capitalism gave them the economic
past; .the vertue and goodnesse of man seemeth
. . resources from which their aspirations could be put
to defect from that of former ages, and to wax old into actual effect. Thus, for the first time in the history
and decay. ." The idea of decay is perhaps the

. . ofman, it became possible to foresee a time when man,
strongest impediment to the immediate acceptance of escaped from the tyranny of an economy of scarcity,
the idea of the Renaissance and so great was its influ- could be free to move as they willed: nationalism
ence that it needed the full efforts of Bacon and his motivated them, capitalism gave them security, science
followers to put an end to its vogue in the philosophical showed them the way, and progress gave them the
area though it kept alive by becoming a convention hope that utopia could be had here and now, on this
in poetry. earth and within their literal grasp.
On how these six ideological preconceptions Some centuries have passed since this vision first
operated to affect Renaissance thinking, however, one burst from the imagination of the Renaissance and its
or two conclusions suggest themselves. One is that these realization has proved to be far more difficult than the 151
—
REVOLUTION
optimism of the scientists of the seventeenth century /. THE IDEA OF REVOLUTION IN EARLY
foresaw, yet it remains an indispensable, indeed central, MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY
part of the modern mind: abundance equals freedom Revolutio is a late Latin word which indicates the
equals happiness — except who have
for those already moving of a thing from
one place to another. Although
acquired them. At the verv moment when the Renais- it occurred in the writings of Saint .\ugustine and of
sance finally achieves its ends, it comes to an end. others, it was not a widely used term.
The great political writers of the classical world
BIBLIOGRAPHY lacked an expression which corresponds to our notion
George The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher. ed.

Best,
of "revolution"; certainly they knew of uprisings
V. StefFanson and E. McCaskill, 2 vols. (London, 19.34), Jean against a ruler (ewacdoTaois: Herodotus, Thucydides),
Bodin, Methodtis ad facilem historiarum cognitionetti (Lvons, of changes of constitutions (fi^Ta/ioXri troXneias: Plato,
1583). Jerome Cardan, The Book of My Life, trans. J. Stoner Aristotle), and of people who were eager for new things
(London, 1931). Pierre Charron, Of Wisdome, trans. S. {cupidus rerum novarum: Cicero), but they regarded
Lennard (London. 1670). Richard Eden, The First Three the world as being constantly in motion, and the length
English Books on America, ed. E. .\rber (Birmingham, 1885). of a rulership, the functioning or nonfunctioning of
John Foxe, Actes and Monuments, eds. S. R. Cattley and constitutions depended on human qualities, not on
G. Townsend, 8 vols. (London, 1843-49). William Gilbert,
institutional arrangements. There existed a limited
De magnete (1600), trans. P. Fleury Mottelay as On the
number of constitutional arrangements and all of them
Magnet (London, 1900). Fulke Greville. VVbrfcs, ed. A. B.
Grosart (n.p., 1870). Francesco Guicciardini, The History
could be perfect, but human defects made the
degeneration almost unavoidable. The decline from
of Italy, trans. A. R Goddard, 10 vols. (London, 1753-56).
Gabriel Harvey, Letterbook, ed. E. J. L. Scott (London, monarchy to tyranny is the most famous example
1884). Louis Le Roy, Considerations sur I'histoire universelle of such degeneration. Polybiusmade the change from
(Paris, 1567); idem. Of the Interchangeable Course, or Vari- one form to another into a cycle
constitutional
ety of Tilings, trans. R. .\shley (London, 1594). N. (afaKVKXuais), which runs from a state of nature to
Machiavelli, The Works, trans. E. Farneworth (London, monarchy, from monarchy to tyranny, from tyranny
1762). M. de Montaigne, The Essays, trans. J.
Zeitlin, 3 vols. to aristocracy, from aristocracy to oligarchy, from
(New York, 1936). .Ambrose Pare, Works, trans. T. Johnson oligarchy to democracy, and from democracy to
(London, 1678). Etienne Pasquier, Oeuvres, 2 vols.
anarchy which represented a return to a state of nature
(Amsterdam, 1723). Thomas Proctor, Of the Knowledge and so that the cycle would begin again. This cyclical
Conducte of Warres (London, 1578). Giorgio Vasari, Lives,
theory has played an important role in the fiistory of
trans. Mrs. J. Foster, 5 vols. (London, 1850-52). Amerigo
political thought and particularly also in the history
Vespucci, Mundus novus (1503), trans. G. N. Northrup
of the idea of revolution. .Nevertheless, because in the
(Princeton, 1916).
classical view human qualities — virtues and vices— are
HERBERT WEISINGER the only moving forces in the cycle of political history
[See also Ancients and Modems; Chain of Being; Cycles; and because these classical theories are not predicated
Historiography; Nationalism; Perfectibility; Progress; Ren- on the assumption of a generally valid norm assuring
aissance Humanism; Uniformitarianisni; Wisdom of the a stable order of political and social life, cla,ssical polit-
Fool.]
ical thought lacks constitutive elements of the term
"revolution."
The term "revolution" begins to be used in the late
Middle Ages. In its Italian form, rivoluzione. Renais-
REVOLUTION —
sance historians Guicciardini, Machiavelli, Nardi
employed it in describing political events. In their
The word "revolution" implies two elements —that of writings, rivoluzione indicated the occurrence of a
change by movement, and that of a motion which political disorder or of a change in rulership without
returns to its starting point. In the modem concept containing any implication about the success or value,
of revolution which originated in the times of the llie desirability, the character or the aim of such
French Revolution the element of change efiFecting a disorder or change. It was a neutral, purely descriptive
forward movement prevails. But even in this notion term and was used interchangeably with tumulto,
traces of the earlier concept in which the cyclical mutazione, moto.
aspects of the term were predominant are still notice- In the course of the sixteenth century, however,
able. This justifies a careful treatment of the evolution revolution gained its own particular physiognomy
of the idea during the centuries between the Renais- which made it stand out from those concepts with
152 sance and the French Revolution. which it had previously been used synonymously. The
—
REVOLUTION
reason is the appearance of the word in the title of tian mold of thought but also because it was compatible
the work in which Copernicus presented his theory with the ideas of the humanists who had revived
of the movements of the stars: De revolutionibus classical political thought. The notion of revolution
orbium caelestium (1543). "Revolving" and "revolu- could be conceived as the all-encompassing framework
tions" have remained technical terms in astronomy and into which the cyclical thought of classical political
cosmology indicating the orbital movements of the writers could be fitted.
planets and the time relation in which thev stand to Clearlv, a chief reason for the adoption of the term
each other. In the sixteenth century the application "revolution" in the vocabulary of political thought was
of a term explaining celestial movements to political the flexibility of the term; it was associated with a great
movements on the earth was The widespread,

natural. variety of images which could be used by writers who
almost general belief in astrology made it inevitable might have different opinions about the explanation
to assume that movements of the stars had their of change. For an understanding of the role which the
counterpart in political and social events. Revolutions idea of revolution has played in the language of politics
on earth reflected the revolutions in the heavens. it is important to keep in mind that the meaning of
It must be added, however, that the term "revolu- the term reaches from simply designating a change in
tion" — because it implied both movement and a return government to the belief in a heaven-determined,
to the point of departure —was particularly suited for cyclical, political development.
removing diflficulfies which medieval political thought The crucial importance of the term "revolution" in
had not been able to overcome. The basic assumption the political vocabulary became generally recognized in
in the Middle Ages was that there was one pattern the seventeenth century when the events in England
which guaranteed the stability and permanence of the which we now call the English revolution required —
social order: a monarchy based on a hierarchically discussion and evaluation; revolution was used both for
organized society. Each country ought to be governed the description and the interpretation of these events.
in accordance with this pattern. Unrest and disturb- The official proclamations in which Charles II ex-
ances were the result of violations of the law. If they plained to the speaker of the House of Commons, to
were committed by the ruler he became a tyrant and the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen of London, his views
resistance was permitted, even regarded as a duty. upon his return to England in 1660 spoke of the "many
These assumptions of a basically stable social order, and great revolutions" (see Book 16 of Clarendon's
however, began to look rather unrealistic in a world History of the Rebellion) through which England had
which, especially in the later Middle Ages, showed passed; this was a purely factual, almost neutral allu-
great changes — accumulation of wealth, concentration sion to the many governmental changes which had
of political power, new forms of military organization. taken place in England in the preceding twenty years,
Christian thought — perhaps more correctly, the Jewish but others used the term "revolution" because it
legacy in Christian thought — had given some recogni- appeared to them to contain an explanation of the
tion to the existence of change and movement in social causes of these changes; the idea served to throw light
life; it postulated a succession of empires or ages, and on the forces determining the course of history. To
chiliastichopes and expectations which, from Joachim Clarendon the events demonstrated the dependence of
of Floris until the Reformation, permeated European political movements on movements in heaven: "The
religious thought, revitalized the idea of the imma- motions of these last twenty years have proceeded
. . .
nent approach of a final age. But this golden age which from the evil influence of a malignant star" (ibid.).
would restore the situation before man's fall would be Hobbes saw in the events proof of the truth of the
preceded by a final struggle between the followers of cyclical theory of classical political science: "I have
Christ and the armies of the anti-Christ. Victory could seen in this revolution a circular motion of the sover-
be attained only if man immediately set himself against eign power through two usurpers from the late King
the evil customs and laws which had crept into social to his son. For ... it moved from King Charles I to
life and restored institutions to their older and better the Long Parliament; from thence to the Rump; from
forms. It is easy to see how the idea of revolution which the Rump to Oliver Cromwell and then back again
contained both — motion and return to the begin- from Richard Cromwell to the Rump; thence to the
nings — could serve to bridge the contrast in Christian Long Parliament; and thence to King Charles II, where
social thought between the assumption of a generally long may it remain" (Hobbes, Behemoth, end of the
valid norm and of a development towards an age of Fourth Dialogue).
perfection. Application of the term "revolution to the events "
However, the term "revolution" gained popularity in of 1688 which saw another overthrow of the Stuart
the sixteenth century not only because it fitted a Chris- dynasty was justified in a similar manner. The change 15o
REVOLUTION
that took place in 1688 was a revolution because it modemes (1754-60). If these writers made any distinc-
represented a return to the true old constitution of tion between conspiracies, and revolutions
rebellions,
England and as such closed a cycle. The fact that it is that while conspiracies and rebellions might fail,
the events of 1688 were called a "Glorious Revolu- revolutions really effected changes in government.
tion" did not imply a better, a truer, revolution than On the other hand, the particular and distinctive
the previous ones, nor that it ushered in a new age. character of the notion, because of its cyclical implica-
The praising adjective "Glorious"was only intended tions, was evident to serious political writers. It might
to indicate that the action against James II had had be enough to refer to Walter Moyle's Essay on the
a successful outcome. Also for Locke, the great Constitution and Government of the Roman State.
defender of the revolution of 1688, the word itself had Moyle speaks of the "great revolution" which took
no particular meaning or weight. He seems to have place in Rome: "the monarchy resolved into an
been aware of its cyclical element because in the nine- aristocracy; and that into a democracy; and that too
teenth chapter of the Second Treatise on Civil Govern- relapsed into a monarchy." Moyle added that these
ment he maintained that the "slowness and aversion changes did not come about as Polybius had assumed
in the people to quit their old constitutions has in the "from moral reasons such as vices and corruptions" but
many revolutions which have been seen in this king- "from the change of the only true ground and founda-
dom, in this and former ages, still kept us to, or after tion of power, property." Under the impact of the
some interval of fruitless attempts still brought us back events in England Moyle was interested in finding
again to, our old legislative of king, lords and com- means to escape from the cycle of unending revolu-
mons." A
later passage in the same chapter, however, tions, and by focusing on the question of how to avoid
shows that Locke finds no difference between revolu- them Moyle foreshadowed later intellectual concerns.
tion and rebellion. Of course, by giving the people the —
But this interest made him and some of his English
"right to resume their original liberty" if the purposes —
contemporaries unique in the intellectual world of
for which "men enter society" are subverted, Locke the Enlightenment, for the more usual view at that
gave the right of resistance a firm and broadened basis time was that the cycle could not be halted.
which served well to justify revolutionary action in the Hume proclaimed as a law of politics "that every
later part of the eighteenth century. government must come to a period and that death is
Undoubtedly, the events in England — the execution unavoidable to the political as well as to the natural
of a monarch, the emergence of a tyrant, the overthrow body" ("Whether the British Government Inclines
of a king by his own — deeply stirred
son-in-law politi- More to Absolute Monarchy or to a Republic," in
cal thought. But there were other events — the defec- Philosophical Works. Boston [1854], III, 51). Likewise,
tion of the Netherlands, the Revolt of the Catalans, many of the philosophes accepted the cyclical element
the Portuguese Rebellion — which directed attention to in the word "revolution" and did not believe in the
the problem of political change. All these events possibility of escape. That "empires like men must
combined to make "revolution" a fashionable word; grow, decay and die" is, according to D'Alembert, "a
this can be deduced from the frequency with which necessary revolution" in the history of states ("Eloge
it appeared in the titles of historical works. That many de M. le President de Montesquieu"). Montesquieu saw
popular historical writers used this term chiefly because the same impermanency in all fields of human Hfe: II
it was fashionable, can also be derived from the fact arrive, tous les dix ans, des rôlutions qui pricipitent
that they did not attribute to it a very distinctive le riche la misê et enlênt le pauvre avec des
dans
meaning. One of the writers who wrote many histories ailes rapidesau comble des richesses ("Every ten years
of revolution was the Abbe R. A. de Vertot (1655- revolutions occur which hurl the rich into poverty and
1733); in the Preface of his Revolutions de Portugal he send the poor on a rapid flight to abundant wealth";
gave an almost frivolous explanation why in the edition Lettres persanes). Because of its cyclical element revo-
of 1722 the title work was changed from
of this lution fitted the skepticism of the philosophes con-
Conjuration to Revolutions. He had added earlier and cerning the strength and power of men.
later events: C'est cette augmentation d'ivinemens qui However, the word "revolution" had many applica-
a engagi d, substituer le titre de Revolutions h celuy tions in the language of the philosophes; they also used
de Conjuration. The same, somewhat thoughtless use this concept without any cyclical coimotation. Then,
of the word can be found in the title which Duport- like the popular historians whom we have mentioned,
Dutertre gave to the eight volumes in which he pub- they considered revolution as a neutral term descrip-
hshed a collection of historical anecdotes and reports. tive of an important change in government. This is
He called his work Histoire des Conjurations, Con- clearly expressed by Diderot in his article on "Revolu-
154 spirations et Revolutions cilibres, tant anciennes que tion" in the Encyclopddie; according to him "revolu-
REVOLUTION
tion" means en terme de politique . . . un changement crise et du siecle des revolutions; qui peut vous ripondre
considerable arrive dans gouvemenient dun etat.
le de ce que vous deviendrez alors? ("We are approaching
Moreover, the meaning of the word was extended to a crisis and a century of revolutions; who can answer
cover any great change in human institutions. It might to vou for what will become of you then?") Voltaire,
be enough to refer to the 28th book of De I'esprit in accordance with most of the philosophes, expressed
des his in which Montesquieu analyzed the develop- himself more optimistically: "Everything I see scatters
ment of French judicial procedure; in the 36th chapter the seeds of a revolution which will definitely come,
of this book "revolution" is used to indicate a fun- though I won't have the pleasure of being its witness.
damental change in the French political government; Frenchmen discover everything late, but in the end
in the 39th chapter of the same book revolution means thev do discover it. Enlightenment has gradually spread
onlv a great change in administration of laws. Every so widelv that it will burst into full light at the first
development which changed the course of history was right opportunity, and then there'll be a fine uproar.
called a revolution. That, for instance, is the sense in The voung people are lucky: they will see some great
which Gibbon used this word in his Decline and Fall things" (in a letter to Bernard Louis Chauvelin of April
of the Roman Empire (particularly Chapter 46). And 2, 1764). The great changes which Voltaire envisaged
this was the sense of the term in the Abbe Raynal's would be the result of new intellectual insights. He
Histoire philosophique et politique des etablissements defined what was going on as une grande revolution
et du commerce des Europeens dans les deux Indes dans I'esprit humain (in a letter to Francois Jean de
(1781). Raynal at the beginning of the first volume of Chastellux of December 7, 1772). Because this revolu-
thiswork spoke about the "revolution in commerce" tion presupposed a new intellectual attitude the various
which the discovery of the New World caused and a fields of intellectual efforts all formed part of this great
close reading of this and the following passages shows revolutionary movement and writers spoke of a revo-
that — contrast to what has been frequently asser-
in lution in the arts, in the sciences, or in anatomy. Again,
ted — he didn't allude to the American Revolution and we have here an extension of the notion of revolution
its had in mind a slow and
possible consequences but on which scholars of the nineteenth century would
gradual long-range development extending over three elaborate and to which they would give intensive study.
centuries. In David Hume's essay on "The Rise of .\rts The changes which would result from the great
and Sciences" (Hume's Philosophical Works, London revolution of the human mind and of which the
[1874-75], II, 120), the phrase "the domestic and the philosophes were protagonists would finally liberate the
gradual revolutions of the state "
indicates a neutral world from superstition, from ambitious rivalry and
and very general meaning of the word. competition, and place reason on the throne. The world
—
However, the philosophes particularly their leaders would be organized according to true rational princi-
like Rousseau and Voltaire —
also made a particular ples; the final age of history would be reached. This
contribution to the development of the idea of revolu- beginning of a new world resembled the beginning of
tion, and this new aspect of the notion might have a new revolution of the stars. There hardly can be any
influenced Gibbon's use of the term. Despite skepticism doubt that the astrological connotations of the word
and occasional pessimism the philosophes believed in "revolution" played their part in the minds of many
progress and particularly in the decisive contribution who were expecting from the work of the Enlighten-
which their own age and they themselves made to the ment a revolution which would usher in a new and
advance of humanity. Turgot wrote that, whereas the final age.
phenomena of nature are "enclosed in a circle of revo- For later generations a new, although not a final age
lutions that are always the same," man can break the began with the American Revolution. However, this
cycle of nature and in recent times progress has become was not the view of the leaders of this movement when
unmistakable and irresistible {Discours sur les progres it began. They were convinced that they were defend-
humain, Oeuvres, Paris [1808], II,

successifs de I'esprit ing themselves against a conspiracy of the British rulers
52). The philosophes were firmly persuaded that the to establish a tyrannical regime in the Colonies, and
great discoveries about the laws of nature which had that they were acting in accordance with the right of
taken place in the preceding century would be fol- resistance as Locke had formulated it. The American
lowed by a discovery of the laws of social order and colonists were aivxious to restore the old rightful basis
that it would soon be possible to establish a peaceful of government. From time to time one can find the
and prosperous world. It was the general conviction that expression "revolution," for instance, in a memoran-
an era of great change was approaching. Some looked dum of William Smith of June 9, 1776: he fears that
upon the coming events with fear. Rousseau, for in- "the meditated revolution tends to light up a Civil
stance, wrote in £.mile: Nous approchons de I'itat de War." Actually, in the early years of the struggle the 155
REVOLUTION
term "revolution" was rarely applied to the War of he said in a letter to Richard Fitzpatrick (30 July 1789):
Independence; it began to occur frequently in the "How much the greatest event in the history of the
1780's when Thomas Paine, on hearing that he might world, and how much the best," and it might be added
be appointed Historiographer to the Continent, out- that the fall of the Bastille for the French has remained
lined his plan for a History of the American Revolution almost identical with the French Revolution itself. In
(October 1783), when Richard Price published his Ob- the nineteenth century the crucial struggle to decide
servations on the American Revolution (1784), and the outcome of a revolution usually took place in the
David Ramsay wrote his History of the Revolution of capital; the fighters for the revolution were citizens
South Carolina (1785) and his History of the American armed with checkmating the military forces
rifles,
Revolution (1789). By then independence had been through quickly erected barricades and storming over
achieved. It had become evident that in consequence these barricades towards the center of the city.
the mercantile powers could no longer maintain their Delacroix' famous painting Liberty Leading the People
monopolistic system of trade with colonies and that was an apotheosis of the citizens' revolutions of the
a republican constitution could create a feasible system first half of the nineteenth century.
of government. A revolution in the sense of a far- fall of the Bastille meant more than over-
But the
reaching change had taken place. The full implications throw of a government; it was taken as the beginning
change and also the pioneering role of the events
of this of a new age, and as such, forced people to take a
on the American continent were realized only when stand. The voices which welcomed the event were
the movement continued in Europe with the French numerous. We have mentioned the enthusiasm with
Revolution. which Fox greeted the news of the fall of the Bastille.
Richard Price, the British defender of the American
II. FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO Revolution, proclaimed in a sermon of September
MARXS THEORY OF REVOLUTION 1789: "After sharing in the benefit of one revolution
With the French Revolution the idea of revolution I have been spared to be a witness to two other revolu-
assumes a more sharply defined form and gains a cen- tions, both glorious," and Hegel, hearing about the
tral place in political thought. Interest in the connec- French events in his small, despotically governed South
tion of the idea of revolution with a cyclical historical German duchy, spoke of a "magnificent sunrise." The
movement — although, as we shall see, it did not consensus among the educated was that revolution
entirely disappear — diminished. The significant new represented a step forward in the march of humanity.
development which was brought about by the French Condorcet was the most articulate spokesman for the
Revolution was the combining in one concept of the goals at which the revolution was believed to aim:
two notions which previously had existed side by side: "Our hopes for the future condition of the human race
that of revolutions as changes in government; and that can be subsumed under three important heads: the
of revolution as ushering in a new social order and abolition of inequality between nations, the progress
a new stage in world history. Already in 1793, when of equality within each nation, and the true perfection
the revolutionary movement was still in full swing, of mankind" (Esquisse . . . , Dixihne fyoque). Progress,
Condorcet stated that the extension of the political democracy, and republic became attributes of the idea
change to wider spheres was the characteristic feature of revolution; it was filled with a positive content.
of the French Revolution: "In France, the revolution Nevertheless, a problem remained connected with
was embrace the entire economy of society, change
to this highly praised event of the French Revolution,
every social relation, and find its way down to the particularly the fall of the Bastille. This action involved
furthest links of the political chain, even down to those violence, a breach of law, and ever since the French
individuals who, living in peace on their private for- Revolution violence also became an integral element
tune or on the fruits of their labor, had no reason to in the concept of revolution. At the outset concern
participate in public affairs — neither opinion nor oc- about the violence which accompanied the "triumph
cupation nor the pursuit of wealth, power or fame" of the people" was not great because a revolt against
(Condorcet, l^quisse d'un tableau historique des despotism seemed just and could be justified with the
progres de I'esprit humain, Neuvihne Epoque). In the doctrine of the "right of resistance," for which Locke
notion of revolution as it developed in this period the and liis followers had provided an enlarged theoretical
political —
change the overthrow of the existing gov- basis. Still in 1804, when events in France had gone
—
ernment remained decisive, i.e., a revolution was far beyond a defense against arbitrary despotism,
assumed to culminate in one dramatic, violent event: Schiller in Wilhelm Tell (II, ii) upheld the right of
for the contemporaries the fall of the Bastille was this revolution with arguments which reach back to the
156 decisive event. When Charles James Fox heard of it past rather than point to the future. His defense of
REVOLUTION
violence used the cyclical element of return to the which he stressed that "the word revolutionary can be
beginnings, the power of the stars, natural law, and applied only to revolutions whose aim is freedom"
the medieval doctrine of resistance against tyranny: (Oetivres, XII, 516); a similar use of the term occurs
frequently in the nineteenth century and then in con-
Nein, eine Grenze hat Tyrannenmacht.
nection with the Communist Revolution.
Wenn der Gedruckte nirgends Recht kann finden,
wird die Last — greift er
Wenn unertraglich
If in the summer of 1789 men had rallied enthusi-
Hinauf getrosten Mutes in den Himmel asticallv around the cause of the French Revolution
Und holt herunter seine ewgen Rechte, the terror diminished the number of adherents. Very
Die droben hangen unverausserlich early the alarm had been raised by Burke in his Reflec-
Und unzerbrechlich wie die Sterne selbst. tions on the Revolution France (1790). In allowing
in
Der alte Urstand der S'atur kehrt wieder. violence free rein, "We
have no compass to govern
Wo Mensch dem Menschen gegeniibersteht; us nor do we know distinctly to what part we steer."
Zum letzten Mittel, wenn kein andres mehr Burke had many followers who spread his views on
Verfangen will, ist ihm das Schwert gegehen.
the Continent. The impact of the writings of Burke
(Nay, there are bounds unto oppression's power;
and of his disciples was so great because they played
For when its victim nowhere finds redress.
on the fear of the people. Revolution became a de-
And when his burden may no more be borne.
heaven. structive force which threatened the security, the
With hopeful courage he appears to
And grasps from thence his everlasting rights. property, even the life of every individual. Ever since
Which still inalienable hang on high. Burke and since the terror, fear of revolution has been
Inviolable as the stars themselves. one of the persistent elements in the Western political
Then nature's primal state returns once more. atmosphere. It permeates Stendhal's Le Rouge et le
When man in conflict meets his fellow man; noir in which Juhen Sorel reflects: Ih ont tant peur
And at the last, when nothing else avails. des Jacobins!Its voient un Robespierre et sa charrette
The sword's fierce surgery must cure his ills;
chaque haie ("They fear the Jacobins so much!
derriere
trans. P. Maxwell).
They see a Robespierre and his cart-load behind each
Itshould be added that when in later years the exist- hedge").
ence of a right to revolution was discussed traces of Fear and condemnation became connected with a
survival of the medieval right of resistance or of natural reawakening of the cvclical element in the notion of
law thinking are always noticeable. revolution. The development from monarchy to
If the violence connected with the first events of anarchy, to terror, and then to military despotism, was
the French Revolution could be explained and jus- presented as unavoidable once the orderly road of law
tified, further events gave the problem of the use of was abandoned. Such an argument can be found not
violence amore serious aspect. Under the pressure of only in the political debate and in political pamphlets
internaland external enemies the new government but its importance is evidenced by the fact that belief
continued to disregard legal restrictions and to take in such a cycle was strongly held by the two most
every measure which might serve to retain power: the prominent conservative statesmen of the nineteenth
period of terror began. Consequently, revolution be- century: Metternich, the leader of Europe in the age
came identified with a period of extra-legality while of restoration, spoke of a cycle revolutionnaire complet
the government ruled arbitrarily, and this lasted as long (in his Profession de foi); and Bismarck, the architect
as the government which the revolution had brought of a conservative Europe in the second part of the
into power was threatened. When on October 10, 1793 nineteenth century, maintained that, after a revolu-
the Convention declared that "the government of tion, a historical cycle occurs which leads back to dic-
France is revolutionary until the peace the meaning "
tatorship, despotism, and absolutism {Gedanken und
was that the government could use all measures Erinnerungen, Ch. 21). When he made this statement
deemed fit to secure the revolution. The period lasted Bismarck thought not only of the Revolution of 1789
until the Thermidor, the fall of Robespierre. During but also of the French events from the middle of the
this period France possessed not only a "revolutionary nineteenth century which had issued in the rise of
government" but also "revolutionary tribunals" and a Napoleon III. But the idea of a cycle through which
"revolutionary army." The word "revolutionary" a revolution will end in the dictatorship of a military
therefore signified not only a person who takes an man was not only an antirevolutionary argument of
active part in a revolution but is also applied to a conservatives but was generally regarded as a possi-
regime which exerts arbitrary power and to the meas- bility actually inherent in any revolutionary movement.
ru-es which this regime might take. This meaning of The idea of a Thermidor, i.e., the possibility that when
the word is alluded to in a phrase by Condorcet in the revolution has done its work of destruction the 157
—
REVOLUTION
masses will rally behind any power who will restore be equality before the law in countries in which a
order and stability, still haunted the leaders of the feudal nobilitv still exerted judicial and administrative
Russian Revolution in the twentieth centiu-)-; Trotsky fimctions. The pride in national distinctiveness which
regarded the rise of Stalin as the Soviet Thermidor, the struggle against Napoleon had produced implied
which he defined "as a triumph of the bureaucracy that each nation different individuality and had
had a
over the masses." its which it had to solve in its own
particular problems
It might be remarked that the idea of a cycle through peculiar way. One might even go farther: one country
which everv revolution passes has also played a role might need a revolution; another might be able to live
in scholarly discussions and investigations of revolution. without it; and in the case of a revolution, causes and
It was hoped that analvses of the cycle might serve aim might differ.
to establish a law of revolution; these attempts cannot Nevertheless, to explain developments which had
be considered to have been particularly successful; shaken the entire European social structure as locally
Crane Brinton, whose Anatomy of Revolution (1938) determined and patterned was hardly fully acceptable
is one of the best studies of this kind, admitted that particularly not to those whose position was threatened
comparison, in order to be successful, had to be limited by the revolution. Friedrich von Gentz, the German
to a few great revolutions and this could not be translator of Burke, saw the French Revolution in its
regarded as a sufficient basis for valid generalizations. early years as a "protean monster" working in different
Nevertheless, there is general agreement on what forms and at different places. The revolution became
a revolution is. Although there are many modern a vast force with a Ufe of its own; "The lava of revolu-
definitions of revolution they all contain the same tion flows majestically on, sparing nothing. Who can
elements. They maintain that revolution is a sudden, resist it?" wrote one of its adherents, Georg Forster
violent change in the social location of power expres- {Samtliche Schriften, VI, 84), and his view of the revo-
sing itself in the radical transformation of processes lution as a spreading, powerful, dynamic force was
of govermiient, of the official foundations of sover- shared by the enemies of revolution. In their view
eignty or legitimacy, and of the conception of the revolution had no rational, calculable, or justifiable
social order; revolutions are intended to usher in a new- goal. was a dynamic force changing the civilized
It
era in history. Clearly, all the constituent features of order anarchy and chaos. With the fall of
into
this definition — a violent political overthrow, a trans- Napoleon the dangers seemed to be eliminated and
formation of social life, a development which has Mettemich's entire policy aimed at protecting Europe
relevance forall humanity —
were characteristic of the from a renewal of the revolutionary outbreak. Yet, as
French Revolution; it created the modem concept of the events of 1830 and then of 1848 showed, the revo-
revolution. lutionary violence had been dormant, not extinguished,
Nevertheless, it should not be overlooked that in the and proved again its power to break the fragile crust
decades following the era of the French Revolution of civilization. The view of revolution as an elemental
and of Napoleon the two different notions of revolution force, harbinger of chaos and destroyer of civilization,
which had existed in the eighteenth century and which explains the impact which the events of 1830 and 1848
the modern concept of revolution combined, continued made far beyond the circle of the conservative rulers
to exist as distinctive facets within the unified concept. on wide groups of educated men. Barthold Georg
Revolution still was regarded as indicating both: polit- Niebuhr, the historian of Rome, and one of the great
ical changes in different countries; and an all-em- personalities of the era of Prussian reform, collapsed
bracing general movement. There were still revolu- when he heard of the July revolution in 1830 and never
tions, and there was the revolution. recovered. The deep impression which the outbreak
Violent political upheavals and changes of govern- of the revolution of 1848 made on Alexis de
ment — revolutions — were frequent in the nineteenth Tocqueville is reflected in the classical greatness of his
century: the July revolution of 1830 in France; the own description:
Decembrist revolution of 1825 in Russia; the
La inonarchie constitutionelle avait succede (i I'ancien
Neapolitan revolution of 1820; the February revolution
regime; la republique. a la monarchie; a la republique,
of 1848 in Paris; the German revolution of 1848. Of
I'empire; d I'empire, la restauration; puis etait venue la
all of them it can be said that they were directed monarchie de juillet. Apres chacune de ces mutations
towards greater freedom. But the concrete aim of these successives, on avait dit que la Revolution frangaise, ayant
revolutionary movements in the various countries var- achev^ ce quôn appelait pr^somptueusement son oeuvre,
ied widely: in one country it might be a written consti- etait finie: on I'avait dit et on I'avait cru. Helas! je I'avais
tution; in another might be an enlargement of the

it espire moi-mê sous la restauration, et encore depuis que
158 rights of parliament or a broader franchise; or it might le gouvemement de la restauration fut tomhi; et void la
—
REVOLUTION
Revolution franqaise qui recmnmence, car c'est toujours la that whatever people thought about it was deeply
tnerne. . . . Quant a moi, je ne puis le dire, j'ignore quand colored by emotion. The French Revolution and sub-
finira ce long voyage; je suis fatigue dc prendre successive- sequent upheavals created a feeling of insecurity, and
nient pour tc rivage des vapeurs trompeuses, et je me de-
insecurity creates fear; this established the undertone
mands souvent si cette terreferme que nous cherchons depuis
of all future political discussions and became the domi-
si longtemps existe en effet. ou si notre destinee n'est pas
nant voice at critical moments. However, it did not
plutot de battre eternellcment la mer! (Souvenirs in Oeuvres
determine the middle-class attitude to revolution in
completes, Paris [1964], XII, 87).
more tranquil times. It is difficult to present a satis-
("The constitutional monarchy had followed the old factory statement on the question whether in the nine-
regime; after the Republic, the Empire; after the teenth century people regarded revolution as an evil
Empire, the Restoration; then the July monarchy. After or as a beneficial event; the problem needs more in-
each of these successive changes, one might have said tensive and more subtle investigation than scholars
that theFrench Revolution, having accomplished what have given it. The difficulty is that probably the views
was presumptuously called its work, was ended; so of the great bulk of the people, of the middle classes,
people said and thought. Alas! I had hoped so myself on the problem of revolution, were deeply ambiguous.
during the Restoration and also after the Restoration Because of underlying fear, the issue of violence and
government had fallen; but there was the French Rev- of terror played a great role in all the discussions.
olution beginning all over again in the same old way. This becomes very evident in the writings of his-
... As for me, I cannot agree, I don't know when this torians whose favorite topic in the first half of the
long voyage will end. I am tired of being misled by nineteenth century was the history of revolutions, and
fogs, time and again, into believing that the coast is that meant, of the English and French Revolutions.
near, and I often wonder whether that solid ground The inclination of the nineteenth-century historians
which we have so long sought reallv exists, or whether at least outside of France —
was to place the English
our destiny is not rather to battle tlie sea forever!") revolution above the French Revolution because the
The Franco- Prussian War of 1870 filled Jakob English had tried to maintain the old rights and not
Burckhardt's mind with anxiety and fear that unrest to create new ones; they had taken recourse to law,
and revolution would put an end to European civili- not to violence. For instance, that was the thesis of
zation; he began his lectures on the age of the French Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, the most influential
Revolution with the words: German liberal, who in the 1840's wrote books on
the English as well as on the French Revolution. This
Zum Namen dieses Kurses ist zu bemerken, dass eigentlich
thesis was not welcome to French historians who were
alles hisauf unsere Tage im Grunde lauter Revolu-
tionszeitalter ist, und wir stehen vielteicht erst relativ an den unwilling to condemn a development which had raised
Anfiingen oder im ziveiten Akt; denn jene drei scheinbar their country to hegemony in Europe. Francois Guizot
ruhigen Dezennien von 1815 bis 1848 haben sich zu erkennen wrote about the English and French Revolutions: Ce
gegeben als einen blossen Zwischetiakt in dem grossen sont deux victoires dans la meme guerre et au profit de
Drama. Dieses aber scheint Eitie Bewegung werden zu la meme cause; la gloire leur est commune; elles se
im Gegensatz zu alter bekannien Vergangenheit
wolleti, die
reinvent mutuellement au lieu de s 'ec/ipser (beginning of
unseres Globus steht. Jetzt dagegen wissen wir, dass ein
his Histoire de Revolution d'Angleterre. 1826). In
. . .
la
und derselbe Sturin, welcher seit 1789 die Menschheit fasste,
the same way Auguste Mignet began his Histoire de
audi uns weitcr trdgt (Gesamtausgabe, Berlin [1929], Vll,
laRevolution franqaise (1824) pointedly: Je vais tracer
426-27).
rapidement I'histoire de la revolution frangaise qui com-
("I would like to say about the title of this course that mence en Europe I'ere des societes nouvelles, comme
really everything that has happened until today forms la revolution d'Angleterre a commence I'ere des gou-
part of an age of revolution and perhaps we are only vemements nouveaux. Nevertheless, it is evident that
at its beginning or in For those threeits second act. they had difficulty in fitting violence and terror in
apparently tranquil decades from 1800 to 1848 have their benign picture of the French Revolution. Both
revealed themselves to be nothing but an entr'acte in Mignet and ,\dolphe Thiers, whose Histoire de la Re-
the great drama. This drama seems to develop into volution frangaise appeared likewise in the twenties of
a movement which stands in contrast to all the known the nineteenth century, recognized the necessity of ex-
past of our globe. . one and
. . Now we know that treme measures in the dangerous circumstances in
the same storm which gripped the human world since which France found itself witliout approving or
1789 carries us further along.") admiring them: II est une verite qu'il faut repeter
The development of the idea of revolution in the toujours; la passion n'est jamais tii sage, ni eclairee,
nineteenth century was also influenced by the fact mais c'est la passion seule qui peut sauver les peuples 159
REVOLUTION
dans les grandes extremites ("There is a truth that increased attention to the .American Revolution be-
must always be repeated: passion is never either wise cause, more than the English and the French Revolu-
or enhghtened, but only passion can save people in tions seemed to represent the model of a revolution
it
great extremity"; Leipzig [1846], III, 187). And Jules which achieved national liberation. Simon Bolivar, as
Michelet, in the Preface of his Histonj of the French the leader of a similar movement in South .\merica,
Revohition (1847) directly attacks those who regard was highly admired by the liberal bourgeoisie. The
the revolution and terror as inextricable: "The violent Greek fight against the Turks, the Polish rebellion
terrible efforts which it was obliged to make in order against Russian rule, aroused general sympathy and
not to perish in a stniggle with the conspiring world Thaddeus Kosciusko, Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe
have been mistaken for the revolution itself by a blind, Garibaldi, and Louis Kossuth were welcomed and
forgetful generation." Even Carlyle who in describing celebrated as heroes wherever they went. Perhaps one
the history of the French Revolution was not influenced might say that revolutions in foreign comitries when
bv national or patriotic considerations gave much at- they were directed against oppression and despotism
tention to the question of terror and represented the were encouraged. But revolutionary movement in one's
excesses of the revolution as a natural process, an own country, especially when they had a social con-
almost unavoidable reaction to the corrupt regime tent, were regarded with deep suspicion. Nevertheless,
which had preceded it. as the events of 18-!8 showed, because the European
The French historians of this period saw in social middle class in their attitude to revolution was
tension and in the struggle of classes one of the causes ambivalent, they could participate in a revolution and
of revolution. Indeed, fears of revolution were kept try to harvest advantages from it after the revolution
alive by the sharpening of social conflicts in conse- had broken out.
quence of the increasing role of industrial activity in It should be added that a split mind in the attitude
economic life. In the first half of the nineteenth century to revolutions was not a peculiarity of the liberal mid-
we have the "Peterloo" massacres (1819) and the dle classes; the same split can be found among con-
Workers' Rebellion in Lyons (1832). We have in Silesia servatives. Bismarck broke with the Gerlachs, i.e., the
the weavers destroying the newly-installed spinning leaders of the conservative group to which he owed
machinery. We have the beginnings of trade unions his political start, when the Gerlachs opposed any
and Chartism; these movements were accompanied, cooperation with Napoleon III whom they regarded
and perhaps nourished, by writings which attacked the as the incarnation of the revolution. Bismarck had no
existing economic system and questioned the inviola- reservations to work together with this "heir of the
bility of private property. Louis Blanc, Pierre-Joseph revolution" if such policy would be of benefit to
Proudhon, Robert Owen, Adolphe Blanqui, began to Prussia. Bismarck, as he wrote in his memoirs, had
develop socialist doctrines which implied a change in never any hesitation an emergency to take recourse
in
the governmental system. A bourgeoisie with the to revolutionarv weapons.

memories of the terror behind it and a threat to its Bismarck's dispute with the Gerlachs took place after
property before it, began upon the idea of
to look the Revolution of 1848, and a "realistic" attitude was
revolution with detestation. They began to accept the easy for him because the revolution in Germany had
view of the conservative statesmen that there was a failed and the position of his class was no longer
wide revolutionary conspiracy comprising such associ- threatened.
ations like the ]unge Deutschland and the Giovane The great influence of the events of 1848 on the
Itaha. Even if they were liberals they rejected revolu- thinking about revolution is unquestionable. The mid-
tion and advocated evolution and reform as the appro- dle classes on the European continent could not take
priate road to social betterment. a purelv negative attitude because of the active part
However, if the possible social consequences of rev- which they had taken in the revolution. Moreover, the
olution deterred the middle classes they remained op- ruthlessness of the reactionary regimes, which after the
ponents of absolutism; moreover, they were the chief failiue of the revolution were in power in Central
protagonists of that nationalism which the French Europe, aroused resentment and the rapid increase in
Revolution had awakened and which kept a powerful industrialization heightened misery. It appeared im-
hold over the minds of men in the nineteenth century. possible to separate national and social questions; a
Revolts of oppressed people against foreign despotism revolution would have to have a social content. The
were regarded as natural, national revolutions deserved most striking and enlightening illustration of the man-
support, and the actions of revolutionary movements ner in which the thinking about revolution and about
which tried to achieve national unification had to be the issues of revolution was shifting can be foimd in
160 approved. This was the time when Europeans directed Theodor Mommsen's Romische Geschichte (1854). The
1
REVOLUTION
third book, which deals with the Gracchi is entitled ruling group which benefited from the prevailing mode
"The Revolution." Mommsen's sympathy is on the side of production and the mass of the exploited.
of the Gracchi brothers, particularly of Gaius who If Marx's ideas are placed in the context of the
wanted to overthrow the regime of the aristocracy. history of the idea of revolution it becomes evident
.'Vnd the reason for this revolution as Mommsen that he accepts the notion of revolution as a movement
described was the contrast between an agrarian and
it changing and transforming all spheres of life; but be-
a money economy which with the expansion of Rome cause he sees social life as dependent on the prevailing
had issued in a serious conflict between capital and forms of production he is able to establish a clear and
labor and created a proletariat living in utter misery. well-defined relation between the general revolution
It is astounding how little attention has been given des esprits and the particular revolutions which
to this section of Mommsen's work, which strikingly effected the overthrow of a political regime. The po-
reveals a shift of the contents of the revolutionary litical revolution is part of the wider social revolution;
struggle from the political to the social plane. This was it is an essential precondition because the ruling group
the time when Marx was working out his revolutionary controls power by means of political institutions, but
theory. Clearly, Marx's view was nourished from the at the same time a political revolution is only a partial
atmosphere of the fifties. But it also opened a new phenomenon. A revolution will be complete only if
chapter in the history of the idea of revolution because it brings about a change in the modes of production
in entrusting the task of revolution exclusively to the so that the whole of social life will become trans-
proletariat it again changed the attitude of the middle formed. Thus, political and social revolution are inter-
classes and placed the bourgeoisie definitely in opposi- connected but also distinguishable: "Every revolution
tion to revolution. dissolves the old society; in that respect it is a social
This is not the place to present a thorough analysis revolution; every revolution overthrows the old gov-
of Marx's theory of revolution. Such an undertaking ernment, in that respect it is a political revolution."
belongs to the article on Marxism for, as it has been Marx also accepts the notion of the simultaneous
said, "The revolutionary idea was the keystone of a existence of one great, all-embracing revolution and
theoretical structure and an exposition of the
. . . of many different national revolutions, and he dissolves
Marxian revolutionary idea in complete form would this apparent contradiction. Although his scheme of
be nothing other than an exposition of Marxism itself a world-historical progressive movement punctuated
as a theoretical system" (Tucker, pp. 2, 5). In the by class struggles is applicable to the whole of history,
following, emphasis will be placed on an analysis of actually Marx is interested only in the most recent
the connection of the earlier ideas of a revolution with stages of this process: the change from the feudal to
that of Marx and on Marx's influence in giving the the bourgeois age, and from the bourgeois age to the
concept a new shape. age of communism. He maintained that in his own
Marx's notion of revolution is closely tied to a time there were bourgeois revolutions, i.e., revolutions
number of related terms and concepts and should be with which the bourgeoisie ends the role of feudalism,
imderstood in connection with them. These notions are: and socialist revolutions in which the workers over-
world revolution; distinction between social and polit- throw the rule of the capitalist bourgeoisie. Some of
ical evolution; class struggle; bourgeois revolution and these revolutions may be both bourgeois and socialist
socialist revolution; final revolution. according to the state of economic development which
It is symptomatic of the central importance of the has been reached in the country in which the revo-
idea of revolution in Marx's general system that the lution takes place. However, one essential additional
word appears in so many associations. Like Hegel, point of Marx's thought is that the communist revo-
Marx saw world history as an interconnected process lution is the final revolution which will establish a
and revolution was the engine which had this process form of economic life eliminating the contrast between
moving from one stage to the next. Of course, there rulers and ruled, exploiters and exploited. Being the
are other elements in Marx's thought which shaped his last stage in the historical process this revolution must
concept of revolution. There were the views that each extend over the whole world. It is to be carried out
stage of history— political forms, institutions,

its intel- on an international level. It must be a world revolution.
lectual outlook — was determined by forms of pro- its Because Marx invested revolution with a chiliastic
duction and that the struggles and conflicts in history element revolution became essential in moving the
can be explained as contrasts between classes: that all world historical process forward to its final goal; it is
social history was essentially a history of class struggles. necessary and desirable and must be judged positively.
The further implication was that thiswas always a Because revolution designates a movement which
struggle between two classes, between the smaller brings about a new stage in world history it is distin- 16
REVOLUTION
guished from other similar concepts. Conspiracies or the early eighteenth-centiuy practice of calling every
coups d'etat might change the personnel of a govern- violent change of government a revolution although
ment, but they do not transform the political and social it was now always assumed that some social change
system. A revolutionary is a man who recognizes the was involved.
need for changing the entire system and acts accord- However, the term "revolution" was now also ap-
ingly. There was meaning in Marx's struggle against plied to events outside the strictly political sphere and
be
anarchists or terrorists. Revolutionary action could it seems likely that Marxian revolutionary theory with
successful only was carried out systematically in

if it its stress on the close connection between political,
cooperation with the class of the exploited. It was a economic, and intellectual events, had a part in this.
movement which required organization. Only those For the first great step in widening the use of the term
who took part in organizing the proletariat, the was made by applying it to significant, far-reaching
workers, towards action could be considered to be true changes in economic development. The concept of an
revolutionaries. If the modern notion of revolution had "industrial revolution " is probably the best-known
arisen in the French Revolution, Marx's theories made application of term to the economic sphere.
the
revolution a clearly defined historical category. Although this combination of words had been in use
since the twenties of the nineteenth century, "industrial
///. THE IDEA OF REVOLUTION FROM revolution" became a well-defined concept describing
MARX TO LEMN the economic developments which began in England
With Marx and with the emergence of Marxian in the eighteenth century through Arnold Toynbee's
socialism as a significant political factor a sharp line Lectures on the Industrial Revolution published in
began to separate the bourgeois capitalist world and 1884. The discovery of an "industrial revolution"
the world of the proletariat. Likewise in the history spurred investigation into and they indicated
its causes,
of the idea of revolution a distinction becomes neces- that an expansion of trade which had preceded the
sary between the developments in the bourgeois atti- "industrial revolution" played a significant role in
tude towards revolution and tlie changes which the accumulating the capital needed for the growth of
Marxian theory rmderwent in the hands of socialist industries: the "industrial revolution" had followed a
writers and politicians. "commercial revolution. If industry and commerce

"
The formation of large Marxist mass parties openly had their revolutions agriculture could not be left
proclaiming the need for revolution inevitably in- behind: the dissolution of the manor, the creation of
creased fear of revolution and demands for counter- individually owned landed estates, and the enclosure
measures. However, the attitude of liberal and of areas which had been common property and in
democratic circles remained somewhat ambivalent. common use constituted an "agrarian revolution." To
They were wedded to the idea of progress and although the same area of a great economic change in early
modern Europe belonged two further combinations in
they might consider the possibility of a Marxist revolu-
tion in their own country with anxiety and abhorrence, which the word "revolution" appears "price revolu-
—
they did not withhold approval from attempts to tion," indicating the inflationary trend in prices during
change the government system in countries with the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries caused primar-
reactionary absolutist governments: for instance, the ily by the infliLx of precious metals from America and —
Russian Revolution of 1905 or the Young Turkish Rev- "scientific revolution
"
which is meant to comprise the
olution of 1908.However, a certain hardening in the origin of the modern scientific outlook in tlie period
attitude to revolutionand to revolutionaries took place. from Galileo to Newton.
It is very difficult to determine to what extent In later times these notions became independent of
Marxian thought exerted influence on the political and the particular events of early modern European history
historical thinking among the bourgeoisie; it is evident they had been coined to describe. We speak of a "sec-
that the idea of revolution became a central issue of ond industrial revolution" in the twentieth century; we
politicaland historical thought. Historians found revo- assume tliat the heavy plough and the use of horses
lutions everywhere in history. What had been the produced an "agricultural revolution" in the early
defection of the Netherlands became the Dutch Revo- Middle Ages, and the "scientific revolution" of the
lution. The revolt of the Protestants in Prague was seventeenth centiuy was preceded by the "Copemican
named Bohemian Revolution, and, Max revolution." Nevertheless, in their original meaning all
the
Weber's Economics and Society, each of the changes
as in
these notions
—
"industrial revolution," "commercial
in city rule —
from that of famiUes to that of merchant revolution," "agrarian revolution," "scientific revolu-
guilds, from merchant guilds to democracy — became tion," "price revolution" — refer to various aspects of
162 a "revolution." There was a tendency to fall back on the gradual rise of a capitalist society in the period
"
REVOLUTION
between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries. with artillery. Friedrich Engels himself directed at-
They are various facets of the social revolution which tention to the fact that the diffêrence in strength be-
is both precondition and consequence of the bourgeois tween those who possessed a monopoly in military
political revolution. Whether the scholars who intro- power and civilians had immenselv widened. Clearly,
duced these notions were directlv or indirectly influ- under these circumstances the writings of the orthodox
enced bv Marx, it can hardly be an accident that the Marxists anxious to refute the theses of the Revisionists
extension of the notion of revolution from the political tried to prove that revolution was necessary and in-
to the economic sphere was originally concerned with evitable and to outline the tactics which might make
those innovations and developments which Marx a victory of revolution feasible. It is from this point
regarded as the economic basis of the bourgeois politi- of view that Lenin's State and Resolution (1917) is
cal revolution. In a general way it was the Marxian remarkable in its argument that the state is an instru-
problem of the victory of capitalism over feudalism ment of the ruling group and that as long as a state
on which these various revolutions throw light. exists a victory of the suppressed class is impossible.
Because these notions owe their origin to this crucial Lenin maintained that one could not rely on the
also
problem of modem history it is necessary to separate political maturity of the mass of the workers; a revo-
this use of the word revolution from one which is not lution required leadership by a small select group. For
connected with any significant intellectual or historical Trotsky the politically and economically imderdevel-
problem and which is primarily due to the fashionable oped situation in Russia made a revolution necessary
appeal which the word revolution had gained. but the weakness of the Russian bourgeoisie made it
Frequently heard statements are: Planck's quantum also impossible that it could maintain it,self in power.
theory represents a "revolution" in physics, or Freud Control would come into the hands of the industrial
brought about a "revolution" in psychology, or workers and revolution would then spill over Russia's
Roentgen's discovery of the X-ray "revolutionized frontiers into Western Europe. Briefly, once revolution
medicine. In all these cases the revolution to which has started it could no longer be stopped. It became
these statements refer is limited to one field — physics, a "permanent revolution until the triumph of so-
"
psvchology, or medicine — and it is not suggested that cialism over the entire world had been achieved. The
it has any direct repercussions in other fields. .Appli- discussions on the general strike and particularly
cation of the word revolution is intended to indicate Georges Sorel's Reflections on Violence (1908) also
that Planck or Freud or Roentgen accomplished a served the purpose of proving the necessity and
breakthrough which placed further work in the area feasibility of revolution. With the general strike the
of their specialty on a new basis. The term revolution workers possessed a weapon which could replace the
in these cases stresses the suddenness and the radical fight of civilians on barricades. For this reason the Paris
nature of the new development; it has no further Commune on which Marx had made some brief obser-
implication than to signify a change brought about by vations became a paradigm; it exemplified the manner
a brief or sudden action. in which during a revolutionary struggle masses of
We have pointed to the influence which Marxian workers could exert administrative control and form
thought might have exerted in the bourgeois camp. an effective power center. Briefly, the issue which
Unquestionably bourgeois ideas played their part also dominated the Marxist camp was whether revolution
in the development of Marxian revolutionary theory. remained necessary and feasible; the issue was placed
The emergence of Revisionism with its implied belief on another level only after the Bolshevists had seized
in a victory of socialism by means of democratic power in Russia.
evolution shows some echo of the bourgeois theory that
the evolution of capitalism had been a long process IV. FROM THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
extending over centuries and was not due to sudden TO THE PRESENT
violent action. Economic developments even seem to In the history of the idea of revolution the Russian
indicate that a gradual improvement of the material Revolution represents, at least at this writing, the final
situation of the workers within capitalism was not im- and most prominent landmark. It was a politi-
also the
possible. The theory of the Revisionists drew strength cal revolution which involved change in all spheres
from the fact that developments since the middle of of life. As such it was also a social revolution. It was
the nineteenth century (the failure of the revolutions meant world and to usher
to extend over the entire
of 1848 and then the Paris commune in 1871) had in a new stage in world history; it was a world revolu-
shown that civilians armed with rifles and barricades tion. Political revolution, social revolution, world rev-
were of no avail against a government in possession of olution, all combined in what its adherents call the
a disciplined army equipped with heavy weapons and "Great October Revolution" of 1917. 163
REVOLUTION
Even if the conquest of power hv the Bolsheviks was counterrevolution signified a policy which undid what
not followed by a revolutionary triumph over the the revolution had done; but with the growing threat
entire world, the fact that a large part of the globe of socialist parties, with tensions and conflicts among
had cut from capitalist society made the
itself off the various groups of the bourgeoisie, the view began
Russian Revolution an epoch-making event for friends to spread that recourse to revolutionary measures and
and foes. The Russian Revolution became a paradigm the establishment of a dictatorial regime based on force
of a revolution. A revolution had to bring about the was necessary to maintain the existing order. The em-
seizure of power by a new
had to destroy the
class. It phasis on the revolutionary nature of their regimes
existing social structure and change all the forms of served well to mask the counterrevolutionary nature
social life and tliis would almost necessarily involve of fascist or Nazi politics.
a period of terror. One might add that a revolution But Massolini and Hitler had another motive to insist
had to be regarded with awe all over the globe. Any on the revolutionary nature of their governments. In
political change that did not fulfill these requirements the times of the French Revolution the French revolu-
was no longer regarded as a "true revolution." tionary leaders called their government a "revolu-
The transformation of Germany from a monarchy tionary government" because this name suggested ex-
to a republic in 1918 was not a revolution because, traordinary times in which strict observation of laws
despite liberalization and democratization, the change or legal procedure was not feasible. By stressing at
of regime did not change the German social structure. every opportunity the revolutionary nature of their
On the other hand it is interesting and significant that governments the fascist and Nazi leaders justified the
both fascism and Nazism were anxious to claim that use they made of arbitrary emergency legislation with
they were revolutions. Although their governments disregard for legal rules and traditions; the appeal to
were formed by bargaining and negotiations they the necessities of revolution served to embellish
pretended to have attained power by a violent struggle despotic arbitrariness.
(March of Rome, Reichstag Fire). They emphasized the The Russian situation was different. After they had
thoroughness of the change which they had effected seizedpower the Bolsheviks remained involved in war
and represented their movements as "the wave of the against counterrevolutionary forces for several years.
future." In the dispirited and disillusioned decade after They felt encircled and threatened by a hostile world
the First World War many insisted on the need for and tried to mobilize all the oppressed and suppressed
a thorough change; the Russian Revolution influenced peoples of the world. This work was entrusted to the
the minds even of those who did not agree with its Communist International whose task was "to liberate
doctrines, by demonstrating that only a revolution the working people of the entire world. In its ranks
could bring about significant changes. In a somewhat the white, the yellow and the black-skinned peoples
paradoxical way revolution became the legitimate in- — the working people of the entire world — were
strument for change and change that was not brought fraternally united" (Theses of the Communist Interna-
about by revolution was not regarded as real change. tional on the National and Colonial Question, 1920).
The fascist leaders were well aware of the latent The communist leaders survived the civil war and
sympathy of the masses for revolutionary solutions, and outside intervention but for them the end war
of the
so were their followers and imitators in Spain, in did not constitute an end of the period of emergency.
France, and in Eastern Eirrope, who used the same Their world revolutionary aims had not been realized
appeal to revolution. It is characteristic of the prestige and since they regarded a half-socialist and a half-
which the word "revolution" had gained in the 1930's capitalist world as an impossibility, they continued to
that even historians of .\merican democracy designated live in what they considered a transitional period
the great ages of reform of the history of their country threatened by outside enemies. While they could
as periods of revolution; they introduced expressions attempt to build socialism in their country the final
like "the Jacksonian Revolution" or "the Rooseveltian order of society, communism, could be constructed
Revolution," and even a conservative president be- only after the world revolution, which now was post-
lieves that his legislative proposals will have greater poned into the future. The revolutionary period was
appeal when he says that he expects they are effecting extended for an uncertain time, and the nilers of Russia
an "American revolution." have kept the door open to fall back on revolutionary
There were more potent reasons why the fascist measures when it seems necessary. The same holds true
leaders stressed the revolutionary character of their for almost all the governments of a communist char-
regimes. They wanted to free themselves from the onus acter. All of them assume that it will take time to build
1d4 of being leaders of a "counterrevolution." Originally the new society atwhich they are aiming and until
REVOLUTION
the communist revolution has conquered the world political revolution is perfected in the spiritual revolu-
world revolution has not ended. This view is clearly tion canwe become free." Indeed, modern architecture
reflected in the name which was given to the consti- in Emope owed much to commissions by the govern-
tution of Castro's Cuba: it is entitled Fundamental Law ments which political changes in Germany and Russia
of the Revolution. had installed. Yet the fact soon emerged that the
Because of the dominant influence which the Russian Marxian concept of "cultural revolution" was not really
Revolution exerts on all investigations and debates of compatible with what artists then understood by "rev-
the idea of revolution, issues that have seemed settled olutionary art. This problem was recognized by Leon
have again been opened up. Problems like the connec- Trotskv in his book on Literature and Revolution (Eng.
tion between culture and revolution, the question of trans. 192.5). The writings of modern poets like
the revolutioiiarv character of a particular class, and Alexander Blok and V. V. Mayakovsky are for him signs
the relation of anarchism and revolution, are beginning of the decline of the old civilization and forerimners
to be discussed in a new manner. of a new civilization. But Trotsky believed that a true
Discussion on the connection between culture and new culture could develop only slowly and gradually
revolution focuses in the notion of a "cultural revolu- on the basis of a fully developed new economic and
tion" —a term which is widely used and debated. social order. "Revolutionary art which inevitably
Russian scholars maintain diat the term was first used reflects all the contradictions of a revolutionary social
bv Lenin but the relation of cultural attainments, par- system should not be confused with socialist art for
ticularly of art to revolution, is an old issue of great which no basis has as yet been made." For Trotsky
complexity. Nearly every political regime uses the modern art — which for him was identical with revolu-
svmbols of art for its own legitimation; accordingly, tionary art — has a certain transitional value and from
a new regime tends to demand and to promote a new this point of view it was logical that in the first years
artistic style. Although this has happened at almost all after the revolution Bolshevist cultinal policy should
times it came out into the open as a conscious policy promote modern art. But that was a brief period. After
in the period of the French Revolution, and then in some years the Bolshevik leaders rejected modern art
the nineteenth century the relation between art and as standing outside real life; abstract art became
revolution took a new form because some of the artists —

prohibited the works of modern abstract artists were
began to reject the idealistic tradition which had literally placed into the cellars of museums. The art
nourished art in previous centuries. They stressed the appropriate to communist society had to be compre-
need for "revolutionizing art" and considered them- hensible to the people and not only to a small, sophis-
selves to be the natural allies of political radicalism. ticated elite. ,\rt ought to show life in forms which
In the second part of the nineteenth century, in the could immediately be understood. It had to be "social
times of naturalism and realism, writers and poets used realism." The mission of the proletarian revolution is
art for the purpose of expressing sharp social criticism "to convert all the gains of cultural life into an all-
and participated actively in the socialist movements. people's possession" and socialist culture must be "a
In general, however, the bond between modern artists truly national culture" (M. Kim, pp. 1-2). Of course,
and revolution was a radical attitude rather than part of the great attention which Berthold Brecht has
agreement on a definite political program. This is attracted in the East and in the West is that he was
shown by the fact that many of the Futurists went to able to incorporate into his plays two different levels:
fascism, others went to conimrmism. on one level they teach simple lessons of political
But if the artists acted as if they had a free political morality; on the other, they ask the lasting questions
choice Marxism regarded the cultural world as a of the human condition. Mar.xists might make use of
superstructure bound to the economic base of social the prestige of a great name like that of Picasso, but
life, and a revolution which changed the modes of in East and West the organized communist movements
production would produce, therefore, a new culture keep distance from the artistic avant-garde. The aims
as well; the political and social revolution would be of cultural revolution are placed on a lower key. Lenin
supplemented bv a revolution in culture. said: "For us this cultural revolution presents immense
World \Var when
Indeed, in the years after the First difficulties of a purely cultural (for we are illiterate)
a revolutionary wave passed over Europe, writers and and material character (for to be cultured we must
artists, particularly in Germany and Russia, believed achieve a certain development of the material means
they had to play a decisive role in building a new of production); we must have a certain material base"
society. Walter Gropius, then a leader of modern {Works, XXXIII, 475). In concrete terms cultural revo-
German architecture, wrote in 1919: "Not imtil the lution in Soviet Russia begins with education of the lo5
REVOLUTION
masses and is envisaged as a long-time process. It call the Moscow leaders — who have transformed the
should perhaps be added that it appears that in China revolutionary struggle into political maneuverings. But
"cultural revolution" serves the purpose to eliminate it can hardlv be doubted that, behind this dispute about
all deviations from what the niling group regards as tactics there lies a different idea about the world which
Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy. should emerge in consequence of the revolution. The
In consequence of the Bolshevist conquest of power idea of using the instruments of modern civilization
the cause of revolution became identified with Russian for organizing life in such a way that everyone receives
policv. Russia was expected to be protector of any according to his needs is confronted by the view that
revolutionary movement and, on the other hand, any everything that forms part of this civilization is evil
government that allied itself with Russia considered and that modern be rejected in its
civilization has to
itself to be a revolutionary government and was entirety. The ghost which Marx believed to have laid
regarded as such. The common bond was the enmity when he drove Bakunin into the wilderness has
against Western capitalism and imperialism and this returned. Clearly, there is an anarchist element in some
made each member of this alliance automatically a of the revolutionary movements of the present — of the
partner in revolution. The notion of revolution became guerrillas, of the students, of the blacks — and it is no
absorbed in the contrast between East and West. This accident that in the May days of Paris of 1968 the
contrast extends over the entire globe. It can express black flag of anarchism could be seen next to the red
itself as a racial stniggle between blacks and whites. flag of revolution.
It can be a fight of farmers and peasants against the In the nineteenth century revolution was envisaged
encroachments of urban civilization. It can be a strug- as a brief, violent action which overthrows the existing
gle of natives against foreign rule. What the Com- government and in its consequences changes the social
munist International set out to do after the First World structure and ushers in a new period of history. Since
War became a realitv after the Second World War. the Russian Revolution the concept of revolution has
The colonial empires collapsed, and in many cases begim to disintegrate. The sudden action if it occurs
where this development involved a conflict the move- is not a culminating point but rather a beginning and
ments for independence and the newly independent the completion of a revolution is a long process. Par-
states were anxious to get Russian support. But this ticularly the slow and gradual changes in economic
has introduced great diversity into the revolutionary stRicture in imderdeveloped countries are regarded as
front. If originallv in the eyes of Marxism a revolution revolutions, and this has validitx both for the East,
was a class struggle, with the industrial workers on one where this process is called "building of a socialist
side and the capitalist exploiters of the proletariat on society" and West, where it is called
in the
the other, the composition of the army of the revolu- "modernization." The term "revolution" has somewhat
tion has now become multifarious: concerted action, lost the sharp edge v\hich it possessed in the nineteenth
if it is taken, arises from political cooperation rather century and is applied to any far-reaching change.
than from occupying an identical place in the social This is also reflected in recent scholarly discussions
structure. on the theory of revolution. They are interested less
Although Mar.xism has become almost identical with in the revolutionary event itself than in the underlying
revolution actuallv the great differences in economic long-range reasons for revolution. They are concerned
problems and social structure which exist in the revo- with the lack of harmony between the social system
lutionary camp have had the result that the name on the one hand and the political system on the other.
Marxism covers a great variety of aims and measures. And they try to discover the various phases in which
Insofar as the debate which has developed concerns this dysfunction develops and ask at which point a
the idea of revolution it appears chiefly to chscuss issues revolution becomes inevitable. Some social scientists
of revolutionarv tactics. In the writings of Che Guevara want to eliminate the term "revolution" entirely from
and Regis Debrav (La Revolution dans la revolution) the scholarl)- terminology and replace it by "internal
the need to adapt the revolutionary struggle to the war." This expression hardly fits the revolutions of the
circumstances in Latin .America is the main theme. past but it must be admitted that it has a certain
Unification of the military and political command, validity in the present when revolution has become
guerrilla action aiming at control of small outlying a weapon power conflicts. Whether we think of the
in
areas, and then revolutionary propaganda to win over East or the West the belief has grown that the world
and train the population of these localities, that is the can be managed and can be transformed by a series
gist of their recommendations. They feel themselves of carefully planned steps. The idea of revolution has
to be true revolutionaries in contrast to the "Marxist lost the spontaneity which it possessed when people
166 Revisionists" —
as Che Guevara as well as the Chinese believed that they were carrying out the commands
" —
RHETORIC AFTER PLATO
of history.As executors of this higher force they trusted Social and Scientific Revolutions of the 17th Century," XIII
that they were creating an entirely new world and it International Congress of Historical Sciences, Moscow, Au-
gust 16-23, 1970, published by Central Department of
was this belief in a utopia which gave to the idea of
Oriental Literature (Moscow, 1970); and M. Kim, "Some
revolution its strength in the nineteenth century and
.Aspects of Cultural Revolution and Distinctive Features of
made it a powerful force in political thought from 1789
Soviet Experience in Its Implementation, " XIII Interna-
to 1917.
tional Congress of Historical Sciences, Moscow, .\ugust
16-23, 1970, published by Central Department of Oriental
BIBLIOGRAPHY Literature (Moscow, 1970), pp. 1-14; the problematic char-

acter of the concept in the present-day world is reflected
There are a number of investigations of the term "revolu- in .\lbert Camus' famous book, L'Homme revoke (Paris,
tion," e.g., .\rthur Hatto, "'Revolution': .\n Enquiry' into 1951).
the Usefulness of an Historical Term." Mind. 58 (1949),
495-.516; and Melvin J. Lasky, "The Birth of a Metaphor; FELIX GILBERT
On the Origins of LHopia & Revolution," Encounter (Feb. [See also Anarchism; .'Vstrologv; Crisis; Cycles; Marxism;
1970), .35-45; (March 1970), .30-42. An analysis of the role Nationalism; Utopia.]
which the idea of revolution played in modem history is
provided bv Karl Griewank, Der neuzeitUche Retolu-
(ion,s?'<'gri^(Frankfurt-am-Main, 1969). However, this book
is somewhat fragmentary, and for the idea of revolution in
the nineteenth centurv, see the investigation by Theodor

Schieder, "Das Problem der Revolution ini 19. Jahrhvmdert, RHETORIC AFTER PLATO
Hixtonsche Zeitschrift, 170 (1950), 233-71. For a somewhat
more theoretical discussion of the history of this idea in Since the time of Greek antiquity, the definition of
recent times see R. Koselleck, "Der neuzeitUche Revolu- "rhetoric" has changed from century to century as the
tionsbegritf als geschichtliche Kategorie," Studium Ge-
idea of "rhetoric" has been expanded to cover the
nerate,22 (1969), 825-38; for an analysis of the comple-
whole of the art, or contracted to include only a part.
mentarv concept of counterrevolution, see Arno J. Mayer,
Dynamics of Counterrevolution ir\ Europe, 1870-19,56: An
Generally, idea and definition — responding to the po-
litical or intellectual uses to which the art was put
Analytic Framework (New York and London, 1971). For
investigations of the Marxist concept of revolution see
have moved from considerations of language to the
Robert C. Tucker, The Marxian Revolutionary Idea (New arguments or the passions expressed by language, to
York and Toronto, 1969); and Reidar Larsson, Theories of the effects produced by rhetorical compositions, to the
Revolution (Stockholm, 1970). Various aspects of the prob- relationships between such compositions and abstract
lem are discussed in Vol. VIII of S'omos entitled Revolution, concepts ("truth" or "justice"); then back to language.
ed. Carl J.
Friedrich (New York, 1966). For the wider philo- But whatever the particular definition, the term has
sophical and sociological aspects of the problem see Karl been applied to the use of language (or of special kinds
Mannheim, Ideologic und I'topie (Bonn, 1929), trans. L. of language) for the moving, pleasing, or persuading
Wirth and E. Shils as Ideology and Utopia (London, 19.36);
of readers or auditors to specific judgments, decisions,
Hannah .f^rendt. On Revolution (New York, 1963); and A.
or actions.
T Van Leeuwen, Development through Revoluticm (New-
In the work of Plato, consistently with his general
York, 1970). Historical studies particularly focused on the
philosophical method, rhetoric is considered in the
problem of revolution are Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Die
etiropiiischen Revolutionen und der Charakter der Nationen context of other problems, metaphysical or moral, and
(Stuttgart and Cologne, 1951); Crane Brinton, The Anatomy has neither the status nor the specification of a separate
of Revolution (New York, 1938); and idem. Preconditions art. But between Plato and Isocrates, a number of
of Revolution in Early Modern Europe, eds. Robert Forster technical treatises were produced which, according to
and Jack P. Greene (Baltimore and London, 1970); Franco report (none of them have survived), regarded rhetoric
Venturi, // populismo russo (1952), trans. Francis Haskell as the art of forensic or political oratory and provided
as Roots of Revolution (New York, 1960; also reprint); precepts for the division of a speech into its parts and
Michael Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints (Cambridge, for the handling of language and style. Isocrates himself
1965). The approach of the modern social sciences to the
practiced his art as orator, writer of speeches, and
problem of revolution is described in Lawrence Stone,
teacher, at a time when speech-making was an impor-
"Theories of Revolution," World Politics, 18 (1966), 159-76;
tant part of the political life of Greece. His main
and a work of social science character on this topic is
writings on rhetoric {philosopbia or logos) are found
Chalmers Johnson, Revolutionary Clwnge (Boston, 1966).
See also Harry Eckstein, "On the Etiology of Internal War," in his early essayAgainst the S(*phists and in his late
History and Theory, 4 (1965), 133-63. For Marxist views speech on the Antidosis; there are also fragments col-
of special aspects of the problem, see J. V. Polisensky, "The lected from Greek and Floman authors. io7
Isocrates believes that the end of persuasion is audience the apparent moral character of the speaker,
achieved less through observance of a set of rales or adjusted to the audience in the particular circum-
an "art" than through the possession by the orator of stances. (This is not the "true" character of the speaker,
a wide range of talents, qualities, and knowledge. as with Lsocrates, but "rhetorical" character.) .\ third
Among these are his true moral character and his set (the "logical") is the argument proper, stated in
native genius for eloquence. That genius must be the forms appropriate to the audience of rhetoric: the
developed and directed, from youth, through the model enthymeme (a tnmcated syllogism or deduction which
provided by the tutor's life and practice, through prin- omits a premiss) and the example (a kind of rhetorical
ciples of ethical and political philosophy, through induction, or seeing the imiversal in the particular
technc and logos which treat of rhetorical rules proper: case).
the choice of the proper fomis of discourse, the correct .Aristotle devotes his treatise to an analvsis of the
ordering of the parts, the varying of the thoughts ways in which these proofs are adapted to each of the
appropriately to the matter, the achievement of kinds of rhetoric (deliberative, forensic, epideictic), and
rhythmical and harmonious diction. But Isocrates in- to a study of the passions, of political circumstances,
sists that eloquence can never be reduced to rule, that and of logical forms. His idea of rhetoric is primarily
it is akin to poetry in its free search for noble subjects an idea of the proofs and arguments useful in the
and elegant language. rhetorical situation, only secondarily an idea of the
Isocrates adds to these ideas the distinction of the style, or language, or expression in which the argiunent
various kinds of oratory — the judicial, the epideictic is stated. But style is important, "for it is not sufficient
(or the rhetoric of display), and the political; he speaks to know what one ought to say, but one must also know
winning the judges' sympathy; and
of the necessity of how and this largely contributes to making
to say it,
he names such particularly rhetorical forms of argu- the speech appear of a certain character" (III, 1).
ment as probabilities and conjectures. He thereby Rhetoric is never, for Aristotle, an art of language in
completes a schematism for the consideration of the narrow way in which it was later considered.
rhetoric that will remain at the basis of the Greek and In the history of the idea of rhetoric after Aristotle,
Roman tradition. It centers about the effect to be those constitutive elements that .Aristotle had orga-
produced on a specific audience, about the moral char- nized into a philosophical system became separated
acter of the orator, and about making tlie rules for the one from another and, as isolated, became the central
of the speech. In Isocrates these are scattered and subjects of rhetorical treatises. Language and style are
unsystematic ideas; his successors reduce them to sys- probably the chief and most recurrent of these; but
tem and art. Aristotle's Rhetoric (ca. 330 B.C.) is the the order and arrangement of the parts of a speech,
earliest complete treatise that we have; it is also the the character of the orator, the nature of the proofs,
most systematic. His "art" is not a mere reassemblage or the kinds or cla.sses of speeches frequently serve as
of earlier notions about rhetoric. It is a reorienting and the liasic matter. Such shifts are explained by general
reorganizing of those notions in a new philosophical philosophical orientations and methods at a given time,
synthesis. by the place of rhetoric in public life or in the schools,
Aristotle defines rhetoric as "the faculty of discover- and by the status of related arts and disciplines.
ing the possible means of persuasion in reference to In the two centuries following the writing of
any subject whatever. '
This e.\tension to "any subject Aristotle's Rhetoric, oratory in Greece became less a
whatever" frees rhetoric from the limitation to fixed public performance and more a form of pleading in
and conventional matters, and the concept of the the courts; the treatment of rhetoric took the form
"possible means of persuasion opens the way to " of technical manuals and textbooks. As the notions
Aristotle's idea of the three kinds of rhetorical proofs. of etliical and pathetic proofs disappeared, matters of
If persuasion is to be effected, it will be persuasion logical argument, of arrangement of the parts, and
of certain persons (for Aristotle, the audience is always of style came to dominate the treatises. An example of
a particularized group, never an individual) to opinion the end product of that Hellenistic development exists
or judgment or action; the moral character, the intel- in the Latin Rhetorica ad Herennium, written around
lectual capacities, the state of knowledge, and the 85 B.C. and apparently derived directly from the Greek
emotional potential of those persons will determine the technai. It distinguishes again the three kinds of
way which the speech is made and tlie argiunents
in speeches, epideictic, deliberative, and judicial, and
of which it is composed. A first set of proofs (the divides the art into five faculties: invention (the logical
"emotional" or "pathetic ") consists of those parts of argument), disposition (the arrangement of the parts),
the speech that are designed to affect the specific style, memory, and delivery. Most important of all is
168 audience. A second set (the "ethical") presents to that the inventio, which enables the orator to discover the
"types of issue" involved in the individual case and of these disciplines as he must in order to sway his
to develop proofs and refutations (the whole of the listeners through a combination of emotional and
discussion at this point is highlv legalistic, rather than intellectual appeals. He mirst be a master of language:
merely logical). L'nder dispositio. the author lists the eloquence of diction will impose the speaker's ideas
quantitative parts of a speech in their proper order: upon his audience, will move it to the kind of action
the exordium, the narration, the division, proof and or decision that he wishes. The notion of oratory as
refutation, the conclusion. The third facultv, that of dominating its listeners is typically Ciceronian,
elocutio or style, provides the framework for a treat- typically Roman: andand argimients or topics,
issues
ment of the three styles — the grand, the middle, and the kinds of speeches and the arrangements of parts,
the simple — and their cognate defective styles, and of are seen as less effective instnmients — therefore less
the figures of thought and of diction, described and important — than the genius, the knowledge, the expe-
exemplified in great detail. rience of the orator and his command of language.
One of Cicero's earliest writings on rhetoric was the In his Brutus (46 B.C.), Cicero wrote a history of
De inventione (ca. 85 b.c), the first part of a full Roman oratory and a defense of the tradition that had
treatise, projected but never written. It is a body of culminated in his own performance. Like the Brutus,
precepts intended for the speaker in the law courts, Cicero's Orator (late 46 b.c.) was written as a polemical
analyzing in detail the various issues, proofs, and document, defending his own rhetorical practice (and
refutations that appertain to the kinds of cases. Cicero's his own idea of rhetoric) against the new school of
handling of these materials is similar to that of the Ad "Atticists "
who proposed a return to the plain and clear
Herennitim. as is his division of the speech into its six style, to instruction rather than the arousing of the
consecutive parts. About forty years later (ca. 44 B.C.), emotions, to severe logic. Cicero devotes the major part
Cicero wrote another "de inventione, "
called the of the letter to elocutio or diction, and within that
Topica in imitation of Aristotle's Topica since it aims category, to the placing of words and the establishment
to inquire into the general sources of argument. It is of prose rhythms. In so doing, he indicates one of the
hence less closely restricted to legal cases and proofs; main directions that rhetorical theory will take in the
Cicero summarizes the sources of arguments, or century following.
"topics," as "definition, partition, etymology, conju- Between Cicero and Quintilian, the next great
gates, genus, species, similarity, difference, contraries, Roman theorist, rhetorical theory flourished in the
adjimcts, consequents, antecedents, contradictions, Greek or the Greco- Roman schools whose activity was
causes, effects,and comparison of things greater, less centered in Athens, in Alexandria, even in Rome. It
and equal" (xviii. 71). At about the same date, Cicero's was dominated by the "Alexandrian" mode, the tend-
De partitione oratoria ("of the classification of ency to apply philological techniques to detailed mat-
rhetoric ") took a broader view of the art of rhetoric, ters of expression. Style in all its aspects — the several
discussing in detail once again the three fimctions of "styles, "
the figures, rhythms, and harmonies — came
invention, arrangement, and stvle, the structural divi- to constitute the very stuff of rhetoric. An example
sions of a speech, and the matter at issue. The last of is the De compositione verborum ("on the arrangement
these sections returns to the materials of the De inven- of words") of Dionysius of Halicamassus (ca. 30 b.c),
tione, studying at length the bases of prosecution and devoted largely to matters of rhythm in verse and in
defense, of evidence and witness, as they mav be used prose. The De elocutione ("on style") of Demetrius (ca.
in the law courts. A.D.70), after beginning with such a discussion of

Cicero's three treatises represent a narrower view rhythmic structures, pursues primarily an analysis of
of rhetoric, one that concentrates upon technicalities the "styles." Demetrius distinguished four styles: the
of structure and argiunent and that sees these as related elevated, the elegant, the plain, and the forcible; for
to the instruction or the practice of the courtroom each one, he indicates the subject matter to which it
orator. In other writings on rhetoric, Cicero expressed is appropriate, the kinds of words and arrangements
his larger vision of the art, more broadly based both that characterize it, the figures that are most useful,
philosophically and historically. Most important of and (continuing a long tradition) the correlative vice.
these was the De oralore (in three books, composed As examples are drawn from every kind of writing in
in B.C.), which breaks away from the tradition of
55 Greece, verse and prose, the treatise is no longer
the Greek manuals and seeks its orientations in Roman classifiable as a work on oratory, but belongs to
public life of the time. Like Isocrates, it conceives of "rhetoric" viewed broadly as "effective expression."
the orator as a man of great natural gifts who is soundly The treatise On the Sublime, supposedly by an
educated in all areas of philosophy (especially ethics unknown "Longinus" and dating from the first century
and politics) and of science. He knows at least as much A.D., is also pseudo-rhetorical. Its main relationship to 1d9
—
rhetoric comes in the way it considers the triad of of presentation, arrangement of words, figures or
author-work-reader with respect to the effect produced tropes, numbers, periods, and clauses — Hermogenes
by the "subhme" or the elevated style. Longinus places proceeds to discover what particular form each of the
that effect squarely in the special talents or the genius parts must take in each of the styles. Contrary to most
of the writer — in whatever literary form he may choose earlier theorists, he considers the "ideas" as open and
to operate. "Character" is replaced by the real and flexible and as capable of being combined.
permanent by an
faculties of the writer, "persuasion" In the millennium that comprises the Middle Ages,
irresistible ecstasy felt by the audience at given mo- roughly the fourth to the fourteenth centru-ies, a
ments in its experience of the work. Thus the principal significant change came about m the idea of rhetoric.
locus of the rhetorical effect shifts from the audience Whereas in the classical period rhetoric had been
(where had been in Aristotle) and from style (where
it variously considered in relationship to its public fimc-
it had been in Demetrius) to the genius of the writer. tions — in the forum, in the courts, in the open letter
Similarly, argument disappears as structure disappears; with the end of the Roman Empire those functions
the effect of sublimity is the instantaneous product of either ceased to exist or were so transformed as to
sublimity in the soul of the writer as it selects and demand a redefining of the Most of the theoretical
art.
presents a sublime object through appropriate artistic treatises were lost; they would be rediscovered only
means. in the Renaissance. Those that remained, Cicero's De
In Quintilian's Institutio oratorio (ca. a.d. 90) the inientione. the Ad Herenniwn, and Quintilian (in some
movement of the idea of rhetoric towards the idea of parts), emphasized the more mechanical aspects of the
the rhetorician comes to fulfillment. The real total art: precepts for organization of the argument, recom-
being of the orator is here the center of attention: the mendations for expression and style. But this does not
treatise is an institutio since it aims to form and educate mean that rhetoric as a way of thinking and of writing
the orator; his education will pursue two goals, the disappeared; rather, it came to pervade all intellectual
production of the "good man" and the provision of pursuits during the Middle Ages, to give them their
those kinds of knowledge and those techniques that basic forms and orientations. In order to see it properly
will make him "skilled in speaking." Because the good during this millennium, one must consider it not as a
man is the virtuous man, a necessary part of his educa- separate art or discipline, not as a distinct part of the
tion will be an education in philosophy, ethics, politics; imiversity curriculmu, but as an approach to the intel-
and these he must know fiJly and substantially — rather lectual disciplines that was almost universal in its
than to the limited degree required by a particular application.

"case." "Skill in speaking" means a mastery of all the In the domain of civil philosophy, the Ciceronian
component parts of the art of rhetoric; in this connec- distinction of deliberative, demonstrative, and judicial
tion, Quintilian reintroduces, examines, expands, and oratory provided the basis for speaking on all the
reduces to precept all the technical principles long matters pertinent to civil affairs. Theologians discov-
since developed in the Greco-Roman tradition. While ered in rhetoric the devices for interpreting theological
some heed is given to the nature of the audience and writings; the recognition of the four possible "senses"
much to the construction of arguments, fundamentally of a work (literal, allegorical, moral, anagogic) resulted
it is the moral person of the orator that achieves the from a transposition into the spiritual domain of inter-
ends of oratory. pretative techniques developed for mundane works.
At the opposite pole to Quintilian's orator-centered The Augustinians thus made of rhetoric an instrument
Institutio is the group of style-centered works by of theology. As a part of logic, largely in the Aris-
Hermogenes (ca. a.d. 170); they represent fully tlie totelian tradition, rhetoric took on the function of
Alexandrian mode. Neither orator nor audience is of treating "probable" (as opposed mat-
to "necessary")
interest to Hermogenes, whose treatises are devoted ters, producing for those matters the kinds of proofs
either to cases and arguments {On Legal Issues, On of which it was especially capable. It could therefore
the Invetition of Argwnents) or to style (On the Various accompany logic and dialectic as instruments for the
—
Kinds of Style) that is, to the internal construction various branches of rational philosophy. In its own
of the speech. His long book on the "characters" or right, narrowly reduced to a simple art of words,
"ideas '
of the various styles (he distinguishes seven, rhetoric pursued its inquiry into questions of style, the
some of which are variants of the three major styles, figures, and the general concerns of "elocution." It
the perspicuous, the great or sublime, the elaborate became slowly assimilated to poetry, insofar as poetry
or beautiful) perhaps represents his major concern. was regarded as a form of discourse using a special
After setting up a mechanism of eight constituent parts kind of language and achieving distinct kinds of per-
170 for each "idea" — argument, diction, method or order
The achievement of rhetoric in the Middle Ages has de Ronsard organized their discussions arovmd the
been summarized as follows by Richard McKeon: categories of invention, disposition, and elocution,
making of the first an equivalent to second
plot, tlie
In application, the art of rhetoric contributed . . . not only
to the methods of speaking and writing well, of composing a way of regarding order in the poem, and the third
lettersand petitions, sermons and pravers. legal documents a synonym of style. When, about 1550, Aristotle's
and briefs, poetr\' and prose, but to the canons of interpret- Poetics came to be generally studied, it was assimilated
ing laws and Scripture, to the dialectical devices of discov- both to Horace's Ari poetica (read rhetorically in terms
ery and proof, to the establishment of the scholastic method, of its res:terha distinction) and to the analvtical devices
which was to come into universal use in philosophy and found in the De inientione and the Ad Hcrenniuni.
theology, and, finally, to the formulation of scientific inquiry, Rhetoric also flourished again as an independent art
which was to separate philosophy from theologv', hi manner of public oratorv. One of the favorite exercises of the
of application, the art of rhetoric \\'as the source both of
humanists was the set speech, in Latin or Italian or
doctrines which have long since become the property of
French, for the great occasion; they wrote such pieces
other sciences . . . and of particular devices which have
of epideictic oratory either on the models of Cicero
been applied to a variety of subjects . . . (1952, pp. 295-96).
and Demosthenes or according to the precepts found
Conceived and applied in so many different wavs, in the formal treatises. Aristotle's Rhetoric, rediscov-
rhetoric approached in the Middle .^ges the status of ered, translated, and commented bv manv scholars,
a universal science. enriched the conception of the art throughout the late
In the Renaissance, the situation of rhetoric was Renaissance; and although it did not alter funda-
further complicated by the rediscovery and rein- mentally the Ciceronian directions, it led to more
terpretations of a number of ancient treatises (Greek, philosophical considerations with respect to the nature
Hellenistic, Alexandrian, Roman). Much humanistic and the functioning of rhetoric. The new arts of
and scholarly was devoted to this enterprise.
effort rhetoric written during the sixteenth century were
Since some of these documents treated primarily the mostly Ciceronian in inspiration; but some, using the
matter of style and the figures, they reinforced recent dialogue form of Plato (or Cicero) or imitating the
tendencies to regard rhetoric as an art of words and .\ristotelian treatise, tried to achieve a broader and
expression (for example, Demetrius On Style and more inclusive vision of the art. Still others, starting
Hermogenes), In so doing, they established a link be- from one of the ancient treatises, either expanded upon
tween rhetoric and poetic that was to persist through it or raised objections to its basic positions: so Peter
the Renaissance and bevond. Already in the twelfth Ramus in his Rhetoricae distinctiones in Quintiliatium
and thirteenth centuries, the so-called "arts of poetry" (1559), where he attacks Quintilian's theory as an
had devoted much of their attention to the rhetorical overextension of the idea of rhetoric and proposes,
figures; these were parts of the "art" that could be instead, a notion of the discipline restricted to "elocu-
imderstood, reduced to nde, and taught without wor- tion" and "action." Writers like Ramus thought of
rying about more philosophical aspects. At the same rhetoric as a living and practical art, primarily for the
time, as the Ciceronian parts of "invention, disposition, teaching of writing in all literary and philosophical
and elocution" had been extended to all forms of forms, secondarily for the formation of orators.
composition, a common ground was seen for poetic A tendency to restrict the art of rhetoric, rather than
and rhetoric in the matter of style, Cicero's "elocu- to expand and diversify it, proved hardly acceptable to
tion," the figures and styles of the rhetoricians, and the seventeenth century; theorists and writers then
Aristotle's "diction" (in the Poetics) became the single wished to develop encyclopedic attitudes (inherited
subject of treatises devoted to expression and style. from the Renaissance) that would unite and imify the
Elocutio provided a basis for joining poetic and various arts. In France, the prevalent Ciceronian and
rhetoric on the level of language; the relationship was Quintilianesque modes, restated in the new "rhetorics"
extended, through inventio and dispositio, to the whole (cf.Rene Bary and Le Sieur Le Gras), were modified
of the two arts. Rhetoric became the art that directed to adjust them to a contemporary situation in which
the discussion and the practice of poetry. In Italy, deliberative, judicial, and epideictic oratory had been
Alessandro Vellutello, a sixteenth-centurv commentator replaced by the "eloquence of the courts" and the
on Petrarch, considered the whole of the Canzoniere "eloquence of the pulpit. Later, in Rene Rapin for
"
as a single poem whose exorchum was contained in the example, the notion of "eloquence " (the current
first sonnet, its narration in the sonnets and other poems equivalent of rhetoric) was extended to all forms of
following, its conclusion (in the form of a prayer) in expression, in poetry, in history, in philosophy as well
the final canzone. In France, such writers of arts of as in oratory. Rapin saw eloquence in all areas as
poetry as Thomas Sebillet, Jacques Peletier, and Pierre seeking the dual ends of instruction and pleasure, with 171
the latter serving the former. But it achieved them, or discarded (except for a few classical scholars),
not by applying innumerable technical rules, but by rhetoric became, both in England and in .America, the
appealing to the taste and judgment of the audience. schoolbook study of writing and composition, indistin-
Taste and judgment, in this idea of rhetoric, were guishable from simple rules of grammar and syntax.
foimd in the author as well as in the public. The author In France, the deterioration reached the point where
applied them in every choice that he made during the the term rhetorique meant an undesirable hiding of
process of composition: the public applied them at meaning, in anything written, by excessive and
every moment of its exposiu-e to the work. In all, these meretricious ornament; this sense is still current in
qualitieswere formed by the kind of education that certain French circles. Yet something like a retiu-n to
Quintilian had outlined. Both the shift from rules to an idea of rhetoric as the marshalling and presentation
taste and the loss of the idea of a separate art, in the of persuasive arginnents has flourished in the debating
seventeenth century, were significant modifications of societies in the British imiversities and in .\nierican
the idea of rhetoric; tliey were the beginnings of a imiversity departments of speech and public address.
break with the classical-Renaissance tradition. In spite Especially in the latter, "rhetoric " is sometimes
of the persistence of Horace, Cicero, and Quintilian extended to embrace persuasive public action as well
in the manuals and in the schools, the way was being as persuasive public speaking; so that the art returns
prepared for essentially new conceptions. again to the realm of politics, where it had begun.
Those new conceptions in the eighteenth centurv England and America also, in a more strictly
In
were not without earlier sources. In Diderot and literary development, critics have applied the general
D'Alembert's Encijclopedie (1751-80), the place of tenets of rhetorical analysis to many kinds of works
rhetoric under the faculty of reason (in the Table of that are normally considered to be nonrhetorical. Their
Human Knowledge) and its definition as "the science basis for so doing is the assumption that however
of the qualities [or of the "ornaments"] of discourse" "pure" a work may be, it contains certain features that
were both derived from Francis Bacon's Advancetnent are directed towards influencing its audience in specific
of Learning (1605). Bacon, to be sure, had assigned ways. These may be statements meant to give a "char-
rhetoric to the imagination: but its use, he said, was acter" to the writer or the narrator; or they may be
"to apply and recommend the dictates of reason to alterations of the argument (in a philosophical work);
the imagination, in order to excite the affections and or they may be appeals to an audience's tastes or
will" (Advancement. Book VT, Ch. III). The section knowledge or predilections: in a word, the whole of
on rhetoric in the Discotirs preliminaire of the the traditional rhetorical trilogy. Wayne Booth's The
Encijclopedie, however, explains the change: rhetoric Rhetoric of Fiction (1961) is typical of this approach
serves for the conimimication of passions, not of ideas: as used for narrative writing. There have recently been
it is the product of geniu.s, not of rules or precepts: discussions of the "rhetoric of philosophy "
(Kenneth
and hence any idea of a separate art or science of Burke), of rhetorical devices used by philosophers such
rhetoric should be abandoned. For the main ideas in as Descartes, Pascal, and Bayle, by poets such as
the article "Rhetorique" in the Encyclopedic, the au- Ronsard. In contemporary movement, the idea of
this
thor went back to Bernard Lamy's La Rhetorique, ou rhetoric has been refined and specialized as an instru-
I'art de patter (1668), a treatise which had extended ment for the analysis of all literary forms; and this has
the art to the whole field of belles-lettres or "philol- led to an expansion of its usefulness and a renewed
ogy." Largely a work on the nature and origins of sense of its validity.
language and on the character of figurative expression,
Lamy's Rhetorique was bound to be attractive to the
BIBLIOGRAPHY
philosophes who, in all areas, including rhetoric, wished
to go to the "natiu-e," the "origins, "
the "causes" of C. S. Baldwin, Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic (New York,
human activities. 1924): idem. Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic (New York, 1928).
.•Mthough the French were, in theory, destroying Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago. 1961).
rhetoric as an art, the English were, in their practice,

D. L. Clark, Rhetoric Greco-Roman Education (New York,
in
1957); idem. Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance (New

demonstrating powers and its excellence; this was
its
York, 1922). H. M. Davidson, Audience, Words, and Art:
the century of Burke and Pitt, whose tradition was
Studies in Seventeenth-Century French Rhetoric (Columbus,
continued by such nineteenth-century orators as Ohio, 1965). H. Freese, Introduction to Aristotle's The
J.
Gladstone. The practice, in both periods, was a conse- "Art" of Rhetoric, Loeb Classical Library (London and
quence of the kinds of general education offered in Cambridge, Mass.. 1926). O. B. Hardison, Jr., The Enduring
the schools and universities, not of any particular at- Monument: A Study of the Idea of Praise in Retiaissance
172 tention to the art. With the ancient theorists forgotten Literary Theory and Practice (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1962). G.
RIGHT AND GOOD
Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton, 1963). may be called, respectively, the goal-seeking framework
R. McKeon, "Rhetoric in the Middle Ages," Critics and and the juridical framework. They are not comple-
Criticism: Ancient ami Modem, ed. R. S. Crane (Chicago, mentary portions of the moral field but alternative
1952). E. Olson, "The Argument of Longinus' On the ways of organizing the whole field to carry out the
Sublime," Critics and Criticmn: Ancient and Modern, ed.
tasks of morality.
R. S. Crane (Chicago. 1952). B. Weinberg, A
History of
The goal-seeking framework assumes a structure of
Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago, 1961).
appetition or desire in human life. The good is defined
BERNARD WEINBERG either by position of the objective in this pursuit or
[See also Analogv-; Education; Genius; Platonism, Rhetoric by some basic character of the objective. Knowledge
and Literarv Theory in; Style; Taste.] of the good helps generate a grasp of appropriate
means towards its achievement. The rules of action that
achieve the good determine what is right, and the
character-traits that support such a moral code are
regarded as virtues. The concept of the good life, either
RIGHT AND GOOD in its own name or thought of as "the ideals of life,"
dominates the framework and provides the end-point
The ideas of the good and the right span the greater in justifying action or policy. The other typical ethical
part of the field of moral philosophy. They conceptu- concepts — right —
and virtue are definitely subordi-
alize basic phenomena in human life: the good, that nated. Such a model is found in most of the ethical
men are purposive or goal-seeking beingswho have theories that look to human natiu'e for an under-
desiresand aspirations; and the right, that men carry standing of men's basic goals or directions of striving.
on their lives in groups that require some modes of The juridical framework, on the other hand, sees
organization and regulation involving practices, rules, ethics as a system of laws or rules enjoined on human
and institutions. Perhaps the only other moral idea beings. They constitute the "moral law." The frame-
approaching them in scope is virtue as conceptualizing work usually includes some explanatory justification for
forms of character. the law, grounding it in divine will or some natural
Philosophers of each generation have analyzed the order or inherent rationality. Men are taken to have
concepts, bringing to them the analytic tools of succes- an intellectual capacity for recognition of the moral
sive philosophical movements, or invoking models from law and some affective capacity through which the
the particular stages in the advance of the sciences or system normally takes hold or wins their respect and
frontiers of human knowledge. Ordinary uses, cultural obedience. The concept of right — or others of the same
molding, philosophical formulations, interact with one cluster, such as duty or obligation — dominates this
another. The product finds its place in the moral con- conceptual framework. Virtue is tied to the disposition
sciousness of men when they think and talk in terms of conscientious obedience, and the good, usually set
of the good and the right. off as the moral good and distinguished from the merely
The story of the good and the right is not, as it has natural goods, the desires and satisfactions of men, is
so often seemed, the tale of two isolated concepts identified with the goals that the moral law renders
sitting for philosophical portraits in a variety of rather legitimate.
grand poses. Historical changes in the dominant cul- Each of these frameworks purports to cover the
tural emphases — in the patterns of aspiration and whole field, but they interpret moral processes in
modes of institutional regulation — also transform the markedly different ways. Each focuses what is going
conceptual relations. Varied historical movements and on in human life, to which morality applies, somewhat
social organizations leave their mark on the very differently. Each selects from the repertoire of human
structure of the concepts. As men's understanding of feelings which ones are to do the heavy work of
their world advances, as their consciousness gains in —
morality the goal-seeking leaning more to desire and
scope and in depth, so their moral philosophy is shaped aspiration, or else to satisfaction and pleasure, the
by the leading motifs of their scientific and cultural juridical to guilt, shame, and awe. Each organizes its
disciplines. And the resultant moral concepts are not selected content in a different pattern, the one usually
merely products. For the concepts themselves do not in terms of a hierarchy of means and ends, culminating
function alone, but enter into conceptual frameworks in some systematic ultimate end, the other in terms
in which they give organizational direction and which of universal rules and their special applications. Such
they shape for use. organization-modes strongly influence the methods of
Frameworks. The two major frameworks
Tux) Basic decision in morality: in the goal-seeking, it is the find-
in which the good and the right are chiefly at home ing of appropriate strategies, in the juridical it is de- 173
—
RIGHT AND GOOD
duction from principles. Each appeals to different the shift to other-worldly salvation as the imifying
modes of justification for its morality — the one to the good, paralleled by eternal damnation as a major moral
ultimate good which fully satisfies mens longing and sanction, set the background for most Western moral-
aspiration, the other to the reason that grasps ultimate ity, affecting the basic framework even when the ex-
principles or the will that commands them. Each tends plicit religious justification receded in philosophical
to marshal! different sanctions to support the morality thought.
the one the operative effects of pleasure and pain, of In pre-Platonic Greek thought, the concept of nomas
hope and accomplishment or else dread of loss, the had an incipient juridical character. This expressed a
other the fear of authoritative pimishment or the pangs customary morality whose rules were static and con-
of conscience. Thus each framework has a definite ceptualized as an eternal traditional order, eternal
orientational effect in the lives of men who so construe betokening usually divine as well. When class conflicts
their morals. arose in the Greek city-states and philosophical reflec-

The goals and substantial codes of a morality, its tion grew on the cultural variety of moral codes, the
scope and its basic attitudes, vary considerably with notion of nomos became interpreted as merely cus-
different cultural patternsand in different historical tomary in the sense of conventional. This was the
periods. One moral code may be concerned about sex. dominant trend in the Sophists. The social impact of
another about property and status, all usually about this view varied somewhat. For the most part, morality
aggression in interpersonal relations and about the was regarded as rules, different in different cultures
conditions of social order. The codes of some may focus to be sure, but directed mider these varying conditions,
chiefly on acts, of others on inner feelings and attitudes. and more or less successfully, to the maintenance of
Some center on familial or kin group in scope, others stability and social order as human needs. To an ex-
are more broadly national or even universalistic and tremist wing (such as Thrasymachus in Plato's Repub-
individualistic. Some are broad and rela.xed in attitude, lic), it became construed as merely the rules of the
others narrowly intense and stringent. All such sub- stronger imposed for their own interests to keep the
stantial featiu'es can be cast in either basic framework, masses in check, so that the really wise individual could
although not always as easily or comfortably. For ex- quietly pursue his own predatory interests. In a few
ample, a nationalistic morality may be juridical or radical views the conventional character of morality
goal-seeking, and attitudes of stringency may take meant it could be altered and improved; slavery, for
shape either in the sharpness of juridical command or example, being thus a conventional institution, not a
the narrowness of a driving goal such as success and natural requirement. In all of these, though the inter-
status through work iuid personal effort. pretation of what was natural for man varied, the direct
The history of the relation of the good and the right contrast became that between custom {nomas) and
in ethics is thus the history of the relation of these nature (physis).
conceptual frameworks and their transformation under Socrates and Plato refined the goal-seeking frame-
the growth of human knowledge, the changes in social work. In Socrates' persistent inquiry, some of the gen-
and cultural forms, the emergence of varying human eral properties of thegood began to emerge. The good
purposes, and the refinement of philosophical theory. has a magnetic power on us, for no man willingly does
It is a complex history, quite revealing about the role what he knows to be evil. It is in some sense capable
of categories of thought in human life, and though it of being grasped as an object of knowledge, or perhaps
exhibits a definite intellectual dialectic it is scarcely capable of being sought and glimpsed, for Socrates
a dance of bloodless categories. more modestly, constantly claimed his wisdom lay in
Antiquity. In ancient times the juridical mode of knowing his ignorance. The knowledge involved will
thought had its marked development in Hebraic reli- in some sense thus be intellectual and practical and
gion, with God as the lawgiver, the Decalogue and affective, either fused or at any rate undifferentiated.
associated rules as the code of right and wrong, obliga- When we try to understand any of our particular
tions under original compact for the Hebrew people virtues, such as courage or temperance, we find that
with God, sanctions of a familial or paternal type witli thev lose their essence if they do not involve a knowl-
a fusion of awe and love, and decision-modes that grew edge of the good. Virtues are thus found to be appli-
increasingly legalistic in Talmudic jurisprudence. The cations, through knowledge, of the good, so that no
appropriate character for men and women was set in issue arises of the possible conflict of a man's moral
this framework, and the good operated as rewards for behavior and his true well-being. Insofar as Socrates
obedience. The spread of this outlook in Christian has any explicit view of the right that is not directly
morality, with a change to a universalistic form, the bound up in the quest of the individual's soul for the
174 coordination of each soul directly to the divine, and good, it is seen as a contractual commitment with the
RIGHT AND GOOD
institutions of one's community to share in a given endowed. Man is a rational animal, reason supervening
mode of and take the sufferings and even injustices
life on and imbuing his vegetative and animal capacities.
when they fall on one. In this way, Socrates, in the Aristotle thus rejects the unified Platonic Idea of the
Crito. justifies his refusal to escape from prison. Good. Ethics is a practical science concerned with the
Plato develops both the basic theory of the good human good, part of the whole science of politics in
as a goal-seeking ethic and the theory of right or justice which the plan of the good for man is grasped as a
as an order in the soul which enables it to move toward guide to practice. The human good, what men aim
all
the good. The former is seen in Socrates' speech in at, is identified as happiness or well-being, men
though
the Symposium, which expxjunds the concept of love debate the activities in which it lies and the mode of
(eros) as a searching of the soul for the Absolute Good. life it demands. While the Ethics explores the kinds
Specific aims —
such as to have children, to create of character this life points to — the varieties of virtues
works of art, to order the lives of men. to achieve and the natiu-e of virtue, and the inner nature of asso-
—
knowledge are simply forms of this one ultimate ciational bonds — the Politics deals with desirable insti-
quest for the Absolute. In the Republic, the Idea of tutions.
the Good is presented as the analogue, in the domain The place of the right in .Aristotle's teleological
of the eternal, to the visible sun in the changing sensi- ethics is revealing. no central "ought com-
There is
"
ble world — the source of all being, of illumination and manding in the name of the moral law. The various
intelligibility, and of value in existence. This gathering fimetions which such a concept combines in the juridi-
of the real, the rational, and the valuable into a single cal framework are here patterned in a different way.
bimdle, persisted through the religious picture of the Reason is, of course, central in the philosophy, but its
divine,and the attempts in the modem period to derive ethical job is less to enunciate universal laws than to
an ethics from the picture of the order of nature and work out applications of our knowledge of the good
human nature. The structure did not fall apart until and the virtuesin which that knowledge is expressed.
the twentieth-century demands for the complete au- The concept involved is rather doing what is fitting
tonomy of ethics. in particular situations that differ in time, place, con-
In Plato, the part of the human being engaged in text of persons and relations, and with a view to the
this quest is identified as the rational element (the special powers and limitations of the persons and
human part). But the soul is two other parts,
assigned groups involved. (This is the just-right, as against too
the spirited and the appetitive (compared to the lion much and too little, which appears in Aristotle's doc-
and the dragon). The comprehensive theory of justice trine of virtue as the mean.) Men pray, he tells us, for
or the right in the Republic is an attempt to justify, the good, but they should pray that what is good
in both social and irvner individual life, a repressive generally or simply be good for them; and in the
order in which reason rules and with the aid of the Politicshe compromises on a balance of democracy
lion keeps the dragon in his place. Selection of goals, and oligarchy as the most suitable for the Greek city-
specific virtues, aims in life, are all assessed in terms states as they exist. The element of universality appears
of the character of the part of the soul involved and in a concept of natural political justice, a precursor
its contribution to the harmonious order. Even Plato's of the later conception of natural law, but without the
theory of history as an unavoidable deterioration from latter s idea of divine command; in Aristotle it is the
an aristocratic society through oligarchic and demo- universally applicable rules of the structiu-e of the good
cratic forms down to tyranny {Republic, Book VIII), life. Decision, too, is not seen by Aristotle as subsump-
sees this change as the descent of the soul as the dragon tion under rule, but as means-end analysis; tlie man
is progressively unleashed. Plato's theory of right thus wisdom, whose experience and upbringing
of practical
embodies a conservative program to control the masses have brought to maturity his logical power and aware-
by a dominant elite which in its single-minded devotion ness of the good,is most sensitive in relation to the
to the ultimate good will overcome the war of the rich and can serve as a useful model for the less
particular,
and the poor that beset the Greek cities of his epoch. mature and the uncertain.
.\ristotle gave the goal-seeking framework its fullest In the individualistic ethics of the Hellenistic period,
systematic development. His Nicomachean Ethics is the when the common social good disintegrates (together
first systematic treatise of Western moral philosophy. with the city-state) as a governing ideal, the good
The framework is an immanent or indwelling teleology becomes cast in individualistic terms. In the Epicurean
in things. Nature works like the artist or craftsman with philosophy, it is pleasure, peace and relief from pain,
a plan governing its action. Every species has its own and, if possible, quiet joy rather than hectic pursuit.
governing plan, and its good lies in the development The metaphysical background is an atomic materi-
in its individuals of the capacities with which they are alism, including rejection of teleology, acceptance of 175
RIGHT AND GOOD
mortalitv and a denial of punishment in a hereafter. to keep on the path to its achievement. The wrong
Since the Epicurean sociology of human development is more evident in the multitudes of temptations that
pictures the growth of human learning and the shed- lie along the way. Even the most harmless pleasures
ding of superstition, the right appears as naturalistic may distract one from the goal, and even in the act
rules or practices or institutions, sei-vicing the human of praver Augustine is suspicious of the seductive
good. beauty of language and of music. It is this deep probing
The Stoics too seek internal peace or tranquillity and the ultimate charac-
into the willfulness of the will
of spirit as the basic good, but tie it to a notion of ter of man's responsibility (in spite of God's selection
individual virtue as its single condition and manifesta- of only a chosen few for salvation) which gives force
tion. Their outlook represents a point of transformation to the Augustinian concept of sin, whether he addresses
awav from the goal-seeking framework. A juridical himself to portraying the child in the cradle or the
element enters in their concept of nature as a rational vouth in exuberant folly, or the whole history of man-
divine order in things. Their point of view is cosmic, kind from creation to resurrection. The analysis of sin
beginning with the cosmopolitan impulse of Alex- shows the individual soul as the battlegroimd, for moral
ander's conquests and going on to the late Roman evil lies in acquiescence or yielding in the will itself,
empire. The moral community is that of all men, each rather than in the consequent natural action.
with a fragment of the divine fire. A duty-like concept The Era of Christian Dominance. Once established,
makes its appearance in that one should do what the Christian thought dominated all of ethics and political
divine has ordered or arranged, but the order comes philosophy in the West until the breakaway under
in the assignment of role, or what befits one's place. secular and scientific influences gained strength by the
Particular decisions are thus expressive of the jobs or seventeenth century. Yet Christian thought itself in-
offices in which one finds oneself. This conception of cluded a multitude of differing tendencies.
an ordered system of reason for man was extremely The Thomistic synthesis of Christian and Aristotelian
influential in the development of the idea of natural elements brought the jiu-idical and goal-seeking frame-
law. Yet back of this whole juridical aspect is a view works into an apparent unity. The central Aristotelian
of the world in which there is no permanence and all conceptual apparatus, with its orientation towards the
is precarious. As Marcus Aurelius vividly depicts it, good, was incorporated as a whole. But the end
life and achievement and memory go by in a Heracli- changed from the kind of happiness Aristotle had
tean flax. The only real good throughout is virtue, the delineated in his natural teleology to the salvation goal
maintenance of integrity of the self by stem inner of the Christian theology. The crucial confrontation
rational control of what alone is in our power our — of the good and the right comes, therefore, in the
response or reaction to what happens to us, and a meeting-point where the ultimate good is steered into
resignation to whatever befalls us in which our tenden- the channels of the juridical right. If the soul is directed
cies to violent emotion undergo a rational dissolution. to God by its original nature in God's creation, it is
Thus, although Stoic ethics enters the scene under guided ultimately by God's law, which is juridical in
the classical concept of the good, and finds a place form and scope. In part, but only in part, this eternal
in practice for a system of the right, its central stress law can be apprehended by man's reason, and so is
on virtue and the self is working towards a newer seen as the natural law, expressive of man's nature.
framework, a kind of self-development model which Beyond lies what man must obey on groimds of revela-
is, in the history of ethics, a major alternative to the tion.
right and the good. It is this framework too which best In essence the concepts of right and wrong dominate
fits the many ethics of salvation that characterized the the system, as can be seen in the prominence of the
decline of the Floman world, such as the Neo-Platonic notion of sin, already basic in Augustine's thought. Yet
vision of the path of the self in its attempt to overcome the good continues to operate through the weight of
its original estrangement from divine unity and to the sanctions of eternal salvation and eternal damna-
merge eventually with the One. Christian ethics with tion, and also in the justification of the system as a
its early inner stress has many elements of this model, whole. The dramatic imity of the whole is most evident
but it is firmlv kept within a juridical framework by in the literary presentation of Dante's Divine Comedy.
its Hebraic origin and heritage. In the first part, the Inferno, there is a careful grading
Yet even a self-development framework will find of sins in the descent to the bottom of Hell, the distance
within itself the tension of the good and the right, or from God and the shutting out of God's light being
of their surrogates. This is well seen in the ethics of the measure of sin. In the third part, the Paradiso, there
.\ugustine. The good is found in the blessedness for is the ascent of the virtues towards the point of ultimate
176 which he longs, the right in the straining of every effort union in the direct contemplation of God; but each
RIGHT AND GOOD
soul stays in its allotted place according to its capacity, to flee they call bad. The internal detail is complex,
the spirit of love holding each and stilling its desire but the overall effect is undoubted; the good is com-
to move further upward. In both the heavenly areas pletely naturalized in terms of individual desire. The
and the nether areas, the categorial tension of good natural is the original state of man, with the imlimited
and evil as against right and wrong is resolved. In the egoism of desire. The system of right is reduced to the
heavenlv, the love of God is the basis of that aspiration principles of human relations that will furnish the
which defines the good, and the right lies in the accep- peace, law, and order needed for men to pursue their
tance of the divine order. In the nether regions, the aims. These are called natural laws, in the sense that
clarity of the vvrong is seen in the punishment of sin, they are what a reasoning man drawing on the lessons
and the evil in the nature and intensity of the torments. of experience will recognize as essential for social
The emergence of the Protestant ethic in its different order. In the state of nature a man has a right to
forms was not a questioning of the good so much as anything he can take and hold.
a vital alteration in the structure of the right. Salvation The Continental ethical counterpart to Hobbes, in
remained the goal of aspiration but the system of rules some respects, is Spinoza. Here too, good was given
for achievement was transformed. In Calvinism, the
its a naturalistic form as the object of appetite; teleology
assurance of salvation was to be sought in success in is refuted and a deterministic pattern set in which all
one's calling, and a fresh cluster of virtues — the that happens flows with mathematical necessity from
"puritan" morality of hard work, sobriety, thrift, absti- the ultimate character of nature. But Spinoza's impact
nence, justice — was required as a necessary condition. is considerably softened by several features. The whole
Yet through this picture of the right we can discern of reality is also interpreted as God. The highest good
the content of the good changing into the worldly ideal is found in the exercise of reason, and the right is
of success and the pursuit of wealth. The relation of primarily oriented to removing obstacles for its har-
the Protestant ethic to the economic changes and the monious development. Human virtue is turned from
rise of the bourgeoisie has been explored and debated a predatory orientation to a self-conquest: as one comes
in the writings of Marx, Max Weber, R. H. Tawney, to understand the necessity in one's actions, the insight
and others. The language of the right still remains as transforms the turbulent emotions into clear ideas. The
the language of natural law, in the treatises on morality active mastery replacing passive reception in such
and politics, shifting to that of natural rights as the transformation constitutes human freedom and the
concept of natiu-e itself undergoes change, as individ- highest good is attained in the intuitive grasp of
ualism gains strength, and the process of secularization totality. Political freedom and nobler human relations
gains momentum. The concept of the good is similarly flow from a Spinozistic as against a Hobbesian neces-
individualized and secularized, especially with the sity. Thus although the immediate reception of Spinoza
growing impact of the sciences. was hostile, as in the case of Hobbes, in the long run
An Ageof Transition: From Hobbes to Kant. The he stands out sharply as the propoimder of an exalted
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries constitute a rev- ethic.
olutionary period not merely on the social scene, with Three trends, marked in Hobbes, set the direction
new classes moving into political power, but also on for much of the moral theory that followed. First, the
the intellectual scene, with the philosophies of the old secular character of the inquiry became dominant. In
order breaking up, and even the defenses of the older Hobbes, religion has its place mainly as a sanction. In
ways taking new and sophisticated form. The intellec- Bentham's formulation, by the end of the eighteenth
tual leaven is furnished by the growth of physical century, it is only religious belief that operates as a
science, but it casts its hopes far beyond in physiol- — sanction; the truth of religion is unnecessary. Yet the
ogy, in psychology and economics, in political theory, absence of religious argumentation in the inner in-
and in the reinterpretation of morality. quiries of ethics does not remove

from the outer it
In ethics, Hobbes expresses a shift to the extreme; background. Just as Newton does not look for an evo-
he becomes the specter that haunts moral theory. lution of matter because he assumes the physical world
Teleology is gone; the world and man are well- set up by God, so the assumption that man's nature
organized phenomena of matter-in-motion operating on which ethics depends will not be transformed, that
under causal laws. Reason is no immediate grasping a permanent moral order can be found, is either di-
of ultimate truth by the intellect but, though pro- rectly dependent on religious presuppositions or else
foundly mathematical, a manipulator of names; yet the the intellectual residue of the traditional outlook. Sec-
beginnings of an inductive theory, in the sense of the ond, the natural state of man, whether seen as histori-
lessons of experience, are also to be found. That which cally prior or as an analytic device for understanding
men desire they call good, that from which they seek original components in his makeup, is cast in individ- 177
RIGHT AND GOOD
ualistic terms. It is not a system of inherent human occasionally, as in the maverick outlook of Mandeville,
relations, but somehow a set of properties of the indi- do we find an array of empirical argument that if men
vidual. Even when Locke questions the amorality of really practiced the virtueswould yield public pov-
it
Hobbes' state of nature, the moral rights that Locke erty and consequently private misfortime, and that
describes— the natural rights of life, liberty, and public welfare rests on private vices!
property — stand out more as individual rights than as Indeed, a considerable part of eighteenth-century
divine prescriptions for an ordered society. ethical theorizing is cast not in terms of the right and
In the third place, the locus of controversy about the good, but in terms of virtue and vice, and our
the good and the right is displaced from the social appreciative responses to others' character. In this
forum to the inner psychology of the individual. To whole movement, the moral good becomes primarily
refute Hobbesian egoism is to show that the individual the good man, as contrasted with simply the natural
has authentic inner sentiments of a social or other- goods of desire and satisfaction. Major epistemological
oriented nature. Bishop Butler's strategy of refutation controversies in morals take the form of finding the
is both complex and sophisticated. He first shifts the basis of moral judgment in reason or in sentiment.
concept of the good from the object of the individual's The emerging utilitarianism of the latter part of the
appetites or passions to a rational self-love, quite dis- eighteenth century inherits the framework of the good
tinct from the passions, which seeks to ma.ximize the defined in individual terms and the right in terms of
harmonious achievement of the desires, since obviously Bentham, the goal-seeking framework
social utility. In
desires are in conflict and can lead one away from one's is wholly triumphant. Every man by psychological
good. This enables him to establish a concept of right constitution seeks pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
in the regulative authority of self-love over the pas- A commimity is simply a mass of individuals. The
sions. Further introspection reveals benevolence, community problem is to achieve the greatest happi-
whether as a distinct principle or as an other-regarding ness of the greatest number. "Good" means either
sentiment. Still hirther lies conscience, whose authority pleasure or the objects which are sources of pleasure.
is introspectively established, as was that of self-love, "Right" and "ought" are terms that have a meaning
over the passions. only with respect to courses of conduct productive of
It remains but to reconcile conscience and self-love the greatest pleasure and avoidance of pain.
by the claim that their voices will in fact be foimd Both notions in utilitarianism have a more compli-
in accord, and that apparent discrepancies will be cated character than appears at first. Pleasure as the
found to be simplv dissident passions. In Hume and single goal, extracted from any and every object of
in Adam Smith the operation of sympathy as a natural striving, begins to serve as a standard of measurement
principle is defended as against Hobbes' attempted rather than as a goal. The orientation of the theory
reduction of compassion to an imaginative feeling of is to measurement; the good is the maximum pleasure
one's own suffering if one were in the particular plight attainable in a given situation. What is desired consti-
that has overtaken the other. In general, the good, tutes only an initial datum for the measurement; an
while still conceived as what satisfies human desire, appeal simply to the fact of desire is arbitrary, and
is neatly parceled into the self-regarding and the Bentham attacks the principle of sympathy and
other-regarding. This reflects the dominant growth of antipathy — deciding bv likes and dislikes — as capri-
an individualism in the social institutions and the moral cious. The basic orientation to the good becomes intel-
acceptabilitv of an acquisitive worldly mode of life. ligible in the light of the historical context. Increas-
The self-regarding is no longer equated with the im- ingly, in Bentham's lifetime, the industrial revolution
moral; it is, if not excessive, established as a proper is under way, a policy of laissez-faire and material
part of the moral. The focus for right falls increasingly progress is coming to the center, an expansive this-
on the problem of reconciling the conflict of individual worldly Ubertarian outlook is seen as the key to
goods. Hume stresses the instnmiental character of progress. The stress comes to be on consciousness of
conceptions of justice, and from Butler to Adam Smith aims in order to reform institutions that stand in the
there is the a.ssurance that the unseen hand of Provi- way.

dence will guarantee that each man's pursuit of his The traditional notion of the right now appears in
own good will produce an effect of enhancement on several ways. There is first the basic social interest in
others' good. But it takes different shades. Sometimes institutional forms which require analysis so that they
the individual is being reassured that an enlightened mav become vehicles for the forward energies of men
egoism will turn out for the best. Sometimes, however, rather than obstacles. The right is therefore the system
he is being prompted to directly virtuous action and of institutions to serve this purpose. There is, second,
178 assiu-ed it will turn out for his own good too. Only the equalitarian assmnption — everyone counts as one
RIGHT AND GOOD
in the reckoning of the pleasures and pains. Much of tions, their affections, the rules for achieving happiness,
the theoretical problem in the relation of the right and are not questions of morality. They tell us what is the
the good in utilitarianism comes to take the form of case, and what to do if we wish to pursue certain ends.
controversy as to whether this equalitarian principle is They do not tell us what we ought to do. The basic
derivable within the theory or is an outside assumption moral concept is that of duty. Its commands are abso-
imported into the system —
for example, whether a lute or categorical, not hypothetical. This he takes to
commitment maximizing pleasure can be shown to
to be clear in the ordinarv moral consciousness; our re-
involve maximizing its distribution. There is, in the spect is directed toward the man who conscientiously
third place, the practical question of reconciling indi- obevs the moral law in spite of suffering and contrary
vidual motivations to make them aim at the greatest inclinations. Kant's conceptual framework is briefly
general happiness. Bentham, like Adam Smith, relies this; man is a rational being, morality presupposes
to some extent on a natural identity of interest among freedom (a postulate incapable of rational or empirical
men (in economics and the theory of virtue), but sup- proof but required for morality), freedom is self-
plements it with an artificial identification of interests determination bv law willed for the community of all
by use of sanctions and law). And finally,

(in politics rational beings. Hence the test for the morality of a
there is the question of justice and the human senti- proposed maxim is whether one would consistently will
—
ments that center about it whether these do not con- it as a law for all men. Morality thus is not determined
tain some irreducible idea of right and wrong. by inclination or external command (even by divine
This last problem, like many of the others, is most command). As Kant says, it is autonomous, not heter-
analytically considered by J. S. Mill. Although he is onomous. A wholly moral being will follow the moral
entirely a nineteenth-century figure, responding to law without inner conflict; this is a holy will. But men
fresh problems after the changes in England that follow live in two worlds, that of inclination as well as that
the Reform Bill of 1832 and the emergence of the labor of freedom. Hence obligation is the sense of duty
movement, his treatment of justice is relevant here. curbing inclination. This is reason being practical.
In Chapter 5 of his Utilitarianism he distinguishes Virtue lies in the continuous effort to follow the ought.
sharply between the actual sentiments men have and The good lies in happiness coming together with vir-
what is moral in them, and he elaborately examines tue; unmerited happiness is not a good. Thus both
the wholly utilitarian character of justice. In brief, he virtue and the good have been brought into defining
traces the root ideas of ought and of merit to the relation with obligation.
convictions that punishment and censure, and reward, Kant's moral theory, in effect, provides a method
will be conducive to the general welfare. As for justice, for generating or testing moral rules by universaliza-
it refers basically to principles of distribution in all tion. It also puts the individual as a rational being in
fields, of gains and burdens. And while men have held the very center, recognizing him as of infinite worth:
to all sorts of such principles, the question of which every man is to be treated as an end, not merely as
to employ in what field is a matter of utilitarian reck- a means.
oning. Men's moral sentiments constitute no contrary Kant is quite explicit about his aim. He is e.xpoimding
evidence, for they are built up in social life out of a morality that is a priori and alleged to be free from
rudimentary reactions such as the desire for retaliation, any empirical taint. It is not the consequences of action
and contain no irmer more
justifying principle. It is the in existence but its rational character which determines
important human institutions that build up the more its moral worth. Man stands out from nature and its
peremptory sentiments. In general. Mill is more con- processes as utterly imique. But his uniqueness is found
scious than Bentham of the way in which association not in aspiration, not in apprehension of beauty, not
develops attitudes and sentiments so as even to bring in his use of rationality to develop the instruments of
changes in the nature of man. At the end he is quite human control and the pursuit of aims. It lies in the
far removed from psychological hedonism in his theory sense of duty.
of virtue as becoming a part of happiness rather than The Growth of Historical Consciousness and the
simply an instrument to it. Impact of Evolutionary Theory. Hitherto the search
If Mill went as far as seems possible in reducing the had been for eternal structures, both for the good and
concept of right to utility in the framework of the the right, whether based on conceptions of divinity,
good, Kant had already in the latter part of the eight- reason, nature, or laws of the human constitution. The
eenth century posed the opposite reduction, and in a nineteenth century is the age in which a growing
form that has come increasingly to dominate contem- historical consciousness took philosophical shape, and
porary ethics. Kant is quite ready to surrender the the theory of evolution gave sweeping it scientific
theory of motivation to hedonism. But men's inclina- substance in the understanding of man. 179
RIGHT AND GOOD
In the first third of the century the commanding But a biological evolutionary understanding of this
idealist synthesis in the Hegehan philosophy saw all significance was readily forthcoming. For example,
reality as a dialectical development in which Reason pleasure could be seen, in Herbert Spencer's account,
or the Divine Idea achieves the self-consciousness as a sign of activities having health and survival value,
which is its freedom. In all his specific analyses, Hegel and rules of right, such as demands for sacrifice, could
combined a profoimd sense of unity, of pattern, and become intelligible through their long-range survival
of process. .\11 dualisms were seen as phases in the effect on the group. Utilitarianism thus found it easier
development of a total plan, all apparently isolated to make the social transition that had been difficult
items as embodying a wider configuration in some in purely individualistic hedonist terms. But the forms
moment of transition, and every present configuration in which pleasure was sought would now take over
as a stage in a historical unfolding in which apparent importance, and evolutionary mechanisms would en-
opposites are transcended into a higher unity. Hence able us to understand them and their changes, though
Hegel's philosophy is the great solvent of traditional in social and cultural rather than biological terms. Thus
and opposing ethical schools: dichotomies of abstract Spencer also traced the changes that took place in
reason and individual immediacy, duty and happiness, men's conceptions of the good and the right and in
inner spirit and outer institutions are put into place their patterns of virtue as they moved from a milita-
as stages in the growth of consciousness, the unfolding ristic to an industrial society. Evolutionary interest
of freedom, and the development of institutions. The turned some ethical inquiry into the sociology of ethics
full realization of ethics is in the objective domain of and into descriptions of primitive and early moralities,
society and history in which the good is articulated in order to discover an evolution within morality itself.
in a social system of rights and duties, themselves not This general historical emphasis, like the older use
abstract but expressing the organization of social life of theNewtonian model, sought to find what had
unified in the state. If Hegel's own propositions often emerged in order to establish at the same time a basis
seem too schematized in terms of abstract categories, of critique for alternative trends and possibilities. In
his theoretical impact was clearly to encourage the such endeavors, both the underlying scientific presup-
studv of morality in terms of cultural pattern and positions and the underlying ethical commitments
historical determination. often stood out clearly. Spencer saw the evolutionary
The theory of evolution had even more far-reaching process in terms of the struggle for existence and sur-
consequences on concepts of the right and the good. vival of the fittest, and posited an individualistic ethics
Few of the traditional theories were left unscathed. with absolute conceptions of justice whose emergence
Most devastating was the impact on the goal-seeking he anticipated as the outcome of social development.
framework in its teleological form; for its basic concept Anarchist ethics, by contrast, best illustrated in the
of a permanent natural direction of striving as ethically work of Kropotkin, saw mutual aid as a dominant
determinative was thoroughly undermined. Aristotle's theme, by the development of power-
frustrated
original criteria for the natural had combined invari- wielding institutions, and eventually breaking through
ance or relative invariance of behavior and develop- to fresh forms of human relationship. Nietzsche posited
ment in each form of life, inherent tendency in the a basic psychology of a will to power whose direct
sense of unleairned or instinctive, supplemented by and disciplined expression constituted the obvious
what was good for the form of life. These went in human good. With deep insight into the natural history
separate directions once the teleological bond was of morals, and into its psychological roots, Nietzsche
broken. Invariance now meant simply scientific laws, focused on understanding the role of moral categories
not natural law. Inherence or instinctiveness meant as well as moral content in the psychological function-
that the trait got built in during past evolutionary ing of men. He saw most of traditional religious and
development because of past survival value; it might, humanistic morality as an expression of weakness, and
like aggressiveness, be presently disruptive and a source the concepts of evil and sin and injustice to be rooted
of anti-moral behavior in a new environment. The in envy and resentment. As against this morality of
goodness of a type of behavior would now have to be good and evil, he posed the aristocratic morality of
established on its own in some fresh manner. good and bad, with its direct expression of power, and
Utilitarianism too was affected, but in a more com- he looked to the production of a higher order of man.
plex way. Its hedonistic emphasis was deepened, yet Marxian ethics made perhaps the most systematic
at thesame time transcended. The presumed fact that attempt to combine the historical sweep of Hegelian
men constantly pursued pleasure would now give philosophy with the scientific materialism of an evolu-
pleasure no special ultimate status, for it had still to tionary outlook, adding also elements of the growing
loU be asked what this signified in the evolutionary process. economic science and historical analysis of social
RIGHT AND GOOD
movements. The growth of freedom is seen as the basic meaning lay in the institutional structures of the time
human aim, interpreted as the increase of productive and place that gave content to the integration of the
power and control of man's career and destiny- Specific self. Integration in the self and organization in society
stages are delineated with reference to the historical were carrying on the kind of function that went with
interplay of regulative forms in society, reflecting the right or obligation; the growing concrete whole of
stages of economic development and their internal self-realization would merit the appellation of the
conflicts. is defined in time and place by the
The good good.
dominant goals of the society, and evaluated by the The aftermath of evolution, with its recognition of
advance in human freedom that is ensured; the right variety of form and constant change and with its re-
is defined by the system of economic and social rela- moval from the scene of a determinate and definitive
tions, reflecting the underlying economic needs and plan for all time, made impossible thereafter the older
mode of production. Thus feudal morality is a system forms of both the goal-seeking and the juridical frame-
of ordered position, with virtues of loyalty and grati- work. Looking back, we can detect precursor tenden-
tude; bourgeois morality has goods of individual success cies toward the new in both Bentham and Kant.
and a system of justice embodying will-assertion, prop- Bentham's notion of pleasure as the goal had been so
erty rights, and free contract; socialist and communist broad and so thin as to determine no definitive goal
morality will have an ideal of human development and but to shift the emphasis to evaluation in measurement.
collective organization. Evaluation is the progressive Kant's use of rationality as self-legislation had begun
reckoning of direction of development in the line of to shift the emphasis from the set of rules to the way
basic historical aims. of certifying them. With the change in cognitive ori-
While all these historically-oriented theories sought entation brought by the century of evolution, the char-
to share or to develop the evolutionary framework, acteristic ethical element in both frameworks could
other moral philosophies set out to build up lines of only be the critical component which made evaluation
defense against growing naturalism. Thus the
the possible or which gave a rational character to decision.
Kantian ethical theory was revived and invoked as a In the twentieth century it took many forms, including
foundation for theories that would stem the scientific belated Platonic reifications of value or value domains,
tide and set off spirit from nature. Kant himself had and belated Kantian forms of extracting basic princi-
consciously held on to the two irreducible worlds of ples from the concept of rationality. It took explicit
noumena and phenomena, the former for morality, the form in outlooks that made the phenomenon of criti-
latter for science. And T. H. Green, witnessing the cism or of reflective decision the central focus in ethics.
evolutionary naturalization of man, warned that unless It took bold experimental form in the foundation of
morality somehow represented something transcend- general value theory in which a unified concept of what
ent, the moral consciousness would be reduced to sim- is called value took over from that of the good and
ply a complex form of fear. Whether the idealist out- by developing a theory of value judgment compre-
looks that emerged built on the Kantian contrast of hending the critical element, left little for an inde-
nature and spirit or on the Hegelian concept of all pendent notion of right to do except be the application
reality as the march of Spirit, the net effect was to of value judgment to a particular province of value.
establish the moral consciousness as a cosmic phenom- In turning to these predominantly twentieth-century
enon. Desire itself became no isolated impulse but a vicissitudes of the right and the good, the experiment
movement of the self, threading its way to a systematic with value merits consideration in terms of its basic
realization in relation to the whole. intent and procedures. The other forms can be sur-
The ethics of self-realization, for example, as pro- veyed under the rubric of analytic formulations, and
pounded by F. H. Bradley in his Ethical Studies (1876), naturalistic and pragmatic formulations.
had no need to counterpose the juridical and the goal- The Right and The Good in General Value Theory.
seeking frameworks. Like the ancient Stoic ethics of The general theory of value appears to have arisen
virtue, it was operating in the framework of a distinct from different sources, at points with opposing motives.
self -development model, and Hegel had already broken The earliest modem source was the Benthamite em-
down all the sharp dichotomies. It was, however, the phasis on measurement. For Bentham, value is, like
Hegelian emphasis on the comprehensive and total price in economics, the measure of a consignment of
system, rather than his dynamic historicism, that domi- pleasure or pain entering into decision. The theoretical
nated in self-realizationist theory. Goals could appear importance of this evaluative phenomenon was noted
in himian consciousness, but their significance lay in above. It had practical support in the existence
also
the systematic unity they gave to self-development; of a money economy in which things and services of
and rules could govern himian action, but their basic extremely diverse type and "use value" in consump- lol
—
RIGHT AND GOOD
tion, acquire a comparative "exchange value. "

Eco- in which God's will is therefore good. Hartmann attacks
nomic analvsis of exchange vakie furnished the earliest Plato too for identifying the good and the real. Value
comprehensive model for a general theory of value. is the independent base for evaluating even the
It both provided concepts and inspired hopes of a ultimately real.
systematic account of human choices and preferences The relation of the right and the good in this new
in all fields. framework of general value theory has shown, how-
A second source was the naturalistic continuation ever, a variety comparable to that in the older tradi-
of Hobbes' or Spinoza's account ofgood as the object tion. At first sight, the value concept itself seems to
of endeavor, now seen

an evolutionary light. Generic
in be wholly on the side of the good. The general ques-
value would be the earliest or most rudimentary tions asked are all of one type: the nature of the value
—
response the elective act of acceptance or rejection, phenomenon, the meaning of "value, the mode of "
the exhibition of an interest, a pro- or con- attitude. verifying value judgments, the mode of comparing
Wliile some theorists reached such a broad base simpl\' values. Yet as its very breadth carries it beyond the
by throwing all different forms into a common hopper moral domain to include aesthetic value, religious
and postulating a value genus for the variety of value value, economic value, and so on, some distinctive
species, others had clearly in mind the evolutionary mark is then required for the more limited province
sketch of rising complexity on different integrative of the moral. Sometimes this has been taken to be the
levels beginning with an originally simple reaction. The values of character, in the older tradition of virtue,
explanatory derivation of the complex would show how but perhaps more often there has been a reference to
the differentiated notions such as the right or the sense the values that ought to be brought into existence imder
of obligation arose out of the ordinary materials of given conditions. The ought thus becomes the distinc-
human sympathy in the reactions of men in groups tive mark of the moral. Similarly, where value is
held together for survival. It was the functions they identified in terms of interest or desire or inclination,
performed in harmonizing or marshalling or integrat- the additional selective element, as in the contrast of
ing interests that kept them going. Darwin had himself the desired and the desirable, carries the connotation
led the way by attacking the exaggeration of remorse of what is worth desiring or ought to be desired. Some-
into some supernatural voice. It was, he said, just times the concept of the normative is used for the
different in degree from ordinary repentance, as agony selective or critical element; sometimes, however, the
differed from pain or rage from anger. term "nonn "
becomes rather descriptive of some pat-
Precisely the opposite motive operated in the idealist tern of interest or desire, and "value "
then carries the
generalization of value. For it the drawing together connotation of the standard or the desirable. In
of different kinds of categories into a single basic notion Hartmann's accoimt, the tension of the ought is carried
of value was the sign of the characteristic mark of into the heart of the good by construing value itself
spirit. The glimmer of the ideal now operative in bare as an ought-to-be. Similarly, in a quite different kind
desire or selection, now in deliberate obligation, repre- of phenomenological approach — extending to value the
sented the same basic phenomenon. methods that Gestalt psychology foimd fruitful in the
Phenomenological approaches have sometimes gone study of perception —
Wolfgang Kohler attempts to
even farther than idealist philosophy in isolating a identify a phenomenal quality of requiredness as a
separate domain of value. For example, Nicolai generic element and interprets both aesthetic and
Hartmaiui, in his Ethics, contrasts sharply the sensory moral fittingness as special cases of it.
domain which science explores, the ontological domain Whatever these skirmishes in the dialectic of no-
which includes both the religious and the general menclature, it is clear in general value theory that the
metaphysical accovmts of reality, and the axiological concepts represent rather fmictional differentiation in
or value domain which is self-sufficient and inde- the one material. The critical element lies in the com-
pendent, grasped by sensitive insight or intuition. It parative evaluation, and the question what one ought
has its own laws and its own structure. Ethics consists to do or what is appropriate is readily translated into
in an exploration of the different values in this domain what is the best thing to do. The contrast of the right
what ought to be, whether it exists or not, in all its and good has lost its basic importance in general value
rich variety and often with conflicting possibilities. This theory. Attention has shifted rather to the whole prob-
is the realm of the traditional good, broadly conceived lem of the autonomy of the value domain, which,
by the theory of value. Duty is the application and interestingly enough, is indifferently termed the ques-
selection under given conditions of the structure of tion of the relation between the ought and the is, and
existence. It is, for Hartmann, a fundamental philo- that between fact and value, as if they were the same
sophical mistake to argue that the structure of reality problem.
lo2 determines value — for example, a religious teleology In more recent study of the language of morals, the
RIGHT AND GOOD
old sharper distinction reappears within the new That something is good, or even yields the greatest
framework. A contrast is made between evaluation and good, does not mean that it is oiu- duty to do it; we
prescription,and the older problems of the relation may be bound by a stringent duty such as a promise
between the good and the right appear in the form to a man on his death bed to carry out his wishes, but
of the relation between value and obligation, once acting in accordance with his wishes may not yield
again as major differences in categories. the greatest good we could disinterestedly conceive.
Analytic Formulations. Philosophical analysis, es- Ross's common-sense analysis reflects quite accurately
pecially in its British twentieth-century forms, has been the conflicts between duty and interest in ordinary life.
applied in various ways to problems of ethical theory. It simply acknowledges the tension of the right and
G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica (1903), with its the good, or of justice and utility, or of duty and
common-sense analysis, many
reached a position in interest,by whatever names distinguished, and takes
respects analogous to the phenomenological one. The for granted that the good is what has to be sacrificed
autonomy of the moral is central to his accoimt. The in cases of tension.
basic predicate of morals is "good " in the sense of While these contrasting patterns each claimed to be
intrinsic good. This names a simple quality which the correct analysis of ordinary moral concepts and
cannot be identified with any descriptive predicate, convictions, it is apparent that they also establish defi-
whether psychological, such as pleasure or what one nite priorities in policy and conduct. To define the right
desires; or metaphysical, such as what God wills; or in terms of the good involves a readiness to evaluate
historical, such as what evolution unfolds. To identify moral rules critically in terms of the welfare they bring
good with any of these "natural" qualities or predicates or frustrate in practice. The separation of the right
is to commit the naturalistic fallacy. Moore's chief and the good or the primacy of the right has the more
demonstration of its fallaciousness is the so-called conservative potential in giving priority to maintaining
open-question argument — that if you identify good the stability of the existing moral pattern.
with such a descriptive content it is always possible Analytic formulations moved in two somewhat
meaningfully to ask of this content whether it itself different directions in the mid-twentieth century. One
is good. Thus to ask if what God wills is good, or if was toward more formal logical analysis, the other to
pleasure is good, is not to ask a meaningless question more informal contextual linguistic analysis.
or to affirm that pleasure is pleasure. Though Moore The formal analysis was prompted by the rapid
regards this as establishing the simple nonnatiu'al char- development of logical techniques as well as the pres-
acter of good, and a domain of values intuitively tige which logical positivism attached to formal con-
grasped as having a worth independent of whatever struction, while disparaging ordinary language as
the actual state of existence may be, it is more plausible enshrining the mistakes and myths of the past. The
to see his argument as establishing the permanent most prominent work relevant to ethics has stemmed
possibility of critical evaluation for any proposed con- from the field of deontic logic, in which such concepts
tent. as permissible, imperative, ought, and others of the
With respect to right and obligation, Moore's answer same group and obligation are analyzed and
of right
is utilitarian in form. To judge an act as right is to systematized in logical fashion. Thus if "permissible"
say that it will cause the world to be better than it is taken as a primitive term, "X is obligatory" would
would be on any possible alternative act. be translated into "It is not permissible not to do X."
Contrasting relations of the right and the good were Differences between the operations and trans-
proposed by Moore's contemporaries at Oxford, who formations permitted in the ordinary propositional
also employed the method of the conceptual analysis calculus and those in the deontic system are carefully
of ordinary moral beliefs or convictions. H. A. Prichard explored. This is a rapidly growing field of analysis
reversed Moore's relation. The particular judgments of today. While the right was first dealt with, recent work
obligation are the primary material; we know directly has turned also to the good, and axiological systems
in the particular case and
what our obligations are, have been developed using "better" as a primitive
we generalize them in rough rules. good The notion of term. The question of interpretation of such systems,
is derivative: a good man is a man who does what is and of the ways of establishing or verifying statements
right, and the good consists in those goals that a good in these systems, would raise afresh all the problems
man pursues. On the other hand, Sir David Ross took of the right and the good. At present it is the logical
the strikingly different path of analyzing the right and complexities that stimulate interest.
the good independent ideas. Our duty
as coordinate positivist analysis of meaning and verification
The
in a particular case hard to work out, but the prima
is also had a different impact on ethical theory. Since
facie rules which tell us that lying and stealing and the meaning of a term was taken to lie in the mode
so on are wrong are themselves intuitively evident. of verification implied, and truth was established loo
"
RIGHT AND GOOD
either by showing a logical proposition to be analyti- mate plurality, or a loose unity in a kind of family
cally true or an empirical proposition to predict cor- resemblance. In a reverse of the positivist attitude to
rectly the course of sense-experience, there seemed no ordinary language as a blundering to be superseded
place left for the ethical propositions of the intuitionist by careful formalization, the new mode of analysis
approach, any more than for propositions of religion showed the greatest respect for ordinary language as
or aesthetics. All these were accordingly denied any a repository of the wisdom and experience of the ages
cognitive status; they do not assert anything, but ethical in communication and interpersonal relations. Accord-
terms rather serve a noncognitive or practical function, ingly, in ethics, it canvassed the field of the uses of
providing vehicles for expressing or giving vent to moral terms and tvu-ned up a multitude of differences,
emotions. To say "Stealing is wrong," argued A. J.
Ayer as far apart as expressing feelings and preferences,
in his Language, Truth and Logic (1936), is equivalent expressing decisions, advising, persuading, evaluating
to saying "Stealing!!" in a tone of horror. The differ- and promulgating. R. M. Hare concentrated on the
ence between "good" and "right" or between any commending use of "good," and the use of "ought"
ethical terms, lies in the kind and strength of the to indicate the need for a decision. J. L. Austin explored
emotion conveyed. Ethical statements are therefore the performatory uses of language, and in morals the
neither true nor false. In a development of the emotive actual assignment of obligation and responsibilities,
theory, C. L. Stevenson focused on disagreement in J.
O. Urmson the grading uses of "good." By the time
attitude, as distinguished from disagreement in belief, that G. H. von Wright explored the variety of uses
as the central moral phenomenon, and analyzed ethical in his Varieties of Goodness (1963), it was a mark of
statements as largely persuasive in effort — practical lack of philosophical sophistication to ask for "the
attempts to bring about agreement in an emotive way. meaning of 'good.'
To resolve an ethical issue is thus causally to secure Contextualism probed even more minutely into con-
agreement in attitude, not cognitively to establish a text differences. Thus the differentiation in personal
truth. pronoun with "ought" was found to make a difference
The distinctive featvire of the emotive theory was in use; for example, "I ought" was sometimes declared
not the recognition of the role of emotion in ethics; to express a decision, "You ought" to be prescriptive
this had been a commonplace of the eighteenth-century as addressed to someone in particular, "He ought" to
theorists who stressed the moral sentiments as against be evaluative. Thus the kind of term became less im-
the Cambridge Platonists who had looked for intellec- portant than the kind of function being performed. But
tual ethical axioms. And Westermarck, in his Ethical even evaluation differed (as Toulmin showed in his The
Relativity (1932), had recently expounded the view Place of Reason in Ethics, 1950) as one was looking
that ethical beliefs were generalizations of the retribu- for the application of a rule in a particular case, ques-
tive feelings, with "wrong" and "bad" resting on the tioning a rule within a moral code, and questioning
sterner retaliatory feelings, and "right" and "good" on a limiting principle in terms of which codes were
the kindlier retributive feelings of gratitude. The dis- themselves adjudged.
tinctive element was the tie-in with the presumed The relation of the right and the good underwent
correct use of language, and the claim that indicative changes in these developments. At first the distinction
forms in "X is good" or "X is wrong" are incorrect was between deontological terms and teleological terms,
syntactical expressions whose proper form would be and the question of their relation was expressed as
"Would that everybody desired X" as Russell at one whether deontological statements presupposed teleo-
point analyzed "good," and "Don't do X," as Carnap logical statements —
that is, whether ought-assertions
translated moral rules into imperatives. Some, such as were meaningful only if you assumed certain purposes
Reichenbach, stressed the more voluntaristic element, in the background. In the language of fxmctions, re-
the commitment component in the will-act, in ethical placing that of statements, the question was the rela-
statements. tion of prescribing to evaluating. With the multi-
The contextual mode of analysis as a systematic plication of contexts and functions it became less a
procedure in ethics emerged from such antecedents question of assigning a usage to one or another function
under the impact of the revised conception of meaning than of exploring the concrete structure of each func-
that followed upon Ludwig Wittgenstein's later work. tion, whatever language it employed. In effect, all the
A term was to be understood not by seeking a single functions could be seen as contextually differentiated
definition expressive of its essence, but by examining modes of reflective criticism.
by seeing carefully how one might come
linguistic uses, Naturalistic and Pragmatic Formulations. While
to learn the use of the term. No one form of unity the analytic formulations began with language and
184 was antecedently presupposed; there might be an ulti- worked out towards the contexts and functions which
RIGHT AND GOOD
characterized moral phenomena and moral processes, part of the ethical theory that made use of psychoan-
the naturalistic formulations went as directly as possi- alytic knowledge concerned itself with character and
ble to the latter in order to explore them in as scientific virtue, falling into a self-development framework
a spirit as possible. Utilitarianism had done this by rather than the goal-seeking or the juridical. But the
identifying the good as pleasure, studying pleasure with psychoanalytic exploration of conscience and guilt and
respect to qualities, conditions of occurrence, modes shame formations did afiêct deeply the theory of duty,
of increasing, and so on, although in a limited intro- and the probing into phenomena of pleasure and its
spective way. The good and the right were then related sources, and phenomena of aspiration, contributed
as pleasure and the avoidance of pain to the stable greater depth to the understanding of the good.
rules of their successful pursuit. For the most part, the utilitarian and naturalistic
The differences among the naturalistic formulations, theories have inherited the older goal-seeking frame-
especially with the emergence of general value theory, work with its picture of the unified goal broken up
tended to follow the different assumptions about the by evolutionary theory, by depth psychology, and by
most fruitful scientific study. R. B. Perry, in his General social science and its study of historical goals and their
Theory of Value (1926), identified value as object of patterning. In the pragmatic formulations, akin to the
interest rather than pleasure, apparently because in- naturalistic in their close relation to the sciences, but
terest has a broader biological import and can be more directly incorporating the psychological study of
exhibited in behavioral terms. Thus where Bentham knowledge processes, the focus is more sharply on the
called intensity a measure of value. Perry spoke of the critical processes of evaluation and formation of rules.
degree of arousal of the organism. The function of the In William James's Psychobgy (1890) and in Dewey's
right was broadly carried out by measures of the reformulation of it, experience is not the passive
maximal achievement of interest, with such criteria as lining-up of sensory building-blocks; it is the active
intensity, preference and inclusiveness, and with attention and selection in the stream of consciousness
specific exploration of different levels of integration or the flux of events, guided by the existent state and
of interest. In the narrow sense, judgments of right and purposes of the organism, which creates signals and
wrong indicated the application of such criteria in stimuli out of what is going on, and guides awareness
rule-formation within groups for group interests. By and response. Categories, and ideas generally, are in-
contrast to Perry's approach, Stephen Pepper, in his struments for organizing one's activity and for resolv-
Sources of Value (1958), focused on the phenomenon ing problems that arise. The body of ideas and habits
of appetition and purposive striving. Regarding it as which characterize the self at any time is therefore
basic, Pepper maintained that the aspects of pleasure constantly undergoing change or is open to change in
or satisfaction generally, as well as those of interest response to the growth of experience. The process is
and direction, can be set within a framework of pur- through and through an interactive one.
pose. The structure of such appetition is generalized The psychological exploration is initially grounded
into a theory of value as a whole, and the concepts in James's great work. The logical analysis of knowl-
of thegood and the right find their place in the goals edge, so as to extend the analysis of action to it, is
and the modes of organization within that structure. carried out with the greatest technical refinement by
Pepper's formulation consciously set out from E. C. C. I. Lewis. The general philosophical picture in ap-
Tolman's behaviorist studies (Purposive Behavior in plication to a whole range of fields is most evident in
Animals and Men). In corresponding fashion, other the instrumentalism of John Dewey. Lewis and Dewey
kinds of psychological inquiry are associated with other especially stress the unified character of knowledge as
kinds of naturalistic ethical theory. The psychoanalytic against those who, like the emotivists, reject scientific,
approach exerted wide influence in the mid-twentieth method in ethics.
century. The Freudian picture of the basic instinctual James's treatment of the good and the right does
tendencies operating on the pleasure principle, re- not go much beyond the general naturalistic concept
strained and channeled by the ego operating on the of the integration of men's wishes and desires, or where
reality principle to postpone gratification, and by the it does it is to stress the creative frontier element in
superego with its internalized parental prohibitions, willing. Lewis analyzes good or value as one kind of
furnished a model into which ethics could readily be empirical knowledge, where satisfactions disclosed in
fitted. Moral rules of right and wrong were often inter- experience serve as the experiential base. But such
preted as superego phenomena, basically addressed to judgments, though necessary, are not sufficient to de-
problems of acquisitiveness, aggression, and sexuality. termine what is right to do, since some critique or
Idealsand aspirations constituting the good rested on principle is needed to rank and systematize
ego-formation or on ego-superego relations. A great goods — one's own as well as the relation of one's own lo5
RIGHT AND GOOD
good with that of others. What is distinctive about of the right and the good, and the attempts to reduce
Lewis" analysis is that such a critique, imperative or one to the other, decides that the categorial distinction
prescriptive, appears not only to guide action but in is supported by the basic difference in the phenomena
the construction of all knowledge. of desire and aspiration on the one hand, and inter-
These rational imperatives, thus presupposed in the personal claims within the group on the other. But it
enterprises of science and morality, are basically four, does not follow that there are other standards than that
each of which is presupposed in the succeeding ones. of the good for deciding between alternative rules or
The two are the rules of consistency and cogency,

first principles of right.Hence Dewey's solution, in his and
establishing logic and the methods of evidence as com- James H. Tufts' major work on Ethics (rev. ed., 1932),
pelling. The third is the rule of prudence, according is the distinction of the concepts, but insistence on
towhich a man reckons his well-being in terms of his evaluation of what is right by what promotes the good.
whole life rather than in momentary or fragmentary In his later Theory of Valuation (1939), however, the
impulse. The fourth is the rule of justice, e.xpressing concern with right and wrong recedes, and Dewey
tlie phenomena of sociality and social grouping. deals rather with the way criteria for evaluation in all
Dewey goes bevond reliance on the general charac- and operate as standards and principles. The
fields rise
ter of human psychology and the knowledge process emphasis throughout remains on the theor\' of reflec-
to the results of the specific sciences and the history tive criticism.
of man. The general backgroimd of his approach is Moral Autonomy ar\d the Theory of Criticism. It
the acceptance on evolutionary and historical grovinds is this emphasis on the theory of criticism in morality,
of increasingly rapid change in human life. Hence fixity most clearly presented in the pragmatist formulation,
forms of relevant character,
in goals, in rules, in specific but implicit in most twentieth-century ethics, that
in specific patterns of self-social relations and in re- emerges as the distinctive mark of moral autonomy.
sponsibility, is not to be expected. Given such change, Its basis in the history of ideas was the unsettling of
the basic need is for direction and guidance of change. all fixities in the development of evolutionary concep-
Intelligence is a general name for man's increasingly tions. Its sociological base in the twentieth century is
stabilized method of evaluation. Accordingly, Dewey the complexity, rapidity of change, and conflicts, aris-
refashions the initial picture of a moral situation and ing in all institutions and segments of human life; the
the role of concepts of good and right. .\ moral situa- collective effect is an increase in the need for decision,
tion is not primarily one in which moral principles and the importance of comprehensive standards as
struggle with inclination; it is rather one in which there contrasted with the rules of specific fields. Even in the
is a problem or conflict of principles so that a decision ethical fonnulations that set up a separate domain of
is necessary. Ethics embodies the lessons of reflective value and took autonomy to lie in independence from
experience as an aid to such decision. existence, this independence when it functions becomes
Good refers, then, not to a set of ends, although its in effect the right of moral criticism of anything and
base of phenomena is the purposive activity of men, everything. Thus moral autonomy becomes less the
but to a mode of evaluating ends, that is, to the devel- traditional emphasis on Kantian formulation of laws,
opment of a standard. The traditional sharp distinction or the emphasis on the isolation of ethics from the
of means and ends is also reassessed. In effect, Dewey sciences and human knowledge generally; rather it
is developing fresh categories for dealing with the maintains the integrity of moral decision as a critical
good, in the light of the psychological processes of process. Ethical theory becomes thus the theory of the
purposive activity. Ends are ends-in-view, targets that way in which human knowledge can be used by men
are set up so that aiming at them will resolve the who become conscious of their human aims both —
problems in the situation. Similarly, desire is not mere perennial and historically local — to criticize the direc-
liking, but arises in a matrix in which to pursue the tion of their striving and to reorient it on the basis
object of desire will satisfy needs, harmonize habit of the evidence. In such a conception, both the right
conflicts, and so on. Hence ends are constantly open and the good become retranslated into phases of the
to evaluation in terms of consequences met in their critical process.
pursuit.
Judgments of right, duty, and rights arise in the BIBLIOGRAPHY
context of claims that are a constant featxu'e of group References to individual moral philosophers through the
life. Guidance by rule, or principles, is thus unavoid- nineteenth centuri- and their works may be found in Henry
able. It is this distinctive context which underlies the Sidgwick, Outlines of the History of Ethics. .5th ed. (London,
claim that the right is separate from the good. Dewey, 1902), or in a comprehensive general history of philosophy,
186 consciously facing the traditional issue of the relation such as A History of Philosophy. 3rd ed., by B. A. G. Fuller,
ROMANTICISM IN LITERATURE
revised by Sterling M. McMurrin (New York, 1955). See also history its clear literary reference to medieval ro-
Alasdair Maclntyre, A Short History of Etliics London, 1967).
( mances and to the verse epics of Ariosto and Tasso
Twentieth-centurv conceptions of the right and the good from which their themes and "machinery" were
are found in the various schools or movements. For a study derived. It occurs in this sense in France in 1669, in
back historically, see John
of general value theory that looks
England in 1674. (Jean Chapelain speaks of I'epique
Laird, The Idea of Value (Cambridge, 1929). For phenoni-
rotnanesque, genre de poesie sans art in 1667. In 1669
enological approaches to value; Nicolai Hartmann. Ethics,
he contrasts poesie romanesque and poesie heroique.
trans. Stanton Coit (London, 1932), and Wolfgang Kbhler,
Rene Rapin refers to poesie romanesque Puhi,
The Place of Value m
a World of Facts (New York, 1938).
chi dti
For naturalistic value theory: Ralph Barton Perry, General

Boiardo. et de VArioste in 167.3. Thomas Rvmer trans-
Theorij of Value (New York, 1926) and Realms of Value lates this as "Romantick Poetry of Pulci, Bojardo, and
(Cambridge, Mass., 1958); Stephen C. Pepper, The Sources Ariosto" a year Thomas Warton understood it
later.)
of Value (Berkeley and Los ,\ngeles, 1958). For analytic to have this meaning when he wrote his introductory
formulations in the first part of the century; G. E. Moore, dissertation to his History of English Poetry (1774),
Principia Ethica (Cambridge, 1903); H. A. Prichard, Moral "The Origin of Romantic Fiction in Europe." In
Obligation (Oxford, 1949); \V. D. Ross, The Right and The Warton's writings and those of several of his contem-
Good (Oxford, For emotive theory; Charles L.
1930).
poraries a contrast is implied between this "romantic"
Stevenson, Ethics and Language (New Haven, 1944). For
literature, both medieval and Renaissance, and the
ordinary language analysis; P. H. Nowell-Smith, Ethics
whole tradition of literary art as it came down from
(London, 1954). For formal approaches in deontie and
classical antiquity. The composition and "machinery"
axiological systems: G. H. von Wright, A'omi and Action
(London, 1963) and The Logic of Preference (London, 1963); of Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser are defended against the
see also his general analytic study. The Varieties of Goodness charges of neo-classical criticism with argimients which
(London, 1963). For pragmatic approaches; C. 1. Lewis, An derive from the Renaissance defenders of .\riosto and
Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation (LaSalle, 111., 1946), Tasso. (For the antecedents of Warton's and Hurd's
Part III, and The Ground and Nature of the Right (New arguments, see Odell Shepard's review of Clarissa
York, 1955); John Dewey and James H. Tufts, Ethics, rev. Rinaker's Thomas Warton in Journal of English and
ed. (New Ybrk, 1932) and John Dewey, Theory of Valuation German Philology, 16 [1917], 153.) An attempt is made
(Chicago, 1939).
to justify a special taste for such "romantic" fiction
ABRAHAM EDEL and its noncompliance with classical standards and
[See also Evil; Evolutionism; Happiness and Pleasure;

rules. The dichotomy implied has obvious analogues
Hegelian . . .
; Justice; Nature; Platonism; Pragmatism; in other contrasts common in the eighteenth century;
Socialism; Utilitarianism.] between the ancients and moderns, between artificial
and popular poetry, the "natural" poetry of Shake-
speare unconfined bv rules and that of French classical
tragedy. A definite juxtaposition of "Gothic" and
"classical" occurs in Bishop Richard Hurd and Thomas
ROMANTICISM IN LITERATURE Warton. Hurd speaks of Tasso as "trimming between
the Gothic and the Classic," and of the Faerie Qtieene
The term "romantic" emerges in the second half of as a "Gothic, not a classical poem." Warton calls
the seventeenth century both in England and France. Dante's Divine Comedy a "wonderful compound of
Its meaning in the phrase "as in romances '
denotes, classical and romantic fancy." Here the two famous
e.g., medieval romances or the epics of Ariosto and words meet, possibly for the first time, but Warton
Tasso most frequently, the sprawling romances of
or, probably meant little more than that Dante used both
intrigue and adventure composed in France by the classical mythology and chivalric motifs.
Scuderys and La Calprenede. It was originally a pejo- This use of the term "romantic penetrated into
"
rative term for anything "unreal," "marvelous." "ex- Germany. In 1766 Heinrich Wilhelm Gerstenberg
travagantly fanciful," or "sentimental," By many reviewed Warton's Observations on the Fairy Queen,
metaphorical shifts, largely during the eighteenth cen- and Herder used the learning, information, and termi-
tury, the term was also applied to landscapes. It be- nology of Warton and his Enghsh contemporaries. He
came an alternative term for "picturesque," either of distinguished sometimes between the "romantic"
the idyllic kind or, in almost total contrast, to a wild (chivalric) and the "Gothic" (Nordic) taste, but mostly
and disorderly nature. This complex history with its the words "Gothic" and "romantic" were used by him
proliferations and ramifications has been studied very interchangeably. This usage then penetrated into the
fully, most recently by Francois Jest (1968). first handbooks of general history of literature: into
The term, however, preserved throughout its early Eichhorn's Literdrgeschichte (1799) and into the first 187
volumes, devoted to Italian and Spanish literature, of Samuel-Kluckhohn, 3, 263; "Romantik," 3, 74-75, 88.
Friedrich Bouterwek's monumental Geschichte der These passages date from 1798-99, but only the first
Poesie und Beredsamkeit seit dern Ende des dreizehnten was printed in the 1802 edition of Novalis' Schriften,
Jahrhunderts (1801-05). There the term roniantisch is ed. F. Schlegel and L. Tieck, 2, 311.) Also the famous
used in all combinations: style, manners, characters, fragment, No. 116, of the Athenaeum (1798) by
poetry are called roniantisch. Sometimes Bouterwek Friedrich Schlegel, which defines "romantic poetry"
uses the term altromantisch to refer to the Middle Ages, as "progressive Universalpoesie "
connects it with the
and neurornantisch to refer to what we would call the idea of such a romantic novel. In the later "Gesprach
Renaissance. This usage is substantially identical with iiber die Poesie" (1800), however, the term assumed
Warton's except that its scope has been expanded more again its concrete historical meaning: Shakespeare is
and more: not only medieval and Ariosto and

literature characterized as laying the foundation of romantic
Tasso but also Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Calderon drama and the romantic is found also in Cervantes,
are called "romantic." It simply means all poetrv writ- in Italian poetry, "in the age of chivalry, love, and
ten in a tradition differing from that descended from fairy tales, whence the thing and the word are de-
This broad historical conception was
classical antiquity. rived." Friedrich Schlegel, at this time, does not con-
later combined with a new meaning: the typological, sider his own age romantic, since he singles out the
which is based on an elaboration of the contrast be- novels of Jean Paul as the "only romantic product of
tween "classical" and "romantic" due to the Schlegels. an unromantic age." He uses the term also quite
Goethe, in a conversation with Eckermann in 1S30 vaguely and extravagantly as an element of all poetry
(March 21), said that Schiller invented the distinction and claims that all poetry must be romantic. (Reprinted
"naive and sentimental" and that the Schlegels merely in Friedrich Schlegel's Jugendschriften, ed. J.
Minor,
renamed it "classical and romantic." But this is not Vienna [1882], 2, 220-21, 365, 372.)
accurate history. Schiller's Uber naive und senti- But the descriptions and pronouncements which
mentalische Dichtung was a statement of a typology were influential, both in Germanv and abroad, were
of styles which did influence Friedrich Schlegels turn those of the older brother, .\ugust Wilhelm Schlegel.
towards modernism from his earlier Hellenism. The In the lectures on aesthetics, given at Jena in 1798,
best analysis is in A. O. Lovejoy's "Schiller and the the contrast of classical and romantic is not yet drawn
Genesis of German Romanticism," Modem Language explicitly. But it is implied in the lengthv discussion
Notes, 35 (1920), 1-10, 136-46; reprinted in Essays in of modern genres, which include the romantic novel
the History of Ideas (Baltimore, 1948), pp. 207-27. But culminating in the "perfect masterwork of higher ro-
Schiller's contrast is not identical with that of the mantic art," Don Quixote, the romantic drama of
Schlegels, as is obvious from the mere fact that Shake- Shakespeare, Calderon, and Goethe, and the romantic
speare is naiv in Schiller and romantisch in Schlegel. folk poetry of the Spanish romances and Scottish
Much attention has, comprehensibly, been paid to ballads {Vorlesungen iiber philosophische Kunstlehre,
the exact usage of these terms by the Schlegels and ed. W. A. Wiinsche, Leipzig [191 1], pp. 214, 217, 221).
their close associates (Lovejoy [1916], pp. 385-96, and In the Berlin lectures, given from 1801 to 1804,
[1917], pp. 65-77; reprinted. Essays . . . [1948], pp. though not published until 1884 (Vorlesungen iiber
183-206). But, if we look at the history of the word schone Literatur und Kutist. ed. J.
Minor, 3 vols.,
"romantic" from a wide European perspective, many Heilbronn [1884]; see especially 1, 22). Schlegel
of these uses must be considered purelv idiosyncratic, formulated the contrast, classical and romantic, as that
since they had no influence on the further history of between the poetry of antiquitv and modem poetry,
the term and did not even determine the most influen- associating romantic with the progressive and Chris-
tial statement formulated by August WiUielm Schlegel tian. He sketched a history of romantic literature which
in the Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature starts with a discussion of the mythology of the Middle
(1809-11), which has rightly been called the "Message Ages and closes with a review of the Italian poetry
of German Romanticism to Europe." (Josef Korner, Die of what we would today call the Renaissance. Dante,
Botschaft der deutschen Romantik an Europa, Augs- Petrarch, and Boccaccio are described as the founders
burg [1929], is a sketch of the reception of A. W. of modem romantic literature, though Schlegel, of
Schlegel's lectures outside Germany.) course, knew that they admired antiquity. But he
The terms Romantik and Romantiker as nouns were argued that their form and expression were totally
apparently inventions of Novahs in 1798-99. But, with unclassical. They did not dream of preserving the forms
Novalis, a Rotnantiker is a writer of romances and fairy of antiquity in structure and composition. "Romantic"
tales of his own peculiar type, Romantik is a synonym includes the German heroic poems such as the
188 of Romankunst in this sense. (See Schriften, ed. Nibelungen, the cycle of Arthur, the Charlemagne ro-
mances, and Spanish literature from El Cid to Don Wilhelm Schlegel, however, spread abroad from
Quixote. The lectures were well attended and from Germany in all directions.
them these conceptions penetrated into print in the In the Latin world, and in England as well as in
writings of other men. Thev are found in the unpub- America, the intermediary role of Madame de Stael
lished lectures of Schelling on Philosophic dcr Ktinst was decisive. For France it can be shown, however,
(1802-03), printed only in Stimtliche Werke. 1st. sec, that she was anticipated by others, though far less
5 (Suttgart, 1859). Schelling had read the MS of effectivelv. Warton's usage of the term was apparently
Schlegel's Berlin lectures. In Jean Paul's Vorschtde der rare in France, though it occurs in Chateaubriand's
Aesthetik (1804), and in Friedrich Ast's System der Essai sur les revolutions (1797), a book written in
Kunstlehre (1805) we find the contrast elaborated. Ast England, where the word is coupled with Gothique
had attended A. W, Schlegel's lectures at Jena in and tudesque, and spelled in the English way (Balden-
1798. His very imperfect transcript was published in sperger [1937], p. 90). But with the exception of such
1911. But the most important formulation was in the small traces, the word is not used in a literary context
Lectures of A. W. Schlegel delivered at Vienna in imtil the German influence was felt directly. It occurs
1808-09 and published in 1809-11. There romantic- in a letterbv Charles Villers, a French emigrant in
classical is associated with the antithesis of organic- Germany and one of the first expoimders of Kant,
mechanical and plastic-picturesque. There clearly the published in the Magasin encyclopedique in 1810.
hterature of antiquity and that of neo-classicism Dante and Shakespeare are spoken of as "sustaining
(mainly French) is contrasted with the romantic drama la Romantique" and the new spiritual sect in Germany
of Shakespeare and Calderon, the poetry of perfection is praised because it favors "la Romantique." (Re-
with the poetry of infinite desire. printed in Edniond Eggli and Pierre Martino, Le dehat
It is easy to see how this typological and historical romantique en France, Paris [1933], I, 26-30.) Villers'
usage could pass into the designation of the contem- article was hardly noticed: a translation of Bouterwek's
porary movement, since the Schlegels were obviously Geschichte der spanischen Literaturhy Philippe- Albert
were appealing
strongly anticlassicist at that time and no interest, though it was
Stapfer, in 1812, also elicited
to the ancestry and models of the literature they had reviewed by the young Guizot. The decisive year was
designated as romantic. But the process was surpris- 1813: then Sismondi's De la litterature du midi de
ingly slow and hesitant. The designation of contem- I'Europe was published in May and June. In October
porary literature as romantic was apparently due only 1813, Madame de Stael's De I'Allemagne was finally
to the enemies of the Heidelberg group which today published in London, though it had been ready for
we are accustomed to call the Second Romantic School. print in 1810. In December 1813, A. W. Schlegel's
Johann Heinrich Voss attacked the group for their Cours de litterature dramatique appeared in a transla-
reactionary Catholic views in 1808 and published a tion bv Madame Necker de Saussure, a cousin of Ma-
parodistic Klingklingelahnanach with the subtitle: Eirx dame de Stael. Most importantly, De VAIlemagne was
Taschenhuch fitr voUendete Romantiker unci angehende reprinted in Paris in May 1814. All these works radiate
Mystiker. The Zeitschrift fi'ir Einsiedler, the organ of from one center, Coppet, Madame de Stael's chateau
Arnim and Brentano, adopted the term with alacrity. near Geneva, and Sismondi, Bouterwek, and Madame
In the Zeitschrift ftir Wissenschaft und Kunst (1808), de Stael are, as far as the concept of "romantic" is
the merit of unsere Romantiker seems to be praised concerned, definitely dependent on Schlegel.
for the first time. The first historical account of die The exposition of classical-romantic in Chapter 11
neue literarische Partei der sogenannten Romantiker of De I'Allemagne, including its parallel of classical and
can be found only in the eleventh volume (1819) of sculpturesque, romantic and picturesque, the contrast
Bouterwek's monumental Geschichte, where the Jena between Greek drama of event and modern drama of
group and Brentano are discussed together (UUmann character, the poetry of Fate versus the poetry of
and Gotthard [1927], pp. 70ff.). Heine's much later Providence, the poetry of perfection versus the poetry
Romantische Schule (18.33) included Fouque, LTiland, of progress, clearly derive from Schlegel. Sismondi
Werner, and E. T. A. Hoffmann. Rudolf Hay m's standard disliked Schlegel personally and was shocked by many
work, Die romantische Schule (1870) is limited to the of his "reactionary "
may have
views. In details, he
first Jena group: the Schlegels, Novalis, and Tieck. drawn much more from Bouterwek than from Schlegel,
Thus, in German literary history, the original broad but his view that the Romance literatures are essen-
historical meaning of the term has been abandoned and tiallv romantic in spirit, and that French literature
Rortiantik is used for a group of writers who did not forms an exception among them, is derived from
call themselves Romantiker. Schlegel, as are his descriptions of the contrast between
The broad meaning of the term as used by August Spanish and Italian drama. (Best accounts of these iot)
—
relationships are by Carlo Pellegrini, // Sismondi e la But that was in 1818 when Stendhal was voicing
storia delle letterature deU'Europa meridionale. Geneva his adherence to the Italian romantic movement. Thus
[1926], Comtesse Jean de Pange, Auguste-Cuillaume Italy enters importantlv into the history of the term
Schlegel et Madame de Stael. Paris [1938], and ]ean-R. since was the first Latin country to have a romantic
it
de Salis, Sismondi. 1773-1S42, Paris [1932].) movement which called itself romantic. There the
These three books. Sismondi's, Madame de Stael's, controversy had penetrated also in the wake of Ma-
and Schlegel's, were reviewed and discussed very dame de Stael s De t Atlemagne. which was translated
heatedly in France. M. Edniond Eggli has collected as early as 1814. H. Jay's violently antiromantic
a whole volume of almost five hundred pages of these Discours sur le genre romantique en litterature. pub-
polemics, covering only the years 1813-16. The reac- lished in 1814. appeared immediately in an Italian
tion to the scholarly Sismondi was fairly mild, to the translation. (It appeared first in Le Spectateur. no. 24
foreign Schlegel violent, and to Madame de Stael it [1814], 3, 145; reprinted in Eggli, pp. 243-56; in Italian
was mi.\ed and frequently baffled. In all of these in Lo Spettatore, no. 24, 3, 145.) Madame de Stael's
polemics, the enemies are called les romantiiiues, but article on translations from German and English
it is not clear what recent literature is referred to elicited Lodovico di Breme's defense, but he refers,
except these three books. When Benjamin Constant however, to the whole dispute as a French affair, and
published his novel Adolphe (1816), he was attacked obviously thinks of "romantic" in terms which would
as strengthening le genre romantique. The melodrama have been comprehensible to Herder or even Warton.
also was called contemptuously by this name and He quotes Gravina's arguments in favor of the compo-
German drama identified with it. sition of ,\riosto's Orlando furioso and sees that the
But up to 1816 there was no Frenchman who called same criteria apply to Romantici settentrionali. Shake-
himself a romantic nor was the term romantisme known speare e Schiller, in tragedy. ("Intorno all'ingiustizia di
in France. Its history is still obscure: RomatUismtts is alcuni giudizi letterari italiani "
[1816], in Polemiclw,
used as a synonym of bad rhyming and empty lyricism ed. Carlo Calcaterra, Tiu'in [1923], pp. 36-38). Gio-
in a letter written by Clemens Brentano to Achim von vanni Berchet's Lettera semiseria di Crisostomo, with
Arnim in 1803, but this form had no future in Germany its translations from Biirger's ballads, is usually con-
(Reinhold Steig, Achim von Arnim und die ihm nahe sidered the manifesto of the Italian romantic move-
standen. Stuttgart [1894], 1, 102. Letter, Oct. 12, 1803). ment; but Berchet does not use the noim nor does
In 1804 Senancour refers to romantistne des sites he speak of an Italian romantic movement. Tasso is
alpestres (Obennann, letter 87, quoted by Eggli, p. 11), one of the poets called romantici. and Berchet also
using it thus as a noun corresponding to the use of suggests the famous contrast between classical poetry
"romantic" as "picturesque." But, in literary contexts, and romantic poetry as that between the poetry of the
it does not seem to occur before 1816 and then it is dead and the living (Giovanni Berchet, Opere, ed. E.
used vaguely and jocularly. There is a letter in the Bellorini. Bari [1912], 2, 19-21). He anticipates the
Constitutionnel. supposedly written by a man residing peculiarly "contemporaneous, and political character
"
near the Swiss frontier, within sight of Madame de of the Italian romantic movement. In 1817, Schlegel's
Stael's chateau, who complains of his wife's enthusiasm Lectures were translated by Giovanni Gherardini, but
for the "romantic" and tells of a poet who cultivates the great outburst of pamphlets a whole battle —
le genre tudesque and has read to them des morceaux did not break out till 1818, when the term romanti-
pleins de romantisme, les purs mysteres du baiser, la cisnw was used first by antiromantic pamphleteers,
sijmpathie primitive et I'ondoyante melancolie des Francesco Pezzi, Camillo Piciarelli, and Gonte Falletti
cloches (July 19, 1816, reprinted in Eggli, pp. 472-73). di Barolo, who wrote Delia romanticomachia, and there
Shortly afterwards, Stendhal, then at Milan, who had drew the distinction between genere romantico and il
read Schlegel's lectures immediately after the publica- romanticisnio (Discussioni e polemiche sul romanti-
tion of the French translation, complained that, in cismo [1816-26], ed. Egidio Bellorini, Bari [1943], 1,
France, they attack Schlegel and think that they have 252, 358-59, 363). Berchet, in his ironical comments,
defeated le Romantunne (Letters to Louis Crozet, Sept. professes not to understand the distinction (// Con-
28, Oct. 1, and Oct. 21, 1816, in Correspondance, ed. ciliatore. no. 17 [Oct. 29, 1818], pp. 65-66). Ermes
Divan, Paris [1934], 4, 371, 389, and 5, 14-15). Visconti, in his formal articles on the term, uses shortly
Stendhal seems to have been the Frenchman who
first afterwards only romantismo ("Idee elementari sulla
delcared himself a romantic: Je suis un romantique poesia romantica," in II Conciliatore. no. 27 [Dec. 3,
furieux c'est-a-dire, je suis pour Shakespeare contre 1818], p. 105). But "romanticismo" seems to have been
Racine et pour Lord Byron contre Boileau (Letter to well established by 1819, when D. M. Dalla used it
Baron de Mareste, April 14, 1818, Correspondance, in the title of his translation of the thirtieth chapter
190 5,137). of Sismondi's Literature of the South, as Vera
Definizione del Romanticismo, though the French romantismus in 1819, the noim romantika, a formation
originalshows no trace of the term. Stendhal, who had from the German, in 1820, the noun romantik (meaning
used the term roinaritisnw, and continued to use it, was romanticist) only in 1835. (These dates come from the
now teniporaril)' converted to romanticisme, obviously very complete collections of the Dictionary of the
suggested b\' the Italian term. Czech .Academy.) But there never was a formal ro-
But, in the meantime, romantisme seems to have mantic school.
become general in France. Francois Mignet used it in In Poland, Casimir Brodzinski wrote a dissertation
1822, Villemain and Lacretelle in the following years concerning classicism and romanticism in 1818.
(Courier franqais [Oct. 19, 1822], quoted by P. Martino, Mickiewicz wrote a long preface to his Ballady i
L'Epoque romantique en France, Paris [1944], p. 27. Romanse (1822) in which he expounded the contrast
Lacretelle, in Anniiles de la litierattire et des arts. 13 of classical and romantic, referring to Schlegel,
[182.3], 415, calls Schlegel le Quintilien dti romantisme; Bouterwek, and Eberhard, the author of one of the
quoted in C. M. Des Granges, Le romantisme et la many German works on aesthetics of the time. The
critique. Paris [1907], p. 207). The spread and accept- collection contains a poem, "Romantycznosc," a ballad
ance of the term was assured when Louis S. Auger, on the theme of Burger's Lenore (Poezie, ed. J.
Kallen-
director of the French .\cademy, launched a Discours bach, Krakow [1930], pp. 45, 51).
sur le roinantisme, condemning the new heresy in a In Russia, Pushkin spoke of his Prisoner from the
solemn session of the .'Kcademv on April 24, 1824. In Caucasus as a "romantic poem" in 1821, and Prince
the second edition of Racine et Sliakespeare (1825), Vyazemsky, reviewing the poem during the next year,
Stendhal himself gave up his earlier form romanticisme was apparently the first to discuss the contrast between
in favor of the new romantisme. As in Italy, a broadly the new romantic poetry and the poetry still adhering
typological and historical term, introduced by Madame to the rules (N. V. Bogoslovsky, ed., Pushkin o literature,
de Stael, became the battle cry of a group of writers Moscow and Leningrad [1934], pp. 15, 35, 41, etc.
who found it a convenient label to express their oppo- Vyazemsky s review in Si/n otechestva (1822) was
sition to the ideals of neo-classicism. With Hugo's reprinted in Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, 1, St. Peters-
preface to Cromwell [1827) and his play Hemani (1830) burg [1878], 73-78).
a French romantic movement was established under We have left the English story, the most unusual
that name. development, for the conclusion. After Warton there
In Spain the terms "classical " and "romantic" oc- had begun in England an extensive study of medieval
curred in newspapers as earlv as 1818, once with a romances and of "romantic fiction," but there is no
specific reference to Schlegel. But apparently an Italian instance of a juxtaposition of "classical" and "roman-
exile, Luigi Monteggia, who came to Spain in 1821, tic," nor any awareness that the new literature inaugu-
was the first on romanticismo in
to write elaborately rated by the Lyrical Ballads could be called romantic.
Europeo where shortly afterward Lopez Soler
(1823), Walter Scott, in his edition of Sir Tristram, published
analyzed the debate between romdnticos ij clasicistas. in Edinburgh in 1804 calls his text "the first classical
The group of Spanish writers who called themselves English romance. An essay by John Foster, "On the
"
romanticos was, however, victorious only around 1838 Application of the Epithet Romantic" (Essays in a
and it soon disintegrated as a coherent "school" (E. Series of Letters, London [1805]), is merely a common-
Allison Peers, "The Term Romanticism in Spain," place discussion of the relation between imagination
Revue Hispanique, 81 [1933], 411-18. Monteggia's and judgment with no hint of a literary application
article reprinted in Bulletin of Spanish Studies. 8
is except to chivalrous romances.
[1931], 144-49. For the later history, see E. Allison The distinction of classical-romantic occius for the
Peers, A History of the Romantic Movement in Spain, first time in Coleridge's lectures, given in 1811, and
2 vols., Cambridge [1940], and Guillermo Diaz-Plaja, is there clearly derived from Schlegel, since the dis-
Introduccion al estudio del romanticismo espanol, tinction is associated with that of organic and mechan-
Madrid [1942]). ical, and sculpturesque, in close verbal
painterly
Among Portuguese poets, Almeida Garrett seems to adherence to Schlegel's phrasing. (See Coleridge's
have been the first to refer to nos romanticos in his Shakespearean Criticism, ed. Thomas M. Raysor,
poem, Camoes. written in 1823 in Le Havre during Cambridge, Mass. [1930], 1, 196-98, 2, 265, and A/is-
his French exile (see Theophilo Braga, Historia do cellaneous Criticism, ed. T. M. Raysor, Cambridge,
Romantismo em Portugal, Lisbon [1880], p. 175). Mass. [1936], pp. 7, 148. Coleridge himself says that
The Slavic countries received the term at about the he received a copy of Schlegel's Lectures on Dec. 12,
same time as the countries of the Romance languages. 1811; see Coleridge's Unpublished Letters, ed. Earl L.
In Bohemia the adjective romanticky in connection Griggs,London [1932], 2, 61-67.) But these lectures
with a poem occurs as early as 1805, the noim were not published at that time, and thus the distinc- 191
tion was popularized in England only through Madame as a romanticist or recognized the relevance of the
de Stael, who made Schlegel and Sismondi known in debate to his own time and country. .Neither Coleridge
England. De VAUemagne, first published in French in nor Hazlitt, who used Schlegel's Lectures, made such
London, appeared almost simultaneously in an English an application. Byron definitely rejects it. Though he
Two reviews, by Sir James .Mackintosh and
translation. knew (and disliked) Schlegel personally, had read
William Taylor of Norwich, reproduce the distinction De iAllemagne, and even tried to read Friedrich
between classical and romantic, and Taylor mentions Schlegel's Lectures, he considered the distinction
Schlegel and knows of Madame de Stael's indebtedness "romantic-classical " as merely a Continental debate.
to him (Edinburgh Revieiv. 22 [Oct. 1813], 198-238; In a dedication of Marino Falieri (1820) to Goethe
Monthly Review, 72 [1813], 421-26, 73 [1814], 63-68. Bvron refers to "the great struggle, in Germany, as well
352-65, especially 364). Schlegel was in the company as in Italv, about what they call 'classical' and 'roman-
of Madame de Stael in England in 1814. The French tic' — terms which were not subjects of classification in
translation of Schlegel's Lectures was very favorably England, at least when 1 left it four or five years ago."
reviewed in the Quarterhj Review (20 [Jan. 1814], Byron contemptuously says of the enemies of Pope in
355-409), and in 1815 John Black, an Edinburgh the Bowles-Byron controversy, "nobody thought them
journalist, published his English translation. This was worth making a sect of." "Perhaps there may be some-
also very well received. Some reviews reproduce thing of the kind sprung up latterly, but I have not
Schlegel's distinction quite extensively: for instance. heard of much about it, and it would be such bad taste
Hazlitt's in tlie Edinburgh Review of February 1816 that I shall be very sorry to believe it." Still, during
(reprinted in Complete Works, ed. Howe, 16, 57-99). the next year, Bvron used the concepts in what seems
Schlegel's distinction and views on many aspects of to be a plea for the relativity of poetic taste. He argues
Shakespeare were used and quoted by Hazlitt, by that there are no invariable principles of poetry, that
Nathan Drake in his Shakespeare (1817), by Scott in reputations are bound to fluctuate. "This does not
his Essay on Drama (1819), and in OUier's Literary depend upon the merits [of the poets] but upon the
Magazine (1820), which contains a translation of ordinary vicissitudes of human opinion. Schlegel and
Schlegel's old essay on Roineo and Jtdiet. Mme de Stael have endeavoured also to reduce poetry
The usual impression that the cla.ssical-romantic to two systems, classical and romantic. The effect is
known
"
distinction was little in England seems not quite only beginning.

correct. There is further evidence in Herbert Weis- But there is no consciousness in Byron that he be-
inger's "English Treatment of the Classical-Romantic longs to the romantics. An Austrian police spy in Italy
Problem," in Modern Language Quarterly (7 [1946], knew better. He reported that Byron belongs to the
477-88). It is discussed in Thomas Campbell's Essay Romantici and "had written and continues to write
on Poetry (1819), though Campbell finds Schlegel's poetry of this new school." (For Madame de Stael
defense of Shakespeare's irregularities on "romantic sending Schlegel's Lectures to Byron, see Byron's Let-
principles " "too romantic for his conception. "
In Sir ters and Journals, ed. Lord Prothero [1901], 2, 343.
Edgerton Brydges' Cnomica and Sylvan Wanderer On Friedrich Schlegel's Lectures, cf. Letters, 5, 191-93.
there is striking praise of romantic medieval poetry The dedication of Marino Falieri, dated Oct. 17, 1820,
and its derivations in Tasso and Ariosto in contrast to ibid., 5, 100-04. The Murray on Bowles, Feb.
letter to
the classical abstract poetry of the eighteenth century 7, 1821, ibid., 5, 553-54n. The pohce spy story, Sept.
(issues dated .\pr. 20, 1819, and Oct. 23, 1818). 'We 10, 1819, quoted ibid., 4, 462.)
find only a few uses of these terms at that time: Samuel The actual application of the term "romantic "
to
Singer, in his introduction to Marlowe's Hero and English literature of the early nineteenth century is
Leander (London, 1821), says that "Musaeus is more much later. .'Mso the terms, "a romantic, " ""a romanti-
classical. Hunt more romantic." He defends Marlowe's cist,
"
""romanticism, "
are very late in English and occur
extravagances which might excite the ridicule of first in reports or notes on Continental phenomena. .\n
French critics: "but here in England their reign is article in English bv Stendhal in 1823 reviews his own
over and thanks to the Germans, with the Schlegels book, Racine et Shakespeare, singHng out the section
at their head, a truer philosophical method of judg- on '"Romanticism" for special praise {New Monthly
ing is beginning to obtain amoimg us" (p. Ivii). De Magazine, 3 [1823], 522-28, signed Y. I. See Doris
Quincey in 1835 attempted a more original elaboration Gunnell, Stendlial et I'Angleterre, Paris [1909], pp.
of the dichotomy by stressing the role of Christianity 162-63). Carlyle entered in his notebook in 1827 that
and the difference in the attitudes toward death; but "'Grossi Romantic and Manzoni a romanticist." In
is a
even these ideas are all derived from the Germans. German Literature (1827) he speaks of
his "State of
"
192 But none of the English poets recognized himself the German "Romanticists." "Romanticism" occius in
his article on Schiller (1831), where he says comment of the term for English literature of the early
placently that "we are troubled with no controversies nineteenth century is probably due to Alois Brandl's
on Romanticism and Classicism, the Bowles contro- Coleridge und die romantische Schide in England,
versy on Pope having long since evaporated without translated by Lady Eastlake (1887), and to the vogue
result" (Two Note Books, ed. C. E. Norton, New York of Pater's discussion of "Romanticism" in Appreciations
[1898], p. 111. Miscellanies. London [1890], 1, 45, and (1889); it is books such as those
finally established in
3, 71. Cf. also 2, 276). of W. The Beginnings of the English Ro-

L. Phelps'
Similarly Edward Bulwer-Lytton referred to the mantic Movenwnt 1893) and Henry A. Beers' A History
(
"good people in France who divert themselves with of English Romanticism in the 18th Century (1898).
disputing the several merits of the Classical School, We have to conclude that the self-designation of
and the Romantic. The English have not disputed on writers and poets as "romantic" varies in the different
the matter" and "have quietly united the two schools." countries considerably; many examples are late and
Byron and Shelley are at once classical and romantic short-lived. If we take self-designation as the basic
(England and the English [1833], Book IV. Ch. iv). .\s criterion for modern use, there would be no romantic
late a book as Mrs. Oliphant's Literary History of movement in Germany before 1808, none in France
England in the End of tlie Eighteenth and Beginning before 1818 or (since the 1818 example was an isolated
of the Nineteenth Century (1882) shows no trace of instance, Stendhal) before 1824, and none at all in
the term and its derivatives. She speaks merelv of the England. If we take the use of the word "romantic"
Lake School, the Satanic School, and the Cockney for any kind of literature (at first medieval romances,
Group. W. Bagehot used "romantic" with "classical" Tasso, a:id .\riosto) as our criterion, we are thrown back
in a way which shows that they were not associated to 1669 in France, 1673 in England, 1698 in Germany.
in his mind with a definite, established period of If we on taking the contrast between the terms
insist
English literature: he speaks of Shelley's "classical "classical and romantic as decisive, we arrive at the
"
imagination" (1856) and in 1864 contrasts the "clas- dates 1801 for Germany, 1810 for France, 1811 for
sical"Wordsworth with the "romantic" Tennyson and England, 1816 for Italv, etc. If we think that the noun
the "grotesque" Browning (Literary Studies, ed. R. H. "romanticism "
is particularly important, we would find
Hutton, London [1905], 1, 231 and 2, 341). the term Romantik in Germany in 1802, romantisme
But this does not seem to be the entire story. Among in France in 1816, romanticismo in Italy in 1818, and
the handbooks of English literature, Thomas Shaw's romanticism in England in 1823. .AH these facts point
Outlines of English Literature (1849) is the earliest to the conclusion that the history of the term and its
exception. He speaks of Scott as the "first stage in introduction cannot regulate the usage of the modern
literature towards romanticism" and calls Byron the historian, since he would be forced to recognize
"greatest of romanticists," but separates Wordsworth milestones in his history which are not justified by the
for his "metaphysical quietism" (new ed.. Complete actual state of the literatures in question. The great
Manual, ed. William Smith, New York [1867], pp. changes happened, independently of the introduction
may
290ff., 316, 341, 348, 415). It be significant that of these terms, either before or after them and only
Shaw compiled his handbook originally for his classes rarely approximately at the same time.
at the Lyceum in St. Petersburg, where by that time, On the other hand, the conclusion drawn from ex-
as everywhere on the Continent, the terms were estab- aminations of the history of the words, viz., that they
lished and expected. are used in contradictory senses, seems exaggerated.
In David Macbeth Moir's Sketches of the Poetical One must grant that many German aestheticians juggle
Literature of the Past Half Century (1852), Matthew the terms in extravagant and personal ways, nor can
Gregory Lewis is set down as the leader of the "purely one deny that the emphasis on difiêrent aspects of their
romantic school " of which Scott, Coleridge, Southey, meaning shifts from writer to writer and sometimes
and Hogg are listed as disciples, while Wordsworth is from nation to nation, but on the whole there was no
treated independently. Scott is treated under the head- misunderstanding about the meaning of "romanticism"
ing "The Revival of the Romantic School," though the as a new designation for poetry, opposed to the poetry
term is not used in the text of the chapter (2nd ed., of neo-classicism, and drawing its inspiration and
Edinburgh [1852]; six lectures delivered in 1850-51; models from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The
cf. pp. 17, 117, 213). W. Rushton's Afternoon Lectures term was understood in this sense all over Europe, and
on English Literature (1863) given in Dublin, discusses everywhere we find references to August \Vilhelm
the "Classical and Romantic School of English Litera- Schlegel or Madame de Stael and their particular for-
ture as represented by Spenser, Dryden, Pope, Scott mulas contrasting "classical" and "romantic."
and Wordsworth." The further spread and establish- The fact that the convenient terms were introduced 193
sometimes much later than the time when actual in his introduction to selections from Ludwig Tieck
repudiation of the neo-classical tradition was accom- draws the English-German parallel quite explicitly:
plished does not. of course, prove that the changes were
Neither can the change be said to have originated with
not noticed at that time.
Schiller and Goethe; for it is a change originating not in
The mere use of the terms "romantic" and
individuals, but in universal circumstances, and belongs not
"romanticism" must not be overrated. English writers
to Germany, but .\mong ourselves, for instance,
to Europe,
earlyhad a clear consciousness that there was a move- within the last thirty years, who has not lifted up his voice
ment which rejected the critical concepts and poetic with double vigour in praise of Shakespeare and Nature,
practice of the eighteenth century, that it formed a and vituperation of French taste and French philosophy?
imity, and had on the Continent, especially
its parallels Who has not heard of the glories of old English literature;
in Germany. Without tlie term "romantic" we can the wealth of Queen Elizabeth's age; the penury of Queen
trace, within a short period, the shift from the earlier .\nne's;and the inquiry whether Pope was a poet? A similar
conception of the history of English poetry as one of temper is breaking out in France itself, hermetically sealed
as that country seemed to be against all foreign influences;
a imiform progress from Waller and Denham to
and doubts are beginning to be entertained, and even
Dryden and Pope, accepted in Johnson's Lives of
still
expressed, about Corneille and the Three Unities. It seems
the Poets, to Southey's opposite view in 1807, that the
to be substantially the same thing which has occurred in
"time which elapsed from the days of Dryden to those
Germany . . . only that the revolution, which is here pro-
ofPope is the dark age of English poetry." The refor- ceeding, and in France commencing, appears in Germany
mation began with Thomson and the Wartons. The real to be completed {Works, Centenary ed., London [1899],
turning point was Percy's Reliques, "the great literary German Romance, 1, 261).
epocha of the present reign "
(Introduction to Speci-
mens of the Later English Poets, ed. R. Southey, London Scott, in a retrospective "Essay on Imitations of the
[1807], pp. xxix and xxxii). Shortly afterwards, in Leigh Ancient Ballads" (1830), also stressed the role of Percy
Hunt's Feast of the Poets (1814) Wordsworth is con- and the Germans in the revival. "As far back as 1788
sidered "capable of being at the head of a new and a new species of literature began to be introduced into
great age of poetry; and in point of fact, I do not denv the country. Germany . . . was then for the first time
that he is so already, as the greatest poet of the pres- heard of as the cradle of a style of poetry and literature
ent (p. 83). In Wordsworth's own postscript to the
" much more analogous to that of Britain than either
1815 edition of the Poems, the role of Percv's ReUques the French, Spanish or Italian schools" (in a new edi-
is again emphasized: "The poetry of the age has been tion of Mitistrelsy of the Scottish Border [1830], ed. T.
absolutely redeemed by it" (Wordsworth, Prose Works, Henderson, New York [1931], pp. 535-62, especially
ed. Grosart, 2, 1816 Lord Jeffrey ac-
118, 124). In pp. 549-50).
knowledged that the "wits of Queen Anne's time have Probably the most widely read of these pronounce-
been gradually brought down from the supremacy ments was T. B. Macaulay's accomit in his review of
which they had enjoyed, without competition, for the Moore's Life of Byron. There the period of 1750-80
best part of a century. "
He recognized that the "pres- iscalled the "most deplorable part of our literary
ent revolution in literature" was due to the "French history. "
The revival of Shakespeare, the ballads,
revolution — the genius of Burke — the impression of the Chatterton's forgeries, and Cowper are mentioned as
new literature of Germany, evidently the original of the main agents of change. Byron and Scott are singled
our Lake School of poetry" (review of Scott's edition out as great names. Most significantly, Macaulay real-
of Swift, in Edinburgh Revieiv [Sept. 1816]; reprinted izes that "Byron, though always sneering at Mr.
in Contributions to Edinburgh Review, 2nd ed., London Wordsworth, was yet, though, perhaps unconsciously,
[1846], 1, 1.58, 167). In Hazlitt's Lectures on the English the interpreter between Mr. Wordsworth and the mul-
Poets (1818) a new age dominated by Wordsworth is titude. Lord Byron foimded what may be called
—
. . .
described quite clearly, vvitli its sources in the French an exoteric Lake School what Mr. Wordsworth had
revolution, in German literature, and its opposition to said like a recluse, Lord Byron said like a man of the
the mechanical conventions of the followers of Pope world" {Edinburgh Revietv [June 1831]. Reprinted in
and the old French school of poetry. Scott uses Schlegel Critical and Historical Essays, Everyman ed., 2,
extensively and describes the general change as a "fresh 634-35). Macaulay thus, long before he knew a term
tvuning up of the soil" due to the Germans and neces- for it, recognized the imity of the English romantic
sitated by the "wearing out" of the French models movement.
("Essay on Drama," contributed to Encyclopaedia James Montgomery, in his Lectures on General Lit-
Britannica, Supplement, Vol. 3 [1819]; also in Miscel- erature (1833), given in 1830-31, described the age
194 laneous Prose Works, Edinburgh [1834], 6, 380). Carlyle since Cowper as the third era of modern literature.
"
Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge are called the attacked as monotonous, imprecise and vague but also
"three pioneers, if not the absolute founders, of the as ethically immature and politically dangerous.
existing style of English literature." Meanwhile the prevailing conception of the coher-
The most boldly formulated definition of the new ence and unity of romanticism was subjected to a
view is again in Southey, in the "Sketches of the critical examination by A. O. Lovejoy. In his paper
Progress of English Poetry from Chaucer to Cowper" "On the Discrimination of Romanticisms" (1924)
(1833). There the "age from Drvden to Pope" is called Lovejoy argued that the word "romantic has come to
"the worst age of English poetry: the age of Pope mean so many things that by itself, it means nothing.
was the pinchbeck age Pope closed
of poetry." "If It has ceased to perform the function of a verbal sign."
the door against poetry, Cowper opened it" {The Works Lovejoy proposed to remedy "this scandal of literary
of Cowper, ed. R. Southey, 3, 109, 142). The same view, historyand criticism" by showing that the "Romanti-
though less sharplv expressed, can be found with in- cism of one country may have little in common with
creasing frequency even then in textbooks, such as that of another, that there is, in fact, a plurality of
Robert Chambers' History of the English Language and Romanticisms, of possibly quite distinct thought-
Literature (1836), in De Quincev's writings, and R. H. complexes." He asserts that even "the romantic ideas
Home's Netv Spirit of the Age (1844). were in large part heterogeneous, logically inde-
None of these publications use the term "romantic, pendent, and sometimes essentially antithetic to one
but in all of them we hear that there is a new age another in their implications." Lovejoy 's examples from
of poetrywhich has a new style inimical to that of Joseph Warton, Friedrich Schlegel, and Rene de
Pope. The emphasis and selections of examples vary, Chateaubriand demonstrate great divergences in the
but in combination they say that the German influence, views of nature, politics, imagination, and intellect in
the revival of the ballads and the Elizabethans, and the three main countries. Lovejoy s nominalistic disin-
the French Revolution were the decisive influences tegration of the concept was pushed then much further
which brought about the change. Thomson, Burns, by some scholars both in England and the United
Cowper, Gray, Collins, and Chatterton are honored States. R. S. Crane objected in particular to the simpli-
as precursors, Percy and the Wartons as initiators. The fied view of a struggle between romanticism and
trio, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, are recog- classicism in tiie English eighteenth century and went
nized as the founders and, as time progressed, Byron, so far as to speak of "the fairytales about neoclassicism
Shelley, and Keats were added in spite of the fact that and romanticism (Philological Quarterhj, 22 [1943],
"
this new group of poets denounced the older for politi- 143). George Sherburn managed to write a history of
cal reasons. English eighteenth-century literature (a section of
This general scheme has been then elaborated by Literary History of England, ed. A. C. Baugh, New York
English and American scholarship of the late nine- [1948]), without using the term and two new volumes
teenth and early twentieth century. It emphasized the of the Oxford History of English Literature (by W. L.
revolt against the principles of neo-classical criticism, Renwick and Ian Jack) either avoid the term altogether
the rediscovery of older English literature, the turn or discuss it as "a bed of Procrustes on which to stretch
toward subjectivitv and the worship of external nature the English literature of the time" (Ian Jack, English
slowly prepared during the eighteenth century and Literature 1818-1832, Oxford [1963], p. 420). Mr. Jack
stated boldly in Wordsworth and Shelley. On the whole and many others agree with the view that "the English
academic scholarship was sympathetic to the general are notoriously lazy about general ideas and problems
outlook of the romantics until, first with the American of historiography" and are proud of it.
neo-humanists (Irving Babbitt in particular) and with In recent decades, however, new attempts were-
and his followers, and later with F. R. Leavis
T. S. Eliot made to redefine romanticism and even to reassert its
in England and the New Critics in the United States, unity on a European scale. Rene Wellek, in "The
an antiromantic reaction set in, which on various Concept of Romanticism in Literary History
"
{Com-
grounds, moral, political, and aesthetic, considered the parative Literature. 1 [1949], 1-23. 147-73), tried to
romantic movement a deplorable break with the great show that Lovejoy 's disintegration of the concept has
humanist and Christian tradition. In Irving Babbitt's gone too far and that it is possible to describe the
Rousseau and Romanticism (1919) the objections are common elements of all European romanticisms; he
largely directed against romantic morality, its concep- tried to show that identical or very similar views of
tion of love and passion, its theories of genius and nature, of the imaginationand of symbol and myth
inspiration, its worship of nature, and its philosophical pervade European literature (also the minor ones)
all
monism. With Eliot and his followers the criticism is, of that time and that these ideas have a profound
at least in part, aesthetic; particularly Shelley was coherence and mutual implication. Wellek also tried 195
to show that the rejection of preromanticism (while was, according to a famous dictum of Victor Hugo,
justified against simple views of a struggle between identified with liberalism, with the heritage of the
classicismand ronianticism in the eighteenth century) revolution and its supposed initiator Rousseau, and thus
cannot be upheld: even George Sherburn has to de- became the target of the conservative reaction, partic-
scribe the same phenomena under the name of ularly during the Dreyfus affair. The argimients, which
"accentuated tendencies" toward die end of the eight- in English are familiar mainly from Babbitt's books,
eenth century. A new age was being prepared and the were actually formulated in France by Desire Nisard
preparation can be traced under whatever name. and Ferdinand Brimetiere in the nineteenth century
Wellek's article elicited much discussion. Morse and were elaborated particularly by Pierre Lasserre,
Peckham in "Toward a Theory of Romanticism" in Le romantistne fran(;ais (1907). Romanticism, he
(PMIJi, 56 [19.51], 5-23) wanted, he says, "to reconcile argues, is "the total corruption of the higher parts of
Lovejoy and Wellek" by singling out the criterion of human nature, "
"the usiu'pation by sensibility and
organic dviiamism as the definition of romanticism. He imagination of the right rule of intelligence and rea-
accepts the concept of nature and imagination as cen- son, "
"the decomposition of art because it is the
tralbut drops the concern for symbol and myth. decomposition of man. "
The romantic worship of na-
Peckham introduced a new term "negative romanti- ture and progress leads to pantheism, to a cheap opti-
cism," that is, despairing, nihilistic romanticism. He mism and belief in progress. Antiromanticism was a
argues that "positive romanticism" does not lit a figure slogan of the Actiot^ franqaise and many, early in the
such as Byron. Other books have elaborated on these twentieth century, believed in a revival of classicism
themes particularly Meyer Abrams' The Mirror and the including .^ndre Gide and Paul Valery. In the mean-
Lamp (New York, 1953) which emphasizes the shift time academic research went its even way also in
from imitation theory to theory of e.xpression, from the France; Paul Van Tieghem in a learned compendimn
mirror to the lamp; or radier, from the mechanistic covering all European literatures, Le romantisme dans
metaphorical analogies of neo-classical theory to the la litterature etiropeenne (1948), came to the meager
biological imagery of the romantic critics. In a great conclusion that "the suppression of the mythological
number of books and articles, often widely divergent style is probably the most universal trait of formal
in the evaluation of from Frank
romanticism, romanticism." But also in France in recent decades a
Kermode's Rotnantic Image (1957) which considers new synthetic view was formulated. Albert Beguin's
romanticism and its descendant symbolism a "great and Lame romantique et le reve (Marseilles, 19.39) sees the
in some ways noxious historical myth" to Harold greatness of romanticism in its "having recognized and
Bloom's exaltation of The Visionary Company (1961) affirmed the profound resemblance of poetic states and
of the English romantics, a wide agreement has been the revelations of a religious order." Romanticism, for
reached that romanticism centers on a concern for the Beguin centers on myth which it discovers in dreams
reconciliation of subject and object, man and nature, and the imconscious. Beguin traces the role of dream
consciousness and unconsciousness. E. D. Hirsch, in in the German romantic theorists, philosophers, and
Wordsworth and ScheUing (New Haven, 1960) de- doctors of the unconscious and studies it in writers such
scribed, e.g., the convergence of these verv chfferent as Jean Paul, Novalis, Brentano, .Amim, and E. T. A.
figures in awhole spectrum of ideas: the wav of recon- Hoffmann sympathetically. He sees Nerval, Baudelaire,
ciling time and eternity, the immanent theism, the Rimbaud, Mallarme. and Proust as their immediate
dialectic which favors what Hirsch calls "both/and successors. Georges Poulet, the most eminent of the
thinking," the fear of alienation, the concept of living new French critics, has come to conclusions not far
nature, and the role of the imagination which makes removed from those of the recent English and Ameri-
explicit the implicit unity of all things. H. H. H. Remak can defenders and definers of the concept. In a chapter
in "Western European Romanticism: Definition and of Les metamorphoses du cercle (Paris, 1961) he
Scope" (Comparative Literature: Method and Perspec- generalizes about romanticism boldly: it is a con-
tive, ed. Newton P. Stallknecht and Horst Frenz, sciousness of the fundamentally subjective nature of
Carbondale, 111. [1961]) reaches the conclusion that the mind, a withdrawal from reality to the center of
"the evidence pointing to the existence in Western the self, which serves as starting point of a return to
Europe of a widespread, distinct, and fairly simulta- nature. Poulet draws his examples mainly from French
neous pattern of thought, attitudes, and beliefs associ- sources but also from Coleridge and Shelley, using
ated with the connotation "Romanticism' is over- insistently the figure of the circle and circumference.
whelming." His conclusion corroborates the view of romanticism
In France the debate about romanticism was largely as an effort to overcome the opposition of subject and
196 determined by political considerations. Romanticism object in a personal experience.
In Germany, Rudolf Haym's Romantisclw Sclmle pretation. There are exceptions svich as Adolf Grimme"s
(1870) was the standard work which defined romanti- Vom Wesen der Ro/nantik (1947) which has defined
cism very narrowly in terms of the first romantic romanticism as a breakthrough of what he calls "the
school; in practice, the thought of the Schlegels and vegetative strata of the soul '; the preconscious rather
Tieck. Havnis concern was mainly historical and than the .subconscious. The preconscious includes the
descriptive. Only with the dominance of "neo- imagination which is raised to consciousness in
romantic" tendencies in German literature around the romanticism. Grimme argues for a phenomenological
turn of the century did a sympathetic interest in the method. The aim of a verbal definition is illusory. We
romantic movement revive. Ricarda Huch's Bliitczeit can only point to what is romantic as we can only
der Romantik (1899) was the decisive work, while the point to the color red.
researchers of Oskar Walzel, who published many letters But we need not conclude on such an irrationalistic
and set the movement into a context of intellectual note. The variety of interpretations, the divergence and
history, gave the revival a scholarly basis. In the early multiplicity of definition need not lead to despair. One
twenties a whole series of books was devoted specific- can describe the rise, dominance, and decline of a
ally to definitions of the nature or essence of romanti- system of ideas and poetic practices which will have
cism. They operate with dichotomies, thesis and their anticipations and survivals. Periods and move-
antithesis, vast contrasts such as idea and form, idea ments are not general terms of which every individual
and experience, rationalism and irrationalism, etc. Max work or figure would be merely an example. They are
Deutschbein, in Das Wesen des Romantischcn (Leipzig, neither mere linguistic labels nor metaphysical entities
1921) stressed the reconciling, synthetic imagination but regulative ideas, historiographical tools. Agreement
as the common denominator of romanticism drawing on the meaning of romanticism in all the main
quotations from English and German sources. countries has, in spite of the spate of writings on the
A scheme of contrast is the result of Fritz Strich's topic, grown rather than diminished in recent decades.
Deutsche Klassik und Romantik: oder VoHcndtiiin tiiid Romanticism clearly preserves its value as a term for
UnendUchkeit (Mmiich, 1922). There Strich transfers a period in Western literature.
Wolfllin's Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe (1915) to
literature. Man searches for permanence or eternity;
and the history of man oscillates between the two poles BIBLIOGRAPHY
of perfection and infinitude. Romanticism is dynamic, Carla .^pollonio, Romanticn: storia e fortuna di una parota
has open form, is symbolic, yearns for the infinite (Florence, 1958). Fernand Baldensperger, "Romantique — ses
always in opposition to classicism documented by the analogues et equivalents," in Harvard Studies and Notes in
classical stage of Goethe and Schiller. .Ml these writings Philology and Literature, 14 (1937), 1.3-105. Franfois Jest,
are surveyed in Julius Petersen's Wesensbestimmimg "Romantique: la leôn dun mot," in Essais de litterature
romporec (Fribourg, 1968), 181-258. A. O. Lovejoy, "The
der deutschen Romantik (1926). German scholarship
II,
Meaning of 'Romantic' in Early German Romanticism, in

was was
"
largely geistesgeschichtlich but there also a

Modern Language Notes, 21 (1916), 385-96, and 22 (1917),
trend which before the event of Nazism tried to explain
65-77; reprinted in Essays in the History of Ideas (Balti-
romanticism by a kind of racial history.
more, 1948), pp. 183-206; idem, "On the Discrimination
Josef Nadler in Die Berliner Romantik (1921) argued of Romanticisms," in PMLA, 39 (1924), 229-53; reprinted
the curious thesis that romanticism is purely a matter in Essays in the History of Ideas (Baltimore, 1948), pp.
of the Germanized Slavs in Eastern Germany who 228-53. Morse Peckham, "Toward a Theory of Romanti-
wanted to revive the Teutonic Middle Ages while cism," in PMLA. 66 (1951), 5-23; idem, "Toward a Theory
German classicism is the attempt of the West Germans of Romanticism II. Reconsiderations." Roman-
in Studies in
to revive the Roman antiquity of their distant past. ticism, 1 (1961), 1-6. Julius Petersen, Die Wesenshestimmung
The West Germans in the romantic movement der deutschen Romantik (Berlin, 1926). H. H. H. Reniak.
(Brentano, Gorres, etc.) are explained away as belong-

"West European Romanticism: Definition and Scope," in
Comparative Literature: Method and Perspective, ed. New-
movement, called "The Restoration.
"
ing to a separate
ton P. Stallknecht and Horst Frenz (Carbondale, 111., 1961),
Similar nationalistic theories which look at romanti-
pp. 12.3-59. Franz Schultz, "Romantik und Romantisch als
cism as a purely German affair were expounded during
literaturgeschichtliche Terminologie und Begriflsbildung,"
and after the Nazi period by serious scholars such as
in Deutsche Viertetjahrsschrift fiir Litcraturwissenschaft tmd
Richard Benz {Die deutsche Romantik. 1937), who seek Geistesgeschichte, 2 (1924), 349-66. Logan P. Smith, Four
the essence of romanticism in German music and the Words: Romantic, Originality, Creative, Genius, Society for
spirit of music. Since the second World War interest Pure English, Tract No. 17 (Oxford, 1924); reprinted in
in geistesgeschichtlich speculation declined and German Words and Idioms (Boston, 1925). Richard Ullmann and
literary scholarship turned toward textual inter- Helene Gotthard, Geschichte des Begrijfs 'Romantisch' in 197
ROMANTICISM {ca. I780-ca. 1830)
Deutscliland ( Berlin, 1927). Rene VVellek, "The Concept uf mantic, " though lately come into vogue, patently did
Romanticism in Literary Scholarship," in Comparative Lit- not function as a lallying cry since it signified too many
erature, 1 (1949), 1-23. 147-72; reprinted in Concepts
of different things (e.g., "anticlassical " to Friedrich
Criticism (New Haven, 1963). pp. 128-98; idem, "Romanti- Schlegel, but merely "contemporary" to Stendhal), and
cism Re-examined," in Concepts of Criticism (New Haven, besides, not all the persons generally designated as
1963), pp. 199-221.
romantics in today's textbooks were conscious of being
ren£ wellek or called themselves romantics. Romanticism was
probably at its most self-conscious in the Berlin-Jena
[See also Classicism in Literature; Gothic; Organicism;
Romanticism; Zeitgeist.]
coterie, by Schlegel among others, which
led
propagated the term and eventually drew fire from
Goethe. But to my knowledge neither Coleridge nor
Wordsworth ever adopted the label. Save for some
highly informal salons as in Berlin, or later on in the
cenacles of Paris or in esoteric groups like the
ROMANTICISM "N'azarenes "
in Rome, romanticism had no institutional
(ca. I780-ca. 1830) organization, and certainly no single great publishing

venture comparable to the Encyclopedie of the eigh-
Common prudence, if not necessity, dictates consid- teenth century, even within one country. It had no cen-
eration of the problem of romanticism before attempt- tral doctrine, nor even so loose an authority as the Bible
ing to define or describe it. For the problem, as Arthur during the Protestant Reformation. Indeed, how could
Lovejov pointed out years ago, is a thorny one. In view ithave had, seeing that the romantics, if such they
of tfie many and conflicting conceptions of romanticism may be called, prided themselves on their individuality.
among historians and critics, what if anything can be If would indeed
carried to the extreme this caveat
stated positively about it? Do the facts themselves dictate a and even nominalistic inter-
pluralistic
reveal a genuine"movement," reasonably well unified pretation. But we do not need go so far, for, as Rene
and of European scope, which peaked in the late Wellek and some others believe, not only was there
eighteenth and earlv nineteenth centuries and which, a romantic movement of European-wide scope but
because it is identifiable, can then be held responsible failure to identifv it would mean to miss some of the
for a varietv of intellectual and even political progeny salient features of nineteenth- and even twentieth-
in the modern world? Lovejov, as well known, came

is centurv culture. NaturalK'. this affirmation must stand
down hard on the skeptical side. "The word roman- or fall on the evidence. However, one or two
tic'," he pointed out. "has come to mean so many things methodological comments should help to clarify it.
that, by itself, it means nothing" (Lovejoy, 1924). He First of all, it is important not to cavil at the word
therefore recommended learning to use the word in itself. "Romanticism" may not be just the right word
the plural. There was a "plurality of Romanticisms" to describe certain profound changes in Weltan-
but no "one fundamental 'Romantic' idea." Somewhat schauung which did in fact take place during the
ambiguously, he was willing to speak of "a Romantic period But what word would serve better,
in question.
period" between 1780 and 1830, but not of a romantic especially since tradition has by now, for better or
movement. worse, sanctioned its use and fiuthermore associated
This was and still is a useful caveat. The evidence it with at least some widely shared assumptions and
is were important differences between
clear that there ideas. Lovejoy, itseems to me, sometimes comes very
"the romantic School which arose in Germany in the
" close to conceding this point despite his insistence on
1790's and English and French romanticisms of the pluralism. Second, we need
remind ourselves that to
same period. Within each century, moreover, the na- the problem of romanticism is by no means imique.
ture of romanticism changes subtly from one genera- How does it differ, except perhaps in greater com-
tion to the next. "Late "
German romanticism, for plexity, from a host of similar historiographical
example, was more nativist, and more fascinated by problems — from, for instance, the problem of the
the occult and supernatural, than the earlier phase Renaissance, or the Reformation, or even the Enlight-
which was closer in spirit to "classical Weimar. In " enment? The romantic movement is, frankly, an ideal
France the gap was even more marked between the type. But so are most other "movements" in history,
"conservative generation of Chateaubriand and the
"
especially when considered broadly and transcending
emigres, and that of the liberal Victor Hugo who him- provincial boundaries.The historian describes their
self underwent a considerable change of heart, both knowing perfectly well they
"ideal" characteristics
198 politically and religiously, after 1830. The word "ro- cannot be found anywhere or all together in a perfectly
ROMANTICISM (ca. 1780-ca. 1830)
pure state. But I fail to see how he could do otherwise. imposed universal and iron rules on art and the artist.
Without doing so he could never get much beyond Empiricism offended for the opposite reason, because
talking about individuals or narrowlv circumscribed it was too skeptical, because it severely limited human
schools or groups. He could never talk about the knowledge to the sense uorld of appearances. Newton
Renaissance, and we should be the poorer for it. became an arch-symbol of this narrowness. Opinions
This sort of ideal type, it should be imderstood, has about Newton varied, of course, even among the ro-
a firm basis in reality. It represents the historian's mantics (one thinks of Saint-Simon who preached a
generalizations from the evidence before him: an Cult of Newton), but William Blake's depiction of him
observed consensus, the common denominator he was quite typical. Blake did not see in Newton the
detects in the midst of diversity. In the case of a move- great imaginative genius celebrated by Alexander
ment in ideas this consensus is most easily discovered Pope. On the contrary, he demoted him to the material
in what the individuals involved were all against. What world, making him look downward
though trying as
they were all for is harder to get at. But it mav not to fathom the world by means of a pair of compasses,
be so difficult if one remembers that the area of agree- i.e., by measurement and "reason" alone (Newton, Tate
ment is never so much in consciously formulated con- Gallery, London [1795]).

ceptions (where there is usually wide difference of A word more about origins would seem advisable
opinion) as in certain preconceptions, deeply point in order to avoid misunderstanding. Mill's
aversions and psychological needs. One
i.e.,
of the exciting
felt at this
favorite words
— "reaction" and "revolt" — are only
things about the romantic consensus is that it came approximately correct. Mill viewed the history of ideas
about with a minimum of international "influence." as a perpetual oscillation between extremes. One mode
There were influences, of course, as of Rousseau on of thought, inevitably developed to excess sooner or
nearly all the Germans, Kant on Coleridge as well as later, provoked its opposite. Thus, "the eighteenth
his own countrymen. Herder and Walter Scott on century" set on foot the romantic movement. The
French historiography, for e.xample. But the big story latter,however, must also be seen as growing out of,
is that the various wings of the romantic movement and not merely reacting against the Enlightenment. In
developed largely independently of one another, out any case it would not have been the same without it.
of native impulses, but also — otherwise there would It owed something to British empiricism's attack on
be no consensus — in reaction against a body of ideas rationalism,something to certain phitosophes like
common in certain respects to them all. Diderot, who though devoted to the Enlightenment
John Stuart Mill, no romantic himself but a sympa- nevertheless developed some decidedly un-philosophe
thetic and informed observer, put his finger unerringly notions about nature and the arts. It owed something
on what the European romantics chsliked. Romanti- to the French Revolution which inspired a whole gen-
cism, he said in an e.ssay on Armand Carrel (1837), eration of French romantics, especially after 18.30. The
represented a reaction "against the narrownesses of the Enlightenment also left its mark in less obvious ways.
eighteenth century." Though he was speaking there Surely the religious heterodoxy of many of the roman-
primarily of literature, it is what follows
clear from tics, including pastor Schleiermacher himself, traces
and from other essays, conspicuously the famous one back in part to doubts sown by the philosophes. And
on Coleridge, that he thought of it as a revolt against what of the idea of progress? Did it not enhance tlie
narrowness on many fronts, in philosophy and science, romantic sense of the infinite?
in historical and political thought, as well as in poetry The roots of a great movement in opinion are always
and the drama. "Fractional," "partial," "insignificant," multiple and complex. Romanticism was not at all, I
"poor," were among the adjectives Thomas Carlyle think, the ally of any particular social class, or, except
employed in his essay on Diderot ( 1833); he denounced locally, a "conservative reaction" as has often been
"Diderot's habitual world as "a half-world, distorted
"
claimed. On no question that
the other hand, there is
into looking like a whole." The reference in both cases political events deepened some facets of romantic
was, of course, to the European Enlightenment which sensibility, particularly in Germany during and after
by then had become a stereotype, and partly also a the War of Liberation. The romantic movement might
caricature. The romantics thought that world too nar- be compared to a mighty river into which flowed scores
row because of its addiction to geometric thinking and of tributary streams, some of them commencing far
the allied doctrine of neo-classicism, or else to Lockean back in time, others more recently. A list of these
empiricism. The geometric spirit, though meta- streams would include, in addition to those already
physically bold, tried to subject all life to reason and mentioned, the individualism of the sixteenth and
thus to mechanize and demean it. Neo-classicism, simi- seventeenth centuries of which romantic individualism
larly ambitious in seeking out Nature's ideal patterns, might be considered the climax; Pietism in seventeenth- 199
century Germany and the quarrel between Rubenistes Since the romantic mind did not quite center in
and Poussinistes in seventeenth-centurv France; the "Man," makes sense perhaps to turn first to romantic
it
growth of "sentimentahsni" everywhere in eighteenth- ideas about God and Nature. Here the ,sen.se of the
century Europe; the Stunn unci Drang of Goethe's infinite is particularly clear. "The Infinite," said
Weimar which in some though not all respects is hardly Carlyle, "is more sure than any other fact." To be sure,
distinguishable from early German romanticism itself; this sense could take secular as well as religious forms,
the new German Idealism. Toward the close of the as we shall see. But it lent itself particularly well to
eighteenth century all had contributed
these streams the romantic search for a religious reality beyond reach
to form the romantic movement. If the latter had any of reason or sensible experience. "True religion," said
"beginning," doubtless it should be looked for in newly Schleierniacher in his famous definition, "is sense and
discovered and perhaps still somewhat vague tastes and taste for the Infinite {dus Vnendliche)." He also
aspirations; only at its height did it become acutely described it as "expansive soaring in the Whole and
conscious of itself in art and philosophy. Individual the Inexhaustible" [Reden iiber die Religion, 1799).
thinkers therefore played the role not so much of It was widely believed that the world had lost its
initiators as implementers of the new tastes. The search religious bearings during the Enlightenment and that
for pioneers and precursors, and for tlie "influence" men needed to recover them if there were ever again
of one writer or artist on another, seems to me fiiiitless to be heroes and great works of imagination. In "the
and footless imless it takes into account the many, and Unbelieving Century" God had become nonexistent or
not merely the few, the elite, who were swept up in peripheral and bound by rational categories. Carlyle
the romantic torrent. Nevertheless, certain individuals vividly describes this feeling of loss in his chapter on
do stand out as important catalytic agents. Such, for "The Everlasting No" in Sartor Resartus (1833-34),
example, was Rousseau, the Rousseau of the Noiwelle that great source book for romantic views on God and
Heloise and Ernile which nearly everybody read. Such religion. His Professor Teufelsdrockh tells there of the
was Goethe (for all that he called romanticism a "sick- spiritual crisishe went through (obviously owing to
ness"); Herder for his new views of history; and the corrosive effect of Enlightenment skepticism): how,
Immanuel Kant whom Schlegel called the new Moses as "the spirit of Inquiry" took possession of him, he
and whose writings Coleridge said "invigorated" his had moved from doubt to disbelief, and consequently
understanding more than any other work. Kant was was shut out from hope. At best, he thought, there
particularly important for showing the limits of reason might be "an absentee God," sitting idle since the first
(Verstand) yet at the same time postulating strongly Sabbath and looking at the Universe from outside it.
the existence of "transcendental ideas." It is important, How, tlien, to recover a living faith? Some romantics
however, to distinguish the main river from the tribu- never succeeded in doing so, and their failure was
taries. Fundamentally, the romantic movement was just doubtless a source, in some individuals, of melancholy.
what Mill said it was, a reaction against a certain Others, however, like Teufelsdrockh-Carlyle, did
"narrow" kind of thinking epitomized bv the "scien- rediscover God, but in new and strange places. It is
tific" Enlightenment. true, then, that the romantic movement sparked a

It is not so easy to say what
stood for. "Onto-
it religious revival, but false to think of it as a simple
logical," "conservative," "religious," "concrete and return to orthodoxy. Even those who, like the Roman
historical," "poetical" says Mill of its constnictive Catholic refugees and converts, flocked back to their
"doctrine" (Mill, "Coleridge," 1840), but he was think- ancestral altars found new and romantic reasons for
ing of romanticism primarily inone country, and doing so. Actually, romantic religiosity luxuriated in
consequently not all his adjectives apply equally well a great many forms, including some purely private
to Considered more broadly romanticism might
all. religions like the mythology invented by
bizarre
better be said to have centered in several quite marked William Blake. If these forms had anything in common,
on particularity or indi-
predispositions: an emphasis it was in the tendency to bring God back "inside" the
viduality, and a sense and the irrational

of the infinite Universe and to find him in the human heart and
component in human life. These predispositions pro- natm-e. In other words, the romantics emphasized the
vide the key (Wordsworth would say "the prelude") immanence rather than the transcendence of God.
to romantic ideas about "Man, Nature, and Society." This was true even of an apologist for Catholicism
—
Without the key, the ideas i.e., romantic answers to like the Vicomte de Chateaubriand. In the Genie du
the perennial questions of human life: the sort of ques- Christianisme (1802), called the "Bible of romanti-
tions Wordsworth set out to explore in his philosophical cism," he avoided the traditional kinds of rational
poem The Excursion — must often seem hopelessly in "proofs" which Voltaire had found so easy to demolish,
200 conflict and to lead into a maze without end. and somewhat in the manner of Rousseau's Savoyard
i
Vicar rediscovered religion through his tears, through quasi-pantheism the romantic movement was not nec-
passion (Chateaubriand defined rehgion as "a passion"), essarily antiscientific.was opposed to a certain kind
It
through the beauty and sense of awe aroused in the of mechanical science and split down the middle as
beholder by the presence of God in nature and Gothic to whether mechanical inventions beautified or uglified
churches. A parallel view is observable in Schleier- life. But not a few romantics, Schelling, for example,
macher who changed the course of Protestant theology. who became secretary of the Academy of Sciences at
He too, though more especially in his earlv utterances Munich, and Maine de Biran who admired the physicist
when he was closely associated with the Berlin roman- Ampere, eagerly followed the latest developments in
tic group, shifted the emphasis from rational exegesis science, while some undoubtedly contributed positively
and doctrine to individual experience or feeling. It was to the advancement of science by their bold specvila-
preeminently in "feeling," he thought, that is, in a tions especially in biology and the psychology of the
precognitive experience, that the individual en- unconscious. One thinks again of Schelling who
countered the Infinite, now brought within the soul postulated a natura naturans. a creative, dynamic,
itself. Schleiermacher's "Theology of Feeling" thus evolutionary nature which achieved its "goal" in man
united the romantic sense of the infinite and romantic himself; or of Dr. Cams or Gottfried-Heinrich von
individuality. Each individual experienced God in his Schubert, Schelling's colleague at the University of
own imique way, as did every positive religion of the Erlangen and translator of Erasmus Darwin, who in-
world though Schleiermacher still thought Christianity vestigated the symbolic language of dreams or, as he
superior. so graphically put it, "the night-side of science." Much
But the romantics also characteristically found God as the romantics exalted art and the artist, they showed
in nature, not all of them, of course, not Vigny or little "two cultures,"
disposition to think in terms of
Byron, not even Blake, but certainly an impressive to pit art against science unless was mechanical
it
number. These "natural supernaturalists," revolting science. On the contrary, there was a marked tendency
against the Newtonian machine, sought to make nature to romanticize science, as Balzac did in his novel The
a homewhich man could once again live and feel
in Quest of the Absolute. Novalis, himself an amateur
God, and thus solve the problem of dualism
close to scientist as well as a great poet, thought of science
which had plagued thinking men since the time of as a gateway to the Infinite. Some of Victor Hugo's
Descartes.The impetus to this new way of thinking poems also repay reading on this point. Hugo became
about nature came from, among others, Rousseau a sort of poet laureate of science, glorifying it as a
whom the contemplation of nature could send into great adventure into the unknown and penetrating the
mystical ecstasies (as in Les reveries du promeneur nivsterv of nature.
solitaire, 1776-78); Goethe who in his morphological We have said that the romantic movement did not
studies was always trying to discover the original and quite center in Man, and this remark requires some
inner principle of things, the invisible in the visible; comment as we turn now from romantic ideas of God
Spinoza, or rather Spinoza seen through Jacobi's and and Nature to those concerning man himself. The truth
Herder's eyes, who seemed to teach a God immanent of the remark can be gauged by comparing romanti-
in nature, indeed in all existence, as a life-force. The cism with "classical" humanism. In the latter, man,
logical extension of such thinking was a new religion though not necessarily unaware of wider cosmic forces,
of nature, appropriately called by Carlyle — who at this was free to set purposes for himself and, to a large
point again summarizes a large body of romantic degree, make his own fate. The romantics, however,
opinion
— "Natural Supernaturalism." Natural Super- commonly saw man in the context of great cosmic and
naturalism, outworn "Church-clothes,"
rather than historical movements which enveloped him in an
provided Teufelsdrockh with his answer to the "Ever- "infinity "
greater than himself. Man is simply not the
lasting No." It meant raising the natural to the super- measure in romantic landscape painting, or in the new
natural rather than the reverse process which had type of "English" garden (not geometrized nor ordered
characterized the materialism of the Enlightenment. bv human hand as in "classical" gardens), or in those
This line of thought had previously been worked out gigantic philosophies of history projected by a Herder,
much more subtly by the philosopher Schelling, whose Hegel, or even Michelet.
Naturphilosophie was much admired by Goethe and Nevertheless, by comparison with the Enlightenment
Coleridge. was exemplified poetically by Words-
It the romantics greatly enhanced man's capabilities.
worth, and by romantic landscape painters like Enlightenment anthropology seemed intolerably nar-
Constable in England and David Caspar Friedrich in row to them, belittling man, accenting, as 'Wordsworth
Germany. said, the "inferior faculties" and thus denying him
It is worth noting parenthetically that despite this access to "principles of truth." For the wider vision 20
ROMANTICISM (ca. 1780-co. 1830)
of reality thev \earnecl for thev obviously needed far Rational Man of the Enlightenment or the "classical"
greater candle power than Locke could pro\'ide, an tradition. He was at once more many-sided and more
image of man less passive and banal than Condillac's complicated. In him "reason" was not preeminent
statue man. Hence, the romantics countered with a (though he was not necessarily antirational; cf. the
conception of knowledge emphasizing man's activity Savoyard Vicar) but took orders from the deepest
and creativity. This theory, derived partly from the feelings or intuitions. Few romantics would have
new German Idealism, posited a special "faculty" of disagreed with Coleridge's opinion "that deep thinking
the human mind, superior to the disciu-sive reason, and is attainable only by a man of deep feeling." And
varioush labelled (depending somewhat on the refer- because of this emphasis on "feeling they also insisted
ence, whether to artistic theory, philosophy, or reli- on man's individuality and freedom of will. In his
gion) "Reason," "Imagination," "intuition," "feeling," monologues Schleiermacher tells how he revolted
"faith," "the illative sense," etc. The names are legion, against the notion, still strong in Kant and Fichte, of
but what the romantics were trying to say about man a "universal reason," the same in all men. It finally
comes out enough in the famous distinction,

clearly dawned upon him
— "that each man —he calls it his "highest intui-
made early by Jacobi and Kant and developed by tion

"
meant to represent humanity
is
Coleridge, between Reason and Understanding in his own way, combining its elements uniquely." This
{Vernunft and Vcrstand). The latter, obviously associ- is a typical romantic statement, and it applied equally
ated with Locke and Hume, could merelv apprehend to that individualist par excellence, the genius, who
appearances. In Schopenhauer's metaphor it was like communicated the voice of the Infinite in unique and
a man who goes romid and round a castle sketching inimitable works of art. No description of Romantic
the facade and never finding an entrance. "Reason," Man would be complete without also taking into ac-
on the other hand, was the source of transcendental count the important role played by the will. As
ideas, "the organ of the super-sensuous" as Coleridge denizens of the phenomenal world men might be sub-
called it, able to discern "invisible realities or spiritual ject to a sort of necessity. However, there was also
objects" (
The Friend, 1809). .\s is well known, the nouinenal world, as Kant said, in which they freely
Coleridge also distinguished sharplv between the use proposed and strove after their own goals, endlessly
of "Imagination "
and "Fancy" by the poet, the latter like Goethe's Faust. Faust is a very romantic figure,
being able only to copy and embellish past examples, not in his transcendentalism which he gives up as
the former, however, possessing an "esemplastic imattainable, but in his titanism, his restless striving,
power ' to see things as a whole and to bring new his will towring an ever wider meaning from life. This
worlds to by creation and invention. The imagina-
life, emphasis on will is reminiscent of Schopenhauer's
tion, as depicted by the romantics, was obviouslv philosophs' which, however, was pessimistic and sug-
something more than human. The same immanentism gests still another side to romantic anthropology. The
is observable in romantic man as in "natm'e. "
The romantics were also acuteh' aware of a "night-side,"
human imagination was which the
the vessel through of an amtious and troubled human nature, of forces
Infinite or Eternal expressed and became conscious of hidden in man which couldtear him and his world
itself. Hence, Blake, Shelley, and others could speak apart. In other words, the unconscious cut two ways.
of man as "the Divine Image." Human creativity was It could lead man to a higher purpose but it could
patently not considered to be an entirely conscious also let loose the demonic
and around him, as is
in
process. Indeed, there were those who thought that made clear, for example, in Schopenhauer's The World
man touched realit) more deeply, because removed as Will and Idea (1818) which depicts a blind human
entirely from sense perceptions, in dreams and ecstasv will achieving only unhappiness, or in the frightful
tlian in the waking state. .Most of these strands of monsters and phantoms released in Francisco Goya's
thought are brought together in Schelling's doctrine later some of his Caprichos and Pro-
work, notably in
of artistic genius.The creative artist was the ideal verbios in which reason has abandoned man altogether.
Romantic Man. .According to Schelling, he presented Romantic ideas about Society and the State can be
in his work, "as if instinctively, apart from what he understood only in the light of this complex image of
has put into it with obvious intent, an infinity which Man. Of course, there was no specifically romantic
no finite understanding can fully imfold {System des ' politics. A romantic could almost equally well be a
transzendentalen Idealismus. 1800). .êsthetic intuition conservative, liberal, socialist, or even anarchist. There
thus involved both conscious and unconscious activity, was, however, a "social romanticism" in the sense of
drawing upon a power-not-itself, and combining the certain identifiable attitudes. For instance, there is no
real and ideal. romantic who, if he thought at all about the subject,
202 Romantic Man thus contrasts rather sharph- with the did not object to a mechanical conception of the state
ROMANTICISM (ca. I780-ca. 1830)
(as indeed he objected to a mechanical "nature"). Saint-Simonians and Fourierists, as well as liberals like
Edmund Burke, though himself a pohtical conservative, Hugo and the historian Michelet, had visions of infinite
therefore voiced a common "romantic" attitude when socialimprovement, and pledged themselves to relieve
in Refiectiom on the Recolution in France (1790) he the suffering of les miserahles caused by the Industrial
attacked the revolutionaries as mere theorists who Revolution. These mixed romantic feelings about past
thought tliev could treat politics as though it were a and future often blended, as in the social thought of
"geometrical demonstration," without reference to those two great romantic nationalists Jules Michelet
human nature or history. If it was to achieve its end, and Giuseppe Mazzini. Both men owed a considerable
it should be adjusted, he had said, "not to human debt to Herder. Both preached in perfervid language
reasonings, but to human nature; of which reason is a "religion "
of the fatherland, resurrecting its particu-
but a part, and bv no means the greatest part." lar past and prophesying its special mission for the
Against this abstract theorizing the romantics usually future: i.e., France to spread the gospel of Liberty,
put up some sort of organic theory emphasizing men's ItaK to reincarnate the spirit of Rome, and thus make
emotional ties to a historically growing community and the world better.
its institutions. This preference for Gemeinschaft was These ideas about politics and society provide a
no doubt partly a reflection of revolutionary times natural bridge to their ideas about history. It is obvious
which made only too clear the need for order and from the above that most romantics, even those who
tradition. However, it also antedated the French Rev- like Victor Hugo looked to the future, had a strongly
olution in the cogitations of Rousseau and Burke (not developed historical .sense. In other words, the roman-
so opposed to each other politically as the latter liked tic movement contributed powerhiUy to, though it did
to think) and Herder. Emphasis on community did not not invent, what came to be known later as "histori-
constitute a negation of romantic individuality as might cism. "
Historicism, as Friedrich Meinecke defines it,
be supposed. In the area of social thought the latter restson the twin concepts of temporal individuality
found outlet, not so much in the doctrine of individual (both of epochs and peoples) and development. Thus,
"rights" (by its nature abstract and general, i.e., apply- it represented another facet of the romantic revolt
ing equally to mankind) as in a growing awareness
all against the generalizing tendencies of the Enlighten-
of the differences between peoples and nations, and ment. Certain words of David Hume provide the per-
in the belief that the national community, and perhaps fect foil for the new attitude. (Despite his empiricism
also the State, was necessary to the full development Hume often lapsed into generalist language.) "It is
of each individual's personality. Significantly, the one imiversally acknowledged," he had said in An Enquiry
theorist of the Enlightenment revered by Burke was concerning Human Understanding (1748), "that there
Montesquieu who understood that laws could not be is a great uniformity among the actions of men, in all
the same everywhere but must be adapted to tlie par- nations and ages, and that human nature remains still
ticularenvironment and experience of a people. .\i the same in its and operations" (Sec. VIII,
principles
the same time Burke (to be followed in England by Part I). This was emphatically not the way Herder or
Coleridge and Sir Walter Scott) was writing about the Burke thought about history. Herder compared history
uniqueness of the English constitution and the sweet- to a tree which throws out a great variety of branches,
ness of a man's natal Herder was expounding his
soil. and is forever renewing itself; also to a chain each link
conception of the Volksgeist in Germany. Each Volk of which is necessary to an unbroken succession. Like
or people, he believed, came to have its own peculiar Herder the romantic could not only respect but
Ceist. exhibited preeminently in its religion, language, frequently empathize with past epochs which were
and literature. This nationalism, cultural only in very different vet out of which his own had grown.
Herder, developed strong political overtones during This empathv, notably with the Middle Ages, did not
the War of Liberation and possibly contributed in the necessarily lead to better history writing. Novalis, for
long run to German racist and "fascist" thought. instance, projected his own dreams of innocence and
However that may be, it is evident that romanticism unity into the Middle Ages, which he glorified in his
could as easily lend itself to a political messianism, not Christenheit und Europa (1799). On the other hand,
so much dreaming of a future age
to planning as to impressive studies of the Norman Conquest, the Dukes
of gold characterized by universal justice and freedom, of Burgundy, the Crusades, etc. by "romantic"
and achieved by a passionate outburst of human love historians such as Augustin Thierry, and Barante.
or pity. Burke, of course, would have deplored this Michaud ground for the revival of medieval
laid the
sort of Utopian thinking. But it broke out all over, historical scholarship. Romantic historicism, it should
particularly in France after 1830 when romantic be noted, commonly explained history by the operation
literary and social revolt at last joined hands. There of "spiritual " as opposed to material forces. A divine 2Uo
—
purpose imfolds in history as in nature for Burke and imiverse, of man's homelessness, of knowledge turning
Herder. Heroes are "called" to perform prodigies to ashes in his mouth ("The tree was true, though
(Carlyie), nations to carry out sublime missions. In deadly"). Rather than submit meekly he rebels against
Hegel Spirit becomes increasingly conscious of itself "the Onmipotent tyrant." Meanwhile, Schopenhauer
in both nations and "World-Historical Individuals." For was tearing off men's "masks and revealing in their "
Michelet Le Peuple alone possessed the spirit of love imconscious minds a "will to live which inflicted "
and self-sacrifice which would enable France to achieve suffering on itself and others. So the romantic move-
hers and mankind's destiny. ment also prefigured another sort of modernity which
Most of these romantic philosophies of history were ripened hilly only later in the worlds of Darwin. Freud,
wildlv optimistic. However, there was another side to and Sartre. Nietzsche thought of romanticism as a
the movement, already hinted at, which was the re- shrivelled up thing, poor in vitality, retreating from
verse of optimistic. This was the Byronic side which life. This is the last thing one ought to say of a move-
was expressive of melancholy, agony, disenchantment, ment which pursued "infinity "
and exalted the
imfulfilled longing, and even, on occasion, rebellion "esemplastic power" of man. Nevertheless, it had
rebellion, not only against society but also the imiverse, different sides which could give birth to very different
as in Bvron's Cain. How important was this Welt- kinds of offspring.

schtnerz? It was much more than a pose. German
literature w;is saturated with it long before Byron. It
reached philosophic expression in Schopenhauer, and

BIBLIOGRAPHY
in Leopardi (despite "classical" tastes, surely a roman- Arthur O. Lovejoy's interpretation emerges clearly from
tic at least in such Canti as L'Infinito and La Ginestra). the articles reprinted in Essays in the History of Ideas
It dominated the thought of French romantics like (Baltimore, 1948), especially the one on "The Discrim-
ination of Romanticisms" of 1924. See also for general
.\lfredde Vigny and Alfred de Musset, the latter an
interpretation Barzun, Rojnanticism and the Modern Ego
admirer of Byron, and was reflected in the painting J.
(Boston, 1943); W. Bate, From Classic to Ronwntic

of Eugene Delacroix (Dante and Virgil in Hell, 1822).
J.
(Cambridge, Mass., 1946); H. Fairehild, The Romantic Quest

Musset called it la maladie du Steele and ascribed its
(New York, 1931); W. T. Jones, The Ronwntic Syndrome (The
vogue to the times in which voung Frenchmen lived Hague, 1961); H. Humanismus und Romantik
.\. Korff,
following the Revolution and Empire, between two (Leipzig, 1924); D. Mornel. Le romantisme en France au
worlds, between a past forever destroyed and a future XVIlle .iiecle (Paris, 1912); J. H. Randall, The Career of
but dimlv guessed (La confession dun enfant du siecle, Philosophy. Vol. II (New York, 1965); H. G. Schenk, The
18.36). No wonder thev were melancholy. "Je suis venu Mind of the European Romantics (London, 1966); F. Strich,
trap tard" . . . too late to believe, as in a past age of Deutsche Klassik und Romantik (.Munich, 1928); R. Wellek.
innocence and illusion. "The Concept of Romanticism in Literary History," Con-
Were two not a cepts of Criticism (New Haven, 1963), pp. 128-98. For some
there, then, after all at least if
of the special aspects of romantic thought discussed in
plurality of romanticisms? It is preferable to think of
the text, see also R. Aris, History of Political Thought in
same movement. On the one hand,
several sides to the
Germany from IT89 to 1815 (London. 1936); W. Beach,
the romantics aimed to recreate wonder in a world J.
The Concept of Suture in Nineteenth-Century English Poetry

become narrow and prosaic. At their most optimistic Lame
(New York. 1936); \. Beguin, romantique et le reve
thev thought they might restore unity, and hence M. Romantic Imagination
Bowra, The
(Paris, 19.39);
meaning, to a civilization plagued by dualisms: the (Cambridge, Mass.. 1949); C. Brinton, The Political Ideas
unitv of man. God. and nature, as in Schelling's of the Etiglish Romanticists (London, 1926); M. Brion, Ro-
ambitious doctrine of identity. In these respects the mantic Art (New York, 1960); K. Clark, The Gothic Revival
romantic movement might be said to constitute the (London, 1928); R. T Clark, Herder (Berkeley, 1955); A.
first great revolt against one kind of modernity — the Cobban. Edmund Burke and the Revolt against the Eight-
modernity represented by the scientific Enlightennient. eenth Century (London, The Idea of
1929); H. Kohn,
Yet the romantics themselves were very "modem" Nationalism (New Le romantisme
York, 1944); R. Picard.
social (New York, 1944); A. M. Osbom. Rousseau and Burke
in certain respects. They were aware, far more than
(London, 1940); J. L. Talmon, Romanticism aiui Revolt.
the philosophes, of living in a world of endless Becom-
Europe 1815-1848 (London, 1967).
ing. This was an intoxicating experience for those who
could connect up the Becoming with some sort of FRANKLIN L. BAUMER
Being even was not "orthodox." But for those who
if it [See also Classicism; Enlightenment; Genius; Hisloricism;
could find no Being either in heaven or on earth it Individualism; Infinity; Irrationalism; Nationalism; Nature;
was a cruel experience. .\ drama like Cain (1821) has Organicism; Progress; Romanticism in Literature;
204 a very modem ring about it. Cain speaks of an absurd Romanticism in Post-Kantian Philosophy; Utopia.]
ROMANTICISM IN POLITICAL THOUGHT
ROMANTICISM IN certain hesitancy and wavering, romanticism was

POLITICAL THOUGHT defined as a body of political doctrine to which most
writers of this school, from Novalis to Eichendorff,
It may seem rather paradoxical to tie the adjective remained faithful. Romanticism in CJermany, therefore,
"pohtical" to the designation of a literary school, hi- cannot be considered only from the viewpoint of
deed, the label "romantic" has been known to desig- literary criticism or of philosophy of science, for it was
nate in an oscillating manner the most diverse tenden- also a "politics" located at the very heart of the
cies, for example, romantic traditionalism, romantic European counterrevolutionary movement.
humanitarianism, and romantic nationalism. Thus in For political romanticism cannot be dissociated from
England romantic poetry, marked for a long time by the group of movements created in Europe by the fear
the struggle of the nation against revolutionary and of revolutionary ideology. To explain this fact would
imperial France, tended with Coleridge to affirm na- be unthinkable without taking into accoimt Ednnmd
tional traditions and religious mysticism in protest Burkes work. Reflections on the Revolution it^ France
against the rationalistic individualism of liberal (1790), which contrasted the proud geometry of the
thought. However, in the second romantic generation, rationalists against the background of the ancestral
with Byron, Keats, and Shelley, there appeared a feel- wisdom of the English constitution. Furthermore, we
ing of moral rebellion against the traditional order and must recall that at the same time Joseph de Maistre
its conventional lies and privileges; whence the nu- and L. G. A. de Bonald provided the emigres with a
merous declarations of generous emotion, of lofty sar- philosophy of Restoration which attacked the claims
casm, or of aesthetic detachment, and whence the of universal reason by defending the original imique-
appeal to the ideals of liberty and justice. In France, ness of each notion and culture; denied the theory of
Chateaubriand, who was not a political theoretician the social contract by affirming the superior excellence
and whose dilettantism was often denounced, contrib- of human ties; and opposed the idea of the milimited
uted nonetheless to giving French traditionalism its progress of the human spirit by praising the superiority
style by prominently parading the political virtues of of historical tradition. It was, indeed, in 1816 that the
loyalty and honor, and a certain form of freedom Swiss Karl Ludwig von Haller began the publication
having nothing in common with any egalitarian level- oi Restauration der Staatswissenscliaft . . . (Restoration
ling. His idea of freedom was inseparable from the of Political Philosophij) in which, basing the State on
institutions of the old regime to which, despite every- private relations and Natural Law, he tried to preserve
thing, he did not believe it possible to return. It was the patriarchal society of the old regime. However,
to this cult of the past, strengthened by historical none of these writers was connected in any way with
studies, that Lamartine, Vigny, and Hugo — all while romanticism.
they were yoimg — were attached; their cult of the past German political romanticism has to be related to
undoubtedly contrasted with the classicism which had the philosophical environment in which it arose. As
been indulgent towards the revolutionary ideology. pupils of Fichte,whose Theory of Knowledge (Wissen-
But, towards 1830, most of the romantic writers turned schaftslehre, 1794) they had read, the romantics,
to a sort of humanitarian socialism which, along with immersed in his theory of the Ego as an omnipotent
Lamennais, lamented as pitiful the sufferings of the demiurge and boimdiess principle of creation, emerged
poor and the oppression of subject nations; later it was with the conviction that destiny belongs to those supe-
the nation of the "people" which was to be the basis rior individuals who have known how to impose the
of Michelet's political philosophy, hostile to a Church law of their intellect on the external world. No moral-
which stood in the way of social emancipation and ity, religion, or limiting nile could be suitable for such
progress. Consequently, associated with the idea of the personalities: the romantic poet treats the universe in
power of the people and its justice, there developed, any way he pleases; through his irony, he makes the
during the first half of the nineteenth century in universe an ephemeral creation of his genius. Never-
France, a romanticism of the barricades. In Italy, theless the romantics recognized that this personality
without rejecting the religious principles to which it of the genius caimot tnily be formed and developed
remained attached, romanticism aspired to utilize for except by contact with other men; hence, they recom-
its own ends the liberal principles that had come out mended association with their fellow-beings, "recipro-
of the French Revolution; by appealing to past tradi- cal meditation," and a "common philosophy" as the
tions a political spirit was reawakened in the thought highest obligation of life, seeing in this "sociability"
of Manzoni and Silvio Pellico, who declared themselves the essential element of culture. Individuals, they
liberals, nationalists, and Catholics all at the same time. thought, can attain their complete fulfilment only by
It was, however, only in Germany that, despite a trying to unite. As a result, their concern with estab- 205
a
lishing "guilds of superior minds, a kind of spiritual from the physical philosophers' conceptions of "Na-
"freemasonry," emerges. And tfiey defined these forms ture, "
then being systematized bv the voung Schelling;
of sociability not only as social gatherings but also in and, on the other hand, from the pietists' secret
the form of friendship and love; this love was envisaged assemblies. In these assemblies for several years, all
as an effort to comprehend through the beloved inter- over Germany, a silent war was being waged against
mediary the reality of the universe. It is well known the philosophy of the Enlightenment and against the
how prominent a place this idealization of social rela- French Revolution which was depicted in pietist circles
tions has occupied

romantic literature, for example,
in as a "conspiracy of Enlighteners. '
But this inter-
in the poetry of Novalis or F. H. Jacobi's Woldemar pretation of the idea of the State was soon to become
(1779), or in the novel, like Friedrich Schlegel's Lu- the common property of all the romantics. It is foimd
cindc {1799). in Schlciermacher s Moiiotoaues (1800). in the Philo-
This idealization was the principal feature in the sophical Lectures delivered in Cologne by Friedrich
development of the social, political, or economic Schlegel (1804-06), and especially in Adam Miiller's
thought of the romantics. They quickly broke away Elements of the Art of Politics (1808). MuUer saw the
from the conception of human relations held by the State as "the totality of human affairs.
"
He wrote that
thinkers of the Enlightenment, whom the romantics ". . . the State is not simply a factory or a farm or
later accused of reasoning in the abstract about people an insurance company or an industrial company. It is
assumed to be reasonable by nature and inspired v\ith not an artificial organization; it is not a human inven-
their own conventional ideals of liberty and equality. tion meant for the utility or pleasure of citizens; outside
Anxious, on the one hand, to establish rules for a gen- of the state there exists nothing for the citizen."
uine "human symphony," the romantics, on the other A political philosophy was developed aroimd this
hand, accentuated every possible kind of relationship theory of the State which opposed the legacy of French
which put the individual under obligation to the group. revolutionary thought in all particulars. The romantics
It was the social "organism" which became the opposed the conviction that institutions are susceptible
predominant element of the romantics' way of reflec- to progress on the basis of their historical view which
tion. Henceforth, the State was no longer to be con- would place the golden age of humanity in the past.
sidered as a "machine" or artificial creation of the .According to them, the most profound wisdom
legislator limiting the State to police functions; instead flourished in the centuries of the Middle Ages; they
it would be considered as a "living creature" or "orga- readily opposed the modem theory of the social con-
nism" growing and developing like a plant according tract by their vindication of feudal attachments, espe-
to its own laws, without enabling the statesman to cially of chivalry, to which August-Wilhelm Schlegel
amend it by means of fallaciously conceived consti- dedicated his first works; and thev thought that their
tutions. It would be this living collective societv — idealwas realized in the court of the Holy Roman
"macro-anthropos" — whose universal would
.spirit Empire for whose restoration thev hoped, and whose
direct the energies of individuals and lead them to impressive organization tliey supported against the
participate in a common task. Since social contracts levelingand destructive tmiversalism which was the
were useless, in the eyes of the romantics, with respect outcome of the Napoleonic conquest. Their admiration
to maintaining the social structure, the result was that of medieval institutions led them to deduce that the
the State would impose itself on its citizens through Estates (Stdnde). not individuals, should be represented
sentiments of devotion, and love which it would
faith, beside the sovereign. Finally, since all forms of liberal-
instigate. Henceforth social distinctions would have to ism, as well as the industrial civilization (which was
be established on the ideas of hierarchy and obedience, coming into existence on the continent) were hostile
and thus on the privileged relationships of man to man. to them, thev opposed the free plav of business trans-
The romantic idea of the State was to make no appeal actions and exchanges; they hoped for the return of
to fear or utility, or the sovereignty of the law, but the corporative regime on the economic plane, and
did so for the mystic communion of subjects on a they vindicated land ownership which they considered
common faith with respect to the "beloved person," as "sacrosanct" because it bound the landowner ir-
or loyalty to the monarch. revocably to the soil he cultivated as an inalienable
This conception was defined for the first time by possession.
Novalis in 1798 in the periodical Annah of the Prussian As for religion, the romantics indicated their sympa-
Monarchy on the occasion of the accession to the thies for Catholicism, because in their eyes, it consti-
throne by Frederick-William III of Prussia and Queen tuted an ecumenical order; condemning the Reforma-
Louise. The ideas and the vocabulary which Novalis tion for having broken Christian unity, they hoped for
206 used on this occasion were drawn, on the one hand, the restoration of that imity in the form of a "visible
church," as a symbol of its universal mission. "Chris- Political romanticism had then to fall back on a purely
tianity," wrote Novalis in his famous essay of 1800, conservative attitude, whose principal goal was to
Christenheit oder Europa, "must be revived and make combat, in the Austrian state as well as in the Catholic
itself efficacious again. Once again, without regard for states of southern Germanv, tendencies which were
national borders, it must set up a visible church which favorable to the Enlightenment, and in particular, the
should receive any person who was in need of the last vestiges of Josephist legislation. It was around the
supernatural, and which would strive to become the Redemptorist Hofbauer in Vienna that the romantic
mediator between the old and the new world." It was circlewas concentrated, and there Friedrich Schlegel
to this Catholicism, recognized as an efficacious anti- and .^dam Muller published their last works in the
dote to revolutionary ideology, that Adam Miiller was review Concordia (1820-23). Schlegel defined what he
converted in 1805 in Vienna, and Friedrich Schlegel meant by "Christian politics," in which he opposed
in 1808 in Cologne; their conversions were followed both the practice of absolutism and modern liberalism.
by those of many of their friends. The same effort was to be attempted in the court
What was the influence of political romanticism in of the king of Bavaria, Louis I, at the new university
Napoleonic Germany? In placing the accent on the of iMunich. Here the most remarkable personality was
monarchical idea as well as on the privileges of the the philosopher Franz von Baader, who, developing
feudal governing classes, the romantics appeared to be the ideas of the romantics on society and on economics,
the best defenders of the established order. This ex- announced (precursor of Marx) that there was an
plains why they were so favorably received at the court accumulation of capital in a few hands; he insisted on
in Vienna, which portrayed itself as the champion of the necessity of the representation of the proletariat,
legitimacy; it also explains the utilization which was whose role in modern society he discerned and of
made of their doctrine in Prussian aristocratic circles whose rights the Catholic Church, according to him,
against the reforms of Hardenberg. In this respect the was the natural defender. .\s a result of the develop-
role played by Adam whose career was favored
Miiller, ment of an industrial civilization and the rise of
by von Gentz, was essential. But
his friend Friedrich liberalism, political romanticism was more and more
in standing up against revolutionary and imperial reduced to a defensive position. It is in the writings
France, romanticism also took on a national character; of the poet Josef von Eichendorff, around 1830, that
and one of Schlegel's major preoccupations was to the swan song of romanticism was heard.
create that patriotic poetry which could galvanize Victim of the raillery of Heine and of the writers
enthusiasm against the "Usurper" and his supporters. of "Young Germanv," political romanticism was soon
This nationalistic aspect of the romantic movement to fall into oblivion. Somewhat later, a Viennese
found support in the endeavors of the Heidelberg economist, Othmar Spann, was to attempt to redeem
school, gathered around the poets Arnim and Brentano, the writings of Adam Muller, precursor of Friedrich
to restore the literary national past, to revive folklore, List. The Nazis borrowed many ideas from Miiller, and
to define in the name of the people ( Volkstum) a certain they talked about his subject as "German sociology,"
ethnic commmiity cemented by lan-
or relationship the restorer of a sense of the "organic" community.
guage, costumes, beliefs, legal traditions, and popular In fact, political romanticism was out of joint with the
morality. And when the great tests of the wars of times. This monumental effort, at times perspicacious,
deliverance were to come, it would be the duty of one too often sophisticated and purely speculative, an
man of this group, Joseph Gorres, to make his journal, expression of the rancors and the terrors of a society
TJte Mercury of the Rhine, the rostrum in which would haunted by the revolutionary spectre, searched
be discussed the reorganization of Germany, conceived desperately in the memory of a glorious past for a way
as embracing all the Germanic language coimtries. to authorize the survival of its customs and privileges.
Thus the concept of the Reich as a nation was restored,
and before this Gorres thought that the dualism of the BIBLIOGRAPHY
great German powers would bow.
The principal texts have been reproduced in German by
Tied to the idea of nationalism, political romanticism
Baxa, Cesellschaft und Staat im Spiegel deutscher
would not be without influence on the theater of J.
Romantik (Jena, 1924); in English by H. S. Reiss, Tlie Politi-

Kleist, as well as on the nationalist diatribes of Arndt
cal Thought of the German Romantics 1793-1815 (Oxford,
and Jahn. Nevertheless, after the fall of Napoleon, it
1955); in French by J. Droz, Le romantisme politique en
was not the intention of Metternich, who had been Allemagne (Paris, 1963).
barely affected by the romantic movement, to allow About political romanticism, besides the analyses of F.
a political situation to develop which would lead to Meinecke in Weltbiirgertum und Nationaktaat (Munich,
the imification of the great states of Central Europe. 1909), of. P. Kluckhohn, Personlichkeit und Gemeinschaft: 207
ROMANTICISM IN POST-KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY
Studien :ur Staatsatiffassuna der deutschen Rotnantik (Halle, and stress" typified in Goethe's early work was a
1925); Crane Brinton, Politital Ideas of the English Romun- prologue to die Romantik. The poets and artists of
ticisls (Oxford. 1926); and ]. Droz. Le Rurnantis/iie allemund Schlegel's circle responded to Goethe's challenge to
et I'Etat: Resistance et collaboration dans VAIIemagne find inspiration in the plenitude of life; for them, as
napoleonienne (Paris, 1966). The best detailed study is by
for him, theorv seemed bleak in contrast to the fertility
R. Aris, Die Staatslehre Adam Midlers und ihr Verhiiltnis
of life's golden tree. The spiritual atmosphere of this
zur deutschen Rotnantik (Tiibingen, 1929).
Rotnantik corresponded to the romanticism of poets
JACQUES DROZ and novelists (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats,
[See also Enlightenment; Counter-Enlightenment; Genius;

Byron, Hawthorne, Poe, Whitman, Chateaubriand, de
Hierarchy; Nationalism; Organicism; Pietism; Revolution; Vigny, de Musset, and Hugo), of such painters as
Romanticism; Socialism; State.] Delacroix and Gericault, and of composers (Schubert
and Schumann, Berlioz and Chopin). But die Romantik,
and post-Kantian romanticism in general, was distinc-
tive in its attachment to emerging German nationalism,
glorification of medieval traditions of folk stories and
ROMANTICISM IN fairy tales, its special attention to "the voice of the
POST-KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY heart "

often heard in "forest solitude." To be sure some
of the elements in this combination of themes were
Post-Ka.ntian romanticism can be construed as a re- familiar to other romanticisms such as the gothic tra-
action against the neo-classicism and rationalism of the dition in English fiction and the worship of nature in
eighteenth-century Enlightenment, of the philosophers tlie Lake poets.
and ideologists who dominated the Eiu'opean ".'\ge of Lovejoy s conviction that the romanticism of one
Reason"; or it can be viewed as an expression of a country might have little in common with those of
recurring mood in Western culture from Hellenic civi- others echoed the judgment expressed in de Mussel's
lization to the present. Whenever men assert their Lettres de Dupuis et Cotonel in 1836. Lovejoy 's thesis
essential tmity with nature, strive for an integration has been attacked by Rene Wellek in a svmposiimi,
of their intellectual with their einotional capacities, Romanticism Reconsidered, edited by Northrop Frye
of consciousness with the imconscious, facts with in 1963. .\t the end of his essay, entitled "Romanticism
values,and seek to identify subject with object, the Re-examined," Wellek writes that, though while not
term "romantic" has been applied by themselves or "minimizing or ignoring national differences or forget-
others to those who shared this Weltanschaiiuug. ting that great writers have created something unique
However, as A. O. Lovejoy wrote, the movement and individual," it is noteworthy "that progress has
which began in Germany in the seventeen-nineties is been made not only in defining the common features
"the only one which has an indisputable title to be of Romanticism but in bringing out what is its peculi-
called liomanticism, since it invented the term for its arity or even its essence or nature: that attempt,
own use" (Essays in the Histonj of Ideas [1948], p. 235). apparently doomed to failure and abandoned by our
This is the romantic movement, die Rotnantik. of time, to identify subject and object, to reconcile man
post-Kantian cultural history. A romanticist "school," and nature, consciousness and unconsciousness."
Heine's romantische Schule. could only be foimd in Without denving the validity of Lovejoy 's di,scrim-
Jena and nearby Weimar at the end of the eighteenth inations of various romantic traditions or failing to
and begirming of the nineteenth centuries. In 1798, in recognize the significance of Wellek's so-called "Pan-
the second issue of the Athenaeum. Friedrich Schlegel Romanticism, one can agree with Francis B. Randall's
"
asserted the supremacv oi die romantische Poesie. With comment in essay, "Marx the Romantic," that
his
his brother \\'ilhelm. with Tieck, Novalis, Fichte, and "Romanticism, like other important abstract noims in
Schelhng, he established the artistic, literary, and criti- the history of culture, is not a term to be defined but
cal positions best designated die Romantik. Influenced a field to be explored" (Introduction to The Communist
bv this outlook a broader philosophical program of Manifesto, New York, 1964).
romantic idealism was developed at the newly estab- To the extent that post-Kantian romanticism was a
lished University of Berlin by Fichte, Schleiermacher, reaction, if stood in opposition less to the skepticism
Hegel, and, very briefly, Schelling, though Hegel soon and even to such occasional atheism as existed alor(g-
repudiated romanticism as inadequate. side the deism of the Enlightenment, as to the "scien-
Goethe, who had been linked to the groups in tific" modernism and rationalistic liberalism on which
Weimar and Jena, also turned from the romantic Sturm the Age of Reason prided itself. The sources of later
208 und Drang mood of his youth. The spirit of "storm romanticism were, as will be apparent, evident in the
earlier eighteenth century and, indeed, before that. It Schleiermacher's theology. .\s Holderlin's work built
is significant that three figures such as Pascal, Spinoza, a bridge from classical literature to romanticist poetry,
and Bach, neglected or even repudiated in the religion, so what Herder had absorbed of philosophical tradi-
philosophy, and music of the Age of Reason, were tions in Kant's Konigsberg lecture hall, together with
rediscovered by tlie romanticists and became cultural a vision of the possibility of human greatness derived
heroes of romanticism. from Lessing, reappeared in the speculations of
Opposition to the Enlightenment's attempts to apply Schleiermacher and Schelling as Ernst Cassirer has
the limited outlook of .scientific rationalism, first devel- shown in his Freiheit und Form and Idee und Cestalt.
oped and the arts. Art was manifestly not
in religion Another major influence in the development of
created by the mere application of mechanical rules, romanticist ideas, particularly in the works of Schel-
as a narrow classical formulation might suggest, nor ling, was Franz Baader whose enthusiasm for the doc-
could religious values be construed as the products of trines of Jacob Boehme and for those of Herder's friend
a restricted empiricism. Romanticism proclaimed the Johann Georg Haniann was transmitted to Schelling
primacy of humane interests, of man's emotional and and into the mainstream of German romanticism. Their
passionate nature and of the spirit of free imagination preoccupation with the nature of evil became a part
in all creative activity. Such emphases yielded great of romanticist Weltsehmerz. Echoes of this melancholy
achievements in the arts. In the history of ideas the may be heard in Heinrich von Kleist, Tieck, and
group led by Friedrich Schlegel sought to develop a Novalis as well as in Byron and Baudelaire, Leopardi
philosophy of romantic idealism by using the values and Lermontov, and in Schopenhauer's pessimism.
of human freedom as a key to unlock the innermost A more generally recognized influence in the devel-
secrets of man's nature and to open up an under- opment of ideas associated with romanticism came
standing of all nature more adequate than the theories from Rousseau and affected not only those who would
of eighteenth-century mechanistic science. Kant had by any standard be recognized by romanticists but also
been concerned to overcome doubts raised by Hume others who repudiated such designation — Goethe, for
and Holbach, by the skepticism and atheism of the example, Hegel and, later, Nietzsche. As Cassirer has
Enlightenment. The post-Kantians undertook the more demonstrated in Rousseau, Kant and Goethe, it was,
arduous task of creating a new Weltanschauung which in the first instance, the somewhat surprising fact,
would offset the established world views of Newton surprising in view of obvious temperamental differ-
and Locke. Claiming to build on Kant's achievements, ences, that Kant was pow erfiilly attracted to Rousseau's
the post-Kantian romanticists drew useful suggestions writings, particularly to his psychological observations,
for theirviews and visions from traditions of Platonisni which impressed not only Goethe but also the succes-
and Neo-Platonism, doctrines of medieval alchemists sion of post-Kantian romanticist philosophers.
such as Paracelsus, mystics, notably Jacob Boehme, and Johann Gottlieb Fichte was, as noted, for a time a
aspects of the philosophies of Spinoza and Leibniz member of the group surrounding Schlegel in Jena. He
largely neglected during the eighteenth century. formulated an ethic and social philosophy in which the
Johann Gottfried von Herder, whom J.
H. Randall idea of Freedom was central and sounded the note of
has called the 'first German Romanticist "
(T}ie Career "egoism" which George Santayana found characteristic
of Philosophy [1965], II, 103) was a friend of Goethe's of German philosophy. Fichte held the vocation of man
who brought him to Weimar to be court preacher. In to be the creation of a moral order in which essential
Weimar, Herder became a member of the literary human rights and duties could be fully exercised. True
circle which surrounded Goethe and which included individuality and personality were to be attained only
Schiller and the latter's protege Holderlin. The prox- in a nation in which man engaged in a constant struggle
imity of Weimar to Jena and its group of romanticists towards unattainable goals. In the First Introduction
made Herder's influence readily available in both to his Wissenschaftslehre (1797), Fichte asserts that
places. Herder, writes Randall, "hated reason; ... he action, not mere knowledge, is primary in the fulfill-
loved feeling and sentiment and the primitive, folk- ment of human destiny. However Fichte also calls upon
songs and the poetry that coming from the people men to turn their attention inward towards their
expresses the soul of the race." These ideas Herder had innermost selves. This self contemplation, intellektuelle
formulated in his Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte Anschauung, is a prime source of that romanticist irony
der Menschheit (1784-91), while in Ckitt, einige which characterized the literature of die Romantik, an
Gesprdche (1787), he had developed his views on reli- awareness of the inevitable disparity between aspira-
gion, largely derived from his reading of Spinoza, tion and realization.
which became a major influence on romanticist philos- The writings of Friedrich Schleiermacher, particu-
ophy, notably in the metaphysics of Schelling and in larly his Reden uber die Religion (1799) and Monologen 209
(1800), provide a fully articulated romanticist philoso- traditions,on Bruno and Boehme and Hamann, Spinoza
phy of religion. Drawing on his own pietistic back- and Leibniz, as well as on his contemporaries and
ground, Schleiermacher devoted himself as scholar, collaborators among the poets and artists of die
preacher, and theologian to the formulation of ideas Romimtik. He used these influences with imaginative
to which the poets of die Romantik had given artistic independence and developed his thought in a series
expression. A sense of infinity and eternalitv, receptiv- of systematic doctrines variously designated \atur-
ity to diversity of cultures and variety of artistic expe- philosophie, Identitaisphilosophie. and Transcendentale
rience, free individuality in a liberated humanity Idealismiis, culminating in the posthumously published
providing the fullest development of the potentialities Philosophie der Mythologie und Offenharung. Under
of personality, such v\'ere the recurring themes of whatever title, his views encompassed the romanticist
Schleiermacher's works. ideas of individuality, freedom and creativity, and an
Holderlin, Hegel, and Schelling, schoolmates at the intense, quasi-religious devotion to the values of per-
Tubingen seminary, had joined their friends in dancing sonality. Schelling shared Hegel's interest in logic and
around a "freedom tree" when they received news of histor\' but gave particular emphasis to a view of Na-
the fall of the Bastille. Holderlin became the greatest ture as the unity which made intelligible the diversities
poet of die Roniantik. but his major contribution to encountered in experience, a view which sought to take
the history of ideas is to be foimd in his influence on account of the evil and irrational elements in concrete
Hegel and Schelling. The centrality of Hellenic ideas existence. Drawing on Spinoza and developing an
in Hegel's social philosophy and the predominant aes- evolutionarv conception which had been outlined by
thetic elements in Schelling s thought give evidence Herder, Schelling more than any other romanticist thus
of Holderhn's pervasive influence on his friends. espoused positions which attracted philosophical poets
Though the themes of freedom, self-
romanticist and men of letters, notably Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
determination, and creativity remained central in Thomas Carlyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Edgar
Hegel's philosophic system he, like Goethe, repudiated Allan Poe (Eureka). Supplementing residual overtones
romantic emotionalism. He developed a logic in which derived from Schopenhauer's influence, Emerson
freedom was subject to law, individuality was attained evoked romanticist elements in the work of Friedrich
in relatedness, and creativity was to be understood in Nietzsche. Schelling also anticipated important aspects
the context of cultural processes. In Hegel's Faustian of later evolutionary philosophers including Henri
quest for totality he sought a systematic intellectual Bergson, Samuel .\lexander, a suggestion of Schelling's
comprehensiveness such as Holderlin and the other influence in .American pragmatism. Charles Sanders
poets of die Romantik had endeavored to realize in Peirce in a letter cited by R. B. Perry in Thought and
art. With an imagination equal in its way to that of Character of William James (11, 415-16) wrote: "I
the poets, Hegel attempted a rational formulation of consider Schelling as enormous" and "If you were to
all "Reahty "
through a "logic of passion" applied to call my philosophy Schellingism transformed in the
the data of history. Many of Hegel's followers, includ- light of modem physics, I should not take it hard."
ing so-called left-v\'ing Hegelians, were permeated by John Dewev recognized in Schelling anticipations of
the spirit of romantic ideahsm; even the materialism his own emphasis on the pervasive significance of
of Karl Marx remains romanticist insofar as Marx sees artistic experience. That contemporary existentialism
man's essence in creative activity which is negated by owes much to Schelling is especiall)' evident in the
misdirected passion linked to greed. writings of Martin Heidegger and Paul Tillich.
Hegel attempted to escape from the romanticists'
problem of deriving the rich variety and multiplicity
BIBLIOGRAFHY
of existence from a primal unity by positing a unity
which was itself a system of particulars. Though Hegel In addition to works by Cassirer, Lovejoy, and others cited
asserted that he had attained this view by transcending above, the following books can be consulted. Jacques
the philosophical romanticism which he had, in youth-

Barzun, Classic, Romantic and Modem (New York, 1961),
a revised and enlarged version of the author's Romanticism
ful collaboration, shared with Schelling, the latter
and the Modern Ego (Boston, 1943), a comprehensive study
claimed throughout his long career that he had antici-
of romanticist achievement and critical commentary. Rudolf
pated Hegel's ideas without repudiating their romanti-
Haym, Die romantische Schute (Berlin, 1870; rev. ed.
cist implications. Schelling is the most explicitly ro-
Tubingen, 1960), remains valuable as a presentation of
mantic of the post-Kantian idealists, "the prince of the nineteenth-cenlur\' views and bibliography. Nicolai Hart-
romanticists, Royce called him. Beginning
" as Josiah mann. Die Philosophie des deutschen Idealisinus. 2nd ed.
as a Kantian with marked Fichtean overtones, he drew I is devoted to Fichte, Schelling, and
(Berlin, 1960). Part
210 consciously on Neo-Platonic and medieval German die Romantik. See also Ricarda Huch, Die Romantik
SATIRE
(Leipzig. 1908); H. A. Korff, Humanismus und Romantik attempts to manage and use a fundamental attitude
(Leipzig, 1924); H. G. Schenk, The Mind of the European or human energy which is nakedly open in the crudest
Romanticists (London, 1966), with an introduction by Isaiah satire and is still expressed in some fairly direct form
Berhn; Waher Silz, Early German Romanticism, Its Foun- in even the most polished literary satires. Juvenal's Si
ders and Heinrich von Kleist (Cambridge, Mass., 1929);
natura negat, facit indiffiatio versum ("Though nature
L. A. Willoughby, The Romantic Movement in Germany,
says no, indignation shapes mv poetrv"; I, 79) reveals
2nd ed. (New York, 1966).
precisely that quality of fury and outrage which drives
For Enghsh translations of post-Kantian romanticists, see:
most satire. The desire to attack and overwhelm those
J.
G. Fichte, The Vocation of Man, ed. Roderick M.
Chisholm (New York. 1956); F. Schleierniacher, iioliloquies, things which are hated and feared, for whatever reason,
ed. Horace Leland Friess (Chicago, 1926); F. ScheUing. The comes through openly in Swift's "Drown the world!
Ages of the World, ed. Frederick deW'olfe Bolman. Jr. (New I am not content with despising it, but I would anger
York, 1942), and idem. Of Human Freedom, ed. James it, if I could with safety" (Letter to Pope, Nov. 26,
Gutmann (Chicago, 1936). 1725). It is there in Pope's "strong .Antipathy of Good
JAMES GUTMANN to Bad" (Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue U [1738],
198), and in John Marston's "I cannot chuse but bite"
[See also Enlightenment; E.xistentialism; Hegelian
(The Scourge of Villanie [1598], Satire VIII). Even
. . .
;
Nationalism; Nature; Platonism; Pragmatism; Romanticism;

when the hostility is not openly expressed, it is latent
Skepticism.]
in the ugly ways in which satire characteristically
presents its victims, and in the imagery traditionally
associated with the satiric attack: biting, flaying,
throwing acid, whipping, administering purgatives, and
anatomizing. In those works where the author creates
SATIRE a character embodying the pure satiric impulse and
develops the logic of this attitude to its absurd but
Aristotle speaks in his Poetics of a kind of poetry revealing extreme, the satiric figure ends isolated from
(iambics) which portrays "the actions of inferior men" society, hating all that man does and is. Shakespeare's
(IV, 9), but the word satura (originally an adjective Timon retires naked to the desert to curse man and
meaning "mrxed" or "of various composition") and the nature, to intrigue against Athens, and finally to kill
conception of satire as a definite type of poetry with himself; Gulliver goes to live in the stable, preferring
a definable style first appears in Rome in the first the company of horses to that of men; .Moliere's Alceste
century b.c, most importantly in the writings of in Le Misanthrope leaves Paris, and the vital though
Horace. When the first-century a.d. rhetorician morally imperfect Celimene, for that "wild, trackless,
Quintilian writes, Satura . . . tota nostra est ("Rome is solitary place, "where he can "forget the human race ";
preeminent in satire," Institutio oratoria, X, 93), he and Tod Hackett, the satiric painter in Nathanael
means, however, to claim Roman superiority only in West's The Day of the Locust (1939), ends broken and
that kind of satiric writing now known as formal verse insane, wailing like a siren to announce all the disasters
satire — a collection of short verse
satires in which the past and to come.
satirist directly and denounces a variety of men
attacks Such direct and indirect revelations of motive permit
—
and practices written first by Lucilius, refined and us to see the relationship of sophisticated literary satires
stabilized by Horace, and further developed by Juvenal to cruder, more same power
direct expressions of the
and Persius. The word "satire" has come, however, to in primitive satiric spellsand curses used to banish and
be the general term for any kind of writing which destroy tlie dark forces, human and natural, which
attacks, directly or indirectly, something which is hated threaten the well-being of the community. In pre-
or feared. In one direction the word expands into the classical Greece, satire was used in various early fertil-
adjective "satiric," vaguely referring to any slightly ity rituals to invoke the good and banish evil through
muted expression of hostility; and in the other direction the imperative magic of the curse. Among the .\rabian
it narrows to a particular literary genre or mvth, like tribes the satirist rode in the van of the army hurling
comedy, tragedy, and epic, with a characteristic subject curses like spears at the enemies before him. The an-
matter, style, and structure. As a genre, it should be cient Irish satirists, of whom particularly full records
distinguished from the perspectives or modes lyric, — exist, not only were capable of dealing with commimity
narrative, and dramatic —
through which it is variously problems by means of satiric spells but were credited,
presented. down to the seventeenth century, with the ability to
The history of satire from its primitive beginnings perform such useful but humble tasks as rhyming rats
to its highest levels of development is a series of to death. 211
—
SATIRE
This use of language like a fist and the behef in the Another Irish story. The Great Visitation to Guaire,
power of tJie curse have never died. Anthropologists suggests the way in which society has curbed and
describe shame-cultures in which public ridicule will channeled the power of satire. The satirist Dalian
cause a man to retire to his and we house and die. demands from King Hugh a magic shield which makes
hear of flyting contests in which two opponents stand weak all those who look upon it. Hugh refuses to part
and hurl insults at one another imtil the weaker is with his most precious possession, and Dalian then
overwhelmed by sheer vituperation. The crude ener- proceeds to curse (satirize) him. But since the curse
gies of satire are present even in what Benjamin of Dalian is unjust, used only for personal profit, and
DeMott ("The .\ge of Overkill." New York Times Mag- without truth, it rebounds on the satirist, and Dalian
azine, Mav 19. 1968) has called "the mindless cycle dies within three davs, while King Hugh continues to
of super taunts" so characteristic of our own time of live and prosper. The point is clear: satire is required
"habitual irascibility" when — like the generals who to be both just and tnie if it is to work; if untme. it
build enough weapons to kill every human being three harms the man who speaks it. The same requirement
times over — men use the language of overkill: hundred- is imposed in legal terms in the Roman libel laws and
megaton weapons like, "The white race is the

dirty in the prohibition against Greek Old Comedy and its
cancer of history, "The family is the .American fas-

'
scurrilous attacks in the plays of Aristophanes on such
cism." and, repeated like a primitive chant, "The mid- historical figures as Socrates and Euripides.
dle class are just like pigs." Perhaps because our documents are from a period
Magical spells, incantations, curses, invective, when the process was far advanced, it is as impossible
lampoons, verbal overkill, and the language of hard- to trace exactly the steps by which curses were trans-
attack are not satire, in the sense that the word is formed into literary satire as it is to trace the parallel
ordinarily used, but rather the substratum of satire, the socialand psychological movement in which education,
world of verbal anger and violence which always exists and the other powers of society gradually
religion, law,
in a multitude of extra-literary forms just beyond the exerted some degree of control and restraint on human
edges of art. Civilized societies, while aware of the aggression in general. Both patterns are complicated
usefulness of invective and curse, have always been enormously, of course, by frequent regressions of such
nervouslv alert to the dangers of uncontrolled aggres- severity as to make it doubtful if there has been any
siveness and unchained furv such as can still be felt change at all. But despite such slippages, satire has
in the curse of the Greek satirist Archilochus (seventh evolved from curse to art. and many of the devices
century B.C.) on one of his enemies: "Shivering with and techniques which we take to be characteristic of
cold, covered with filth washed up by the sea, with the genre function not merely to hide but to justify
chattering teeth like a dog, may he lie helplessly on and make socially acceptable and useful the enormous
his face at the edge of the strand amidst the breakers powers of militant anger.
this 'tis my wish to see him suffer, who has trodden Most obviously the authors of satire have accepted,
his oaths underfoot, him who was once my friend" though often with tongue in cheek, the requirement
(Strassburg frag., 97A). Beyond this, there remains that their attacks be true. Every satirist endeavors to
always the danger that the satirist instead of employing persuade in some manner that he has along with Pope
his skills for the good of the commimity may use them "stoop'd to truth, and moralized his song" (Epistle to
for such personal ends as Archilochus did when he Dr. Arbuthnot, line 341); that he is with Byron a
cursed King Lycambes and his daughter, causing them "Columbus of the moral seas '
who will "show mankind
to hang themselves, simplv because he had been denied their Soul's antipodes" (Don Juan, XIV. line 101); that
the hand of the princess. This same arbitrary use of his subject is with Juvenal quidquid agunt homines
satiric power appears in a mmiber of Irish stories about ("the thingsmen do." 1, 85); and that he deals like
groups of satirists who descend upon a kingdom and Ben Jonson only in "deeds, and language, such as men
make outrageous demands for food, money, and doe use" (Every Man In, Prologue, 21). Despite the
women. If their requests are denied they blight the obvious exaggeration characteristic of the genre, satire
king and his land with their curses. Even when the makes extensive use of an elaborate apparatus of
anger is controlled and the attack directed at a socially verisimilitude —
maps are drawn, street names given,
sanctioned target, satire still continues to generate genealogies drawn up, fantastic objects precisely named
considerable imeasiness because it seems always to go —
and described and solemn assurance is offered that
too far. An upon a corrupt lawyer becomes
attack the language is plain and simple like the subject, that
inevitably an attack upon the law itself; an attack upon truth replaces style because the satirist is only a
excessive authority grows into a questioning of the very reporter of things that are. "Shocking though it may
212 principle of authority. seem," the satirist is always saying, "this is the way
—
SATIRE
the world truly is," and he then proves his point by variants of the standard type of ironic satirist brought
shifting from denunciation to description or pres- to perfection by .\lexander Pope in his Epistle to Dr.
entation of idiocy and vice in all their remarkable Arbuthnot. Imitations of Horace, and the two dialogues
plenitude. of the Epilogue to the Satires. In these works he care-
This shift from denunciation to presentation, the fully constructs a charming picture of a modest and
removal of the emphasis from the attacker to the thing gentle "Pope" raised in innocence by kind and harmless
attacked, though it has not taken place steadily and parents, retiring from the world, mildly accepting
evenly, is still the most prominent line of development insults, until at last he is driven, reluctantly, into reply-
inWestern satire, and the major way in which satirists ing to his enemies. "Fools rush into my Head, and so
have met the social requirement that any display of I write" (Imitation of "The First Satire of the Second
aggression be based on truth. In Roman satura the Book of Horace," line 14).
attack is managed by a speaker who denounces directly The gap between author and satirist implicit in the
the foolish and vicious world; and while it is possible elaboration of fictitious personae in formal verse satire
to argue that the speaker is not Horace or Juvenal grows wider in those narrative and dramatic works
but a persona designed for the satiric purpose, the where the author disappears and the satirist becomes
effect is still to locate, despite all protestations of a character in his own right, responsible for the attack
objectivity, the point of view in the speaker himself, and for any unpleasantness that may be associated with
and thereby to force on him sole responsibilitv for the it. Such a figure may be either an ironic simpleton like
attack. The charge that the fault lies not in a corrupt Folly in Erasmus' Praise of Folhj. Voltaire's Candide,
world but in the intemperate character of the satirist or Joseph Heller's Yossarian in Catch-22; or he may
was met in part in satura bv portraying him in as be a hard attacker like Shakespeare's Thersites in
favorable a light as possible — the mild, tolerant, Troilus and Cressida. Ben Jonson's Macilente in Every
amused "Horace" example and was
is the best — Man Out of His Humour, or Alceste in Moliere's Le
handled in Renaissance England by the construction Misanthrope.
of a standard persona that the satiric poet was expected The master of the fictitious satirist is, however,
to assume. Elaborating an old false etymology which Jonathan Swift, who seems to have played all possible
derived "satire" from "satyr," the Elizabethans con- turns on the device. His regular method is to construct
structed a satyr-satirist who incorporated all the traits a satirist who attacks effectively some aspect of human
thought appropriate to these rough, woodland gods and folly, as Gulliver attacks human pride, as the political
all the traditionally feared psychic qualities underlying economist in A Modest Proposal attacks the wasteful
uncontrolled attack: sadism, brutality, uncontrolled economic practices of the English in Ireland, or as the
anger, prurience, envy, frustration, and imbalance. amateur scientist in The Mechanical Operation of the
Under the cover of this persona several generations of Spirit attacks religious dissent and enthusiasm. But as
English satirists — chiefly Joseph Hall, Virgidemiarttm the attack proceeds, the satirist gradually reveals him-
(1597-98), and John Marston, The Scourge of Villanie self as being at least as foolish and wicked as his vic-
(1598-99) — were able to attack and the the social ills tims. Usually he is guilty of the same sins in a more
follies of Renaissance Englishmen with a savagery and intense, unsuspected way: Gulliver the misanthrope
violence which would ordinarily be unacceptable. Isaac living with horses is supremely proud and stupid, the
Casaubon gave the true etymology of "satire" in his "Modest Proposer" who plans to reduce the Irish pop-
De satyrica Graecorum poesi et Romanorum satira ulation and provide needed income by selling babies
(1605), but it was not generally understood and for meat is more cruel and inhumane in his science
accepted until nearly a century later. than the English in their indiflêrence, and the fellow
The more usual way, however, of handling the prob- of the Royal Society is more mechanical and lacking
lem of the satirist has been to portray him as a simple, in true spirit than the poor fanatics he castigates.
ordinary, humble figure who would never dream of Swift's method for handling the satirist merges with
doing anything so unpleasant as writing satire if the that variety of satire where the satirist disappears
wickedness and stupidity of the world were not so altogether, and the fools and dunces are simply pre-
overwhelming as to make it inescapably necessary. The sented in the fullness of idiocy. This type of satire
prophet come down from the hills to the wicked cities sometimes called Menippean or Varronian, but more
of the plains, the gawky medieval plowman stubbornly aptly called "situational satire by Ricardo Quintana
"
and quietly speaking tnith, the simple scholar nurtured existed side by side with first-person satire from the
at the vmiversity experiencing the big world for the beginning, and has gradually become the dominant
first time, the fool too irmocent to know that men do satiric method. Its chief virtue in accommodating satire
not speak of what is plain for all to see; these are all to the restrictions placed by society on the display of 213
SATIRE
anger is, of course, that it permits the author to retire sions of the present. Mock fairy tale, pastoral, epic,
altogether from the comhat and leave the stage to fools and other inverted forms are common satiric strategies.
who convict themselves in words and actions, as do In the very greatest satire the moral standard is em-
the advocates of war and sophistry in Aristophanes' bedded in the texture of the work itself. The meaning-
plays, the vulgar merchant Trimalchio in The Satyricon ful and which the fools are per\erting, is
real world,
of Petronius, the philosophers in Lucian's satires, the always present imagery of Ben Jonsons satiric
in the
greedv dreamers Jonsons Alchemist, the dunces of
in pla\s, in the steady, even, balanced couplets of Dryden
Pope's Dunciad. George III and Southev in Bvron's and Pope, and in the endless onward flow of verse and
Vision of Judgment, the pompous, mviddle-headed events in Byron's Don Juan.
Englishmen of Evelyn Waugh's satiric novels. It has been proposed that the most inventive and
The attempt to displace the responsibility for satiric effective satire is written in times when the satirist is
anger and attack has been paralleled by the develop- in real danger for his attacks. While it is not at all
ment of other techniques for making satire socially certain that the quality of satire increases directly with
acceptable. Society, while demanding that charges be the intensity of political, literary, and ethical censor-
true, has also continued to insist that the expression ship, there is no question that the history of satire and
of anger be limited in intensity, qualified in some the development of some of its most prominent char-
manner, and that it be released only for specified rea- acteristics can be imderstood as an uneven but contin-
sons on sanctioned occasions. Freud perceived that uing process of making anger and attack morally and
aggression is acceptable when expressed indirectly in socially acceptable. It would be a mistake to think,
the form of a joke, and wit has been the principal however, that the many techniques used to accomplish
means by which satire has made itself respectable. The thisend are mere disguises or concealments of human
presence of wit in the midst of anger and attack per- aggressiveness; rather, the aggressiveness has been
haps signals that the violent emotions are still under shaped, ordered, and transformed into more meaningful
control, restrained and organized by the rational and useful forms.
faculties, tempered bv some self-awareness. Wit, in But the history of satire can be viewed in another
Dryden's terms, is the "difference betwixt the slovenly way, contradictory at first but ultimately comple-
butchering of a man, and the fineness of a stroke that mentary. In the great continuing line of Western
separates the head from the body, and leaves it standing literary satire extending from .\ristophanes, through
in its place" {Essay on Satire, 1693), and no literary the Roman and the great French and English neo-
kind shows the exercise of such persistent ingenuity classical satirists, to such moderns as Brecht, Huxley,
in honing its cutting edge as satire. Wit, construed not Waugh, Orwell, and lonesco, the attack has been
just ashumor, but as cleverness, ingenuity, and style, directed at a great variety of men, ways of thought,
appears most obviously in the persistent efforts of and institutions. Aristophanes attacks the war party of
satirists to find a clever strategy, an imusual and sur- Athens and the new sophistr\ ; Horace slyly mocks the
prising angle of attack. Diatribe and denunciation are frenzied busyness of the Roman status seekers; Juvenal
avoided in favor of such devices as beast fables, letters thundersat the corrupting influences of Asiatic customs
of obscure men, ships of fools, presentations of fantastic and luxury on the simple virtues of old republican
schemes, praise of the ridiculous, attempts to enter Rome; uncounted numbers of medieval satirists cata-
Heaven, trips through a looking-gla.ss, auctions of logue the foulness ofwomen and the abominations of
philosophers, and anti-utopias. a corrupt clergy; Ben Jonson attacks Renaissance ma-
When Byron admits that "One should not rail without terialism and the humanistic dream of the unlimited
a decent cause" {Don Juan, II, line 119), he speaks for powers of man; Swift reveals the dreadful truth be-
all satirists who have accepted society's view that neath unrealistic beliefs in the goodness of human
attack must be limited to those men and practices nature and the inevitability of scientific progress;
which are dangerous and evil by generally accepted Voltaire follows to its end the remarkable belief
bitter
standards. Satirists have thus been forced to prove that that this is the best of all Byron exposes
possible worlds;
their specific targets are indeed evil. This has been done the lifelessness and stupidity which underlie the bright
in the crudest way by delivering a sermon on wicked- surface of the early nineteenth-century establishment;
ness, as Juvenal frequently does, or it has been managed Gogol tracks the callous indifference to humanity and
by forcing the fools to condemn themselves from their the mechanical set of mind in Russian officialdom and
own mouths and bring about evil results by their ac- society; Huxley holds up to contempt the views of
tions. The required moral standard has been invoked modern sociology and science which seek Utopia but
frequently as a lost age of innocence or departed create a hell; Orwell reveals the terror implicit in
214 grandeur mocked by the ghastly and ludicrous preten- totalitarian, dictatorial government; and lonesco makes
"
SATIRE
manifest the herd instinct, the savagery, and the stu- XV, Swift's Modest Proposal, Byron's Don Juan, and
pidity on which middle-class life and institutions rest. Waugh's Black Mischief).
On the surface, the objects of satire's attacks have Traditional human relationships and the forms in
heen wide and various, but beneath the variety a re- which they are expressed become perverse and gro-
markably similar world takes shape. The old gods of tesque. The family in Jonson's Volpone takes the gro-
light and order die, and their places are taken by idols: tesque form of Volpone's household in which the
Horace's Priapus (I, 8), the st\ipid deities of Lucian's "children "
are a dwarf, hermaphrodite, and eunuch,
Icaromenippus, Golding's Lord of the Flies. The sacred begotten in drunkenness on street beggars and kept
places are defiled: Jerome's description of the use of only for amusement. Eating becomes gluttony, and the
Christ's birthplace for an assignation; the rites per- banquet turns into the orgy of vulgarity at Trimalchio's
verted: the ceremonies ofbona dea transformed to an in Petronius' Tlie Satyricon. Love becomes the cynical
orgy in Juvenal's Satire VI; theology becomes a bargains of Lucian's Dialogues of the Heterae, marriage
mockery: Swift's argument against the abolishment of the opportimity for adultery of William Wycherly's
(>hristianitv; pietv a preten.se: iMoliere's Tartuffe. His- Plain Dealer, and sex the ugly perversity of Juvenal's
tory becomes a record of futilit\' and loss in the in- pathic angrily protesting the immorality of the rich
verted translatio sttidii in Book III of The Dunciad man who has tired of him and cast him off.
where ignorance rather than light moves across the Human institutions and the arts, originally designed
world from east to west; the past is lost forever in the to further life and preserve human values, turn sour
colossal "dream dump of Nathanael West's Day of
'
and become instruments of tyranny and means to deso-
the Locust, where the record of human struggle and lation. In satire, law is the stupid, self-satisfied lawyers
courage is reduced to the artificiality of Hollywood and cruel judges of Daumier; government is the rule
sets jumbled together in meaningless chaos. of Orwell's Big Brother; education is Waugh's Scone
The scene of nature darkens and the peaceable king- College, Oxon., and Llanabba Hall of Dr. .\ugustus
dom gives way to the ravaged German countryside of Fagan, Ph.D.; is the alchemy
science of Jonson's
Voltaire's Candide. the fetid jungle where life abounds projectors, theschemes of Swift's pedants, and the
without meaning in which Tony Last wanders at the inhumanity of Huxley's Brave New World. Learning
end of Waugh's Handful of Dust, or the imiversal becomes the organized ignorance of Swift's Laputa,
darkness covering all at the end of The Dunciad. The the uselessness of Lucian's philosophers in Sale of Lives,
innocent lamb and the gentle ox are replaced by the sophistics of Aristophanes' Socrates; language the
Brecht's shark with its pretty teeth, lonesco's thunder- instrument of pretense used to mask the idiocy of Pope's
ing hippopotamus, Jonson's flesh-fly buzzing aroimd the Dunces, the Newspeak of 1984, the means to domina-
dying fox, and, most terrible of all, the Yahoo. tion of lonesco's The Lesson.
The City of Man ceases to be the emblem of com- The traditional architectonics, the ways in which the
munity and art, and becomes the polyglot confusion images of satire are organized and their dynamics
of Juvenal's second-century Rome; the savage, shown, underline the disorderliness, the perversity, the
dangerous, unlighted London of John Gay's Trivia sterility, and the meaninglessness inherent in the com-
(1716); James Thomson's "City of Dreadful Night" ponents of the satiric world. In keeping with the origi-
( 1874); the garbage-strewn, decaying, tyrannically ruled nal meaning of the word satura, satire usually lacks
metropolis of George Orwell's 1984. The men of this a even development and an obviously
consistent,
city no longer assemble for traditional purposes but harmonic arrangement of parts. Both first-person
gather in gangs for pillage as in Henry Fielding's formal and third-person narrative satire consists of
Jonathan Wild (1743), or swirl about, violently and flickering vignettes, a series of brief, seemingly vm-
mobs like the aimless, chatter-
mindlessly, in anarchic related scenes. This newsreel technique of rapid, abrupt
ing crowd of The Dunciad or the excitement-.seekers shifts intensifies the already powerful tendencies to
who coagulate before Kahns Persian Palace in the fragmentation and meaninglessness.
Hollywood of West's Datj of the Locust. In quieter This characteristic broken scene of satire is seldom
moments, men move mechanically through grotesque if ever dominated by a single heroic figure, or even
rituals such as the Lilliputian "leaping and creeping, by a limited central cast, as is the case in comedy or
or they pass bored and filled with ennui through the tragedy. Where one figure does occupy the limelight
empty requirements of society in the country seat of more than others, he is likely to be either the satirist
the Amundevilles in Don Juan. In this fragmented and himself railing on the wicked world, or, more often,
meaningless world, every man's hand is ultimately a booby hero (Voltaire's Candide, Swift's Gulliver, or
set against his fellow, and this relentless antagonism Waugh's Paul Pennyfeather), innocent, trusting, and
frequently culminates in cannibalism (Juvenal's Satire utterly ignorant, to whom the most dreadful things 215
SATIRE
happen during the course of his travels. Satire does varving degrees, the same traditional symbols — the
not, however, ordinarily focus on the private, individ- jungle, the wasteland, the mob, the machine, and the
ual life, and so it gives us not a hero but a great variety beast. They also use certain structiu'al devices — the
of diverse people, verv lightly sketched, who have in fragmented scene, the multiplicity of characters and
common onlv a shared kind of grotesque idiocy, which things, the reflexive or regressive plot. At the surface
is busilv at work destroying all sense and meaning. The of their satires, of course, they are blaming and attack-
human litter of the satiric world is paired with a litter ing identifiable men and specific attitudes — Cardinal
of inanimate objects, and the satiric world is crammed Wolsey, luban and court life, Colley Gibber, Victorian
to the bursting point with dense numbers of unrelated prudery, modern science, and Stalinism. The strategy
things. If in the midst of this jumble any trace of the is extremely clever and effective, for by identifying
good or the ideal remains, it stands upon the edge of thesemen and attitudes with the images of fear and
obliteration, finds itself utterly helpless and frustrated, by making them responsible for the great archetypal
or, despairing, allows itself to dissolve into the mob situations of hopelessness and meaninglessness, the
or takes its place in the empty, mechanical movements satirist condemns his victims utterly. But in the long
of life. rim, the historical and realistic content of satire may
Satire is usually said to lack plot, and it does not, tend to be forgotten, and we may continue to read
indeed, in its abnipt, disjunct movements have the the great satires not for what they tell us about the
steady Aristotelian from a beginning,
progression Rome England of Walpole and
of the Caesars or the
through a middle, to an end, which is usual in tragedy Castlereagh, but for what they tell us about our most
and comedv. But something does happen in satire: fundamental fears as men; about what kind of world
usuallv all the busy efforts and frantic activities of the is ultimately unliveable for true human beings. At this
fools eventuate in a regression, or the pure confusion level, in a way appropriate to this most ironic of
implicit in their local activities. They rush madly literary kinds, satire the engine of anger and hatred
about, scheme, plan, talk, and cover great distances, ceases to be divisive and frightening and becomes
only to end in the same place they began. They make instead a source of unification and comfort, which tells
titanic efforts to raise themselves to godhead and over- us that beneath the hatreds and antagonisms of the
come the limits inherent in nature, only to end lower moment all men ultimately are afraid of the same
than they started. They spread over all creation and things.
master everything, onlv to reduce everything to noth-
ing. The inevitability of their defeat and the scheme
BIBLIOGRAPHY
of the satiric plot is contained in the projects they
pursue; alchemv, the invention of a perpetual motion Roman satura is discussed most recently and completely
machine, or the creation of utopia. in Satire, Critical Essays on Roman Literature, ed. J.
P.
The diabolic logic of the satiric world, where one Sullivan (Bloomington, Ind., 1963). The nature of formal
verse satireis detailed by M. C. Randolph, "The
Structural
must always run faster to stay in the same place, is
Design of Formal Verse Satire," Philosophical Quarterly, 21
revealed in the great irony at the center of a recent
(1942), 368-84. See also M. C. Randolph, "Celtic Smiths
American satire, Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (1961). In
and Satirists: Partners in Sorcery," English Literary History,
this bomber pilot requests the flight surgeon
novel the
8 (1941). 127-59, for the relation of magic to the violent
to ground him for psychological reasons. The doctor metaphors used by the satirist to describe his art. Primitive
points out, however, that as long as he continues flying satire and its development into art are the subject of R. C.
and risking his war he is, indeed,
life in this insane Elliott, The Potver of Satire: Magic, Ritual, Art (Princeton,
crazy and should be grounded. However, the fact that 1960), the single most important book on the subject of
he is now here,
trying to escape and save his life, proves satire, and one to which this article is heavily indebted.
his sanity, and he is therefore capable of continuing The gradual shift of emphasis from the satirist to the
object of attack has been traced in great detail in two recent
to fly. Returned to duty!
books, which provide the most useful and complete history
All writers of satire, whatever their particular bias,
of Western Ronald Paulson, Tlie
literary satire available:
ultimatelv fear and attack, and by attacking seek to
and idem. Satire and
Fictions of Satire (Baltimore, 1967);
exorcise the fragmentation, disorder, isolation, and
the Novel in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven,
meaninglessness which have historically been sensed
1967). The most useful single work on the nature of third-
by the Western mind as the great threats to the con- person narrative satire is Ricardo Quintana, "Situation as
tinuity of society and the welfare of the individual. Satirical Method," University of Toronto Quarterly, 17
The magician satirist, the author of the great literary (1947-48), 130-36.
satires, and even the verbal overkiller of our own time, The history and development of satyr-satire is followed
216 all fear and attack the same things, and all use, in in A. B. Kernan, The Cankered Muse, Satire of the English
SENSIBILITY AND SENTIMENT, VICTORIAN
Renaissance (New Haven, 1959). The Pope persona and the It is one can speak of a Victorian
in this sense that
general question of satiric personae are treated in Maynard sensibility and Victorian sentiment.
Mack, "The Muse of Satire," Vafe Review. 41 (1951-521, The term "Victorian" was at first applied to the
80-92; and Swift's mastery of this device is helpfully dis- period of English history that coincided with a long
cussed in W. B. Ewald, Jr., The Masks of Jonathan Swift reign. Recent usage, however, has tended to confine
(Cambridge, Mass., 1954); and in Martin Price, Swift's
the term to a more limited and more coherent phase
Rhetorical Art (New Haven, 1953).
of English culture extending approximately from 1830
The typical images and symbols of satire were first worked
to 1880.
out by Northrop Frye. Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton,
As in other epochs, the sensibility and sentiments
1957). Frye's ideas are carried forwardand focused helpfully
George and the Dragon," Qtieen's characteristic of Victorian culture were shaped both
by Philip Pinkus. "St.
Quarterly. 70 (1963-64), 30-49. where the author argues that by external pressures and by inherited attitudes of
satire is not so much an attack on evil as a sad and con- which the Victorians themselves were not always con-
temptuous portrayal of its triumph. The characteristic scious. The major external pressures were an expanding
structure and plot of satire are discussed in A. B. Keman, population, spreading industrialization, greater con-
"A Theory of Satire," The Cankered Muse (New Haven, centration of people in large urban areas, and an in-
1959); and idem. The Plot of Satire (New Haven, 1965). crease in wealth which was diffused among growing
The latter book attempts to define the differences between numbers of people. The conscious Victorian response I
satire and the genres with which it is frequently confused,

to these external changes was in large measure deter-
tragedy and comedy.
mined by attitudes and values inherited from the past,
Edward \V. Rosenheim, Jr., Swift and the Satirist's Art
the most important of which were Evangelicalism
(Chicago, 1963), argues the case against the possibility of
any general description of a genre so varied in its instances,
in religion and utilitarianism in philosophy. The
and insists that the best definition can be no more than, coalescence of these e.vtemal pressures and internal
"Satire consists of an attack by means of a manifest fiction attitudes created a social structure and cultural pattern,
upon discernible historical particulars" (p. 31). centering in the middle class and characterized by a
For a collection of modem criticism see Ronald Paulson, distinctive mode of thinking and feeling, that gave
ed.. Modem Essays in Criticism. Satire (Englewood Cliffs, stability to English society for approximately fifty
N.J., 1971). years.
ALVIN B. KERNAN The most important conscious element in Victorian
culture was its Evangelical religion, a variant of

[See also Comic; Evil; Irony; Literature; Motif; Style;
English Protestantism which combined diverse ele-
Tragic]
ments from the older traditions of Puritanism, Meth-
odism, and Anglicanism. The latter forms of Eng-
lish Protestantism have been described as religions of
the State, of the heart, and of the Church, respec-
tively. Evangelicalism's uniqueness lay in its being a
VICTORIAN SENSIBILITY religion of the home. Like the traditions from which
AND SENTIMENT it derived. Evangelicalism emphasized personal faith
and the direct relationship between the individual soul

SENSiBiLiTi', in its broadest and most neutral sense, and God, but combined this Protestant doctrine with
designates the process by means of which intellectual special emphases of its own. Unlike Puritanism and
perceptions and sensory experience interact according Anglicanism, which offered a coherent theology and
to a relatively consistent pattern. The term recognizes a corporate ideal of holiness in the State or in the
the psychological fact that just as there can be no Church, Evangelicalism stressed the nonrational, emo-
human feeling without a minimum of intellectual dis- tional element of religious experience and personal
crimination, so men are unable to reason without holiness within the family; unlike Methodism, it re-
experiencing some feeling. Sensibility produces senti- tained ecclesiastical elements such as The Book of
ment, which is and thought in association as
feeling Common Prayer and a sense of the value of corporate
distinguished from pure thought and instinctual emo- public worship. It exercised its pervasive influence
tion. Although sensibility and sentiments vary from mainly by creating a strong sense of family and of
individual to individual, if the members of the domi- self-discipline. The Evangelical watchwords of "duty"
nant class in a particular society share the same basic and "earnestness appeared in the writings of professed
'
values and possess sensory mechanisms conditioned by Victorian agnostics and of working-class radicals as
the same environment, a particular pattern of thinking well as in the sermons of Evangelical ministers.
and feehng may be said to characterize a whole society. Religious censuses of the period indicate that less
than half the population of Great Britain attended greatest number." The chief obstacles to the achieve-
Sunday chinch services regularly, and that not more ment good were the ignorance and
of this general
than one in ten of the metropolitan poor attended superstition which in the past had created irrational
church at all, yet Victorian England can be described structures such as the Church and the aristocracy. The
as deeply religious. The virtues cultivated within the leading utilitarians collected and published statistics in
Evangelical patriarchal family structure — obedience, support of their specific proposals for reform: the reso-
chaste love, self-improvement, and fellow-feeling lution of the inherent political antagonism between
— carried over into Victorian public life in corre- rulers and ruled through imiversal suffrage, and free
sponding social virtues: deference to one's superiors, competition in an open market in the realm both of
marital fidelitv, industry, and sympathy for the deserv- ideas and of economic activity.
ing poor.The sense of dutv was thus both familial and Utilitarianism was thus not only different from but
social,and a sober earnestness provided the moral intellectually incompatible with the basic attitudes
atmosphere in which these duties were performed. underlying Evangelicalism. Yet, in what might be
From its center in the middle-class home the tenets called the orthodox Victorian sensibility, the two tra-
and tone of Evangelicalism gradually infiltrated both ditions complemented one another in important ways.
the Victorian aristocracy and the lower classes. The Three assumptions which were basic to the V'ictorian
latter were exposed to Evangelical teaching and response to the problems posed bv industrialization and
philanthropies through the literature and the charitable urbanization were upheld by both, though they inter-
works of niunerous religious societies which served as preted and defended them on quite different grounds:
organized social agencies for spreading the Evangelical (1) the primacy of the individual, (2) the possibility,
ethos. Except for the unreachable paupers in the great and the duty, of improving man's estate, and (3) the
urban areas and agricultural laborers scattered in re- need for asceticism on the part of the individual if men
mote localities, it was the rare Victorian who was not were to be happy. For the Evangelical the individual
touched, directly or indirectly, by the values and atti- soul was free before God to work out its eternal salva-
tudes of Evangelicalism. tion through faith and good works; for the utilitarian
If Evangelical Christianity might be described as the the individual man was free to attain happiness on
heart of the Victorian .sensibility, utilitarianism was its earth, rationally, by following certain imiversal laws.
mind. Like Victorian religion, the dominant philosophy For both, the happiness of the individual was bound
of the period had its roots in a variety of eighteenth- up with his willingness to help his fellowman, that is,
century attitudes, ranging from the common-sense with his development of a capacity for sympathy, or
deistic morality of eighteenth-century .Anglican divines fellow-feeling, or benevolence, as it was variously
to the radical application of the principle of utility called. For the Evangelical the duty to practice asceti-
in legal and economic reform proposed bv philo- cism was based on a religiously formed conscience; for
sophical rationalists. Unlike Evangelicalism, utilitari- the utilitarian was based on the Malthusian socio-
it
anism was grounded in logic and was completely logical theory of populationgrowth and the Ricardian
secular in orientation; it was outspokenlv antireligious, economic theory, based on Malthus, of the distribution
resting its claims on sensory and rational experience of wealth in an open-market economy. Outward ex-
rather than on the supernatural or the feelings of the pression of fellow-feeling took the form of philan-
heart. The fimction of philosophy in the utilitarian thropy for Evangelicals and of social reform for the
view was, in the words of one of the most influential utilitarians.
writers of the period, not to make men perfect, but In addition to these positive beliefs, Evangelicalism
to make imperfect men comfortable. Utilitarianism and utilitarianism displayed common hostilities which
posited self-interest, explainable on the basis of an were equally important: toward the merely sensuous
egoistic psychology of pleasure and pain, as the and merely speculative; and toward idleness, play, and
governing impulse in human behavior. Its exponents fictions. Because the progress of the individual, and
were committed to the possibility of improving man's therefore of society, was for both schools a serious and
estate through rational education of individual egoism pragmatic business, anvthing which did not contribute
and political and legal reform of existing social struc- to the realization of the larger goal was rejected as
tures. The "pleasure "
for which the individual was to frivolous or worse. To the earnest middle-class Vic-
be educated and social institutions were to be designed torian the "idle "
rich and the "lazy" poor were equally
was not the transitory pleasure of the individual but irresponsible.
a "general utility "; the maxim which served as the The .society brought about by the interaction be-
guiding utilitarian principle in politics, ethics, and tween these personal attitudes and the impersonal
21o economics alike was "the greatest happiness of the pressures of the environment was shaped by three
general qualities which characterized the middle class: the great underworlds of poverty in Victorian cities;
(1) moral idealism; (2) intellectual nonconformity; and in this respect Victorian reticence was a phase in the
(3) social conformity (C. Dawson, in Ideas and Beliefs "history of the battle for refinement and civilization,
of the Victorians, 1949). The attitudes and sentiments and above all the better protection of women, against
attaching to these qualities overlapped and inter- promiscuity, animalism, brutality and grossness which
penetrated one another in a cohesive social culture had been common even in the eighteenth century"
which withstood inward contradictions and external (Clark [1962], p. Even apart from this rein-
126).
threats despite rapid changes during the period in both forcement, the Evangelical emphasis upon sexual re-
the human and the natural environment. straint and temperance would have had the effect of
Victorian moral idealism was nurtured primarily by idealizing chaste love, woman, and the home, and of
the Evangelical belief in the sanctity of the home and surrounding these objects with sentiments of attach-
bv the sentiments connected with this belief. Accounts ment, reverence, and even worship.
in contemporary diaries, letters, and religious tracts Evangelical moral idealism made itself felt outside
convey a sense of the powerful role played by family the home in negative form in the censorship which
praver in the training of Victorian children and do- it exercised over literature and the arts. The tradition
mestics. The regimen of the household of an early, which held that the arts should teach as well as delight
and wealthy convert to Evangelicalism
influential, was interpreted in the light of a moral aesthetic which
conveys something of the quality of Evangelical disci- associated delight primarily with moral teaching in a
pline: wav that severely limited both the areas of experience
that could be treated in art and the manner in which
Abt. a quarter before 10 oClock, the family assembled to the matters which were treated could be presented.
prayers, which were read by Wilberforce in the dining Thackeray, the Bronte sisters, the later Dickens,
room. As we passed from the drawing room I saw all the
George and other leading writers were in this
Eliot,
servants standing in regular order, the woeman ranged in
respect typically Victorian. This moralism had to do
a line against the wall & the men the same. . . . — When but with
not simply with prudishness in matters of sex,
the whole were collected in the dining room, all knelt down
against a chair or Sopha. Wilberforce knelt at a table in a deeper and more comprehensive alteration in sensi-
the middle of a room, and after a little pause began to read bility which might be described as a loss of the sense
a prayer, which He did very slowly in a low, solemnly awful of play. Dress, conversation, intellectual speculation,
voice (Davies [1961], p. 220). games themselves, as well as literature
religious liturgy,
and the were affected. One of the notable features
arts,
Such scenes were repeated in numerous Victorian of the age was the Sabbatarianism which forbade not
homes. In the coimtry more conscientious members of only drink and games but even secular reading on
the squirearchy set a similar example in the Hall. The Sundays.
practice of daily family prayer, supplemented by spir- The other important form in which Victorian moral
itual reading and weekly sermons in church or chapel, idealism had its effect outside the home was more
generated a strong bond between Victorian parents and positive. Generally a culture that enforces its taboos
children, and between brothers and sisters, which has focused energies of considerable power. The senti-
persisted even when, as not seldom happened in later ments of benevolence and charity which were an im-
years, serious differences of opinion developed regard- portant part of Victorian moral idealism resulted in
ing the theological superstructure of Evangelicalism. prodigious philanthropic efforts and political activism.
In addition to the Bible, one of the popular family The William Wilberforce whose household was
books of the period was Pilgrim 's Progress. The Puritan described above was largely responsible for the passage
stress on self-discipline, piety, and self-improvement of England's first antislavery legislation; a close friend,
was disseminated through Victorian society in a flood an Evangelical banker, donated six-sevenths of his an-
of Evangelical treatises and didactic tales prepared by nual income to charity until he married, after which
the religious press. A typical tract. The Sintêr's Friend, he gave one-third.
published in 1821, had by 1845 sold 800,000 copies The reform of political and legal administrative
and by 1867 more than a million and a half copies procedures, as well as Victorian intellectual noncon-
(Chadwick, 1966). The twin evils of sexual promiscuity formity, stemmed primarily from utilitarianism, the
and alcohol held a prominent place in this literature, basic impulse ofwhich was rational conviction rather
a preoccupation which deeply affected the secular than emotional commitment. The essential utilitarian
literature of the period as well. The emphasis upon virtues were likewise intellectual; sincerity in thinking,
chastity and temperance was in part a reaction to the strict logic, a conscientious study of facts, and the
promiscuity and drinking so conspicuously evident in courage to follow wherever facts and logic led. For 219
—
John Stuart Mill, the best known of the utilitarians, question "What is it to be a gentleman?" he replied
uncensored conflict of opinion, intellectual tolerance, that was "to have lofty aims, to lead a pure life,
it
and philosophical and religious pluralism were the very to keep vour honour virgin; to have the esteem of your
conditions for human advancement. Though utilitarians fellow-citizens, and the love of your fireside: to bear
could be doctrinaire, in principle the utilitarian philos- good fortune meekly; to suffer evil with constancy; and
ophy was committed to disinterested examination of through evil or good to maintain truth always"
the facts, including facts regarding the way inwhich (Houghton [1957], p. 359). The idea of respectability
the mind itself works. Characteristically, whereas was more superficial and more widely applied than the
Evangelical influence originated in the family and idea of the gentleman, It included the suggestion of
spread from the home into Victorian society, the bodily cleanliness and neatness, particularly in its ap-
utilitarian was exercised primarily in the
influence plication to the lower classes.
discussion of public affairs in public debate and spread
Neatness is the outward sign of a conscious respectability,
thence into the Victorian home. The conflict of opinion
and Respectability is the name of that common level of
produced by their widely different assumptions helped
behaviour which all families ought to reach and on which
to create an atmosphere of intellectual tolerance and
they can meet without disgust. The Respectable man in
a less polemical tone in the press. every class is one whose ways bear looking into. \\'ho need
The combination of moral idealism and intellectual not shrink or hide or keep his door barred against visitors
nonconformity helped to produce the third mar'.ed . who lives in the eye of his neighbours and can count
. .
characteristic of die Victorian sensibility, an extraor- on the approval of the great and the obedience of the
dinary impulse to conform socially. Elements in Evan- humble (Young [1936], p. 25).
gelicalism and utilitarianism made compromise and
conformity possible, since neither was as extreme or The notion of respectability thus had covert political
as belligerent as its eighteenth-century predecessor, implications in the relationships between social classes.
Methodism and Philosophical Radicalism, respectively. A leading politician of the age remarked that "The
The memory of the social upheavals caused by the middle classes know that the safety of their lives and
French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars early in property depend upon their having round them a
the centurv was still disturbing to many Englishmen peaceful, happy, and moral population." Respectability
in 1830 and persuaded them that men of good will, was the standard applied to ensure such a population,
however diverse their intellectual or religious princi- denoting "at once a select status and a universal mo-
ples, should work together to pursue the immediate tive. Like Roman citizenship, it could be indefinitely
practical advantages made possible by an expanding extended, and every extension fortified the State"
technolog)'. In addition, the spread of poverty and (Young, op. cit.). The note of deference which predomi-
urban slums after 18.30 tended to unite members of nated in Victorian social relationships underlay a strong
the ruling classes in a common fear as well as a com- admiration for national heroes and leaders, including
mon sense of guilt. What distinguished Victorian a deep-rooted devotion to Queen Victoria herself and
England from the rest of nineteenth-century Europe, a general suspicion of persons and institutions which
one historian has noted, was that while in France, were not English.
Germany, Italy, and Russia idealists were usually The basic pattern of thought and feeling which
extremists who despised compromise, in Victorian characterized the orthodox Victorian sensibility
England devotion to compromise was strongest pre- moral sentiments centered around the family and the
cisely among the most sincere idealists (Dawson, virtues of duty and earnestness; intellectual sentiments
op. cit.). centered aroimd the ideals of intellectual sincerity

The pressure of social conformity expressed itself in and tolerance; social sentiments centered around
two popular terms — carried over from at least the the ideals of gentlemanliness and respectability
Renaissance — in the Victorian vocabulary, "gentle- produced what one of its critics called "an epoch of
man" and "respectability." Both terms escape precise hearts uplifted with hope,and brains active with sober
definition because of their manifold implications for and manly reason for the common good. Some ages
their Victorian user. In a general and vulgar sense, a are marked as sentimental, others stand conspicuous
gentleman was an educated man with an independent as rational. The Victorian age was happier than most
income and therefore one who ranked in the middle in the flow of both these currents into a common stream
class or higher on the social scale. But in its narrower of vigorous and effective talent" (Buckley [1951], p.
and more essential meaning it referred to the moral 13). The dark shadows cast by the positive qualities
training and sensitivity which wealth and education of the Victorian sensibility were equally real, however,
made possible. The moral dimension was described by the result of the fact that a sensibility harboring ideals
220 the novelist Thackeray when, in answer to his own which were not logically related and which in some
important areas were in direct contradiction to one relation of the Victorian sensibility to nature. During
another was inevitably subject to tensions that could the first quarter of the nineteenth centm'v English
not always be successfully resolved. The more sensitive romantic writers had hopefully envisioned the possi-
Victorians were aware of these contradictions. John bility of men developing an "organic sensibility" by
Ruskin pointed out to his readers that while their means of which the rival claims of intellect and feeling
Evangelical religion told Victorians to love their as sources of tnith could be reconciled. The recon-
neighbor, their utilitarian economic principles told conceived by the romantics went beyond the
ciliation
them that the deepest instinct of man was to defraud inward psychic integration of thought and emotion and
his neighbor. He could think of no precedent in historv included man's relationship to the external imiverse as
for a nation's establishing a systematic disobedience to well. The latter point rested on romantic assumptions
the first principles of its professed religion. The Vic- regarding the "correspondences" that obtained be-
torians assimilated the contradictory attitudes as best tween the inward fomis of human thought and feeling
they could. The agonized personal crises and frequent and outward natural forms, the inward and outward
painful wrenchings of family relationships recorded in worlds being regarded as so adapted to one another
the literature of the period reflected the tensions that as to make possible an integrated participation of all
accompanied the attempt to reconcile them. .\t a still the human faculties in a reassuring encounter with the
deeper level a profound psychic ambivalence expressed universe. Two circumstances contributed to the rapid
itself in other ways. decline of this romantic faith: first, the emergence of
One way was the sentimentality which marked the what one Victorian poet called the "terrible muses"
popular literature and art of the age, the tendency to of astronomy and geology, and secondly, an increasing
present scenes of "pathos feasting on The most itself." sense, as the century progressed, that the powers of
famous sentimentalist of the age was the novelist reason by which men were mastering nature through
Charles Dickens, whose treatment of grief and death, technology had created a new irrational power over
particularly where children were involved, was which men might lose control: the machine.
immensely popular. He was accused of handling the Of these two disturbing pressures, the impact of
death of little children "as if it were some savoury scientific thought, notably of geology and biology, was
dainty which could not be too fully appreciated" the earlier felt and contributed most to the ambiva-
(Richard Stang, The Theory of the Novel in England lence in the Victorian response to nature. Geology gave
1850-1870, New York and London [19.59], p. 62). Sen- rise to a time-consciousness, later reinforced by studies
timentalism likewise affected Victorian painting, which of biological evidence, which stemmed from the
exhibited two prominent features: a love of literal discovery that the universe had existed for millions of
detail and a tendency to exaggerate sentiment. The years and that "whilst this planet has gone cycling on
connection between the literalism and the senti- according to the fixed law of gravity, endless forms . . .
mentality was an important one: "Victorian senti- most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are
mentality is largely the imposition of feeling as an being evolved." Darwin himself was deeply moved by
afterthought upon literalness" (H. House, Ideas and his evolutionary vision, but the ordinary Victorian felt
Beliefs of the Victorians [1949], p. 223). The scientific that the human was dwarfed in a terrifying
species
love of fact was utilitarian in emphasis; the price it abyss of endless time. It was as though the roof and
exacted, evident in the autobiographies of Mill and walls of a long-inhabited room had been removed and
Charles Darwin, was a threatened loss of the capacity familiar objects were seen in a new, strange, and
to feel. The sentimental love of fact was mainly Evan- disturbing light. The Victorian response to this new
gelical in inspiration, and the price it exacted was a nature reflected the same ambivalence that can be
weakening of the capacity to reason. Evangelical liter- detected in Victorian art. On the one hand, there was
ature and practice were not above exposing to public an inten.se fascination with natural forms and minute
view the agonies of a dying child or the delirium details evident in Victorian word-painting in prose and
tremens of the drunkard for purposes of edification. the naturalism of on the other hand, there was
its art;
The utilitarians, by contrast, agnostic or atheistic in a compelling need to invest natural forms and details
matters of religion, doubted the immortality of the soul
"
with moral significance. As the traditional "evidences

and the possibility of rewards in another life, and of the handiwork of a Creator became more difficult
therefore attached all the more importance to reducing to discern, the orthodox Victorian sensibility found it
pain in the present one. The wavering between a correspondingly difficult to evoke the moral reassur-
scientific and a sentimental view of pain reflected a ances it sought in nature.
dangerous split in the Victorian sensibility. The science of biology cast a shadow of another kind
The fissure beneath the surface solidity of Victorian as well: the threat to human life posed by the instinct
thought and feeling was most evident in the ambiguous to procreation. T R. Malthus' An Essay on the Princi- 221
pie of Population as It Affects the Fulun' linproicmcnl unconscious — fear of the void, sexual desire, the play
of Societi). puljlished in 1798, evoked a dire vision of instinct — the Victorians developed a powerful will to
the natural tendencv for human population to increase belief and action, mobilizing the virtues in support of
faster than the means of subsistence. It was Mathus' this will at the expense both of reason and of uncon-
theory which inspired David Ricardo to constnict his scious impulses. The law of psychic life that basic
pessimistic theory of political economy. Whereas to impulses cannot be thwarted without paying a price
Adam Smith society had been one great family, to seems to be borne out in reading the private journals
Ricardo it was the scene of a bitter contest for and correspondences of the age; one is struck by the
supremacv and survival, the view which Darwin ex- number of "headaches" and other forms of illness
tended to all of organic life. The utilitarians responded which plagued the Victorians.
characteristically by arguing that if "nature" was blind By the latter half of the century ol).servers were
and cruel, man had tlie power, and the moral duty, commenting on what seemed to be a notable increase
to ameliorate its effects through social reform. Yet the in the number of suicides. The ambivalent relationship
specter of a nature "red in tooth and claw" haunted between the conscious and unconscious elements of the
the Victorian imagination and contributed to the sen- Victorian experience produced a consistent pattern of
timentality as well as to the reticence of its treatment behavior; the search for individual autonomy, either
of nature and natural instinct. through religious adherence to the laws of God or
The threat posed by the increase in population and through rational adherence to the laws of natiu'e; the
the extension of technology involved representative powerful role assigned either to the superego or con-
institutions as well as individuals. A London clergyman science or to reason in this search; the prevalence of
who found himself assigned to a city parish with 35,000 guilt, connected with violation of accepted codes; and
parishioners (Clark, 1962) might wonder whether the a tendency to hysteria, related to repression. .\s early
Church could keep pace with the changing environ- as the 1850's Matthew Arnold identified the charac-
ment. Similarly, agricultural depressions threatened the teristic feeling of the age as ennui, and the dominant
competitive economy built on Ricardian principles, note of its intellectual life as a "dialogue of the mind
while all through the period a steady stream of social with itself."
legislation designed to meet urban and rural problems Arnold's diagnosis of the malaise of the Victorian
created a growing government bureaucracy in direct age in the 1850's was shared by few of his contem-
opposition to the consciously held political ideals of poraries; most men were comforted bv
the "march of
the age. Impersonal forces were silently making the mind" and the impressive material progress evidenced
representative Victorian institutions obsolete. by the Great Exhibition of 1851. With few qualifica-
The result was that alongside the dominant senti- tions English culture seemed stable and triumphant
ments of confidence and hope there was another, less through the fifties and sixties and England itself moving
reassuring set of pressures and feelings creating a sensi- in the vanguard of human advancement. But by 1880
bility characterized by anxiety and fear. In addition the contradictions which were disguised or contained
to the more remote threat of alienation in a meaning- for half a centurv by the Victorian capacity for com-
less universe, there were immediate dangers which promise had become intolerable. The sentiments and
generated deep-seated fears: in politics the fear of mobs sensibility of Victorian orthodoxv lost their energy and
and revolution, in economics the fear of bankniptcy, were increasingly placed on the defensive by new
in family life the fear of orphanhood. These fears conscious attitudes and sentiments.
appear again and again in the literature of the age, Imperialism, the emergence of an unscrupulous class
either consciously or unconsciously, providing the of nouveaiLx riches, the second-rate quality of a second
plots as well as the emotional energy of much of the Evangelical revival, a growing "yellow press," — these
writing. Debt, ruin, and madness haimt Victorian and other symptoms of decline marked the imminence
fiction: characters struck down are usually shown to of a major shift in sensibility. The influence of the
have deserved their fate, while "deserving" characters Evangelical conscience was undermined from within
are conveniently rescued by a legacy, emigration, a by the spread of religious skepticism, and from without
fortunate marriage, or a change of heart (Williams, by attacks on Evangelical piety as a hypocritical use
1958). But the arbitrariness of the solutions reinforces of an ostensibly Christian fervor to disguise essentially
the impression of a serious incompatibility between worldly ambitions. The supremacy of the utilitarian
conscious Victorian sentiments and the realities to principle was similarly weakened, in part by the im-
which these sentiments had to be related. pact of German idealism and psychology, and more
In protecting itself against a seemingly blind nature seriously by charges that its economic principles simply
222 and the nonrational impulses of the body and the rationalized an inhuman social structure based on the
struggle for wealth. With the questioning of these the form of socialism politicism called for the creation
central elements of the Victorian sensibility, new atti- of a new social structure through the active interven-
tudes and values emerged which were essentially anti- tion of the state; in the guise of anarchism it called
Victorian in their bias and which signified more a for the abolition of social stnictures altogether.To both
rejection of Victorianisni than the arrival of a new political schools aestheticism seemed an immoral re-
integration of thought and feeling. treat from responsibility: not only was great art moral,
The two major forms of anti-Victorianism, although as the Victorians had insisted, but it was specifically
imited in their common revolt against Victorian prin- public, political, and revolutionary in its moralism. The
ciple and practice, were opposed to one another in career of William Morris was representative; influ-
most other matters. The earlier of the two reactions enced in his youth by the religious revival in Oxford,
can be described under the general term of "aestheti- he moved first through a phase in which his aesthetic
cism," the reassertion of the plav instinct not only as conscience led him awav from social concerns as alien
an end in itself but as the only possible response to to the artistic embodiment of idle dreams, and then
a hideous environment. This development was associ- to a final phase of political activism on behalf of revo-
ated primarilv with the arts and literature, first in the lutionary socialism.
form of Pre-Fiaphaelitism and later, partly in response .\estheticism carried Victorian individualism and
to influences from the Continent, in the form of im- intellectual nonconformity to extremes unassimilable
pressionism. But there were important social implica- by the orthodox Victorian sensibility. Politicism, on the
tions in aestheticism as well, notably the revival of other hand, refocused Victorian moral idealism through
dandvism and satirical wit, a withdrawal from politics its political radicalism. Both rejected Victorian social
of the usual kind, a new concern with ritual and form, conformity, and the ideals of the gentleman and of
and a thoroughgoing intellectual skepticism. In effect, respectability which had sustained it. .'\estheticism
aestheticism marked a radical disengagement from regarded the respectable gentleman as insensitive, dull,
Victorian moral commitments and social concerns and prudish; politicism regarded him as rich, selfish,
through escape into the amoral world of art and play- hypocritical, and counterrevolutionary. In its initial
In asserting that the only stay against ugliness and stage the fin de siecle revolt against Victorian ortho-
meaninglessness was in the formal coherence of art, doxy generated an excitement and hope similar to that
aestheticism reversed the Victorian practice of literal which had accompanied the romantic movement at
imitation of natm-e: one of the most-quoted epigrams the beginning of the century, but the later movement
of the new movement insisted rather that nature must lacked both the range and the depth of the earlier one,
imitate art. being essentially negative in character and divided
The skepticism which underlay this aestheticism against itself in its aims. Although Queen Victoria lived
appeared in its subjectivization of experience, its car- on imtil 1901, after 1880 her name was no longer an
rying Victorian individualism to the ne plus ultra of adequate symbol for the events, values, and sentiments
solipsism. Each man was an island unto himself; the which were shaping and expressing a new sensibility
"facts' of experience were seen as a series of impres- for which historians have not yet found a satisfactory
sions which the individual memory could store and the name.
individual imagination could rearrange, but from
which no rational or objective or common knowledge
could be inferred. Ugly objects and immoral action BIBLIOGRAPHY
were as susceptible of artistic treatment as conven- Valuable surveys of the period are provided in W. E.
tionally beautiful things or noble conduct; indeed, it Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind. 1830-1870 (New.
was no longer possible to make such distinctions since Haven, 1957); G. M. Young, Victorian Enpfand: Portrait of
one could only try to rescue one's private impressions an Age (London, 1936; 2nd ed. 1953); and Ideas and Beliefs
from the flux of experience by capturing them in a of the Victorians (London, 1949), a collection of BBC talks
work of art.
by experts on various aspects of Victorian England. Relevant
social histories are G. Kitson Clark, The Making of Victorian
Aestheticism represented a turning of the Victorian
England (Cambridge, Mass., 1962); G. M. Trevelyan, Illus-
sensibility in upon itself and a consequent dissolution
The Nineteenth Cen-
trated English Social History, Vol. IV:
of accepted certainties under the pressure of the dia-
tury (London and New York, 1952); and C. M. Young, ed..
logue of the mind with itself. The other major devel-
Early Victorian England. 1830-1865. 2 vols. (London and
opment, which might be generally called "politici.sm,"
New York, 19.34). For utilitarianism, see E. Halevy, The
represented an opposite movement. In its dissatisfac- Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, trans. M. Morris (Boston,
tion with Victorian culture, politicism turned outward 1955). For Evangelicalism, see H. Davies, Worship and
and aggressively attacked existing social structures. In Theology in England: From Watts and Wesley to Maurice.
SIN AND SALVATION
1690-1850 (Princeton, 1961); and Owen Chadwick, The in this connection.) For, in a very true sense, the history
Victorian Church: Part I (New York, 1966). R. D. Altick's of man's conception of sin, and the ways in which he
The English Com/twn Reader (Chii.ago, 1957) studies the has sought for salvation, reflect his interpretations of
mass reading public. J. H. Buckley, The Victorian Temper the significance of human life and destiny.
(Cambridge, Mass., 1951), and R. Williams, Culture anil
Society. 1780-1930 (London, 1958; New York, 1960; also
reprint) gives an overview of the literature of the period.
IDEAS OF SIN AND SALV.\TION IN
Studies of important individual Victorians appear in Asa
THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST
Briggs, Victorian People (Chicago, 1954); The Great Vic- 1. Egypt. The earliest evidence for our subject is
torians, ed. and H. Massingham (London, 1932); and

H. J.
found in Egypt. There, already by about 2400 B.C. as
Basil Willey. Nineteenth Century Studies (London and New the Pyramid Texts (Pijr.) attest, the Egyptians believed
York, 1949) and More Nineteenth Century Studies (London that a person's post-mortem well-being could be jeop-
and New York, 1956).
ardized by accusations of wrongdoing brought against
WILLIAM A, MADDEN him after death. Since these Texts are an amorphous
and collection of prayers, incantations, hymns, and myths
[See also Agnosticism; Deism; Evolutionism; Religion
Science; Romanticism; Sin and Salvation; Utilitarianism.] of diverse origin, which the priests of Heliopolis put
together in the belief that they would assist a dead

pharaoh to secure eternal felicity, the various refer-
ences in them to a post-mortem judgment are difficult
to interpret. The following passage, for example, seems
SIN AND SALVATION to be designed to refute all kinds of accusations, even
those that might be brought by animals:
INTRODUCTION
There is no accuser (representing) a living person against
That these two subjects should be linked together
N (the deceased king); there is no accuser (representing)
for consideration here is justified both by religious tradi-

a dead person against N; there is no accuser (representing)
tion and a natural association of ideas. Each subject, a goose against N; there is no accuser (representing) a bull
however, connotes, on analysis, distinctive evaluations against N {Pyr. .386 a-b).
of man's situation in the universe which do not neces-

The situation implied here is significant; for a tribunal
sarily involve mutual relationship. Thus, while sin de-
is envisaged before which the deceased may be ac-
notes human offenses against divine law and the evil
cused, if he had in some way abused a human being
consequences that stem from them, salvation may con-
or an animal. Who presided over this post-mortem
cern divine deliverance from forms of evil, such as
tribunal, how its transactions were ordered, and what
volcanic eniption or flood, quite unconnected with
penalties might be imposed, are not indicated. The
man's sin. The Litany of the .'\nglican Church, in the
implication that there was a divine law or order, which
Book of Common Praijer (1662), provides a convenient
the deceased might have transgressed, is suggested by
example of this difference in the following petitions:
another Text (Pijr. 319): "N comes forth to justice
From fornication, and all other deadly sin . . . Good Lord,
(maat); he brings it, that it may be with him."
deliver us: From lightning and tempest; from plague,

This reference to maat is of basic importance, be-
pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from
cause its appearance in the Ptjramid Texis constitutes
sudden death. Good Lord, deliver us.
the earliest evidence of the idea of a transcendental
That the ideas of sin and salvation are traditionally moral order that recurs, under various names, in many
associated derives from a very ancient and widespread later cultural traditions, as will be noted. For the
belief in deities who govern the universe, and decree Egyptians maat had several facets of meaning. It could
laws designed to maintain a proper relationship be- and good order in both a social
signify justice, truth,
tween themselves and mankind, in order to preserve and cosmic context. In mythological imagery, maat was
both the cosmic order and the harmony of hvmian portrayed as a goddess, whose distinguishing symbol
society. The forms in which this belief has found was a feather; she was regarded as the daughter of the
expression in the course of history have been many sun-god Re, and, by a curious transformation of
and various. They be described here in chrono-
will imagery, as the food upon which Re lived. Thus, Re,
logical order (except Islam); and with comparative who was the chief god of the Egyptian state, was
reference so that their similarities and differences may regarded as embodying maat as the principle of order
be appreciated. (Islamic ideas of sin and salvation are in the universe and in human society.
treated after the section on Christianity, in order to How these intimations in the Pyramid Texts of belief
224 complete the survey of religions of Near Eastern origin in a moral order, of which the sun-god Re was the
SIN AND SALVATION
guardian, affected the lives of individuals is revealed ordeal. The importance of this conception for botli the
in certain tomb same period.
inscriptions of about the history of soteriology and ethics is such that it requires
A notable example is that on the tomb of a noble a measure of detailed analysis here.
named Herkhuf. He claims that he "gave bread to the The depictions of the judgment scene invariably
himgry. clothing to the naked, and ferried him who show a large pair of balances standing in the middle
had no boat." He further declares that he never said of the Hall of the Two Truths (Maati). In one scale-pan
anything evil "to a powerful one against any people," the feather symbol of maat is set, and in the other
for he desired "that it might be well with me in the the hieroglyph sign (ib) of the heart of the deceased.
Great God's presence." Despite its rather complacent The mortuary-god Anubis supervises the weighing, and
assertion of virtue, in the history of ethics and religion the assessment is recorded by the scribe-god Thoth.
this inscription is the earliest evidence of belief that The transaction generally takes place in the presence
positive "good-neighborly" conduct would win divine of Osiris, the lord of the dead, and it is watched
approval, particularly after death. The "Great God" apprehensively by the deceased. Close by a fantastic
of the inscription was undoubtedly Re, and Herkhuf's monster, with a crocodile's head awaits an adverse
statement implies that the deitv was concerned with verdict: it is Am-mut, the Eater of the Dead.
a man's moral behavior, and would punish or reward The judgment scene usually accompanies the text
accordingly after death. of Chapter XXX of the Book of the Dead, which is
The inscription on Herkhuf's tomb reveals no con- a prayer addressed by the deceased to his heart not
sciousness of sin; but the assertion of his virtues surely to witness against him at this critical juncture. The
implies that contrary behavior would transgress the hypostatization of the heart implied here is a unique
code of conduct that the Great God required of men. feature of ancient Egyptian thought. In texts, the heart
Greater moral sensitivity is shown in a somewhat later is sometimes referred to as the "God in man," and it
(ca. 2000 B.C.) writing known as the Instruction for was evidently regarded as a conscious censor of the
King Meri-ka-re. Here it is stated that "more accept- and ready to tes-
individual's behavior throughout life
able is the character of one upright of heart than the tify against himjudgment after death.
in the
ox of the evil doer, and warning is given that each
"
The weighing of the heart was evidently related to
man must face judgment after death, with his deeds, another transaction with which Chapter CXXV is
good or bad, set in heaps before him. concerned. This Chapter is prefaced by a descriptive
Despite this evidence of what James Breasted and rubric:"Words spoken when one enters the Hall of the
others have aptly called the "dawn of conscience," it Two Truths. To separate N (the deceased) from his sins
is significant that the early Egyptian documents reveal (hww), and to see the face of all the gods." Then follow
primary concern for a form of saKation that is quite two Declarations of Innocence, sometimes misleadingly
unconnected with moral issues. This salvation, which called Negative Confessions. The first Declaration is
was fervently sought, was from death and its conse- addressed to Osiris; the second to forty-two demonic
quences. The means employed was a combination of beings. Each Declaration consists of a nmuber of
ritual magic and practical action. A technique of ritual asseverations of innocence of certain specified crimes.
embalmment was developed, which was patterned on The following are representative examples from both
that which was believed to have been employed to lists, and include both moral and ritual offenses:
revivify the divine hero Osiris after his murder by his 1 have not killed . . . caused pain to anyone . . . diminished
evil brother. Set. The efficacy of this mortuary ritual the food offerings in the temples . . . had sexual relations
depended on the careful enactment, on behalf of a with a boy . . . stolen the loaves of the glorified (dead) . . .
deceased person, of what had once been done for diminished the corn-measure.
Osiris; but no question was asked of the moral fitness How these Declarations of Innocence were related
of the deceased to enjoy this resurrection. By the New to the weighing of the heart is not formally stated in
Kingdom period (from 1580 B.C.), however, belief in the relevant texts: but a logical nexus can be reasonably
a post-mortem judgment was incorporated into these made out. It would seem that the Declarations were
Osirian fimerary rites. The so-called Book of the Dead, first made by the deceased on arrival at the Hall of
which was composed at this time to assist the dead the Two Truths. But these solemn protestations of
to attain eternal beatitude, impressively attests to this innocence were not deemed enough until the moral
development. Two of its chapters (XXX and CXXV) integrity of the person making them had been proved.
are especially concerned with the judgment which the This was done by weighing his heart against maat. If
dead had to face. In many of the manuscripts, these the assessment was favorable, he was significantly
chapters are illustrated with vignettes which graphi- proclaimed tnaa kheni ("true of voice") and thus justi-
cally present the Egyptian conception of the awful fied in his protestations of innocence. ZZo
SIN AND SALVATION
Considerable attention has been given here to this apotropaic kind. It is improbable tliat they constituted
ancient Egyptian evidence because it is not only the evidence of an established doctrine of sin.
earliest we have of the "dawn of conscience," but it That the gods were believed to have delivered laws
also concerns the most elaborate conception of a post- for mankind to keep finds graphic expression in the
mortem judgment until the evolution of Christian famous Code of Hammurabi, king of Babylon (ca.
eschato!og%-. The Declarations of Innocence also pro- 1792-1750 B.C.). Carved at the top of the black basalt
vide our earliest known categories of what was con- stele on which the laws are inscribed, is a scene of
sidered to be sin, in that the act concerned a trans- Hammurabi adoring the sun-god Shamash, from whom
gressed divine law. It is significant, too, that the ancient he had received the laws. The laws that follow, and
Egyptians, while they sought salvation from death by penalties for their infringement, are concerned, how-
ritual means, believed that the individual's eternal ever, only with the well-being of the state and the
destiny was finally determined by his own character. maintenance of social order. In an epilogue, Ham-
2. Mesopotamia. In the sister-civilization of Meso- murabi claims that Shamash had committed these
potamia ideas of sin and salvation differed profoundly laws to him, and he threatens with divine pimishment
from the Egyptian concepts, because the Mesopo- anv successor who might disregard them. But through-
tamian peoples did not believe that a happy lot after out the Code the terms of reference relate significantly,
death could be achieved. For them, death irreparably to life in this world; and transgression of its provisions
shattered the psychophysical organism that constituted is to be punished by the civil authorities. Similarly
an individual person. What survived the awful change confined to this life are the forms of salvation for which
was terribly transformed and descended into kur- much concern is shown in Mesopotamian texts. But
nu-gi-a, the Land of No-return, which was conceived when acts of saving intervention are ascribed to such
as an immense pit, deep down below the foundations deities as Marduk or Ishtar, it is salvation from some
of the world, where the dead dwelt in dust and gloom. kind of mundane misfortime, usually sickness: for there
,\11 went there, great and small, good and bad; for the could be no saving from the post-mortem destiny de-
gods had withheld the gift of immortality from man. creed for mankind.
Salvation, consequently, could not be hoped for from 3. Israel. Until the emergence of belief in a resur-
death and its consequences. There was, also, no expec- rection and judgment of the dead in the second century
tation of judgment after death, since a common fate B.C., the ancient Hebrew conception of man limited
awaited all. The logic of this view of man's life and personal significance to this life. Moreover, since
destin\- meant tliat salvation and sin were ideas that Hebrew religion was essentially ethnic in origin and
related onlv to this present life. Salvation, accordingly, character, the individual was significant only insofar
was security from what threatened to harm or destroy ashe affected, by his behavior, the relation between
the enjoyment of life in this world. For such security Yahweh, the god of Israel, and the holy nation, Israel.
men turned to the gods in prayer and service, believing A notable instance of this situation occurs in the Book
that they had the power to grant long life and prosper- of Joshua (7: Iff.). The Israelites had suffered a severe
ity. They believed, too, that the gods had created defeat by the people of .\i. When Joshua, the Israelite
mankind to serve them by building temples and offer- leader, inquired the reason of Yahweh, he was told that
ing sacrifice to them. Neglect of this service constituted Israelhad sinned because some of the spoils, dedicated
sin, and it had dire consequences. The gods would to Yahwehin a previous victory, had been withheld
withdraw their protection from those who so trans- from him. Investigation revealed that an Israelite
gressed, thus leaving them open to demonic attack. A named .'Vchan had secretly retained certain articles.
Babylonian te,\t known as the Ludhil bel neinequi After he and his family and animals had been stoned
significantly reveals the doubt and anxiety that might to death by the other Israelites, Yahweh was appeased
beset a man, afflicted by evil, who was not conscious and gave Israel victory over Ai. This barbaric act
of having neglected his religious duties: "I looked graphically attests to the prevalence of a primitive
backwards: persecution, woe! Like one who did not sense of communal guilt for the transgression of an
offer libation to a god . . . who did not bow his face individual, and the need to make corporate expiation
and did not know reverence, in whose mouth prayer to the offended deity.
and supplication ceased." The texts of many so-called The traditional Hebrew disposition to evaluate sin
"penitential psalms which have been found, appear

" primarily in terms of the relation of Yahweh and Israel
to express a sense of contrition for sin felt towards a demands many other illustrations. Thus, the kings of
was essentially
particular patron-god; but their purpose Israel are each appraised in a kind of set formula
expiatory. They were doubtless recited during rituals relating to their attitude towards idolatry: "he clung
226 of atonement prompted by misfortime, or, were of an to the sin [i.e., idolatry] of Jeroboam the son of Nebat,
SIN AND SALVATION
which he made Israel to sin; he did not depart from aside from the right way; and "sin" [liattath) signified
it" (II Kings, 3:3; cf. 10:29; 13:2; etc.). This emphasis missing the mark or losing one's way through ignorance
upon the corporate aspect of sin, especially in the or lack of skill. The Psalms, which generally show a
matter of idolatry, has its classic expression in the great sensitivity about offending God, raise manv un-
second of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3-17). solved questions as to whether thev should be inter-
\her forbidding the making and worshipping of graven preted as personal confessions or as expressions of
images, Yahweh is represented as declaring that he is corporate contrition, with the speaker representing
"a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon Israel in a ritual of atonement.
the children to the third and the fourth generation of Salvation in ancient Hebrew literature could have
those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to two connotations, namely, God's deliverance of Israel
thousands of those who love me and keep mv from its enemies, the classic example of which was the
commandments" (R.S.V.). deliverance from the pursuing Egyptians and their
The Ten Commandments, just as the Egyptian destruction in the Red Sea (Exodus 14:13ff.\ and the
Declarations of Innocence and some expiatorv Meso- deliverance of individuals by God from misfortune
potamian texts, concern both religious and ethical (e.g.. Psalms 34:6). The ethnic or nationalist idea of
actions. Priority of order is given to the religious: salvation steadily became the major theme of Jewish
worship no other gods; do not commit idolatry; do not religion as Israel's positionworsened in the interplay
take the name of Yahweh "in vain"; and, positivelv, of power politics of the ancient Near East. The desire
observe the sabbath. The reward promised for the and hope for divine deliverance found fervent expre.s-
faithfid keeping of these injunctions is confined to this sion in an apocalyptic literature that began to pro-
namely, divine beneficence and a long life "in the
life, liferate from the second century B.C. The emphasis,
land which the Lord your God gives you." which the prophets had earlier placed on Israel's iniq-
.^part from these basic requirements for the mainte- uity as the cause of its political di.sasters, was now
nance of a proper relationship between Yahweh and shifted to that of the wickedness of their Gentile
Israel, Hebrew literature reveals a variety of ideas oppressors. Belief in ultimate divine succor became
about the cause and nature of sin. The story of the concentrated in the idea of Yahweh's Messiah, who
Fall of Adam, in Genesis (Chs. 2-3), is the most notable would come with supernatural power to overthrow and
attempt to explain the origin and consequence of sin. judge the Gentiles and vindicate Israel as the Elect
Since it is set in the Primeval History section of the People of God. It was this hope, that Yahweh would
Yahwist philosophy of history, the story has a uni- mightily intervene in world affairs to save Israel, that
versalistic meaning, and it does not pertain specifically inspired the Zealots, who led the Jewish resistance to
to the destiny of Israel. Its theme, briefly, is that the the government of Rome, and that eventually caused
progenitors of mankind incurred the doom of mortalitv the fatal revolt of a.d. 66, which ended in the over-
for themselves and their descendants by disobedience throw of the nation and the destruction of Jerusalem
to their Maker's command. The part played bv the and its great Temple four years later.
serpent in the fateful drama is enigmatical: it is repre- Parallel with the development of the national hope
sented as the suggesting to Eve of the advantages to for divine salvation, went a quest for individual salva-
be gained from disobedience; but the decision to tion bv divine grace. The ancient Yahwist doctrine of
disobey is distinctly taken by Adam and Eve. However, man had limited the enjoyment of significant personal
shortly after the account of the Fall, the Yahwist writer life to this world. Yahweh, it was taught, blessed the
in describing the first murder (Genesis 4:2-7), makes pious with long life and material prosperity, and
demonic being (robhes),
a curious reference to sin as a punished the impious by misfortune and early death.
"crouching at the door." But the idea that sin is a But, as a sense of individuality emerged in Israel, the
demon, which seizes the unwary, is not developed, and speciousness of this doctrine became painfully evident.
the consequent suggestion that an evil power seeks to It caused the questioning of Yahweh's justice that finds
win man from God does not appear in Hebrew thought such poignant expression Book of Job. Job is
in the
until the post-Exilic period (after 538 B.C.). the type-case of the innocent sufferer overwhelmed by
Psalm 51, though of unknown date, affords valuable unmerited misfortune. His plight is the more tragic
evidence of the currency of three distinct conceptions because he accepts the traditional teaching that death
of sin. In verses 1 and 2 the penitent beseeches God was the virtual end of personal life: beyond it lay only
to ". . . blot out my transgressions. Wash me thor- the misery of Sheol. Job's problem was that his piety
oughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!" had been unrewarded in this life, and he could expect
In Hebrew, "transgressions" {pesha') meant "rebel- no divine salvation after death. Within the context of
lion"; "iniquity" {'awon) denoted a deliberate turning the then contemporary Yahwist doctrine of man. Job's 227
SIN AND SALVATION
problem, though faced courageously, could find no Eleusinian Mysteries, the rationale of which was pro-
A viable answer did eventually be-
satisfying answer. vided by the myth of the goddess Demeter's search
come possible in the second century B.C., when the for her lost daughter Persephone, a blessed afterlife
belief was established tliat God would finally resurrect was promised. This salvation from the common lot of
and judge the dead. Then the just would be rewarded mankind after death depended primarily upon the
by a blessed post-mortem existence, while the unjust magical efficacy of the initiatory rites performed at
were punished in Sheol, which was reconceived as the Eleusis, thovigh certain minimal ethical qualifications
place of eternal torment for the damned. were required for initiation. Unfortunately, owing
4. The Greco-Roman World. which is Christianity, doubtless to the fact that the initiates (mystae) kept
the salvation-religion par excellence, stemmed from their vows of silence, we are inadequately informed
Judaism; but its soteriology was profoundly influenced about both the doctrine and ritual of the Eleusinian
by ideas current in the Greco-Roman world, in which Mvsteries. The same cause probably accounts also for
itspread during the formative centuries of its growth. our lack of detailed knowledge about Orphism. This
Consequently, these ideas, which are intrinsically sig- cult, which traditionally derived from Orpheus and was
nificant, are also of basic importance for the study of essentially connected with the myth of Dionysos-
Christian soteriology. Zagreus, was concerned with the emancipation of the
The Olympian religion of classical Greece, of which soul from its fatal involvement with physical matter.
the earliest literarv evidence is found Homeric
in the It taught that each soul (psyche) was of celestial origin
poems, afforded no hope of a happy afterlife. A com- and inuuortal; but, due to some primordial fault or
mon fate awaited all. Their shades descended, at death, error, it was doomed to a process of reincarnation in
into the gloom and miserv of Hades, and from this fate bodies of various kinds, human, animal, and vegetable.
there could be no salvation (Odyssey XI. 204-22). This Unlike the Eleusinian Mysteries, Orphism had no
view of man's ultimate destiny formed the pattern, specific cult-center; it was organized in small local
with certain variations, of the official religion of communities. Initiation involved purificatory rites and
Greece; it finds expression in its literature and philoso- the imparting of secret knowledge; a discipline of life
phy (except that of Plato), and its influence can be was required, including vegetarianism. From texts
traced in the sad dignity of the farewell scenes sculp- inscribed on gold leaves (laminae), found in tombs
tured on many tombs. The Olympian gods were served thought to be those of Orphic initiates, it would appear
to maintain the prosperity of the state, and failure to that advice was given to enable the deceased to estab-
serve them aright or observe the taboos of their cults lish their heavenly origin and so escape from the "sor-
constituted which involved dire punishment. Thus,

sin, rowful, weary wheel of imceasing reincarnation.
"
the Iliad begins by describing how the god Apollo In process of time, other mystery-religions became
afflicted the Greek army, which was besieging Troy, established in the world of Greco-Roman cultvue. Chief
with a deadly plague because the Greek leader among them were the cults of Isis and Osiris from
Agamemnon had insulted his priest. Oedipus provides Egypt, .'Kttis and Adonis from .\sia Minor, and Mithra
the classic instance, in Greek literature, of the pitiless from Iran. The popularity of these cults attests to the
exactment of divine punishment for unintentional sin. widespread need then felt for the assurance of a blessed
The unfortunate hero commits parricide and incest afterlife, which was not met b\' the official religions
unwittingly, and thus through his pollution brings dis- of Greece and Rome. The cults of Attis and .\donis
aster to Thebes, his native city, and an awful doom derived from primitive rituals connected with the
upon himself. It is accordingly significant that, in "dying-rising" god of vegetation, whose myth com-
Greek thought, hubris was distinguished as the capital memorated the annual death and resurrection of vege-
sin; for it meant that the gods were relentless in striking tation. Certain aspects of the myth were incorporated
down a man who, confident in his own achievement also into the mortuary cult of Osiris. Such cults were
or good fortune, tended to forget his human status. based on ancient man's hope that a similar cycle of
The Olympian religion was essentially the religion death and resurrection might, with divine help, be
of the polls, the city-state; it did not cater to personal reproduced in himself. In the Mithraic mysteries, ele-
needs. For those who sought the comforting assurance ments of and vegetation mythologies can be
solar
of a happy afterlife, instead of Hades' grim prospect, discerned; but the role of Mithra seems to have been
there were the mystery-religions of Eleusis and that of saving his initiates from the dominion of
Orphism. The designation "mystery-religion" connotes Ahriman, the principle of death and evil, who was
a cult into which a person had to be specially initiated, identified with the destructive process of Time under
in order to participate in its secret rites and be in- the guise of Zurvan daregho-chvadhata ("Time of the
228 structed in its esoteric doctrine. To the initiate of the Long Dominion," i.e.. Finite Time).
SIN AND SALVATION
Together with these specifically religious cults, cerned with the deeper causes of sin, and was impatient
which offered salvation of varying kinds to their initi- with preoccupation about ritual offences. Thus he
ates, there existed in the Greco- Roman world mystical taught that "what comes out of the mouth proceeds
philosophies that claimed to possess esoteric (gnosis) from the heart, and this defiles a man. For out of the
knowledge about the human situation which would heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication,
gain eternal beatitude for those who possessed it. The.se theft, false witness, slander" (Matthew 15:18-19;
faiths may be conveniently grouped as Gnosticism, R.S.V.). But, by exhorting his hearers to repent, Jesus
Hernieticism, and iNeo-Platonism. The first two were evidently believed that the individual could by his own
concerned to accoimt for the misery of human life in and merit member-
volition, rectify his evil disposition
a way similar to that of Orphism, except that they ship of God's kingdom. It would appear also that Jesus
embodied belief in the baleful dominion of the stars and his original Jewish disciples accepted the contem-
over mankind. The duality of human nature, namely, porary demonology, and believed that the Devil, as
of an ethereal soul's incarceration in a physical body, the .adversary of God, tempted men and women to
was explained a.s due to the primordial fall or descent commit evil (e.g., Luke 22:3, 53).
of an archetypal Anthropos (".Vlan"), from his abode It was Saint Paul, an Hellenistic Jew, who trans-
with the Father of flight, through the celestial spheres, formed the original Jewish movement centered on Jesm
into the lower material world, where he cohabited with as the Messiah of Israel into a imiversalist savior-god
Phusis ("Nature"). From this union mankind was born, religion. Paul believed that God had specially commis-
thus partaking of the nature of each of its parents, and sioned him to present Jesus to the Gentiles in a manner
subject to the planetary powers that ruled the world. suited to their needs (Epistle to Galatians 1:15-16,
Salvation, consequently, consisted in the freeing of the 2:7-8). Consequently, drawing unconsciously on his
ethereal soul of man from its involvement in corruptible knowledge of Greco-Roman culture, Paul developed
matter, so that it might ascend to its true home with a soteriology of a very esoteric kind. It had two themes,
the Father of Light. The various Gnostic sects and the each of which envisaged mankind as being in a fatal
Hermeticists offered to achieve such salvation for their condition and needing a divine savior to deliver them.
devotees through specially revealed knowledge {gnosis) One theme is briefly outlined in the First Epistle to
of various kinds, and disciplines and mystic techniques. the Corinthians, 2:6ff., which presupposes a form of
Neo-Platonism, on the other hand, sought spiritual astralism similar to that in Gnosticism and Hermeti-
salvation through an electic philosophy and mystical cism, namely, that mankind is in a state of hopeless
experience, including particularly ecstasy, a psychic subjection to the daemonic powers (archontes) that
state of being outside of, or triinscending, one's body. inhabit the planets. Paul explains how God planned,
It is important to note that in these mystery-religions before the eons, to save mankind by sending into this
and mystical philosophies, although certain moral sublunary world a preexistent divine being, called the
offences such as murder constituted a bar to initiation, Lord of Glory. Incarcerated in the person of Jesus, the
little concern was shown about moral qualifications or archontes did not recognize him and crucified him
sin. Instead, emphasis was laid upon the virtue of (verse 8). Their error cost them their control over
initiation as the means to salvation; it was the un- mankind; for they could not hold in death the divine
initiated who were damned to a miserable post-mortem Lord of Glory who had assumed hiunan nature (Epistle
existence. The distinction is succinctly drawn in some to Colossians 2:15, 20).
lines of Sophocles: "How thrice-blessed are they of theme was based on a
Paul's other soteriological
mortals who, having beheld these [Eleusinian] summary philosophy He views mankind as
of history.
mysteries, depart to the house of Death. For to such divided between Gentiles and Jews. The former, he
alone is life bestowed there: to the others fall all ills" maintains, had failed to live according to the natural
(frag. 753, Tiu-chi, p. 152). law, which God had given, and so had fallen into deep
5. Christianity. The message of Jesus of Nazareth moral corruption (Epistle to Romans 1 18ff .). The Jews,
:
is summarized in Mark 1:14 as: "The time is fulfilled, to whom God had given a special Law (Torah), had
and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent. This "
also failed to keep its precepts, and thus stood even
siunmary is significant, for it shows how thoroughly more condemned (Romans 2:17ff.). .\nd, so Paul con-
the mission of Jesus was set in the context of contem- cluded, "there is no distinction; since all have sinned
porary Jewish eschatological belief. Jesus called upon and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified
his fellow Jews to prepare themselves, by repenting by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which
of their sins, for God's intervention in the existing is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expia-
world order, to save His people and punish their tion by liis blood, to be received by faith "
(Romans,
oppressors. According to the Gospels, Jesus was con- 3:22-25; R.S.V.). In this context, Paul uses the imagery 229
SIN AND SALVATION
of the Jewish sacrificial system, regarding Christ as tually returned for the Last Judgment (an idea inherited
"our paschal iamb," that has been sacrificed (I Corin- from Judaism), would be resurrected with
all the dead
thians 5;7). Through Christ's vicarious sacrifice man- their physical bodies. To them, in this resurrected form
kind is reconciled to God, being "saved by his life" of being, their eternal destinies would then be decreed.
(Romans 5:10). Paul also reinterpreted the purifica- If their faith in Christ so merited, they would pass to
torv rite of baptism as a ritual death and rebirth. The the eternal beatitude of the Vision of God; if they were
neophyte is rituallv identified in baptism with Christ condemned, they were doomed to eternal torment in
in his death, so that he might be raised to a new life Hell. This belief in ultimate salvation or damnation
in Christo, as Christ was raised by God from death (Ro- was taught also by the Protestant Reformers, although
mans 6:3ff.). they rejected the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory.
Owing to the disappearance of the original Jewish 6. Islam. Muhammad declared himself to the ,\rab
Christian comnmnity of Jerusalem in the Roman de- people as "a warner clear" (Koran 51:50H.), claiming
struction of that city in a.d. 70, Paul's interpretation, that .^llah had sent him to warn them of impending
which that community had rejected, survived to be- judgment on their sins. The most heinous sin was that
come the basis of Catholic Christianity. In the subse- of worshipping other gods besides Allah. Condem-
quent elaboration of his soteriology, another of Paul's nation at the judgment would mean consignment to
ideas was effectivelv utilized, particularly by Saint Hell, the torments of which Muhammad vividly de-
Augustine of Hippo. In his Epistle to the Romans scribes. Those adjudged faithful would be rewarded by
(5:12-13), Paul had written with reference to .\dam, the joys of Paradise {ul-jantui, "the garden"), which
"sin came world through one man and death
into the are presented in equally realistic terms. The logic of
through and so death spread to all men because
sin, Muhammad's mission implied that men were able to
all men sinned (R.S.V.). From this idea developed the
"
repent of their sins and be forgiven, and thus be saved.
doctrine of Original Sin, according to which every The very word that Muhammad chose to describe his
child through seminal identity with Adam, inherits the faith, namely, "Islam," denoted the idea of personal
guilt of .Adam's original act of disobedience and also submission to a supreme will, thus signifying freedom
a disposition to sin. From the stain of this inherited of will on the part of the "Muslim, "
who has thus
sin the newborn infant is deemed to be purged by submitted himself to .\llah. The implication that the
baptism. An essential emphasis was thus placed upon individual could chose salvation or damnation for him-
baptism, and the Church did not hesitate to declare self is, however, contradicted by other passages in the
that the unbaptized, even if they had committed no Koran that represent human destiny as predetermined
actual sin, were doomed to perdition. by .\llah. Thus, for example, it is stated: ".\llah leadeth
The Church has never formally defined the manner astray whom He willeth andguideth whom He willeth"
in which the death of Christ operates to save mankind (25:9). Rut Muliammad's theological immaturity was
from the consequences of sin, both original and actual. doubtless responsible for his doctrine of predestination.
Three main lines of interpretation have been developed Faced with the refusal of many of his countrymen to
by theologians: that Christ's death was the price paid accept his message, and convinced of the omniscience
to the Devil to redeem mankind; that his dying, as and omnipotence of Allah, Muhammad concluded that
the sinless representative of mankind, propitiated the .-KUah had predetermined who would be saved and who
just anger of God the Father towards his sinful damned.

brethren; that the exemplary effect of Christ's willing- It is significant that the word for "salvation"(na/(3/i)
ness to die on behalf of mankind is calculated to move occurs only once in the Koran: "O my people, why
sinners to contrition, and open the way to their recon- is it? I call you to salvation, but you call me to the
ciliation with God. Fire "

(40:44). The fact indicates that Muliammad did
Despite this lack of formal definition, the pres- not regard mankind as being in a state of perdition
entation of Christ as the divine savior of mankind, owing to some original defect or sin, as in Christianity,
who saves through his sacrificial death, constitutes the from which they needed to be redeemed and regener-
its Catholic and
basic doctrine of Christianity, in both ated. Voluntary submission to Allah ensured the ulti-
Protestant forms. It Middle Ages, to the
led, in the mate bliss of Heaven. Such submission necessarily
formulation of an elaborate eschatology, which en- involved the observance of prescriptions concerning
visaged two forms of post-mortem judgment. After faith and practice. These prescriptions constitute the
death, the individual soul was to be judged by God; five duties of the Muslim, known as the Pillars of
unless its character was such that it deserved either Practical Religion (Arkan al-Islam). They are: profes-
the immediate award of Heaven or immediate con- sion of faith (Shahada), epitomized as "There is no
signment to Hell, it was sent to Purgatory, where it deity but God; Muhammad is God's messenger"; the
230 expiated the guilt of its actual sin. When Christ even- recitation of five stated daily prayers; fasting (especially
SIN AND SALVATION
in the month of Ramadan); payment of legal alms; ignored the consequent problem of accounting for the
pilgrimage to Mecca. variation of human choice, particularly, why some
Although the Koran (2:45) pronounces that at the should decide to align themselves with the Dri'tj. No
Last Judgment the intercession of no one will avail notice, also, appears to be taken of the inherited dispo-
the guiltv, nor can they be any way from
redeemed in sition to sin, with which the Christian doctrine of
their fate, Muhammad has acquired something of the Original Sin attempts to deal. The logic of Zarathustra's
role of a mediator or intercessor in the popular faith teaching implies that the individual could, and was
of Muslims. It is believed that Cod will accept his expected to, work out his own salvation. Zarathustra's
intercession on behalf of believers guilty of grave sin own was primarily that of a prophet or interpreter
role
(except the unforgivable sin of polvtheism), and allow of Ahura Mazda's will. ,\lthough he would lead the
him to deliver them from Hell. In the Shi'a form of faithful in safety across the Bridge of the Separator,
Islam, it is held that the imams, i.e., 'Ali, the son-in-law he does not appear to claim that he would or could
of Muhammad, and his descendants, also have this save them from the Angra Mainyu.
intercessory privilege which they will exercise for the In the later eschatology of Zoroastrianism the post-
benefit of their followers. mortem destiny of the individual is described in great
7. Zoroastrianism. The teaching of Zarathustra (in detail. According to the Ddtistdn-i Mendk-i-Krat, a
Greek, Zoroaster) conceives of mankind as decisively Pahlavi writing of about the ninth century a.d., the
implicated in a cosmic struggle between the principles deeds of the deceased were weighed by Rashnu at the
of Good and Evil.Zarathustra regarded himself as Bridge of the Separator, .^fter that ordeal, the soul
commissioned by Ahura Mazda (the Wise Lord) to meets a personification of its past conduct: to the just
set before his contemporaries the fateful choice that the personification appears as a beautiful maiden, but
confronts each: "Hear with your ears the best things; to the unjust as an awful hag in whose baleful company
look upon them with clear-seeing thought, for decision it goes to hell. Zoroastrian dualism was not, however,
between two beliefs, each man for himself before the an eternal conflict between good and evil, and it was
Great Consummation, bethinking yovi that it be ac- believed that ultimately Ohrniazd (i.e., Ahura .Mazda)
complished to our plea.sure" (Yasna .30:2; trans.
J.
H. would overcome Ahriman (i.e., the Angra Mainyu of
Moulton). Each individual had thus personallv to de- Zarathustra). An eschatology was accordingly elabo-
cide on which side of the contending forces to align rated which looked forward to the coming of the
himself; and upon his choice his destiny depended. In Saoshyans or Savior, who would resurrect the dead for
the extant teaching of Zarathustra only cryptic refer- judgment. The righteous would then pass to heaven,
ences are madeconsequences of this choice.
to the and the wicked to hell where they suffer physically
Thus there was to be an awful ordeal of crossing the for their sins. But their punishment is not eternal; for
Bridge of the Separator (Cinvat); but the devotees the victory of Ohrniazd and the destruction of Ahriman
of Ahura Mazda are assured that they would be led led finally to the Fraskart, the ultimate "making excel-
safely across by Zarathustra himself Yasna 46: 10). (
lent" or rehabilitation of those who had allied them-
Mention is also made of molten metal and fire as forms selves with Ahriman.
of Ahura Mazda's retribution (Yasna 30:7; 51:9). The 8. Hinduism. Moksa is the word most generally used
just are promised that they will abide with Ahura in Hinduism to denote an idea equivalent to salvation.
Mazda in the House of Song Ya^na 45:8, 48:7), while (
But the word literally means liberation, and the some-
the unjust are doomed to the House of the Lie what difl:erent action or process thereby implied from
{Drujo- nmana 46:11). There is reason for thinking that that of salvation reflects the distinctive Hindu view
the Bridge of the Separator was an ancient Iranian of human nature and destiny. This view first found
concept, concerned with proving the ritual fitness of expression in what is known as the early Upanishadic
the dead to enter the next world, and that Zarathustra period of Indian culture (ca. eighth century B.C.), and
readapted it as a post-mortem test of allegiance to was based upon the twin doctrines of samsdra and
Ahura Mazda. karma. Samsdra means the stream of existence in the
The dualism of Zarathustra's teaching had a strong empirical world, involving the individual in a ceaseless
moral character. For though the cosmic struggle was cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The form of each
Death and Light against
basically that of Life against period of incarnate life is believed to be determined
Darkness, Zarathustra designated the Angra Mainyu, by the nature of one's actions in previous lives. By this
the Enemy Spirit, as the Driij or Lie. Moreover, the law or process (karma, literally "deed or "act "), the "
emphases which he upon the momentous character

laid soul of self (dtman) may even be reborn in nonhunian
of the individual's choice assumed a decisive measure forms, if the entail of its past lives so requires.
of hmnan free will that is truly imique in the history The operation of karma can be regarded as the
of religions. However, Zarathustra seems to have working-out of a person's sins or misdeeds; but al- 231
SIN AND SALVATION
though an ethical factor is thus involved, in Indian that the individual nnist achieve tlie goal by his own
thought the process of •iamauru and kanna is primarily efforts, even though he may be assisted by divine grace.
seen as resulting from the disposition of the atman to .\nd the process is essentially that of his correcting,
cling to existence in the empirical world, which it or recovering from, a primordial error or illusion, into
identifies with reality. This disposition stems from a which he inexplicably fell; it is not one of repenting
primordial avidyd or ignorance, and it prevents the and obtaining forgiveness of sins he has committed.
atman from perceiving that Brahman is the true Real- 9. Buddhism. Buddliism originated in India in the
ity and the source and groimd of its own being. sixth century B.C., i.e., during the Upanishadic period
How this aviibiii originated is not explained. The of Indian culture. The Buddha appears to have
great Hindu teacher .'5ankara (ca. 788-820 .\.d.) main- accepted without qtiestion the twin doctrines of
tained that to seek for a causal explanation of it is itself samsdra and kanna: but he made one important quali-
an expression of aiidyii. for the attempt assumes the fication. .\ccording to Hindu teaching, it is the atman,
reality of the empirical world. Accordingly, the im- the individual soul or self, that is subject to the process
ending misery of human existence is accepted as due of samsdra: through infinite incarnations, it bears the
tosome primordial ignorance on the part of the atman, burden of its kanna. The Buddha maintained that the
not to some original sin which it had committed. To idea of permanent soul or self was a basic illusion.
emphasize the infinite extent of this misery, Indian Instead, he taught the doctrine of anatta (an — not;
thinkers invented an elaborate chronology of world- atta= self), according to which the so-called individ-
ages of immense dmation and repetitive pattern, since ual self is the illusory product of the temporary
Time was conceived as cyclic in its process, not linear. collocation of five khandhas. which are various
Through these unending cycles of Time the individual psychical and physical elements that make up a human
atman is doomed to drag out its miserable existence, being. Consequently, there no real self that trans-
is
suffering the pain and degradation of innumerable migrates from body to body. However, by a piece of
births and deaths, and burdened by the ever-increasing subtle metaphysics, it is explained that, at the end of
entail of its own kanna. an incarnation, the disembodied fconna-energy causes
It is from this fate that liberation {moksa) is sought. the formation of a new set of khandhas. thus producing
Hinduism teaches that such liberation is possible, and a new individual form of being.
offers various ways by which it may be attained. Of The Buddlia is reported to have laid supreme em-
these ways the three most notable are the .\dvaita phasis upon the pain and misery of human existence,
Vedanta, the bimktimarga, and Samkhya-Yoga. Advaita and claimed to reveal how release could be obtained.
Vedanta, or Non-Dualistic Vedanta, is a philosophical As in Hinduism, the cause of suffering is found not in
discipline based upon the principle tat tuam asi ("That moral failing but in a primordial ignorance (avijjd). or
art thou"), enimciated in the Chdndogya Upanisliad failure to perceive the true natiu'e of things, .\ccording
VI, 8.7. The aim of the discipline is to bring the indi- to the formula palicca-.<,amuppdda ("dependent origi-
vidual atman to an effective realization of its essential nation"), aging, and death (jardmarana), which in-
identity with Brahman. The achievement of such real- evitably follow each occasion of reljirth, result from
ization liberates the atman from its fatal illusion about a chain of psychophysical causation, beginning with
the empirical world and its own individuality, and so the primal avijjd that starts the karmic process of
delivers it from involvement in samsdra and karma, involvement in the empirical world.
Bhaktimdrga ("the way of bhakti") promises release The means of release from this fatal situation is
through divine help, won by an intense personal devo- summarized in the Buddhist "Eightfold Path," or
tion to the Hindu gods Vishnu or Shiva. In the great atthangiku-magga. The scheme defines eight require-
classic of bhaktimdrga, the Bhagavadgitd ("Song of the ments that have to be fulfilled: right understanding;
Lord"), the ultimate goal is miion with God, and the right thought; right speech; right bodily-action; right
promise is made to the devotee Arjuna: "Set thy mind livelihood; right effort; right mindfulness; right con-
on me, place thy intellect in me; in me verily shalt centration. The eight "steps '
or requirements of the
thou dwell hereafter" (X11.8). Samkhva-Yoga aims to Path are very fully elaborated in Buddhist teaching.
achieve liberation by enabling the individual to make The goal of Buddhist endeavor is Nirvana (Sanskrit)
an existential distinction between himself and the or Nibbana (Pali). The concept denoted is inherently
empirical world. This insight is attained by the rigorous subtle, and it has been variously interpreted. It was
practice of yogic techniques calculated to gain a understood by earlier Western students of Buddhism
proper state of psychophysical detachment. as signifying personal extinction. There was some justi-
In these, and the many other ways by which moksa fication for this view, since Buddhist texts often seem
232 is sought in Hinduism, the underlying assumption is to give the term Nirvana a negative connotation.
SIN AND SALVATION
However, what is primarily certain is that the concept Reallexikon fiir Antikc und Chrislentunt. ed. Th. Klauser
represented, and still represents, a profoundly hoped- (Stuttgart, 1959), entries under "Erlbsung." Religion in
for release or liberation from the suffering of recurrent Geschichte und Gegemvart, ed. K. Galling, .3rd ed.
rebirth in the empirical world. The Buddlia is repre- (Tubingen. 1957-62), Vol. II, entries under "Erloser" and
"Erlbsung," Vol. VI, entries under "Erlosuiig."
sented in a Pali writing entitled Vdana as saying with
See also: T. G. Allen, The Egyptian Book of the Dead
reference to Nirvana: "There, monks, I say there is
(Chicago, 1960). S. Angus, Religious {)uesti of the Graeco-
neither coming nor going, nor staying nor passing
Roman World (London, 1929). R. Bell, The Qufan. 2 vols.
away, nor arising; without support or going on or basis
(Edinburgh, 1937-39). C. F. Bleeker, ed.. Anthropologic
is it. This is the end of pain" (viii, 1-3). But positive
religicnse (Leiden, 1955). S. G. F. Brandon, Man und His
epithets can also be foimd for Nirvana in other Destiny in the Great Religions (Manchester and Toronto,
Buddhist writings. The problem here lies ultimatelv 1962); idem. History, Time and Deity (Manchester, 1965):
in the inherent obscurity that invests the Buddhist idem. The Judgment of the Dead (New York, 1967). all with
conception of human nature. The anatta doctrine extensive documentation and bibliographies; idem, ed.. The
certainly precludes the idea of an inner essential soul Saviour God (Manchester, 1963). J.
H. Breasted. 7/ie Daren
or self that might attain Nirvana; on the other hand, o/Coiiscifiice (New York, 1935). R. Bultmann, Vrchristentum
the Buddha is represented as having rejected the ini Rahmen der antiken Religiunen (Zurich, 1949), trans, as
Primitive Christianity in its Contemporary Setting (1956;
uccheda-vdda, i.e., the doctrine of personal annihila-
reprint New Conze, Buddhism (Oxford, 1957);
York). E.
tion. It would seem likely that early Buddhist thinkers
idem, Buddhist Thought in India (London, 1962). Fr.
did conceive of some kind of transcendental self, as
Cumont, After-Life in Roman Paganism (New York, 1959).
distinct from the empirical self; but thev refused to S. Dasgupta, A
of Indian Philawphy. 5 vols.
History
define it either positively or negatively, on the princi- (Cambridge, 1922-62); idem, logo as Philosophy and Reli-
ple that all definition is limitation by means of em- gion (London, 1924). E. Dhorme, Les religions de Rahylonie
pirical categories. et Assyrie (Paris, 1945). Duehesne-Guillemin, Zoroastre
J.
In its Buddhism was essentially a wav,

original form. (Paris, The Hymns of Zarathustra (London,
1948); idem.
revealed by the Buddha Gotama, whereby men could 1913). C. Eliot, Hinduism ami Buddhism. 3 vols. (London,
work out their own salvation or liberation. In process 1954). R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts
of time other forms of the faith developed,which were (Oxford, 1969). .\.-]. Festugiere, La revelation d'Hermes
adapted to meet the need of ordinary people for divine Tris^negiste, 4 vols. M. Gaudefroy-
(Paris, 1950-54).
Demonbynes, Mahomet (Paris, 1957). L. \V. Grensted, A
help and the expectation of reward or punishment after
S/ior( History of the Atonement (Manchester, 1920). H.
a period of incarnate life. Consequently, popular
Giinther, Das Seelenproblem in cilteren Buddhismus
Buddhism knows many divine helpers,
of called
(Konstanz, 1949). W. K. G. Guthrie, Die Greeks and their
bodhisattvas, who assist men and women to enjoy Gods (London, 1950); idem. Orpheus and Greek ReUgion
heavenly and avoid post-mortem torment, before
bliss
(London, 1952). \. Harnack, History of Doctrine, 7 vols.
they ultimately work out their karma and attain (New The Vision of God
York, 1961; also reprint). K. Kirk,
Nirvana. (London, 19.31). \V. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Liter-
ature (Oxford, 1960). M. Mole, "Daena, le pont Cinvant et
CONCLUSION I'initiation dans le Mazdeisme," Revue de I'histoire des
Ideas of sin as transgression of divine law, incurring religions. 157 (1960). S. Mowinckel, He That Cometh
(London, 1931). T. R. V. Murti, The Central Philosophy of
divine wrath and causing ritual pollution, are to be
Buddhism (London, 1955). G. E. Mylonas, Eleusis and the
found in most religions. Similarly prevalent has been
Eleusiniun .Mysteries (Princeton, 1961). M. P. Nibson.
the quest for divine salvation from evils, natural and
Geschichte der griechischen Religion, 2 vols.. Vol. I, 2nd ed.
supernatural. The conceptions of sin and salvation (Munich, 1955), Vol. II (Munich, 1950). \V. O. E. Oesterley
surveyed in most significant and
this article are the and T. H. Robinson, Hebrew Religion (London, 1930).
representative. Each has evolved in a major religion, J.
D. C. Pavry, The Zoroastrian Doctrine of a Future Life
and characterizes its faith and practice. Each, also, has (New York, 1929). J. Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture,
had great cultural influence, affecting art and literature 4 and II (London and Copenhagen, 1926), Vols.
vols.. Vols. I
and the social behavior of many generations. Illand IV (London and Copenhagen, 1940). S. Radhakrish-
nan. The Principal Vpanisads (London, 1953). E. Rohde,
Psyche: Seelencult und Unsterblichkcitsglaube der Griechen,
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2 vols. (Freiburg, 1898). J.
Spiegel, Die Idee vom Toten-
Encyclopedic Works. Dictionanj of Comparative Religion. gericht in der aegyptischen Religion (Gliickstadt, 1935).
ed. S. G. F.Brandon (New York, 1970), entries under all E. J.
Thomas, The History of Buddhist Thought (London,
items mentioned in article. Encyclopaedia of Religion and 1951); idem. Early Buddhist Scriptures (London, 1935).
Ethics, ed. J.
Hastings, 12 vols. (Edinburgh and New York, N. Turchi, Pontes Historiae Mysteriorum Aevi Hellenistici
1910), Vol. XI, entries under "Sin" and "Salvation." (Rome, 1923). W. M. Watt, Free Will and Predestination in 233
SKEPTICISM IN ANTIQUITY
Early Islam (London, 1948). M. Wensinck, The MiisJiiii
Creed (Cambridge. 1932). N. P. Williams, Ideas of the Fall There is less agreement about the antecedents of
and of Original Sin (London, 1927). R. C. Zaehner, The ancient skepticism. Skeptical tendencies, real or
Daicn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (London, 1961); idem. alleged, in pre-Socratics, Sophists, and Socrates were
Hinduism (0.vford, 1962).
traced by Victor Brochard in his Introduction. They
S. G. F. BR.-^NDON include the many comments of the early philosophers
[See also Btiddhism; Christianity in History; Dualism;

on the unreliability of sense perception and the limita-
Gnosticism; Heniieticism; Islamic Conception; Prophecy in tions of human knowledge. Prominent in this review
Hebrew Scripture; Religion, Ritual in.] are Gorgias, On Nature, or the ^', .. Existent, and the
famous dictum of the Democritean Metrodorus of
Chios (fourth century B.C.), "We know nothing, not
even whether we know or do not know, or what it
is to know or not to know, or in general whether
anything exists or not ' (Diels and Kranz, frag. Bl).

SKEPTICISM IN ANTIQUITY Metrodorus' name is often linked with that of
Anaxarchus, the teacher of Pyrrho.
Among the ancients themselves, Plutarch [Moralia
The historians of ancient skepticism agree on the 1121F-1122A) says that Arcesilaus was accused of
broad outline of its began with Pyrrho
development. It having invoked the names of Socrates, Plato,
of Elis (ca. 365-275 b.c), a pupil of the Democritean Parmenides, and Heraclitus as authorities for his skep-
AnaxarchiLS and of Bryson, a member of the Megaric tical views about the suspension of judgment and the
School. Pyrrho s followers included Nausiphanes of fallibility of apprehension; and Cicero, in speaking
Teos, a teacher of Epicurus, and Timon of Phlius, who for the .\cademy, includes .\naxagoras, Democritus,
defended liis master by attacking ri\al philosophers in Metrodorus, Empedocles, Parmenides, Xenophanes,
his Silloi ("Satires") and other writings. After Timon Socrates, and Plato in similar contexts (Ac. 11.72-74;
the Pyrrhonic School went into eclipse; but meanwhile Ac. Even more extravagant boasts, including not
1.44).
the Platonic Academy, imder .Arcesilaus of Pitane. only philosophers but in addition Homer, Archilochus,
turned to skepticism. The greatest of the Academic Euripides, and Hippocrates are reported by Diogenes
Skeptics v\as Carneades of Cvrene, whose discourses Laertius (IX. 71-74). These exaggerated claims appear
were recorded by his pupil, Clitomachus of Carthage to be a feature of .Academic rather than Pyrrhonic
(his name was originally Hasdrubal). In the first centiu'y Skepticism; and indeed three of the ancient names for
B.C. under Philo of Larissa and Antiochus of .\scalon, skeptics, skeptikoi ("examiners "), zetetikoi ("searchers"),
the Academy first compromised, then abandoned the and aporetikoi ("doubters were probably meant to
")
skeptical tradition. Cicero belongs to this transitional suggest a tie with the Platonic Socrates and perhaps
period; he studied under both Philo and Antiochus. even with .\ristotle. (On the names see NA XI.5; PH
With the demise of .Academic Skepticism, Pyr- 1.7; DL IX.69-70. Aristotle appears as a skeptic in the
rhonism revived. The man chiefly responsible was Epicurean Diogenes of Oenoanda, ed. Chilton, frag.
.\enesidemus of Crete, probablv of the first century 4.) Arcesilaus was called skeptikos by Timon and others,
B.C., who systematized skeptical argimients under ten according to Eusebius {PE XIV.6.5). He may have had
tropes on the problem of knowledge and eight tropes a polemical aim in thus placing himself in the main-
on causes. Sometime later Agrippa (otherwise un- stream of Greek thought, in opposition to his chief
known) reduced the tropes to five, and someone else antagonist, the Stoic Zeno, a non-Greek from Cyprus.
reduced them to two. No doubt Arcesilaus also found much useful material
In its final phase Pvrrhonic Skepticism became in the arguments of his predecessors, especially the
closely allied with empirical medicine, a connection Platonic Socrates (cf. Or. III.67).
that may weW have begun as early as the third century The attitude of the Pyrrhonists toward the earlier
B.C. Menodotus of Nicomedia, an empirical physician philosophers is less clear. Timon is reported to have
of the early second century a.d., wrote a number of dedicated his Silloi to Xenophanes (cf. PH 1.223-4; DL
works that restored to skepticism a certain standing. IX. 18, 111), and he seems to have spared the Eleatics
Later in the century Sextus Empiricus wrote compre- from his general abuse of the dogmatists (cf. DL IX.23,
hensive accounts of skeptical arguments. His surviving 25). Perhaps he did so out of regard for Pyrrho's
works are a major source for both .\eademic and teacher Bryson; the Megaric School, to which Bryson
Pyrrhonic Skepticism. Sextus' student, Saturninus, is belonged, was influenced by the Eleatics. Timon also
234 the last known skeptic of antiquity. spoke favorably of the atomist Democritus and the
Sophist Protagoras (DL IX.40, 52). His generally but Cicero says quite explicitly that the .\cademic
mocking tone, however, makes even his praise Skeptics suspended judgment on every question, as the
ambiguous. arguments on both sides were of equal weight (Ac.
Aenesidemus had a physical theory based on and Sextus absolves Arcesilaus,
1.45), at least, from the
Heraclitus. He held, according to Se.xtiis {PH 1.210), charge of dogmatism (PH 1.232).
that skepticism is the path to the Heraclitean philoso- .\ second view that .\rcesilaus is said to have
phv. Sextus, however, rejected this view and carefully attacked is the doctrine that pleasure is the highest
distinguished between Heraclitean dogmatism and good (cf. Fin. II.2). This was the view of two contem-
true skepticism. He also rejected the claims that porary schools, the Cyrenaic and the Epicurean. Here
Democritus, the Cyrenaics, Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, .\rcesilaus might well have drawn on Plato; but the
Xenophanes were Even Carneades, in his
skeptics. evidence is lacking.
view, does not entirely escape the charge of dogmatism With Carneades our knowledge of the nature and
(PH 1.210-31). range of polemic is greatly increased.
skeptical
Carneades' discussion of the problem of knowledge was
in broadened to refute not only the Stoics (who were still
The content of skeptical teaching may be discussed the primary target) but all others who claimed to have
under three heads: (1) the arguments used by the found an infallible test of truth. Some idea of his argu-
skeptics to refute the dogmatists; (2) the formulation ments can be got from Cicero, Ac. 11.79-98 and from
of the skeptical position in terms of phrases and tropes; Sextus, AM VII. 159-65. Similarly in his discussion of
and (3) the defense of skepticism. ethical theory he gave an exhaustive enumeration of
One
1. of Pyrrho's achievements, according to possible views of the sitmmwn bonum, or "highest
Timon (cf. DL IX.65) was to break the chains of false good" (Fill. V.16-20). His practice of arguing both sides
opinion; what opinions he attacked, and bywhat of a question is illustrated bv his two speeches on
means, we do not know. Timon himself denounces justice delivered at Rome on the occasion of the em-
rather than refutes his adversaries; but the fragments bassy from Athens in 155 b.c. His arguments against
of his works indicate that he discussed appearance as natural justice can be recovered in part from the
the hmit of certainty (DL IX. 105). the method of fragmentary remains of Cicero, De republica III, where
hypothesis (AM III.2), and the divisibility of time (AM Philus is his spokesman.
V'L66, X.197). He also held, apparently, that nothing Carneades also developed argimients against philo-
is by natiu'e good (AM XL 140). Our information, how- sophical theology. The best-known are (1) that the
ever, is too slight to permit the identification of his powers and activities assigned to divine beings are not
opponents or the reconstruction of his arguments. consistent with their being changeless and eternal (AM
With Arcesilaus the picture is clearer but still far IX.137-81; ND III.29-34); (2) "that the evils in the
from complete. He undertook on either side
to argue universe are not consistent with divine providence
of any question (DL where Protagoras
1V.28; cf. IX.51, (Plutarch, Moralia, frag. 193 ed. Sandbach, from
is said to have held that for every argument there is Porphyrius, De abstinentia III.20; Ac. 11.120); (3) that
a counterargument) and to refute whatever opinion the occurrence of accidental designs, for example, a
anyone expressed (Ac. 1.45; ND 1.11; Fin. II. 2; Or. rock that has the form of a head, invalidates the argu-
III.67; PE XIV.7.15). The opinion that chiefly interested ment that a design implies a designer (Die. 1.23); and
him was the Stoic view that some appearances can of (4) no clear boundary can be drawn between what
that
themselves be apprehended as certainly true. In rebut- is divine and not divine [ND III.43-50; AM
tal he defended the thesis that no appearances can be VII. 182-90). This last argument is an example of the
so apprehended. This thesis was known as akatalcp.iia sorites, or "heap," a device for obscuring boundaries
("nonapprehension") (cf. AM VH.15.3-.55; PE XIV.7.4). by pointing to continuous gradations. It was also used,
It was sometimes taken to be a statement of the skepti- presumably by Carneades (cf. Ac. 11.49 and 92-95), to
cal position, along with epochc, "suspension of judg- obscure the distinction between illusions and veridical
ment" (Ac. 11.59; Plutarch, Moralia 1121F-1122A). A sense perceptions.
more cautious interpretation would be that the Carneades' methods e.xhibit certain tendencies that
polemical postures assumed by Arcesilaus in order to became increasingly strong in later skepticism. One
refute the Stoics are not necessarily positions to which such tendency is toward the schematic formulation of
he himself subscribed; otherwise he becomes liable to alternatives, as exhibited in the discussion of the
the charge of holding "dogmatically" that nothing can summutn bonum. Compare also his attack on divina-
be known. Such an accusation was in fact made against tion (Die. II.9-12), where the possible objects of
the Academy (cf. Ac. 11.28-29; NA XI.5.8; PH 1.226); divination are systematically enumerated and rejected. 235
It is tempting to assign also to Carneades the series for the view that the arts and sciences which limit
(PH 111.10-11) on the power and provi-

of propositions themselves to the use of appearances are legitimate,
dence of god, a sclieme which Lactantius assigns to whereas those that claim to say something about the
—
Epicunis rather improbably, inasmuch as it entails real nature of things are not. This is the view that
the rejection of Epicurean theology; see Lactantius, Sextus adopts in AM I-VI. There are a few indications
De ira and De Lacy, Transactions of the
Dei, 13.20-21 that the Academic Skeptics also discussed the arts and
American Philological Association. 79 (1948), 18-19. sciences. In Ac. 11.122 Cicero mentions the empirical
The tendency toward schematic analysis is seen also physicians' conviction that the nature of the body
in the argument on fate reported by Cicero, De fato cannot be discovered by dissection, as the concealed
.31; and it is commonly supposed that Carneades organs may be by the mere act of laying them
altered
formulated the "four heads" (Ac. 11.83) from which it bare. Cicero also rejects theargument that the skeptic's
follows that nothing can be apprehended through sense attack on knowledge is an attack also on the arts; some
perception. Carneades anticipates a later trend also in arts, he says, admit that they use conjecture more than
his examination of the notion of the divine. Compara- knowledge, and others such as painting and sculpture
ble examinations were subsequently made of cause {AM are guided by what appears rather than by what is
lX.195-266), body (ibid. 359-440), time (AM X.169- (Ac. 11.22, 107, 146). There is no evidence, however,
247), and the like, the aim being in each case to show that the .Academic Skeptics attacked mathematics.
that no consistent account of these concepts can be Aenesidemus is best known for the ten tropes (see
given. below. III, 2). Underlying the tropes is a formulation
The development of characteristically skeptical problem in terms of signs: if

of the epistemological
analyses and arguments led to two levels of refutation, from the apparent we obtain knowledge of the non-
one level employing argimients that dogmatists use apparent, then the apparent serves as a sign, the
against each other, the other the distinctively skeptical nonapparent as a thing signified (see Photius, III, 121).
arguments. There is a hint of this already in Carneades, But, Aenesidemus argues (cf. AM VlII.215-.35), if signs
who opposes to the Stoic doctrine of fate not only his were apparent they would appear the same to all who
own dialectical refutation but also the Epicurean re- are in a similar state, that is, there would be no dis-
jection of fatalism (Cicero, De fato 21-23). The mutual agreement about what they signify. But there is
support of Epicureans and skeptics against Stoics or disagreement; therefore signs are not apparent. Sextus
Platonists appears again in Die. 11.51 and in Sextus" gives a much fuller accomit of this doctrine of signs.
attacks on the teachers of the arts and sciences (.\M He divides the nonapparent into three kinds: (1) the
1.1-7). absolutely nonapparent, e.g., the number of grains of
A fairly good example of skeptical polemics in the sand in Libya; (2) the nonapparent by nature, e.g., the
Carneadean tradition is the speech of Cicero in Ac. invisible pores in the skin, or the void outside the
11.64-146. It includes a historical sketch, arguments to universe; and (3) the nonapparent at the moment, e.g.,
discredit both sense perception and reasoning as the citv of Athens. Things absolutely nonapparent may
sources of certain knowledge, a defense of Carneades' be left out of consideration. Things by nature non-
doctrine of probability (see below. III, 3), and an ac- apparent can be known only if there are appearances
count of the disagreements of the dogmatists in physics, which point to them unambiguously (indicative signs),
ethics, and logic. as the movements of the body are said to be signs of
At some time the scope of skeptical attack was the soul or motion a sign of void. Things nonapparent
broadened to include among its targets the theoretical at the moment can be signified by present appearances
arts and sciences. Medicine was among the first to be that remind us of them (admonitive signs), as smoke
involved in this controversy. The split between the is the sign of fire, a scab is the sign of a wound (AM
theoretical and empirical approaches to medicine is VIII. 141-55). Sextus does not challenge the possibility
evident already in the Hippocratic corpus (fifth century of admonitive signs; they presuppose no necessary
and an Empirical School of medicine, with strong
B.C.); connection between sign and thing signified, and they
tendencies toward skepticism, was founded by Philinus are adequate to accomit for the connections that we
in the third century B.C. Members of this .school in later establish between things in everyday activities (AM
times praised Pyrrho for having followed appearances VIII. 155-58). Reminding is, in fact, the skeptics' sub-
in everyday activities and having suspended judgment stitute for proof; see for example, PH III.20; De Lacy,
about all else (cf. Galen, Stibfiguratio etnpirica, in Phronesis, 3 (1958), 71. But about the indicative sign,
Deichgraber, p. 82). The statement that ".Appearance which is the invention of dogmatic philosophers and
prevails wherever it goes" is indeed fomid in the frag- theorizing phvsicians, the skeptic withholds judgment,
236 ments of Timon (cf. AM VII.30), and it provides a basis as he finds the arguments against it as strong as those
for it {AM VIII. 159-298). Sextus includes the argument 2. A feature of ancient skepticism throughout its
of Aenesidemus mentioned above as a part of his attack historywas a fondness for catchwords. The most widely
on the indicative sign. current was epoche, "suspension of judgment, used by '
The very length of Sextus' discussion of signs testifies both Pyrrhonists and .Academics (see Ac. 11.59;
to their importance in skeptical polemic (cf. also DL Plutarch, Moralia 1122A; PH 1.8, 10, 196; DL IX.61,
IX. 96-97). His reference to theoretical medicine and 62). There is some question, however, whether it goes
his use of medical examples suggest that the terms in back to Pyrrho himself, and it does not appear in the
which he presents the problem may have been current fragments of Timon. Often coupled with epoche is
in medical controversy. A more widespread practice akatalepsia. i.e., "nonapprehension," which probably
was to distinguish between common signs, which are derives from the Academic attack on the Stoic theory
ambiguous in their reference, and particular signs, of apprehension {katatepsisi cf. Ac II. 17- 18, 31). Sextus
which signify one thing only. This distinction is found (PH 1.1-3) assigns it to the .'\cademy rather than to
in medical writers, who use it in the identification of his own school (see also Photius, III, 1 19-20). Diogenes
symptoms; see for example Galen, Commentary on Laertius, however (IX.61), uses it along with epoche
Hippocrates' De Officina Medici, I.I (ed. Kiihn, XVIII, to characterize Pyrrho's teaching. More certainly
2, 643-45). It appears also in rhetorical theory (cf. Pyrrhonic is the phrase ou mallon ("no more this than
Cicero, Partitiones oratoriae, 34) and in philosophical that"), which appears in the fragments of Timon (cf.
controversy of the Hellenistic period (see Philodemus, DL IX.76; PE XIV. 18.3), in Aenesidemus (Photius, III,
De signis, cols. I and 14). There is reason to suppose 119), and in Se.xtus (cf. PH 1.187-91). It also had a place
that Carneades' attack on Stoic epistemology was at in pre-Pyrrhonic philosophy; see De Lacy, Phronesii,
some time stated in terms of this distinction: the Stoics 3 (1958). 59-71. The refusal to incline this way or that
regarded some sense perceptions as particular signs, was expressed by arrhepsia {PH 1.190; DL IX.74), the
others as common signs. Carneades challenged them refusal to make assertions by aphasia (Timon in PE
to show that any appearance is ever a particular sign XIV.18.4, 19; PH 1.192-93: cf. Plutarch, Moralia
(Ac. 11.33-34, 84, 103). I123C), the avoidance of distinctions bv ouden horizein
Another matter of major concern to Aenesidemus (Timon in DL IX.76; cf. 71 and 74;' PH 1.197), the
was the notion of cause. Sextus reports an argument avoidance of rashness in assent by uproptosia (DL
that he used to show that one thing cannot cause, i.e., IX.74; cf. PH 1.20, 177, 186; 11.21; Ac. 1.45), the equal
generate, another {AM IX.218-26). In addition, he balance of arguments for and against any thesis by
formulated eight ways of attacking dogmatic theories isostheneia (DL IX.73, 76, 101; PH 1.8; AM IX.207;
of causation (the eight tropes; cf. PH 1. 180-84; Photius, cf. Ac. 1.45: paria mmnenta).
III, 122). Photius reports that Aenesidemus also dis- Such terms as these gave the skeptics a kind of
cussed truth (cf. AM VIII. 40-47), motion, the universe identity and served as substitutes for positive doctrine.
and the gods, the objects of choice and avoidance, the The same may be said of their many schematisms, some
virtuesand the surnmum bonum (cf. XI.42). AM of which have already been mentioned. Among the
Sextus' treatises are most extensive of the
by far the most important in later skepticism were Aenesidemus'
ancient skeptical writings that have survived; and ten tropes in support of the view tliat although it is
although Sextus incorporates many items derived from possible for me to describe each thing as it appears
earlier skeptics, his presentation and elaboration seem to me, 1 must suspend judgment as to what sort of thing
to be his own. For example, no model has been found it is in itself.
for his six books on the special disciplines {AM I- VI) The tropes are listed, with minor differences, by both
or for his discussion of ethics (AM XI, PH III. 168-279). Sextus (PH 1.36-163) and Diogenes (IX.79-88). As
He also gives a long and detailed treatment of cause Sextus presents them, the same thing appears different
{AM IX. 195-266; cf. DL IX.97-99). Of the many other (1) to different species of animals; (2) to different in-
matters that he takes up, perhaps the most important dividuals, by virtue of their differences in mind and
is his on Stoic and Peripatetic logic {PH
attack body; (3) to different senses, as a painting appears fiat
11.134-203; AM VIII.300-481). Sextus had a com- to the touch but to the eyes seems to have depth; (4) to
mendable familiarity with early Greek philosophy, and the same sense in different states, e.g., in sickness or
he ranks as an important source of information about health, in youth or old age; (5) because of differences
the pre-Socratics and others whose works have been in position, distance, or place, as the square tower
lost. He has, besides, an obvious enthusiasm for his appears round at a distance, and the oar appears bent
subject, which sometimes turns to playfulness (e.g., PH where it enters the water; (6) by virtue of differences
1.62-63). It is perhaps because his writings were more in the things in whose company it appears, as an object
than mere compilations that they survived. heavy in air appears light in water; (7) because of 237
differences in quantity and situation, as grains of sand appears bad; in this sense they follow nature as their
when scattered appear rougli liut in a fieap appear soft; guide. Skepticism does not challenge appearances, but
(8) in different relations, everytfiing being in some only the dogmatists' claim to have certain knowledge
sense relative; (9) insofar as it is encountered continu- about the nonapparent (cf. Ac. 11.10.3; PH 1.19-20).
ously or rarely, as an earthquake is more frightening There is between skepticism and
therefore no conflict
to those who experience it for the first time than to practical decisions. The view that we live by appear-
persons accustomed to earthquakes; (10) according to ances is attributed by .'Venesidemus to Pyrrho himself
different ways of life, customs, and beliefs, as the (cf. DL I.\.106), and it is implied by the fragment of
Taurians sacrifice strangers to Artemis, but the Greeks Tinion already quoted, '.'\ppearance prevails wherever
forbid human sacrifice. Diogenes gives to the list a less it goes." It receives explicit statement also in the .'\ca-
arbitrary sequence; his order is 1-4, 10, 6, 5, 7, 9, 8. demic tradition (cf. Plutarch, Moralia 1122) and is
Aristocles (PE XIV.lS.ll) gives the number of tropes accepted by Sextus {AM VII.30; PH 1.21-24). Indeed,
as nine; no satisfactory explanation of the discrepancy Sextus regards the observation of appearances as the
has yet been found. basis of the practical arts {AM V.1-2) and of the
The five tropes of Agrippa are broader in scope, admonitive sign {PH 11.100; AM VHI.152, 156-57).
dealing not only with appearances but also with proof. One reminded of Platos description of the skill in
is
They are given at some length by Sextus (PH 1.164-77) observing, remembering, and predicting that was
and summarized by Diogenes {IX.88-89). The first is held in honor by the inhabitants of the cave {Republic
that as we are not able to resolve the disagreements 516C-D).
and conflicts in life and in philosophy, we end up by The skeptics also accepted tradition and custom as
suspending judgment. The second is that as anything a guide to action {PH 1.17, 231; DL 1X.61, 108; PE
submitted in support of a proposition must itself be XIV. 18.20). Custommay be observed on the level of
supported, an infinite regress results. The third is that appearance and followed without intellectual commit-
a perceived object appears to be of such and such a ment. It is on this basis, for instance, that the skeptic
description relative to that which makes the judgment performs acts of piety and avoids impiety (cf. PH
and to the things perceived along with it, but we 1.23-24, 111.2; AM IX.49). Thus Cotta, the Academic
suspend judgment about its true nature. The fourth is spokesman in Cicero's Dc natura deonim. insists that
that dogmatists, in order to escape infinite regress, take he may be a philosophical skeptic and still participate
unproved assumptions as their starting point. The fifth in the traditional Roman religion (.YD 111.5, 9). It is
is that when that which ought to establish some con- not unlikely that skepticism helped to strengthen the
clusion can only be proved from the conclusion, since trend toward traditionalism in the Greco-Roman world.
we can use neither for the proof of the other, we .\rcesilaus advanced still another guide to practical
suspend judgment. action, .\ccording to Sextus {AM VH.1.58), he held that
Finally {PH 1.178-79) assigns
Sextus to certain happiness is secured through practical wisdom, practi-
imnamed skeptics two tropes that aim at a formula cal wisdom consists in right action, and right action
of universal application. Certainty about a thing is got is action for which a reasonable defense can be given.
either (1) from the thing itself, or (2) from some other The reasonable {eulogon) is thus the guide. There is
thing. The first alternative is refuted by the unresolved no mention of this view in the extant portions of
disputes of the natural philosophers; the .second leads Cicero's Acadernica. but perhaps it is not mere coinci-
to infinite regress. dence that several which Cicero wrote during
letters
3. There were two main attacks on skepticism in the period when he was working on the Acadernica
antiquity; (1) makes action impossible; and (2) it is
it (June-July, 45 B.C.) contain the Greek word eulogon
self-contracfictory. The first rests on the observation or eutogia {Letters to Atticus, .X1II.5, 6, 7, 22). In the
that action presupposes decision, and decision involves last of these (22) the reference is to a decision that
a choice between alternatives. Anyone who says of Cicero must himself make, .\nother letter to Atticus
things that they are "no more this than that" thereby (XIV'.22), written a year later, uses eulogon in the
destroys the groimd for practical decisions and so context of making conjectiu-es about the future. Atticus
makes action impossible. As ."Aristotle said (Metaphi/sics would surely have seen in these letters an allusion to
1008b 26-27), "All men make unqualified judgments, the skeptical criterion.
if not about all things, still about what is better and Carneades formulated a three-step procedure for
worse" (trans. Ross). To this charge the skeptics gave determining the probability of an appearance. The first
a number of answers. First of all, they pointed out that step is to limit oneself to persuasive appearances, that
practical decisions are made in terms of appearances. is, to those which appear to be in accord with the
238 Men naturally seek what appears good and avoid what objects from which they come, and from among these
appearances to select the ones that are not dim or he knew nothing; cf. Ac. 11.74). Cicero also reports (Ac.
distant or in anv way indistinct. The second step is 11.28) an exchange between Carneades and the Stoic
to inspect the persuasive appearance in the context .\ntipater on this point. .-Vntipater suggested that the
of the chain of appearances that accompanv it. For skeptic might make his position consistent by saying
e.\ample, the appearance of a man brings with it ap- that nothing can be comprehended except this one
pearances of his color, size, form, movement, speech, thing, that nothing can be comprehended. Carneades,
clothing, and also of the air, light, day, sky, earth, however, insisted that there be no exceptions; the
friends, and so forth. If none of these concomitant person who states that nothing can be comprehended
appearances exerts a contrary pull by appearing false, must include this statement among the things that
our confidence is increased. Sextus compares this cannot be comprehended. Lucretius probably echoes
inspection to that of physicians who do not judge that the Carneadean view when he says, "If anyone thinks
a man has a fever from one symptom alone but from that nothing is known, he also does not know whether
a concurrence (syndrome) of symptoms, pulse, temper- this can be known, since he confesses that he knows
ature, color, So the Academic looks for
and so forth. nothing" (RX IV. 469-70). The Academic Skeptics did
a concurrence of appearances, none of which exerts not escape the ambiguity of their presentation; thev
a contrary pull. When this condition is met, the initial were sometimes accused of affirming that nothing can
appearance may be be persuasive, with no pull
said to be comprehended (see above. III, 1). Sextus was more
to the contrary. The third step is to examine closely cautious; he carefully avoided saying anything that
all of the concomitant appearances in order to assure might seem to commit him to such an affirmation.
ourselves in each case that our vision is not dulled, It was possible to state the charge of inconsistency
the distance is not too great or the object too small, in terms of the ou mallon formula. Aristotle anticipated
the duration of the appearance is not too short, etc. the skeptics' dilemma when he said, in discussing
When all these conditions are satisfied bv all the Heraclitus' supposed denial of the law of contradiction
appearances, then the appearance with which we (Metaphysics 1062b 2-9), that from Heraclitus' position
began may be described as persuasive (pithane), having it would follow that just as when contradictory state-
no pull to the contrary {aperispastos), and examined ments are taken separately the affirmation is no more
from all sides (periodctuncne). The fullest account of true than the negation, so when the two together are
the Cameadean criterion is in Sextus {AM VII. 166-84); taken as a single affirmation, the entire affirmation will
there is a shorter account in PH 1.227-29. Cicero be no more true than its negation. The answer of the
alludes to the three stages but does not explain them earlier skeptics to this criticism is not known; but
in Ac. 11.33, 36; further, in 11.105-10 he defends Sextus at least recognized its that ok
force. He saw
Carneadean probability as an adequate guide in prac- median as a principle includes no more true
itself: it is
tical matters and in the arts. The later Pvrrhonists than false and is therefore not a tenable position (PH
rejected Carneadean probability as a departure from 1.14). It was probably in response to this difficulty that
true skepticism (cf. Photius, III, 119-20; PH 1.229-30); some skeptics compared ou mallon and other such
and indeed had the support of Galen, who
in this they formulas to a purgative that eliminates itself along with
took Cameadean probability to be equivalent to Stoic the arguments of the dogmatists (cf. DL IX. 76; PE
apprehension (katalepsis) and to the formula, which XIV. 18.21). Sextus offers another way out. The skepti-
Galen himself preferred, that whatever appears clearly cal ou mallon. he says, is not to be taken as an affirma-
to mind or senses is tnie (ed. Kiihn, V, 778). tion or a negation but rather as a report of the skeptic's
The charge that skepticism is self-contradictory ap- inability to decide between conflicting statements. It
pears most often in the following form: a person who is a description of his state of mind and is as much
says that nothing can be known must admit that he a question as a statement (PH 1.15, 191-93, 200).
cannot know whether nothing can be known and
therefore must admit that perhaps something can be IV
known. Alternatively, if he claims to know that nothing The ancient skeptics evoked a variety of reactions.
can be known he thereby admits that at least one thing Of the Hellenistic schools, the Stoics were the most
can be known and so contradicts his principle. hostile (see, for example, Epictetus' Discourses, 1.5, 27;
Metrodorus of Chios (quoted above, II) was no doubt 11.20). The Epicureans were less extreme. They rejected
attempting to escape the second alternative when he skepticism, of course (see, for example, the Epicurean
said, "We know nothing, not even whether we know Colotes' attack on Arcesilaus, reported and answered
or do not know." Similarly, according to Cicero (Ac. by Plutarch in his Reply to Colotes, Moralia 1121-24).
1.45), Arcesilaus denied that anything could be known, But the Epicureans shared with Pyrrho a common
not even what Socrates left for himself (he knew that Democritean background, and in fact Pyrrho's pupil
SKEPTICISM IN MODERN THOUGHT
Nausiphanes was one of Epicurus' teachers. Both Div.: Cicero, De diiiiwtione

Epicurus and Pyrrho regarded ataraxia. "peace of DL: Diogenes Laertius, Vitae phitosoptwrum
mind," end of human action (DL .\.128; PE

as the Fin.: Cicero, De Jinibus bonorum et malorum
XIV.18.4; PH
1.8). Later Epicureans and skeptics
cf.
NA: Aulus Gellius, Nodes Atticae
were lirought together to some extent by their common ND: Cicero, De natura deortim
Or.: Cicero, De oratore
enemies, .\nother point of contact may have been
PE: Eusebius, Praeparatio ecangelica
medical empiricism. For example, a characteristic term
PH: Sextus, Pyrrhoniae hypotyposes
for empirical reasoning, epilogi.mios, was used by
RN: Lucretius, De reruin natura
empirical physicians. Epicureans, and Sextus; see De RP: Cicero, De repnblica.
Lacy, American Journal of Philology, 79 (1958), Diels and Kranz references are to H. Diels and W. Kranz,
179-83. Within the Academy, even after its return to eds.. Die Fragmcnte der Vorsokratiker, 6th ed. (Berlin,
dogmatism, some sympathy remained for the skeptical 19.51-52). Texts bearing on the Empirical School of medicine
position. Plutarch is perhaps the best example. He are cited from K. Deiehgraber, Die Griechische Empiriker-
defended .^rcesilaus against Colotes. and he even wrote schule (Berhn, 1930), and Owsei and C. Lillian Temkin. eds.,
a work (now lost), "On the Unity of the Academy since

Ancient .Medicine: Selected Papers of Luduig Edelstein
(Baltimore, 1967). Galen, unless otherwise noted, is cited
Plato" (No. 63 in tlie Catalogue of Lamprias; see fur-
by volume and page of Opera omnia, ed. C. G. Kiihn
ther De Lacy, "Plutarch and the Academic Sceptics,"
(Leipzig, 1821-33; reprint Hildesheim, 1964-65). Photius,
Classical Journal, 49 [1953-54], 79-85). A more cited from
the Byzantine patriarch (ninth century .\.D.), is
enigmatic figure is Favorinus of Aries, a contemporary
Photius, Bibliothhpie, ed. and trans, into French by R-
of Plutarch, whom Lucian and Galen considered an Henry (Pari.s, 1959-67).
.'\cademic. His writings included a work on the ten Of the histories of ancient skepticism the most highly
Pyrrhonic tropes and an attack on Stoic epistemology. acclaimed is V. Brochard, Les sceptiques grecs (Paris, 1887;
The evidence may be found in A. Barigazzi, Favorino reissued 1923 and 1959). .\lso useful are .\. Goedeckemeyer,
di Arelate (Florence [1966], pp. 91, 172-74, 179, 190). Die Ceschichte des Griecliischen Skeptizismus (Leipzig,
Another popular figure of the second century who 1905); L. Robin, Pyrrhon et le scepticisme grec (Paris, 1944);
came under the influence of skepticism was the satirist and M. Dal Pra. Lo Three
scetticismo greco (Milan, 1950).
The Greek Sceptics from
histories are in English: N. Maccoll,
Lucian (see B. Schwarz, Lukians Verhaltnis zian
Pyrrho to Sextus London and Cambridge, 1869); M. Patrick,
I
Skepfizismus, Tilsit [1914]).

The Greek Sceptics (New York and London. 1929); and
There were two schools of medicine that exhibited
C. L. Stough. Greek Skepticism: .4 Study in Epistemology
skeptical tendencies, .\ccording to L. Edelstein, the
(Berkeley and Los .\ngeles. 1969). For further items consult
Empirics came under the influence of .\cademic Skep- the bibliographies in Robin and Dal Pra.
ticism, the Methodists under the influence of the skep-
PHILLIP DE LACY
ticism of .Aenesidemus (see Tenikin, pp. 187, 197-98).
Sextus Empiricus, in spite of his name, argued that the [See also Certainty; Epicureanism; Happiness; Necessity;
Methodist School was closer than the Empirical to Platonism; Skepticism in Modern Thought; Stoicism.]
genuine skepticism (PH 1.236-41). The prominence of

the skeptical tendency in medicine is evident from the
works of Galen, who wrote extensive!)' about the
Empirics (see Deichgriiber's Stellenregister and R.
Walzer, Galen on Medical Experience, London, 1944). SKEPTICISM IN
Galen found occasion also to denounce Pyrrhonism MODERN THOUGHT
(e.g., IV, 727; XIV, 628) and to warn against the dangers
of the sorites (VII, 372, 680, ed. Kiihn). This article will deal with skepticism as a philo-
Finallv, skeptical material sometimes found its way sophical view, as a set of argmiients directed against
even into the writings of theologians. A prominent traditional philosophies, theologies, and beliefs, and as
example is Philo Judaeus' use of .\enesidemus' ten a critical view countering various positive intellectual
tropes in his De ebrietate, 171-205. positions. In these senses, skepticism encompasses both
the small persistent group of thinkers who declared
BIBLIOCKAPHY themselves philosophical skeptics, as well as a much
larger group who made use of skeptical materials and
The following abbreviations have been used in the cita-
attitudes to develop their own positions, and often, in
tion of ancient sources:
so doing incorporated a portion of tlie skeptical view-
Ac. I: Cicero, Academica posteriora, I
Ac. II: Cicero, Academica priora. II

point in their work. The latter group are skeptics in
AM: Sextus, Adversus mathematicos varying degrees depending upon how extensive their
incorporation of skeptical views in their own positions pecially his Contra academicos (fifth century a.d.).
may and how they try to construct another position
be, After Augustine there seems to have been little further
to overcome the skeptical difficulties they raise against interest in the skeptical attacks.
their opponents. As we shall see, even among the In the Middle Ages, though there were at least two
declared skeptics there are major variations in posi- Latin translations of the writings of Sextus Empiricus,
tions, and among those who are partially skeptics, or there does not seem to have been any serious consid-
skeptics with regard to certain areas of intellectual eration of skeptical themes. In the Muslim world, how-
endeavor (which almost anyone is to some extent), the ever, where more direct contact with classical sources
variations are more pronounced. This article will
still existed, some of the antirational theologians made use
deal then with avowed skeptics, such as Montaigne, of skeptical materials in order to challenge the meta-
Bayle, and Hume, with those who utilize skeptical physical views of the Jewish and Islamic philosophers.
materials to reach new viewpoints, such as Descartes Both Judah Ha-Levi and Al-Ghazali attacked the
and Hegel, and with those who are skeptics with regard claims of their contemporaries to knowledge of the
to certain kinds of knowledge claims, such as Spinoza necessary conditions of the miiverse, offering argu-
and Kant. ments,much like those later used by Malebranche and
Modern skepticism, which played a great role in the Hume. Judah Ha-Levi and Al-Ghazali employed skep-
development of modern thought, entered the intellec- ticism to lead people to their religious mystical views.
tual arena in the sixteenth century. Earlier forms of Modern skepticism does not derive from these medi-
philosophical skepticism had appeared in ancient eval views, but from the combined effect of several
Greece, and had been systematized during the monimiental cultiu-al changes in the sixteenth century,
Hellenistic period into a series of argumentative posi- and the rediscovery by the West of the ancient skepti-
tions attacking various forms of dogmatic philosophy. cal texts.
The Academic skeptics of the later Platonic Academy, At the beginning of the sixteenth century, man's
Arcesilaus and Carneades, criticized the views of the picture of the earth was being shaken and transformed
Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, seeking to show that by the results of the voyages of exploration. Columbus
nothing could be known, in the sense of gaining did not merely discover a new fact, that there was an
unquestionable knowledge about the real nature of inhabited land mass between Europe and Asia, but, as
things. Their arguments appear in Cicero's De Vespucci realized, that there was a New World which
academica and De nutura deonim (first century B.C.). challenged many of the assumptions and beliefs about
The Academics instead advocated a kind of probabilism tlie old one. Almost all previous views about the world
or denial of certainty. had become untrue, and the science and philosophy
In contrast to the strong negative position of the that had led to such views could no longer be relied
Academic skeptics, another skeptical school developed upon. The new worlds discovered by the early ex-
from the noncommittal position of Pvrrho of Elis. plorers appeared to fimction very well without the
Aenesidemus, an Alexandrian of the first century B.C., social, political, or religious institutions of Christianity,
presented a series of attacks on the dogmatists and the and posed a basic skeptical challenge to the European
Academics, leading to a suspension of judgment about and Judeo-Christian claims about the nature and des-
whether anything can or cannot be known in meta- tiny of man. The influence of the idea of the "Noble
physics or ethics. The Pyrrhonians developed a series Savage," presented from Colimibus to Montaigne and
of "tropes" that is, skeptical reasonings, leading to a to Rousseau, Voltaire, and others, made intellectuals
mental state of neutrality and suspension of judgment increasingly critical if not skeptical of their own or
(epoche) about all matters that are not immediately accepted valuations of civilizations.
evident. In this state of imperturbability, they said, one A different kind of skeptical attack came from the
would finally find the goal of all Hellenistic philosophy: humanists who had rediscovered Greece and Rome, as
a life of intellectual quietude and peace of mind. The well as the riches of early Judaism and Christianity.
arguments of the Pyrrhonians were collected by one Led by Erasmus and Vives they cast doubt upon the
of their last leaders, Sextus Empiricus (second or third whole intellectual edifice that had been constructed
century a.d.) in his Pyrrhonian Hijpotijposes and in the high Middle Ages. They questioned the methods,
Adversus mathematicos. purposes, and achievements of the scholastic
The two skeptical positions played an important role rmiversities, and portrayed the entire intellectual en-
in Hellenistic thought, but gradually died out as reli- deavor of the universities as sterile, futile, and bank-
gious movements began to dominate the late Roman rupt. And after Erasmus' In Praise of Folly {Moriae
world. The last major sign of skeptical concern appears encomium, 1509), it was hard to take the institutional
in Saint Augustine's early philosophical dialogues, es- intellectual world seriously. Erasmus had not refuted 241
—
scholasticism in any philosophical way, but had so and Zwingli challenged the traditional church view,
ridiculed it that it could no longer he considered a as well as the criteria on which it was based, namely
wav to knowledge. Only a totally different approach, tradition and papal pronouncements. Instead they
that of humanistic scholarship, could help. appealed to conscience and persona! religious experi-
One form of these researches further intensified the ence as the bases of religious knowledge.
skeptical atmosphere. Jewish scholars fleeing from Catholic spokesmen then pointed out that once the
Spain, brought the Cabbala into Europe, with its secret reformers gave up the traditional criterion of religious
way of discovering the tmth. This, coupled with the knowledge of the Church, they would end up in a total
rediscovery of the Greek magical writings of Hermes skepticism, "a sink of uncertainty and error." Using
Trismegistus, the researches of the alchemists, the the recentlv rediscovered texts of Sextus Empiricus
astrologers,and the numerologists, convinced many (published in 1562 and 1569), the Catholics contended
humanists that the normal ways of gaining knowledge that the Protestants would be forced into the old skep-
had to be rejected in favor of esoteric ones. Thinkers tical problem of the criterion, that of trying to establish
during the Renaissance era, like Pico della Mirandola, an unquestionable standard of true knowledge. All the
Ficino, Reuchlin, and Agrippa von Nettesheim (espe- reformers could offer were their personal religious
cially the latter), cast doubt upon previous claims to opinions, and anv attempt to justify these would lead
knowledge. either to an infinite regress or to circular reasoning.
The "new scientists," in combining some of the The reformers, in turn, saw that the same difficulty
humanistic learning about ancient views and esoteric could be raised for the Catholics, in that they could
theories with empirical research, raised furtlier skepti- not justify their criterion of authority and also of the
cal questions about the accepted views of man and his oral and written tradition. The problem of authenti-
universe. Copernicus,Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Paracelsus, cating a criterion applied as well to an old one as to
Servetus, Vesalius, and others, all contributed to a new one.
undermining confidence in previous theories and Each side's probing the foundations of its opponent's
methods. position revealed how uncertain each side's views re-
In addition to these factors, the religious develop- ally The debate continued well into the eigh-
were.
ments of the times helped lead the European intellec- teenth century and made skepticism a living issue for
tual world into a general "skeptical crisis." The ques- those enmeshed in the religious struggles. As the fight
tions raised by the religious struggles of the sixteenth continued, the issues became more generalized, ques-
century struck at the very heart of human certainty. tioning whether any knowledge at all was possible, and
First, non-Christian religions challenged the assurance whether there were any criteria that could be relied
people had in the Christian revelation. The revival of, upon. Gentian Hervet, the editor of the first printing
and admiration for, classical paganism, the impact of of Sextus' Adversus mathematicos (1569), proclaimed
Judaism, thrust into Europe bv the expulsion of the that Pyrrhonism was the answer to Calvinism, because
Jews from Spain and Portugal, and the new threat of if nothing could be known, Uien Calvin's doctrines
Islam in the form of the Turkish invasions of central could not beknown either. Skepticism would make
Europe, all caused a crisis of confidence in Christianity, men humble and obedient, and keep them from new-
which isreflected, for example, in Jean Bodin's dia- fangled false doctrines. The Jesuit, Juan Maldonado,
logue, Colloquium heptalomeres. ... In this secret and his disciples. Cardinal Bellarmine, Cardinal Du
work (not published until the nineteenth century, Perron, and the Jesuits, Jean Gontery and Francois
though circulated widely from the late sixteenth cen- Veron, developed "a machine of war" to devastate the
tury) Bodin had adherents of various religions engage Protestants bv engulfing them in a series of skeptical
in debate; theJew and the believer in natural religion problems. Questions were raised as to what book is
won the debate, as basic criticisms were leveled against the Bible, how one what it says or means.
ascertains
Christianity. The Protestants were forced by the use of skeptical
As Europe was being shaken by these non-Christian arguments to rely solely on their private experience,
challenges, a more shattering development occurred which they could never prove was not delusory. The
the Reformation —
which tore the Christian world Protestants made the same sort of skeptical attacks on
asimder. Starting with complaints about Catholic the Catholics, e.g., Jean La Placette, The Inctirable
practices and beliefs, the reformers were quickly forced Scepticism of the Church of Rome 1688), and The Pope
(
to a theoretical level to defend their criticisms. Begin- is a Pyrrhonist (1692), by

J.
A. Turretin. Each side
ning with Luther's views at the Leipzig Disputation exposed the raw nerve of the intellectual world, the
(1519), a central issue became that of ascertaining how bases of human certainty, and provided reasons for
242 one gained true religious knowledge. Luther, Calvin, doubting them.
These various factors, the voyages of exploration, the to know reality turns out to be like trying to clutch
humanistic revolt, the impact of cabbalistic and water.
magical doctrines, the rise of the "new science," the .\11 that we can do, according to Montaigne, is ac-
religious crises, all contributed to creating a general cept the P\rrhonian suspension of judgment, and
skeptical crisis in the sixteenth century, by undermin- following the ancient Pyrrhonian advice, live according
ing confidence in the fabric of the intellectual world, to nature and custom, and receive and accept whatever
and by raising fimdamental questions about the possi- it pleases God to reveal to us. This fideistic appeal,
bility of human knowledge in any area whatsoever. As a logical non sequitur from Montaigne's skepticism, is
this was happening, several thinkers began to present set forth as the only way out of the skeptical crisis.
a new version of classical skepticism as a way of living Montaigne insisted that the skepticwould not become
changing world. Starting with .\grippa
in a radically a Protestant. His mind would remain blank, purged
von Nettesheim's popular diatribe. The Vanity of the of false or dubious beliefs, until God revealed the true
Sciences (1526), and Gianfrancesco Pico's Examen religious principles to him. Prior to that moment, cus-
vanitatis doctrinae gentium (1520), materials from tom would keep him in the old religion.
Cicero, Diogenes Laertius, and Sextus were employed Though Montaigne professed to be a Catholic, his
against the prevailing theories of the time. The aim skepticism led him to a generally tolerant view tov\'ards
of this new skeptical attack, however, was not to make all beliefs. He influenced his friend, Henri IV, to adopt
men suspend judgment, but rather to make them aban- the tolerant policies enimciated in the Edict of Nantes
don the quest for knowledge by rational means, and (1598). Montaigne's personal religious background (his
accept the truth (that is, the true religion) on faith. own family was partly Jewish, partly Catholic, and
Skepticism became the road to faith. partly Protestant), his skeptical criticisms of actual
This Christian skepticism, new Pyrrhonism,
or religious practices and beliefs and of theology, have
developed primarily as a Catholic position. The classi- led many, especially from the Enlightenment onward,
cal statement of this view appeared in Montaigne's to see his skepticism not just as an epistemological one,
Apology for Raimond Sebond. written mostlv in challenging human knowledge claims, but also as an
1575-76, after .Montaigne read Sextus, and was under- irreligious one, challenging belief in Judeo-Christianitv.
going his own personal skeptical crisis. His Apology Whether Montaigne was a genuine Christian, or
purports to "defend" Sebond's rationalist theology by whether he was a covert nonbeliever, is still extremely
showing the inadequacy of reason to support any difficult todetermine. He and his followers set forth
conclusions about man and the world, and the need a view called "Christian skepticism," which thev
to rely on faitli rather than on human capacities for insisted was the same as that presented by Saint Paul
any intellectual guidance. Modernizing the ancient at the begiiming of I Corinthians. By and large,
skeptical argmiients, Montaigne proceeded to under- Montaigne's generalized skepticism and his fideism
mine confidence in the reliabilitv of sense information were accepted b\' the coimter-reformers in France as
and human rational judgments. All of the old routines a basis for rebutting the new dogmas of Protestantism,
about the variability of sense experience, its depend- and for accepting the traditional religion on faith.
ence on various conditions, the inability to find a satis- Montaigne's presentation of Pyrrhonism became the
factory criterion for judging when it is veridical, etc., most popular expression of the intellectual malaise of
were woven together into a symphony of doubt. The the time. This skeptical atmosphere was further rein-
crescendo was reached when Montaigne pointed out forced by the writings of Montaigne's distant cousin,
that Francisco Sanchez, and by those of Montaigne's disci-
ples, Father Pierre Charron and Bishop Jean-Pierre

To judge the appearances that we receive of objects, we Camus.
would need a judicatory instrument; to verify this instru-
Sanchez, a Portuguese forced convert from Judaism,
ment, we need a demonstration; to verify the demonstration,
professor of philosophy and medicine at Toulouse,
an instrument: there we are in a circle.
wrote some skeptical works at the same time as
Since the senses cannot decide our dispute, being them-
Montaigne's Apology. Using brilliant dialectical skill,
selves full of uncertainty, it must be reason that does so.
No reason can be established without another reason; there Sanchez attacked the Platonic and .\ristotelian theories
we go retreating back to infinity (Montaigne. Apology for of scientific knowledge and concluded that, in a basic
Raimotid Sebond, in Complete Works .... trans. D. Frame, and serious sense, nothing can be known. Then, in
Stanford [1967], p. 454). contrast to the destructive conclusion of Montaigne
that one should suspend judgment about the possibility
Our judgments, Montaigne insisted, are influenced by of gaining knowledge by scientific means, Sanchez
psychological and cultural factors, and every attempt offered a constructive suggestion: all that can be done 243
is cautious, limited empirical research. This tentative who insisted that Charron 's view was the same
approach contains the rudiments of a hypothetical orthodo.vy that Saint .Augustine had set forth). Others
pragmatic science. Sanchez added the fideistic note of offered answers based on .Aristotle's theories. Francis
the Christian skeptics as a postscript, faith as the final Bacon hoped to overcome skepticism by the use of new
answer. Sanchez' version of skepticism had some influ- instruments. Marin Mersenne and his friend, Gassendi,
ence on seventeenth-centurv thinkers, and his "con- offered a constructive resolution to the skeptical crisis,
structive skepticism seems to have supplied the sub-

"
insisting that while skepticism could not be overcome
structure of the tici media between skepticism and on the epistemological level, it could be ignored on
dogmatism later oftered by Pierre Gassendi. the practical and scientific level. Proposing a pragmatic
Montaigne's disciple and heir. Father Pierre and positivistic interpretation of the new science, they
Charron, further popularized skepticism. He first wrote set forth a way of living with complete skepticism on
an enormous Counter-Reformation tract, Les trois a theoretical plane, while proceeding to gain hypo-
verites (1595), arguing against atheists, non-Christian thetical and useful information about the world
religions, and Calvinism, on skeptical grounds. Next through empirical research and the employment of the
he wrote as a didactic version of Montaigne's Apology. hvpotheses of the new physics. Herbert of Cherbury
La sagesse (1601), one of the most widely read books developed a most elaborate scheme for overcoming
of the seventeenth century. He advocated rejecting all skepticism and arriving at true knowledge. Descartes'
opinions and beliefs that are dubious or false, in order friend, Jean de Silhon, offered a combination of
to render themind blank, ready to receive whatever .Aristotelian, Stoic, and pre-Cartesian "Cartesian"
God wishes to write upon it. The skeptic, Charron rebuttals to skepticism.
insisted, cannot be a heretic since, in having no opin- Rene Descartes was most keenly aware of the prob-
ions, he cannot have the wrong ones. Until one receives lem and also of the inadequacy of the answers being
the Revelation, one should live according to nature proposed by his contemporaries. Either their solutions
while being skeptical. failed to come to grips with the problem, or they failed
A somewhat similar Christian skepticism was set to vield indubitable and certain knowledge. By the
forth by Jean-Pierre Camus, who later became the tactic of pushing skeptical doubts more radically than
secretary of Saint Francois de Sales and then Bishop his predecessors, Descartes sought to show that skepti-
of Bellay. cism could be overcome, a basis for true knowledge
In the early seventeenth century. Christian skepti- found, and philosophy and science secured. Employing
cism became an acceptable position amongst Catholic the skeptical method of Montaigne and Charron,
theologians in France, and the avant-garde view of Descartes sought to find some truth that could not be
many intellectuals in Paris. The so-called Uhertins doubted. He rejected all beliefs that might possibly be
erudits, Gabriel Naude. secretary to cardinals Mazarin false or dubious. He intensified the skeptics' doubt by
and Bagno and roval librarian. Guv Patin, rector of raising the possibility that there might be an evil
the medical school of tlie Sorbonne, and Frangois de demon who distorts all himian judgments. But in
La Mothe Le Vayer, teacher of the Dauphin and mem- refutation of all of these doubts, Descartes insisted the
ber of the French Academy, popularized and promul- proposition, "I think, therefore I am, "
cannot be
gated the noiiveati pynhonisme (sometimes joining it questioned. No matter how imreliable our senses and
to a Machiavellism in politics). The brilliant young our judgment are, no matter what the demon is up
scientist and philosopher, Pierre Gassendi, in his first to, the cogito must be true, and anv attempt to cast
book, Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos doubt on it reveals its truth. When this truth is
(1624), leveled a thoroughgoing skeptical attack on examined to find out why it is indubitable, one dis-
.^ristotelianism and other dogmatic philosophies, end- covers the criterion of true knowledge, namely that
ing with the news that "no science is possible, least whatever is clearly and distinctly perceived is true.
of all .Aristotle's." Using the criterion, one can then establish that God
In the 1620's, especially in France, the new skeptics exists, that He is no deceiver, and that He guarantees
had succeeded in undermining confidence in all previ- that the criterion really is true. With skepticism over-
ous theories, and in creating a genuine skeptical crisis come, one can then prove that an external world exists
in the minds of many intellectuals. The situation be- and that through our clear and distinct ideas we can
came so serious that attacks against the new skepticism gain knowledge about it. The Cartesian "way of clear
began to appear. Some, like that of Father Fran9ois and distinct ideas" then becomes a means of moving
Garasse, S.J., claimed that the new skepticism was from doubt to certain knowledge about the world.
undermining religious belief and practice (and he was Descartes attempted to establish a new philosophy
244 rebuked by the Jansenist leader, I'abbe de Saint-Cyran. on the ruins of the skepticism that had engulfed
European thought. His radical innovation in the battle sonings, Foucher insisted, should lead one to denv that
against skepticism shaped the structure and the prob- the primary qualities (extension and motion, the ingre-
lems of subsequent philosophy. The skeptics of the dients of the Cartesian real world) were objective, and
period were imdaunted by Descartes' alleged conquest hence that none of the qualities we are aware of are
of skepticism, and they set to work to redirect their constituents of reality. This argument was used by
argumentation against this new dogmatic theory to Bayle, Berkeley, and Hume as a decisive challenge to
show had failed. On the other hand, "new
"
that Descartes the basic assumptions of the philosophy.

Descartes' dogmatic opponents (e.g., Gisbert Voetius, In contrast to the anti-Cartesian skepticism in
Martin Schoock, Pierre Bourdin) sought to show that, France, another kind was developing in England out
his protestations notwithstanding, he still remained a of the theological controversies there. In the quest for
skeptic, and a most dangerous one. the "true" religion, some theologians starting with
As soon as Descartes' theory appeared, Father William Chillingworth, tried to distinguish between
Bourdin argued that if one could actually entertain the the kinds of doubts raised by Sextus and Descartes,
original doubts of Descartes, one would have under- which they felt were unanswerable, and reasonable
mined the possibility of finding an indubitable truth, doubts that common sense and probable information
since one could not trust one's faculties or one's under- could deal witli. These theologians conceded that we
standing. Mersenne and Gassendi contended that the could not gain absolutely certain knowledge, but, they
truths claimed by Descartes to be certain and indubit- insisted, there some knowledge which cannot be
is
able, were still in fact open to question, and might reasonably doubted. Bishop John Wilkins and the
possibly, in some sense, be false. Gassendi and the later Reverend Joseph Glanvill, both members of the Royal
skeptic, Bishop Pierre-Daniel Huet, analyzed and Society, presented a distinction between infallibly and
reanalyzed the cogito to show that it really established indubitably certain knowledge. The former, because
nothing. Gassendi insisted that the whole Cartesian of skeptical difficulties, cannot be attained by human
system might just be a subjective vision of the author's. beings, but the latter, in terms of the indubitable
Huet claimed that the Cartesian system was just a beliefs, is accepted by all reasonable men. Using these,
collection of ideas and, as ideas, could not represent they constructed a theory of empirical science and of
reality. Both challenged the criterion of knowledge, law as a means for finding useful knowledge, and for
saying that we could only what we thought was
tell deciding human problems within the limits of a "rea-
clear and distinct, but not what was really in fact, clear sonable doubt. "
The limited skepticism of Glanvill and
and distinct. The criterion, they insisted, could never Wilkins developed into the theory of science of the
be applied with certainty miless we possessed another early Royal Society and the theory of legal evidence
criterion, and so forth. Huet joined forces with Leibniz in Anglo-American law. It also provided a basis for
and with the Jesuit opponents of Cartesianism, and a tolerant latitudinarian Christianity.
leveled all sorts of charges against "the Father of Mod- John Locke's compromise with skepticism and his
em Philosophy," seeking to reduce his vaunted appeal to an intuitive and common sense rejection of
achievement to rubble. complete doubt derives, in part, from these views.
The modify the theory to
later Cartesians tried to However, his compromise was immediately attacked
meet the critic's objections, and each new modification by Bishop Stillingfleet as resulting in another form of
was met with a new dogmatic bombardment hammer-
"
extreme skepticism in his rejection of "substance.

ing away at the uncertainty of the Cartesian system, Stillingfleet saw this as denying that there was any
and at its inability to build a secure bridge from the genuine certainty about the world, and even raising
world of ideas to reality. When Malebranche appeared tlie possibility of metaphysical skepticism, a doubt
with his radically revised Cartesianism, designed in whether there is any reality at all.
part to meet the skeptical difficulties, the skeptic, Throughout the seventeenth century, the new
Simon Foucher, and the orthodox Cartesian, Antoine theorists felt confronted by skepticism, and in their
Arnauld, sought to show that Malebranchism led to attempts to offer new answers tried to overcome the
a "most dangerous Pyrrhonism." Foucher, who tried challenge. Thomas Hobbes, a personal friend of many
in his many writings to revive Academic skepticism, of the French skeptics, proposed as the solution to their
offered a new skeptical objection that was to play an problem of finding a criterion for true knowledge, that
important role in the subsequent history of ideas. The it be a political rather than an epistemological matter.
Cartesians, he pointed out, were willing to accept the The ruler would decide, and thus settle the skeptical
skeptical reasonings that showed that the secondary controversies, taking on himself the risk of being
qualities (color, sound, heat, taste, and smell) were wrong.
subjective and not features of reality. The same rea- Pascal, who probably felt the force of the new skep- 245
ticism more than anyone else of the time, presented cism — which was also to have a monumental impact
a "constniftive" skepticism in his scientific writings, on modern thought. The new skepticism, from
advocating a hypothetical probabilistic science and Montaigne to Bishop Huet, professed to being religious,
mathematics. In the Pensees (1670), he first forcibly since it was always coupled with an advocacy of
developed the skeptical case, and then insisted that fideism. All its advocates except the Huguenot Pierre
nature just would not permit one to be in complete Bayle were Catholics, using skepticism to attack
doubt: Le coeiir a ses raisons que la raison ne connait reformers and metaphysicians in the name of true
point ("The heart has its reasons that reason does not religion. Whether they were sincere or not, they did
know," Pensees, #434). We are torn between dogma- not apply their doubts to their religious tradition or
tism and skepticism, belief and doubt. Only by listening to the supposed content of revelation.
to God. bv having mystical experience, can one get be- The raising of skeptical doubts about the truth of
yond the skeptical crisis. The solution for Pascal is not Judeo-Christianity seems to have started in the six-
philosophical, but religious. teenth century as indicated by Bodin's dialogue. The

Spinoza, on the other hand, tried to offer the most tragic Portuguese Jewish refugee (in the Netherlands),
rationalistic resolution.Doubt only occurred because Uriel Da Costa, started out questioning the truth of
one lacked knowledge. By attaining clear and adequate orthodox Judaism, and the immortality of the soul, and
conceptions one overcame all skeptical difficulties. The then went on to questioning all religions. He came to
clear and adequate conceptions were their own crite- the conclusion that all extant religions were man-made.
rion and provided their own guarantee of their cer- He finally proclaimed that one should not be a Jew
tainty and truth. The proper pursuit of philosophy in or a Christian; one should just be a man. Da Costa
the geometrical manner was the answer to skepticism. had reached the point of rejecting Judeo-Christianity,
Leibniz, a close friend of the "Academic" skeptics, and is probably the first European man to try to live
Huet, Foucher, and Bayle, wrote many of the basic outside of it. However, his major ideas were unknown
statements of his views as answers to them. He believed vmtil published posthumously in 1687.
that the skeptics had raised important problems, and The French courtier, Isaac La Peyr^re, a friend of
that his system of logic, epistemology, and metaphysics the leading skeptics of the time, raised a basic skepti-
had solved them. For about thirty years he argued with cism about the Bible in his shocking work, Prae-
his skeptical friends. Bayle's article "Rorarius" was the Adamitae (1655; trans, as Men Before Adam, 1656).
first extended criticism of Leibniz' theory, and Leibniz' La Pevrere had become convinced from his reading
Theodicii was intended to answer Bayle's skepticism. of the Bible, and from geographical and anthropologi-
Bishop Berkeley also saw his theory as the answer cal evidence about China, the New World, Greenland,
to the skeptics. By accepting the skeptics' claim that etc.) that there must have been people before Adam,
all that we know are ideas, and then insisting that ideas and that the Bible cannot be an accurate account of
are reality, Berkeley believed he had solved the prob- all of human history. He questioned the accuracy of
lem. As he saw it. the seventeenth-century meta- the biblical texts that we have. Finally he developed
physicians had created a gulf between appearance and a strange mystical theory that the Bible describes only
reality with their insistence that there was a material Jewish history, that the rest of mankind developed
reality. This allowed the skeptics to argue that only separately, and that the messianic culmination of
appearances were actually known. By amalgamating Jewish history was at hand. Needless to say, his book
things and ideas, and making the world basically spir- was immediately suppressed and the author jailed. He
itual, Berkeley believed he had saved the world from converted from Calvinism to Catholicism, personally
skepticism and irreligion, and had established "the apologized to the Pope, retired to the pious Oratory,
reality of human knowledge." .And much to the and went on developing his heretical theories.
Bishop's chagrin, for all of his valiant efforts, he was La Pevrere's bombshell led two scholars of the
treated as the wildest of skeptics by his contemporaries. Bible, Banich de Spinoza and Father Richard Simon,
The new skepticism of the Montaignians created a to develop far-reaching skepticisms with regard to
continuing skeptical on the epistemological level
crisis religious knowledge. Spinoza carried on La Peyrere's
which the theories of the great century of metaphysics doubts, in his Tractaius-theologico-politicus (1670), and
tried to overcome. The debate between the new skep- questioned the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch,
tics and the new dogmatists shaped the form of the as well as other biblical claims. Spinoza suggested that
new and revealed their weaknesses and de-

theories, the Bible was not Divine Revelation, but just an early
fects.While these theories of knowledge and meta- record of Jewish superstitions and activities. Finally
physical systems were being fought over, another form Spinoza insisted that religion was to be interpreted
246 —
of skepticism was developing irreligious skepti- naturalistically in psychological and sociological terms.
He had provided a metaphysics for seeing the world by historically describing it. What Bayle himself be-
apart from all revelation, and had cast doubt on the lieved, if anything, is almost impossible to discern in
authenticity and seriousness of the purported revealed his sea of doubts.
texts of Judeo-Christianity. Bayle's Dictionanj launched the .\ge of Reason, by
Father Richard Simon, an associate of La Peyrere's providing what Voltaire called "The Arsenal of the
at the Oratory and a reader of Spinoza, was the greatest Enlightenment. "
Bayle had pulled together all the
Bible scholar of his age, and, along with Spinoza, the strains of skepticism and had laid bare all the defects
founder of modern biblical criticism. He set out to of the theories of the time, undermining the quest for
prove that the Protestants could never find an accurate any metaphysical or theological certainty.
text of the Bible or discover what it meant. Building The eighteenth century began bathed in Baylean
on La Peyrere's and Spinoza's points, he used his doubts. However, instead of being dismayed by his
wealth of erudition to create a skepticism with regard shattering skeptical conclusions, eighteenth-century
to the message of the Bible. Simon pointed to the thinkers were willing to apply Bayle's criticisms to
epistemological difficulties in ascertaining any histor- religion, theology, and metaphysics, but saw a new
ical fact, and insisted that all that we knew about the way of understanding the universe Newtonian sci- —
message were dubious historical claims of human ence. Bayle was seen as the summit of wisdom before
beings, who in their fallible way had tried to record Newton, but now there was no longer any reason to
the message. Unlike Spinoza, Simon seems to have been be so dubious, except about religion and metaphysics.
convinced that there is a message, and tried in his own One of the very few who was still concerned with
way to give the best statement of it in his time. skepticism was the Scot, David Hume, an avid reader
However, when La Peyrere, Spinoza, and Simon of Bayle. Hume apparently went through his own
were done with examining the revealed religions, it personal skeptical crisis as he wrote his Treatise of
was difficult for intellectuals to accept the Bible with Human Nature (1739). He started off as a Newtonian,
the previous innocence. The possibility had been raised hoping to apply "the experimental method of reason-
that the Bible was not true, or only partially true. The ing to moral subjects. However, as he "scientifically"
"
difficulties in assessing the actual text of the Bible had examined how people think, he began to develop a
become insuperable. These new skeptical doubts would skepticism about man's ability to know anything be-
not be resolved by religion, but religion itself had yond the immediately felt "impressions" or beyond
become a proper subject of skeptical doubting.
"
what was demonstrable from "relations of ideas.

The culmination of the many strands of seventeenth- However, almost all our information about the world
century skepticism appears in the writings of the depends on causal reasoning which cannot be justified
greatest of the seventeenth-century French skeptics, logically because we cannot discover any demonstrable
Pierre Bayle. Bayle, a Protestant, who became a Cath- neces,sary connection between any pair of events called
and then reverted to Protestantism, fled to Rotter-
olic "cause and effect. "
When we examine how we do reach
dam where he wrote against all sorts of religious and conclusions about matters of fact beyond immediate
philosophical theories. In his masterpiece Dictionnaire experience, we find such beliefs are based on psycho-
Imtorique et critique (1697-1702), Bayle surveyed and logical habit or custom, rather than on rational evi-
skeptically criticized the various facets of the seven- dence. We can describe how we "reason," but we
teenth-century intellectual world. With his brilliant cannot justify it by reason. As Hume inquired why
dialectical skill, Bayle undermined the metaphysical people believe that reason can establish matters of fact
theories of Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Malebranche, or necessary causes in the external world, in the unity
and Leibniz, attacked the theologies of his time, ridi- and in demonstrations of the existence of
of the self,
culed the biblical heroes of the Old Testament, God, he became all the more skeptical. He found that
challenged the criterion of rational knowledge, and the empirical evidence should lead to disbelief, the
tried toshow that the worst heresies like Manichaeisni, psychological explanations were inadequate, and his
were more plausible rationally than Christianity. Every own explanations were inconsistent, but nonetheless
theory, in Bayle's hands, led to perplexity and he, like everyone else, believed what could not be
absurdity, and constituted "the high road to Pyrrho- proved by reasoning. "Philosophy would render us
nism. And, he insisted, over and over again, all one
"
entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it"
could do after seeing the debacle of the rational world (Hume, Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature, ed.
was to abandon reason and turn to faith, pure blind L. A. Selby-Bigge, Oxford [1888], p. 24). "Nature, by
faith. But Bayle had so ridiculed the usual content of an absolute and uncontrollable necessity has determin'd
faith that little seemed left except complete doubt us to judge as well as to breathe and feel" (Hume,
about the possibility of understanding anything, except Treatise, p. 183). Nature did not refute skepticism, but 247
made it imbelievable enough of the time so that Hfe Hume, and Berkeley before him, had shown that the
could go on. By the time Hume reached the end of fundamental assiunptions of modern philosophy fol-
the first book of the Treatise he seemed to see a skepti- lowing from the intellectualism of Descartes led to a
cism as complete as Bayle's. "We have, therefore, no total skepticism and distrust of the senses. Reid felt
choice left but betwixt a false reason and none at all." that a reconsideration of the rationalistic assumptions
"I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can which led to so disastrous a result was required. When
look upon opinion even as more probable or likely than philosophy reached conclusions contrary to common
another" (Hume, Treatise, pp. 268-69). In this skeptical sense, then philosophy must be wrong. Nobody can
despair, reminiscent of Pascal's picture of man without be a complete skeptic in belief or action. Therefore
God, Hume saw salvation only in the beneficent actions one should start with the beliefs people are unable
of nature that stop all doubting in time. By living psychologically to doubt, such as that there is an exter-
according to nature, sometimes he was forced to doubt nal world. Common-sense realism, Reid claimed, could
and sometimes to believe. The beliefs are not based avoid the skeptical pitfalls in the Cartesian and
on evidence, but only on feelings and habits. Anv Lockean theories. Hume replied that Reid had seen
examination of the beliefs just reveals the skeptical the problem, but his solution was really the same as
difficulties, but these difficulties notwithstanding, Hume's, skepticism cannot be answered on a theoret-
everyone including the Humean skeptic, has to believe ical level, and nature makes us live and believe.
all sorts of things. The was the first to
Scottish School following Reid
Hume apparently saw, as no one else in the eight- see that Hmne's skepticism was the view to oppose
eenth century did, the plight of modern man if Bavle's if philosophy was to continue to make sense of the
doubts could not be answered, and if no fideistic or world. However, the way developed in Germany of
The new science
supernatural solution was acceptable. dealing with Hume's skepticism had the greatest effect
of Newton only described what "reasonable" men on subsequent philosophy. The leaders of the Prussian
believed, operating on normal natural psychological Academy had been concerned with Pyrrhonism, had
habits and customs. It did not really tell anybodv what translated Hume, and had tried to refute him. Others
was necessarily true, and its conclusions could never had presented modern skeptical views, and had trans-
be satisfactorily justified. No religious faith could any lated Hume's Scottish critics.
longer be taken seriously, once the argiunents of the Immanuel Kant read this literature and wrote that
irreligious skeptics were applied to it. Hume could not Hume had awakened him from his dogmatic slumbers.
calmly survey in Bayle's manner the wreckage wrought He saw that Hume had challenged the Enlightenment
by skepticism. He had to believe, like everyone else, view that skepticism could be ignored and replaced
but he could only see his beliefs based on an unjustified by science. The fimdamental question, "How is knowl-
and imjustifiable animal faith, rather than on a religious edge possible?" now required reexamination.
one. The world and life might have no discoverable Kant's answer was to adinit a complete skepticism
meaning, but nature benevolently made us persevere. regarding the possibility of gaining metaphysical
And Hume persevered by trying to describe human knowledge by pure reason, while insisting that univer-
nature, man and his foibles, in historical terms. History sal and necessary knowledge about the conditions of
became the constructive issue of Hume's skepticism all possible experience could be attained. Starting from
as it was for Bayle. Historical description would re- the conviction that some knowledge is possible, Kant
place philosophy as the way of studying man, and then tried to show how such universal and necessary
would still further undermine man's pretensions. information occurs. Kant's revolutionarv solution to the
Hume's skepticism had little effect on his immediate skeptical crisis was that necessary and imiversal condi-
contemporaries. They found his historical and political tions are involved in having anv experience and making
writings exciting, his irreligious ones immoral or any judgments. Through these we can gain some cer-
intriguing, but his skepticism a bore in a Newtonian tain knowledge. Mathematics is the knowledge of the
age. It was admired by the reactionaries and religious a priori conditions of experience. And we can also know
fanatics in France, but not by the philosophes. After certain conditions about how our judgments about
the Revolution, Joseph de Maistre and F61icit6 de experience are organized.
Lamennais could appreciate Hume, because his skep- These conditions apply to the forms of possible
ticism undermined the new dogmatism of the revolu- experience and to judgments about them, but do not
tionaries and the atheists, and they could advocate a tell us about their contents, or about the reahties
fideism again on the basis of it. behind them — the God. For
real world, the self, or
One who saw what Hume had accomplished was Kant the content of experience can only be learned
248 his fellow Scotsman, Thomas Reid. Reid perceived that empirically, and such information could be no more
than probable. We cannot gain any metaphysical Kierkegaard brilliantly exploited the skeptical possi-
knowledge by pure reason, since there is no way of bilities against the views of his contemporaries and
telling if our categories apply beyond all possible ex- insisted on the need for faith, on the unjustified and
perience, or what they then might apply to. However, imjustifiable "leap into faith, "
as the only way to find
by practical reason we act as if certain conditions subjective rather than objective certainty. The anti-
pre\ailed beyond experience. rational fideism of Hamann, Lamennais, and Kierke-
Kant thought he had ended the age-old struggle with gaard has been revived by neo-orthodox and existen-
skepticism. However, some of Kant's contemporaries tialist theologians in the twentieth century, arguing
saw his accomplishment as just opening the way for that skepticism reveals our inability to find ultimate
a new skeptical age, rather than resolving the skeptical truth by rational means, hence the need for faith and
crisis. Some saw that the application of his theory to commitment.
religion (religion within the limits of bare reason alone) After Kant, although few philosophers call them-
provided the theoretical grounds for a thoroughgoing selves skeptics, skepticism has permeated many of the
skepticism of all revealed religion. major movements of thought. The struggles with the
Kant's critic, G. E. Schulze (also known as Schulze- new forms of skepticism from Descartes to Kant had
Aenesidemus), contended that Kant's philosophy pro- indicated that normal rational and scientific procedures
vided no way for attaining truths about objective real- were inadequate to gain knowledge about reality, or
ity, or things-in-theniselves. All that we could know to support claims to religious knowledge. For most
was the subjective necessity of some of our views, subsequent thinkers a kind of partial skepticism was
which Hume had already pointed out. Hence Kant's accepted either as a means of transcending it, or as
theory was reallv only a vindication of Hume's kind a means of living with it. These thinkers can only be
of subjective skepticism. considered as partial skeptics, or users of skepticism
Another thinker, Solomon Maimon (recognized by to develop new theories.
Kant as his most astute critic), developed a "rational The German metaphysicians, starting with Fichte
skepticism" from within Kant's theory. Maimon and Hegel, tried to overcome skepticism by examining
accepted the view that there are a priori concepts, but the creative and historically developing intellectual
held that the application of these categories to experi- processes with skepticism as a stage in this. For Fichte
ence was only known inductively and could only yield skepticism makes one realize that a fundamental
probability. Hence no imiversal and necessary knowl- commitment has to be made.
imjustifiable metaphysical
edge about experience could be gained. The question This commitment allows one to see things in terms of
of whether there was such knowledge was, for Maimon, creative thought processes, and to uncover a structure
always an experiential matter, and as Hume had shown, of the world in which everything is seen as related
no final certainty could be gained on this score. to the Absolute Ego.
For Maimon there are a priori forms of thought, but For the Hegelians, skeptical arguments show how
the relation of these to matters of fact remains proble- unintelligible is each limited picture of the world. Since
were
matic. Propositions about these a priori concepts the universe and our understanding of it is historically
true because they were about human creations, and developing, there is a legitimate skepticism at each
not because they necessarily had any objective stage, in that the world and our understanding of it
relevance. Maimon's view that human creativity was are incomplete and contradictory. Until the self-
the basis of truth was developed by Fichte as a new realization of the Absolute, and our attainment of
means of overcoming skepticism and reaching knowl- knowledge of it, all of our knowledge is only partly
edge of reality. true and partly false. At the final stage, skepticism will
Kant's friend, the religious fanatic, J.
G. Hamann, have been overcome and genuine knowledge will be
took the arguments of Hume and Kant as establishing possible.
that knowledge by
of reality could not be reached The empirical, positivistic, and pragmatic move-
rational means. Therefore he advocated an acceptance ments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that
of irrational faith as the result of complete skepticism. have combatted German idealistic metaphysics have
Hamann's irrational fideism was later adopted by by and large adopted a thoroughgoing skepticism about
Lamennais as an answer to Enlightenment views in the possibility of gaining any metaphysical knowledge.
France and a new defense of conservatism and ortho- The empiricists and positivists have argued that there
doxy, and by Kierkegaard as an answer to Hegelianism is no means of gaining knowledge beyond empirical
and religious liberalism. Both reacted with extreme data, except in terms of logical and mathematical
skepticism to the "progressive" intellectual and reli- tautologies. Many pragmatists have found the tradi-
gious trends during the early nineteenth century. tional metaphysical quest meaningless, and meta- 249
physical assertions and useless. The

unverifiable diate or intuited experience was questionable: "Noth-
and pragmatists have tried to
empiricists, positivists, ing given exists." However, we do interpret the given
absorb or obviate the skeptical challenge by restricting in order to make life meaningful, and interpret it in
the quest for knowledge to the empirical world, or to terms of an "animal faith." TTiis is consistent with a
mathematics, and accepting explicitly or tacitly a thoroughgoing skepticism, and is by following
piu-sued
skepticism about metaphysics. Some, by redefining natural and social tendencies and inclinations. The
knowledge, have adopted a kind of skepticism.
in effect beliefs that result from animal faith enable us to pre-
.•\nother type of modern skepticism has developed serve and to appreciate the richness of life.
from the social sciences. The work of Marx, Nietzsche, In contrast. Shestov not only applied a complete
James, Freud, and others, has produced a new form .skepticism to rational beliefs, but insisted on a radical
of relativistic skepticism. If the views people hold are rejection of all rational standards in order to reach
the products of human culture and behavior, and vary faith. Shestov insisted on the need to reject even math-
with social economic and psychological conditions, can ematical truths in order to achieve or make room for
any of these views be considered as true? Nietzsche the religious life. For Shestov rationality is contra-
and Freud have raised the possibility of value skepti- dictory and cosmically dangerous.
cism, that all value beliefs may be man-made, and that Camus, building on Grenier's skepticism, saw man
there really are no objective values. Marx indicated as trying to decipher the nature and meaning of a
that all views may just be reflections of other develop- universe that is basically absurd, employing dubious
ing factors. rational and scientific means. Camus used the skeptical-
In the twentieth century, when so many of the fideistic arguments but rejected the religious solution.
strands of modern skepticism have been absorbed into Accepting Nietzsche's claim that God is dead, and that
the main intellectual currents, very few thinkers have the universe is ultimately meaningless, Camus painted
proclaimed themselves skeptics. Many have accepted his protagonists as having to struggle with a world that
a skepticism or semi-skepticism, and then ignored it is unintelligible and senseless. They have to recognize
and have gone on about their intellectual business. and accept the human situation, and find whatever
Some have developed views indicating what remains personal meaning is possible through struggle though
after a fundamental skepticism has been adopted, what it has no objective or ultimate or rational significance.
sort of sense may still be made of man and his world. Sir Karl Popper's quasi-skepticism, much like that
The forms of overt skepticism in this century have of the constructive skepticism of Gassendi and of the
varied greatly, from the naturalistic animal faith vari- scientific Pascal, has sought to dispose of the illusions
ety of George Santayana, the linguistic positivistic that immutably demonstrable truths could be found in
mystical kind of Fritz Mauthner, the skeptical solipsism logic, mathematics, and science. He has sought to show
and practical altruism of Adolfo Levi, the extreme that adequate verification of tniths is not possible, and
anti-rational skeptical fideism of Lev Shestov (the has tried to offer ways of proceeding in science and
Russian Orthodox theologian), the existentialist skepti- mathematics that can be of value without having to
cism, if one can call it that, of Jean Grenier and his resolve the basic skeptical difficulties.
student, the novelist Albert Camus to the semi- All of these who have presented forms of skepticism
skepticism of Vaihinger, .Main, and Popper. Each of in the twentieth century have indicated that the fun-
these tliinkers has pointed to the modern malaise, damental skeptical problems raised in ancient times
either in despair or with equanimity, that because of and revived in the Renaissance have not been resolved
the reasons raised by the skeptics over the past four by modern philosophy, theology, or science. Over the
centuries, the modern intellectual era has failed to last four centuries, the skeptics have refurbished the
achieve the level of intellectual security and certainty ancient arguments, and redirected them against the
of past ages. new dogmatists who have arisen. Renaissance skepti-
Mauthner 's com-
analysis of language indicated the cism helped erode confidence in scholastic and Platonic
plete and subjectivism of any way of
relativism ways of imderstanding the universe. The irreligious
describing the world, without any means being known skepticism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
of independently evaluating which, if any of these, made it difficult to accept the Judeo-Christian world
corresponded to reality. Mauthner finally concluded view in literal sense. The critical
an objective and
that all that was possible was a kind of godless mystical analyses of Bayle,Hume, Kant, and the post-Kantian
contemplation of the world. critics undermined the new metaphysical ventures of
Santayana contended in his brilliant Scepticism and the seventeenth century. The anti-metaphysical posi-
250 Animal Faith (1923) that any interpretation of imme- tivism and the social scientific relativism of the last
SOCIAL CONTRACT
two centuries have indicated that it is unlikely that (The Hague, 1963), Richard A, Watson, The Downfall of
any final truth will be discovered by human rational Cartesianism (The Hague, 1966).
or scientific means.
RICHARD H. POPKIN
The struggle against skepticism has been one of the
[See also Agnosticism; Authority; Certainty; Faith; Irra-
dynamic factors in the development of modern
tionalism; Machiavellism; Positivism; Probability; Refor-
thought, urging thinkers to probe for new means of
mation; Relativism; Renaissance Humanism.]
answering the attacks. The erosion, through the various
forms of modem skepticism, of the structure of Western
European thought has left most contemporary thinkers
unable or unwilling to seek any longer certain and
unshakeable foundations of a system of thought for SOCIAL CONTRACT
imderstanding man and the universe. Most have
accepted some or many elements of the skeptics' chal- The notion of Social Contract, although particularly
lenge, and, as a result many philosophers have turned influential in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
away from the quest for any ultimate truth or meaning. has a history which reaches back to the time of the
Instead they have sought wavs of living with the ancient Greeks. The term refers to the act bv which
unresolved skeptical crisis through humanistic, scien- men are assumed to establish a communally agreed
tific, animal, or religious faiths. form of social organization. This act has been given
varying characteristics by the numerous theorists who
BIBLIOGRAPHY have described it. They may refer to the establishment
of society as prior to the inauguration of government,
Don Cameron .Mien, Doubt's Boundless Sea: Skepticism
or alternatively to the state and society having arisen
and Faith in the Renaissance (Baltimore, 1964). Samuel
concurrently. In the first case the Social Contract is
Atlas, Frmii Critical to Speculative Idealism: The Philosophy
often thought of as a pact that all men make with each
of Salomon Maimon (The Hague, 1964). Christian
other as equals, whilst in the latter caseit mav be a
Bartholm^se, Huet, H'eque d'Avranches, ou le scepticisme
tMologique (Paris, 1850). George Boas, Dominant Themes less egalitarianagreement by which the rulers and the
of Modem Philosophy (New York, 1957). Tullio Gregory, ruled are differentiated, and their various rights and
Scetticismo ed empirismo: Studio su Gassendi (Bari, 1961). obligations made explicit.
Marcellino Menendez Pelayo, Ohras completas, Vol. XLIII, In order to express certain variations in the assumed
Ensayos de critica filosofica (Santander, 1948), Ch. 2, "De agreement, some writers chose to use the closelv re-
losorigenes del criticismo y del escepticismo y especial- lated notions of "compact or "covenant," rather than
"
mente de los precursores espaiioles de Kant," pp. 117-216. that of "contract." A further difference is that the
Ame Naess, Skepticism (New York, 1969), contains an ex-
contract sometimes regarded as an act that has been
is
tensive bibliography. Charles G. Nauert, Agrippa and the
made and ought to be adhered to, and at other times
Crisisof Renaissance Thought (Urbana, 1955). John Owen,
as one that ought to be made. Amongst all these varia-
Evening With the Skeptics (London, 1881); idem, The Skep-
tions, however, some points of agreement do emerge.
of the French Renaissance (London and New York, 1893).
tics
Richard H. Popkin, "David Hume: His Pyrrhonism and His First, there is the view that human society and govern-
Critique of Pyrrhonism," Philosophical Quarterly, 1
ment are the work of man, constructed according to
(1950-51), 385-407; idem, The History of Scepticisrt\ From human will, even
sometimes operating imder divine
if
Erasmus to Descartes (Assen, Netherlands, 1960; New York, guidance. Such a notion implies a conception of man
1964, 1968). Contains lengthy bibliography on skepticism as a free agent, rather than a being totally determined
from 1500 to 1650; idem, "Scepticism in the Enlighten- by external forces. Second, the emphasis on contract
ment," in T. Bestermann, ed.. Studies on Voltaire and the implies that the nature both of society and of govern-
18th Century, Vol. XXVI (Geneva, 1963), pp. 1321-45; idem, ment ought to be based on mutual agreement rather
"The High Road Pyrrhonism," American Philosophical
to
than on force. We shall later see how these beliefs
Quarterly, 2 (1965), 1-15; idem. "Scepticism, Theology and
played an important role in justifying the acceptance
the Scientific Revolution in the Seventeenth Centurv,"
of liberal democratic views.
Problems in the Philosophy of Science, ed. Lakatos and
Musgrave, Vol. (Amsterdam 1968), 1-39. Kad Popper,
Ill
The belief that men once came together to form a
Conjectures and 2nd ed. (New York, 1968).
Refutations. contract implies the prior existence of a pre-
George Santayana, Scepticism and Animal Faith (New York, govemmental condition. It is this which is usually
1923; reprint 1955). Charles B. Schmitt, Gianfrancesco Pico referred to as the State of Nature. This image, bv
della Mirandola
(The Hague, 1967). Henry G. Van Leeuwen, portraying what man was like without government,
The Problem of Certainty in English Thought 1630-1690 serves to demonstrate exactly what it is man owes to 251
SOCIAL CONTRACT
government. The idea of a State of Nature became of Israel. Once the Christian faith gained predominance
acceptable in that it had formed part of popular myth- in Europe, belief in the absolute historical accuracy
olog\' from the times of antiquity, being portrayed of the Old Testament was, for many centuries, largelv
as a former Golden Age of complete equality in both taken for granted. The one society of which men had
Greek and Latin literature. This assumption, found in early records appeared to be founded on covenant or
the Metamorphoses of Ovid and in the writings of the compact, so what could be more plausible than to
Stoics, gained further expression amongst the Scholas- assume a somewhat similar origin for other societies?
tics of the later Middle Ages, and much later still was That the notion of contract is also, and more usually,
more than echoed in Rousseau's Discours sur Vinigalite associated with legal and commercial terminology is
(1754). Most later Social Contract theorists, from the a further important factor explaining its acceptance.
time of Hobbes onwards, have taken this accepted For what metaphor could be more apt in aiding the
notion of a pre-political condition, but by altering its understanding of a certain conception of government,
character have inverted its function. The State of Na- than one derived from an activitv with which men
ture, rather than being an ideal, is now provided with were familiar in their daily life?
deficiencies. It is in order to remedv these deficiencies Greece and Rome. The use of contract by the
that the contract has to be made. The method, then, Greeks, whilst not having the significance it was later
has many uses. Sometimes the State of Nature has been to acquire, does at least indicate the comparatively
portrayed as a Golden Kge of peace and equalitv, secular nature of their political thought. Being notable
obviously superior to anything that has replaced it. constitution framers, idolizing the great lawmakers,
Alternativelv, in order to demonstrate the extreme they were easily convinced that laws were the work
necessity of strong government, the nongovernmental of man rather than of the gods. Contractual views were
situation can be described as a terrible and wretched certainly not widely held, but thev were prevalent.
condition in which Among the better known accounts of contract is the
version in Plato's Republic {359a): Glaucon suggests that
there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is
uncertain^ and consequently no culture of the Earth, no "men decide they would be better off if they made
Navigation ... no commodious building ... no account a compact neither to do wrong nor to suffer it. Hence
of time; no arts; no letters; no Society; and which is worst they began to make laws and covenants with one
of all, continual feare, and danger of violent death; and another." In Plato's Crito, Socrates informs us of a
the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short practice that was later to become closely connected
(Hobbes, Leviathan [1651], Part I, Ch'. XIII). with contract theorv: he presents the device whereby
contract theorists allow for the consent of those citizens
Or again, argument is that man requires gov-
if one's dwelling in the state in the period after its inception.
ernment, whilst not owing all advantages to it, the This consists of the notion of tacit consent, in which
State of Nature can be portrayed as reasonably ade- all people dwelling within the state are assumed,
quate, but still containing deficiencies which only a merely bv their continued residence within its bounda-
state structure can remedy (Locke, Second Treatise of ries, to consent to the laws that have been made.
Government, 1690). Fmther hints of contract can be found in the writings
Thus the Social Contract serves the intermediary of the Sophists, the school of Diogenes (the Cynics),
function of e.xplaining how man transforms his condi- Epicurus, Xenophon, and occasionally in Roman writ-
tion from the State of Nature to a proposed form of ings of the fourth century, but on the whole such
civil society. The particular form of contract used will sporadic use of the term is of interest mainly on ac-
bear the marks of this relationship, of its connection count of later developments. Thus far the contract was
both with the condition it supposedly replaces and used as a means of reinforcing obedience to law. That
with that which it is intended to inaugvu'ate. it might also provide the basis for resistance against
If such an account of social and governmental origins the state was not yet apparent.
sounds both involved and implausible, we might men- If is worth pointing out Uiat those occasional writers
tion that there were influential factors promoting belief who maintained a belief in contract were referring to
not only in a State of Nature, but also in the usual a contract of government, rather than one of society.
narrative accounts of its replacement by society and The latter only emerged from the later postiJate of
government. Thus, the notion of contract was made natural individualism, which neither the Greeks nor
familiar by Old Testament accounts of covenant, such the Romans held. With Aristotle, they regarded man
as those that God made with Noah, and with ,\braham, as naturally social, as the conscious instigator of gov-
and that at Hebron between King David and the elders ernment, but not as the creator of society.
—
SOCIAL CONTRACT
The Middle Ages. Following the decline of the as the people who henceforth became bound to obey
Roman Empire, Roman law lived on into the Middle their king. Thus, bv and fifteenth
the fourteenth
Ages, and became integrated into the philosophy of was seen to derive from
centuries the origin of the state
practically all writers. Hints of governmental contract a contract of subjection, an act in which obligations
do exist, but more generally the state was regarded rather than rights received the main emphasis; a con-
as a sin, a divine punishment, in which
consequence of ception of contract forwarded primarily by Engelbert
the king was sent by God to execute His wrath on of Volkersdorf (1250-1311) and Nicholas of Cusa
evildoers. However, monarchical power was not (1401-64).
granted arbitrarv usage, either from above or below. The relevance of the Middle .Ages to the contract
Exhortations to the king to nile in the common good theory is not that this period was one in which contract
were made in thousands. This alreadv implied was as explicitly formulated, or as fully developed as
monarchical obligation to the niled, the idea of which it was later to become. Rather it is tliat it thoroughly
was familiarized through the Roman law concept of prepared the ground for later theories of Social Con-
Lex Regia. and had been given early practical expres- tract. The metaphor is not inapt, for it was the
sion in the German successor-kingdoms of the Western dominant system of land tenure, that of feudalism,
Roman Empire. Such belief in the reciprocal obliga- which familiarized all classes of society with the con-
tions between monarch and people was made more tractual idea. Thus these contract theorists stressing
explicit in the coronation oath. This in itself was a form reciprocal rights did more than just imitate the spirit
of governmental contract, in the sense that the author- of the early coronation oath, for, in some respects, they
ity of the king was not accepted unless he had boimd reflected the pattern of obligation thatwas typical of
himself by oath to provide just and good government. feudal society. The whole feudal system was cemented
The use of contract as a basis for conditional popular by relationships of mutual rights and duties between
resistance to government, most frequently associated lord and vassal, a system which recognized individual
with the name of Locke, was already apparent in the rights even to the extent of allowing the vassal to reject
eleventh-century writings of Manegold of Lautenbach. the contract if the lord had not abided by its terms.
In hisview a monarch who oppresses his people breaks That these reciprocal obligations extended up the social
the contract, and thereby absolves the ruled from any scale even as far as the monarch was, perhaps, particu-
further obligations of obedience. Not only was obedi- larly evident in England, for Magna Carta (1215),
ence no longer obligatory, but actual rebellion was although no more than an agreement between king and
justifiable, for a king who degenerates into a tyrant barons, was at least an indication that the king was
should be expelled like an unfaithful shepherd. This to be regarded as an integral part of society, rather
precursor of later theories, it is only fair to mention, than as an unlimited, all-powerful ruler controlling
had little influence among his contemporaries. It was from the "outside." Thus throughout the Middle Ages
only two centuries later that Saint Thomas Aquinas in England the conception remained of the king as
presented somewhat similar ideas to a wider audience. having been drawn into the web of political obligation.
However, was reserved for the excep-
his radicalism This was much less the case in France, where successive
tional occasion, his main theme being one of obedience monarchs continued to stress their theocratic function
to the accepted traditional order of church and king. of obligation to God, and God alone. In general, how-
More clearly radical were the political ideas Marsiglio ever, the embodiment in law and in the social con-
of Padua and Bartolus of Sassoferrato derived from the sciousness of the contractual relationships of feudalism
north Italian city-states of the fourteenth century. They predisposed men to regard the contract as a guarantor
both regarded authority as stemming from the people, of rights, and a basis of legitimate government
and provided for the removal of governments infring- attitudes which eventually replaced the view of the
ing the constitutional laws by which they were bound. contract as an act of total subjection.
Bartolus comes close to contract theory in stressing the The medieval conception of contract, formed in a
obligations of a pactum which a Prince makes with period when the church had intellectual predominance,
his citv, but the notion is not given a central place was later used by minority Protestant groups of the
in his thought. Reformation era. It was thus that the notion of a proper
With the rise of "divine right" theory, belief in Social Contract came to be formulated, and the use
contract was adapted changed ideological envi-
to a of contract as a democratic device more fully devel-
ronment, thereby losing its primary character as a curb oped. It be clear that belief in the "divine right
will
on monarchical power. Now it was not so much the of kings" is profoimdly imdemocratic, presenting the
king who was bound to rule for the good of the people. idea that power and authority derive from God, and 253
SOCIAL CONTRACT
descend by delegation to the monarch, and so on, in made? Hooker does at least realize the importance
"
ever smaller quantities, down the social scale. This The terms, he tells us, "for the most
of these difficulties.
"descending thesis" of authority provided no moral part are either clean worn out of knowledge, or else
basis for dissent, as disobedience to the king implied known imto very few." It required the arrival of a more
disobedience to God. age before such unverified knowl-
historically critical
Groups striving for religious freedom, however, edge came to be considered an inadequate basis for
needed a rationale for their rejection of the orthodox an important social theory.
religious views. The Huguenot author (either Languet By the seventeenth century, with the writings of
or Duplessis-Morna\) of the Vindiciae contra fi/rannos Althusius, and Grotius, the major period of Social Con-
(1579) justified the French wars of religion bv stating tract theory really begins. Emphasis comes to be placed
the right of the people to oppose a king who persecutes on both the individual and society as being historically
religious truth, because such a king has broken the and logically prior to the monarchy and state. In this
contract between God and the people. This was the manner the "descending thesis of government sank "
Huguenot position so long as a Catholic monarch sat ever more into the background. Emphasis on Social
on the throne. With the accession of the Protestant Contract and government by consent led to the
Henry IV (1589), the Huguenots reverted to belief in reformulation of what is called the "ascending thesis"
the divine right of kings, whilst certain Catholics, of govermnent. This is the belief that authority is
most notably the Jesuits Juan Mariana, Luis Molina, delegated to government by society — from the ruled
and Francisco Suarez, became converted to the idea to the rulers — up, rather than down, the social scale.
of Social Contract and to the right of resistance against The wide application of contract theory to seven-
tyrannical kings. teenth-century politics stems most immediately from
By this time men had learned to present rejection its religious usage by Puritan groups in both England
of divine right and disobedience to monarchy in a and America. A church was regarded as a voluntary
manner which did not involve rejection of religion as association joined together in the pursuit of com-
such. This theoretical feat was accomplished by the mimally agreed religious aims. On fleeing to America,
combination of Natural Law and Social Contract. The the persecuted religious minorities of western Europe
former notion provided a means by which the word thereby each became not merely a religious commu-
of God could be received by the mind of man without nity, but also a political organization. In withdrawing
the monarch acting as an intermediary. The moral need from the allegiance of an oppressive state power, they
to heed the monarch's command was further eased by became their own state in the same marmer as they
the belief associated with contract, that law derives were already their own church. In this situation,
from consent and that obedience to arbitrary rule is allegiance to the state could only be based on the same
not obligatory. principle that already governed allegiance to the
The alignment of natural rights and contract is church, that is, by voluntary agreement. In this way
instructive, for the attempt to derive rights from a the notion of religious contract provided an immediate
pre-social, natural condition led to the formulation of stimulus to the development of the idea of a Social
the initial contract as an act forming society, rather Contract, a variation of which is found in the covenant
than an agreement between ruler and ruled in an made by the Pilgrim Fathers upon their arrival in New
already established state. In this manner arose the idea England in November 1620.
of a truly social contract. Rights deriving from God This same alignment of religious and political atti-
via nature, rather than from God via the king, thus tudes occurred in England without the stimulus of
provided a religious basis for opposition to tyrannv. resettlement. We see this quite explicitly in the writings
It is no coincidence, then, that Juan Mariana, writing of the Leveller John Lilburne (ca. 1614-57). He had
in 1605, combines within the same work a compact initially concentrated on the problems of religion,
of society and a justification of tyrannicide. accepting the commonplace view that to reject the
With his popularization of Social Contract theory king's authorityis equivalent to disobeying God. This
in Richard Hooker (1552-1600) simulta-

England, approach did not survive his intermittent periods of
neously provided an early example of a criticism that imprisonment, during which time he submitted the
was eventually to hasten the theory's downfall. If some question of the legitimacy of state power to deeper
men found it useful to affirm the idea of a Social examination. About 1636 he had written of the church
Contract, others found it equally useful to denv it. This as a voluntary community of believers, bound together
they did by posing such questions as: "If the contract in order to pursue common religious aims. Once the
is the basis of society, what exactly are its terms? What English Civil War broke out, Lilburne aligned himself
254 evidence have we that a contract has actually been with the Parhamentary side, and began applying a
SOCIAL CONTRACT
similar approach to the composition of civil society. did hold some assumptions in common. One of the
The consequence was the use of contract theory
of this major presuppositions implicit in this particular ap-
to justify disobedience against the monarchy. As proach concerns the degree of man's possible control
Lilburne now saw it, the king had broken his contract over his environment. It seems that users of the Social
with the people, thereby transforming their condition Contract method are disposed towards viewing society
into a State of Nature. Men were
no way obliged
in as artificial rather tlian natural, primarily as being the
to obey monarchical tyranny, and so the basic problem work of man rather than of God or of Nature. In
remaining was to remake the social-political contract, consequence, we often find those who accept this
which the Levellers actually attempted to do by means method having an attitude towards religion somewhat
of their first "Agreement of the People" (1647). at variancewith that of their opponents. They see the
Following the execution of Charles I "contract the- world of man as deriving from man's own will, rather
ory became what may almost be called the official than being merely the expression of external forces.
theory of the Commonwealth party" (Cough, p. 99). This is certainly not to say that people holding such
Cromwell declared "the king is king by contract"; the views were atheists, even if their opponents occa-
poet John Milton went further still, declaring that sionally regarded them as such, for belief in God does
society is based on contract, but monarchy rests only not necessarily imply His being given a continuous
on trust. In his view central role in the human drama.
Coupled with human
belief in the creation of society
The power of kings and magistrates is nothing else, but what
is the strong emphasis placed on the idea of consent.
is onlv derivative, transferred and committed to them in
Contract is presented as a voluntary agreement of those
trust from the people to the common good of them all, in
who will be bound by the rules of the system they
whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and cannot
be taken from them, without a violation of their natural
establish. In this we see the emergence of our contem-
birthright (The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, 1649). porary notions of individual freedom and the self-
determination of peoples, for the implication is that

The Age of Social Contract. With the English Civil the authority of the system derives from the free con-
War begins the century and a half in which Social sent of those who compose it, rather than from the
Contract theory was most predominant. The reasons commands of God or king. In this sense the contract's
for this are not hard to find when one considers the radical fimction was as a justification of the breakdown
problems which men sought to solve by this method. of the "descending thesis" of government. Although
These were usually concerned with the origins and Richard Hooker accepted the view that some kings
legitimacy of government, and the vital question of might possibly rule by divine right, his view was the
when governments might rightfully be disobeyed. It exception rather than the rule among Social Contract
was such issues which were directly relevant in a pe- More typical was the attack on
theorists. divine right
riod encompassing the English Civil War, the estab- made by Locke in the first of his Two Treatises of
lishment of new commimities in North America, the Government.
English "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, the American Cormected with belief in the importance of consent,
Revolution of 1776, and the French Revolution of 1789. we tend to find the notion of the individual as the
The major long-term consequence of these various possessor of certain inalienable rights, which the con-
upheavals was the practical inaugm-ation of the liberal tract is intended to secure, and which the state should
democracy which still predominates in Western society not infringe. This is the manner which contract
in
today. Though our modern state system may have reinforced arguments for limiting government and
arrived by force of arms, the values associated with exalting the individual, and was the basis on which
it were only considered secure once it had won the resistance was considered justified against those gov-
philosophical battle against its predecessors. It was ernments not abiding by the terms of the supposed
here that the idea of Social Contract played a crucial contract.
role. In postulating natiu'al freedom and natural equality,
Perhaps we should consider whether the framework in providing a basis for the notion of merely conditional
in which obligation to obey government is presented obedience to government, the Social Contract was used
may not logically impel the theorist towards a certain as a framework for a theory that had potentially dis-
limited range of conclusions. At first sight such a sug- ruptive implications for any society with a predomi-
gestion seems implausible, as the various values held power structure. The emphasis on
nantly aristocratic
by Social Contract theorists cover such a large area government by consent made Social Contract a
of the political spectrum. However, we must note that, weapon against not only the divine right of kings, but
whatever their differences. Social Contract theorists against any form of absolute government. .\s good a 255
"
SOCIAL CONTRACT
justification of government by consent as we are likely as if they had made a contract with it. of such a kind
to find was provided bv the Leveller Col. Rainborough: as to
Really, I think that the pourest he that is in England hath confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon
a life to live as the greatest he: and therefore truly. Sir, one as.senibly of men that may reduce all their wills, by
I think it's clear that every man that is to live under a plurality of voices, unto one will: which is as much as to
government ought first by his own consent to put himself say, to appoint one man, or a.ssembly of men, to bear their
under that government: and I do think that the poorest person; and everv one to own. and acknowledge himself
man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that to be author of whatsoever he that so beareth their person,
government that he hath not had a voice to put himself shall act, or cause to be acted, in those things which concern
under (Clarke, p. .3011. the common peace and safety; and therein to submit their
wills, everyone to his will, and their judgements, to his
To base obligation on consent may not have been judgement (p. 89).
original, but it was still a highly radical proposal in

the hierarchical societies of seventeenth-century This surrender of rights, this establishment of almost
Europe. imcontroUed sovereignty, is not advocated as a imilat-
However, the full scope of the theoretical poten- eral individual act. It is a contract only to be made
tialities of Social Contract was rarely apparent to those by "every man with every man." Behind the much
who What may soimd criticized absolutism of Hobbes is the basic belief that
used the method. to us like the
thin edge of a democratic wedge did not always con- peace and security are the initial prerequisites of
tain such implications for the men of the seventeenth human society, and are to be pursued even at the cost
century. Government might be said to rest on consent, of certain individual freedoms. The State of Nature
power might be thought of as deriving from the people, is so disadvantageous that extreme measures are justi-
but in such instances was meant was that the

all that fied in saving mankind from relapsing into it. Whereas
wealthy and influential classes might provide a curb contract had usually been regarded as a means of
against the possible excesses of the monarchy. Rarely

limiting sovereign power, with Hobbes such power is
was it suggested that the laboring masses of the popu- placed outside the restraints of contract. The people
lation also possessed h\\\ natviral rights. "The people make an agreement with each other, but not with the
connoted those v\ho were habitually regarded as en- sovereign. This is a logical derivation from Hobbes'
titled to take part in the political process, and no belief that "Covenants, without the Sword, are but
others. This political assiniiption again is correlated Words, and of no strength to secure a man at all."
with contemporary religious views. Thus, the New Agreements are only valid when there is a superior
England Puritans clearly distinguished between their power to enforce them. In the State of Nature cove-
own congregation and the imregenerate remainder of nants are void, for there is no power to enforce com-
mankind. The right to liberty was thought of in terms pliance. In civil society, there can be no agreements
of rights for their own religious liberty, rather than with the sovereign, because there can, by definition,
as rights for all men irrespective of their religious be no superior power to enforce obedience. Thus the
beliefs. Yet, if these various groups had no intention sovereign is still in the State of Natiu-e in respect of
of formulating a theory of popular sovereignty, that his relations with tlie society he rules. He is not boimd
was just the way were eventually led by
that others by any obligations to the people. Thus
the logic of their anti-absolutist argument. Not for the
there can happen no breach of Covenant on the part of
first time in the history of thought did works of philos-
the Soveraigne; and consequently none of his Subjects, by
ophy become associated with movements which their any pretence of forfeiture, can be freed from his Subjection.
authors would have rejected.
So we see that consent need not imply democracy That Hobbes' views clashed violently with the more
luiless consent refers to the consent of all concerned. general "spirit of the age" is evident from even the
In the same manner Social Contract need not neces- most cursory acquaintance with late seventeenth-
sarily liberal democracy unless the contract is
imply century opinion. Conservatives were offended by
given liberal democratic terms. It has been argued that Hobbes' neglect of divine right, whilst radicals rejected
this was the general tendency during the seventeenth his absolutism. Somewhat similar hostility greeted
and eighteenth centuries. This, however, should not Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus (1670), a work
blind us to an important counter-current, the most strongly influenced by the writings of Hobbes, and in
notable example of which consists of Hobbes' revival which Spinoza held that "the sovereign is boimd by
of the contract of subjection. In his Leviathan (I65I) no law, and tliat all citizens must obey it in all things."
256 Hobbes contended that men should regard government Such a contract of submission was again based on the
SOCIAL CONTRACT
need for defense against insecurity, and was presented is a value, even though shared basic premisses may
"
as a necessity "advised by reason itself. lead to widely divergent conclusions. Belief in the right
In spite of these pronouncements, tlie individualist of choice does not logically provide a limitation of the
and democratic kernel of contract theory could not range of choice. The difficultv occurs if we envisage
be entirely ignored. Hobbes may have written of the a situation in which the people may choose not to
individual surrendering all rights of governing himself, choose. The contract of submission can be a self-
and of his authorizing all the actions of the sovereign, annihilating contract, in the same way that freedom
even to the extent that "every Subject is .\uthor of to commit suicide can be a self-annihilating freedom,
every act the Soveraign doth," yet he only applied this or the choice of Bonapartist or totalitarian govern-
within the limits imposed by Natural Law. Thus certain ments can be a choice annihilating use of democratic
rights were maintained by the individual, and situations The contract of submission, then, is an extreme;
rights.
were envisaged in which disobedience to the sovereign it an act of voluntary surrender on a par with the
is
was justified. First, man was at liberty to disobey if democratic choice of governments which destroy de-
the sovereign command him to kill himself, as this was mocracy. Freedom, at its full extent, includes the
contrary to the Law of Nature "by which we are freedom to extinguish freedom. This paradox is shared
forbidden to do anything destructive of our own life." by both Social Contract theory and democratic theory,
Second, he need not allow other men to kill him. even and as such serves to demonstrate their similarities
though the sovereign demand it, for the Right of Na- rather than their differences.
tiu'e stipulates "the liberty each man hath, to use his Hobbes and Spinoza, it is generally true
In spite of
own power, as he will himselfe, for the preservation by the end of the seventeenth century those
to say that
of his own Nature." Likewise, a man interrogated by writers who were most virulent in their attacks on
the sovereign concerning a crime he has committed, Social Contract were also those who held basically
is not bound to confess, for there is a Law of Natiue antiradical views.Thev rejected the presumptuous
that "no man . . . can be obliged bv Covenant to accuse notion that man could have been the creator of the
himselfe." Finally, the obligation to obey the sovereign imposing hierarchical edifice of society. The views
is upon the provision of security, for which
conditional previously forwarded bv James I of England, that the
purpose government is established. Thus, the apparent people could not limit monarchy, that rule was by
total absolutism of Hobbes is limited within the indi- hereditary right according to the will of God, and that
vidualist demands of Natural Law. This is not to say God was the only judge of whether the coronation oath
that the individual is granted explicit rights of resist- had been infringed, were all sympathetically revived
ance against the sovereign, but merely that circum- in the writings of Sir Robert Filmer. In his Patriarcha;
stances are envisaged in which obedience is neither or the NaturalPower of Kings (1680), Filmer argued
obligatory nor rational. that monarchy was natural rather than conventional.
In spite of these individualist concessions, is the Royal power derived from paternal power, as granted
Hobbes-Spinoza position one which enables us to deny at the creation by God to Adam. Since that time this
any logical connection between contract and democ- power had been transferred by hereditary right to the
racy? I would argue not, and would assert the contrary various sovereigns, who are regarded as Adam's heirs.
proposition that their position actually highlights an The power of the sovereign, then, derives from God,
important paradox in democratic theory. In spite of and can in no way be limited by the king's subjects.
the apparent surrender of numerous rights to a nearly Natural equality and freedom were condemned as
imlimited sovereign, we must bear in mind that the contrary to biblical evidence, as were "such imaginery
resulting condition is still one of vokmtary contract, pactions between Kings and their people as many
representing a definite choice by the members of soci- dream of." Leaving aside the weighty question of
ety. That this choice is a strange one, that submission historical evidence,Filmer asks whether the contrac-
may not seem a particularly worthwhile action, is not tual act could be considered plausible. 'Was it likely
denied. Choice is still choice, whether other people that men in a State of Nature could ever agree on the
find it rational or not. Social Contract theory, being form a contract was to take? Were they to do so, why
based on consent, may support all manner of values should their terms be binding on subsequent genera-
that the people might hold. In exactly the same way tions? All in all Filmer regarded the idea of contract
democratic elections may be the means bv which the as practically implausible, socially pernicious, and the-
widest conceivable range of governments come to ologically heretical, views which were readily received
power. This wide range of conceivable contracts, how- by the more conservative sections of English society,
ever, does not mean that Social Contract theory has and which John Locke attempted to refute in his fa-
no specific values attached to it. The right to choose mous Two Treatises of Government. 25 I
SOCIAL CONTRACT
In 1688 the Convention parliament had passed a the State of Nature is referred to as a "compact." It
resolution declaring that King James II of England had is only consent "which did, or could give beginning
"endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the king- to any lawful Government in the World." Meaningfid
dom by breaking the original contract between king consent, however, is confined to history, for after the
and people." was Locke's intention to justify the
It creation of society consent becomes tacit rather than
so-called "Glorious Revolution" which deposed King explicit, and is signified by mere residence within the
James, therebv to "establish the Throne of Our present territory of a government.
King William; to make good his Title, in the Consent Locke clearly differentiated the origins of society
of the People." This required the justification of con- from the establishment of government, a point he
ditional rights against the monarchy, and the rejection might have learned from Pufendorf's De jure naturae
of Kilmer's belief in the divine right of kings. To do etgentium (1672). Pufendorf saw society as resting on
this Locke meets Filmer on his own ground, the writ- two covenants and a decree. The first covenant forms
ings of the Old Testament. Both men fully accepted society, the decree settles the particular form of gov-
the Bible as historically accurate, Locke merely claim- ernment, whilst by the second covenant sovereign
ing tliat Filmer had misinterpreted the texts. In Locke's power is constituted. Locke accepted the importance
view of chfferentiating between society and government, but
explained it in rather a different way. The agreements
.\dam . . being neither .Monarch, nor his imaginary Mon-
which
.
embodied in compact are of a character in all

archy hereditable, the Power which is now in the World,
sides are equallv bound. Locke found this type of
is not that which was -Adam's since all that .\dam could
have . . . either of Property or Fatherhood, necessarily Died agreement eminently suitable to describe his notion of
with him, and could not be convey'd to Posterity bv the social relationships of mankind, but quite imsuit-
Inheritance. able as a description of the strictly political relationship
that he wished to advocate. For Locke the people and
no divine law of primogeniture,
In addition, there is
their rulerswere not on a par, not equally bound by
nor is there any evidence that the monarchs of the arrangements made between them. Rather, he believed
world were actually descended from Adam. In reply that the government was the servant of society, bound
to Filmer's rejection of contract. Locke manages to
bv the provisions for which it had been constituted
disprove Filmer's argrmient on divine right.
bv the people. To express this relationship Locke made
As a replacement for it, Locke takes a position common seventeenth-century notion of
use of the
characteristic of Social Contract theory, that civil so-
"tmst." The main obligation this entails is that the
ciety has been consciously constructed by men. This government should serve to implement the will of the
presupposition is fully accepted as a fact of history,
people. Its role is. therefore, passive; it forfeits its
no less true for being unrecorded, and no less important legitimate authoritv when it formulates a will of its
forbeing of long vintage. In reply to the appeal for own, and seeks to distort, alter, or silence the voice
evidence of an original State of Nature, Locke provides of the people.
an explanation, ingenious rather than convincing, This explains why the notion of contract was only
which amply demonstrates his faith in reason as the of limited use to Locke, why he sought to differentiate
key to historical knowledge. Thus
the inauguration of society from the establishment of
it is not at all to be wonder'd. that History gives us but government, and why he has come to be regarded as
very account of Men, that lived together in the State

little a radical. If security be maintained in the general
is to
of Nature ... if we may not suppose Men ever to have interest, then the people must be dominant. If the
been in the State of Nature, because we hear not much people are to be dominant, the government must be
of them in such a state, we may as well suppose the armies subservient. .\ contractual relationship would have put
of Salmanasser, or Xerxes, were never Children, because the rights of the government on a par with those of
we hear little of them, till they were Men, and imbodied
the ruled, whereas one of trust stipulates their sub-
in Government is every\vhere antecedent to
.\rmies.
servience. Thus rule is exercised on the people's terms,
Records For 'tis with Commonwealths as with particular
. .
way apparently being open

.
the left for the creation

Persons, they are commonly ignorant of their own Births
and Infancies. of the conditions they desire. When a breach of this
trust occurs, power quite simply "devolves to the Peo-
With regard to the consequences Locke draws from ple," for "Governments are dissolved . . . when the
contract, they certainly would have appeared perni- legislative, or the Prince . . . act contrary to their
ciou.s to those sharing Filmer's approach. With Locke trust
"
This conditional right of resistance is Locke's
25o the act by which individuals mutually agree to leave justification of the events of 1688.
SOCIAL CONTRACT
If "trust" is used to limit arbitrary power, "compact" Hobbes and Grotius. Such an act he saw as sheer
is used to delineate the proper scope of government. madness.
This is done by means of his description of the State
and right cannot rest on madness. WheUier as
We have already mentioned that the State
. . .
. . .
of Nature.
between one man and another, or between one man and
of Nature, in describing man prior to government, a whole people, it would always be absurd to say: "I hereby
serves to demonstrate what man owes to government.
make a covenant with you which is wholly at your expense
With Hobbes man owes virtually evervthing to gov- and wholly to my advantage; I will respect it so long as
ernment, his security, trade, culture, and knowledge. I please and you shall respect it so long as I wish" (ibid.,
With Locke this is not so. Locke's vision of the State pp. 54, .58).
of Nature includes a market economv, wage labor,

Thus far it might appear as if Rousseau and Locke
large landed estates, and the use of money. The onlv
had both used Social Contract for the same purpose
thing men lack is a "common Judge to Appeal to on
of securing individual rights. This, apparently, was
Earth for the determination of Controversies of Right
Rousseau's purpose. The object of the Social Contract,
betwixt them. '
The function of proposing such an
he told us, is to
implausible situation is to stress that economic activity
and the basic rules of personal relationships do not find aform of association which will defend the person and
derive their impetus from the state. His positing a goods of each member with the collective force of all, and
under which each individual, while uniting himself with
tolerable pre-pohtical condition derives from an atti-
the others, obeys no one but himself, and remains as free
tude in which government is seen as of merely supple-
as before (ibid., p. 60).
mentary importance. The function of the state is not
to control the economy, but rather to ensure conditions Rousseau differs from Locke in that he does not
of safety in which a presumably self-regulating econ- allow the people a right to decide the terms of the
omy can operate. Similarly, the function of Locke's contract, for these are invariable, being logically
placing freedom in the natural pre-social stage is to determined by the problem they are designed to solve.
demonstrate that this freedom does not derive from Thus the contract can be revoked, but not amended.
government, which merely guarantees it. Thus, Locke's Its institution requires imanimitv, and its terms allow
positing of natural rights, of property accumulation the body politic absolute power over all its members.
prior to the social compact, and of the limitation on It also involves the total alienation of the individual
state power imposed by the notion of trust, are all and his property to the commimity.
intended to protect the individual from the encroach- However, the contract itself is not dominant in
ments of governmental power. Rousseau's overall plan. Once it has been concluded,
The complete rejection of the contract of govern- it sinks into a place of secondarv importance. Its major
ment is also found in Rousseau's Du contrat social function is then seen as the means by which the people
(1762). Here it is made clear that only the establish- consent to the condition, not of liberal individualism,
ment of society can be based on a contract, for the but of extreme social cohesion guaranteed by adher-
role of government is one that precludes them from ence to the General Will.
a position of being able to bargain with the people. The General Will expresses the common interest of
Sovereign power belongs to the people, the govern- all the citizens. It is what each individual would will
ment merely being their servants, and having no right if he saw what his real interests were. It can be arrived
to complain about their conditions of service. atwhen the correct attitude of mind is displayed, when
men manage to subordinate their personal and sec-
Thus, those theorists who deny that the act by which a
tional interests. Such an achievement is not a mark
people submits itself to leaders is a contract are wholly
of high intellectual endeavor, but merely of simplicity
correct. For that act is nothing other than a commission,
a form of employment
and honesty, such as Rousseau assumed to exist among
in which the governors, as simple
officers of the sovereign, exercise in its name power
the Swiss peasantry. It was rather in the inane sophis-
the it
has placed in their hands . . . {The Social Contract, trans. tication of urban society that men made government
M. Cranston, p. 102). more complex than need be, by giving their own selfish
aims priority over the good of the whole community.
We noted with Locke how the solely social contract If such people can learn to will the General Will, so
was a means of alleviating fears of governmental tyr- much the better. If not, Rousseau suggested, they "will
anny. A similar purpose was obviously shared by be forced to be free." This apparent contradiction is
Rousseau, who took numerous opportunities of ridicul- explained by pointing out that all people really want
ing the contract of subjection, which he associated with to follow their best interests, without always knowing 259
—
SOCIAL CONTRACT
what the\' are. To allow thein to follow a false path obligation being considered preferable. However, the
would be to deiiv them and so decrease,
their aim, notion, increasingly discarded bv the political philoso-
rather than increase their freedom. The assumption phers,was still found useful by practicing politicians,
behind this is that the good of each individual is to and nowhere more so than in North .America. It was
be found within tlie General Will. Society as a whole here that belief in the historical validity of contract
is given overwhelming predominance over its parts. was most firmly and plausibly rooted, and here also
All is merged within the General Will. that, in the second half of the eighteenth century, the
Such a theory has led to the plausible suggestion problem of obligation to government was most clearly
that in guarding against the dangers of the govern- at the forefront of political concern. The writings of
mental contract of subjection, Rousseau had imwit- this period aboimd with accounts of contract or com-
tingly replaced it with a Social Contract of subjection. pact. We find it, for example, in the Boston Gazette
Rousseau would argue that man, being a member of of 1766, in the 1772 "Rights of the Colonists," the latter
such a society, could not be in a state of subjection largely written by Samuel Adams, and in the views
to it, body cannot wish to hurt its
for the parts. The proclaimed by the General Court of Massachusetts on
Social Contract, by placing sovereignty in society, January 23, 1776.
ensures rule in the interests of society. This is in con- Usually it is a contract of government, rather than
trast to a governmental contract, which, in granting of society, to which reference is made. A common
sovereignty to the government, thereby ensures rule theme was that George III had broken the contract
solely in the interests of the govermnent. by which the American colonists gave allegiance to
At this point we must note that, unlike Locke, the British crown. The action of the colonists was
Rousseau did not regard the contract as a historical viewed not as rebellion, but as resistance to the illegal
Rather it was an "ideal," an arrangement that
reality. use of authority. Their original right was to institute
would have to be made were political right to be government on the basis of the consent of the ruled.
instituted. Hobbes had likewise suggested his system Were these conditions no longer fulfilled, the people
as an "ideal," but was far more optimistic regarding could reallocate political power in the manner they
its practical inauguration. "I recover some hope." he foimd most suitable. Perhaps it was this preoccupation
wrote, "that one time or other, this writing of mine, with the exact terms of the origins of government that
may fall into the hands of a Soveraign, who will . . . led a newly independent United States of America to
convert this Truth of Speculation, into the Utility of make its distinctive contribution to modern political
Practice." Rousseau had no such hopes. Men might practice in the formulation of a written constitution.
strive after his ideal, but were destined never to reach Certainly there was a widespread view that the consti-
it, for individual wills are always threatening to under- tution was a governmental contract instituted for the
mine the dominance of the General Will. "The body purpose of limiting state power and guaranteeing indi-
politic, no less than the body of a man, begins to die vidual rights.
as soon as it is born, and bears within itself the causes It is probably no mere coincidence that by the clos-
of its own destruction" (ibid., p. 1.34). Du cont rat social. ing years of the eighteenth century the only notable
then, is not a call to arms. It is a critici.sm of existing English advocate of Social Contract was Tom Paine,
states, the portrayal of an ideal, carrying little hope a man who had fought in the American army during
that the ideal will be put into practice. Rousseau's the War of Independence.
influence, however, was considerable, his theories In The Bights of Man (1791) Paine uses the explana-
having been frequently invoked by Robespierre and tory form we have already foimd in Locke's writings
Saint-Jast during the French Revolution. However, it that is, to speak of society as based on "compact," and
might be thought that their attempts to establish an government on "trust." Paine's usage of these terms,
ideal political order merely served to confirm however, is more satisfactory than Locke's attempt to
Rousseau's warning, found in The Origin of Inequality: prove that the compact was a historical reality. Thus,
like Rousseau, he stated not that all government and
People once accustomed to masters are not in a condition
society had been formed in this way, but that they
to do without them. They nearly always manage, by their
ought to be. A compact between the people "to
revolutions, to hand themselves over to seducers, who only
produce a government ... is the only mode in which
make their chains heavier than before.
Governments have a right to exist." The government
With Rovisseau the line of major Social Contract is neither a superior body nor an equal partner with
theorists came to an end. Belief in contract continued the people. It is a trustee, with duties rather than
into the nineteenth century, but its significance was rights, obliged to serve rather than command. In prac-
260 greatly decreased — alternative grounds for political tice Paine saw "compact" and "trust " as reaching a
SOCIAL CONTRACT
mutual alignment through a constitution. The consti- it. The publication of Hobbes' Leviathan had previ-
tution is a compact; it contains the terms according ously stimulated numerous hostile replies based on the
to which the people agree to form their society. It is implausibility of supposing that men in a State of
the arrangement thev make with each other; it is also Nature could ever have made a Social Contract. The
the limitation within which government is contained. celebrated Sacheverell trial of 1710 was faced with the
Without a constitution a government has full legislative whether the original con-
tricky historical cjuestion of
freedom, for good or ill, during its period of office. tract was made before Magna Carta, and if so why
Where there is a constitution, this freedom is curtailed; no mention of the contract was to be found within
the people maintain their ba.sic rights. "Government it. Answers to questions such as these were increas-
without a constitution is power without a right." The ingly demanded, and decreasinglv supplied, thereby
examples of this ideal, and mankind's hope for the gradually reducing the value that could be derived from
future, Paine saw in the recently inaugurated govern- the use of Social Contract theory.
ments of the United States of America and France. The major eighteenth-century attack on Social Con-
This he hailed as the end of violence and superstition. tractappeared in David Hume's essay "Of the Original
The Age of Reason was coming into being. The social Contract" (1748). Here it is suggested that we have
compacts of America and France had been its inaugu- no evidence of a Social Contract ever having taken
ration; and in their constitutional form, its guarantee. place, and, in any case, the very idea is "far bevond
By this time use of the contract was in decline even the comprehension of savages" in the State of Nature.
among those con.sciouslv adhering to the views of It was clear to Hmne that the idea was spread by
Locke. Thus we find in his Ohsenations on the Nature philosophers, for the ordinary person does not usually
of Civil Liberty (London and Boston, 1776), that act as if government stems from con-
his allegiance to
Richard Price had shown himself not particularly tract. In fact, "were you to ask the far greatest part
concerned with the origins of the state. What now of the nation, whether they had ever consented to the
seemed more value was the Lockean notion of
of far authority of their rulers, or promis'd to obev them, they
a trust between rulers and ruled. It was in Germanv, would be inclined to think very strangely of you."
rather than England, that, particularly under the influ- Government, Hume concludes, "was formed by vio-
ence of Rousseau, the notion of contract continued to lence, and submitted to from necessity." Any legiti-
find favor. Not least among the reasons for this is the macy that may attach to it derives from gradual
fact that the German philosophical tradition has always acceptance, rather than from original explicit consent.
been more juristically inclined than its English This criticism, of course, only applied to thinkers such
counterpart, and so was better able to absorb a term as Locke, who regarded the contract as a historical
with strong legal connotations. Thus in Fichte's event, and not to those who considered the contract
Grundlage des Naturrechts (1796), we are granted the as an act that ought to take place. It was as a philo-
liLxury of three contracts as an explanation of the state. sophical inquiry of the way in which society should
The first is the property contract, which leads on to be understood, or the structure it ought to have, that
the second, the protection contract, and finallv the the Social Contract method was best suited. Never-
union contract (Vereiniffjngsvertrag). Kant's Philosophy theless an increasingly historical attitude towards soci-
of Right (Rechtlehre), appearing in the same year, ety was one of the main factors leading to the rejection
contained no pretense that the contract was a historical of Social Contract, even though not all of its propo-
reality. Itwas merely to be regarded as an "idea of nents had regarded the contract as a historical reality.
reason," by means of which the relationship between We might note that rejection of contract on grounds
the individual and tlie state might be better understood. of its historical implausibilitv did not immediately
The Decline. It is clear that by the end of the result in a major attempt to find a historically accurate
eighteenth century acceptance of the idea of Social account of the state's origins. Rather the question of
Contract was in rapid decline. It may seem strange was deemed irrelevant to the problem
historical origins
that the explanatory method of Locke and Rousseau of political legitimacy and obligation. Philosophical
came under most serious attack just at the time when criteria, which had always been taken into account,
the views they held were at their most influential. Such, became, with the rise of utilitarianism, the sole stand-
however, was the case. The hundred vears separating ard. Such an approach had actually been near the
the English from the French Revolution contain the surface even with the most important Social Contract
most explicit arguments both for and against Social theorists. Thus Hobbes passed lightly over the question
Contract. of the state's actual origins, merely pointing out that
Not that rejection of Social Contract was anything men should behave "as if" a contract had been made.
new. An important body of opinion had never accepted Also his "commonwealth by acquisition" had exactly 261
SOCIAL CONTRACT
similar claims to obedience as the "coiiimonwealth by did so without impairing his aim, for he turned the no-
institution"; a foreign contjueror was to be obeyed for tion of contract in a thoroughly conservative direction.
tiie same reasons as an indigenous monarch. In the last Burke's contemporary, William (Godwin, was also
resort the criterion of obligation was not so much that aware of the conservative twist that could be applied
of origins, as that of performance. If protection is to contract. The fact that it could be given this twist
secured, then obedience is the only rational reaction. was one of Burke's reasons for accepting it in highly
Signs of emergent utilitarianism also occiu in Locke's amended form, and Godwin's for rejecting it in any
justification of both property and political power ac- form. What troubled Godwin was the notion that a
cording to the criterion of beneficial use. Property can present generation could be shackled by decisions
be owned to tlie extent that it can be used — none must taken long before their time. This would be to deny
go to waste. Political power can be rightfully exercised the benefits of later knowledge. As such, a contract
only in accordance with the aims for which was it is an absurdity, for it can only have been made with
supposedly instituted. Locke, therefore, is torn between the object of improving the human lot rather than
alternative modes of political legitimacy the one — impairing Thus the contract method was considered
it.
based on origins, stressing the importance of the correct incompatible with the increasingly dominant Idea of
method of institution, and the other based on practice, Progress. Most sixteenth- and seventeenth-century op-
stressing that the rulers should govern in accord with ponents of contract had been believers in divine right,
the purposes for which government was supposedly and had rejected the attempt to provide guarantees
first instituted. against misuse of state power. By the late eighteenth
Wehave already mentioned the way in which con- century it appeared that the form of these attempted
tract was given a radical function by being used as guarantees also acted against hopes of continual
a means whereby conditional resistance to state power improvement. Godwin criticized the contractualist
could be justified. By the end of the eighteenth century assumption that improvement could be brought about
this usage was all but discarded, in response to the by the immediate transformation of the unjust present
gradual realization that the method's apparent radical- into the just future. To be successful, such an act would
ism had inherent limitations. The belief in contract have to be a miracle. Godwin saw as more likely a
began to appear double-edged; radical when presented steady and continual process, in which knowledge
in terms of an improvement, either as an old standard always precedes novelty. This was the characteristic
towhich society ought to return (Locke), or as a new ba,sis on which radicals came to reject the Social Con-
agreement that ought to be made in order to remedy tract. Improvement was desirable, but could only be
current deficiencies (Rousseau); but static when pre- achieved gradually. Progress came to be based on
sented as an agreement that has been made, is in force, pseudo-scientific foundations, on apparent laws of
and ought be adhered to. Insofar as he used the
to historical development, rather than on the sudden
notion of contract. Burke employed it in this latter decision of men totally to transform their society. An
sense. In his Reflections on the Revolution in France additional factor is that the contract was further
(1790), we learn of a contract that is in no way a Social discredited, at least in England, by its association with
Contract made by men. It has nothing to do with Rousseau and French Revolution. The panic
the
historical origins, free choice, or individual consent to aroused ser\'ed to create an atmosphere in which the
government. Rather it is a kind of implicit imder- least spark of discontent was rigorously suppressed, lest
standing whereby the hierarchy of God, man. and it flare into a conflagration beyond all human control.
nature is perpetually maintained. Those who had the courage to advocate reform had
to do so without recourse to Social Contract or the
Society is indeed a contract . . . but between those who "Rights of Man, for both were considered pernicious
"
are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be
notions which, having reaped such havoc just across
born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause
the English Channel, threatened to do likewise some-
in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking
where else.
the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible
and invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned By the nineteenth centiu-y the age of Social Contract
by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral theory was virtually at an end. The one country in
natures, each in their appointed place. which the idea remained current was that in which
ithad the most recent historical roots, the United States
In the panic engendered by the French Revolution, of .\merica. Here we find it referred to in various
Burke wished to stress obedience rather than resistance, debates on the nature of the Constitution, and of the
duties rather than rights. Being a Whig, Burke might relationship of the separate states to the central gov-
262 have found it useful to use \\'hig terminology, but he ernment. In 1831 John Quincy Adams suggested that
SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IN GERMANY AND REVISIONISM
the Massachusetts Constitution was a social compact of the adult population. The general election thus
and likewise the "Declaration of Independence was a rendered contract theory unnecessary by explicitly
social compact, by which the whole people covenanted fulfilling its major demand.
with each citizen of the united colonies, and each The Social Contract, then, is no longer in favor. Its
citizen with the whole people, that the united colonies relevance for us, however, stems from its historical
were, and of right ought to be, free and independent connection with the ideas of individual rights and
states." Final survivals of contract could be foimd in government by consent. Social Contract thus remains
various state constitutions, as in those of Arkansas, until of interest as the procedural mode which helped intro-
1868, and Texas, where it reappeared in 1876. but as duce the set of ideas which form the basis of contem-
elsewhere, did not long survive the realization of its porary liberal democratic thought.
historical implausibilitv.
Europe there was no longer anv pretense that
In BIBLIOGRAPHY
Social Contract had any historical reality,
and vet there The major classical texts are: T. Hobbes, leviathan
was a reluctance to discard an idea that had served (London, 1962); B. Spinoza, Tructiitus theologico-politictis
the valuable purpose of emphasizing government by (1670); S. Pufendorf, De jus naturae et gentium (Of the Law
consent. The best that could be done was to accept of Nature and of Nations), trans. Basil Kennett (London,
contract merely as an idea expressing the moral rela- 1729); J. Locke, Txvo Treatises of Covemment (Cambridge,
tionship between ruler and ruled. Society could not 1962); D. Hume. Theory of Polities, ed. F. Watkins (London,
be held together entirely by force; it still needed a 1951); T. Paine, The Rights of Man (London, 1958). J. J.
kind of tacit contract, a feeling of moral obligation. Rousseau, The Social Contract, trans, and Introduction
It is in this sense that we find the idea employed by Maurice Cranston (Harmondsworth, 1968).
such diverse figures as Kant, the poet Samuel Taylor

The secondary material includes: F. ."Mger, Essai sur
I'histoire des doctrines du Control Social (Ninies, 1906);
Coleridge, and later by T. H. Huxley. T. H. Green also
C. E. Vaiighan, Studies in the History of Political Philosophy
ably defended this usage of contract by pointing out
before and after Rousseau, 2 vols. (Manchester, 1925); idem.
that "The supposition that some events took place that
The Political Writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau, 2 vols.
as a matter of history did not take place may be a
(Cambridge, 1915; Oxford. 1962); O. Gierke, The Develop-
way of conveying an essentially true conception of ment of Political Theory (London, 19.39); E. Barker. Soda?
some moral relation of man." It was for this nonhistor- Contract (London and New York, 1948); ]. W. Cough, Tfie
ical and nonlegal notion of contract that in 1896 the Social Contract (Oxford. 1963); M. Levin, "Uses of the Social
French politician Leon Bourgeois resurrected the term Contract Method: Vaughan's Interpretation of Rousseau."
"quasi-contract," which had already been employed Journal of the History of Ideas, 28, 4 (October-December,
over a centiu-y earlier by Josiah Tucker, Dean of 1967). For Clarke, see his Papers, ed. C. H. Firth, Vol. I,
Gloucester. Yet even this extreme modification of con- Camden Society, N.S. 19 (1891), 301.
tract theory was not enough to ensure its siu'vival. for MICHAEL LEVIN
the contractualist position had been eroded on Ijoth
[See also Balance of Power; Conservatism; Democracy;
flanks. First, there was the movement of thought which Equality;General Will; Law, Ancient Greek, Ancient
saw man no longer as the creator of his own environ- Roman; Liberalism; Nature; Primitivism; Progress; Revo-
ment, but rather as a being determined by wider forces lution; State; Stoicism; Totalitarianism; Utopia.]
operating according to inexorable historical laws. We
have already seen how the idea of progress imdermined
Social Contract theory by its insistence that change
could only be gradual rather than cataclysmic. This
at least did not deny tlie role of human will in forming SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
society. Once the idea of human progress was regarded IN GERMANY
as scientifically inevitable, laws of historical change, AND REVISIONISM
whether based on natural selection, or economic
determinism, made the conscious role of human beings The word "revisionism" carries approximately the
less significant. Secondly, Social Contract theory be- same universal recognition and indefinite meaning as
came redundant when its postulates of popular consent heresy did in the late Middle Ages. It needs both a
to government became more of a reality. The assumed heretic, an excommunicator, a body of ideas whose
consent of ancestors, or the assumed implicit consent interpretation is at issue, and a community of believers
of contemporaries gave way, at least in western Europe exclusion from which is the penultimate, if not final,
and North America, to the relatively frequent explicit sanction. It is therefore a sociological or political as
choice of governments by increasingly large sections much as an intellectual or doctrinal phenomenon. 263
Hence no final objective definition of revisionism is more fundamentalist movement headed by Wilhelm
reallv possible: depends on historical circumstances
it Liebknecht and .\ugust Bebel, known as the
as well as the bodv of ideas or beliefs at issue. In the Eiscnachcr. The party program adopted at the congress
present context the meaning of revisionism is best at Gotha incorporated many of the demands for politi-
illustrated by examining the problem separately in its cal democracy of the Lassallean leaders, who hoped
historical context, its intellectual structure, and finally to use the existing Prussian-dominated imperial state
in its cvirrent form of universalization. The origin of for the benefits of the labor movement against the
the particular word revisionism is historically linked interests of the bourgeoisie.Marx strongly criticized
with German Social Democracy before 1914 and this the tenor of the party program; too many concessions
is where any discussion must start. to the Lassalleans for the sake of unity, too many
fimdamental departures from basic .Marxism, especially
;. THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT in the reiteration of the so-called "iron law ot wages,"
OF REVISIONISM and neglect of the Marxist concepts of class struggle
The growth of Social Democracy
Europe during
in and social revolution. But though the Lassallean influ-
the last quarter of the nineteenth century was primarily ence in the early years of the SPD provides one of
the result of the varying but generally intense rates the retrospective roots of revisionism, it should be born
and the growth and crystallization
of industrialization, in mind that before 1890 there was no orthodoxy to
of an urban working
class. In most countries of Western "revise," but rather a strong pragmatic current for
and Central Europe Social Democratic parties grew unitv and an attempt to find an acceptable mean be-
rapidlv during this period. Their membership and tween different traditions and emphases in what was
electoral base were the least privileged strata of soci- basically a movement of the socially dispossessed.
ety, those who felt they had too little share in the social The between Marxists and Lassalleans,
differences
assets and economic benefits of existing society and and the subsequent revisionist debate, were overtly
were determined to obtain them. The ends were thus —
about socialism the means of reaching it, the way it
always social and economic, the means political; this would differ from capitalism, the antagonistic analysis
alone already disting'ii hed Social Democratic parties of capitalism itself v\'hich in its own way helped to
from all others. Secondly Socialist parties were the first define its antipode, socialism. But in Germany particu-
mass political organizations in the history of Europe; larly any argiunent over socialism had a core directly
their chief resource was numbers, their ideology almost concerned with democracy. SociaUsts of whatever
invariably coUectivist. While the working class consti- shades necessaril)' inherited the burden of the failure
tuted the major mass of organized participants and of the liberal-democratic revolution of 1848. Marx
supporters, the direction, control, and programmatic himself had realized this clearly when he edited the
articulation was. in most cases, in the hands of middle- Neiie Rheinische Zeitting. And Wilhelm Liebknecht,
class intellectuals, with occasionalh' a self-taught who foimded in the 1860's what was later to become
working man among them. But if the working man the SPD, always stressed liberal democratization as a
was not only the numerical raison d'etre of Social here-and-now priority against tlie longer-term socialist
Democratic politics, but also the idealized image of and revolutionary perspectives of Marx in his London
its beneficiary, there was little attempt at exclusivity; emigration. Marx opposed the Prusso-German state
all supporters were welcome, and Social Democracy, consistently; the Lassalleans regarded it as a means of
as the representative of the future good society for all, crushing the real enemy, bourgeois capitalism. In this
regarded itself as much the bearer of a imiversal futiu-e respect the Lassalleans represented an emphasis on
as here-and-now representative of a deprived
the socialism to which democracy was only a secondary
working class. Partly because of the strong social and factor — an authoritarian form of socialism, while the
intellectual polarization in German society, partly be- Eisenachers were democrats with a socialist tinge. The
cause of the failure of German liberalism as a revolu- emerging supremacy of the Eisenacher leaders in the
tionary or even reformist force, and most directly as SPD during the fifteen years from 1875 to 1890 was
the result of nearly twelve years of repression through partly due to the growing recognition that the German
special antisocialist laws, the German Social Demo- state was the main enemy of democracy; that democ-
cratic Party (SPD) from 1890 onwards was regarded ratization was impossible within its existing frame-
as the most powerful and revolutionary party in the work. The achievement of democracy thus remained
Second International —a model for all the others. the vital hidden issue beneath much of the socialist
The SPD came into existence in 1875, the product rhetoric of the SPD (Marx, Critique of the Gotha Pro-
of fusion between a primarily political organization gramme, May 1875).
264 founded in the 1860's by Ferdinand Lassalle and the During the period of illegality and repression frt)m
1878 to 1890 the SPD thus became much more radical pretation was to give rise during the revisionist contro-
and inclined to pin its hopes on revolution. As a party versy eight years later. For, it created an article of
of anti-Prussian revolutionary democrats it turned faith to which all subscribed, but at the same time this
away from Lassalle and to that extent towards Marx formal ritual of sanctification hid a good deal of practi-
and his opposition of the German state. For twelve cal flexibility for the political leadership who treated
years the party's only permitted form of activity was it symbol rather than a detailed program for action.
as a
participation in elections to the central German legis- The Erfurt program committed the party to a fairly
lature (Reichstag); its votes rose from 311,961 in 1881 rigorous and self-consciouslv Marxist ideology. Both
to 1.427.298 in 1890. .\ new program was adopted at Marx and Engels had regarded the now dominant wing
the Erfurt congress of 1891, a vear after the fall of in the SPD as their own followers, though Marx had
Bismarck and the end of the antisocialist legislation. specifically refused to be a.ssociated with the party
This new program was much more Marxist in content. directly as an exiled leader or even as its mentor (Letter
It accepted specifically the main Marxist prediction to Bracke, 5 May 1875, Selected Works, Moscow [1962],
of class struggle and social revolution and looked for- II, 15). .Mter Marx's death Engels became less reticent;
ward to a total transformation of society. The first part he helped all he could to combat the efforts of various
specifically articulated long-run predictions of social prominent Social Democrats, among them the influen-
development — the first signs of ideological orthodoxy. tial South German George von Vollmar, to opt for a
The program enumerated a set of short-run aims
also more and theoretically less rigorous program.
flexible
which the party would attempt to realize within the From 1891 to 1898 various attempts were made to
existing framework of capitalist society but whose induce the party to accept specific departures from
effect was regarded as contributing materially to the its program in order to exploit possibilities of obtaining
ideological strengthening of the movement for the final electoral support, especially among the peasantry in
assault on society as a whole. The maximum and the South Germany. In addition tlie SPD leaders in South
minimum program, as they came to be called, thus Germany, where official policies were less polarized
dealt with separate aspects of Social Democratic aims and in some cases had a more democratic tradition,
but were politically as well as ideologically linked to wanted to use their electoral strength for bargaining
each other; not "either-or" but both. Marx himself had purposes in the state legislatures on a quid pro quo
died in 1883, but Engels, who was now the official basis with bourgeois parties. The last decade of the
custodian of his ideas, approved substantially of the nineteenth century was still a period of ideological
new program and only suggested a limited number of crystallization in the SPD; it was felt that quite apart
changes in phrasing. He also took this opportmiity of from political practice, the party program ought to
publishing Marx's critique of the 1875 Gotha program permit such tactics. For some of the South German
for the first time in Neue Zeit, the theoretical organ party leaders the Erfurt program, if strictly interpreted,
of the SPD, as a commentar\' on the progress made, actually involved a change in tlieir traditional tactics;
A
"
and to strengthen the hands of the stricter "Marxists its implementation might endanger their success.
in the party. Particularly the leaders of the SPD had difference in interpretation thus began to emerge,
become more self-consciously Marxist as the party between those of whom the Erfurt program was fast
became more and the impact of Marx's old
radical, becoming traditional party policy and those who re-
critique and Engels' accompanying letters made a garded it as a departure from traditional tactics. This
significant contribution in their struggle against the conflict, not between innovators and traditionalists but
opponents of the new program before and at the 1891 between representatives of different traditions, came
Erfurt party congress. to play a significant part in the revisionist debate. But
The final version of what tecame known as the up to 1898 the great majority of party leaders and
Erfurt program was one of several drafts. The party activists treated these specific attempts at tactical
executive's own draft had been criticized earlier by adjustment as part of the democratic process of open
Engels (Marx/Engels, Werhe. Berlin, XXII, 225-40). debate, and a solid Northern majority at party con-
Significantly was the version prepared by Karl
it gresses defeated all attempts to tinker with the party
Kautsky, editor of Netie Zeit and chief theoretician of program.
the SPD in Germany, which met Engels' approval and As the party grew in strength (measured both by
was adopted. The fact that this important document membership and b)' voting support at elections) and
of principles and strategy was the work of the chief as its organizational efficiency increased, it tended to
theoretician rather than of August Bebel, the political become more inward looking and self-sufficient, both
organizer and leader, provided the grounds for the in its idea.s and its organizational structure. Its enemies
problems of orthodoxy and heresy to which its inter- regarded the party's very existence as a threat to soci- ZDQ
etv, and began to be mirrored within the

this feeling workers' demands and demanded that the government
party itself. Thetwo decades of the century were
last should accommodate them. In time society would fall
a period of stability and economic growth; the party's into the party's lap — always providing that the party
militancy thus found expression in contemplating its did not fall into society's lap in the meantime.
own expansion and organizational consolidation rather The protracted political ideological debate that
than in industrial or political action. An important came to be called the revisionist controversy was both
featiu'e of this institutionalization of radicalism was the miexpected and, as far as the leadership of the SPD
shift from ideological problems and debates to matters was concerned, thoroughly unwelcome. It opened up
of internal and external tactics; the existence and problems that were thought to nave been solved and
progress of the part\' not only symbolized the correct- once more shifted emphasis back to ideology at the
ness of the ideology expressed by the program, the expense of political structure. In 1896 Eduard Bern-
party was the concrete expression of the ideology. The stein, Engels' former secretary and esteemed senior
present proved that the past had correctly predicted colleague of all the SPD leaders, began to publish a
the future, it therefore subsumed the future now. The series of articles in Xeue Zeit in which he submitted
old conflict between the application of correct Marxist the current social and economic situation of party and
theory and the political immediacy of a mass party society to detailed analysis. He was not primarily
in German\' seemed to haye disappeared. When Engels activated by any desire to prove Marx wrong, as his
just before his death protested vigorously against the opponents alleged, but the course of his investigation
heayilv edited publication of his preface (1895) to a led him more and more firmly to the conclusion that
new edition of Marx's Class Struggles in France, after many of the Mar.\ist predictions of crisis in the capital-
having previously agreed to certain cuts, the German ist system were being contradicted by the facts of the
leaders ignored his letters of protest, and the version contemporary situation. For one thing, there had been
which appeared in the party's daily Vorwarts seemed no major economic crisis for twenty years; quite the
to give Engels' blessing to a policy of legal action contrary, the bourgeoisie was growing in numbers and
only — the days of the barricades were, in the changed strength, while the peasantry was prosperous and
circumstances of the day, simply not considered rele- contented. Moreover, the atmosphere of relationship
vant an\ longer. The onward march of organized mass between if anything, milder and more
classes was,
Social Democracy irresistibily rolled forward even over benevolent than had been in the past. Could capital-
it
its own prophets. But though the German party leaders ism survive by evolution and reform, and change its
went much further towards the pure "democratization" self-contradictory nature? Could it after all provide a
of Social Democracy than Engels ever did, they all harmonious integration of the means of production
agreed on the primary aim of a democratic revolution, with the relations of production, so that revolution was
in which the army would come to the side of the SPD no longer necessary? Could a gradual process of reform
and the latter would achieve power as a Jacobin mass enable the working classes to obtain most of their
part) but without armed struggle. demands without the revolutionary overthrow of the
Bv 1898 the early days of Sturm unci Drang, of heroic existing system?
struggle and theoretical precision, had given way to Important as these epistemological questions were,
a time of consolidation and growth, when problems Bernstein made it clear that they were not his main
of tactics, internal well-being, and above all orga- concern. They merely imposed themselves because of
nization and growth reigned supreme. The respon- the evidence he marshalled; better to question the
sibilities of leading a mass party were regarded as theory than to explain away the facts. His main concern
substantially different from those appropriate to Marx's was with the socialist tactics that would follow if his
own day, when socialist praxis found expression in conclusions were correct. Thus he was soon led to a
factional struggles between small groups of intellec- reexamination of the party's strategy and tactics.
tuals. The very existence of the SPD justified Marx's Bernstein regarded the rapidly growing forces of Social
historical predictions and overall theoretical perspec- Democracy as a vital factor in transforming or reform-
tives. The SPD was in this sense the institutionalization ing capitalism from an oppressive system of injustice
of Marxist reality. The gap between society and the to a socialized democracy. Not that he was an apologist
SPD was large enough for all to see; the latter 's pariah for capitalism; his concern was with the means of
position alone prevented a watering down of orga- change to socialism, a change he regarded as a poten-
nizational autonomy and socialist ideology. The best tial continuum of reforms based on a moral imperative
proof of the success of the party's policy of making (hence the insistence of his "Marxist" opponents that
no concessions to society was the fact that a growing he was a neo-Kantian not a dialectical materialist).
number of distinguished academic nonsocialist intel- Bernstein's main concern was to maintain and in-
266 lectuals now began to support the justice of the crease socialist strength which would result in yet
—
further concessions and changes in society. By extrap- because theoretical discussion just was not very impor-
olating recent trends into the future the SPD was tant. Even Kautskv found the articles published in his
bound to become a majority sooner or later and as such journal "at first sight very attractive. "
The reaction
its pressure to transform capitalism would become against Bernstein came from a (juite unexpected quar-
irresistible. Perhaps the most important single notion ter; two East European immigrants, as yet hardly
put forward by Bernstein was that no real change in known in Germany, opened a major campaign of
policy on the part of the SPD was called for in this polemics against him. Parvus (Alexander Helphand),
respect; behind tfie rhetoric of revolutionary ideology tlien editor of a party paper in Saxony, unleashed a
embodied in the party program all that he proposed highly abusive series of articles in replv (significantly
was already happening. The party should recognize headed "Bernstein's Revolution in Marxism" after
and accept openly that it was reformist rather than Engels' Anti-Diihrinj^)- Fiosa Litxemburg, recently
revolutionary, democratic in intention now rather than arrived from her graduate studies in Switzerland, also
socialist in its ultimate expectations; otherwise it would published a series in which the revisionist character
come to grief. "The final goal, whatever it may be, of Bernstein's argument was analyzed and attacked in
means nothing to me, the movement everything." Once detail. Briefly thesetwo set out to show not only that
again the conflict between political democracy and Bernstein was wrong but also his position was impossi-
revolutionary socialism, which had seemingly been ble for a socialist and intolerable for his party, since
overcome by the Marxist anti-Prussian radicalism of it conflicted completely with the basic ideology and
the SPD after 1878, came to the fore in a new form; program SPD.
of the
according to Bernstein democracy could transform and The intellectual arguments will be examined sepa-
improve the existing state without a prior social and rately was the programmatic
below. Politically, it
political revolution. It was the voice of 1848, not of acceptance of Bernstein's views by a number of party
Lassalle, but support came nonetheless from Lassalle's members who used his arguments to justify, and above
heirs within the party. all, to provide a broad ideological foundation for their
Culminating with this highh practical purpose of —

own wishes and what was worse, their past and pres-
confronting Social Democratic theory and practice, —
ent actions which brought the SPD leadership in-
and paring the former down to fit the latter, it is clear creasingly into the frav against the revisionists. The
that Bernstein did not intend to revise Marx as such reason why a primarily intellectual debate took on
though he did admit to going further in this direction highly political and even organizational overtones was
than he had ever intended. (It will be shown later, that the cohesiveness and unity of the party were now
however, that the subordination of theory to praxis is suddenly threatened. The isolated activities of trade
necessarily an irreparable revision of Marx.) If the SPD union leaders and South German socialists had always
was the institutionalization of Mar.xism in the ciu'rent been slapped down whenever they had been put for-
epoch, then whatever it did was justified; the main ward as a programmatic alternative or amendment to
point was to be clear about, and admit to itself, what the party's policy as embocHed in its program; with
itwas doing. The particularities of Marx's sayings and Bernstein's extended critique of the official ideology
writings were not so much wrong as dated, hence and his downgracfing of ideology below the rationality
irrelevant to the immediate present. Bernstein was of praxis, all these deviant activities at once acquired
sufficiently a Marxist to assimie that the transformation theoretical justification,programmatic content, and
of societywas still the party's main concern; the alter- even organizational cohesion. An alternative system of
natives were revolution or reform. For him the concern imified thought and action was challenging the existing
with self-sufficiency and self-regard, the emphasis on one, forcing a choice. The activities of SPD members
organizational strength and electoral growth, clearly of provincial parliaments who supported bourgeois
demonstrated the path of reform also encouraged by — governments with their votes for tactical reasons, the
the economic and social circumstances of the time; the "indiscipline" of trade union leaders who put the
revolutionary ideology was therefore claptrap and a benefit ofmembers before party unity, all
their
hindrance. In fact, there was, at least for the time appeared retrospectively in a much more dangerous
being, a third alternative which combined and stabi- light than hitherto. As Auer, the party secretary, wrote
lized the apparent contradiction between reformist pityingly to Bernstein: "My dear Ede, one does not
practice and revolutionary ideology — that of absten- say these things, one simply does them.
"
tionism. But this was a position to which no one From a political point of view therefore the revi-
admitted openly, of which no one was aware for an- sionist controversy brought into the open a number
other decade. of factorswhich had previously been tolerated as mere
The leaders of the SPD initially found little to which "acts, and gave them a status which could no longer
"
they could take exception in Bernstein's articles, mainly be ignored. From 1898 onwards the SPD leadership 2d7
became much more sensitive to breaches of party r\iles no longer anyone in authoritv able or willing to point
and pohtical offences against the party program. It out the contradiction inherent in their position.
attempted to impose disciphne. In 1898, 1901, and Kautskv was to prove their particular theorist. The only
190.3 the annual party congress voted sharply- worded criticswere either outside the socialist camp or on its
condemnations of the revisionists by a large majority. radical margin and could safely be ignored.
Eventuallv, even Bernstein himself, who had hitherto The main effect of the revisionist controversy on the
escaped formal censure, was condemned. But the future communist parties was its theoretical content.
practical problems of revisionism could not be solved Nonetheless, political and organizational conclusions
bv resolutions of a congress or by the disciplinary were drawn, and left their mark. The sensitivity of the
enforcements of the executive. In a ma,ss party which Bolsheviks to all forms of opposition platforms within
prided itself on its democratic procedures and for the partv, the crucial distinction Lenin made between
which unity in the face of an unremittingly hostile the expression of individual opinions and the orga-
society was the primary consideration, expulsions were nization of collective disagreements with party policy,
reluctant and rare. Ideologicallv revisionism stood time all date back to the experience of the SPD. There was
and time again condemned, in practice it continued to be much tension and conflict between the commit-
unabated except during radical periods like 1905 and ment of intra-partv democracy and the need to control
1910. The South Germans continued their "flexible" revisionist, hence inimical and bourgeois, manifesta-
politicking, claiming special circumstances in the tions of opinion. The German socialist failure to
South, the trade unions in practice quietlv obtained eradicate revisionism eventually tilted the Russian
almost complete aiitonomv from the SPD, and the tacit communist scales in favor of control and against
recognition that their members were not to be treated democracy. The SPD was often to be accused by
as the party's politicalcannon fodder. The problem Bolshevik writers of failing to maintain discipline;
of revisionism and remained with the
reformism having condemned the revisionist position, its advo-
German partv until the First World War made it irrel- cates should have been expelled from the party. It was
evant by tacitlv making it official policy. the organizational failure of the SPD to cope with
It became clear to a number of intelligent outsiders, revisionism that in part led to the later communist
most prominent among them Max Weber and Robert sensitivity to organizational purity, to the frequent
Michels, that the real sociological issues of revisionism waves of expulsions and purges. Marx's own philo-
were not so much theoretical as practical. The party sophical emphasis on the unity of theory and practice
regarded and recreated for itself a
itself as isolated, came to be interpreted not only in favor of theory's
self-sufficient world whose existence depended on a primacy, but in terms of a need to reinforce theoretical
sharp gulf between it and the rest of society. It was differentiation with organizational absolutes; neither
the negation of society, and of all attempts to build purelv theoretical argmnent witliout organizational
bridges from either side, that kept the party in being compactness nor organizational purity without theo-
and gave it the imity and strength of which it was so retical clarification were sufficient. The whole concept
proud. By the first decade of the twentieth century, of praxis got a strong organizational twist, which may
not only an established leadership but a party bureau- or mav not have been good Marxism, but won through
cracy quite different from any other party in Germany in the Russian party mainly because it was a direct
had grown up. The leaders, the activists, the local inference from German "mistakes "
in dealing with
bureaucracv all had a position to defend which was revisionism.
threatened as much by closer integration of the orga-
nized workers into society except for the trade unions,
(
H. THE INTELLECTUAL STRUCTURE
this would make many of the party's "compensatory
"
OF REVISIONISM
activities redundant), as by revolutionary activism Precisely because revisionism was an onslaught of
which would land them in jail or worse. The mainte- praxis against a theoretical self-image, the ideological
nance of the status quo was vital, and they regarded foimdation of revisionism was not articulated in any
the programmatic revisionists as its disturbers. They great detail at the time. There is only Bernstein's writ-
were thus conservatives in the real sense of the word, ing and subsequent discussions by his supporters: and
determined to maintain a revolutionary tradition which these took on a fundamental character mainly because
structured their self-sufficient world and justified the they were challenged as such. Almost unintentionally
party's social isolation within which it flourished. The Bernstein foimd himself elaborating a whole philosophy
theoretical perspectives of the future, the argument in order to defend his original, rather eclectic com-
between reform or revolution, were of secondary in- ments; the series of articles in Neue Zeit between 1896
268 terest to them. Since the death of Engels there was and 1898 were reinforced by the much more "thor-
ough" Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus (1899) which stances simply disappeared. Bernstein opposed the
became revisionism's chief theoretical text. Too much potential violence of revolution, emphasizing instead
should accordingly not be read into his writing in terms the need for legal transformation (even "expropriation
of a consistent set of ideas with which to challenge of the exploiters "
was to take place through agreed
another equally consistent set of ideas. The revisionist compensation); he also argued strongly against deter-
controversy differs from both the types of arguments minist notions of historical necessity which deprived
that Marx and Engels sometimes unleashed on their human beings of the capacity to shape their own des-
opponents, and also from the later exegeses of revi- tiny. Hence he attacked what he conceived to be the
sionism produced by the Bolsheviks and their German tyranny of the dominant economic base — the relations
supporters in order to specify their own diametricallv of production — over social, political, cultural, and
opposed position. The fact that revisionism has come ideological phenomena; in this he affected to see a
to be regarded as a consistent attack on Marxism may completion of the gradual relaxation already begun by
be partially inherent in its original formulations, but Engels in the dominance of economic factors allegedly
is primarily due to later efforts to characterize it as preached by Marx ("it is not man's consciousness that
such. Revisionism has no meaning except in the context determines his existence, but on the contrary his social
of a fundamental departure from accepted or "correct" existence that determines his consciousness "). Nothing
orthodo.vy. shows more clearly the confusion of Bernstein and

Hence, if anything, the articulation of a consistent almost all his contemporaries on both sides of the
position was not the work of Bernstein and his sup- revisioni.st controversy about the real nature of Mar.x's
porters but of his opponents, who provided the very thoughts and the respective attitudes of Marx and
consistency and internal logic that his own work Engels than this ascription of a philosophically activist
lacked. In the work of Parvus and particularly Rosa role to Engels in his post-Marx years; in fact it was
Luxemburg, we find an ideological systematization of Engels who was primarily responsible for the
Bernstein's arguments which never ceased to surprise mechanization of the Marxist theory of consciousness
the latter, and whose main purpose in turn was to give into a "mere" reflection of nature — the mechanistic
a grounding to the orthodox interpretation of the materialism Marx had attacked in The Cennan Ideol-
party's ideology. Once he had been stimulated into ogy (cf. .\vineri [1968], pp. 66-671.
awareness of the intellectual dangers of revisionism. Somewhat found
reluctantly, Bernstein attempted to
Kautsky too defended the orthodox position against the his dissent ultimately on philosophical grounds. "My
revisionist "system "
of ideas. natural intellectual inclination would have rather led
Bernstein challenged the accepted orthodoxy on two me to a positivist philosophy and sociology, he later "
fronts: the accuracy and relevance of the social philos- avowed {Entivickhingigang [1924], p. 40); as it was,
ophy implicit in the party — which turn was
program in his very empiricism and unconscious eclecticism (for-
based largely on Marx's own philosophy — and the po- mally he opposed eclecticism in the name of Marxist
litical implications which resulted from this challenge. consistency) led him to opt for a version of neo- Kantian
1. The Challenge to Marxism. We have already evolutionary idealism that had been advocated by a
noted the empirical natiu'e of this challenge; certain number on the fringe of the SPD (Con-
of philosophers
socialand economic developments should by now have rad Schmidt, Ludwig W'oltmann, above all, Bernstein's
been taking place but were not. It is naturally ques- most immediate philosophical inspirer, Friedrich
tionable whether the social philosophy of Marxism had Albert Lange). This was especially marked with regard
ever stipulated any rigid time scale for processes of to the important role Bernstein assigned to morality
much of the argument hinged on the extent to
crisis; "as a power capable of creative action" (Geschichte
which contemporary prosperity and social peace were und Theorie [1901], p. 285). With the insistence on
temporary, or structural and permanent. There was a absolutes necessarily went a commitment to a linear
substantial discussion about the accuracy of Bernstein's evolution in the direction of human perfectibility,
statistics, the relative status of monopolistic concen- which was very typical of nineteenth-centiur philo-
tration through the development of finance capital in sophical optimism, and was specifically taken over by
the hands of banks as against Bernstein's observation Bernstein from the English Fabians. Socialism, from
was growing in numbers and
that small-scale capitalism this point of view, became primarily a moral move-
prosperity. on economic and social groimds, capi-
If, ment based on ethical premisses. Bernstein criticized
talism was indeed capable of internal reform and hence dialectical materialism — from which he believed
of survival, then a substantial part of the teleological Engels to have been departing anyhow at the end of
basis which made its collapse and the proletarian revo- his hfe. The notion of dialectical change, with its
lution historically necessary under certain circum- brusque cataclysms, was for Bernstein "tlie worst ele- 269
nieiit of Marxist doctrine, the snare, the obstacle rapidlv subsumed bv more hmdamental and inunediate
blocking access to any logical perception of things" ones of self-definition. Could a nineteenth-century
(Voraussetzungen. p. 46). Instead. "Social Democracy evolutionary view based on strong reliance on the
needs a Kant who will at last confront traditional perfectibility of human nature and its social system,
ideology . . . with a critical spirit and the necessary be compatible with a socialist philosophy and. more —
curiosity and . . . who will show . . . that the contempt important, a socialist party program'? What was the
for the ideal, the raising of material factors to the level true meaning of socialism'? Regarding society as
of omnipotent forces in the process of evolution, are irrevocably divided into two camps, Bernstein's oppo-
merely an illusion" (ibid., pp. 177-78). nents tried to demonstrate that his views were not
This brief survev of Bernstein's economic, social, and socialist at all. They had therefore to be considered
philosophical position shows the scrappy basis of the anti-socialist, i.e.. bourgeois. A significant analogy was
revisionist position; how feeble the attempt was to drawn between the "bridge building on the part of "
translate what one of its opponents called "the theory the Kathedersozialisten, academic sympathizers with
of a praxis " into a consistent position vis-a-vis Marxism, labor (like Sombart, Schmoller, Roscher, and others)
or at any rate what pas,sed a.s Marxism at the time. who advocated a policy of working-class integration
Bernstein was in his way as guilty of "flattening out" into society through substantial concessions to the
Marx into an almost mechanical materialist and deter- workers, and the revisionist who proposed a very simi-
minist as were the Stalinists of a much later epoch. lar policy from within the socialist camp. With a span
A great deal of what was Marx was in
criticized in being constnicted from both sides across the Marxist
fact Engels' interpretation, and even this was over- gulf between antagonistic classes, these would disap-
simplified. The contradictions of a hybrid philosophy pear and society become a continuum. For Bernstein
between positivism as a commitment to action, and this would represent a positive achievement for Social
idealism as a source of moral objectives, were glossed Democracy; to his opponents it spelled the acceptance
over; Bernstein was simply unaware of such problems, of permanent cla,ss domination.
and also seemed to have hoped that Marx and Kant One of the major i,ssues in the debate was concerned
could somehow be combined. The tendency to equate with intellectual method. Bernstein had started with
the Hegelian dialectic (which, Bernstein said, Marx had an empirical and eclectic analysis of the present and
not really demystified at all) with violent political from this analysis had attempted to construct a philos-
revolution was quite unjustified on any grounds but a ophy and a policy based on reality as he perceived
highly arbitrary linkage between Kautsky's incessant it. This form of inductive theory was characterized by
advocacy of revolution (in his capacity as Marxist Marxists as a form of opportimism, in which policy
"pope") and its alleged Hegelian roots when in fact — and philosophical system were tailored to meet imme-
the Marxism of the Second International did everything diate and ever changing needs (the analogy with
to loosen the connection with the Hegelian method, tailoring was in fact made by Rosa Laxemburg. Sozial-
and the rediscovery of Hegel was a feature of the early refonn oder Revolution?. 1899). Since there could be
Bolshevik period (Lenin during the war, G. Lukacs in no ideological vacuum, no empty spaces in the sociol-
the early 1920 s). Marx himself had realized clearly that ogy of knowledge, the siuface systematization of dis-
in grafting Feuerbach's materialism or naturalism onto crete phenomena must necessarily be a reflection of
the Hegelian dialectic, there was a danger that the bourgeois ideology and help to support it. It was but
active component in idealism might be swamped by a short step from such intellectual empiricism to prac-
the contemplative nature of Feuerbach's analysis; his tical opportimism — and this label was henceforth in-
theses on Feuerbach specifically stress the need to creasingly used to characterize all socialist attempts
preserve the element of activism in the new Marxist to validate epiphenomena into a justification for praxis.
materialism. The activist component in revisionism Hence one of the most important elements of con-
thus flogged the wrong philosophical horse — even troversy concerned the status of theory vis-a-vis praxis.
though its immediately practical concerns with politi- Rosa Luxemburg underlined the way in which Bern-
cal action were relevant enough in the context of the provided a cover for established but
stein's revisionism
"orthodox" abstentionism which imderlav the radical hitherto "silent "

practices; indeed Bernstein had
rhetoric of the SPD's program and leadership. specifically extrapolated from the acceptance of these
The revisionist debate between Bernstein and sup- practices into a theoretical justification of them. Most
porters, against the orthodox on one side and the radi- of his supporters were antitheorists, and much emphasis
cals (as yet midifferentiated) on the other, was only was placed on the fact that revisionism took the form
in part concerned with the interpretation of reality and of a denial of theory in favor of praxis. Bernstein's
270 the prediction of the future. These problems were orthodox opponents defended the party program as a
—
correct formulation of the necessary relationship be- eventual intellectual split between the party center,
tween theory and praxis; the niaxiiniim proi^rani pro- with its and the
increasingly deterministic philosophy,
vided the theor\, the minimum program the praxis. radical Left,which opened out politically in 1910.
In attempting to undermine the maximum program Kautsky was later accused by the commimists of
Bernstein was in fact undermining theory altogether changing from orthodox or revolutionary Marxism to
and replacing it with a theoretical justification of praxis a determinist (and therefore in the end revisionist)
tout court. position just before or at the beginning of the First
In raising this aspect a confrontation between party World War (Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and the
theorists and the party "practitioners" became inevita- Renegade Kautski/, 1918; Regionieri, 1965). As against
ble, though this had not been Bernstein's intention; this it has been argued that his views were consistent
already revisionism was as much the creature of its throughout; that the strongly deterministic element in
opponents as of its supporters. Throughout the revi- his social philosophy was there from the start (Mat-
sionist debate from 1898 imtil the First World War thias, 1957). As the SPD became more concerned with
—
and like an echo ever since those who advocated the its internal affairs, and regarded its success more openly
need for correct theory found themselves differentiated in terms of size and organizational strength rather
from, and often opposed by, those whose task it was than revolutionary action, Kautsky increasingly fo-
to manage the day-to-day political affairs of tlie party. cussed on the inevitability of the collapse of capitalist
.Again and again a sharp distinction was drawn between society before a confident, ever-growing, majoritarian
theorists —
and activists a distinction that was rein- socialist party, winning victory after victory at the
forced by the fact that some of the most articulate polls and gaining the support of disaffected lower
theorists were immigrant Easterners who, particularly middle-class elements. The middle course which he
after 1905, infuriatingly taimted the passive SPD with advocated against revolutionary adventurism on the
the example of Russian activism — or anarchy — as the Left and overt revisionism on the Right made him the
German leadership would have it. officialspokesman par excellence of the party leader-
This division into theorists and practitioners was one ship. After 1910, a small, though vocal group of Left
of the main consequences of the revisionist controversy. Wing radicals began to crystallize. Many of them had
Once the party leadership had come down against the been in the forefront of the polemics against Bernstein
revisionists, a tacit agreement to split theoretical from during the revisionist controversy, but had now become
practical politics provided an escape route for all disillusioned with the inactive component of the official
concerned; the leadership had articulated the party's condemnation of revisionism and the immobile self-
self-sufficiency, the revisionists could continue their sufficiency of the SPD leadership and Kautsky himself.
practices provided they did not raise them in ideologi- In a sense, the revisionist controversy had obscured the
cal form. Theoretical debates were discouraged as problem of activism versus determinism. It was this
much as possible after 1903. .All the theorists suffered issue which later divided Center and Left, with the
as a result. Bernstein never ventured again into any revisionists amused spectators on the sidelines as their
major theoretical statement; his later pacifism and his enemies fell out among themselves.
strong democratic and anti-imperialist attitudes before 2. Political Ittiplications of Revisionism: Activism
and during the First World War made him respected vs. Determinism. In one sense, Bernstein's critique of
but relatively isolated. Kautsky increasingly became party policy was thus a positivist commitment to ac-
the spokesman of the party's self-sufficient isolationism; tion. The SPD's isolationism justified itself by a deter-
provided he did not advocate revolutionary action, his minist social philosophy; maintenance of the "correct"
analyses and interpretations of events and his historical status quo in ideology and program would bring about
studies provided a theoretical gloss of intellectual the eventual collapse of self-contradictory capitalism
respectability for theSPD, which by now had become and the victorious inheritance of socialism. As against
the most important party in the Second International this, Bernstein stressed the need for involvement by
and an example for all. The radicals were increasingly socialists in order to bring about further transformation
pushed to the margin of relevance in the SPD; the in capitalist society towards the desired end — a better
party leadership accused them of losing touch with hfe for all in a better society. His theoretical justifica-
pohtical reality. In the end therefore the revisionist tion of greater involvement with existing society legit-
controversy resulted curiously enough in a virtual em- imated precisely those elements in the party already
bargo on all fundamental controversies; the real most concerned with political action; the South
beneficiaries were the party leadership and the practi- German SPD, who participated directly in local gov-
tioners. ernment, and the Trade Unions facing the employers
Also inherent in the revisionist controversy was the and the state in the economic interests of their mem- 271
. hers all the vvav from individual shop floor to national But the most important German problems of partic-
industrial sector. His appeal for greater realism was ipatory activism were elections and the role of socialist
thus implicitly and at the same time a call for greater deputies in the Reichstag and the provincial legisla-
activation of political possibilities. Bernstein had lived tiues. The 1891 party program had stressed the lowly
in England for some years and had absorbed not only expectations of immediate benefits from such activities,
some of the underlying attitudes of Fabianism towards and had regarded them, together with trade imion
himian nature and society but had witnessed the success action, mainly as a means of spreading socialist propa-
of British trade unionism in its pragmatic struggle to ganda and reinforcing the party's ideology. Instru-
obtain economic benefits and political representation mentally they were thus mere "labors of Sisyphus,"
for labor. Marx himself had already stressed the impor- in Rosa Laxemburg's telling phrase. The revisionists,
tance of working-class practicality: "not only in think- however, regarded them as fruitful in themselves.
ing, in consciousness, but in massively being, in life Bernstein stressed that favorable election results and
... in forming associations ... in which social criti- the activities of SPD deputies were not only an index
cism becomes the living real criticism of existing soci- of the party's strength but the most immediate and
ety . England and France were outstanding exam-
.
."; powerful means for the party to make itself effective
be copied by the excessively speculative, purely
ples, to in society here and now. When the SPD suffered a
philosophical CJernians {The Hohj Familt/. 1845; 19.56 major setback in the 1907 elections at the hands of
Moscow edition, pp. 7.3, 205). Though Bernstein did a Liberal-National and Conservative coalition, aimed
not cite Marx against current orthodox Marxism, his specifically at reducing socialist representation,
own prescriptions for practical activity were intended Kautsky and the Party leadership felt their teleological
to align theory to praxis in aharmonious relationship optimism about the linear growth of Social Democracy
which, he felt, had been sundered by too much venera- to be seriously threatened; in order to restore it they
tion for an increasingly irrelevant theory no longer began to pay much greater attention to the instru-
able to accommodate existing praxis. mental aspects of elections, and thus unconsciously
But while Marx had criticized the "pure" philosophy adopted an important aspect of revisionist activism.
of knowledge-seeking by the Hegelians of the Left, The problem of democracy now came openly to the
Bernstein was dealing with a powerful mass movement fore. In electoral matters revisionists and Center
organized in a Social Democratic party. The problem henceforward collaborated against the Radicals, who
of activism became one of doing, not merely being; continued to stress the purely ideological function of
not activism per .se Anything con-
but its direction. electionsand protested against the party's growing
ducive to the internal strengthening of the party was preoccupation with elections, which they called "par-
"
considered legitimate by everyone, but what about liamentary cretinism.

those activities which related to and took place in the In one very crucial area of activity the revisionist
context of society at large? The problem had existed superordination of praxis to theory had triumphed
throughout the history of the SPD before the First Important secondary consequences followed.
officially.
World War; the revisionist controversy made it into As elections came to preoccupy the SPD increasingly
a critical test of orthodoxy. One issue was the right after 1907, the status and influence of Social Demo-
of party intellectuals and journalists to write for the cratic deputies within the party grew apace. The party
nonparty, i.e., bourgeois press. The revisionists en- caucus in the Reichstag became the most powerful
couraged such cross-fertilization, the radicals con- organized group within the party leadership; when
demned it; the party executive failed to establish any World War I broke out, this group swiftly and effec-
clear policy. Another, more cnicial matter came to the tively took control of the party. Significantly this shift
surface during the crisis of the French .Socialist Party in ideology was given extended theoretical justification
in 1898, when the first ministerial participation of a by Kautsky, and signifies and first major convergence
socialist, A. Millerand, in a nonsocialist government between the orthodox Center and the revisionists.
caused much controversy in Germany. The problem Revisionist activism thus triumphed over orthodox
of "ministerialism" was closely related to the issues abstentionism. In a mass party a social philosophy of
raised in the revisionist controversy; both the orthodox criticism could only be institutionalized meaningfully
leadership of the German party and the radicals in conjunction with a highly determinist theory of
condemned it as a serious manifestation of revisionism. inevitable social collapse.Even so the pressures of
Though tliere wa.s at the time little likelihood of the practical activismwere proving too strong; ideology
same possibility arising in Germany, the relationship began painfully and slowly to adjust itself to praxis.
of the French case with the German revisionist crisis Under the traumatic shock of the First World War the
272 was stressed. remaining theoretical barriers were irretrievably
breached; henceforth the SPD was to Ijecome an ment to electoral (hence revisionist) activism was
openlv reformist party which regarded itself as inte- characterized as a buttress to the established theory
grated into society and spent most of its time and of societal breakdown rather than as a major concession
energy trying to persuade society of this. After thewar to revisionist ideology. The dangers inherent in this
Kautsky liecame an irreleyance. For, in becoming a commitment were later clearly understood b\ com-
SPD ceased to be revisionist; there
reformist partv. the munists, who though always advocating electoral par-
was no longer any Marxist orthodoxy to defend or to ticipation,were careful to circumscribe its ideological
"revise. Philosophically and ideologically Bernstein's
"
importance and limit the status and power of its elected
revisionism foreshadowed future orthodoxy with all its deputies through strict control by the party leadership.
eclecticism, its difficulties of identity, its negation of
the party's revolutionary past, alcove all its commit- //;. THE UNIVERSALIZATION
ment to all the instrumental criteria of imbridled OF REVISIONISM
praxis. Yet Bernstein was no prophet. His social opti- The hi,story of revisionism since the original contro-
mism proved unjustified, his idealism and ethical em- versy no less than the history of the communist
is
phasis irrelevant. Only the implicit critique of absten- movement. Yet to ignore subsequent developments is
tionism and the imderlying stress on the pressures of to treat the original controversy in an abstract and
activism proved to be accurate, though these were not isolated historical manner. The very meaning of revi-
his main or manifest concern. Revisionism in the last sionism is much more the product of later emphasis
resort was a struggle for orthodoxy not for tolerance; than of contemporary relevance. .\ brief reference
it was the challenge of an alternative ideology articu- must therefore be made to the subsequent history of
lated in opposition to the existing one that set the tone the concept.
of the revisionist controversy. Whatever Bernstein's Already at that time German emphasis on the
intention, the oflficial reaction turned it into a funda- importance of the revisionist problem was making
mental debate about the one correct ideology. The socialists everywhere more conscious of similar prob-
postwar SPD certainly did not regard Bernstein as its lems at home. The most important consequence was
ideological prophet; as the spokesman of revisionism that revisionism became the basic coimtersystem of
he too had become an irrelevance though he lived and ideas to the official ideology in the Second Interna-
wrote till 1932. tional. Moreover, almost every effort at accommo-
In any case there developed an alternative activist dation with existing society was called, and treated,
challenge to the party's determinist abstentionism. The as a form of revisionism. This linked one party more
Left radicals also advocated confrontation with society closely to others, and greatly helped the process of
but of a revolutionary kind. For some the Russian ideological simplification.
revolution of 1905 came to serve as a model; others The few committed theorists of Marxism in the
regarded the determinism elaborated bv Kautsky as Second International emphasized the need for philo-
conflicting with the party's activist tradition and liable sophical clarity and defended the status of theory
to put off the effective transformation of society to against mindless but still ideological praxis. Plekhanov
the Greek Calends. These radicals therefore went back exhorted the Germans to take philosophy seriously and
on their initial wholehearted support for the party's to condemn revisionism with the philosophical rigor
official antirevisionist stance which they now regarded it deserved. He berated Kautsky and the German
as conservative rather than revolutionary. leadership for underestimating the importance of the
official position and his
Kautsky characterized the issue. In a more directly political context, the French
own opposed to two forms of impatience: reformist
as socialist parties German revisionist contro-
used the
impatience which was determined here and now to versy as an important weapon against the strong radical
act within society, revolutionary impatience which Republican or democratic element characterized by
wanted here and now to act against society. His break- the leadership of Jaures. Antirevisionism was identified
down theory, preoccupied with the analysis of the with correct Marxism, and between the "Right " and
"readiness" of objective conditions (which was the basis the traditional "Left " represented by the old com-
of his determinism), was later used to criticize the munards, there emerged a rigid, largely abstentionist
Bolshevik revolution as premature. But he did recog- echo of the German Center position under the leader-
nize clearly that in one sense revisionists and radicals ship of Jules Guesde. By 1904 German pressure suc-
shared a commitment to activism which stood in com- ceeded in inducing the International Congress at
mon opposition to the waiting policy of the party. And Amsterdam to condemn the revisionist tendencies in
when this policy seemed in danger of leading to the French movement; a resolution was carried which
regression as a result of electoral defeat, the commit- duplicated the German condemnation of their own 273
revisionists and forced the French party to adopt, at spectrum of possible policies, always identified itself
least in theory, a more rigorous socialist line. This as being on the Left. Revisionism, of course, lost all
transfer onto French soil of a German solution to a precise meaning in this process; any attempt to identify
basically German problem naturally failed to deal with a continuity of ideas among those labelled as revisionist
the issue. In France, unlike Germany, the struggle for became a barren exercise in classification. In the
democracy had been largely won; the problem here broadest however, the incompatibility between
.sense,
was to defend democracy against reaction on the one revisionism and Marxism was always emphasized. "Ei-
hand, and to envisage its transformation into socialism ther we destroy revisionism or revisionism will destroy
on the other by peaceful or by revolutionary means. us; there is no third way" {Moskva. I [1958]). In terms
The options were therefore more advanced and so- of philosophical explanation of revisionism various
phisticated, while the German solution merely helped contradictory and often irrelevant classifications were
to obscure them by postulating an arbitrary predemo- adduced by Soviet commentators, ranging from
cratic situation in which, as in Germany, democracy treacherous infusion of liberal ideology to subjective
could only be attained through socialism. idealism and excessive activism based on theories of
In some other cases where the leadership was itself spontaneity. The current definition, resulting from the
inclined to reformism —
as in Belgium and .\ustria — the reopening of basic philosophical questions in Eastern
German experience helped to categorize these parties Europe and the application of .Marxist Probletnatik of
among socialists and enabled their internal oppositions postrevolutionary socialist societies, stres.ses the over-
to express their dissent against the leadership on the emphasis on the early Marx — precisely those texts
grounds of its alleged revisionism. Though it would be selected by Marxist critics of the mechanical and
an exaggeration to suggest that the international so- dogmatic Marxism of Stalinism. "The revisionists
cialistmovement was simply .split into revisionists and turned to the early writings of Marx, selecting from
orthodox Marxists, the German revisionist controversy them isolated pre-Marxist statements borrowed from
nonetheless forced into the open a more consequent the German philosophical schools which were one of
self-appraisal along German lines. In the parties of the sources of Marxism" (Soviet Philosophical Encyclo-
Eastern Europe, like the Russians and the Poles, whose paedia, I, 415). The direct descent of contemporary
leadership was largely in exile, the German example revisionism from its historical ancestor in Germany is
certainly helped to create a quite fundamental division established by suggesting that contemporary revision-
between revisionists and self-styled revolutionaries. ists, "using the 'theoretical baggage' of their prede-
Conditions differed substantially from those in cessors, changed only some of their dogmas and sup-
Germany, however, and the word "revisionist" pro- plied them with a new phraseology" (Polyanski, in
vided a label of abuse and an ideological weapon Kritika ekonornicheskikJi teorii [1960], p. 61).
against party opponents rather than reflecting any Hence, revisionism today covers both the simple case
genuine replication of the German situation. In Russia of deviation from orthodo.xy within the revolutionary
and Poland the problem of integration into society Marxist movement as well as the actual reflection of
hardly arose; many of those labelled revisionist were the original revisionist position. Since almost all social
just as committed to revolution as their detractors. democratic parties have long since abandoned any
Revisionism thus became merely synonymous with claim to Marxist revolutionary orthodoxy, the label
deviance from some postulated orthodcxy anchored in revisionist hardly applies to them any longer; the con-
Marx. tinuitN' in regarding revisionism as a form of bourgeois

This foreshadowed later commimist use of the con- ideology within the socialist camp has been maintained.
cept. The definition of orthodoxy after 1917 became Phenomena of revisionism in communist movements
far tighter and narrower than it had ever been in the today are of course legion. They include not only the
—
Second International which, apart from fundamental application of Marxist critique to current socialist
issues, was a permissive and loosely stnictured associa- societies by Marxist intellectuals in both Ea.st and West,
tion of ideas and policies. Hence revisionism became but also whole regimes and national movements like
one of the major means of identifying and condemning the Yugoslav commimist league since 1948, and the
—
opponents those who questioned the current form of 1968 Czech leadership imder Dubcek. The transposi-
orthodoxy. Since this often changed sharply and tion of revolutionary Marxism into an armed struggle
frequently, revisionism came to include not only Right by small groups of all-purpose revolutionaries in Latin
Wing supporters of policies of conciliation, but also America is also qualified periodically as a form of
extreme Left Wing positions; under Stalin Right and revisionism. .\s the tightly defined orthodo.xy centered
Left were lumped together as revisionist because on Moscow gave way to pluralist approaches to social-
274 Stalinist orthodoxy, whatever its current position in the ism and greater independence was attained by the
communist leadership of different parties in East and Meiner, Die Volkswirtschaftslehre der Gegenuart in
West, so the definition of orthodoxy necessary loosened SelbstdarsleUungen, Vol. I (Leipzig, 1924). Discussions of
somewhat. Nonetheless the borderline drawn round the intellectual and political development of Bernstein, and
acceptable versions of Marxist praxis does, if crossed, hisimpact on the history of socialism are Peter Gay, The
still lead to the universal accusation of revisionism. Dilemma of Democratic Socialism (New York, 1952), which
Most important in this context has been the use of
includes extracts in English from Bernstein's own writing,
and, more recently and comprehensively, Pierre Angel,
the concept in the struggle between the Soviet Union
Eduard Bernstein et revolution du socialisme allemand
and China for possession of the authoritative definition
(Paris, 1961). This book, originally a thesis, contains a very
of Marxism. Though the origins of this struggle have
useful bibliography of Bernstein's work, as well as of impor-
little to do with the problems of revisionism in either tant revisionist, centrist, and radical tests. For revisionism
its historical orcontemporary definition, the very
its generally see "The Boots of Revisionism, "/oi;rnn/of.\/of/cni
fact that fimdamental issues of Marxist epistemologv History, II (19.39). A discussion of the structural relationship
have been raised made the application of the di- between revisionist ideas and party praxis is ]. P. Nettl,
chotomy Marxism-revLsionism almost inevitable. In "The German Social-Democratic Party 1890-1914 as a
characterizing the Soviet Union and its policy of Political Model," Past and Present. 30 (April 1965), 65-95.
peaceful coexistence as modern revisionism, as an ap- Extended historical treatment of the political problem
during and after the revisionist controversy can be found
plication in the international sphere of Bernstein's
in Carl E. Schorske's Cennan Social Democracy 1905-1917
policies of societal integration, the Chinese have linked
(Cambridge, Mass., 1955); more recently in Gerhard A.
the present to the past with more than usual attention
Bitter, Die Arbeiterbewegung itn Wilhelminischen Reich
to the details of historical analogy. In this regard the
(Berlin, 1959). The earlier, introductory period is well
Soviet counter-accusation of Chinese dogmatism, with treated in two recent books: Roger Morgan, The German
its emphasis on the need to apply Marxist analysis and Social Dertiocrats and the First International 1864-1872
praxis to the particular circumstances of the present (Cambridge, 1965) for the first years, and Vernon L. Lidtke,
time instead of a blind acceptance of old revolutionary The Otitlaiced Party: Social Democracy in Germany 1878-
attitudes for all time, does carry an echo of the 1890 (Princeton, 1967) for the second, more radical phase.
revisionist response to their orthodox critics at the end Both these monographs are primarily political histories.
of the nineteenth centiu-y. For a more sociological approach, see Gunther Roth. The
There is therefore a fimdamental continuity in the

Social Democrats in Imperial Germany (Totowa, N.J., 1965).
The intellectual problems of revisionism in the context of
history of Marxism which suggests that as long as there
Marxism and the German philosophical tradition are dis-
isorthodoxy, there will be revisionism, and as long as
cussed by George Lichtheim. Marxism: An Historical and
there is revolutionary isolationism there will be pres-
Critical Study (London, 1961). A recent Soviet analysis
sures for integration and for an effective praxis emphasizing the philosophical aspects of revisionism is
measurable terms of immediate payoffs. The revi-
in B. A. Chagin, /; istorii hor'by protiv filosofskogo revision-
sionist controversy does therefore provide an objective isma V gennanskoi sotsialdemokratii Moscow and Leningrad, (
historicalexample of an endemic, continuing problem 1961). This is of course a modern version of the basic
for institutionalized revolutionary movements. This Bolshevik text on revisionism: Lenin's "Imperialism, the
continuity goes well beyond the particular issues raised Highest Stage of Capitalism" (1917), in Collected Works
by Bernstein. It is based on being rooted in problems (Moscow, I960-), Vol. -X.XII.

.^s far as the other theoretical protagonists in the
of pra.\is and not merely in debate about theory.
revisionist debate are concerned, see, for Kautsky, Erich
Matthias. "Kautsky und der Kautskyanismus," Marxismus-
studicn. Second Series (Tiibingen, 1957), 151-97; Ernesto
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Regioneri, "All'origine del marxismo nella II interna-
The literature which deals with, or touches on, revision- zionale," Critica Marxista. 5/6 (1965), 1-127. Kautsky 's
ism in one form or another is immense, and this bibliography own major statement on Bernstein is Karl Kautsky, Bernstein
is therefore highly selective. und das sozialdemokratische Programm (Stuttgart, 1899). For
Bernstein's most important contribution to revisionism is Rosa Luxemburg see J. P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (London,
contained in Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die 1966); her major polemic with Bernstein, and the most
Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie {Stuttgart, 1899^ republished thorough critique of revisionism is Sozialreform oder Revo-
in a much enlarged edition, 1920), and in the version in lution? in Ossip K. Flechtheim, ed., Politische Schriften
book form of his \'eue Zeit articles published between 1896 (Frankfurt, 1966). For Parvxis see Z. A. B. Zeman and
and 1898: Zur Geschichte und Theorie der Sozialismus W. B. Scharlau, The Merchant of Revolution (London and
(Berlin, 1901). A brief and more popular version of his views New York, 1965).
is given in Wie ist uissetischaftlicher Sozialismus moglich? .\n attempt to capture the contemporary universality of
(Berlin, 1901). For his retrospective apologia and self- revisionism, and to relate it to its origins, is made in a
presentation see Entwicklungsgang eines Sozialisten in F. collection of rather summary pieces edited by Leopold ZlD
SOCIAL WELFARE, FORMAL THEORIES OF
Labedz. Revi.sionixm: Essays tm the Histonj of Marxist Ideas preference, between pairs of alternative social deci-
(London. 1962). This tan be compared to a collective Soviet sions.For the purposes of this article, however, we
compendium on the same theme; Kritika ekonomicbeskikb assume the absence of indifference, to simplify the
teorii predshestiennikoi soiremennogo revizioiiizma (Mos- exposition.)
cow, 1960), Still a stronger demand is that preferences be meas-
Finally, anyone interested in contrasting the subtleties
urable, that there exist a numerical representation
of Marx's own system of idea.s with both the intellectual
which correctly reflects preference (the more preferred
and applied viilgarizations which resulted in the "orthodox"
of two alternatives always has a higher number
Marxism of the turn of the century, should refer to Shlomo
associated with it). Such a numerical representa-
Avineri, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx
tion is usually termed a utility ftinctioii. In the termi-
(Cambridge and New York, 1968).
nology used by mathematical psychologists, a utility
J.
P. NETTL fimction may constitute an interval scale, that is,
[See also Historical and Dialectical Materialism; Ideology; statements of the form, "the preference for A over
Ideology- of Soviet Communism; Marxism; Necessity; Revo- B is so many times the preference for C over D," are
lution: Socialism.] regarded as meaningful. In that case, the utility func-
tion is arbitrary as to the location of its zero point

and its imit of measurement, but otherwise uniquely
defined. A still stronger requirement is that the utility
function constitute a ratio scale, that is, statements of

FORMAL THEORIES OF the form, "the utility (or value) of A is so many times
SOCIAL WELFARE as great as that of B." Such statements imply a natural
zero; the utility function is unique up to a unit of
The purpose of a theory of social welfare, or social measurement. If it is assumed that no meaning can be
choice as it is soinetimes revealingly termed, is to given to quantitative comparisons of preference but

provide a normative rationale for making social deci- only to the ordering of alternatives, it is customary
sions when the individual members of the society have to speak of ordinal utility or preferences; if, on the
varying opinions about or interests in the alternatives contrary, utility is considered to constitute an interval
available. Any kind of decision, social or individual, or ratio scale, the term, cardinal utility or preferences,
can be regarded as the interaction of the preferences is used.
or desires of the decision-maker with the range of alter- The need for a theory of social welfare arises from
native decisions actually available to him, to be termed the need in the real world for social decisions. It is
the opportunity set. The latter may vary from time simplv a Hobbes pointed out, that there are
fact, as
to time because of changes in the wealth or technology a great many decisions which by their nature must be
of the community. The usual formalism of social wel- made collectively and v\'ithout which all members of
fare theory, derived from economic theory, is that the society would be much worse off decisions on —
preferences (or tastes or values) are first expressed for legal systems, police, or certain economic activities
all logically possible alternatives. Then the most pre- best conducted collectively, such as highways, educa-
ferred ischosen from any given opportunity set. tion, and the kind of insurance represented by public
As will be seen, there is serious and unresolved assistance to disadvantaged groups.
dispute about the strength of the statements which it A formal theory of social welfare then has the fol-
is appropriate to make about preferences. One com- lowing form: given a representation of the preferences
mon demand is that preferences form an ordering of of the individual members of the society in ordinal or
the alternatives. In terms of formal logic, a preference cardinal form, to aggregate them in some reasonable
relation between pairs of alternatives is said to be manner to form a preference system for society as a
transitive if whenever alternative A is preferred to whole. Given the social preference system, and given
alternative B and alternative B to alternative C, then a particular opportunity set of alternatives, the choice
A is preferred to B; and it is said to be connected if, which society should make is that alternative highest
for any two distinct alternatives, either A is preferred on the social preference system.
to B or B to .\. ,\n ordering of the alternatives is a

preference relation which is both transitive and con- /. INDIVIDUAL CHOICE AND VALUES
nected; and be seen that this definition corre-
it will The historical development of the notion of social
sponds to an everyday use of the term, "ordering." welfare cannot be easily understood without reference
(In the economic literature, it has proved essential to the gradual evolution of a formal analysis of individ-
276 to consider the possibility of indifference as well as ual choice, which we briefly summarize. Three charac-
teristics of this history, which are shared with the terpretations of utility; not only does an individual seek
history of the concept of social welfare, are striking: happiness but he ought to do so, and society ought
(1) the form of the basic problems were established to help him to this end. "Nature has placed mankind
during the eighteenth centurv and display the charac- imder the governance of two sovereign masters, pain
teristic rationalism and optimism of the Enlightenment; and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what
(2) the analysis retained its general form but underwent we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall
systematic transformation under the impact of twen- do. ... By the principle of utility is meant that princi-
tieth-century epistemological currents; and (3) there ple which approves or disapproves of every action
are strong historical links with the development of the whatsoever, according to the tendency which it ap-
theory of probability and its applications, links which pears to have to augment or diminish the happiness
are not easy to explain on purely logical groimds. of the party whose interest is in question (Bentham, "
The first work to discuss individual choice system- 1780; 1961). Bentham took it for granted that utility
atically is that of Daniel Bernoulli in 1738. He was was a measurable magnitude; he further elaborated in
concerned to explain phenomena of which insurance various ways the factors which determine utility, such
—
was typical that individuals would engage in bets as nearness in time and certainty, but at no point is
whose actuarial value was negative. Bernoulli's solution there a clearly defined procedure for measuring utility,
was that what guided the individual's decisions to such as would be demanded by modern scientific phi-
accept or reject bets was not the money outcomes losophy. The one suggestion he made was that suffi-
themselves but their "moral values "

as he judged them. ciently small increments in wealth were not percep-
In later terminology, the individual attached utilities tible; therefore, a natural luiit for measuring utility is
to different amounts of money and accepted an un- the minimum sensibile, or just noticeable difference, as
certainty if and only if it increased the expected value psychophysicists were later to term it.
of the utility. He also postulated that in general utility .although Bentham's notions were widely influential,
increased by lesser and lesser amounts as the quantity especially among English economists (as well as being
of money increased, an assumption now known as violently repudiated by the romantic thinkers of the
diminishing marginal utilitij. Then the individual early nineteenth century), a further elaboration was not
would shy away from bets which were actuarially achieved until about 1870 when Bentham's simple
favorable if they increased uncertainty in money terms hedonistic psychology proved to be of surprising use
(in particular, if they involved a very small probability in economic analysis. Smith's water-diamond paradox
of very high returns) and would accept insurance was at last resolved; while water as a whole was more
policies if they reduced monetary uncertainty, for the valuable than diamonds, the relevant comparison was
high returns offered in the one case had relatively little between an additional increment of water and an
additional utility, while the low retiu"ns avoided in the additional increment of diamonds, and since water was
second case imply large losses of utility. Bernoulli thus so much more abundant, it was not surprising that the
required a cardinal utility (in this case, an interval incremental or marginal utility of water was much
scale) for his explanation of human behavior under lower. (Actually, Bentham had already shown Smith's
uncertainty. error but did not directly relate utilities to prices in
The idea that the drive of an individual to increase any form; in any case, Bentham's contribution was not
some measure of satisfaction explained his behavior was recognized.) This basic point was grasped simulta-
widespread, though rather vague, in the eighteenth neously by Stanley Jevons in England, Leon Walras
century; Galiani, Condillac, and Turgot argued that in in France,and Carl Menger in Austria, between 1871
some measure the prices of commodities reflected the and 1874; they had in fact been anticipated by Gosseri
utilities they presented to individuals, for individuals in Germany in 1854.
were willing to pay more for those objects which The further technical developments of the theory
provided them more satisfaction. This particular doc- of individual choice in economic contexts are not of
trine, indeed ran into a difficulty that Adam Smith interest here, but the power of the utility concept led
noted, that water was surely more useful than diamonds among other things to an analysis of its meaning.
but commanded a much lower price. But the doctrine Already in his doctoral dissertation in 1892, Mathe-
that the increase of utility or happiness is the complete matical Investigations in the Theory of Value and
explanation of individual behavior is most emphasized Prices, the American economist Irving Fisher observed
by Jeremy Bentham in writings extending from 1776 that the assumption of the measurability of utility in
to his death in 1832. Further, and even more impor- fact was inessential to economic theory. This point was
tantly, Bentham introduced the doctrine of the paral- developed independently and taken up much further
lelism between the descriptive and the normative in- by Vilfredo Pareto, from 1896 on. At any moment, 277
given the prices of various goods and his income, an the case of risk-bearing, it is very natural to make an
individual has available to him all bundles of goods appropriate independence assumption, and it is possi-
whose cost does not exceed his income. The "marginal ble so to choose a utility function that an individual's
utility" theory stated that he chose among those bun- behavior in accepting or rejecting risks can be
dles the one with the highest utility. But all that was described by saying that he is choosing the higher
necessary for the theoretical explanation was that the expected utility. The philosopher Frank Ramsey made
individual have an ordering of different bundles; then this observation in a paper published posthumously in
the individual is presumed to select that bundle among 19.31, in the collection called The Foundations of
those available which is highest on his ordering. Thus Mathematics and Other Essays (p. 156), but it made
only ordinal preferences matter; two utility fimctions no impact; the point was rediscovered by John von
which implied the same ordinal preference compari- Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, as part of their great
sons would predict the same choice of commodity work on the theory of games, in 1944. The cardinalist
bundles at given prices and income. But this meant position in this caseis rehabilitated, but it has changed
in turn that no set of observations on the individuals its meaning. no longer a measure inherently asso-
It is
purchasing behavior could distinguish one of these ciated with an outcome; instead, the utility function
utility functions from another. In fact, more generally, is precisely that which measures the individual's will-
no observation of the individual's choices from any set ingness to take risks.
of bimdles could make this distinction. But then the

neo-positivist and operational epistemology, so char- //. THE SOCIAL WELFARE FUNCTION
acteristic of this century, would insist that there was Bentham's Utilitarianism. To Bentham, the util-
I.
no meaning to distinguishing one utility function from ity of each individual was an objectively meaningful
another. It was the ordering itself that was meaningful, magnitude; from the point of view of the commimity,
and all utility functions which implied it were equally one man's utility is the same as another's, and therefore
valid or invalid. it is the sum of the utilities of all individuals which
The ordinalist position, defined above, only began ought to determine social policy. Bentham is indeed
to spread widely in the 19.30's and became orthodox, concerned strongly to argue that the actual measure-
ironicallyenough at a moment when the foundations ment of another's utility is apt to be very difficult, and
for amore sophisticated theory of cardinal utility had therefore it is best to let each individual decide as much
already been laid. The general approach is to make as possible for himself. In symbols, if U^, ...,{/„ are
some additional hypotheses about the kind of choices the utilities of the n individuals in the society, each
which an individual will or ought to make. Then it being affected by a social decision, the decision should
is demonstrated that there is a way of assigning numer- be made so as to make the sum, U,^ + Uo + + V„,
ical utilities to different possible bundles of goods or as large as possible. An expression of this form, which
other alternative decisions such that the utilities defines a utility for social choices as a fimction of the
assigned reflect the ordering (higher utility to preferred utilities of individuals, is usually termed a social welfare
alternatives) and that the function assigning utilities function. Bentham's conclusion is really clearly enough
to alternatives has some especially simple form. More stated, but there are considerable gaps in the imderly-
particularly, it is assumed that the different commodi- ing argument. The addition of utilities assumes an
ties can be divided into classes in such a way that the objective or at least interpersonally valid common unit;
preferences for commodities in one class are inde- but no argument is given for the existence of one and
pendent of the amounts of the commodities in the other no procedure for determining it, except possibly the
classes. Then there is a way of assigning utilities to view that the just noticeable difference is such a unit.
bundles of commodities within each class and defining Even if and meaningfulness of such a unit
the existence
the utility of the entire bundle as the sum of the utilities is established, it is logically arbitrary to add the util-
over classes. Such a definition of utility can easily be ities instead of combining them in some other way.
shown to be an interval scale. This process by which The argument that all individuals should appear
utilities are simultaneously a.ssigned within classes and alike in a social judgment leads only to the conclusion
in total so as to satisfy an additivity property has that the social welfare function should be a symmetric
become known as conjoint measurement, function of individual utilities, not that it should be
A particular case of conjoint measurement is of a sum.
special significance. An ordinalist position undermined The Bentham criterion was defended later by John
Bernoulli's theory of choice (described above) in risky Stuart Mill, but his arguments bear mostly on the
situations; if cardinal utility had no meaning, there was propriety and meaning of basing social welfare judg-
278 no way of taking its mathematical expectation. But in ments on individual preferences and not at all on the
commensurabilitv of different individuals' utilities or intensity is required. Pareto-optimality is thus a purely

on the form of social welfare function. Mill, like Henry ordinal concept.
Sidgwick and others, considered the primary use of It is, however, a weak condition. It is possible to
Bentham's doctrines to be applicability to the legal compare two alternative social decisions only if there
system of criminal justice; since the conclusions arrived is essential imanimity. To put the matter another way,
at were qualitative, not quantitative, in nature, vague- among any given set of alternatives there will usually
ness on questions of measurability was not noticed. be many which would satisfy the definition. A mani-
After the spread of marginal utility theory, the festly unjust allocation, with vast wealth for a few and
economist F. Edgeworth expounded the notion of
Y. poverty for many, will nevertheless be Pareto-optimal
utility much more systematically than Bentham had if there is no way of improving the lot of the many
done, with little originality in the foundations, though without injuring the few in some measure. Pareto
with a great deal of depth in applications. In particular, himself was very clear on this point.
he applied the sum-of-utilities criterion to the choice Pareto-optimality is nevertheless a very useful con-
of ta.\ation schemes. The implication is one of radical cept in clearing away a whole realm of possible deci-
egalitarianism, as indeed Bentham had already per- sions which are not compatible with any reasonable
ceived. If, as is usually assimied, the marginal utility definition of social welfare. It might be argued that
of monev is decreasing, if all individuals have the same every application of utilitarianism in practice, as to
utility function for money, and if a fixed sum of money law, has in fact used only the concept of Pareto-
is to be distributed, then the sum of utilities is optimality. In welfare economics, similarly, it has
maximized when money income is distributed equally. turned also to be useful in characterizing sharply the
(Here, "money" may be thought of as standing for all types of institutional arrangements which lead to
types of desired goods.) Then the only argument against efficient solutions, making it possible to isolate the
complete equality of income is that any procedure to debate on distributive problems which it cannot solve.
accomplish it would also reduce total income, which Pareto later (1913) went further. He suggested that
is the amount to be divided. The argument can be also each individual in his judgments about social decisions
put this way; resources should be taken from the rich considers the effects on others as well as on himself.
and given to the poor, not because they are poorer The exposition is a bit obscure, but it appears to coin-
per se but because they place a higher value on a given cide with that developed later and independently by
quantit\- of goods. If it were possible to differentiate the economist, Abram Bergson (19.38). Each individual
between equally wealthy individuals on the basis of has his own evaluation of a social state, which is a
their sensitivities to income increments, it would be function of the utilities of all individuals; Wj((7,, . . . ,
proper to give more to the more sensitive. C'„). Since the evaluation is done by a single individual,
Apart from Edgeworth, there was little interest in this function has only ordinal significance. The U^'s
applying the sum-of-utilities criterion to economic or themselves may be thought of as an arbitrary numerical
any other policy. Very possibly, the radically egali- scaling of the individuals' preferences; they also have
tarian were too unpalatable, as they
implications only ordinal significance, but this creates no conceptual
clearly were to Edgeworth. Subsequent woik on "wel- problem, since the choice of the social welfare func-
fare economics," as the theory of economic policy is tion, Wj, for the i"" individual, already takes account
usually known, tended to be very obscure on funda- of the particular numerical representation of individ-
mentals (although very clarifying in other ways). uals' ordinal utilities.
Ordinalist Views of the Social Welfare Function.

2. Interpersonal comparisons of utility are indeed
Pareto's rejection of cardinal utility rendered mean- made, but they are ethical judgments by an observer,
ingless a sum-of-utilities criterion. If utility for an not factual judgments.
individual was not even measurable, one could hardly Pareto (but not Bergson) went one step further. The
proceed to adding utilities for different individuals. "government" will form the social welfare function
Pareto recognized this problem. which will guide it in its choices by a parallel
he introduced a necessary condition for
First of all, amalgamation of the social welfare functions of the
social optimality, which has come to be known as individuals, i.e., a hmction, V(W], . . . , VV„). Pareto's
Pareto-optimality: a social decision is Pareto-optimal concept of a social welfare function remained un-
if there is no alternative decision which could have known, though the concept of Pareto-optimality be-
made everybody at least as well off and at least one came widely known and influential beginning with the
person better off. In this definition, each individual is 1930's, as is clear in Bergson's work. The latter became
expressing a preference for one social alternative very influential and is accepted as a major landmark;
against another, but no measurement of preference but in fact it has had little application. 279
Bergson accepted fullv the ordinalist viewpoint, so level of those unaffected bv the decision. Then it can
that the ethical judgments are always those of a single be shown that there are cardinal utility functions for
individual. This approach loses, however, an important the individuals and a cardinal social welfare function,
feature of most thinking about social welfare, namely, such that, W= C'l -h •
+ U„. W and U,, . . , U„
its impartiality among individuals, as stressed by are interval scales, but the units of measurement must
Bentham and given classic, if insufficiently precise, be common. Again there is additivity of utility, but
expression in the categorical imperative of Kant. In note now that the measurements for individual utility
Bergson's theorv, anv individual s social welfare func- and for social welfare are implied by the social welfare
tion may be v\hat he wishes, and it is in no way preferences and do not serve as independent bases for
excluded that his own utility plays a disproportionate them.
role. Pareto,bv his second-level social welfare fimction Harsanvi in 1955 in effect synthesized the points of
for the government implicitly recognized the need for view of Vickrey and of Fleming. His argument was
social welfare judgments not tied to particular individ- that each individual has a von Neumann-Morgenstern
uals. But the ordinalist position seems to imply that utility function, expressing his attitude toward risk, and
all preferences are acts of individuals, so that in fact if it were rational, must also have a von
society,
Pareto had no basis for the second level of judginent. Neumann-Morgenstern utility fimction. It is then easy
3. Conjoint Measurement and Additive Social Wel- to demonstrate that society's utility fimction must be
fare Functions. In the field of social choice, as in that a weighted sum of the individuals' utilities, i.e.,
of individual choice, the methods of conjoint measure- \V=a,V, + + a„l\. Since each individual utility
ment have led to cardinal utilities which are consistent is an interval scale, we can choose the units so that
with the general operational spirit of ordinalism. all the coefficients a^. are I. This result differs from
William S. Vickrey, in 1945, suggested that the von Vickrey's in that the utility function of the i"" individ-
Neumann-Morgenstern theory of utility for risk- ual is used to evaluate his position, rather than the
bearing was applicable to the Bergson social welfare utility function of the judge.
function. The criterion of impartiality was interpreted Distantly related to these analyses is the revival, by
to mean that the ethical judge should consider himself W. E. Armstrong, and by Leo Goodman and Harry
equally likely to have any position in society. He then Markowitz, of Bentham's use of the just noticeable
would prefer one decision to another if the expected difference as an interpersonally valid unit of utility.
utility of the first is higher. The utility function used It has proved remarkably difficult to formulate theories
is his von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function, i.e., of this type without logical contradiction or at least
that utilitv fiuiction which explains his behavior in risk- paradoxical implications.
bearing. Since all assumed to be equally
positions are So far all these results have led to a sum-of-utilities
likely, the expected utility is the same as the average form, though with varying interpretations. As remarked
utility of all individuals. In turn, making the average earUer, the notion of impartiality requires symmetry
utility as large as possible is equivalent to maximizing but not necessarily additivity. John Rawls in 1958
the sum of utilities, so that Vickrey s very ingenious proposed an alternative form for the social welfare
argument is a resuscitation, in a way, of Benthamite criterion, to maximize the minimum utility in the
utilitarianism. society. This formulation presupposes an ordinal inter-
Though Vickrey s criterion is impartial with respect personal comparison of utilities. He shares with
to individual's positions, it is not impartial with respect Vickrey and Harsanyi a hypothetical concept of an
to their tastes; the maker of the social welfare judgment original position in which no individual knows who
is implicitly ascribing his own tastes to others. Fiu^ther he is going to be whose principles are
in the society
it somewhat peculiar property that social

has the being formulated. However, he does not regard this
choices decisions where there may be no
among ignorance as being adequately formulated by equal
uncertainty are governed by attitudes towards risk- probabilities of different positions; in view of the
bearing. permanence of the (hypothetical) choice being made,
Fleming, in 1952, took another direction, which has he argues that a more conservative criterion, such as
not been followed up but which is worthy of note. maximizing the minimum, is more appropriate than
Suppose that an ethical judge is capable of making maximizing the expected value.
social welfare judgments for part of the society inde-
pendently of the remainder. More precisely, suppose ///. SOCIAL WELFARE AND VOTING
that for any social decision which changes the utilities 1. The Theory of Elections in the Eighteenth and
of some individuals but not of others, the judge can Nineteenth Centuries. In a collective context, voting
280 specify his preferences without knowing the utility provides the most obvious way by which individual
preferences are aggregated into a social choice. In a choice, and this program takes up most of the work,
voting context, the ordinahst-cardinaHst controversy though this aspect has had little subsequent influence.
becomes irrelevant, for voting is intrinsically an ordinal Although he purports to apply the theory of proba-
comparison and no more. {Indeed, the failure of voting bility to the theory of elections, in fact the latter is
to represent intensities of preference is frequentlv held developed in a different way.

to be a major charge against it.) The theory of elections The most important criterion which Condorcet laid
thus forcibly faced the problems raised by ordinalism down is that, if there were one candidate who would
long before it had been formulated in economic get a majority against any other in a two-candidate
thought. race, he should be elected. The argument for this crite-
The theoretical analysis of social welfare judgments rion might be put this way. Let us agree that in a
based on voting first appeared in the form of an exami- two-candidate race majority voting is the correct
nation of the merits of alternative election systems in method. Now suppose, in an election with three candi-
a paper of Jean-Charles de Borda, first read to the dates, A, B, and C, that C, for example, is not chosen.
French Academy of Sciences in 1770 and published Then, so it is argued, it is reasonable to ask that the
in 1784 (a translation by Alfred de Grazia is in Isis, 44 result of the three-candidate race be the same as if
[1953], 42-51). Borda first demonstrated by example C never were a candidate. To put it another way, it
that, when there are more than two candidates the is regarded as undesirable that if A is chosen as against
method of plurality voting can easily lead to choice B and C, and the voters are then told that in fact
of a candidate who is opposed by a large majority. C was not even eligible, that the election .should then
He then proposed another method of voting, one fall on B. The Condorcet criterion is in the fullest
which has been subsequently named the rank-order ordinalist spirit; it is consistent with the view that the
method (or, sometimes, the method of marks). Let each choice from any set of alternatives should use no infor-
voter rank all the candidates, giving rank one to the mation about voters' preferences for candidates not
most preferred, rank two to the second, and so forth. available. Condorcet himself noticed an objection; if
Then assign to each candidate a score equal to the sum an individual judges A preferred to B and B to C, there
of the ranks assigned to him by all the voters, and is some vague sense in which his preference for \
choose the candidate for which the sum of ranks is against C is stronger than his preference for A against
lowest. B. Indeed, as we have seen, this was the starting point
Borda's procedure is ordinal, but the arguments for Borda's defense of the rank-order method.
advanced for it were in effect cardinal. He held that, In fact, Condorcet used his criterion to examine
for example, the candidate placed second by an indi- Borda's rank-order method. He showed that it did not
vidual was known to be located in preference between necessarily lead to choosing the pairwise majority can-
the first- and third-place candidates; in the absence of didate. Moreover, no modification of the rank-order
any further information, it was reasonable to argue that method which allowed for nonuniform ranks would
the preference for the second-place candidate was satisfy the Condorcet criterion.
located half-way between those of the other two. This Condorcet's second major achievement was to show
established an interval scale for each individual. He that his criterionhad the possibility of paradoxical
then further asserted that the principle of equality of consequences. was perfectly possible that, with three
It
the voters implied that the assignments of ranks by candidates, A be preferred to B by a majority, B to
different individuals should count equally. C by a majority, and C to A by a majority. For exam-
Borda thus raised most of the issues which have ple, suppose that one-third of the voters preferred A
occupied subsequent analysis: (1) the basing of social to B and B to C, one-third preferred B to C and C
choice on the entire orderings of all individuals of the to A, and one-third preferred C to A and A to B. This
available candidates, not merely the first choices; (2) possibility has become known in the literature as the
the measurability of individual utilities; and (3) the "paradox of voting," or the Condorcet effect. The
interpersonal comparability of preference (Borda made paradox of voting, in generalized form, and the possi-
interpersonal comparability an ethical judgment of bility of its elimination have become the main themes
equality, not an empirical judgment). of recent literature.

Condorcet published a book on the theory
In 1785, In the terminology introduced at the beginning of
of elections, which raised important new issues. this article, (pairwise) majority voting defines a relation
Condorcet seems to have been somewhat aware of which is connected (there must be a majority for one
Borda's work but had not seen any written version of or the other of two alternatives, if the number of voters
it when he wrote. Condorcet's aim was to use the is odd) but need not be transitive.
theory of probability to provide a basis for social Condorcet has a proposal for dealing with a case 281
of intransitivity, at least when there are three candi- candidates, Bj, . . .

, B^, such that A is preferred by
dates. Of the three statements of majority preference, a majority to each of B,, .... B^. Then the B/s are
disregard the one with the smallest majoritv; if this eliminated from further consideration; the orderings
is the statement, C preferred to A by a majoritv, then of only the remaining candidates are now used, and
the choice is A, being preferred to B and "almost the process is repeated. It may be added that Hallett
preferred" to C. He extends this proposal to cases with is fully aware of the work of both Condorcet and
more than three candidates, but no one has been able Nanson and refers to both of them.
to imderstand the extension. Duncan Black has called attention to some contri-
Like Bernoulli's work (1738; trans. 1954) on the butions of C. L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), printed but
expected-utility criterion for choice under uncertainty, not published, particularly one of 1876. Dodgson
the papers of Borda and Condorcet had few significant accepted the Condorcet criterion and observed the
direct successors, (Laplace however gave a more possibility of paradox of voting; he used the criterion,
rigorous version of Borda's probabilistic argimient for as Nanson did a few years later, to criticize certain
the rank-order method). Indeed the value of their work voting methods. By implication rather than directly,
only be appreciated when others came to the
came to he suggested an ingenious solution for the cases of
problem independently, 160 years later. Since Con- paradox; choose that candidate who would have a
dorcet's work made use of the theory of probability, majority over all others if the original preference scales
it, like Bernoulli's, was recorded in various histories of the voters were altered in a way which involved
of the theory of probability during the nineteenth the least possible number of interchanges of prefer-
century; in the thorough and widely read history of ences. (When there are three candidates, this proposal
Todhunter (1865), Borda's and Condorcet's theories of coincides with Nanson's.)
were included with the probabilistic theory.
elections Dodgson raised one more conceptually interesting
The only significant published nineteenth-century point, that of the possibility of "no election." His
work on the theory of election that is known today discussion is inconsistent. At one point, he contends
is that of the English mathematician E. J.
Nanson, that if the paradox occurs, there should be "no elec-
published in 1882 in Australia, in Transactions and tion"; however, a little further on, he argues that if
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 19 (1882), "no election" is a possibility, then it should be entered
197-240. Nanson makes no reference to Condorect, but among the list of candidates and treated symmetrically
it is hard to believe that his work is independent. He with them. In the context of elections themselves, the
notes the paradox of voting, in a manner which suggests possibility is uninteresting; but if we think of legislative
that he regarded it as well known, and accepts fully proposals, "no election" means the preservation of the
the Condorcet criterion. His work consists primarily status quo. Dodgson is noting that legislative choice
in showing that each of several voting methods that processes do not take all the alternatives on a par but
have been proposed fail to satisfy the Condorcet crite- give a special privileged status to one.
rion, in that one could find a system of preference Dodgson made no reference to predecessors; how-
orderings for individuals such that there exists a candi- ever, his pamphlets were designed to influence the
datewho would get a majority against any other but conduct of O.xford elections, and scholarly footnoting
would not be chosen. He then proposes a method would have been inappropriate. Whether or not he
which will satisfy the criterion: rank all candidates read Todhunter 's passages on Borda and Condorcet
according to the rank-order method. Then eliminate cannotnow be determined. Of course, no subsequent
all candidates for which the sum of ranks
above the is work was influenced by him.
average. With the remaining candidates form the 2. Current Analysis of Social Welfare Based on
rank-orders again, considering only those candidates, Rankings. After a long but exiguous history, the gen-
and repeat the process until one candidate is selected. eral theory of elections suddenly became a lively
Among the methods considered and found wanting subject of research beginning with the papers of Black
by Nanson was preferential voting, an adaptation of published in 1948 and 1949 and Arrow's 1951 mono-
the Hare system of proportional representation to the graph. Since then there has been an uninterrupted
election of a single candidate. In 1926 George Hallett, spate of discussion, which is still continuing. It is per-
a leading American advocate of proportional repre- haps not easy to see exactly why the interest has
sentation, suggested a modification which met the changed so markedly. Neither Black nor Arrow were
Condorcet criterion. He developed a procedure, the aware at the time they first wrote of any of the preced-
details of which need not be repeated here, which, ing literature, though it is hard to exclude the possi-
starting with the orderings of all the candidates
by all bility that some of this knowledge was in a vague sense
282 the voters, picked out a candidate. A, and a set of common property. Arrow has noted (Social Choice and
Individual Values, p. 93) that when he first hit upon imagined arrayed in a certain order in such a way that
the paradox of voting, he felt sure that it was known, each individual's preferences are single-peaked, i.e., of
though he was unable to recall any source. any two alternatives to the left of the most preferred
Both Black and Arrow are economists, and some (by an individual), he prefers the one nearest to and
it,
historical tendencies in economics, in addition to the similarly with two alternatives to the right. This would
general theory of marginal utility, played their role. be the case if the "Left-Right" ordering of political
(1) A number of marginal utility theorists, .such as parties were a valid empirical description. Black dem-
Marshall and Wicksteed, had tried to demonstrate that onstrated that if preferences are single-peaked then no
their theories were, as Bentham had originally held, paradox of voting can arise. Put another way, the
applicable in fields wider than the piu-ely economic. relation, "alternative preferred by a majority to alter-
(2) In particular, economists in the field of public native B, '
an ordering and in particular is transitive.
is
finance were forced to recognize that public expendi- Ciu"rent work, particularly that of Amartya Sen and
tures, which are plainly a form of economic activity, Gordon TuUock, has developed generalizations of the
were in principle regulated by voters. A voter who single-peaked preference condition in different direc-
was also a taxpayer could usefully be thought of as tions. The conditions are too tecfinical for brief pres-
making a choice between public and private goods; entation, but, like single-peakedness, they imply cer-
the actual outcome would depend upon the voting tain types of similarity among the preference scales
process. Problems of this type were studied bv Kniit of all individuals.
W'icksell in 1896, Erik Lindahl in 1919, and Howard Arrow stated formally a set of apparently reasonable
Bowen in 1943. These works tend in a general way criteria for social choice and demonstrated that they
to a combined theory of political-economic choice. (3) were mutually inconsistent. The study arose ar an
Other economists, particularly Harold Hotelling in attempt to give operational content to Bergson's con-
1929, and Joseph Schumpeter in his 1942 book Social- cept of a social welfare function. The conditions on
ism, Capitalism, and Democracy, suggested models of the social decision procedure follow; (1) for any possi-
the political process analogous to that of the economic ble set of individual preference orderings, there should
system, with voters taking the place of consvuners and be defined a social preference ordering (connected and
politicians that of entrepreneurs. (4) Marginal utility transitive) which governs social choices; (2) if every-
theorists, e.g.,Edgeworth in 1881, and the Austrians, body prefers alternative A to alternative B, then society
Carl Menger and Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, about the must have the same preference (Parento-optimality);
same time, had been concerned with problems of (3) the social choice made from any set of available
bargaining, where one buyer meets one seller, rather alternatives should depend only on the orderings of
than the more usual competitive assumptions of many individuals with respect to those alternatives; (4) the
buyers and sellers. The development of game theory by social decision procedure should not be dictatorial, in
von Neumann and Morgenstern was intended to meet the sense that there is one whose preferences prevail
this problem, but the formulation took on such general regardless of the preferences of all others.
proportions that it suggested the possibility of a very Condition (3) in effect restricts social decision pro-
general theory of social behavior based on the founda- cedures (or social welfare criteria) to generalized forms
tion of individual behavior as governed by utility func- of voting; only preferences among the available candi-
tions. (5) The ideas of Pareto and Bergson were now dates are used in deciding an election. The inconsist-
widespread and raised demands for clarification. ency of these conditions is in fact a generalized form
Most of these topics could be interpreted both of the paradox of voting; no system of voting, no matter
descriptively and normatively, and some of this duality how complicated, can avoid a form of the paradox.
has persisted in the current literature. There are two As in the original Condorcet case of simple majority
main themes in the literature, associated with the voting, all that is meant by the paradox is that it could
names of Black and Arrow, respectively; (1) demon- arise for certain sets of individual preference orderings.
stration that if the preference scales of individuals are If individual preference orderings were restricted to
not arbitrary but satisfy certain hypotheses, then ma- a set for which the conditions of Black, Sen, or Tullock
jority voting is transitive; (2) formulation of sets of hold, then majority voting and many other methods
reasonable conditions for aggregating individual pref- would satisfy conditions (2-4).
erences through a kind of generalized voting and The evaluation of the Arrow paradox has led to
examining the consequences; if the set of conditions considerable controversy, still persisting.
is strong enough, there can be no system of voting In one version of Arrow's system, condition (2) was
consistent with all of them. replaced by another which, loosely speaking, stated
Suppose that all the alternative decisions can be that a change of individuals' preferences in favor of 283
SOCIALISM FROM ANTIQUITY TO MARX
a particular alternative A would raise its social prefer- urement of Social Welfare (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1961);
ence, if possible. The existence of the paradox is not and ]. Rawls, "Distributive Justice," in P. Laslett and
altered by this substitution. Recent work by Kenneth W. G. Runciman, eds. Philosophy, Politics, and Society,
May and later Yasusuke Murakami showed that this Third Series (Oxford, 1967), pp. 58-82.
condition, together with condition had powerful For the work discussed in Part III, see C. G. Hoag and
(3),
implications for the nature of the social decision proc-

G. Hallett, Proportional Representation (New York, 1926),
for the work of Hallett, Hare, and others on proportional
ess. Specifically, it followed that the choice from any
representation and preferential voting. See also: Rothen-
pair of alternatives is made by a sequence of majoritv J.
berg, op. cit.; K. Arrow, Social Choice and Individual

votes, where outcomes of the vote at one step can enter
J.
Values, 2nd ed. {New York, 1963); D. Black, The Theory

some individuals
as a vote at a later step. In general,
of Committees and Elections (Cambridge, 1958); I.
may vote more than once, and some votes may be Todhunter, A History of the Mathematical Theory of Proba-
prescribed in advance. If however it is assumed in from the Time of Pascal to that of Laplace (Cambridge
bility
addition that all individuals should enter symmetrically and London, 1865); A. K. Sen, "A Possibility Theorem on
into the procedure and also that the voting rule should Majority Decisions," Econometrica, 34 (1966), 491-99;
be the same for all pairs of alternatives, then the only G. TuUock, Toward a Mathematia of Politics (Ann ."Vrbor,
possible voting rule is pairwise majority decision, i.e., 1967), Ch. Ill; and Y. Murakami. Logic and Social Choice
the Condorcet criterion. (London and New York, 1968). The work of Condorcet is
discussed b\' Black, pp. 159-80; see also G. G. Granger, La
mathematique sociale du Marquis de Condorcet {Faris, 19.56),
BIBLIOGRAPHY esp. pp. 94-129. Condorcet's study was entitled Essai sur
I'application de I'analyse a la probabilite des decisions
For histories of the theory of individual choice in eco-
rendues a la pluralite des voix (Paris, 1785). For Laplace's
nomics, see E. Kauder, A History of Marginal Utility Theory
work on elections, see Black, pp. 180-83.
(Princeton, 1965), and G. "The Development of
J.
Stigler,
Utility Theory," Journal of Political Economy. 58 (1950), KENNETH ]. ARROW
307-27, 373-96. Bernoulli's paper originally appeared in
[See also Democracy; Economic History; Economic Theory
Comentarii Academiae Scientiarum Imperiales Petropoli-
of Natural Liberty; Equality; Game Theory; Probability;
tanae, 5 (1738), 175-92. It has been translated into English
Rationality; Utilitarianism; Utility.]
in Econornetrica, 12 (1954), 23-36. The quotation from
J.
Bentham appears in his An Introduction to the Principles
of Morals and Legislation, reprinted in The Utilitarians
(Garden City, N.Y., 1961), p. 17. For a survey of the theory
of conjoint measurement, see P. C. Fishburn, "A Note on
Recent Developments in Additive Utility Theories for SOCIALISM FROM
Multiple-Factor Situations," Operations Research, 14 (1966), ANTIQUITY TO MARX
1143-48.
No adequate secondary sources exist for most of Part 11.
As A MODERN political movement, socialism arose in
See Bentham 's work just cited; W. Stark, ed. Jeremy
the early and middle decades of the nineteenth century.
Bentham's Economic Writings (London, 1954); M. P. Mack,
As an idea, it can be discerned much earlier in mythic,
Jeremy Bentham: An Odyssey of Ideas. 174S-1792 (New
philosophic, and theological thought. In the simplest
York, 1963); F. Y Edgeworth, Mathematical Psychics
(London, 1881), and idem, "The Pure Theory of Taxation," sense, socialism amounts to a belief that all producers
in Papers Relating to Political Economy (London, 1925), II, ought to share equally in the combined labor.
fruits of
102; V. Pareto, The Mind and Society (New York, 1935), On a deeper level, socialism is more than an economic
4, 1459-74; A. Bergson, Essays in Normative Economics formula, and even more than a prescription for justice.
(Cambridge, Mass., 1966), Part I; W. S. Vickrey, ".Measuring It is an expression of faith in the capacity of the
Marginal Utility by Reaction to Risk," Econornetrica, 13 mass of mankind to overcome what is thought of
(1945), 319-33, and idem, "Utility, Strategy, and Decision as an alienation or estrangement from its own essential
Rules," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 74 (1960), 507-35;
nature, which socialists contend is far more creative,
M. Fleming, "A Cardinal Concept of Welfare," Quarterly
J.
pacific, and altruistic than actual experience might
Journal of Economics, 64 (1952), 366-84; J. Harsanvi, "Car-
indicate.
dinal Welfare, IndividuaMstic Ethics, and Interpersonal
Until comparatively recently, tliis faith was usually
Comparisons of Utility," Journal of Political Economy, 56
(1953), 309-21; W. E.'Armstrong, "Utility and the Theory circumscribed by an oppressive awareness of the
of Welfare," Oxford Economic Papers, New Series, 3 (1951), constraints, both natural and artificial, preventing or
259-71; L. Goodman and H. Markowitz, "Social Welfare distorting the expression of true humanity. Material
Functions Based on Individual Rankings," American Journal scarcity and moral weakness were held to require and
284 of Sociology, 58 (1952), 257-62; J.
Rothenberg, The Meas- even to systems in which inequality and
justify social
hierarchy were assumed to be synonyms of order. All moral could therefore consistently be drawn from it
egalitarian alternativeswere likely to be dismissed as for the guidance of the present race. It was by implica-
impractical. Equality was thought of as a standard that tion irrecoverable, at least by men's own efforts"
may once have had bearing in the remote past, or that (Lovejoy and Boas, Primitivism, p. 16).
might apply in the distant future, but that could have The same melancholy reflection takes philosophic
no great relevance to present conditions, except as an form in the Platonic dialogues. In the Laics the
invitation to chaos. Because it was treated as an "Athenian Stranger," who seems to express Plato's own
impractical ideal, the idea of equality remained vague view, pays tribute to the ancient ideal: "The first and
and undifferentiated, a catch-all for panaceas of every highest form of the state [
polis]and of the government
description, and an easy target for skeptics. and of the law is that in which there prevails most
Socialism was for a long time one facet of this rela- widely the ancient saying, that 'Friends have all things
tively amorphous ideal, evident in romantic evocations in common" " (Laws 739, trans. B. Jowett). Although
of primitive innocence, in millenarian prophecies of such perfection is beyond revival, he adds, no better
future perfection, in the more radical theologies of the system could be conceived. In the Republic, however,
Protestant Reformation, in secular Utopias, and in some Socrates is represented as believing that even in an
of the social criticism of theFrench Enlightenment. ideal society communism could be a way of life only
In the nineteenth century these intimations were for a moral and intellectual elite. The superior philo-
transformed into elaborate arguments for social change sophic capacity of the guardians or rulers would enable
taking essentially two forms. One view held that them to ignore the demands of appetite; their role
cooperative communities are within the realm of pos- would require that they be disinterested in all but the
sibility, provided they are constructed with careful dispensing of justice. Otherwise, equality for unequals
attention to individual and social needs. The other, put is criticized as a self-contradictory proposition which
forward by Karl Marx, conceived of socialism as a stage can only result in danger for society, as the chaotic
of historical development, destined to be achieved after experience of democracy proves all too well.
a worldwide revolution by the working class against In his Politics Aristotle is skeptical of all proposals
private property and those who benefit from it. In this for communism, including the limited version advanced
view, the ideal commimity cannot be planned in ad- in Plato's Republic. Collective ownership flouts the
vance and put into operation regardless of historical most fundamental axioms of human nature; property
conditions; it must arise out of revolutionary activity held in common is likely to remain untended and
and will be successful only when historically appro- uncultivated. Far better, in Aristotle's view, is the
priate. This distinction between socialism as a theory practice followed in Sparta, where goods were pri-
of the planned community and socialism as the out- vately owned but made available by their owners for
come of an historically determined revolution, starkly public use. The rightly ordered polis will apply the
clear in the nineteenth century, was adumbrated even principle of distributive justice, or proportional equal-
earlier, but overshadowed by the tendency to think ity. Absolute or numerical equality reflects only one
of socialism in all its forms as an impossible phantasy. of the claims that may legitimately be made by citi-
The first traces of socialism appear in the lament zens — the claim that as members of society they
for a lost"Golden Age," a common theme in antiquity. deserve identical treatment. If equity and stability are
Greek myths, recorded as early as the eighth century to be served, however, other claims must also be rec-
B.C. and derived from an even older oral tradition, ognized, such as those based upon superiority of intel-
recall an original state —
the Age of Cronus when all — lect, contribution to the welfare of society, and birth
shared equally in the common lot, private property or status.
was imknown, and peace and harmony reigned undis- The notion that differences in intellect justify social
turbed. These myths, as Lovejoy and Boas point out, inequality was challenged by the Stoic school which
describe either a "soft" or a "hard" primitivisni: some arose in the third century B.C. in the waning years of
depict a time of abundance and luxury in which human the Greek polis and achieved a considerable influence
labor is unnecessary because the earth produces its during the expansion of Rome. This influence was more
bounty spontaneously; others depict a time of simple ethical than political, however. Although the Stoics
needs and satisfactions. Poetic renderings contrast the taught that the universality of reason rendered men
innocence of the original conditions with the degener- equals by nature, they did not go on to argue that
acy of actual society. The Golden Age, so the accepted natural standards could be applied in conventional
interpretation ran, "was enjoyed by a different breed societies.Like the Cynics, they lamented the departure
of mortals, in a different condition of the world and from the equality decreed by nature and criticized
(in one version) under different gods, and no practical especially inhumane attitudes and practices, but could 2o5
see no way to return corrupt society to its natiu-al tience and obedience. The most influential of the
innocence. The best that might be hoped for, according Church Fathers, Saint Augustine, asserted in The City
to such spokesmen for a mature Stoic view as Cicero of God (a.d. 413) that the injustices of the earthly city
and Seneca, was that less fortimate classes, including were God's judgment upon human sinfulness. While
slaves, would be treated charitably, in recognition of the pious Christian lived "like a captive and a stranger"
the essential unity of all mankind. (Book 19, Ch. xvii) in the unredeemed world, he was
In Iôme the attitude shared by citizens and philoso- to cling to his faith but accept his station in life, what-
phers alike found expression in the festival of the ever it might be.
Saturnalia. Once each year the ,\ge of Saturn (the The medieval canonists, who were the principal
Roman form of Cronus) was memorialized: slaves dined apologists for papal supremacy, added more positive
with masters and distinctions were temporarily forgot- justifications of inequality. Unity required subordi-
ten. In at leastone non-Roman version of this cere- nation and discipline. Hierarchy in the Church and
mony, the moral behind the festival is said to have society reflected the superiority of the soul to the body,
been made explicit beyond any doubt: a criminal as well as the order of the cosmos, the very architecture
was elevated to the ruler's throne during the celebra- of God. Communism was appropriate only for those
tion and executed as soon as it was over, as a warning exceptional ascetic virtuosos in holy orders seeking to
to subject classes of what they might expect from escape attachments to the flesh and the world. Move-
attempts at revolution. ments outside the Church, however, such as those of

To these classes. Christian teachings may have the Cathars, Waldenses, and Free Spirits, even though
seemed more radical than Stoicism, especially since the they aimed at a similar perfection, if not always
spiritual egalitarianism of the Gospels appeared to through asceticism, were condemned as dangerous
make the argument over degrees of rationality irrele- heresies.
vant. Of what consequence were differences of intellect Both the example and the teachings of monastic and
if, in the eyes of God, every man had a soul and all sectarian movements nevertheless stood in pointed
souls were alike worthy? The "poor in spirit "
(Luke dogma. .\s feudal society disinte-
contrast to official
6:20, King James ver.) could well have read social grated under a complex network of strains, including
significance into Saint Paul's announcement that with princely ambition, conflicts over clerical appointments,
the advent of the Redeemer "there is no such thing splits within the Church, the expansion of commerce,
as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female; and the rise of independent cities, the hold of the
for you are all one person in Christ Jesus (Galatians " orthodox view weakened and the appeal of alternatives
3:28, The Xew English Bible, London, 1961). According rose. One distinctly unorthodox alternative was posed
to Saint Luke, the apostles could be said to have prac- by a twelfth-century Calabrian monk, Joachim of
ticed communism: "Not a man of them claimed any Floris, who preached an historicized doctrine of the
of his possessions as his own, but everything was held Trinity resembling that earlier condemned in Montan-
in common. They had never a needy person among
. . . ism. According to Joachim, the incarnation was to be
them, because all who had property in land or houses understood as an evolutionary succession of three ages
sold it, brought the proceeds of the sale, and laid the or dispensations: of the Father or law, of the Son or
money at the feet of the apostles; it was then distrib- Gospel, and of the Holy Spirit. The process was to
uted to any who stood in need" (Acts 4:32-35, The be completed between 1200 and 1260 under the aegis
New English Bible). of a new order of monks which would direct the over-
As the expectation of an imminent apocalypse throw of .Antichrist. Through their triumph, the Holy
receded, millenarian enthusiasm became an embar- Spiritwould permeate all mankind and servitude and
rassment and a threat to the order of society and the obedience would be replaced by universal love. The
unity of the Church. Authoritative interpreters of the Joachimite prophecy inspired a wing of the Franciscan
Gospels insisted that they must not be read as a call order, the Franciscan Spirituals, to imagine themselves
to social revolution. An apostle had also declared that successors of the Church appointed to lead Christen-
"the authorities are in God's service" (Romans 13:6, dom toward the millennium.
The New English Bible). Although God had intended same prophecy assigned a messianic
Variations of the
men to live together as brothers in an earthly paradise. role to theEmperor Frederick II. Even after the death
Saint Cyprian, Saint Zeno of Verona, and Saint of Frederick, it was widely hoped that he would some-
Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, all observed that human how reappear and usher in the last days by striking
wickedness had frustrated this intention. Until the down the corrupt clergy. In the fourteenth and
Parousia or Second Coming of Christ, the Christian fifteenth centuries, peasant rebellions erupted in many
286 was obliged to endure worldly corruption with pa- parts of Europe, in response to changing economic
conditions as well as visionan' preaching. Religious Winstanley experienced a revelation in which he and
protests, such as those led by John Ball and John his followers were instRicted to seize certain lands and
Wycliffe in England and by the Hussites and Taborites cultivate them in common so as to restore the "holy
in Bohemia, weakened adherence to the Church and community, an ideal they shared with other Puritans.
"
eventually brought on the hjll-scale reformations of the No one, he declared, ought to be "Lord or landlord
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the Protestant over another, but whole mankind was made equall, and
Reformation, the eschatological underground came to knit into one body by one spirit of love, which is Christ
the surface in the general upheaval and made a note- in you, the hope of glory" {Works [1649], p. .323). The
worthy impact. Thomas Mimtzer and Gerrard creation and redemption express a dialectic of separa-
Winstanley, the leaders of two distinct movements on tion and reunion: spirit and man are separate at first
the "left-wing of the Reformation" (Sainton) can fairly but in the end "man is drawne up into himselfe again,
be regarded as among the most direct theoretical pre- or new Jerusalem . . . comes down to Earth, to fetch
cursors of modern socialism. Earth up to live in that life, that is a life above objects"
Miintzer was a fiery zealot who broke with Martin (Works [1650], p. 453). It is only a "strange conceit"
Luther and raised a more radical and mystical standard to imagine a new Jerusalem "above the skies" (Works
than Luther and the other moderate reformers were [1649], p. 226).
willing to accept. In 1525 he led an army of peasants Winstanley and Miintzer share a mystical and so-
in an abortive revolt which ended with his capture cially activistic theological perspective. In Win-
and execution. Although there is little in Miintzer's stanley s case, this perspective issues in a pacifistic
sermons and letters explicitly advocating communism, orientation toward labor in common; in Miintzer's, it
he was regarded by his contemporaries as a revolu- serves to promote violent revolution. Had the left wing
tionary in every respect — an "uproarious spirit" succeeded in impressing itself more fully upon the
{aufriihrischen Geist) in Luther's words. Miintzer main carriers of reform, the distinction that was to
earned this reputation by demanding total reform, arise in the nineteenth century between voluntaristic
temporal as well as ecclesiastical. Warmly acknowl- and revolutionary socialists might have been felt ear-
edging his debt to the "weighty testimony" of Joachim, lier. In fact, however, the impact of the left wing
Miintzer saw himself and his Allstedt Bund performing was ephemeral. The most significant social residue of
the role the Franciscan Spirituals had earlier sought the Reformation was the attitude Max Weber de-
to assume. Unlike the monks, Miintzer saw no reason scribed as the "Protestant ethic," or the exhortation
to refrain from violence against "godless" opponents. to economic individualism as proof of piety and
The "fifth monarchy" foretold by the prophet Daniel, predestination. Protestantism lent legitimacy to a
he believed, could only follow the physical destmction limited egalitarianism by sanctioning economic com-
of the first four, the last of which remained to be petition and moral autonomy, but it offered no war-
toppled. rant for socialism, which continued to be regarded
Miintzer's "Revolutionary, or charismatic, Spiritual- as "Utopian."
ism" (Williams and Mergall, p. .32) rejects the view The term "utopia" came into use after 1516, when
of more moderate reformers that the Bible and sacra- Thomas More published his work of that name boldly
ments, but not a clerical hierarchy, should mediate denouncing the vicious effects of private property and
between God and man. In order to become one with commerce, especially as they were evident in the
Christ (Christfomiig), he claimed, the believer had to enclosure movement in England. The sheep, he wrote,
experience an identification with God directly and had begun to devour men and to consume whole fields,
without mediation. This theological radicalism enabled houses, and cities; a true commonwealth, as distinct
Miintzer to regard himself and his followers as "an elite from those which go by the name but are merely
of amoral supermen "
(Cohn, Ch. vii) released from conspiracies of rich men, would be possible only if
ordinary ethical injunctions in their role as a vanguard property were held in common. Mores hostility toward
of the millennium. Sectarian quietism and withdrawal private property and his advocacy of communism
were also rejected in favor of the revolutionary joined a traditional Christian disapproval of worldly
activism of a mass movement. In contrast to Miintzer, avarice and corruption with an attack upon contem-
the militant Anabaptists who took control of Miinster porary economic inequities. Many
and more later
and whose communism and polygamy seemed scandal- secular writers, including Francis Bacon and Thomas
ous to all of Europe, were far more conventional in Campanella in the seventeenth century, followed
their views, since they continued to believe in the need Mores example by inventing. other Utopias, both in
to isolate themselves from worldly corruption in order order to give freer reign to the imagination and to
to Uve a perfect life above the law. publish more radical social criticism than might have 2o7
been safe to broach in aii essay or treatise. As a device Jean Meslier, Gabriel de Ronnot de Mably, Simon
and a literary genre, the Utopia came to replace the Linguet, and the all but anonymous Morelly. Rut ex-
prophecy of religious apocalypse as a vehicle for the cept for Morelly 's Code de la nature (1755), which
expression of radically egalitarian sentiments. advocates a return to commimism, the others agreed
The dominant tendency of social theorizing, in the with Mably that although the communism of Sparta
period following the Reformation and culminating in and the religious orders was closer to natine than the
the French Revolution, is more accurately reflected in modem worship of wealth and luxury, "where property
the work of the natural rights-social contract school. has once been established it is necessary to regard it
These theorists secularized and transformed traditional as the foimdation of order, peace, and public safety"
natiu'al law doctrines into justifications for limited (Oeuvres, IX, 1.3).
government and civil liberty. In the process, the right The detached skepticism and critical resignation
of private property was established as one of the most which characterized the Enlightenment were swept
fundamental of all natural rights, John Locke argxied aside by the enthusiasm for total renovation accompa-
that while God had originally given the earth to men nying the French Revolution. Even so, all but a handful
in common. He meant it for "the use of the Industrious of the leading figiu'es in the Revolution, including the
and the Rational" (Secotid Treatise of Government Jacobins, were committed to the retention of private
[1690], Ch, V, para. .34). The right to appropriate was The demand for a more radical reform
property.
subject to the limits of the law of nature, but the emerged among a minority of disaffected revolu-
introduction of money by tacit consent made evasion tionaries. Their major spokesman was Francois-Noel
of these limits legitimate. The main objective of the (Caius Gracchus) Rabeiif, the leader of a small
social contract was therefore the protection of the right "Conspiracy of the Equals" to which a larger number
of property, broadly understood as life, liberty, and of Jacobins had attached themselves. Along with other
estateand more narrowly as material possessions. James conspirators, including Sylvain Marechal, the author
Harrington argued in Oceana (1656) that agrarian of the provocative Manifesto of the Equals (1796),
republics could survive only if effective limits were Rabeuf was arrested and tried for plotting to overthrow
put upon acquisition, especially of land, but neither the Directory. In his defense, Rabeuf insisted that he
Harrington nor any other English theorist of this cen- was acting in the service of the Revolution, which
tury was in any sense an advocate of socialism. would remain incomplete while there was still
The French Physiocrats, who coined the term laissez- inequality. Rorrowing a distinction drawn by the mod-
faire, agreed with Locke in regarding the right to erate Girondin, the Marquis de Condorcet, Rabeuf
private property as the foimdation of law and eco- argued that the Revolution had so far established only
nomic progress. Otherwise, the leading writers of the legal equality, but not "real" equality. Since even
French Enlightenment were rather less enthusiastic in superior intelligence and exertion do not "extend the
their support for economic individualism. Generally, capacity of the stomach," it was "absurd and unjust"
the attitude of tlie philosophes resembled that of the to distribute rewards on any basis other than need
Stoics. Equality, Voltaire wrote, "is at once the most (Advielle, Babeuf. II, 38). The revolution of 1789 was
natural and at the same time the most chimerical of therefore merely the forerunner of "anotlier revolution,
things," Although nature makes men equal, "on our greater and even more solemn, which will be the last"
miserable globe it is impossible for men living in soci- (ibid., I, 197). It would be accomplished, however, not
ety not to be divided into two classes, one the rich by legislative assemblies, but by the broad masses of
who command, the other the poor who serve" (Philo- the people.
sophic Dictionary [1769], trans. P. Gay, New York .\lthough Rabeuf's conspiracy was finally crushed,
[1962], I, 24.5). Similarly, although Rousseau issued a babouvisme, with its emphasis on the revolutionary
stinging indictment of the evils of property, he did not role of the working had a lingering influence
class,
propose that the right of property be abolished. The upon socialist theory. It was only after the Napoleonic
most that could be hoped for, according to Rousseau, Wars, however, that modem socialism took definitive
Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Louis de Jaucourt in the form. In the usage it now has, the word "socialist"
Encyclopedie, was that enlightened rulers would elimi- appeared in print for the first time in 1827 in the
nate extreme inequalities and alleviate the plight of Co-operative Magazine published by the followers of
the poor. the industrial reformer, Robert Owen. In 1832, as le
In the latter half of the eighteenth century, some socialisme. it made its debut across the Channel in Le
theorists contended that the natural condition of Globe, the joiunal of a band of practical and visionary
society must have been one of collective rather than reformers inspired by the theories of Henri de Saint-
2oo private ownership. Among them were Thomas Raynal, Simon. In this germinal period, socialism had its great-
est vogue where the hold of more conven-

in France, and degraded into a brute instrument of production.
tional had been rudely shaken by waves of
ideas "For the enormous majority, Karl Marx protested, "
revolution. The aims and outcome of this series of the vaunted culture of European civilization amounted
upheavals were subjects of intense controversy and to no more than "a mere training to act as a machine"
socialism appeared to its adherents and even to some (Communist Manifesto [1848], trans. S. Moore, pp.
of its detractors as the logical fulfillment of the process 146f.). Charles Fourier, in effect elaborating Rousseau's
of change which had begun in 1789. By about 1840 earlier indictment, drew up a meticulous catalogue of
the term was commonlv applied to a fairly wide array the vices due to selfish absorption with the accumula-
of doctrines, all sharing an intensely critical attitude tion of wealth. These vices included not only the misery
toward e.xisting social systems and a firm conviction of the poor but also the unhappiness and boredom of
that radical transformation was both possible and the rich. A phrase coined a generation earlier by the
imperative. Girondin Jean-Pierre Brissot de Warville and popu-
Socialism probably seemed an apt name for this larized by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon summed up the
potpourri of dissenting views because in ways both socialist critique of conventional morality in an incen-
critical and constructive all these doctrines were diary catechism; "What is property? It is theft."
focused on "social" rather than individual well-being. The critics differed among themselves in the ex-
The "social question" was a subject of wide interest, planations offered of the sources of corruption and in
but the prevailing view was that the wretched condi- proposals for reform. Some believed that moral
tions endured by the poor were as inevitable as they regeneration could come only in new, planned com-
were unfortunate. Those who challenged this communities.To Owen, the bedrock of social reconstruc-
placencv by subjecting social conditions to harsh criti- tion was the principle that character is shaped by
cism and by demanding that they be changed funda- environment. Moral vices, he thought, could be
mentally were likely to be called socialists. All the reformed only by changing the conditions that
doctrines, despite variations, stressed the need for produced them. Etienne Cabet imagined such a new
greater collective responsibility and a "strengthening community in his Voijage in Icaria (1840) in terms
of 'socialising' influences," as Cole observed (Socialist derived from earlier Utopian speculation. Fourier
Thought, I, 4).The term "communism" was sometimes sought to show that it was possible to diminish frustra-
used as a synonym for socialism and sometimes to tion and increase satisfaction without changing human
denote doctrines stressing the need for revolution and natxire,simply bv establishing planned, but voluntary
community of goods. communities in which the diversity of human disposi-
The socialist view was advanced in direct opposition tions would be matched with the requirements of the
to the more widely accepted belief that the rights of division of labor. These ideas inspired the creation of
the individual against society and the state were model communities in Britain and America and
inviolable. The most popular writers on political econ- generated great interest among social reformers in
omy in the first half of the nineteenth century generally many countries.
claimed that since individual liberty was the source Others who could see little or no hope in small-scale
of all enhancement must be the paramount

progress, its projects argued instead for grander efforts to reorga-
aim of public policy. To interfere with the freedom nize society. The economist Jean-Charles Simonde de
of exchange was to infringe upon the rights of man Sismondi pointed out, as early as 1819, that unless gains
and to place dangerous obstacles in the way of industry from increased productivity were more widely distrib-
and prosperity. Against this belief, the socialists argued uted, national economies would suffer not only from
that the legal protection of unlimited acquisition inequity but from periodic crises of overproduction.
sanctioned the exploitation of wage-laborers by the Saint-Simon declared that the enormous potentialities
owners of capital. .\ny prosperity that resulted from of the industrial system and of scientific research should
industry could therefore benefit only the privileged be organized to serve the needs of society. The domi-
few — the new aristocracy of wealth —at the expense nation of society and government by aristocratic idlers
of the many, who would remain at least as impover- (les oisifs) must be replaced by a combination of the
ished as ever. producers (les industriels). Louis Blanc was convinced

On the most universal level — and perhaps the most that the evils of the property system could be
fundamental — this objection to the gross inequalities eradicated without revolution or expropriation if the
flowing from the protection of private property state would extend public credit to "social workshops"
expressed a profound and bitter moral indignation. (ateliers) in which artisans in the various branches of
Labor was said to have become a commodity, the industry could form cooperative associations for pro-
laborer himself to have been robbed of his himianity duction and distribution. By eliminating the need for 2o9
a
private sources of capital, would make

the state than a few of his revolutionary slogans to a host of
exploitation impossible. by vocation a
Proudhon, other writers.
tradesman, by temperament an anarchist, was suspi- The influence of Hegelianism upon Marx is well
cious of all central authority and all collectivist recognized. It is not too much to say that all of Marx's
schemes. He preferred what he called "mutualism" — work bears the impress of his early encounter with
series of decentralized exchanges in which producers Hegel and the Left Hegelians. What is less well appre-
would enter into contracts with each other to trade ciated is the degree to which the apocalyptic, quasi-
goods and services. The object would be to prevent religious character of Marxian socialism was shaped
exploitation but to retain the autonomy of the pro- by Hegel's philosophical restatement of radical Chris-
ducers and avoid imposing an oppressive central au- tian theology. Hegel's first writings grew out of his
thority in place of the market system. study of theology at Tiibingen. In them he struggled
Still others thought that changes of policy or institu- to come to terms with traditional Christianity and the
tions could be expected only after a change of heart. new Kantian ethics. The resolution he came to is best
Constantin Pecqueur in France, Karl Griin, Moses Hess, expounded in his essay on "The Spirit of Christianity
and Wilhelm Weitling in Germany, believed that an and Its Fate" (1799) where he offers an interpretation
ethical religion of humanity was needed either to fill strikingly similar to the historical trinitarianism of
the void left by the decline of Christian faith or to Joachim. Kantian ethics is explained as a reversion to
express common humanistic values to which all could Judaism, or the religion of abstract law, a "juridical
subscribe, regardless of their attitude toward religion. order "
in which man is a dependent of a remote law-
The disciples of Saint-Simon, led by Barthelemy- giving deity. Christianity, as the incarnation of God
Prosper Enfantin, Ohnde Rodrigues, Saint-.\rmand in a single man, opens a second chapter in the unfold-
Hazard, and Pierre Leroux, organized and directed a ing of morality: Jesus, as "the beautiful soul," renounces
sect to propagate the master's call for a "New property and all other ties to the juridical order and
Christianity." The cult was outfitted with all the ap- thereby transcends it. But Christianity, as a religion
propriate trappings, including clergy, ritual, and of faith in God rather than of universal participation
devotional services, and took as its cardinal dogma the in the divine, must be superseded by a final stage of
"principle of association," the Saint-Simonian equiva- development. In this age of fulfillment, contradictions
lent of Fourier's "law of attraction." It served the same of finite and infinite, subject and object, spirit and
purpose for the Saint-Simonians that Fourier's princi- matter, are transcended by a total identification of the
ple did for his followers, which was to provide a social divine and the human.
and moral analogue of Newton's law of gravitation. These early speculations were the groundwork for
Philippe Buchez and Proudhon, as well as Cabet who — The Phenomenology of the Spirit (1807), in which the
—
preached a "true Christianity" felt that Christianity whole of intellectual history is explained as the
itself, properly understood, was simply socialism by extemalization, in the "phenomena" of human thought,
another, older name. In Britain John M. F. Ludlow, of the mind of God. In two sections of the Phenom-
with the help of Frederick D. Maiuice and Charles enology, Hegel hinted at the social implications of his
Kingsley, both clergymen, founded a Christian Socialist philosophic history by describing self-consciousness in
movement. terms of the relations between lord and servant and
None of these spokesmen had an impact
for socialism by suggesting that the absolute freedom advocated in
comparable to that exerted by Karl Marx, whose writ- the Enlightenment generated, as its dialectical oppo-
ings became the touchstone of socialist thinking and site, the reign of terror in the Revolution. In two other
action. Marx differed most strikingly from earlier so- works, The Philosophy of History (1822) and The Phi-
cialists as well as from contemporaries in believing that losophy of Right (1821), the extemahzation of the mind
socialism could not be established by an act of will, of God previously depicted in the development of
either through voluntary adoption or forced imposi- theology and philosophy is described in terms of social
tion, but would inevitably arise at an appropriate stage history. Philosophically imderstood, history is the
of history. He couched his views in a doctrine that process in which the "Idea "
expresses itself concretely
was once a philosophy of history, a science of soci-
at and comprehensively through the medium of "world
ety, and a handbook of revolution. As a thinker, his historical" nations and individuals. It assumes a final
greatest talents were not so much those of an originator form in the constitutional state, which unites universal
as of a trenchant critic, a skillful borrower, and a and particular will. The state was to be distinguished,
brilliant synthesizer. In the early stages of his thought, however, from "civil society "
in that the state ex-
when he developed his philosophy of history, he was pressed the union of public and private, while civil
indebted most to Hegel. In the later period, he owed society was the sphere of the private alone.
290 many of his sociological and economic ideas and more Hegel's teachings had their most immediate result
—
in the formation of two camps of disciples, tlie right pendently, outside himself, and alien to him, and that
and left Hegelians. While the right Hegelians saw in it stands opposed to him as an autonomous power. The
these teachings a powerful justification of existing in- lifewhich he has given to the object sets itself against
stitutions, the left Hegelians saw as Hegel's major him as an alien and hostile force" ("Alienated Labor"
achievement the undermining of traditional Christian- [1844], trans. Bottomore, p. 122). Because he is com-
ity, in particular of its dualistic separation of God and pelled to work at the command of others and in occu-
man, spirit and matter. Bnmo Bauer and Marx, who pations that exhaust and debase him, the laborer can
joined the group while a student, circulated what scarcely scale the Promethean heights of creativity and
purported to be an attack upon Hegel's atheism, self-determination Marx saw as within his capacity.
intending to demonstrate Hegel's true views. David It followed that Hegel's attempt to distinguish be-
Friedrich Strauss argued in his Life of Jesus (1835) that tween the state and civil society and to argue that
the biblical account of Christ was not to be taken as universal and particular wills could be reconciled in
literal fact but as a mythological reflection of an the state while civil society was left inviolate was only
incomplete stage in human consciousness, as Hegel had an attempt to evade the inescapable logic of the
suggested. Ludwig Feuerbach put the left Hegelian dialectic. The political economy of civil society
case more by contending that religion was

radically preciselv the subject Hegel exempt from
had sought to
simply a product of the mind of man. hi The Essence philosophic scrutiny — must and
be studied critically
of Christianity (1841) he described the idea of God the contradiction between the general good and the
as a projection of what was essential in human nature particular interest of the propertied exposed for what
"purified, freed from the limits of the individual man, it was.
made objective" (trans. G. Eliot, New York [1957], Ch. Marx saw clearly where this criticism would lead.
i, Sec. 2, 14). The idea of heaven was simply the oppo- Moses Hess had no trouble persuading him of the
site of all that was disagreeable in actual existence: ethical validitv of communism. In 1842 Lorenz von
"The future life is nothing else than the present life Stein explained French socialism as an ideological
freed from that which appears as a limitation or an outgrowth of the struggle for power within the "third
evil" (ibid., Ch. xviii, 181). estate" between the middle class and the proletariat.
Marx broke with the Young Hegelians because he At von Stein pointed out, was the control of
stake,
found their preoccupation with consciousness and the the democratic system thathad arisen out of the revolt
individual both narrow and reactionary. In The Hohj against absolutism. Marx himself observed, in a com-
Family (1845) and The Cennan Ideology (1845-46) he mentary on Hegel, that because the proletariat was
Bnmo Bauer and "Saint Max" Stimer
satirized "Saint '
effectivelv excluded from civil society, it was the class
for continuing to think only in terms of ideal or spirit- with the most compelling interest in the overthrow
ual freedom despite their rejection of traditional of that society. He took as his personal objective the
Christianity. Feuerbach had at least pointed in the task of providing the proletariat not simply with an
right direction by making it clear that man was the ideology but with a doctrine that would have the rigor
source and not the product of consciousness, that "man and status of science. Only if it had such a doctrine,
makes religion; religion does not make man" ("Critique he believed, could the proletariat develop confidence
of Hegel's Philosophy of Right "
[1844], trans. Bot- in the success of revolution and an adequate resistance
tomore, p. 44). Feuerbach showed how Hegelianism both to the seductions of bourgeois propaganda and
must be transformed, or redirected: "The criticism of the temptation to engage in premature revolts.
heaven is transformed into the criticism of earth, the Consciousness, alone, however, would not assure the
criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the triumph of the proletariat or the achievement of so-
criticism of theology into the criticism of politics" cialism as a result of its triumph. Proletarian con-
(ibid.). sciousness must be enhanced by revolutionary activity,
To make transformation was to criticize the
this or praxis. In such activity the proletariat would train
social conditions which Hegel and the Hegelians had, itself to perform its historical role until eventually it
in Marx's view, only rationalized. Whereas Hegel had would accomplish the real "negation of the negation."
defined alienation as God's estrangement from Himself, Alienated labor, itself a negation of human potentiality,
Marx redefined it as the estrangement of man from would be negated by the proletarian revolution. In the
his true or essential self and located the source of this fellowship of the revolutionary cause, the proletariat
estrangement in the relation of the laborer to the would experience the beginning of a return of its lost
process of production. "The alienation of the worker humanity. The establishment, of communism would
in his product, "
Marx wrote in an early fragment, make possible "the return of man to himself as a social,
"means not only that his labor becomes an object, i.e., really human being, a complete and conscious
assumes an external existence, but that it exists inde- return which assimilates all the wealth of previous 291
development" ("Private Property and Communism" the Communists, as the most advanced element of the
[1844], trans. Bottomore, p. 155). Communism could proletariat, the working class must rise up in response
not represent the final form of emancipation because to the ringing call with which the Manifesto closes:
it would still reflect a preoccupation, however nega- "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.
tive, with production and possession. Genuine freedom They have a world to win. Working men of all coun-
or humanism, as Marx also described it, would become tries, unite!" (p. 168).
possible only when life activity was no longer con- In much of his later work, notably in Capital (1867),
strained by the requirements of production or the which remained incomplete at his death, Marx labored
limitations of material scarcity. to explain in detail how capitalism had arisen and why
Marx came to a clear imderstanding of his own it must fail, paradoxically — and dialectically — as a
alternative to Hegelianism only gradually. At first he result of its vers' success. He drew upon the work of
collaborated with the Young Hegelians in editing lib- orthodox economists, including Francois Quesnay,
eral political journals in Germany. In 1843, compelled .\dam Smith, David Ricardo, and Jean-Baptiste Say,
to leave the country for his own safety, he went first as well as upon such critics of capitalism as Sismondi
to Paris, where he met Friedrich Engels, his lifelong and the British economists
John Francis Bray, John
collaborator, and profited from an exposure to French Gray, Thomas Hodgskin, and William Thompson. The
socialist thinking. Ex-pelled from France in 1845, he labor theory of value, which manv other writers, from
went to Brussels, and from there to London, where, Aristotle to Locke and Smith, had also used in one fonn
after 1849, he made his permanent home. In 1847, at or another, became a cornerstone of Marxian theory.
the request of the Communist League, which he and Labor, according to .Marx, was the sole source of
Engels were instrimiental in forming, he outlined his value. Capital, however, did not represent an accumu-
views in the single most inflammatory document of lation of individual labor. The "primary accumvilation"
nineteenth-centvu-y socialism, the Manifesto of the was a result of forceful usurpation. Although
of capital
Communist Party (1848). capitalproduced no value, to possess it in the form
In the Manifesto Marx summarized in bold and of means of production was to be able to draw profit
eloquent strokes the principal tenets of "scientific" from the labor of others. Profit represented the "surplus
socialism. The ponderous Hegelian and Germanic tone value" extracted from wage earners by capitalist
of the earlier writings pushed into the backgroimd
is exploiters, who paid the workers onlv enough to pro-
and replaced by a deceptively simple economic deter- vide them with subsistence and appropriated for
minism. iMaterial or economic conditions are said to themselves that portion of the workers' product above
be the main determinants of behavior and thought. what was required to maintain their subsistence. The
Changes in economic conditions lead to changes in the wage rate was kept at this low level because the con-
relations among the producers, who invariably form tinuous introduction of machiner\' resulted in an
antagonistic social classes. The ruling class's refusal to "industrial reserve army "
of the imemployed. In order
yield power compels its challengers to resort to violent to survive competition, however, each capitalist would
revolution. Continuous change is inexorable because be compelled to invest a part of his profits in machin-
history is governed by laws of movement arising out erv, or constant capital. Since machines could only
of economic necessity. Under capitalist organization, repay their cost but could add no value independent
the productive process reaches levels of size and inte- of what was produced by labor, the increasing propor-
gration at which capitalism itself, as a system of private tion of constant capital relative to variable capital, or
ownership, becomes obsolete and a "fetter" upon fur- wages, would inevitably lower the average rate of
ther growth. Small-scale enterprise yields to large profit. Furthermore, as mechanization resulted in
monopolies; society becomes increasingly divided into increased technological unemployment, the workers
only two classes — the bourgeoisie, in whose hands all would be unable to purchase what was produced. The
capital comes to be concentrated, and the proletariat, result would be crises of overproduction (or under-
the wage earners who have only their labor power to consumption), continually increasing in intensity, in
sell. The contradictions between capitalism and the which smaller capitaUsts would be wiped out and the
forces of production — the ensemble of technique and proletariat would suffer "immiseration." Final disaster
capacity — generate ever-deepening crises. The class might be postponed by imperialistic investments in
consciousness of the proletariat is strengthened as underdeveloped areas, where subsistence costs, and
workers are concentrated in large factories and as their therefore wage rates, would still be low enough to
conditions of life grow worse with every advance of provide a sufficient rate of profit. In time, nothing
Z\)A capitalist production. Finally, under the leadership of would avail: "The knell of capitalist private property
sounds. The expropriators are expropriated" (Capital. harsh conditions endured by factory workers, even
trans. E. and C. Paul, Vol. 11, Part 7, Ch. xxiv, No. 7). though in some respects they may have been an
The suppression of the revolutions of 1848 and 1849 improvement over rural poverty, were felt to be
was a disappointment to Marx and Engels but not a intolerable. Similarly, the democratic revolutions had
disilliLsionment. Much of their prodigious intellectual challenged the traditional belief that inequality and
energy in the years that followed was devoted to hierarchy were also necessary, whether because they
explaining the failure of tliese revolutions and to con- were divinely ordained or essential to order. Socialism
sidering the tactics and strategy of insurrection. They could be advocated as "the industrial doctrine, "
as
generally believed that revolutionary acts would not Saint-Simon described his system, and as the ultimate
succeed until the conditions were ripe and the class form of democracy, the most perfectly egalitarian, the
consciousness of the workers fully developed. They most truly libertarian.
opposed sporadic and untimely acts of terrorism or If conservatives saw in the new creed only the ulti-
coups d'etat, such as had been organized by Auguste mate form of mediocrity and mob rule and liberals only
Blanqui in 1848. They conceded, however, that both a revived and more bureaucratic state-worship, the
tactics and strategy must be a function of national socialists could respond that the society of the future
conditions. In England it was reasonable to work for would resemble nothing in actual experience and
the advance of socialism through parliamentary poli- therefore could not be judged by existing standards or
tics. In backward Russia, on the other hand, it might by the failure of previous experiments. To votaries of
be possible to leap directly from agrarian populi.sm to science, socialism made a special appeal. Saint-Simon
industrial socialism, without waiting for the develop- saw in "positive" science nothing less than the salvation
ment of a mature capitalism. of the modern world. Fourier compared his own
Marx and Engels also participated in the formation discoveries in psychology with those of Copernicus,
of the International Working Men's Association in Newton
Linnaeus. Harvey, and in the physical sciences.
186.3, hoping to establish their doctrine as the theoret- Marx was encouraged by the similarity between his
ical basis of the socialist movement, and vied for con- view of history as a progressive outcome of dialectical
trol of the International with Ferdinand Lasalle, the conflict and the Darwinian hypothesis of biological
German trade-union leader, and Michael Bakunin, a evolution by natural selection. In an age when science
Russian anarchist. Marx defended the revolt of the Paris was becoming an object of worship for the emanci-
Commune in 1871 in the name of the International, pated, socialism could claim to be the application of
even though he thought it premature, and used the science to the problems of society, with its own theories
occasion to expoiuid the need for a replacement of of motion, its own laws of inevitability, its own calculus
bourgeois parliamentarianism by a "dictatorship of the of motives, its own explanations of deviations and
proletariat" to direct the transition to socialism. This anomalies.
argument, in particular, was to have great force with To the yoimg, to the workers, to the socially rejected
Lenin and other practical revolutionaries who declared of all ages, all classes, all countries, socialism was also
themselves pupils of Marx and resorted to his works the revolutionary doctrine par excellence, far more
for guidance and vindication. enticing than natural-rights liberalism which, despite
At Marx's death in 188.3, socialism was still a mar- efforts to extend its viability as a doctrine of social
ginal, heterogeneous, and highlv fractious political reform, was badly tarnished because of its association
movement. As was firmly estab-
a theoretical cause, it with such causes as laissez-faire, the inviolability of
lished throughout Europe and beginning to win property rights, and die limitation of the suffrage to
adherents elsewhere. The broad appeal of the doctrine those meeting a property qifalification. The interna-
was no doubt due in part to the restatement of traditionalism of the doctrine appealed to some more than
tional socialist objectives in modern terms, not only to others, but it was not impossible to be both an ardent
by Marx but also bv Owen, Fourier, Saint-Simon, and nationalist and a socialist. The red banner borne by
Proudhon. These restatements were made possible and the socialists had first been raised in the French Revo-
given special resonance by historical circumstances. lution and it continued to exert a powerful attraction
Great advances in productivity due to increasing upon the romantic imagination, rekindling the age-old
industrialization made it obvious that for the first time longing for primal innocence and paradise lost with
in history there was no need to accept material scarcity a symbolism evoking images of fire and blood.
as an inevitable condition of social life. If scarcity was The revolutionary socialists were convinced, like the
imnecessary, so were grinding poverty and long hours prophets of millennium before them, that the apoca-
of labor for subsistence wages. For just this reason, the lyptic finale of history required a last cataclysmic 293
conflict between the and darkness. But

forces of light 1948). .\pocalvptic ideas and movements are examined in
all socialists how it was

could believe that regardless of N. Cohn. The Pursuit of the Millennium (London. 1957) and
to come about, the new society would make it possible J.

Taubes, Ahendlandische Eschatologie (Bern, 1947). G. H.
Williams, The Radical Reformation (Philadelphia. 1962)
for alienated man to recover his lost humanity. Neither
provides the most complete classification and history of the
the failure of premature and small-scale communitarian
leftwing of continental Protestantism. For the Puritan left
experiments nor initial departures from the ideal by
see D. W. Petegorsky, Left-Wing Democracy in the English
revolutionary regimes are considered grounds for
Ciiil War (London, 1940). See also G. H. Williams and A.
man," it is argued, can only be
despair. "Socialist Mergall, eds.. Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers (Phila-
expected to make his appearance and keep himself delphia, 1957) and G. H. Sabine, ed.. The Works of Gerrard
from becoming comipted when socialist institutions Winstatdey (Ithaca, N.Y., 1941). For Utopian thought see
are firmly and widely established. Like earlier ]. H. Ilexter, .Vfore'sThe Biography of an Idea
Utopia:
millenarians, modern socialists cling to the faith that (Princeton, 1952) and F. E. and F. P. Manuel, eds., French
once the soil is prepared, a genuine and lasting egali- Utopias (New York. 1966). For Babeuf see V. .\dvielle,
become Histoire de Gracchus Babeuf et du bahouvisme, 2 vols. (Paris,

tarianism will a practical possibility. Actual
1884) and L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democ-
experience, like pre-redemptive history in religious ].
racy (London, 1952).

doctrines, is thought of as a time of trial and testing
The best survey in English of the rise of modem socialism
when the work of preparation is to be accomplished.
is G. D. H. Cole, A History of Socialist Thought. Vol. I,
In this faith lies the essence of the socialist idea. The 789-1850 (London,
Socialist Thought: The Forerunners, 1
forms of thought in which it has found expression, 1953), which contains usehil bibliographic references in the
whether mythological, prophetic, Utopian, or scientific, notes. See also G. Lichtheim, 77ic Origins of Socialism (New
the disagreements over strategy between advocates of York, 1969), which includes a critical bibliography. See also
evolution and revolution, the policies that have in more A. E. Bestor, "The Evolution of the Socialist V'ocabulary,"
recent times been taken to separate orthodoxy from Journal of the History of Ideas. 9 (June, 1948), 259-302.
heresy, such as nationalization and collectivization, are For non-Marxian socialism in the nineteenth century see
all adventitious to the idea itself. The most essential Charles Fourier, Oeuvres completes. 6 vols. (Paris, 1841-45);
element of socialism — an element shared with democ- E. Poulat. Lev Cahiers mantiscrits de Fourier (Paris, 1957),
and other humanistic creeds — the

which includes a guide to studies of Fourierism; Oeuvres
racy, liberalism, is
choisiesde C. H. Saint-Simon, 3 vols. (Brussels, 1859);
moral conviction that universal autonomy is the highest
Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d'Enfantin, 47 vols. (Paris,
object of civilization. This conviction acquires a
1865-78); for Proudhon see C. Bougie and H. Moysset, eds.,
specifically socialist connotation when it is associated
Oeuvres completes, 21 vols. (Paris, 1923-61); and R. Owen,
with the viev\' autonomy depends upon an
that genuine A Sew View of Society (London, 1927). For biography and
equal distribution of the proceeds of industry. The commentarv see, for Fourier, F. E. Manuel, The Prophets
ultimate aim of socialism —
and the standard by which of Paris (Cambridge, Mass., 1962); Ch. V, and the notes
systems claiming the name mav properly be tested — is, contain a valuable critical bibliography.
in the words of Marx in the Manifesto, to create "an The complete works of Marx and Engels are available
association, in which the free development of each is in German as Werke. 39 vols. (East Berlin, 1961-68). Most
of these works, with the notable exception of the Grundrisse
the condition for the free development of all" (p. 153).
der Kritik der Politischen Oekonmnie and private papers,
are available in English. The editions cited in the text are
Communist Manifesto, introd. H. Laski, trans. S, Moore
BIBLIOGRAPHY J.
(London, 1948); Capital, introd. G. D. H. Cole, trans. E.

The relation of .socialism to the development of the idea and C. Paul, 2 vols. (London. 1930); T
B. Bottomore, ed.,
of equality is treated in S. .\. Lakoff, Equality in Political Marx's Early Wrt(ings (New York, 1964). See also Capital,
Philosophy (Cambridge. Mass., 1964). For comprehensive Vol. Ill, rev. ed. by E. Untermann (London, 1960). Capital
accounts of the development .of socialist thought see A. is also available in a three-volume edition, translated by
Gray, The Socialist Tradition (London, 1946); O. Jaszi, "So- Engels and Unterman (New York, 1967). The early writings
cialism," Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York, are also available in English in L. D. Easton and K. H.
1930), XIV, 188-212, which includes a bibliography. See Giddat, eds., Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and
from the second edition (New ftrk, 1968) articles by
also, Society (Garden City, N.Y., 1967).
Maurice Dobb, "Socialist Thought," under "Economic
SANFORD A. LAKOFF
Thought," IV, 446-54; Alfred G. Meyer, "Marxism," X,
40-46; Daniel Bell, "Socialism," XIV, 506-34. [See also Alienation; Christianity in History; Democracy;
The history of the concept of the "Golden Age" is treated Enlightenment; Equality; Historical and Dialectical Mate-
in .\. O. Lovejoy and G. Boas, Primiticism and Related Ideas rialism; Law, Natural; Liberalism; Marxism; Marxist
in Antiquity (Baltimore, 1935) and G. Boas, Essays on Revisionism; Millenarianism; Perfectibility; Primitivism;
294 Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity (Baltimore, Revolution; Social Contract; State; Utopia.]
—
SPACE
SPACE body, it lies in the astronomical universe of Ptolemy;

but as a geometrical object of mathematical design and
Introduction. Space is a conception of many aspects, purpose,it does not lie anywhere. In Archimedes, who,
—
and it has arisen under various names, appellations, insome respects was second only to Isaac Newton, the
—
and descriptions in different areas of cognition and mathematical constructs were placed in some kind of
knowledge: in cosmology, physics, mathematics, phi- metaphysical "Nowhere from which there was "No
"
"
losophy, psychology, and theology. Exit" into a mathematical "Future.

There are stirring philosophemes about space in the Such a background space was rather slow in coming.
Timaeus of Plato and the Physica of ,\ristotle, and they Thus, Nicholas Copernicus did not have it yet. He was
foreshadow our present-day space, or spaces, of labo- an innovator and not
in astronomical interpretation,
ratory and cosmos, of mechanics and physics, of worlds in mathematical operation. His mathematics was still
that are everlasting and stationary, and of universes largely Ptolemaic, and only a bare outline of a mathe-
that are born and grow, and perhaps even age and matical background space is discernible in his De revo-
collapse. But, as a rule, Greek thoughts about space lutionibus orbium coelestium. Nevertheless, already a
were only about space in cosmology and physics, and century before Copernicus, Nicholas of Cusa, church-
perhaps also theology; and seldom, if ever, did Greeks man, theologian, mystic, and gifted mathematician, in
compose a statement, or even an aphorism, about space Book II of his leading work Of Learned Ignorance (De
in any other area of insight. docta ignorantia), adumbrated an overall space of
Thus, the Greeks did not create a space of logical, mathematics by way of an overall mathematical
ontological, or psychological perception. There is framework for the space of the universe. But the lead-
almost nothing about space in Plato's Meno, ing statements of the metaphysics of Cusa were
Theaetetus, Sophistes, or Parmenides, or in Aristotle's enveloped in theology and mysticism and not very
De anima. or Metaphysica. In .\ristotle's collection of comprehensible to his contemporaries and to others
several treatises in logic, the so-called Organon. there after him.
is mention of space only once, in Chapter 6 of Categor- On the other hand, soon after the death of Coperni-
iue. It is not a "research' conception of space, but an cus, in the second half of the sixteenth century, some
indifferent schoolbook description of it, and Aristotle mathematicians began to grope for projective and
had no occasion ever to recall it. descriptive geometry, and this was bound to lead to
In modern philosophy, that is since 1600, any doc- a background space. It did, but only after two hundred
trine of perception since John Locke has dealt with years. In the meantime, in the first half of the seven-
space as a matter of course; and, within this general teenth centiu'y a background space for geometry was
approach, a monumental construction, which kept the created, for all to see, in La Geometrie (16.37) of Rene
nineteenth century enthralled, was the famed a priori Descartes. Half a century later, Isaac Newton in his
space of Immanuel Kant. In contrast, Greek philosophy Principia (1687), created an ambitiously conceived
knew absolutely nothing about an a priori space (and absolute space which was intended to be a background
time) of pure intuition as expounded by Kant in the space for mathematics, for terrestial and celestial me-
"Transcendental Aesthetics" of his Critique of Pure chanics, and for any space-seeking metaphysics.
Reason (I78I). It is true (see sec. 13, below) that in Newton even made it into a "Sensorium of God,"
psychology of the twentieth century the role of space, whatever that might be, and this aroused philosophical
as a primary datum, has greatly shrunk. But this passions which are still smoldering. A resulting corre-
shrinkage affected space in e.xperimental psychology spondence between Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Dr.
rather than in metaphysical perception, and a marked Samuel Clarke (for a spirited accoimt see Koyre,
difference between ancient and modern attitudes re- [1957], Ch. XI) is much prized for what it reveals about
mains. the philosophy of Leibniz. But it is less significant for
More conspicuous, and almost fate-sealing, was the what it reveals about the role of space in science.
absence from Greek thought of a general conception Beginning in the late eighteenth century, and
of space geometry and geometrically oriented
for through the length of the nineteenth century, mathe-
analysis. Greek mathematics did not conceive an over- matics developed a duality or polarity between space
all space to serve as a "background space for geo- "
and (geometrical) structure, by which, at long last
metrical figures and loci. There is no such background two and a half millennia after Thales of Miletus
space for the configurations and constructs in the mathematics became an artificer of space and spaces.
mathematical works of Euclid, Archimedes, or Apol- In the twentieth century this dualism of space and
lonius, or even in the astronomical work Almagest of structiu-e greatly affected all of theoretical physics. For
Ptolemy. When Ptolemy designs a path of a celestial instance, there would be no General Theory of Rela- 295
SPACE
tivity without it. In this theory, space is gravitational Long before it appears in Job. makom occurs in the
space; it is "curved," and thus endowed with 'form." very first chapter of Genesis, in:
This form is affected by the presence of gravitational

.\nd God said. Let the waters under the heaven be gathered
matter, which is the only kind of matter known to this
together unto one place (makotn) and the dry land appear,
theory. In this way, the theory establishes a novel
and it was so (Genesis 1:9).
intimacy between matter and space and between mat-
ter and form. An enthusiast might even declare that, This biblical accomit is more or less contemporary with
in this theory, matter is space (or form) and space is Hesiod's Theogony. but the makom of the biblical
matter. account has a cosmological nuance as no corresponding
In quantum theory, the de Broglie dualism of parti- term in Hesiod.
cles and waves offers a different version of the dualism Elsewhere in Genesis (for instance, 22:.3; 28:11;
of matter and space, since matter is liuilt of elementary 28:19), 7nakom usually refers to a place of cultic sig-
particles and waves are space-filling. .\lso, in quantmn nificance, where God might be worshipped, eventually
"field" theory, the field is highly mathematical through if not immediately. Similarly, in the Arabic language,
its conceptual provenance; and if mathematics is which however has been a written one only since the
equated with form, then a new version of the dualism seventh centiu-y a.d., the term makam designates the
of matter and form emerges. place of a saint or of a holy tomb (Jammer, p. 27).
In the sections to follow we will have many other Hebrew and Aramaic, in the first
In post-biblical
assertions and details. Each section will be headed centuries .^.d., makom became a theological synonym
either by a name for space, or by a formulaic descrip- for God, as expressed in the Talmudic sayings: "He
tion of space or of something resembling space. These is the place of His world." and "His world is His place"
appellations will be introduced roughly in the chrono- (Jammer, p. 26). Pagan Hellenism of the same era did
logical order in which they have arisen, and each not identify God with place, not noticeably so; except
appellation will be then followed up in its develop- that the One (to fr) of Plotinus (third century a.d.)
ment. Our first appellation will be a Hebrew term from was conceived as something very comprehensive (see
the Old Testament, which seems to be the earliest on for instance J.
M. Rist, pp. 21-27) and thus may have
record; and there is hardly another case from natural been intended to subsiune (iod and place, among other
philosoph)- in which the Old Testament fa.shioned a concepts. In the much older One of Parmenides
"technical" term ahead of the Greeks. (early fifth century B.C.), from which the Plotinian
1.Makom. Our term "space" derives from the Latin, One idtimatelv descended, the theological aspect was
and is thus relatively late. The nearest to it among only faintly discernible. But the spatial aspect was
earlier terms in the West are the Hebrew makom and clearly visible, even emphasized (Diels, frag. 8, lines
the Greek topos (towos). The literal meaning of these 42-49).
two terms is the same, namelv "place," and even the 2. Chaos. In a connected essay on space {Physica,
scope of connotations is virtually the same {Theol. Book 4, Chs. 1-5) Aristotle suggests (208b 29), rather
Worterbtdch .... 1966). Either term denotes: area, lightly, that Hesiod's "Chaos "
(x""') was one of the
region, province; the room occupied by a person or earliest (Greek) designations for space, or perhaps uni-
an object, or by a community of persons or arrange- verse, and he also quotes line 1 16 of Hesiod's Theogony:
ments of objects. But by first occurrences in extant "First of all things was
and next broad-bosomed
Cliaos,
sources, makom seems to be the earlier term and con- Earth." by etymology of the word Chaos,
It is true that
cept. .Apparently, topos is attested for the first time and in Hesiod's ovvn vision. Chaos does not actually
in the early fifth century B.C., in plays of Aeschylus represent space as we know it today (Kirk and Raven,
and fragments of Parmenides, and its meaning there pp. 27ff.), that is, space in a cosmologically articulated
is a rather literal one, even in Parmenides. Now, the imiverse. But chaos was destined, by future develop-
Hebrew book Job is more or less contemporary with ments, to have a certain relation to space, and it is
these Greek sources, but in chapter 16:18 makom this that .Aristotle's suggestion is hinting at. In fact,
occurs in a rather figurative sense: in many "creation myths," beginning with Plato's
Timaeus, there an initial phase of a "primordial
O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have
is
no place {makom). chaos," in which there is no ready-made space as yet,

but only a space in the making, and the structure of
Late antiquity was already debating whether this this space imfolds not by itself but conjointly with the
makom is meant to be a "hiding place" or a "resting structure of matter, energy, and other physical attri-
place" (Dhorme, p. 217), and there have even been butes. Greek natural philosophy in general knew about
suggestions that it might have the logical meaning of this initial phase, and, when in a mood of historical
296 "occasion," "opportunity." retrospection, viewed Hesiod's Chaos as an aspect of
SPACE
it. Aristotle's suggestion expresses such a view, in such tance, because, more than any other general concep-
a mood. tion from general philosophy, our conception of space
In present-dav cosmology there is an obvious need is just as much a biblical heritage as it is a Greek one
tor such an initial phase whenever a model of the (Jammer, Ch. 2; here the emphasis is on space in
vuiiverse, be it expanding or pulsating, has a .so-called theology).
"point origin," that is, a time point at which the radius 3. Cosmos. The term cosmos (Kooâo?) is Homeric,
R of the universe has the value O or nearly so (H. and classicists are studying it increasingly (even the
Bondi, pp. 82ff.). Or the point origin may be the time numerous bibliographical notices in Miss Jula
point of a "big squeeze" for all matter and energy, Kerschensteiner are not exhaustive). The basic meaning
in consequence of a "collapse" of a universe just pre- in Homer is "order, and throughout the length of
"
ceding (Gamow, p. 29). In either case, the resulting antiquity this original meaning remained active amidst
situation has been described by Arthur Eddington many figurative ones.
(1882-1944) thus: This "order" began to be "universe, "

by way of
"world-order," in the following saying of Heraclitus
If the world began with a single quantum, the notions of
of Ephesus (Diels, frag. 30):
space and time would altogether fail to have a sensible
meaning before the original quantum had been divided into This cosmos [kooiioi' roj'fif] did none of the gods or men
a sufficient number of quanta. If this suggestion is correct, make, but it always was and is and shall be; an everliving
the beginning of the world happened a little before the fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures (Kirk
lêginning of space and time {Lemaitre, p. 17). and Flaven. p. 199).
It must be stated though that there is a contemporary The association of this cosmos with "everliving fire,"
version of evolutionary theory in which there isno whatever that be, need not disqualify it from repre-
"point" origin, and a space is preexistent. It assumes senting cosmological space. In Albert Einstein's Gen-
that evolution began with a primordial plasma, or eral Theory of Relativity cosmological space is most
rather "ambiplasma" (H. Alfven, pp. 66ff.), that is with intimately associated with gravitation (Whittaker, Vol.
a huge mass of gas composed of various particles of 2, Ch. 5). Yet the nuclear stnicture of gravitation is
energy, matter, and antimatter, and filling a spherical so little known that a Heraclitus of today could not
volume of cosmic dimensions. Such a plasma is un- be silenced, or even gainsaid, if he chose to declare
stable. At some stage in the past a breakup set in which that gravitation is "everliving" and that "gravitational
led to the formation of galaxies, and this was the true waves" are alternately kindling and going out.
beginning of creation (ibid.). In this saving of Heraclitus, order is a principle of
In the Timaeus Plato imagined that Space, or rather. the universe as a whole, but long afterwards, in the
Place, was preexistent, together with Being and Be- logico-metaphysical outlook of Leibniz it is a schema
coming (52D), but that Time began when creation of the space around us. We quote.
began (38B). With this fancy Plato outdid himself.
Space is the order of coexisting things, or the order of exist-
Whatever the mode of creation, cosmologists agree
ence for all things which are contemporaneou.s. In each of
that there was an initial phase of "disorder," that is,
both orders — in that of time as that of space— we can speak
mathematically, of so-called turbulence. Greek natural of a propinquity or remoteness of the elements according
philosophers knew this, in thought patterns of theirs, tu whether fetoer or more connecting litiks are required to
fairlv early, certainly since Anaxagoras of Clazomenae discern their mutual order (Leibniz Selections, p. 202).
(500-428 and possibly since Anaximander of
B.C.), .When it happens that one of these coexistent things
. .
Miletus (610-545B.C.). As scientists sometimes do even changes its relation to a multitude of others, which do not
today, the Greek philosophers projected back this change their relation among themselves; and that another
primordial disorder as far as they could. This led them thing, newly come, acquire the same relation to the others,
as the former had; we then say it is come into the place

to attribute it to Hesiod's Chaos, and hence the famed
of the former; and this change we call a motion in that
"definition":
body, wherein is the immediate cause of the change (ibid.,
chaos: rudis indigestaqiie moles 251-52).
(chaos: a "rude" and "undigested" heap),

In these reflections of Leibniz there is even a conflu-
in Metamorphoses 1, 7 of Ovid. ence of two properties of space, of ordering and of

Ithas been noted long ago that Hesiod's Chaos, in relation; and the nearest to all this from classical
the light of later interpretations, brings to mind the antiquity is in the following passage from Aristotle:
tohu u-(i and void") of Genesis
bohti ("without form, This is made plain also by the objects studied in mathe-
1:2 and related biblical terms (see "Chaos" in Der matics. Though they have no real place they nevertheless,
Kleine Patih/, Vol. I, column 1129). This is of impor- in respect of their position relative to us, have a right and 297
SPACE
left, as ascribed to them onlv in consequence of their posi- infinitude of space, especially in its extra-rational
tion relative to us, not having by nature these various aspect,s,was a characteristic trait and a propellant of
characteristics {Plujsica 208b 23-24; Oxford translation). Western European civilization since the early .Middle
.\ges, and he somehow also interpreted the emergence
Among forerunners of Leibniz' ideas after Aristotle, of Gothic art and architecture as a response to this
if any, one might perhaps name the late Hellenistic hankering. This thesis, whatever its overall validity,
(or earlv medieval) Aristotle commentator Joannes does not properl)' apply to leading scientists (Bochner,
Philoponus (ca. 575). "For Philoponus conceives space Eclosion and Si/nthesis. Ch. 14). Most scientists, even
as pure dimensionality, lacking all qualitative differen- when adopting some features r' C-.mo's cosmology,
tiation" (M. Jammer, p. 55), and to him "space and were circumspect and restrained. In scientific cos-
void are identical," with "void being a logical neces- mology today, the Kinematic Relativity (J. D. North,
sity" (ibid., p. 54); and this creates a foretaste of Ch. 8) of Edward Arthur Milne (1896-1950) seems
Leibniz, perhaps. more compatible with Bruno's suggestions than other
4. Apeiron. The generic meaning of apeiron viable theories; but even in Milne the physical presence
{cfnetpov) is Infinity without a direct suggestion of space. of infinity is considerably more restrained than in
But the term has many connotations, and late tradition Bnmo's paradigm.
makes it likely that ."Vna-ximander, the younger com- 5. Kenan {"Void"). EarK' Pythagorean philosophy,
patriot of Thales, denoted by it a generative substance when still ingenuous, apparently identified space with
of the universe (Kirk and Raven, Ch. 3). If this was kenon [Kei'ov), which literally means "void." In fact,
so, then, in Ana.ximander's imagery, apeiron may have within his essay on the void in the Physica, .\ristotle
also been a part-synonym for space, since matter and has a passage about Pythagoreans which links kenon
space were probably proximate notions to him. with apeiron ("infinity"), pneuma ("breath"), ouranos
A token of this proximity is woven into the fabric ("heaven"), and arithmos ("number"):
of -Aristotle's Physica. Book 4 of this treatise is made
up of three essays, on place (Chs.
on void (Chs. 1-5),
The Pythagoreans, too. held that the void exists and that
breath and void enter from the infinite into the heaven itself,
6-9), and on time (Chs. 10-14). Now, immediatelv
which as it were inhales; the void distinguishes the nature
preceding these essays (Book 3, Chs. 4-8) is an essay
of things, being a kind of separating and distinguishing
on apeiron, as if to indicate that there is a close link
factor between terms in series. This happens primarily in
between infinity and space (and void). the case of numbers; for the void distinguishes their nature
In the seventeenth cenhiry, Baruch Spinoza went (Physica 4, 6; 213b 22-28; Kirk and Raven, p. 252).
philosophicall)' much farther, when, in his Ethics he
imparted infinity to Extension, that is, to space and This fascinating report must be allowed to speak for
to other attributes of his God (Wolfson, 1, 154). itself. Unlike some modern commentators, .Aristotle,
Before that, in the sixteenth century, Giordano Bruno very prudently, does not attempt to interpret it.
ecstatically fused space and infinity in an imbridled Otherwise, .Aristotle's on the void in the
essay
vision of infinitely many worlds regularly distributed Physica suffers from an incurable weakness. As always
over a wide-open Euclidean space (D. W.
all-infinite and everywhere, Aristotle maintains in this essay that
Singer, pp. 50-61). The cosmological facts were not a void cannot exist, and in the present context Aristotle
entirely new (ibid.), nor were they presented in ade- would really like to give a general demonstration for
quate detail to become meaningful as such, nor were this thesis. But this he cannot do. Such a demonstration
Bruno's insights greatly welcomed bv his contem- would require that .\ristotle first define his void
poraries. But somehow Bruno's outpourings made an logically, and then argue metaphysically that it cannot
impression, and they created and fashioned, or only exist. However .Aristotle finds it impossible to give a
activated, a philosopher's yearning for the infinitude logical definition of void that would not turn it into
of space, which played a leading part on the stage of a kind of space, or pseudo-space, or nonspace; and the
philosophy until well into the twentieth century. In intended demonstration of his thesis dissolves into an
a broad sense, the English philosophers Henrv More accumulation of remarks not easy to remember.
(1614-1687) and Richard Bentley (1662-1742) were It is true that present-day physics is also unable to
followers of Bruno (Koyre, Chs. 6-10), and so were define a void other than as a space devoid of matter
virtually all representatives of German idealism begin- and energy, say. But this is of no harmful consequence
ning with Immanuel Kant, or even earlier. as long as nobody asserts, and wants to demonstrate,
Oswald Spengler advanced the thesis (Decline of the that "a void cannot exist and nobody does.
";
West, Vol. 1, Ch. 5 and elsewhere), which probably 6. Non-Being. The concept of Non-Being (to jar) ov)
298 was not quite new either, that this hankering after the occurs freely in Parmenides, and is probably due to
"
SPACE
him. By an unimpeachable report in Aristotle's Mcla- physics," and also the creation of the corresponding
phijsica (985 b4) — which is reinforced bv a historical "galactic space" of cosmogony (Diogenes Laertius,
analysis in De generatione et comiptione (325 a2; Book Loeb edition, 2, 438ff.), they felt
IX, Chs. .30-.33;
Guthrie, 2, 392-94) — the Atomists Leucippus and "duty bound" to discourse also on the astronomy of
Democritus (fifth century B.C.), from their approach, the planetary system. About this they had nothing to
made Non-Being into an appellation for space, to al- say that was in the least interesting (Kirk and Raven,
ternate with, or be a replacement for kenon. They p. 412); and modern commentators since around 1900
viewed the relation between material atoms and their have not ceased to point this out. gratuitously.
spatial setting as a contrast between the full and the Chora and Topos. In Plato's creation myth in the
7.
void (to wATJpfs Kai to k£v6v), and expressed it as a Timaeus space-in-the-making, that is, space in its
duality between Being (to ov) and Non-Being. cosmogonic nascency and formation, is called chom
This duality, in a different outlook, had been created iXi^pa.), but after its creation has been completed it
by Parmenides. His Being, in fusion with Oneness and is called topos. In general usage, chora and topos have
Thought, constituted a universe of ontology. This uni- approximately the same range of meanings, but chora
verse, however ontological, was somehow also en- is used more loosely and informally, and it is less
dowed with physical attributes of a uniform finite specific than topos. "A locus in mathematics, that is,
sphere (aifalpa), and as such was continuous, indi-

it a figure which is determined by, or results from, specific
visible, unchangeable, and ungenerated and imper- requirements, became topos. not chora. In the Meteor-
ishable; whereas the Non-Being of Parmenides was only ologica, when Aristotle wishes to single out a geo-
an obverse of Being, vacuous of determination, a sham graphic district in a country, chora usually stands for
polarity as it were. Now, the atomists heavily country and topos for district" (Bochner [1966], p. 152).
emphasized the physical aspect of this Being. In their In De caelo Aristotle adheres to Plato's distinction,
atomistic conception, the evenly distributed Being was but since his account is less cosmogonic than Plato's
shrimk from continuity to discreteness and had become the occurrence of topos prevails. However, going be-
concentrated in discretely distributed atoms; and, by yond Plato, markedly so, .Aristotle also uses the name
the same token, Non-Being was metaphysically ele- of topos for an entirely different space, namely for the
vated to the all-important role of a spatial setting for space of physics proper, that is, for the operational
the atoms, without which the activities of the atoms space of "laboratory physics" of today. Nowadays it
cannot be imagined. is imperative that this space be kept distinct from the
The splendidly unchangeable ontological universe of space of cosmology, and Aristotle confused the two but
Parmenides the philosopher had of course nothing little (Bochner [1966], pp. 154-55).
whatsoever to do with the very changeable common Aristotle presents his "laboratory space "
in the spe-
universe of Parmenides the citizen, which constantly cial essay on topos in P]iijsica 4, 1-5. His leading asser-
exhibited changes of day-and-night, light-and-dark, tion is that in a scientific study of a physical system,
hot-and-cold, dry-and-moist, etc. Parmenides the space is not given as the spread across the system, as
philosopher knew this. But what he did not know was the naive view has it, but is given by the total structural
that philosophically he need not, and must not concern behavior as determined by the boundary configuration
himself with the vulgar imiverse of Parmenides the of the system; and Aristotle's first succinct definition
citizen, but that he ought to leave it in care of more is: "topos is the inner boimdary of what contains
practical (scientific) experts who knew something about (ibid.). When attempting to elaborate this first defini-
such "vulgarities." In.stead, Parmenides the philosopher tion into a detailed description, Aristotle encounters
considered himself "duty bound" to construct a complications which are intrinsic to the subject matter,
"model" of the other universe too, calling it, quite and he arrives at alternate descriptions which are
unrealistically, the universe of mere "appearance" seemingly not quite consistent with each other. How-
(doxa, Soia); which of course was the opposite of what ever, on closer analysis these inconsistencies can be
it really was. As could be foretold, the constniction reconciled (Bochner [1966], pp. 172-75).
turned out to be quite banal (Kirk and Raven, pp. Furthermore, it is important to realize that in
284-85), and late tradition has, mercifully, transmitted present-day physics the conception of space is prag-
but few original fragments of its description. matically used in alternate versions which are not
Even Leucippus and Democritus, great scientists identical and that no serious harm arises. Thus, (i) in
though they were, could not quite resist the tempta- engineering mechanics as taught in engineering schools
tions of having opinions on matters which others un- all over the world, and in large parts of so-called
derstood better. After having described, magnificently, "classical" mechanics and physics, space continues to
the workings of the "laboratory space" of their "atomic be Newtonian, that is Euclidean, as in Newton's 299
SPACE
Principia (i.e., Philosopliiue naturulis principid mathe- words of a present-day cosmologist; "It is theoretically
matica, London, 1687). But. (ii) the theory of single possible for an unboimded distribution of matter
. . .
electrons or other elementary particles — that is, the to have its circumference nowhere, and center every-
so-called quantum field theory — operates in the space- where" (G. ]. Whitrow, p. 43).
time of the special theory of relativity which is differ- ,\fter Cusa, Copernicus and Newton entertained
ent from the space-time of Newton's mechanics. How- thoughts that were consonant with his. Newton may
ever, (iii) in the physics of our galaxy at large (the have even been perturbed by the question (even if he
so-called Milky Way) and beyond, space is subject to would not admit to it) of how to extend the mathe-
the general theory of relativity; and most "models" of matical substratum of our solar system bevond itself,
the universe presentlv under examination are different in case some of the comets should move on hyperbolic
from the two preceding ones. Finally, (iv) the "statis- orbits, which are mathematically possible, but mathe-
tical" space of quantum mechanics may be viewed a.s matically are not contained within the substratum of
being different from, and thus inconsistent with any the planetary system proper (Bochner [1969], Ch. 141
"non-statistical" space, Newtonian or relativistic A version of Aristotle's problem arises in present-dgy
(Bochner [1966], p. 155). cosmology. In the general theory of relativity space
Of course, in physics of today there is, as has always is gravitational space and is thus largely deterinined
been, a great (|uest for consistency, imity, and harmony. by a distribution of gravitational masses. Now, if this
But, in any one science, the volume of knowledge is distribution is known and if the shape of the resulting
growing so fast and in so many subdivisions of the space is tobe determined, then, for operational pur-
science, and explanation is so far behind experi- poses, a background space, that is a kind of topos in
mentation that a detailed internal harmonization is not the sense of Aristotle, must be chosen a priori; and it
attainable. In particular, the concept of space is so would be desirable have a procedure for making
to
ubiquitous, and is reached by so many avenues and this a priori choice in any one given case.
channels, that it would be stifling and sterile to force 9. Ouranos. The word ouranos (ovpai'm) means
upon it metaphysically a single logical schema, which, heavens, and it is a keyword in De caelo. In the asser-
even if acceptable today, might become unsuitable tion that the world is finite, or rather in the arguments
tomorrow. that the "body (soina) of the world is finite, .\ristotle
8. To pan {"The all"). The Homeric term to pan u.ses either ouranos or to pan.
But he uses mainly
(to wni') occurs several times in .'\ristotle's De caelo, ouranos which in the Renaissance
in the speculation,
sometimes reinforced by to holon (to oXov; the Whole), brought down upon him much condemnatory criticism,
and its meaning is a near-synonym for the leading term that the heavens rotate around the earth in concentric
ouranos ("Heaven," "World"). However, in Phi/sica. spheres. He also uses ouranos in his beautifully
Book 4, Ch. 5, at the end of the essay on topos, to reasoned assertion that there is only one world {De
pan has a somewhat special connotation. There, Aris- caelo. Book I, Chs. 8 and 9).
totle raises the following question in a rumination of Ouranos is a word of uncertain etymology. It occurs
his: if one views the whole universe, to pan. not as in Homer and other ancient poetry and has there
a cosmic datum but as a plit/sical system however vast, always one complex meaning of "the region which
does it then have a physical topos, and how? (Bochner contains the stars and in which the phenomena of
[1966], p. 178). This is an intriguing question, and weather take place, a region which was personified and
various aspects of the question have been raised more considered to be divine or to be the dwelling place
than once since. of the gods" (L. Elders, pp. 140-41). It thus had a
Thus, Nicholas of Cusa. who had a mathematical well-established standing even before Aristotle put his
turn of thought, equated the would-be topos of the imprint on it. Yet, Aristotle made it the center of a
universe with a mathematical substratimi of it, and he system "which, although .\ristotle was a naturalist
asked, implicitly but recognizably, whether the uni- rather than a physicist, held the stage of physics for
verse, in a suitable substratum, might escape the almost two thousand years, and which, by its flashes
dichotomy of having to be finite or infinite. He divined of insight and uncanny anticipations, evokes fascination
that there are mathematical universes to which the even today "
(Bochner [1966], p. 178).
dichotomy does not apply (Bochner [1968], p. .325), 10. Spatium. This is the main term for space in
and he even knew that the space of the universe may classical Latin, and it has given rise to space (English),
be endowed with a mathematical homogeneity by espace (French), spazio (Italian), espacio (Spanish), etc.
which every point can be viewed as a center of it The common Teutonic stem ruum. which gave rise to
(Koyre, Ch. 1). Or, if we envi.sage not the underlying English room and German Raum. had no lexical spread
300 space of the universe but the matter in it, then in the of comparable compass.
SPACE
Within Western civilization, with .tputiiiiii. began a late Latin —

term extensio itself derived from the clas-
widespread imposition of the vocalnilary of space on sical verb extendere —
and it became a philosophical
the parallel conception of time. Thus Cicero uses the term in the Middle .'\ges. The exact philosophical status
expression spatiiim praeteriti temporis, in the meaning in the Middle ."^ges is not easy to determine, and this
of: "the space (i.e., interval) of time gone by," and his is due to a general difficulty which is tellingly presented
usage has the ease of a colloquialism. Furthermore, in the following passage from a book on Duns Scotus:
according to the Oxford £ng/t.s/i Dictionanj, the term
Thus the nature of Space is discussed with reference to
space in English had from the first, that is since around
transulistantiation and the nature of angelic operation,
1,300, two meanings, a temporal and a spatial, and the H'hile that of Time, though treated more thoronghh- and
Dktkmarij lists the temporal meaning first. A corre- at greater length in the De rcrum prinripio. is once more
sponding French Dictionary (Paul Robert, .3, 1703) also mooted in the commentaries on the Sentences in connection
lists both meanings for espace, and it observes that from with the angelic experience. Nor is this all. Our difficulties
the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries the temporal are increased bv the fact that the scholastic terminology
meaning was the leading one. Spanish and Italian is almost impossible to translate exactly. For spatial relations
are expressed in terms of accidetis. rcspccttts and funda-
dictionaries also have both meanings, and, according
menlum. all logical rather than mathematical symbols. In
to one of them, spazio occurs in a temporal meaning
fact, the entire phvsics of the medieval world reflects this
in the Ptirgatori/ of Dante and in a story of Boccaccio.
logical view of things so strange to our modern scientific
(Niccolo Tommaseo, Dizionario ilella /i)igi«; italiana.
modes of thinking (C. R. S. Harris, 2, 173).
Turin [1915], 6, 1.3.5).
Yet, two thousand years after Cicero, the fin-de-sieclc In philosophy after 1600, extension leapt into
philosopher Henri Bergson was able to build a career prominence when Descartes used it, together with the
and reputation on an intellectual opposition to the equivalent etendue, in his Philosophical Principles. Oc-
quantitative subordination of time to space (J. A. Gunn, casionally, Descartes writes espace for it, but only
Ch. 6). He was pressing his conceptions of duree, elan informallv, because formally espace is something else
vital, eiohitioii creatrice. etc. into a lifelong campaign for him. In fact, in La Geometric Descartes introduces
for reconstituting the data of human consciousness in an espace (qui a trois dimensions) as an operational
their original intuition that was free from the idea of background space for coordinate geometry in mathe-
space and from the scientific notion of time; and he matics, and this is the true role of espace in the thinking
was apparently greatly admired for this by many. of Descartes. Extension however is for him something
Bergson's finding, which so alarmed him, that time conceptually different, namely the space of physics and
is dominated bv space is not even correct. The true of the universe. In this role, extension is coextensive
fact is that both space and time are dominated by one with matter, certainlv with matiere subtile, and it is
common paradigm, namelv the mathematical linear the carrier of Cartesian vortices (Hesse, pp. 102-08).
continuum, which in the early part of Bergson's career .\fter Descartes, extension gradually diminished in
had jvist been perfected by Richard Dedekind and importance, or at least in prominence. In Spinoza's
Georg Cantor; and the seemingly spatial vocabulary Ethics it is "identified" with Spinoza's God (Wolfson,
is in fact a joint mathematical one. Aristotle in his Ch. VII), and it then occurs in Leibniz' reaction to
Phijsica, in the context of Zeno's paradoxes, had stated Spinoza {Leibniz Selections, pp. 485ff.). It still has a
over and over again, in words of his own, that there standing in the theory of perception of George
must be a common paradigm for space and time if Berkelev, Bishop of Cloyne (Jammer, p. 133) but after
there is be any conception of movement at all. .\lso,
to that it began to be a philosophical term of second rank.
for .\ristotle, movement in a broad sense, which he But the "subtle matter" of Descartes, which filled
termed kinesU,, separated the animate from the his exiension. maintained itself longer, although it had
inanimate, and without kinesis there would be no soul, already had a long career, starting out with the role
and thus no kind of consciousness or intuition. For of Aristotle's body (soma) which filled his topos. Philos-
Aristotle, space (and time) were features of what he ophers of the eighteenth century showed signs of tiring
viewed as "nature." He did not have a space (or time) of this "subtle matter," but, unperturbed by this, it
of perception, but he also could not imagine any kind somehow managed to become the front-page aether
of perception without a suitable kinesis, and for the of James Clerk Maxwell in the nineteenth century
latter (his) space and time, in coordination, were (Whittaker, Vol. Ch. IX). Only the early twentieth
1,
undoubtedly prerequisite. Whatever will endure of century finally sent it into retirement, but it took an
Bergson's philosophy, his opposition to a coordination Albert Einstein to bring this about.
of space and time will not. Instead of aether there are nowadays various "fields;"
11. Extensio. Our term extension comes from the gravitational field, electromagnetic field, fields of vari- 301
SPACE
ous de Broglie waves. The fields are dual to particles of this prerequisite, and following a general philo-
of matter or energy, and energy is equivalent with sophical trend of his age, he endowed his Euclidean
mass, so that a return to a "subtle matter" has been background space with extra-formal features of physi-
effected. Phvsics has but a limited budget of ideas of cal and metaphysical uniqueness and theological
cognition with which to operate, and the same ideas excellence, by which it became "absolute." These
are likely to return every so often for reassignment. extra-formal features are not needed for the deductions
12. Space of Perspective. The sixteenth century of the main results, and Newton discourses on these
created the space of standard (rectilinear) perspective features in supplementary scholia only (Bochner [1969],
for use in representational arts. This perspective was Ch. 12).
intended to secure a two-dimensional mimetic illusion In support of his contention that there is an absolute
of three dimensional actuality, and the central struc- space, Newton adduces two argimients (experiment
tural device for achieving this was the introduction of with two globes, and, more importantly, with the rota-
a "vanishing point" at infinitv. .\lso. this theory of ting bucket) which physicists find arresting even today,
perspective advanced the presumption that it created although the arguments do not demonstrate that there
the one and only space of "true" optical vision. is space which is absolute in Newton's own sense. In
It belongs to the history of art to determine the the Victorian era, the physicist-philosopher Ernst Mach
extent to which this presumption was or was not in his The Science of Mechanics . . . (Die Mechanik
heeded in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in ihrer Entwicklung; many editions and translations),
but it is a matter of public record that in the nineteenth which was composed from a post-Comtean positivist
century a school of French painting openly revolted stance of his age, was quite critical of Newton's argu-
against it. The leading revolutionary in the nineteenth ments and conclusions (Jammer, Ch. 5, esp. pp.
century was Paul Cezanne, and he replaced the space 140-42); but a recent reassessment by Max Born leads
by a space of illusion of his
of classical perspective to a balanced appraisal of importance (Born, pp.
own, which although not objectively fixed, was never- 78-85).
theless subjectively controlled. The twentieth century The opposition to absolute space by philosophers
went much further. Beginning with cubism, the visual began immediately with the Leibniz-Clarke corre-
arts began to take much greater liberties with space spondence (see Introduction, above), and has not quite
than Cezanne had ever done or envisaged, but this abated since. Yet the Encyclopedie of Diderot and
again is a topic for the history of art only. d'Alembert, imder the heading Espace (1755), pro-
13. Absolute Space. The sixteenth century also nounced the debate sterile: "cette question obscure est
initiated descriptive and projective geometry (J. L. inutile a la Geometrie & a la Physique" (Jammer, pp.
Coolidge, Chs. 5 and 6), and when, much later, in the 137f.).
nineteenth century, projective geometry was fully As a background for mechanics, Newton's Euclidean
developing, its unfolding was part of the creation of .space eventually evolved a variant of non-Euclidean
many novel structures, Euclidean and other (see sec. stmcture out of itself (Bochner [1966], pp. 192-201,
16, below). In tlie seventeenth century there were 338). In fact,one hundred years after the Principia.
remarkable achievements by Gerard Desargues, Blaise Louis de Lagrange in his Mecanique anahjtique (1786),
Pascal, and others. But after that there was a long when analyzing a mechanical system of finitely many
period of very slow advance, and non-Euclidean ge- mass points with so-called "constraints," introduced de
ometry, for instance, presented itself only in the nine- facto a multidimensional space of so-called "gener-
teenth century, although, by content and method, the alized coordinates" (or "free parameters") as a sub-
eighteenth century was just as ready for it. space of a higher-dimensional space. Implicitly, though
This retardation may have been caiLsed in part by not at all bv express assertion or even awareness,
Isaac Newton's insistence on the Euclidean character Lagrange endowed this space with the non-Euclidean
of his absolute Space (for other such retardations Riemannian metric which the imbedding in the higher
caused by Newton see Bochner [1966], pp. .346f.). In dimensional Euclidean space is bound to induce.
Newton's Principia. the program was to erect a mathe- Analysts in the nineteenth century knew this part
matical theory of mechanics, based on the inverse of the Lagrangian mechanics extremely well. This may
square law of gravitation, from which to deduce the help to explain why, for instance, Carl Jacobi showed
three planetary laws of Kepler and Galileo's parabolic no reaction of surprise at the news of the Bolyai-
trajectory of a cannon ball, all in one. Newton suc- Lobachevsky non-Euclidean hyperbolic geometry
ceeded in this endeavor, but virtually every step of around 1830; nor, apparently, did William Rowan
his reasoning required and presupposed that his imder- Hamilton ever mention it, or even Bernhard Riemann,
302 lying space be Euclidean. Newton was keenly aware who should have felt "urged" to speak about it in his
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greatmemoir on general "Riemannian" geometry, in problem did not move into an area of active attention
which non-Euclidean spherical geometry is adduced for another hundred years. But after Hermann Bondi
as a particular case. had dubbed the problem the "Olbers Paradox" it be-
14. Space of Perception. As already stated in the came generally known, among professionals at any rate
Locke led to the a priori
Introduction, the space of John (North, p. 18; Bondi, Ch. 3).
space of Immanuel Kant, which is a durable creation Specifically the problem is as follows. If, a la
indeed. But Kant unnecessarily (Spengler, I, 170-71) Giordano Bnmo we make the assumption that the
and imprudently fused it with Euclidean space; and universe is Euclidean and unchanging; that it houses
partisans of Kantdo not quite know how to disembar- infinitely many stars which, on a suitable average, are
rass themselves of the fact that mathematics of the uniformly distributed; and that the universe does not
nineteenth century constructed other spaces, and change in time, so that in particular it has "always"
phvsics of the twentieth century adopted some of these. existed in the past; then, by a simple calculation, the
In the first half of the nineteenth century, psychology total radiation energy reaching, at any time, a general
became e,xperimental psychology and broke away from point of the universe is not only not small, but is in
philosophy. This brought into being a space of psy- fact "infinitely large." Which means that imder these
chology and physiology to which the Victorian era was assumptions the sky would be just as bright by night
very attentive (H. Weyl, sees. 14 and 18). Thus, as by day. However it is not so, and we thus have the
H. L. F. Helmholtz investigated the mathematical struc- Olbers paradox.
ture of the space of experience under certain assump- In the calculation which leads
paradox most to the
tions of "free mobilitv," in his dual capacity of physicist of the energy comes from distant and the paradox stars,
and physiologist. will be overcome if a suitable change in the above
An
active preoccupation with the space of psychol- a.s.sumptions will imply that distant stars contribute
ogy continued into the beginnings of the twentieth little or no radiation (Bondi, Ch.
3). For instance, it
century. Thus, a two-volume treatise of the psycholo- suffices toassume that the universe has not existed
gist William James had a chapter (20) of 150 pages "always," but, on the contrary, has been created "rela-
on "the perception of space." But. not long afterwards, tively recently."
psychology began to lose interest in space as the .'\nother change of assumptions, a highly favored
Victorian age had known it, and all that it still wanted one, is the hypothesis that the universe is expanding.
to know about space were such un-Kantian topics as: The expansion produces the red-shift in the traveling
Visual angle. Monocular Movement, Parallax, Stereo- energy waves, that is a decrease of their energy. Very
scopic vision, etc. A very voluminous Handbook from informally it can be said that a fraction of the radiative
around mid-twentieth century (S. S. Stevens) devotes energy is absorbed by the space as "nutriment" for its
only .30 pages out of 1435 to the topic of space. growth, and that the fraction is the larger the more
15. The Night-Sky. At night, only our own sun is distant the source from which the radiation is emitted.
turned away from us, but all the other sims (that is Finally, the paradox can be overcome by the as-
fixed stars) of the universe shine upon us as by daytime. sumption that the stars, or rather the galaxies, are not
Yet, the night-sky is dark, meaning that only very little distributed homogeneously, but, on the contrary, are
radiation energy from all the other stars reaches us and concentrated in clusters, "hierarachically" so. Thus,
falls on our retinas. It is a leading problem about the between 1908 and 1922, C. V. I. Charlier advanced
structure of the universe to explain why this is so, that the hypothesis that there are clusters of galaxies
is, why and how so much radiative energy is "lost" (clusters of the first order), clusters of clusters (clusters
in space, as it appears to be. of the second order), clusters of clusters of clusters,
The problem was posed in the first half of the eight- etc. (North, pp. 20-22). This hypothesis is of interest
eenth centurv; first, somewhat casually, in 1720 by in our context because it revived a suggestion made
Edmimd Halley, eminent British astronomer, translator in theeighteenth centiu'y by the imaginative mathe-
of difficult works from antiquity, and personal friend matician and natural philosopher Johann Heinrich
to Isaac Newton; and then, quite formally, in 1743, Lambert in his Kosmologische Briefe . . . (1761).
by the youthful Swiss gentlemen astronomer Jean This "hierarchic hypothesis" does not have many
Philippe Loys de Cheseaux, owner of an observatory adherents, probably because it cannot be easily recon-
on his estate (North, p. 18). After that, most unbeliev- ciled with the so-called "Cosmological Principle"
happened. Then, in 1823,
ably, for eighty years nothing which is in great demand for applications. This princi-
the problem was stated anew, quite emphatically, by ple was expressly enunciated, and so named, by
the German astronomer H, W. M. Olbers. This stirred Edward Arthur Milne in the 1930's (North, pp.
up some notice, but not much, and, unbelievably, the 156-58), and it maintains rather broadly, and not too 303
SPACE
specifically, that the total cosniological picture of the no wise attempt to hide the numeri-
valuations, did in
universe, in its meaningful features, is independent of cal behind a facade of the descriptive, and some
the vantage point of the observer composing the pic- philosophers were puzzled and even dismayed.
ture. The principle is flexible in its specific formula- In the twentieth centurv Riemann became philo-
tions, and is in this way a great aid in speculative sophically luiassailable; and his status became enhanced
deductions (Bondi, C^h. 3). when geometry was elected to be the setting for
his
It also ought to be realized that if no radiation from the General Theory of Relativity, which filled philoso-
the stars were lost in space, ". . . no planet anywhere phers with awe. As if to make it quite clear who in
in the universe would be cool enough to permit bio- the past had been right and who not, die physicist and
logical life of any kind" (Coleman, p. 67), as we know philosopher Percy Williams Bridgman, in an introduc-
it today. tion to a 1960-reissue of the book by Stallo says that
16. Space of Geometry. The nineteenth century "the discussion of transcendental geometry is definitely
finally and fully created Euclidean space; and the ven- the weakest part of the book" (p. xxiii).
erable geometry of Euclid finallv acquired a space in In a sense, the most abstractly conceived general
which to hou,se its figures and constructs. As a mathe- space in the nineteenth century was the phase space
matical object. Euclidean space had already been of statistical mechanics, especially in the general ver-
clearly present in Descartes and very actively so in sion of Josiah Willard Gibbs. In the twentieth century
Lagrange. But only the nineteenth century created a this space developed into the infinitely dimensional
duality between Euclidean space and Euclidean struc- space of quantum mechanics, as a setting for its physi-
tiu'e, as a particular case of a general duality of "space cal states and statistical interpretations. This space is
and structure." In the twentieth centiu-y this general an outright intentional mathematical constniction,
mathematical duality conquered and captured basic piue and simple. Yet bv physicists' constant preoccu-
physics from within. pation with it, this space is gradually being transformed
Metaphysically this duality revealed itself with the from a tool mathematics to a "reality in nature,
in "
advent of the Bolyai-Lobachevsky non-Euclidean ge- if by "reality" we miderstand anything that evokes a
ometry in 1829-30; but mathematically it had mani- sense of being immediate, familiar, inevitable, and
fested itself before (Bochner [1969], Ch. 13), in the inalienable.
differentialand descriptive geometries of Caspar 1 7. Logical Space and World of Analytical Philoso-
Monge and the projective geometry of Jean- Victor phy. Georg Cantor, the creator of set theory, fruitfully
Poncelet; and it had been foreshadowed in the work applied his theory to what he termed "point sets, "
that
of Lagrange. is general aggregates of points in general spaces, and
A memorable event occurred in 1854 when Riemann he somehow began to view such an aggregate of points,
farsightedly set forth thisrenowned
duality in his as a "subspace of the general space and then as a
"
"Habilitationsschrift" (1868); and as an immediate ap- space in its own right. In consequence of this, in work-
plication of it he outlined the so-called Riemannian ing mathematics of the twentieth century, the concepts
Geometry, defining it as a duality between a general of "general set," "general point set, " and "general
manifold and a so-called Riemaimian metric. Leaping space" have gradually become nearly synonymous.
into the twentieth century, Riemann stated, in expres- Thus, in the theory of probability and statistics, a
sions of his, that a manifold is a space which is locally "probability space" is a general set in which, subject
Cartesian, so that in local neighborhoods it is deter- have been marked
to appropriate rules, certain subsets
mined by a system of ordinary real numbers as known off as "events." With each event there is associated
from ordinary mensuration. a probability value which is a non-negative real num-
Riemann's paper was published only in 1868, and ber between and 1, and the total set has probability
one of the first to plumb its depth was the philosopher value 1. If, in Aristotelian terminology, a general set
and mathematician William Kingdon Clifford. But the is a probability space not actualh/ but only polentially,
philosophers J. B. Stallo and Bertrand Russell (see that is, if tlie set is not given as a probability space
Bibliography) did not appreciate Riemann's visionary but is only supposed and expected to be one and is
thrust,and Stallo was almost abusively critical. Con- analyzed accordingly, then, relative to such an analysis,
temporary mathematicians were telling these philoso-
'
the general setis called a "sample space
phers that what distinguished nineteenth-century Such developments were not limited to mathematics
mathematics was the creation of projective geometry and science. Thus the Tractatus logico-philosophiais
in which the numerical and metrical aspects are some- (German edition 1918, first English translation 1922)
how derived from the descriptive and qualitative ones. of the linguo-philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein makes
oU4 Riemann, however, anticipating twentieth-century statements about a "logical space" [logischer Rawn),
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and, by the text of the Tractatus; this space is some testations notwithstanding —
but that he added logic as
kind of aggregate or congeries of logical entities like well, and that this logic, as a partner of physics and
"facts," "atomic facts," "states of affairs," "proposi- metaphysics, had an equal standing with them. It is
tions," etc. Some commentators of the Tractatus ascribe a fusion of logical ordering with metaphysical being,
to this space some specific structural features, but even and not some specific achievements in logical theory,
these features are not very geometrical in a traditional which makes Leibniz a precursor of anahtical philoso-
sense. The Tractatus also refers to a "world" or "uni- phy of the twentieth centmy, and which makes his
verse" {Welt). This universe has some ontological traits, universe of "monads," however permeated with meta-
and in a sense the logical space is but a background physics, congenial and even challenging to manv an
space to it. Nevertheless, the logical space seems to analytic "skeptic" of today.
be more primary than the world, inasmuch as the 18. The Expanding Universe. This thrilling epithet,
constituents of the world are only some kind of "picto- originallv I'expansion de I'univers, was created in
rial" representation of the constituents of the logical 1927 hv .\bbe Georges Edouard Lemaitre, and cos-
space. mology has not been the same since. There had been
The air of indeterminacy and vagueness which ad- models of an expanding universe earlier, namely since
heres to the notions of space and world in the Tractatus 1922 (North, pp. 11.3ff.), but thev were described in
is indicative of the fact that Wittgenstein was never words which had no appeal. However, an "expanding
greatly interested in these notions as such; in his later universe" caught everybody's attention, and Arthur
work, the linguo-analytical Philosophical Investigations Stanley Eddington soon began to write a book to fit
(1953), these notions hardly occur at all. Also, in the this title.
Tractatus Wittgenstein asserted, quite unnecessarily, Most cosmologists of todav aver that the universe
that his logical space is was simply a
"infinite"; this is expanding, meaning that the nebulae (that is,
standard philosophers' assertion since Giordano Brimo, galaxies) of the miiverse are receding from our galaxy,
and nothing more. This reduced interest in space was that is, are moving awav from our telescopes in their
not an innovation of lingiio-philosophers but was a lines of sight. By the Cosmological Principle (sec. 15
neo-Hegelian trend in which even "phenomenologists" above), if applicable, it then follows that any nebula
like Edmund Husserl shared. is receding from the others.
The ontological traits of the world of the Tractatus The evidence adduced is the so-called red-shift in
could be taken straight out of the universe of the (visible) spectrmn of a nebula, that is the displace-
Parmenides, which fused Being with Thought, and ment of the total set of spectral "lines of absorption"
added some dosage of Truth (Alctheia); e.xcept that the towards the "red" end of the spectrum and thus away
Tnith in Parmenides, although already "two-valued," from its violet end. Also, the redistribution of the
was still ontological rather than logical. But with re- spectral lines is such that it is possible to associate a
gard to the question of the size of the universe, well-defined positive real number with each nebula.
Parmenides made the splendid assertion, which beauti- On the assumption that the red-shift is caused by the
fully conforms with twentieth-century cosmologv, that "Doppler effect
so-called
"
—
which a.s.serts that a wave
his "sphere" is both "finite" and "complete" (Bochner, emanating from a receding source gains in wavelength
The Size of the Universe). This assertion of Parmenides in transit — this real number is proportional to the
was so subtle that even his leading disciple Melissus velocitv of the recession.
of Samos did not comprehend it at all, and to — Working entirely within our galaxy, and using the
.\ristotle's uncontrollable chagrin — made the universe Doppler effect in this way. Sir William Huggins had
infinite instead. The great handicap of Parmenides was, asserted already in 1868 that the star Sirius is moving
that, as a Greek, he did not have the concept, or even away from the Sun, and he calculated a velocity. The
percept, of a background space in his thinking. There- assertion was later confirmed and the velocitv found
fore he could not separate his universe into a "space" tolerably good (Coleman, p. 48). But only the twentieth
and a "world," and it is this which makes his fusion century was equipped to apply this spectroscopic pro-
of ontology with physics so puzzlingly "antiquarian." cedure to nebulae as a whole.
In developments since the Renaissance, the first The appears to be the greater the fainter
red-shift
aspects of a "logical" world are discernible in pro- and in 1929 this led the .\merican astrono-
the nebula,
nouncements of Leibniz, even in his pronouncements mer Edwin P. Hubble to suggest that the velocity of
about a world which purports to be a best possible recession of a nebula is proportional to the nebula's
one. The innovation of Leibniz was not at all that he distance from our galaxy (North, p. 145). This is a
fused physics with metaphysics this was done bv— renowned law, called "Hubble's Law." It also permits
everybody, even including Kant, his hottest pro- a rough estimate of the limit of the observable universe, 305
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and in 196.3 the universe was thus estimated to be about "our comer of the universe" may have some peculiari-
13 bilhon hght years (Coleman, p. 65). ties by which to explain certain occurrences that can-
In 1935 the British astronomer E. A. Milne gave an not be explained otherwise. Altogether it appears that
extremely simple derivation of Hubbies Law, within the meaning, history, origin, and past interpretations
a purely kinematic study of the motion of nebulae. He of the Cosmological Principle are still to be investi-
treated the assemblage of nebulae of the universe gated.
almost as if it were a large assemblage of particles
composing an expanding gas (North, p. 160).
It was this approach which suggested to Milne,
BIBLIOGRAPHY
justifiably, to expressly introduce his Cosmological Hannes .\lfven, Worlds-Antiworlds: Antimatter in Cos-
Principle (sec. 15). Before Milne, the principle used mology (San Francisco and London, 1966). Salomon
to be introduced, somewhat haphazardlv. as the occa- Bochner, The Role of Mathematics in the Rise of Science
(Princeton, 1966); idem, "The Size of the Universe in Greek
sion would arise; but in one form or another it had
Thought," Scientia. 103 (1968), 5n-.31; idem, Eclosion and
appeared in virtually every cosmological theory since
Synthesis (New York, 1969). H. Bondi, Cosmology, 2nd ed.
the beginning of the centurv (North, p. 1.56).
(Cambridge and New York, 1960). Max Born, Einstein's
Milne credited the Cosmological Principle to a re-
Theory of Relativity [190.5], revised ed. prepared with the
mark of Albert Einstein in 1931 that AUe Stellen des collaboration of Gimther Leibfried and Walter Bieni (New
Universums sind gleichwertig (ibid; "all the stars of the York, James \. Coleman, Modern Theories of the
1962).
universe are equivalent"), but philosophically the Universe (New
York, 1963). Julian Lowell Coolidge, A His-
principle had a long past. A certain version of it can tory of Geometrical Methods (Oxford, 1940). Der Kleine
be identified in utterances of Nicholas of Cusa Patdy, ed. Konrat Ziegler and Walther Sontheimer, 2 vols.
(Jammer, p. .54), and a rather explicit passage is the (Stuttgart, 1964; 1967; in progress). Paul Dhorme, Le livre
following: de Job (Paris, 1926). H. Diels and VV. Kranz, Die Fragmente
der Vorsokratiker, 6th ed. (Berlin, 1938). Diogenes Laertius,
The fabric of the world {machimi nuindi) will i/i/avi have
The Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 2 vols. (London and
its center everywhere and its circumference nowhere, be-
Cambridge. Mass., 1925). Leo Elders, Aristotle's Cosmology:
cause the circumference and the center are God who is
A Commentary on the De Caelo (.\ssen [Netherlands), 1965;
everywhere and nowhere (Koyre, p. 17).
New York, 1966). George Gamow. The Creation of the Uni-
This statement refers both to the universe and to verse, revised ed. (New York, 1961). J.
Alexander Gimn,
God. But long before Cusa there was a statement about Bergson and his Philosophy (London. 1920). W. K. C.
God only, namely that he is "a sphere of which the Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, 3 vols. (Cambridge
and New York, VoL 1, 1962; Vol. 2, 1965; Vol. 3, 1969).
center is everywhere, and the circumference nowhere"
C. R. S. Harris, Duns Scotus, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1927). Mary B.
(sphaerci infinita cuius centrum est uhique. circuni-
Hesse, Forces and Fields (London, 1961). William James,
ferencia nusquctm). The saying occurs
in the Book of The Principles of Psychology, 2 vols. (New York, 1890). Max
XXIV Pbdosophers, which appears to be a pseudo- Jammer, Concepts of Space (Cambridge, Mass., 1954).
. . .
Hermetic compilation of the twelfth century; but the Jula Kerschensteiner, Kosmos, {hiellenkritische Unter-
Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino attributes it suchungen zu den Vorôkratikern (Munich, 1962). G. S. Kirk
to Hermes would make the saving
Trismegistus, which and J. E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge
even older, however shadowy the figure of this Hermes and New York, 1957). Alexandre Koyre. From the Closed
may be (Yates, p. 247). World to the Infinite Universe (Baltimore, 1957). P. O.
On the other hand, long after Cusa, Johannes Kepler Kristeller, Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance
was opposed to a Cosmological Principle; or so it (Stanford, 1964). Johann Heinrich Lambert, Kosmologi-^che
Briefe iiber die Einrichtung des Welthaues (Augstiurg, 1761).
would appear from the following utterances of his:
Leibniz Selectiot^, ed. Philip P. Wiener, revised ed. (New
It will never be the case that the [starry heavens] would York. 19.59). Georges fidouard Lemaitre, The Primeval Atom
appear to those whom we may imagine observing them from (New York, 1950). Sir haac Newton's Mathematical Princi-
these stars as they appear to us. From which it follows that ples of Natural Philosophy and his System of the World,
this place, in which we are, will always have a certain trans, from the Latin (1687), by .\ndrew .Motte (1729),
peculiarity that cannot be attributed to any other place revised by F. Cajori (Berkeley, 19.34); the Latin title Philos-
in all this infinity (Koyre, p. 67). ophiae naturalis principia mathematica (London, 1687) is
frequently referred to as Principia. .Nicolas Cusanus [of

First impressions notwithstanding, it is possible that
Cusa], Of Learned Ignorance, trans. Fr. Germain Heron
this argument is only a special pleading for something
(London, 1954). D. North, The Measure of the Universe,
J.
like the uniqueness of life on earth, which in itself is A History of Moderit Cosmology (Oxford, 1965). Georg
not a contravention of the Cosmological Principle. Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, Ueber die Hypothesen, welche
306 Even cosmologists today sometimes contemplate that der Geometric zu Grunde liegen ("Habilitationsschrift"),
SPONTANEOUS GENERATION
Werke. 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1892). pp. 272-87; trans, as "On them in the dark. Aristotle's De generatione animaUum
the hypotheses which lie at the bases of geometry," in reflected the state of science in the fourth century, B.C.,
Wilham Kingdon CUiTord, Mathematical Papers (London, when it asserted that oysters, mussels, sponges, lice,
1882), pp. 55-71; trans, also Henry S. White, in David mosquitoes, flies, and some plants spring up directly
Eugene Smith, A Source Book in Mathematics (New York, from various organic or inorganic elements. Although
1929), pp. 411-25. J. M. Rist, Phtinus: The Road to Reality
spontaneous generation did not square well with his
(Cambridge, 1967). Paul Robert, Dictionnaire alphabetique
doctrine of causality, .Aristotle preferred not to ques-
et analogique de la langue franqaise (Paris. 1956), 3, 1703,
tion its factualness, but rather to view it as an
"espace". Bertrand Russell, An Essay on the Foundations
"equivocal" event which, lying outside the orderly
of Geometry (Cambridge, 1897). His (rather mild) criticism
of Riemann is on pp. 32 and 67ff. D. \V. Singer, Ciordano processes of nature, understandablv produced "imper-
Bruno: His Life and Thought (.New York, 1950). Oswald fect" creatures. Pliny's Natural History indicates that
Spengler, The Decline of the West. 2 vols. (New York, 1926, knowledge about the subject had not improved notice-
1928). ]. The Concepts and Theories of Modern
B. Stallo, ably by the first century, a.d. It informs us that worms
Physics (New York, 1881 and 1884); a reissue, ed. Percy W. and caterpillars are begotten from dew on cabbage-
Bridgman (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), Ch. XIV. S. S. Stevens leaves, house-flies from wet wood, maggots from rot-
Handbook of Experimental Psychology (New York, 1951).
ting flesh, moths from woolens, anchovies from sea-
Theologisches Worterbuch zum S'euen Testament (1966), 8,
foam, mice from river-mud, etc. General as distinct —
187-208, esp. 199ff.
matics and
Hermann Weyl, Philosophy of Mathe-
Natural Science (Princeton, 1949). G. J.
Whitrow,
—
from scientific literature, expressing more faithfully
popular beliefs, offered a greater number of species
The Structure and Evolution of the Universe (London, 1959).
Edmund Whittaker, A History of the Theories of Aether and imagined to be born spontaneously, and the cases that
Electricity .... 2 vols. (London, 1951-54). Harry ."Kustryn it described were often more fantastic. Among the
Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza. 2 vols. (Cambridge, favorite substances held capable of engendering life
Mass., 1934). Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the were wood, animal-hairs, filth, excrement, stagnant
Hermetic Tradition (Chicago, 1964). water, dried sweat, paper, and the carcasses of large
SALOMON BOCHNER beasts. This last categorv in particular inspired some

curious and stubborn illusions during antiquity, for
[See also .Astronomy; Cosmic Images; Cosmology; Creation;
example, that putrefaction generates hornets in dead
Pre-Platonic Conceptions; Pythagorean . . . ; Relativity;
horses, wasps and scarabs in asses, scorpions in
Time.]
crocodiles, locusts in mules, and bees in oxen. On
occasion, vertebrates were more implausiblv included
among such productions, as seen in the notion that
frogs came from rainwater, or serpents from the mar-
row of the human spine! The available evidence shows
SPONTANEOUS GENERATION that, while spontaneous generation was unanimously
accepted as a natural principle in Greco-Roman times
Spontaneous generation is the idea that life is derived and was invoked regarding many species, there was
from any source other than an already existing, little agreement concerning the specific cases, or the
genetically related parent organism. Its two main ver- actual manner, in which it was assumed to take place.
sions will be further defined as abiogenesis, or the By its very character, such an idea was bound to un-
production of living things from nonorganic matter, dergo arbitrary metamorphoses and applications.
and heterogenesis, or the rise of living things from A special version of spontaneous generation, of far
organic matter, both animate and inanimate, without greater interest in the long run, is found in the specula-
genetic resemblance or continuity. tive tradition, launched by the Ionian cosmogonists,

The idea of spontaneous generation was no doubt that dealt with the original formation on earth of all
first suggested by universally inaccurate observation of living things. Anaximander and ,\naximenes supposed
how certain "lower" types of life appeared in such that, in the beginning, every species had sprung into
environments as soil, water, and especially in decaying existence from the slime of primordial seas mider the
organic substances. From a popular opinion seemingly vivifying action of heat and air. This doctrine of an
confirmed by daily experience, it passed into ancient initial abiogenesis was modified by Empedocles, who
Greek science with only a modicum of examination. taught that all creatures had evolved gradually from
As a rule, classical thinkers tended to attribute to chance combinations of the four elements constituting
spontaneous causes of one kind or another the propa- the whole of nature. Similar opinions concerning the
gation of all those vegetal and animal species about emergence of men and animals from the "womb of
whose sexual history the difficulties of investigation left earth," or from a primeval slime warmed by the sim, oO I
—
found a logical place within Epicurean philosophy. no essential conflict between an original spontaneous
Lucretius no doubt summed up accurately this impor- generation of all species and the biblical teaching of
tant aspect of atomism, when in De rerum natura he their creation by God; on the contrary, the divine fiat,
sang of how "Mother Earth" had long ago, while in in the absence of pre-existing parents, was the equiva-
her prime, created all plant and animal species, lent of a spontaneous origin. Centuries later, Thomas
including man himself, immediately out of her own Aquinas was also able to find a place for spontaneous
substance — a creative power of which, in her tired old generation in the all-embracing architecture of his
age, some remained in the similar generation
traces still Scholastic theology. It was not, in fact, until the
of certain low forms of life. Eyen tliough the thesis Enlightenment that, in very different intellectual cir-
of a materialistic origin for all beings drew "empirical" cumstances, the contradiction latent in the naturalistic
support from the opinions then prevalent about the as opposed to the Scriptural meanings of creative
spontaneous generation of many extant species, this spontaneity came finally to the fore with far-reaching
widespread and naive belief in biological spontaneity consequences.
was itself less the result of naturalistic than of animistic Unhindered by Christian dogma and enjoying the
habits of thought. It remained, at any rate, consonant endorsement of the greatest scientific and philosophical
with the relative unawareness in antiquity that all minds of antiquity, the doctrine of spontaneous gener-
processes in nature obey strict and uniform laws of ation lost none of its appeal and credibility during the
physical change. The idea of spontaneous generation Middle Ages, and indeed not until the seventeenth
will therefore go logically unchallenged until the time century. During the Renaissance, aided by the resur-
when, by virtue of the seventeenth-century revolution gence of animistic theories of nature, it reached, if
in science, nature will finally be stripped of its animistic anything, a high point in its fortunes. ,\mong those
qualities and mysterious powers, and will be envisaged at the time whose writings lent positive support to the
as a system of exacth' determined relations between doctrine were Paracelsus, Ambroise Pare, G. Cardano,
cause and effect. A. Cesalpino, and Francis Bacon, .\ttesting to its
Despite its antireligious uses in Epicureanism, spon- prevalence toward the end of the sixteenth century,
taneous generation incurred no special disfavor with G. della Porta's Magia naturalis. a widely read
the establishment of Christian theology. Because it was compendium of scientific knowledge, viewed sponta-
commonly regarded as a natural fact, the Church Fa- neous generation as an unquestionable reality, and
thers, far from condemning it as impious, were inclined based the discussion of on a long list of authorities
it
instead to adapt it to their own ends. Lactantius, for —

even the most improbable extending far back into
example, adduced it as a proof of nonse.vual procreation antiquity. Van Helmont w;is perhaps its most extraor-
in nature against those pagans who doulited the physi- dinary exponent well into the seventeenth century: a
cal possibility of the virgin birth. Saint Augustine, in scientist otherwise deserving of posterity's respect, he
whose City of God spontaneous generation was turned was convinced that vermin were engendered by their
to exegetical account, played a major role in its hosts, and that frogs, snails, shellfish, and the like, were
"christianizing." He sought to render more credible produced by the stagnant odors of marshes. One of his
the story of Noah's ark by pointing out that it had recipes for the fabrication of living creatures is well
been imnecessary to include among the species known: putrid rags stuffed in a container together with
assembled therein "very minute creatures, not only wheat-grains will, iifter twent\' days, give birth to mice!
such as mice and lizards, but also locusts, beetles, flies, It is noteworthy that mitil that late period those treat-
fleas, and so forth" because, in order to perpetuate all ing the subject did not, as a rule, trouble to make any
forms of life after was no need for
the Flood, "there theoretical distinction between abiogenesis and
those creatures being in the ark which are born without heterogenesis, it being apparently just as easy for them
the union of the sexes from inanimate things, or from to imagine the sudden emergence of life from such
their corruption." The broadening of this notion per- inorganic substances as mud or water, as its nonrepro-
mitted Augustine to answer another objection regard- ductive derivation from organic matter, whether living
ing the historical truth of the Deluge, voiced by those or dead.
who did not quite see how the account of the animals But along with the persistence of age-old errors, the
preserved on Noah's ark could explain their subsequent early seventeenth centiu'v witnessed new developments
distribution in remote islands. He suggested, among in science — particularly
growing resolve to observe
a
other ways in which they might have gotten there, that directly and experimentally the world of nature
"they were produced out of the earth as at their first which were to lead to the eventual rejection of sponta-
creation, when God said, Producat terra animam neous generation, at least in its traditionally gross sense.
308 vivam." In the Augustinian synthesis, there was thus Sir William Harvey's Exercitationes de generatione
animalium (1651) may be said to have represented the was owing not only to the value of his experimental
modern outlook. From numerous experiments on the proofs, but also to the fact that, at the time he adduced
mechanics of reproduction in various animal species, them, the traditional belief had already become, under
he drew conclusions epitomized by the celebrated the impact of revolutionary advances in natural sci-
dictum: Omne vivum ex ovo. Despite this reassuring ence, an obvious anachronism.
formula, however, Harvey did not categorically aban- Among those who, subsequently, contributed to the
don spontaneous generation, vague un-
for his rather further discrediting of spontaneous generation was the
derstanding of both "ovum" and "omne vivum" pre- great entomologist, Jan Swammerdam (1637-80). His
vented him from breaking with the still current belief investigations of gall-insects, completed by Malpighi
in the rise of certain lower forms of life from putrefac- and Vallisnieri, resulted before long in ruling out any
tion. Yet Harvey's ovist theory, together with the heterogenetical explanation of such plant parasites. His
exact — and exacting — method in physiology that he minute anatomical descriptions made it clear, more-
himself did so much to accredit, posed the problem over, that even the "vilest" insects exhibit marvelously
of generation in a new light by making paramount the intricate structures which render the chance of their
discovery of the "eggs" belonging to each animal spe- spontaneous origin almost as nonexistent as that of the
cies. His dictum thus inspired the researches of most highly organized animals. Impressed to the point
Francesco Redi, who confirmed its truth on a radically of awe by the precise structural determinateness of all
wider scale. living things, Swammerdam went in fact to the oppo-

Redi' s Esperienze intomo alia generazione degVinsetti site extreme of doubting the even of
possibility
(1668) is the earliest known attempt to subject the idea epigenesis. His theory of preformation, which postu-
of spontaneous generation to an empirical critique. His lated that all reproduced life must already have "pre-
experiments, of a lucid simplicity, were concentrated existed" morphologically in the parental seed, then
—
on the case of the fly an insect almost unanimously succeeded so well that it dominated, in one version
held to spring from corruption. He showed that when- or another, biological thinking for a century to come.
ever a sample of organic matter, such as meat, was Under the impact of preformationism, and of the rigid
protected from its surroundings by a gauze cloth, it criteria of mechanical regularity and fixity that it
failed to produce the familiar maggots, regardless how introduced into the entire theory of generation, the
rotten it became. Redi perceived that, under those outmoded belief in the spontaneous emergence of life
circimistances, flies left their eggs on the gauze now seemed, for most biologists, to contradict the
covering, and he inferred correctly that the maggots miiversal laws of nature.
which ordinarily appear in putrescent substances are But concurrently with these developments, which
nothing but the larvae of flies hatched from eggs promised to consign spontaneous generation to the
deposited bv their parents. Redi did not repeat his limbo of pseudoscientific fables, the discovery by
experiments with every other insect believed to origi- .'Vnthony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) of the world
nate as spontaneously as the fly, for he apparently did of microscopic organisms initiated, eventually if not
not consider it necessary to do so. On the force of the immediately, an altogether new phase in the survival
Harveyan axiom, omnia ex ovo, he assumed analogic- of the doctrine.The founder of protozoology was him-
ally that what was tnie of flies must hold tme for other opposed to the notion that his "animalcules"
self firmly
insects, all of which, in his opinion, reproduced their could have arisen from the putrefying matter that made
kind regiJarly by means of eggs, laid often in places up their usual environment. Having noticed the con-
likely to mislead people into thinking that putrescence jugation and fission of protozoa without, however, —
as such has generative powers. Nevertheless, Redi did interpreting the phenomena properly — Leeuwenhoek
not apply the analogy in a wholly consistent manner. imagined that their offspring must result, as in the case
The doctrine of spontaneous generation exercising a of more visible species, from copulation. Nevertheless,
vestigial influence over his mind, he hesitated to con- the multitudes of micro-organisms appearing, after
clude from his discoveries that it must represent in fact only short intervals, in originally lifeless organic
something biologically impossible. Instead, he con- infusions gave the impression of having spnmg into
tinued to accept a limited type of heterogenesis being from nowhere. Because the rate of their
literally
pertaining to the presumed production of gall-insects multiplication was so different from the normal rhythm
from living plant tissues and of parasitic worms by the of reproduction, it seemed plausible to suppose that
host organism. Notwithstanding such exceptions to the some extraordinary cause might be at work, such as
rule, Redi's rejection of spontaneous generation won a transmutation process in organic matter itself. But
rapid approval and brought about a general reversal if the early progress of microbiology served thus to
of scientific opinion on the subject — an outcome that reshape the idea of spontaneous generation into that 309
of microcosmic heterogenesis, it should be stressed that day. Not only did Buffon, who had collaborated on
the technical inability, in the seventeenth and eight- the same experiments, champion the new version of
eenth centuries, to ascertain the modes of protozoic spontaneous generation, but he made it the theoretical
reproduction did not lead to the revival of the idea cornerstone of his own doctrine of "organic molecules,"
on the same uncritical footing that it had known in by means of which he hoped to replace with an
the pre-Redi past. Under the new scientific goal of epigenetical account of reproduction the misguided
extending to biology the same uniformity of principles preformationism still very much in vogue. Needham's
and operations that already typified physics, it was opinions promoted, moreover, a trend toward natural-
more commonlv assumed that micro-organisms must ism in biology, which, like other facets of eighteenth-
reproduce their own kind by processes similar to those centur\' philosophy, set itself in sharp opposition to
of the larger species. It seemed on the whole doubtful modes of thought Unked with traditional metaphysics
that a mere difference in size could alter the mechanics and theology. The most striking example of this was
of generation. Furthermore, the determinism that given perhaps by Diderot, whose Rive de d'Alembert
mechanistic science introduced into the conception of (1769) used the idea of spontaneous generation as a
nature made the notion of "spontaneity" itself seem logically indispensable ingredient in its atheistic specu-
specious. To this added the popularity

should be lations about the evolutionary origins of living forms.
enjoyed, in the first half of the eighteenth century, by The theme of spontaneous generation became in the
various "theologies of nature," whose authors, seeking French Enlightenment an ideological bone of conten-
to identify the mechanically ordered cosmos with the tion between materialists and antimaterialists, with a
providential designs of God, came to believe that deist such as Voltaire heaping ridicule on Needham's
nothing expressed so well such a harmony in creation "eels manufactured from paste," and "orthodox" biolo-
as the preformationist view of the origin of all life. gists such as Reaumur, Haller, and Bonnet forcefully
In the perspective of this natural theologizing about resisting the natiu-alistic tendency of Buffon and certain
the basic problems of biology, the ancient idea of of his followers.
spontaneous generation took on, for the first time, In 1765, Lazzaro Spallanzani denied the hetero-
unorthodox implications and became charged with a genesis of infusoria in his Osservazioni microscopiche
naturalistic and impious potential —a fact that will concementi il sistetna della generazione di Needham
explain its special role in the Enlightenment. But while e Bujfon. By subjecting his predecessors' experiments
the great majority of scientists, until around 1750, were to stricter control, he perceived that whenever a flask
cautious enough — in both science and religion — to containing an organic infusion and some air was
disavow heterogenesis, the question as to how the hermetically sealed and thoroughly heated, it produced
"animalcules" actually came into e.vistence remained, no organisms. He reasoned that Needham's infusoria
in an empirical sense, quite undecided. were the result less of spontaneous generation than of
Such was the context of the problem when Jofin imperfect sterilization. But while Spallanzani's
Needham's New Microscopical Discoveries (1745) inference was altogether valid, it proved impossible,
announced that tiny eel-like creatures could be given the limitations of experimental technique at the
engendered from blighted wheat-germs placed in time, to satisfy his critics. The latter objected that his
water. Although what he had noticed on this occasion experiments were inconclusive because excessive
was only the vivifying of a type of nematode worm heating of the infusion-vial had vitiated chemically its
deposited originally in a dry and motionless state contents of air and organic matter, rendering them
"within the "flower" of certain grains. Needham's later unfit to engender or sustain life.
memoir ("Observations upon the Generation, Com- Owing to this impasse, biologists remained at odds
position, and Decomposition of Animal and Vegetable concerning the spontaneous generation of microzoa
Substances," 1749) defended heterogenesis on clearly until aroimd 1860, when Pastern- came to the problem
different and more far-reaching grounds. It was from his interest in the biochemistry of fermentation,
claimed that microscopic organisms can be obtained which could not be properly investigated without first
spontaneously from various infusions prepared with understanding the origin and role of the varieties of
mutton-gravy, macerated seeds, etc. Needham believed micro-organism present in fermenting liquids. Pasteur
that he had taken every measure necessary for steriliz- perfected the type of experiment already performed,
ing and isolating his culture-media. In reality, his though indecisively, by Schroeder and Dutsch, and
methods of boiling and sealing the contents of his vials thereby ascertained that sterile culture-media remained
left much to be desired. But erroneous as they were, indefinitely free of microscopic life provided that the
his observations had a considerable and in some re- — "chemically unaltered" air with which they were
310 spects positive —
impact on biological science in his brought into contact had all foreign particles carefully
filtered out. From these facts he concluded that the of animated earth./ From Nature's womb the plant
micro-organisms appearing after a time in sterile or insect swims,/ .\nd buds or breathes, with micro-
infusions, and which by their multiplication cause the scopic limbs. "
Following Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck's
latter to ferment or putrefy, come not from any vital Philosophic zoologique (1809) had forged the link be-
force in deteriorating matter, but from contamination tween a specific theory of evolution and the notion
bv "germs" floating generally in the atmosphere. The that physicochemical forces continue even now to
panspennist theory was further confirmed by the inge- produce spontaneously such nidimentary organisms as
nious experiments devised by John Tyndall to prove infusoria and algae. Lamarck contended that, whereas
that e.xposed infusions of sterile organic matter fail to at present those forms of life classed above the most
produce bacteria when surrounded b\' optically pure elementary level reproduce themselves sexually, they
air.Nevertheless, in the famous debate between had all in effect evolved long ago from undifferentiated
Pasteur and F. A. Pouchet, the latter rested his case prototypes which Nature, as always, is able to bring
on two lengthy books, Heterogenie, ou Traite de la forth "directly. "
In a similar vein, but reminiscent also
generation spontanee (1859) and Nouvelles experiences of the early Greek cosmogonies, Lorenz Oken (1779-
sur la generation spontanee et la resistance vitale 1851) proposed the hypothesis of an Urschleim, or
(1863), that described in detail numerous experiments primary organic substance, from which the evolution
having results opposite to those obtained b\ Pasteur. ofall species had begun presumably in the seas, and
The fact that Pouchet and his co-workers, in perform- which even now, according to him, gave rise to such
ing essentially the same experiments as Pasteur's, simple creatures as protozoa. Thus, during the first half
consistently observed bacterial growth under condi- of the nineteenth century, the belief in spontaneous
tions where their great critic could discover none, was generation served to promote, as it had in the previous
probably owing less to their lack of laboratory skill century, an evolutionary conception of nature.
than to their preference for cultures (such as hay- On this aspect of the question, Pasteur's disproof of
infusions, where the spore of the hay-bacillus can heterogenesis was not altogether decisive and was, in
withstand the prolonged action of boiling water) which part, to be counterbalanced on a more theoretical
could not be completely sterilized by the methods then plane by the success of Darwinism after 1859. The
in use. The Pasteur-Pouchet controversy of the 1860's general acceptance of organic evolution on firmly
also had some ideological echoes reminiscent of the scientific grounds strengthened the assumption that the
eighteenth century. But if materialists and anticlericals first step in the ascent of life must have been, once
—
tended, once again, to approve whilst the religious geological conditions permitted it, the formation of
party (which included Pasteur himself) continued to some sort of primordial protoplasm from essentially
—
oppose spontaneous generation, this remained a quite physicochemical causes — causes which, moreover,
secondary aspect of an issue that was eventually settled might conceivably still be active, although much
according to strictly scientific considerations. The attenuated, in the current state of the globe. Such
banishing of heterogenesis from microbiology and the speculations received sensational support when, in
resultant recognition that micro-organisms, like all the 1867, investigation of the Atlantic floor brought to light
more visible forms of life, are reproduced only by their the mysterious Bathybius, an amorphous gelatinous
own kind, made possible the establishment of bacteri- substance thought to be a sample of free-living, basic
ology as a precise science and its revolutionary appli- protoplasm. Although this and subsequent claims of a
cations in immunology and in the treatment of infec- similar kind all turned out, of course, to be erroneous,
tious diseases. Since then, whenever new experimental and despite the fact that before long protoplasm was
claims have been made contrary to the law of bio- recognized to be, not a stable homogeneous mass at
genesis, such as those of H. C. Bastian in the 1870's, all, but a highly organized dynamic system in even the
it has always been possible to show, simply by improv- simplest cells, evolutionists could not but continue to
ing upon Pasteur's classic methods, that spontaneous suppose that some type of original living entity, even
generation does not in fact occur. if no longer extant, had been constituted chemically
But if Pasteur and his followers disposed finally of in the remote past before evolving into the complex
heterogenesis, this did not really check the career structures now fovmd everywhere on earth. Among
in the modem age of another version of spontaneous those who, in one way or another, affirmed such a view
generation — that connected with the problem of of archebiosis were Huxley, Pfliiger, Le Dantec, Ver-
on our planet.
arcliebiosis, or the first origins of life worn, Leduc, etc. In this form, moreover, the idea of
In the Temple of Nature (1802), Erasmus Darwin had spontaneous generation was assimilated logically to
set to verse his ideas on the subject: ". without . . monistic or materialistic tendencies of thought. For
parents, by spontaneous birth,/ Rise the first specks example, the later editions of Ludwig Biichner's Kraft 311
STATE
unci Staff (1855) cited the autogenesis of life as evidence BIBLIOGRAPHY

that the inherent energies of matter had alone brought
Horacio Damianovich, La Doctrina de la generacion
all things into existence. Ernst Haeckel, in particular,
espontanea; stt evolucion y estacio actual (Buenos Aires,
gave crucial importance to the concept of an initial 1918). Jose Godoy Ramirez, "El origen de la vida. Evolucion
abiogenesis in the synthesis he effected between Dar- de las doctrinas abiogeneticas." Estudio, 31 (Barcelona,
winism aiid naturalism. Positing a fimdamental unity 1920), 3.5.5-9.3. Edmund von Lippmann, Urzeugung, und
between the realms of animate and inanimate matter, Lebenskraft; zur Geschichte dieser Pwbleme voti den dltesten
he attributed to certain protoplasmic compounds, be- Zeiten an bis zu den Anfdngen des 20. Jahrhunderts (Berlin,
lieved by him still to occur in nature from spontaneous 1933). Jean Rostand, La Genese de la vie. Histoire des idees
chemical reactions, the formation of monera, that is, siir la generation spontanee (Paris, 1943).
In English: Eldon Gardner, History of Biology, 2nd ed.
of what he considered to be theoretically the most J.
primitive individual organisms.

{.Minneapolis, 1965); Charles Singer, A History of Biology,
rev. ed. (New York, 1950).
The status of the idea of spontaneous generation has
not changed radically in the present century. It is true AR.\M VARTANIAN
that the idea came into discussion again during the (See also Biological Conceptions in Antiquity; Evolution-
1920's and 1930's as a result of some puzzling aspects ism; Inheritance through Pangenesis.]
of virus behavior; but subsequent study of the subject
made it plain that, while vinises increase by a uniquely
parasitical process in host-cells, a pre-existing virus is
necessary to the production of new ones. Our period

has also seen various explanations proposed regarding THE STATE
the manner in which life first appeared on earth, among
others that of its chance occurrence from the 1. The idea of the State has been under heavy criti-
polymerization of amino acids into biogenic protein cism during the last decades. Historians tend to con-
compounds. But, for obvious reasons, such conjectures sider the State a comparatively modern phenomenon,
have not been verifiable. Life has not yet been while some political scientists, for different reasons,
chemically synthesized in the laboratory, despite reject the notion altogether as useless and out of date.
theories about how it might have been synthesized in Now, if it is certainly true that "States" have not
the beginning by natural agents. Biogenesis — or the always existed, it is equally true that they have existed
rule that new reproduced bv a pre-existing
life is long before being called by that name. We may hesitate
parent — remains valid without exception, at least on to attribute State character to the tribal organizations
it is difficult to imagine how that could
our planet. Yet of primitive peoples. But who could honestly deny that
always have been the case. The idea of spontaneous the Greek polls was, in more than one sense, a State?
generation thus persists, as an inescapable adjunct of What then is needed, in order to write the history of
organic evolution, in the postulate that transitional the concept, is to consider the reasons which prompted
prototypic modes of life once arose abiogenetically, its appearance, i.e., both the peculiar experience and
perhaps in different geological epochs and in more than the particular ideal which it was devised to express.
one place, and flourished over the long spans of time According to a widely held opinion the merit — if
required for the development of self-reproducing ge- it be one — of first having brought into the limelight
netic mechanisms. Beyond such a hypothesis, sponta- the idea of the State belongs to the ancient Greeks.
neous generation remains a purely speculative possi- It is difficult to see how this opinion can be seriously
bility. There is, for example, no categorical proof that challenged; indeed, many reasons can be given for the
it is not still going on, either in its primordial or in special relevance given to the idea of the State in
a modified phase, somewhere on
That such a earth. classical Greek thought. The first and foremost may
process has not yet been observed anvwhere might be well be a psychological reason, linked to a typical bent
attributed to its extreme infrequency, or to the imme- of the Greek mind. The same desire for knowledge
diate destruction of its products by other living things. which inspired the Greeks in submitting to rational
Nor can either abiogenesis or heterogenesis be excluded enquiry the nature of the world that surrounded them
a priori with respect to some ultra-virus-like, or as yet was reflected in their attitude towards social and polit-
totally unknown, entities occupying a subvisible or ical problems: they were a source of endless discussion,
molecular level of life between the inorganic and or- indeed of passionate controversy at times. But along-
ganic worlds. In this special sense, the idea of sponta- side this almost natural predisposition, there are otlier
neous generation survives today mainly as a temptation reasons which account for the keen interest of the
312 to expand or transcend the limits of biology. Greeks in the problems of the State. They are to be
STATE
found in the particular character of Greek pohtical were certainly not lacking among Greek writers.
tics
experience, with its complex variety, its very in- The importance of force was not overlooked: might
stability, and its constant flux. Here was something indeed seems at times to be conceived as equivalent
entirely different from the closed and static social to right, especially in what we now call "international
systems of the East. Here too was a mine of information relations." Thus doubt could arise about the origin of
to exploit, of data to compare, in order to elicit the political power: however great the benefits which the
basic laws of political development, centering around existence of the State entailed, how could this existence
the most efficient, the most elaborate, and the most be explained? Was it grounded on reason or force, on
"perfect" type of human organization: the organization nature or convention? The question, which the Sophists
of the polis or city-state. asked, simply could not be raised so long as the State
Most efficient, elaborate, and perfect: thus did polit- was conceived (as it was by Plato and Aristotle) as the
ical organization appear to the Greeks: different not necessary complement of man. As the bearer of the
only quantitatively, but qualitatively, from all other highest values, the State stood in no need of any further
types of organized social life. Thus when .Aristotle says, legitimation.
at the beginning of his Politics, that the polis or politi- Turning from the Greeks to the Romans, we find
cal association is "the most sovereign and inclusive the restricted vision of the city-state gradually
association," he immediately adds that it is not size broadening out into that of a universal empire. We
nor numbers alone that distinguish political power also find a new and quite different emphasis on law
from all other powers that men exercise over men, but as the constituent element of the State. Last, we find
a peculiar quality which that power possesses, a par- that the State it.self is no longer a bearer of ultimate
ticular aim which it pursues: the attainment of justice, values. It is, rather, nothing but a means for obtaining
that is, between men ensuring
of a system of relations certain ends. Cicero's treatment of the problem in his
certain standards and determined by law. De re publico is particularly significant in this respect.
The idea of the State thus appears to be inspired The accent is here shifted from the goal to the structure
from the start by the awareness that, among all human of the State: it is partnership in law {consensus iuris)
associations, there is one that stands out for combining, and not common interest alone (utilitatis communio)
however differentlv in proportions, might, power, and that makes a people into a State {res publica). There
authority: might, in order to be able to defend itself exists, in any political community, a supreme power
from outside dangers and to impose upon its members, [summa potestas) from which law emanates. In turn,
if necessary, conformit)' by force; power, insofar as that this "positive" law is subordinate to, and conditioned
force is exercised in the name of and in accordance by, the respect for a higher or "natural" law which
with certain rules; authority, inasmuch as that power expresses the supreme values of justice and does not
should be considered legitimate and entail an obliga- vary from city to city, but remains "eternal and un-
tion on those who are called to obey its commands. changeable valid for all nations and for all times."
. . .
These three properties have been stressed differently The idea of law was thus definitely inserted in the
over the centuries. The types of organizations which idea of the State —
from which it was not to be dissoci-
possessed them have varied, and have been called by ated again for many centuries. Indeed, the Roman
different names. But such diversity is no excuse for lawyers of the Imperial ."^ge developed still further the
overlooking what they had in common, for it is pre- legal theory of the State by singling out, among the
cisely these common elements which have gone into innumerable rules that determine human conduct,
forging the idea of the State. those particular rules which define the use and the
2. To the Greeks, the benefits to be obtained by distribution of power in the community. They gave
means of the State were of paramount importance and these niles a name, public law (ius publicum). These
such as fully to justify its power. Greek political expe- rules expressed, in their view, the very essence of the
rience, at least in the classic age, was summed up, as State — the status ret publicae. Yet on the other hand,
we said, in the polis, the city-state: a small territorial while contributing so decisively to the analysis of
unit leading a precarious existence among a number power, the Roman lawyers bear witness to the radical
of rival cities and increasingly threatened by the ap- change that had occurred in the general view of life
pearance of new and larger types of States. Yet, in the and of the role which political institutions play in it.
Greek view of life, this small and exclusive concern The contrast between nature and convention has now
was the very embodiment of perfection. Aristotle sums become the basic assumption of political theory. And
up that view when he says that in it, and in it alone, the State, like law itself and all other institutions that
can man realize the "good life" and achieve the fulfill- contradict or limit the "natural" equality and liberty
ment of his nature. More pessimistic views about poli- of men, had to be justified either by explaining its origin 313
—a
STATE
or by making it an instrument for the attainment of mark in tracing elsewhere the substance of the "State,"
particular values. Both philosophy and religion were even though they did not yet dispose of the proper
athand to provide the necessary ingredients. The State name for indicating it. Nothing is more interesting than
would appear for many long centuries during the Mid- to watch the efforts they made to grasp the essence
dle .^ges as a consequence of and a remedy for sin. of the new political reality which was beginning to
3. But was there a State, and if so, where was it take shape during the last centuries of the .Middle Ages.
in the Middle Ages? J.
N. Figgis's famous dicta are They were helped in doing so both by the inheritance
still repeated after more than half a century: the State of Roman legal concepts and by the rediscovery of
in the Middle Ages might have been "a dream, or even Aristotelian political thought which took place towards
a prophecy, it was nowhere a fact. . . . The real State the middle of the thirteenth century; indeed, it is
of the Middle .\ges in the modern sense if the word — difficult to say which of these two influences was more
is not a paradox —
is the Church. The State or . . . decisive. From their study of Roman law, medieval
rather the civil authority was merely the police de- writers derived the idea that what distinguished the
partment of the Chiu'ch." Such sweeping judgments State from all other associations was the existence of
are alluring and stimulating; but they rest on a gross a supreme, "sovereign" power, of a "will that legally
oversimplification of facts. If we do not let ourselves commands and is not commanded by others." They
be hampered by the confusing terminology, we can fm-ther derived the distinction between public and
find in medieval sources, at any rate since the turn of private law, which enabled them to overcome the
the millennium, a clear awareness of the distinctive personal concept of power that was inherent in
features of political experience and a growing effort feudalism, and to understand adequately the legal
to find appropriate names for tlie particular associa- structure of the State. To Aristotle, on the other hand,
tions in which these features appear. Thus, in medieval medieval political theory was indebted for an entirely
political language cii:itas usually referred to the city- new vision of the value and dignity of political life.
state which flourished in various parts of Europe, and No longer would the State be conceived merely as
more particularly in Italy. Regnum was used to de- poena et remedium peccati ("the penalty and remedy
scribe the territorial monarchies in process of formation for sin"). Henceforward its authority would rest on
from the close of the high Middle Ages onwards. rational, positive grounds. Such views worked havoc
Respublica was reserved in most cases for describing with the old idea of the unity of the respublica
a wider community, the respublica Christiana, which Christiana. A plurality of separate communities — of
united all believers in one sheepfold. The angle of civitates et regna — had already in fact taken its place.
vision determined whether that commimity was the The character of perfection, self-sufficiency, and sov-
Empire or the Church. ereignty could be ascribed to each of them individually.
There is no denying that, among these different types But for the name, the modern idea of the State was
of social organization, the medieval Church was the at hand.
one which preserved and presented most clearly two 4. There is a widely held opinion that the chief merit
of the features which we have listed as distinctive of for having definitely fixed and popularized the modem
the State. With its claim to supreme jurisdiction — meaning of the term "State" belongs to Niccolo
jurisdiction imiversally accepted throughout Christen- Machiavelli. This opinion is certainly in great measure
dom — the Church could imdoubtedly appear as the justified, but it should not be accepted without some
highest earthly power, the moderator and source of reservations. In fact, the word Stato had certainly
all law; while authority, almost by definition, was the entered the Italian vocabulary of politics before
essential attribute of its spiritual rule. But the medieval Machiavelli's times. And even by Machiavelli the word
Church avoided most cases the direct use of might
in was still used in different meanings which can be traced
effective enforcement and sanctions in temporal to preceding linguistic usage. The word itself, philolo-
matters — and would in fact have been unable to exer- was derived from the Latin term status,
gists tell us,
cise it except in its own small territorial domains. a neutral expression meaning the condition or way of
When, at a certain comparatively late date in history, existence of a thing. As such, it could be used also to
the ambitious Pope Boniface VIII (1294-130.3) pro- describe the condition of a person (it still survives in
claimed and even tried, as other popes before him, to that sense in English: e.g., status, estate) and that of a
establish the universal lordship of the Church over the class (as in the phrases the "Estates of the Realm," Etats
whole world, the attempt ended in lamentable failure. generaux. Tiers Etat). A more strictly political use of
Had the attempt succeeded, then, and only then, would the word was the one we have already encountered
the Church have become a State. in the Roman sources, where status rei publicae is used
314 Medieval political writers were much nearer the to indicate the legal structiue of the community: it
—
STATE
is from here, very probably, that the Itahan word Stato Discourses on Lioy that the importance of sound legal
is derived. Even so, however, the word was not entirely institutions (buoni ordint) is adequately stressed, and
devoid of ambiguitv, since we find it used indiscrimi- characteristically enough, the reference is to the
natelv to indicate both the actual exercise of power Roman republic of old and only cursorily to contem-
the goverruiient —
and the people or the territory over porary Europe.
which that power was exercised. 5. It is to a French writer, Jean Bodin, that we must
If we keep all these different usages in mind, we turn for an analysis in terms of law of the pohtical
are not surprised that Machiavelli should not always experience which Machiavelli had considered in terms
be coherent in his use of the word "State." \\\ the of force alone. was a matter of making good that
It
meanings we have listed so far can be traced in his claim to independence of individual States which, as
works, sometimes even within the same context. In Tlie we saw, marked the end of the medieval idea of the
Prince, however, where Machiavelli's language and respublica Christiana. It was a matter also of defining
style are more plain and direct, and less hampered by exactly the nature of the power which, within its terri-
literary tradition than in most of his other writings, torial boundaries, represented the cohesive element of
we find the clearest evidence of the final adoption of the State. Bodin's chief merit was to coin an appro-
the term "State" to indicate an independent orga- priate name for that particular element which, from
nization endowed with the capacity for exerting and the legal angle, was the distinctive attribute of the
controlling the use of force over certain people and modern State. Others before him — the Roman lawyers
within a given territory. It is in this sense that the word particularly — had already noticed that what gives po-
came to be inserted in the political vocabulary of all litical power its special characteristic is the use of force
modem some European countries
nations, although in in the name, or on the basis, of law, i.e., of a binding
it had to compete with other terms derived from earlier standard of regular procedure; and hence they had
usage, or transferred from Latin to the vernacular. Thus proceeded to identify the ultimate location of that
for example, commonwealth in English and repiiblique power from which the law emanates, the summa
in French continued to be favored for a while, and potestas "which legally commands and is not com-
were no doubt much closer to the Latin respublica than manded by others." Bodin called this power sover-
"State." It is only with Hobbes, always very careful eignty, and with the help of this concept he set out
and precise in his use of words, that we find the three to unravel the nature of tlie State with a precision and
terms, civitas, commonwealth, and State, definitely clarity that have left a lasting mark on subsequent
equated. No doubt, in the course of the centuries that political theory.
followed Machiavelli and Hobbes, the notion of the Sovereignty is, according to Bodin, what distin-
State was going to be enlarged and enriched with many guishes the State from any other kind of human associ-
new elements. The most important of all was perhaps ation. This means that it is neither size nor might that
the idea of nationality, which provided an emotional coimts on the international plane: a State remains a
basis for the new Nation-state. In view of the passionate State as long as it is sovereign. It also means, on the
appeal to Italian patriotism which closes Machiavelli's internal plane, that social standing is irrelevant to the
short political treatise, many authors are inclined to impersonal bond of subjection that ties the citizen to
consider him also on this count one of the forerunners the sovereign. Sovereignty determines the structure of
of the modern idea of the State. the State; it may be exercised in different ways accord-
In Machiavelli's thought, however, the idea of the ing to the variety of governments, but it is basically
State was bound to be deeply influenced by his sharply unitary and indivisible. Whether in the hands of one,
pessimistic and realistic view of human nature in poli- of a few, or ofmany, sovereignty remains qualitatively
tics. Force, and force alone, was to him the constituent the same, for entails the monopoly of power
it power —
element of the State. Indeed, force seems to be not in the sense of control and creation of law and not —
only the condition of existence, but also the ultimate only of factual supremacy and independence.
justification of the State, since it is force that in the Thus was Bodin paving the way to the modem
long run creates authority. Machiavelli had primarily conception of the State as the supreme arbiter of
before his eyes the petty Italian tyrannies of his day, —
human life the conception which finds in Hobbes's
which had no solid foimdation in old loyalties, and Leviathan (1651) its completest expression. Non est
where the only element of cohesion was the virtii of potestas super terram quae comparetur ei ("There is
the leader, the Prince, and his ability in wielding effec- no power on earth that compares with him"): the words
tive control of both internal and external matters. from the Bible (Job 41:33, Vulgate version) with which
Hardly any mention is made of law in Machiavelli's Hobbes inscribes his great work sum up most concisely
short political treatise; it is only in the much lengthier what was henceforth to be the claim of the State over 315
—
STATE
both individual and society. No doubt the model which altogether too difficult to find in Machiavelli a clear
Hobbes provided was bound to be corrected and awareness of bonds which prove even stronger than
modified in many ways, and even in part discarded, the iron hand of the ruler, and make for the willing
in the course of the centuries. Hobbes taught, with subservience of the citizens to the State. Such are
Bodin, that sovereignty could not be divided. But he sound institutions, love of liberty,
traditional loyalties,
overlooked Bodin's important distinction between the patriotism; and even where, as in the Italy of Machi-
location and the exercise of power. Later political avelli's davs, such precious goods were irretrievably
theory, without abandoning the idea that sovereignty lost or conspicuously absent, there still remained (ac-
is the exclusive possession of the State, emphasized the cording to Machiavelli) as a possible ju.stification of
different wayswhich the power of the State can
in the rule of even a Caesar Borgia — the benefits which
manifest itself and be brought to bear upon its subjects, stable power entailed: imion. allegiance, and peace.
and thus developed the doctrine of the division of Machiavelli, the theorist of force, certainly deserves
power which has become the mainstay of the modern to be remembered among the earliest "political scien-
notion of the constitutional State. Hobbes further detached and objective analysis of political
tists" for his
conceived State-law as the only possible type of law, phenomena. But he should also be given a place among
and he was certainly right in maintaining that the political philosophers, were it only because he was
jurisdiction of the State is supreme within its own keenly aware that force is not enough, and that how-
boundaries. But his notion of law, framed after an ever great the power of the State, it must, in order
authoritative, voluntarist pattern, was unable to explain to last, be endowed with authority (i.e., be recognized
the existence of other laws, not "positive" in the sense as legitimate).
in which the law of the State is positive, and yet, in This does not seem to be the case, however, with
their own
way, "valid." Last, Hobbes believed that a more recent theorists who refuse to see in the State
unified society —
one where no groupings should be anything else than "the organized use of force by one
allowed that might foster divided allegiances was — class in order to bring another into subjection." This
necessary to the well-being of the State. Here too, his well-known definition is from the Communist Mani-
prophecy has been belied by later events: the modern festo. Indeed, Marx and Engels proclaimed that the
State has successfully adapted itself to the existence modern State was nothing more than the form of orga-
of a pluralistic society. And yet the fact remains that nization set up by the bourgeoisie for the defense and
sovereignty in Hobbesian terms is still the basic the guarantee of their property and interests. But the
attribute of the State to the present day; of the State idea that the State is merely a monopoly of force is
that combines supreme power at home with inde- not restricted exclusively to the Marxists. It is, in fact,
—
pendence abroad the "national State," under whose shared by many contemporary political theorists, and
banner the world has moved, for good or for evil, has gained wide support in connection with another
during the last three centuries. theory (also of remote Marxist origin) that provides an
7. Let us then examine briefly the different argu- explanation of the fact that obedience is in most cases
ments that have been employed in turn, during these the result not of force alone, but of acceptance. This
three centuries, in order to "legitimize" or justify the theory stresses the importance of "ideologies" in poli-
power of the State, in order to endow its commands tics; and political ideologies are described as the means
with the chrism of authority. Some of these arguments by which the use of force is disguised and made
were very old, some new and original: but what links acceptable in the name of beliefs and emotions widely
modern political theory to the past, what indeed gives shared in a given society. Political ideologies, so the
political philosophy a peculiar degree of continuity and theory goes, respond to a social need, and they are,
makes it into a philosophia perennis, is the quest for in a way, indispensable. But at bottom and in their
an answer to the query: Why should one obey the laws essence they are deceits, and the task of the political
of the State? —
the problem we shall henceforth call theorist is to "unmask" them and show them for what
that of "political obligation." they are: skillful instruments for the domination of a
It is obvious enough that the problem of political particular class or a particular man; at best merely
obligation is a meaningless question to those who con- rationalization of an e.xisting state of affairs, where
ceive the State as a pure expression of force. Should force still remains the decisive argument. If coherently
Machiavelli be put among them? It would certainly applied, there is not one single political ideal of the
seem be the case if we consider .Vlachiavelli's endless
to last three hundred years that would escape the stric-
repetition of the need for ruthless discipline, and his tures of this theory. Individualism as well as socialism,
apparently unshakable conviction that consent always egalitarian as well as liberal democracy all can be —
316 follows constraint. But on closer examination it is not shown to be transient ideologies, destined to be dis-
STATE
carded or rejected once they have played their part. model had been discarded. These elements consist of
8. A very different interpretation of such ideals can two propositions which are best stated in the very
be given, however, if we look at them not as devices words with which Jefferson gave them immortal
to cloak the bnital facts of political life, but as attempts formulation, viz., "that all men are created equal," and
to interpret and give meaning to those facts, and to that "governments derive their powers from the con-
pass judgment upon them on the basis of a precise sent of the governed." Neither of these propositions
standard of value. From this point of view, what strikes was entirely new or unheard of. The equality of men
the observer is the predominance, in what we currently had been proclaimed in the past by religious as well
call the "modern" as well as the "western" world, of as by philosophical currents of thought. Consent (or
one particular standard, which from the turn of the acceptance) had been stressed throughout the Middle
seventeenth century onwards is resorted to more and .\ges as the ultimate groimd of the validity of law. But
more exclusivelv in order to account for political obli- if the bottle was old. the wine was an entirely new
gation, and to justify the existence of the State. This one. What was new was the vindication of an equal
standard is drawn from considering the nature of man "right" in each individual to be respected both as a
himself. Indeed, seems almost a paradox that at the
it person and as a citizen. What was new was the close
very moment in which the modem State, as the sole association of the respect for that right on the part
holder of both force and power, emerges as the su- of the State and the duty of obedience on the part
preme and controller of man's life in society,
arbiter of the individual.
there should have taken place the imprecedented But before we assess the final impact of such notions
assertion of the paramount importance of the "rights on the idea of the State, one word must be said of
of man." Classical thought had conceived the State as the theories concerning the purpose of State action.
logically prior to the individual, as the condition for Here, to put it briefly and in what may well seem at
the fulfillment of his nature and destiny. Christian and first sight a paradoxical vein, the suggestion could be
medieval thought had turned to the will of God or made that the task assigned to the modern State was,
to the consequences of sin in order to prove the neces- from its very inception, one of emancipation. To prove
sity of political institutions. But now, and henceforth, the case one example should suffice, that of an author
political theory would have to start, so to speak, from who is usually considered a theorist of obedience and
the bottom: was going to be progressively and sys-
it certainly not one of liberty. One has only to consider
tematically himianized and secularized. What took the contrast which is drawn in a famous passage of
place was a revolution in political philosophy; it might Leviatlian between the "state of nature and the "civil
"
be called a "Copemican revolution," to paraphrase a State," in order to realize what benefits, what "values,"
famous simile of Kant's. according to Hobbes, are attained in the State. These
Actually, this process of secularization and human- values are both material and spiritual; they concern
ization of politics can be traced along two sepa- the comforts of life as well as the improvement of the
rate lines, depending on whether the interest of politi- mind. They are what in modern terms we would call
cal theorists was focused on the ground or on the "cultural" values; but cultural values are always, in
purpose of the State. To provide a ground for the State, some way or other, associated with liberty, with the
now that natural growth or providential design were free display of human initiative and energy.
no longer considered sufficient to legitimize power, It was left to later political theory to define and to
political theorists turned to the notion of the "social assess the means of securing that liberty, so as to make
contract" — an abstract notion for which some con- it not a concession but the very aim of the State.
firmation could be found in historical facts, but whose Liberty soon appeared as a complex and multi-faceted
rational value was entirely independent of that con- concept, depending on whether greater importance
firmation. The notion of the social contract miderwent was given to the citizen's freedom from outside inter-
several versions. It could be used to set up a framework ference, or to his participation in basic decisions, or
for constitutional government (as with Locke) as well to the removal of the obstacles which made of that
as one monarchy (as with Grotius and
for absolute freedom and participation a sham. "Negative" liberty,
Hobbes). It could provide an argument for resistance "positive "
liberty, "social "
liberty: such are the names
and revolution, and at the same time one in favor of by which these different facets have come to be
the complete surrender of the individual to the State ciu'rently described; and to each one of them there
(as is the case with Rousseau). But, however different does correspond in fact a different type of political
its uses, its basic elements remained unvaried, and these structure — the "liberal," the "democratic, "
and the
in txirn have become part and parcel of modern man's "socialist" State. But on closer inspection it is not all
attitude toward the State, long after the social contract too difficult to discover the common root of what at 317
STATE
first sight appear as widely contrasting theories, not- "elitist" doctrine offer a third solution, in addition to
withstanding the fact that in actual experience they the old alternative of force or consent — of might or
tend to be more and more intertwined and combined. of right.
That common root is, once again, the paramoimt If a conclusion may be drawn at the end of this brief
importance given to the individual, the respect of enquiry, this can only be that the idea of the State
whose personality and rights has become part of the does not allow a single, precise definition, but varies
modern idea of the State. according to the different levels on which political
9. One last point must be stressed before terminating phenomena can be approached. We must be aware of
this article: the view of the State which we described how greatly the idea of the State has varied in time,
in the last paragraph is a view of the State as endowed and of the likelihood that it will vary considerably
with authority, not as the holder of power nor as a again, even in the near future. In fact, the "national
pure phenomenon of force. It is the view which nowa- State," with its jealous assertion of sovereignty, its rigid
days prevails in the West with regard to the legitimacy boundaries, and also its emotional patriotism, is fast
of power and the grounds of political obligation; but appearing to modern eyes — at any rate in Europe as —
it is by no means the only "ideology" that has gained becoming a thing of the past. A new, a supra-national
currency in the modem world to ensure discipline and State, is invoked and longed for by many, one which
obedience. Some of these ideologies are in fact new will be the signal of the disappearance of those nation-
religions (for example, Hegel's theory of the State as alisms which have brought Europe to the brink of ruin.
the visible revelation of God in history), and hardly But will this mean the disappearance of the State, its
deserve to be considered by the political theorist except "withering away" — to use the familiar Marxist phrase?
for the tragic consequences they have wrought. Others, So long be an organization capable of
as there will
to be and precisely what, as we have

sure, are squarely controlling power, and securing
force, regulating
seen, ideologies purport to be mere disguises of a — allegiance, one thing seems certain: whatever its size
cruel reality, of the fact that always and everywhere and its shape, whatever the name by which the men
there have been, and there are, some who command of the future will choose to call it, that organization
and others who obey. This is certainly the case with will still be a State.
a theory which encoimters much favor at the present

day, the theory which explains and justifies political
dependence on the ground of the basic inequality of BIBLIOGRAPHY
men. Once again, there is nothing new in a theory of A. P. d'Entreves, The Notion of the State. 2nd ed. (Oxford,
this kind. One can find it in the Politics of Aristotle. 1969), includes an extensive bibliography, and is a source
The superiority of race or intelligence has always been used with the permission of the publisher. The Clarendon
invoked as an argument by those who happened to Press.
have the upper hand. In a more sophisticated vein, For the history of the word "State," an article by H. C.
the doctrine of inequality has been recast of late as Dowdal, "The Word 'State,' " in the Law Quarterly Review.
39, No. 153 (January, 1923), is still extremely useful. In
the doctrine of the elites, which, in some of its versions,
general, besides the "classics" referred to in the context,
teaches not only that governments have always been
all
any good history of political thought, like G. H. Sabine,
of the few, but that the few who govern deserve to
A History of Political Theory, 3rd ed. (New York, 1961), does
do so because of their special gifts and mettle. throw light on the idea of the State, its content, and its
The trouble with the "elitist" doctrine is that it is
historical development. One very stimulating book on the
inadequate by itself to provide a ground for political subject deserves special mention: E. Cassirer, The Myth of
obligation,and hence to confer "authority" upon the the State (London, 1946). J.
N. Figgis' much quoted descrip-
"governing class" of relatively few individuals who are, tion of the State in the Middle Ages appears in the intro-
according to that doctrine, the State. In fact, there are ductory lecture of his Political Thought from Gerson to
two alternatives: either the elite is "imposed" or else Grotitts (London, 1907). For a destructive criticism of the
it is "proposed." In the first case, clearly it is not tlw idea of the State from the point of view of modem political
science, perhaps the most significant texts are to be found

merits or the intrinsic superiority of the elite that
in D. Easton, The Political System (New York, 1953), Ch.
matter, but its capacity to seize power, if necessary
4, Sec. 4, and Ch. 5.
by force. In the second, which is obviously the case
in modern societies, since those merits and that superi- ALEXANDER PASSERIN D'ENTRfiVES
ority call for recognition and acceptance on the part [See also Authority; Church as Institution; Constitution-
of those on whom the elite is to exert its power, there alism; Democracy; Equality; Freedom; Ideology; Law, Con-
must be one point at least where rulers and ruled are cept of; Liberalism; Machiavellism; Nation; Nationalism;
318 on a footing of equality. In neither case does the Social Contract; Socialism.]
STOICISM, ETHICS OF
ETHICS OF STOICISM them and adapt his life accordingly. The world as a
whole develops in an ordered pattern, determined by
Stoicism is the name of a comprehensive philosophical immanent providence. But this does not, in the Stoic
system inaugurated at Athens by Zeno of Citium in view, remove human responsibility for good and evil.
the last years of the fourth century B.C. The system It is the proper function of man's nature to grasp the
was divided for the purposes of exposition into three cosmic order by his own logos. He achieves happiness
subjects; phvsics, logic, and ethics; butbetueen these and goodness when he does nothing which is incon-
there is a fimdamental connection which makes sistent with or alien to the will of God or Nature.
Stoicism an organic unity, a philosophy of rational How does the Stoic set about this task? He has no
coherence. The ethical goal is life in accordance with innate ideas, no Platonic Forms, the recollection of
nature, physis, and this is achieved by consistently which can provide criteria for moral action. His
rational or "logical" action {kata logon zen). Physics, knowledge is entirely empirical, and the truth of what
or the understanding of nature, provides the field of he apprehends depends upon external impressions of
moralitv with its values; logic grasps the relationship a sufflcientlv clear and accurate kind. But there are
between statements and events, which enables man to certain guidelines laid down for human natiu-e which
articulate nature for himself and plan his life accord- can serve, at least initially, as standards for action, and
inglv. The significance of such familiar Stoic attitudes which enable the developing logos to grasp the princi-
as uncomplaining endurance of hardship and inflexible ples on which morality itself is based. The human
will carmot be adequately grasped without reference being, like all creatures, has an instinctive attraction
to their physical and logical basis. towards those things which promote its own well-being
I. The Physical Basis of Stoic Ethics. In Stoic the- and a complementary aversion towards their opposites.
ory the world is an organic whole, a rational being, Self-love, family feeling, desire for healtli — these are
conceptuallv divisible into two principles, active and basic drives, and their specific objects are "primarily
passive: the active principle is pneuma ("fiery breath"), in accordance with nature." The human infant will
a vital, all-pervasive power which gives quality and naturally take something appropriate to its constitution
coherence to the passive principle, "matter" (earth and rather than the reverse, and the same applies to the
water). Pneuma and matter together constitute "body," mature man. But man differs from the child in his
and bodv is all that exists. Particular material objects, possession of logos. Moral choice, unlike infantile and
whether animate or inanimate, are differentiations of animal behavior, is not a simple response of the orga-
pneuma in matter, marked off from one another by nism to the environment. It is explained by Cicero as
their internal stnicture, but interconnected externally, follows (De finibus III, 20-21); from the system of
since matter is continuous, in contradistinction to the values acquired by his instinctive responses a mature
Democritean, Epicurean Atomism, and its empty man of sound reason intuits a higher-order system, a
spaces. The between all bodies gives
external contact principle of moral action, which grasps the relationship
rise to an eternal sequence of cause and effêct, since between all events and provides the ultimate category
movement is a defining characteristic of the pneuma of value.
which organizes all things. This organizing principle 2. The Logical Basis of Stoic Ethics. Logos, hitherto
is also called reason (logos), providence (pronoia), and translated "reason," also means "speech," and the
destiny (moira): all of these are predicates of Nature Stoics devoted much attention to the analysis of lan-
or God, who is conceived as the world-soul, a perfect guage and logic in its formal sense. They recognized
being, which is immanent in everything and which as a fimdamental distinction between men and animals
directs events to achieve worthy ends. the fact that man alone possesses the power of "internal
Man, like all things, is pervaded by God, but he speech" and an idea of consequence or succession
possesses a special status. The pneuma which gives (ennoia akolouthias) In the content of his significant
.
coherence to a stone and fife to a plant manifests itself discourse man grasps connections in nature, and true
as reason (logos) in mature men. The natural life for statements are the expression in language of such con-
man is "rational" lifeand this makes him a partner nections. The sequence of events is ordered and a
of God, or universal Natiu-e. As Epictetus, the Stoic necessary consequence of the universal causal nexus.
slave, puts it (Discourses I. i, 12): "We [i.e., the gods] Only God, who oversees and determines all things,
have given you a certain portion of ourselves, the possesses complete foreknowledge of events. But to the
faculty of choice and refusal, of desire and aversion; human reason the world presents itself as a set of events
that is, the faculty to make use of the impressions about which some valid inferences are possible and
presented to your mind." Natural events are outside indeed necessary if life in accordance with nature is
human control, but man has the power to evaluate to be realized by an act of will, rather than external 319
STOICISM, ETHICS OF
necessity. In its cnider form this concern for the future served in theory, were of little consequence in the
stimulated behefs in the efficacy of divination, but the enlarged world divided among .Alexander's successors,
basis of these was the thoroughly scientific principle and the new capitals of Pergamum in Asia and
that no event occurs without a cause and that signs Alexandria in Africa came to rival Athens as centers
of what will happen are available in nature. It is likely of culture. In a period of such social and political
enough that the Stoics' concern for valid inference and upheaval, neither the traditional ethics, already foimd
the logical rules which they formulated concerning wanting by Socrates and Plato, nor their immediate
hypothetical were partly prompted by the practical philosophical alternatives provided adequate guides for
desire to make prediction as reliable as possible. The conduct. In Alexander's own lifetime the Cynic
sage is academic inclination but
a logician not from Diogenes had challenged contemporary values by
because life in accordance witli nature and reason rejecting civic life as an inadequate context for the
requires imderstanding events and the consequences proper development of human nature. Zeno, while
which follow from them. avoiding some of the more scandalous aspects of Cynic
Logos is the characteristic of mature human natm-e; asceticism, was equally cosmopolitan in taking the
only its "seeds" are available to the child. Provided world itself for the context of moral action, and in
that it is not corrupted by external influences, the making virtue a disposition of the reason which it is
developed logos will enable man to grasp the tnie in the power of any man to realize. But, unlike
nature of reality, and it will stand as the moral princi- Diogenes, Zeno grounded moral theory in physics and
ple which directs him to a correspondence between logic, and he also incorporated features of pre-Socratic,
himself and the world. But this natural condition of Platonic, and Aristotelian thought. Like Heraclitus he
the logos is generally not realized owing to "perver- made logos something common to man and the uni-
sions '
in childhood by the environment
brought about verse; like Socrates and Plato he defined virtue in terms
and bad upbringing. Events themselves and human of knowledge. And he seems to reflect Aristotle both
influence give rise to beliefs that pain is an evil, pleas- in his treatment of the relation between moral charac-
ure a good, and success or failure in the world the states ter, and emotion, and in terminology and
action,
to be sought or avoided. This system of values produces method of analysis.
as its consequence actions which are alogos. not irra- Zeno was a Phoenician by birth, but he settled in
tional as such, but contrary to reason in its natural or Athens at an early age and established his school there.
healthy condition. Actions which are properly rational It was fashionable luitil recently to invoke his Semitic
or "logical" are actions prompted by a logos whose origin, and that of other early Stoics, as a key to under-
soundness is guaranteed by the fact that it accords with standing the particular character of Stoic ethics, but
Nature or God. this explanation is neither useful nor necessary.
The Stoics' stress on logic led them to see the moral Stoicism is thoroughly Greek, and its ethics derives its
agent as one who possesses "a body of true proposi- distinctive quality more from a synthesis of existing
tions" (Sextus Empiricus, Adversus mathematicos VII, concepts than from the introduction of entirely new
39-41) which he incorporates in his actions. The bad ones. Zenos aim was to provide a basis for
ethical
man is false to facts. Stoic physics, which denied exist- moral action and a means to personal well-being in
ence to the incorporeal, also influenced the treatment the natural endowments of any man, irrespective of
of moral character. The logos it.self is "pneuma in a his social status or personal circumstances.
certain state, "
and any state other than tliat enjoyed The Stoic Concept of Value and Moral Action.
4.
by the good man is eo ipso a bad or mihealthy pht/sical The is attained by making
universality of Stoic ethics
condition. The fact that the good are differentiated goodness and happiness (the terms are interchangeable)
from the bad by criteria such as true/false, or an internal state, a disposition of the logos. The four
healthy/sick, helps to explain the hardness and rigidity cardinal virtues — practical wisdom, justice, courage,
of Stoic ethical theory. and self-control — are aspects of
all the one rational
3. The Historical and Ctdttiral Background of Stoic disposition and none of them is possible without the
Ethics. In looking to Nature as the source of moral other. The sage or ideal good man is one whose actions
principles which would be binding on any man of are consistently determined by a reasoning faculty
sound reason, Zeno was strongly influenced by histori- which accords with the will of Nature or God. This
cal and social considerations. The (ireek city-state, makes him the only free man. Reason does not give
which Plato and Aristotle had envisaged as the context the sage free will, in the sense that his actions are
of moral action, was destroyed as an independent po- imdetermined by character and environment. But it
litical entity by the conquests of Alexander the Great. enables him to make what will happen part of his own
320 The old civic and national boundaries, though pre- will and plan. He is completely unaffected by external
—
STOICISM, ETHICS OF
circumstances, since the understanding of nature has and loss. The good man will be indifferent to the latter,
taught him that the only good and vice is
is virtue, but he deliberately selects health and wealth rather
the onlv evil; all else is morally indifferent. Pain and than their opposites, provided that in so doing he does
misfortime in general, like pleasure and external suc- nothing inconsistent with reason. There are times, as
cess, fall within the category of "indifferents." The Cato showed by his suicide, when the Stoic acts con-
incidence of such things is not entirely within a man's trary to his instinctive impulses.
control, so that his happiness cannot be assured if it Critics have complained of a double standard here.
depends on the gifts of fortime and pleasure. But he If health is preferable to sickness, why should it not
luis the power to determine his own attitude to events. be called "good" or "better"? The Stoic answer is
Hence the paradox that the sage is happy even on the uncompromising. Health in the abstract is preferable
rack and all other men are imhappy no matter what to .sickness, but to call the one "good" and the other
and pain are irrelevant
their situation. Strictly, pleasure "bad would confuse them with the category of moral-
"
to moral action, since they have nothing to do with ity. The attainment of happiness and virtue can only
logos. The sage acts from principle or "logic "; pity and be offered to all men, whatever their circumstances,
"irrational feelings are extirpated from his disposition,
'
if its value is shown to be categorically different from
though he does experience "rational" emotions such that of "natural advantages. "
It is "appropriate" to
as joy,and his conduct is invariably beneficial to other prefer health to sickness, to care for one's parents, to
good men. An action performed by the sage, such as take part in politics, etc., and the consistent perform-
caring for parents, may look the same as the actions ance of such actions is a prerequisite for thewould-be
of other men. But the sage's action will be good and good man. But though certain acts of this kind are
the actions of others bad, since the moral status of any "imconditionally appropriate," they are only morally
action is determined by the agent's disposition. The good when performed by the sage. He, and he alone,
dispositions of all who are not consistently good are acts always and only from right intentions.
bad. Hence the further paradox that all men are either 5. Stoic Ethics in Practice. The Stoics themselves
wholly good or wholly bad; there is no midway condi- did not claim to be sages, and it was a matter of debate
tion and there are no degrees of virtue or vice. in the school whether a man of such inflexible moral
Thisis a hard doctrine, which pays scant regard to will had ever lived in fact. For the majority, "progress"
ordinary language or experience, but the reasoning (n poKoir-q) towards this standard was the goal, and Stoic
behind it is clear enough. Aristotle argued that happi- writers such as Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius are
ness requires a lifetime for its realization and that the constantly urging themselves, and, by implication, their
good man will never do anything wrong. Earlier still, readers to maintain indifference to circumstances and
Plato had regarded wrongdoing as a product of to value moral choice as the only property of worth.
ignorance, claiming that knowledge of the good will Confidence in the benevolence of divine purpose, no
result in virtuous action. If virtue and happiness are matter what happens, and an immense stress on the
equated it is extremely difficult to account for vicious dignity of man provide the Stoic with his strength. ,\nd
action without reference to mistaken judgment, and the reward, in Epictetus' words, is "tranquillity, fear-
this in fact is the Stoic explanation. Bad men commit lessness and freedom" (Discourses II, 1, 21). Suicide,
errors of the kindmentioned above (Sec. 2) and though rationally chosen, is the way out, the "open door," if
these may differ in degree they do not differ in kind: circumstances make a good hfe impossible.
they are all equally faults. Virtuous behavior on six The basis of Stoic ethics remained constant through-
days of the week is not enough. It is all or nothing out the five hundred and more years (ca. 301 b.c.-a.d.
either consistency with reason or inconsistency and 270) of the school's existence. But unlike the followers
vacillation. of Epicurus, who handed down their fomider's teaching
Although Stoic theory divided mankind into sages unchanged, later Stoics modified and developed various
and fools, it also recognized the common needs and aspects of Zeno's doctrines. Chrysippus, the third head
desires of all men. Man as a species is so constituted of the Stoa, following Zeno and Cleanthes, was a
that he naturally prefers health to sickness, wealth to scholar of immense and much of the evi-
versatility,
poverty, etc. Such conditions of prosperity and dence for Stoicism is derived from summaries and
adversity the Stoics termed "natural advantages and criticisms of his works preserved in writers like
disadvantages," but they regarded the possession of Plutarch and Galen. Panaetius and Posidonius in the
them as something morally neutral and irrelevant to second and first centuries B.C. won fame throughout
happiness. Virtue and vice are displayed in the manner the Roman world, and Cicero's influential De officiis
in which a man selects "natural advantages "

and rejects isbased upon a work by Panaetius. This Stoic was an
their opposites, and how he reacts to their attainment intimate associate of Scipio Africanus, and the propa- 321
STRUCTURALISM
gation of general Stoic teaching among Romans owed revised by G. T. Griffith (London, 1952) surveys the culture
much to his humanitas. The traditional Roman atti- during Stoicism's formative period.
tudes of officium and virtus found further justification ANTHONY A. LONG
which thus claimed the allegiance of
in Stoic ethics,
[See also Causation; Free Will; God; Happiness; Nature;
many Roman statesmen. The De officiis. which Cicero
Necessity; Organicism; Platonism; Rationality; Virtii.]
addressed to his son, stresses practice over theory,
providing a second-best morality of appropriate actions
for theRoman gentleman. It lacks the moral toughness
and personal commitment of Epictetus, the slave of
the imperial period, so admired by the emperor
Marcus. STRUCTURALISM
By cutting through the barriers of birth and wealth,
and by emphasizing the autonomy of the individual, Structuralism, as a recognizable movement in the
Stoic ethics did much to liberalize and humanize the history of ideas, was bom between the two world wars
social practice of the Roman empire. In the second and is still developing at the present time. ,\o accoimt
and third centuries a.d. writers as different as the of it, therefore, can pretend to be complete or final.
Christian, Clement of Alexandria, the .\ristotelian The idea of structure is much older, the term having
scholar, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Plotinus attest entered the vocabulary of biology in the seventeenth
to its influence. The rules for conduct, intended by centur)' and of language, literature, and philosophy in
early Stoics as preparatory to the attainment of virtue, the nineteenth. The closely associated notion of "sys-
survived to challenge the strong and support the weak tem" is of course older still. It is important at the outset
in times which neither knew, nor cared to know, the between these two concepts,
to get clear the relations
physics and logic on which Zeno and Chrysippus had and this can best be done be relating them both to
rigorously built their ethics. In its theory. Stoic ethics a third, namely that of "function." .\ccording to the
looks forward to Kant's categorical imperative. Some standard structuralist account, structures are structiu-es
essential aspects of its practice are preserved in the of systems; systems function, stmctures in themselves
behavior commended by our words "stoic" and —
do not function but systems function because they
"stoical." have the structiues they do. The system of traffic
signals, for example, has the function of controlling

traffic; its structure is a binary opposition of red and
BIBLIOGRAPHY
green lights in alternating sequence. The system may
Evidence for early Stoicism is collected in J.
von Arnim, share its form with other systems having different
Stoiconim Veterum Fragmenta, 4 vols. (Stuttgart, repr. 1964). functions, but structure is not merely form; form is
For the Roman period the principal sources are Cicero, De something that can be abstracted from matter or con-
finibus iii, iv, and De officiis: Seneca, Epistutae morales;
tent and considered separately, whereas structure, in
and the works of Epictetus (Discourses) and .Marcus .\urelius
the structurahst sense, is precisely the significative (as
[Meditations), thoroughly discussed by A. Bonhoetfer, Epiciet
opposed to the material) content of the system.
und die Stoa (Stuttgart, 1894) and A. S. L. Farquharson,
The Meditations of Marcus Antoninus, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1944). As a first, although necessarily misleading, definition
it might then be said that structuralism is the view
The most authoritative modern work is M. Pohlenz, Die
Stoa. 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Gottingen, 19.59), which traces the that structure in this sense is a more fvmdaniental
history of Stoicism down and beyond.
to Saint .\ugustine characteristic of the objects it studies (all, it must be
Two French works which deserve particular mention are noted, products of the human mind or of human cul-
E. Br^hier, Chrysippe et I'ancien stoicisme, 2nd ed. (Paris, ture), than are their physical components, their genetic
1951) and V. Goldschmidt, Le systeme stoicien et I'idee de origins, their historical development, their function or
temps (Paris, 1953).
purpose, and so on.
The last few years have seen a revival of interest in all
This article is intended, however, as an account not
aspects of Stoicism among scholars writing in English. In
of the idea of structure itself but of a set of perspectives
The Meaning of Stoicism (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), L.
to which the recent prominence of this idea in a num-
Edelstein gives a stimulating, if at times misleading, intro-
more detailed study
duction. For see .M. Rist, Stoic Philos-
ber of disciplines has given rise. The occurrence of the
J.
ophy (Cambridge, 1969) and A. A. Long, ed.. Problems in term in the writings of a historically important figure
Stoicism (London, 1971^ with contributions by F. H. Sand- is not enough to make him a structuralist, while its
bach. A. C. Lloyd, S. C. Pembroke, I. G. Kidd. G. Watson, absence may not prevent him from being recognized
oZZ and the editor. \V. W. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation. 3rd ed. as such by other stmcturalists. Ferdinand de Saussure.
STRUCTURALISM
le structuraliste sans le savoir, asone commentator has forms. But comparative and evolutionary (diachronic)
called him (Georges Mounin, Saussure, ou le struc- studies remained fragmentary in the absence of a sys-
turalisle sans le savoir, Paris [1968]), hardly used the tematic theory of language as a stinchronic entity.
word all, and yet if a single point of
"structure" at Ferdinand de Saussure, in his courses in Paris and
origin had to be found for the movement it could only Geneva, put forward and developed the view that a
be the posthumous publication in 1916 of his Cours language, as actually spoken by a linguistic community
de linguistique generate, compiled from the notes of at a given time viewed synchronically), forms a
(i.e.,
his students. Bally, Sechehaye, and Reidlinger. The self-contained system, each element of which has its
picture is complicated by the fact that there is displace and its own relations (grammatical, etymological,
agreement among the leading structuralists as to the etc.) to the other elements. His work was devoted to
—
scope of the movement whether it is to be limited describing the structure of this system, although as
to the methodology of the social sciences (or even of remarked earlier he did not make use of the term in
linguistics only) or whether its extension to literary this sense. In the English version of the Cours de
criticism and philosophy is legitimate. Some of the linguistique generate (Saussure, 1959 — referred to from
most obvious structuralists in the latter categories (e.g., now on as CGL) the word "arrangement" comes closest
Michel Foucault) have disclaimed the designation. to it in meaning. Saussure distinguishes between "ex-
For present purposes we may agree that a movement ternal"and "internal" linguistics with the famous ex-
exists if, at a more or less precise historical juncture, ample of the game of chess:
some conceptual development attracts the interest of
In chess, what is external can be separated relatively easily
a number of thinkers, who interact (even if sometimes
from what is internal. The fact that the game passed from
negatively) in virtue of this common interest, claim Persia to Europe is external; against that, everything having
common intellectual ancestors, etc. It is not a question to do with its system and rules is internal. If I use ivory
of their belonging to the movement, of adhering to chessmen instead of wooden ones, the change has no effect
it in any formal sense (as e.g., in the case of surrealism); on the system; but if I decrease or increase the number
intellectual relations need not be accompanied by of chessmen, this change has a profound effect on the
social or professional ones. Also the title given to the "grammar" of the game. One must always distinguish be-
tween what is internal and what is external everything
movement may not be the clearest possible indication
. . .
that changes the system in any wav is internal {CCL, pp.

of its intellectual content. .\ll these remarks apply to
22-23).
structuralism, and this may account in part for the
extraordinary range of opinion about it among critics We might now read "structure" for "system" in this
and practitioners alike: it has been dismissed as a mere last sentence. The novelty of Saussure's method was
fashion, and hailed as a fundamental and irreversible its resolute adherence to internal questions (in contrast
change in the pattern of hmnan thought. Whatever to comparative and other earlier methods).
the merits of these extreme positions, recognizably Some contemporary struc-
of the chief concepts of
structuralist trends are now to be found in half a dozen turalism are borrowed directly from Saussure, and it
disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, will be well to introduce them in the context of his
collectively the sciences humaines for the French, work. "Synchrony" and "diachrony" have already been
among whom the movement has chiefly taken hold. referred to; the opposition between them is reflected
in the opposition langue/parole (rendered in CGL as
/. LINGUISTICS AND ANTHROPOLOGY "language" and "speaking"). Both are special cases of
The master discipline of structuralism, to which all langage, the general human faculty of language, of
its practitioners constantly revert, is linguistics. Scien- which speech is the primary manifestation, writing
tific linguistics has a long history, but two distinct being an anomalous and, from the point of view of
stages — the comparative and the structural — can be the linguist, unhelpful addition. Langue is the
recognized in its modem development. The first begins synchronic, social reality apart from its individual
with J. J.
Rousseau's Essai sur Vorigine des langues manifestations, which constitute parole. Langue there-
(published posthumously, 1817) and was given its fore is whose structure at a given time and
the system
greatest impetus by the rediscovery in the West of in a given community is the object of linguistic investi-
Sanskrit in the early nineteenth century. The impor- gation; parole is constituted of the particular verbal
tance of the latter was to suggest a common origin acts (controlledby the conventions of langue) which
and an earlier common structure at least for Indo- are performed daily and forgotten, which give lan-
European languages, and also to draw attention to the guage its empirical and historical reality and are its
details of the evolution of these languages from earlier diachronic medium of evolution. Without langue. pa- oZo
STRUCTURALISM
role would be a series of isolated and meaningless contains a detailed treatment of the concept of opposi-
utterances; without parole, kingue would be an abstract tion which, while worked out in terms of phonological
and empty system. systems, forms an essential basis for technical analysis
The fimction of the system of language is significa- in other domains. In an earlier article (Troubetzkoy,
tion, and its elements are signs. The sign, however, 19.33) he suggested a distinction which wa.s to be cru-
is a complex entity, whose two aspects the signaas — cial for later structuralism between conscious and
and signutum of the Stoics are called by Saussure — unconscious levels of structure in language. What is
signifiant and signifie ("the signifier" and "the signi- actually pronounced (which is studied by phonetics)
fied"). Both are psychological: the signifier is a "sound- does not necessarily exhibit directly the system of
image," the signified is the concept associated with this spoken language (which is studied by phonology); the
soimd-image. The sign, for Saussure, is arbitrary — that laws of the latter have to be established by induction
is no internal connection between its
to say, there is and hypothesis on the evidence provided by the former.
aspects which would make a given signifier the natural Troubetzkoy himself, in his later work, placed less
or necessary vehicle for a given signified. What gives weight on the opposition conscious/unconscious than
the sign its linguistic value is the system of differences, some of his readers (notably Levi-Strauss, as noted
on the one hand between signifiers, on the other be- below), but he would have been prepared to admit
tween signifieds (or significata, some writers in English the general point that the tnie structure does not
preferring "significatum" to "signified" as a noun). "In always appear on the surface. The notion of stracture
language there are only differences. ... A difference here is extended to the domain of parole, and, with
generally implies positive terms between which the an explicit reference to "teleological elements," to the
difference is .set up; but in language there are only diachronic.The article referred to ends with a general
differences without positive terms" (CGL, p. 120). This remark: "The epoch in which we live is characterized
quotation may be taken as a key to stmcturalism in bv the tendency of all scientific disciplines to replace
general. Thought on the one hand, language on the atomism bv structuralism ." (Troubetzkoy [1933],
. . p.
other, are not antecedently segmented, they do not 246; trans. P. C).
exist as separable atomic units; the structxiring activ- What might be called a stmcturalist explosion was
ity creates the units, bringing definiteness to both touched off in France by the anthropological works
sides simultaneously. The same would apply to other of Levi-Strauss (see below) and has since been the most
significative systems; Saussure himself envisaged a visible manifestation of the movement. But linguistic
new science of "semiology" would study all

that structuralism was to take on a new direction and a
systems of signs and of which linguistics would be only new importance with the work of Noam Chomsky.
a part. Chomsky was one of the first to draw serious attention
At the end of CCL Saussure raises the question of to a comparatively neglected aspect of linguistic be-
a possible link between linguistics and anthropology, havior, namely its creative character (although he rec-
but concludes that the former can be of little help to ognizes a precursor in Wilhelm von Humboldt). The
the latter. He was thinking of course of the content structures dealt with by most grammarians are surface
of linguistics as a datum for anthropology, rather than structures: generative grammar. Chomsky's main con-
of its metliod as a model; at the time, as Claude Levi- tribution to technical linguistics, takes its theoretical
Strauss remarks (Anthropologic stnicturale. hereafter point of departure from deep structures, basic gram-
AS, p. .39, n.); "the foimders of modern linguistics matical forms from which the whole variety of surface
placed themselves resolutely under the patronage of structures can be generated. The existence of deep
the social scientists. It was only after 1920 that Marcel structures explains the ability of all speakers of a lan-
Mauss began ... to reverse the trend" (trans. P. C). guage to utter sentences that may never before have
In fact a good deal had to happen in linguistics before been uttered, and to be understood at once by other
its position as an exemplar for the social sciences be- speakers of the same language. A language then is not
came clear. Not the least of these developments in an actual but a potential (and potentially infinite) set
historical importance was the explicit emergence of of utterances, governed by the laws of its deep struc-
the term "structure" in the sense in which it is now ture.
understood, which occurred in a programmatic docu- The interest of this work for the structuralist move-
ment prepared for an international congress of lin- ment is the suggestion that languages whose surface
guists at the Hague in 1928, by Roman Jakobson, S. structures are widely different may share the same deep
Karcewski, and Prince Nicolas Troubetzkoy. structure, and that this may reflect in some funda-
Troubetzkoy was a pioneer of the science of mental way the structure of mind. Chomsky speculates
324 phonology, and his Grundziige der Phtmologie (1939) that
STRUCTURALISM
. . . the linguistics of the next generation will reveal that Structuralism as an explicit movement in anthropol-
each natural language is a specific realization of a highly ogy probably begins with A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, who
restrictive schema that permits grammatical processes and added to the concept of function as it is found in Emile
structures of a very limited variety, and that there are Dmkheim and B. K. Malinowski the concept of the
innumerable "imaginable" languages that violate these re-
structure of a functioning system, roughlv in the form
strictions and that are, therefore, not possible human lan-
in which it is outlined in the opening paragraphs of
guages in a psychologically important sense, even though
this essay (Radcliffe-Brown [1952], pp. 179-80). Later
they are quite able, in principle, to express the entire
structuralists tend to think of Radcliffe-Brown as a
content of any possible human language (Chomsky [1967],
functionalist (Levi-Strauss speaks of "that primary form
p. 8).
of structuralism which is called fimctionalism"; AS, p.
It should be remarked that what gives Chomsky 357), and to attribute to him two errors of judgment;
grounds at this time for this expectation is "thenew first the belief that every feature of every society has
understanding of recursive mechanisms and the natiu-e an explicit fimction, second the belief that the stRicture
of algorithms that has developed in the last thirty of society is to be observed directly, as a surface
years" (i.e., up to 1967); the structuralist hypothesis, phenomenon. Levi-Strauss says, with respect to the first
at least in the hands of its more responsible proponents, of these points, "To say that a society functions is a
isno mere speculation but rests on painstaking obser- truism; but to say that everything in a society fimctions
vation and vigorous analysis. It must be said further isan absurdity" (AS, p. 357; trans. P. C). But Radcliffe-
that Chomsky himself has serious reservations about Brown, speaking of the hypothesis that social systems
the extension of linguistic stnicturalism to other do- have a functional unity, remarks that "the hypothesis
mains, even by comparatively careful thinkers like does not require the dogmatic assertion that everything
Levi-Strauss (Chomsky [1968], p. 65). While we may in the life of every community has a fimction. It only
admit with Levi-Strau.ss that the success of linguistics requires the assumption that it may have one, and that
in structural analysis is encouraging, it seems best to we are justified in seeking to discover it" (op.cit., p.
confront anthropological and other data on their own 184). On the second point he says: "In the study of
terms and not to assume that every significative system social structure the concrete reality with which we are
is in fact a kind of language. concerned is the set of actually existing relations, at
The development of linguistics has nevertheless been a given moment of time, which link together certain
intimately connected with that of anthropology. .Some human beings. It is on this tliat we can make direct
non-Indo-European linguistics indeed seemed for a observations. But it is not this that we attempt to
long time to be a part of anthropology, since the data describe in its particularity what we need for
. . .
for it came from exotic societies like that of Java, whose scientific purposes is an accoimt of the form of the
language was studied by Wilhelm von Humboldt in structure" (idem, p. 192).
the early nineteenth century, and above all those of Radcliffe-Brown thus prepares the way for a struc-
the Indians of North .America, whose extraordinarily turalism which will go beyond the merelv descriptive.
diverse and complex languages provided the initial It remained for Levi-Strauss to bring anthropological
stimulus for American linguistics in the late nineteenth structuralism (and with it the movement as a whole)
and early twentieth centuries. But just as comparative to the position it now occupies. Levi-Strauss's early
linguistics remained fragmentary until the notion of work was a sequel Marcel Mauss, whose
to that of
language as system came to the fore, so comparative "Essai sur le don, forme archaique de I'echange"
ethnology remained fragmentary (devoted as it was to (Annee Sociologique, N.S. 1, Paris [1932-34]) had pro-
the study of tools, potterv, the practice of himting and vided a dynamics for social systems in terms of ex-
agricultm-e, etc.) until the parallel notion of society changes. There is an obvious analogy here to systems
as system was worked out. This notion had been put of language; languages signify, but they do so, at least
forward earlier on the level of civilized society by in part, in order to communicate, and communication
Montesquieu, but the elements of his system were proceeds by the exchange of words. In Les structures
themselves highly developed institutions requiring elementaires de la parente (1949, hereafter SEP) Levi-
analysis in their turn. The study of kinship provided Strauss, taking as his starting point the universal prohi-
for anthropology the paradigm of structure that bition (undersome form or other) of incest, interprets
phonology has provided for linguistics, and with the exogamous marriage as a system of the exchange of
nineteenth-century American ethnographer Lewis H. women, and admnbrates a general theory in which
Morgan, the idea of kitiship systems became firmly gifts, women, and other media of exchange between
established. Morgan, however, like Saussure, used other groups would behave like signs: "the relations between
terms than "structure." the sexes might be regarded as one of the modalities o25
STRUCTURALISM
of a great 'function of communication' which includes sociologico-philosophical problems: the place of the
language as well" (SEP, p. 61.3; trans. P. C). It is harcUv individual in the collective, the relationbetween the
necessary to point out that Levi-Strauss does not regard collective and the natural world, and the role of the
women merely as signs; on the other hand, the fact ethnographer with respect both to the culture he
that they are never consciously viewed as such (in our studies and to his own culture. As for Chomsky, so for
own or any other society) is not incompatible, for the Levi-Strauss the structures he studies are rewarding
structuralist, with their really fulfilling this role. insofar as they reflect the structure of mind.
This unconscious character of the most fundamental In La pensee sauvage he takes up this theme
social and psychological structures is (as was remarked explicitly, examining as he puts it "mind in its natural
above in connection with Troubetzkoy's work on state." One of the things that stand in the way of our
linguistic stnictures) an important component of Levi- grasping it in this state is of course tlie conditioning
Strauss's teaching. "It is necessary and sufficient to to which our own minds have been subject, so that
arrive at the unconscious structure underlying an insti- we superimpose on the products of other minds a grid
tution or a custom to acquire a principle of inter- of logical or utilitarian expectations. Hence we are
pretation valid for other institutions and other customs, inclined to think that the primitive has an inadequate
provided of course the analysis is carried far enough" science and an imformed sense of logical propriety.
(AS, p. 28; trans. P. C). Levi-Strauss argues, however, that what he calls the
The difference between linguistics and anthropology, "science of the concrete" — the complex systems of
so far as the contribution of structuralism is concerned, nomenclature and association that are to be foimd in
lies in the fact that they start from different conditions virtually all primitive cultures — is just as theoretical,
of knowledge. In the case of language the frmction of in its way, as our own science, that the heterogeneoirs
the system, or at least a function of it (namely commu- structures of myth and totemism follow rules just as
nication), has been known for a long time; stnictural intelligible and rigorous as those of our more neatly
linguistics tells us what structural elements and rela- engineered systems.
tions enable it to fulfill this function. In the case of Engineering may be taken as a paracfigm of our
kinship the elements and relations have been known aspirations: everything new, shiny, detachable, precise.
for a long time; what structural anthropology tells us The primitive is a bricoleur rather than an engineer,
is how they constitute the structure of a system and and bricolage has become one of the basic ideas of
what the function of that system might be (AS, p. 40). structuralism. It means, in essence, the use for purposes
Just as in the case of language, however, structural of construction of anything that comes to hand, partic-
characteristics reveal themselves only in a study of ularly of elements or remnants of former constructions.
differences among customs, myths, kinship patterns, So the myth will be built up from fragments of earlier
and the like: what is constant is not a particular nile myths, as language is built up from fragments of earlier
of marriage but a pattern of such rules, any variant languages. This heterogeneity of content is perfectly
of which will lend stability to a society with limited compatible with rigor of stnictiire, and that rather than
numbers by ensuring a cyclic order of exchanges among content is the important thing. But it is much less
its parts. readily seen in a product of bricolage than in a piece

One of the reasons for the enormous popularity of of engineering, and therefore has to be sought for by
the structuralist movement (and hence at least in part a process of analysis. The structure that emerges from
forits extension to other fields) is to be found in two this process, however, being in some sense indifferent
books by Levi-Strauss which depart from tlie purely to the materials in which it is realized, is likely to
scientific concerns of his earlier and later works. These reflect more accurately than a piece of engineering the
are Tristes tropiques (1955) and La pensee sauvage natural contours of the mind that gave rise to it.
(1962). The former is part autobiography, part The process of analysis in the case of myth, to take
travelogue, part philosophical reflection; it is not the best-known example, consists in showing how one
explicitly structuralist at themes
all, but some of its myth can be seen as a transformation of another, or
nevertheless throw significant light on what might be both as transformations of a third that may not even
called the moral component of structuralism. It makes occur in the corpus of myths; it is a search for the
clear the influence of Marxism and psychoanalysis on deep structure which explains and generates, in the
Levi-Strauss's intellectual development (in another epistemological and ontological orders respectively,
place he speaks of having "borrowed the notion of the surface structure exhibited by actual myths. The
structure from Marx and Engels"; AS, p. 364), provides deep structure is never extracted in order to be shown
a vivid background for his later work on mythology, by itself, it emerges from the repeated contrasts and
326 and reveals his preoccupation with three basic oppositions of variants, complementary versions and
STRUCTURALISM
so on. The works in which Levi-Strauss has carried on ture, which is the concern of criticism, and what makes
this enterprise are the various vohinies of his collection itself with language, i.e., the subject, which is the
Mythologiques. and the scale of the project can be concern of psychoanalysis.
gauged from tlie fact that in the first volume alone, One of the most striking examples of structuralist
Le cm et le cuit (1964, hereafter CC) no fewer than criticism — an analysis of Charles Baudelaire's sonnet
187 separate myths are analyzed. Structuralist analysis "Les Chats, '
which appeared originally in L'Hommc,
does not proceed in a straight line, from a clear-cut an anthropological journal — is again due to Levi-
problem to a definitive solution, but works over its data Strauss, in collaboration not with a literary critic but
until thev vield up own No mvth with a Roman Jakobson (Jakobson and Levi-
— "the world of mythology
their intelligibility. linguist,
is more basic than another Strauss, 1962), Literature seems to Levi-Strauss to oc-
is round," as Levi-Strauss remarks in Du miel aux cupy an area of intersection between linguistics and
cendres (p. 7) — although one or another myth may be ethnology: "The linguist discerns in poetic works
chosen as a key myth or myth of reference for purposes structures that bear a striking analogy to those found
of organization. The aim of the work is consistent with in myths by ethnologists. In their turn ethnologists
that of the earlier scientific researchers, namelv to cannot help recognizing that myths are not merely
"draw up an inventory of mental patterns, to reduce carriers of concepts: thev are also works of art" {idem,
apparently arbitrary data to some kind of order, and p. 5). Art is a cultural product; literature is art in the
to attain a level at which a kind of necessity becomes medium of language. The analysis of Baudelaire's
apparent, underlying the illusions of liberty" (CC, p. 10). sonnet consists simply in laying out the oppositions that
occur in it, on the various levels of phonology, phonet-
ics, and so on; there is
syntax, prosodv, semantics,
//. LITERARY CRITICISM AND nothing critical about this process if by criticism is
PSYCHOANALYSIS meant bringing to bear external canons of form or style.
The basic tenet of structuralism at the substantive But the outcome of it is precisely a "making intel-
rather than the methodological level might be rendered ligible" of the work on Tevels that are not accessible
as follows: what makes anything intelligible to man to the casual reader, or even to the informed reader
is a coincidence of structure between it and him. Na- who lacks the technical resources of the linguist.
ture is not intelligible e.xcept insofar as we are able This is a far cry from criticism as it is practiced by
to formulate its workings in theories of oiu own con- professional critics, but is does not e.xliaust the potential
struction (that we are able to do this so readily may contribution of stnictiualism to their discipline. Works
be, as C. S. Peirce suggested, due to the fact that we of literature are linguistic constructions, but like myths
ourselves are products of the same laws as nature is). they too have conceptual content, as well as thematic,
Structuralism applies chiefly to cultural domains, in social, psychological, and aesthetic aspects. Struc-
which everything is directly or indirectly a product tiu-ahsm recognizes intelligibility wherever it is to be
of mind, so that a coincidence of structure is not to found, and its task with respect to literature is to
be wondered at. (Levi-Strauss's observations on the explore the significance of these aspects also. Struc-
prohibition of incest — an apparently cultural rule turalist criticism in France has come to be classed with
which seems to have the universality of a natural psychoanalytic, Marxist, and existentialist approaches
—
law gave one of the first impulses to his development as "New Criticism "
or "ideological criticism" because
as a structuralist.) But the coincidence may not be of its refusal to observe the customs and pieties of the
evident at first, or not fully so; work may be required literary establishment, and because of its insistence on
to bring it to light. It can become intelligible in its taking the work as an object in the world a text, the —
turn only through a second-order coincidence of strxic- product of ecriture or "writing," a human or social trace
ture, and it is obvious that there can be no last step comparable to a myth, or on another level to a temple
in this process, which explains why in the end intel- or a city, open to archeological reconstmction or
ligibility must be shown rather than argued. deciphering — rather than as the masterpiece of a par-
Clearly language is the most fimdamental and most ticular author or an element of a chauvinistic literary
universal cultural product. Its own proper structiu-e heritage. Levi-Strauss's remark that "myths have no
is the concern of linguistics, but linguistics, even the authors," if extended to the classics, is certainly cal-
linguistics of parole, deals with language on a universal culated to enrage traditional critics who are as con-
level. Language in actual use gives rise to a number scious of their classical antecedents as the French, and
of kinds of artifact that escape merely linguistic analy- the polemic over structftralist qriticism has been espe-
sis, among which are two of particular interest for where it has concerned Racine, as seen in
cially bitter
structuralism: what is made with language, i.e., litera- Roland Barthes, Sur Racine (1963), Raymond Picard, 327
—
STRUCTURALISM
Nouvelle critique ou nourelle imposture? (1965), and .^s in the case of kinship practices, myths, and works
Barthes' reply to this. Critique et verite (1966). of art, the speech of the individual man (for the psy-
Barthes is the leader of the stnictiiralist movement choanalyst, the patient) is to be seen as moving on two
in criticism; he has also attempted (in his Elements de levels simultaneously. He uses language consciously to
semiologie, 1964) to summarize what can reasonably say what he wishes to say, and at the same time imcon-
be said at this point about the system of signs in gen- sciously says something quite different, which it is the
eral, as a first step towards the science envisaged by analyst's task to interpret. According to the Cartesian
Saassure as well as by Levi-Strauss which would deal view, in which the subject (the "I") is constituted by
with language but go beyond it, treating it as only one the cogito, these two and even conflicting
differing
among the many significative systems available to us. messages would have to be provided by two different
Not surprisingly, the only developed technical appara- subjects. Given that the conscious, reflective subject
tus he is able to present comes precisely from linguis- is the "I" of Descartes, who, Lacan asks, is the other
tics, and while it is certainly correct to treat language one? His answer is that the Unconscious, which has
as the principal and most obvious stnictured system, the stnictiue of language, is the language of the Other,
there may be some danger in assimiing that it is who inhabits the "other place "
of which Freud speaks.
paradigmatic of all of them. Otlier examples of Barthes' This Other is genetically speaking prior to the I, which
diverse and resourceful brand of structural analysis are constructs by entering into relations with the
itself
to be found de la mode (1967) which

in his Systrnic — world and with through language and by means
itself,
is not, as many people have supposed, a book about of the body; the imreflective and imconscious becomes
fashion, but rather about the language to which it gives conscious and reflective in a series of quite definite
rise — and in his commentaries on various aspects of stages, of which the most important in Lacan's work
French culture, such as the plates of Diderot's has been the stude du miroir, or "mirror stage," which
Encyclopedie, the Eiffel Tower, etc., and an earlier inyoung children represents the first apprehension of
series of short essays on everyday phenomena collected and autonomy (in its pathological
their physical unity
in Mythologies (1957). form it appears as the neurosis of the "fragmented
In any discussion of significance, from C. S. Peirce body").
to tlie present, the question: To whom do the signs The apparent Other obscures
personification of the
signify what they do? is bound to arise. To this we the importance of this discovery, which is double: first,
might answer, man, the conscious subject, etc., thus the structure of the imconscious is presumably common
giving a name to the problem but not doing anything to all men, idiosyncrasies of the conscious subject
to solve it. Now it is remarkable that the subject does arising from differences in ontogenetic development;
not in general simply take in significance, but charac- second, this structiu-e is presumably the same as the
teristically responds to it. and this most often not by stnictiu-e foimd imderlying language, kinship systems,
action (which might be an appropriate response to mvtholog)', and literatiue it writes, ordains, and so
stimuli received from the natural world) but by dis- on, in spite of the fact that men have always believed
course. Significance evokes significance in its tuni (in that they did.
Sur Racine Barthes alludes to "the silence of the work
which speaks, and the speech of man who listens"). III. PHILOSOPHY
This leads naturally enough, but by a new route, to The discomfort at this anthropomorphizing of the
the hypothesis that mind itself is a system with the unconscious can be resolved in one of two ways: either
structure of discourse. Instead of inferring the structiu-e by accepting it and having recourse to the transcendent
of mind in general from the structure of its large-scale (i.e., theologizing) or by challenging the concept of
causal consequences (lairguage, cultural artifacts, and man that leads to it in the first place. The latter ap-
so on), what it suggests is that we might infer the proach has been taken by Michel Foucault, whose
i.e., personalities, from
structiu'e of particular minds, doctrine of the "end of man," worked out in Les mots
theirimmediate causal consequences, the syntagmatic et les choses (1966), has awakened the defenders of
spoken chain that makes up the speech of each indi- humanism just as the defenders of classical drama were
vidual person. Structuralism thus has an intimate bear- awakened by Barthes. Foucault, whose earlier works
ing on psychoanalysis, and this connection has been {Histoire de la folie, 1961, and Naissance de la clinique,
worked out in the writings of Jacques Lacan, a 1963) had dealt with the abnormal as a negative
Freudian, who in spite of early disagreements with the touchstone for the human, shows in this book that the
official organization of psychoanalysts in France has concept of "man "
as it has come to be understood in
continued through his own group (/ 'Ecole freudienne contemporary humanism is a comparatively recent
328 de Paris) to exert a great influence on their practice. invention, called into being as the subject matter of
STRUCTURALISM
the sciences hutnaines and destined to disappear with the relation between Marxist and Hegelian dialectics,
the growing reahzation that these sciences are deahng the former being in his view a stnictural transformation
only with surface phenomena whose explanation is to of the latter rather than the simple inversion found
be found elsewhere. in the textbooks. But .\lthusser himself (like Foucault,
Once again the theme of a deep unconscious struc- Lacan, and others) strenuously denies that he is a
ture emerges: the search for Man as a possible object and in conclusion it may be worth coming
structuralist,
of knowledge has in fact produced linguistic structures, back to the problem of whether it is defensible to
the imconscious, etc., but never a concept of man include these diverse points of view imder a common
capable of bearing the weight that humanism would heading at all.
place upon it. For humanism requires a concept that The objection that is so strongly felt to the title
will give meaning to the totality of things not only "structuralist" by so many of thase who have been
now but for the hiture, while the condition of man identified as leaders of the movement has many com-
is such that his meanings always come from outside ponents, but three stand out. First is the belief, already
himself — from elsewhere, from the Other, from the alluded to, that structiualism is a school or an ideology,
system of discourse within which he becomes aware committing anybody who subscribes to it to a package
of the possibility of meaning. No totality can be mean- of ideasand concepts that must be accepted integrally
ingful in any case, except a finished one (a historical or not at all, and excluding other possible points of
humanism, an intellectual object, a book, some other view or departure (historical, positivist, existentialist,
product of ecriture), which can only be a part of our etc.). Second, and especially understandable in view
present totality and which necessarily has a closed of the national origins of the movement, is the fact
structure, whereas the "structurality" of our situation that structuralism has become fashionable; everything
(to borrow a phrase from Jacques Derrida) is open. not obviously in open contradiction with it, everything
Derrida, in a series of very difficult essays, has begun not fully understood, is likely to be called "struc-
the task of bringing structuralist philosophy into rela- turalist" in the French press, and it is natiual to resist
tion with the recent history of Western thought, nota- the undiscriminating epithets of the crowd. Third is
bly that of and Edmund Husserl. The

Nietzsche the further fact that the notion of structure has a
Apollo/Dionysius opposition in Nietzsche becomes technical use, especially in mathematics and deriva-
paradigmatic of the opposition between retrospective tively in linguistics and anthropology, so that purists
analysis in terms of difference, on the one hand, and, may object to its loose extension into fields like litera-
on the other, a current and dynamic presence to the ture and philosophy. Levi-Strauss, for instance, has
world, involving the notion of differance (sic), which very little patience with critics who go beyond linguis-
by an etymological allusion brings in the notion of tic structuralism.
temporality (one of the meanings of differer being "to The first two of these objections can be answered
defer or postpone") as well as the activity of making reasonably. To the extent that other movements are
a difference, engaging in praxis rather than theoria. The ideological or scholastic, structuralism may be incom-
philosophical analysis of this immediacy is phenom- patible with them, but since there is as yet no coherent
enology, itself based on a double binary structure of and worked-out set of propositions to constitute stnic-
noesis/noema and formal/material. Derrida sees that turalism "officially," but only a series of suggestive and
there can be no question of replacing the cogito, either mutually reinforcing conjectures whose empirical
Cartesian or Husserlian, with structure, but that the justifications are drawn from a number of different
more difficult task of reconciling them has to be under- disciplines, many other positions (although not all) may
taken. The central problem one of self-reference,
is prove to be compatible with it. Fashions change, and
structure being what emerges when language is the value of the structuralist perspective will survive
employed to raise the question of language, when the these changes.
subject raises the question of subjectivity, when man The last objection is harder to deal with, but it may
seeks the essence of man. be pointed out that and anthropology, the
linguistics
Another link with philosophical antecedents, already most technical of the disciplines involved, have them-
claimed at least on a terminological level by Levi- selves borrowed only rather simple forms of combina-
Strauss, is provided by Louis Althusser's work on Marx. tory mathematics, and that while the question why
For Althusser the concept of ideology plays the key there should be intelligible structures in logic and
role; it is the structured, unconscious system through mathematics may eventually permit a structuralist
which men relate to their world and within which they answer, for the time being it is simply inappropriate
come to awareness of it. Althusser also makes use of to invoke the mathematical notion of structure in con-
an essentially structuralist method in his treatment of nection with structuralism in the human sciences. 329
STYLE IN LITERATURE
Structuralism so far is at the descriptive level for the in the theory of style are already present in antiquity,
most part, and this provides ample opportunity for at leastby implication: until the end of the eighteenth
fruitful and enlightening work in a variety of disci- centiu-y,and sometimes even later, the framework of
plines. In philosophy its theories of the mind and of reference is nearly always that established b\' ancient
meaning are beginning to become clear; its logic and rhetoric and there is constant harking back to the old
metaphysics remain to be developed. ideas. Though important modifications occur, this
makes a strict chronological sequence difficult to trace.

BlBLIOGlL'iPHY Thus in the Phaedrus, Plato (or Socrates) presents an
almost romantic view of style, ntietorical devices, or-
L. Althusser, Pour Man (Paris, 1966). R. Barthes, Sur
Racine (Paris, 1936); idem, Le degri zero de I'ecriture, suivi
naments, image-making, are subordinate to general
de Elements de semiologie (Paris, 1965); idem. Critique et truth, goodness of character, and p.sychological insight,
t'eri(e (Paris, 1966). N. Chomsky, "Introduction," in M. Gross in some ways an anticipation of Buffon's famous eigh-
and A. Lentin, Notions sur les grammaires formelles (Paris, teenth-century dictum: "Style is the man himself " (Le
19671; idem. Language and Mind (New York, 1968). J. style est I'tiomrtie merne), found in Discours sur le style
Derrida, De la grammatologie (Paris, 1967); idem, L'ecriture (ed. Nollet [1905], p. 22). Content and form cannot
et la difference (Paris, 1967). O. Ducrot, et al., Qu'est-ce really be separated. It follows too that only the
que le structuralisme? (Paris, 1968), .M. Foucault, Les mots
rudiments of style can be taught, its essence not at all
et les choses (Pairs, 1966). R. Jakobson and C. Levi-Strauss,
(one of the favorite ideas of the nineteenth and twenti-
"'Les Chats' de Charles Baudelaire," L'Homme, 2, 1
eth centuries). Aristotle, on the other hand, in the
(Jan.-.'\pr. 1962). J.
Lacan, Ecrits (Paris, 1966). C. Levi-
Strauss, Les structures elementaites de la parente (Paris,
Poetics and Rhetoric, tends towards the view of style
1949); idem, Tristes tropiques (Paris, 1955); idem. Anthro- as ornament, and engages in a precise investigation of
pologic structurale (Paris. 1958); idem. La pensee sauvage figures ofspeech and other devices of style, and of their
(Paris, 1962); idem, Mijthnlogiques: Vol. I, Le cru el le cuit aestheticand ps\chological effect. .'Vmong these figures,
(Paris, 1964), trans. John and Doreen Weightman as The metaphor is the hallmark of genius, a view later echoed
Raw and the Cooked (New York, 1969); Vol. II, Du miel by Longinus and by Proust. Almost from the beginning,
aux cendres (Paris, 1966); Vol. III. L'origine des manieres then, though the difference between Plato and Aristotle
de table (Paris, 1968). A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, Structure and must not be overstressed, we find clearly stated the
Function in Primitive Societtj (London, 1952). F. de Saussure,
two opposing views of style as an inevitable product
Cours de linguistique generate (Geneva, 1915); trans. Wade
of content, and as a technique which can be acquired.
Baskin as Course in General Linguistics (New Y'ork, 1959;
Later Greek writers develop these ideas. The De
reprint 1966). N. Troubetzkoy. "La phonologie actuelle,"
H. Delacroi.x, Psychologic du langage
compositionc of Dionysius of Halicamassus (ca. 20 B.C.)
in (Paris, 1933); idem,
Grundzuge der Phonologie (Prague, 1939). is concerned with word order and rhythm but this tiu-ns
Translations by the author are designated by P. C. into a highly interesting study of style in general. He
on beauty and the magical effect of word order,
insists
PETER C.WS
which can be ruined by transposition. The De
[See also Criticism, Literary; Language; Linguistics; Myth.] elocutione of Demetrius (first century a.d.) continues
and extends the Aristotelian tradition of analysis of
figures and tropes but again, in an unmechanical way,
conveying the spirit as well as the technique. He shows
himself keenly aware of the deeper differences between
STYLE IN LITERATURE prose and poetry, going beyond meter. Roughly con-
temporary is On the Subtiine (not by Longinus but the
Of the many senses of "style"two are particularly name is too familiar to be dropped), which from the
relevant here: (a) work of
the use of language in a end of the seventeenth century Boileau's translation,
(
literature; (b) the sum of formal characteristics com- 1674) exercised immense influence on the development
mon to a period, school, or genre (the latter applies of European preromanticism. Loftiness of language is
to all the arts, including literature). The word "style" the keynote; a little stream is less admirable than the
derives from Latin stilus, an instrument for writing on ocean; and in the Platonic way expression is subordi-
wax tablets, hence, by metonymy, a way of writing nate to thought and passion (though there is also an
(already classical in this sense, found in Cicero). How- Aristotelian mastery in the analysis of figures).
ever, other words (such as oratio, elocutio) were more Generally speaking the Greeks are marked by fresh-
often used, and the concept of style naturally goes back ness and strong aesthetic sense (this applies to the
to the earliest Greek writings on rhetoric. .Aristotelian as well as to the Platonic tradition). The
330 Most of the major problems which have since arisen Romans (Cicero, Horace, and Quindlian outstanding)
STYLE IN LITERATURE
are much more practical. Quintilian's Institiitio oratoria Ronsard says, is a splendor of words which makes
(ca. A.D. 95), in particular, is perhaps still the best verses glitter like precious stones on the fingers of a
repertory of the expressive resources of a language, great lord — but here we are perhaps moving towards
though with few general ideas. mannerism. At the same time, Scaliger {Poetices lihri
Of the which emerge from classical

principles septevi, 1561) multiplies the qualities of style till he
theorists, the most important for later developments has about twenty, among which beauty (venustas)
are the definition of the qualities of style and the theory occupies an important place. The three levels of style
of levels, .\ccording to Quintilian style (oratio) has of course continue to appear (Scaliger and Ronsard
three kinds of excellence: correctness, clarity, and again). Ronsard above all returns to the Platonic view
adornment. Elsewhere he adds propriety (fitness to that details of style are subject to the Muses and the
context). But for him, as for Aristotle, clarity seems divine fru-y of the poet. On the whole. Renaissance
the most important. Although Oriental developments theory shows a powerful resurgence of the aesthetic
lie beyond the scope of this article, it is interesting emphasis we have found in the Greeks.
to see a similar emphasis on clarity in the Sanskrit When we come to the end of the sixteenth century,
treatise Natya(;astra (ca. first century a.d.). The three to late mannerism or early baroque, we encoimter the
levels of style are, with variations, the simple, the difficulty that the common run of critics follows
intermediate, and the grand (a distinction asually classical precepts and reflects only tangentially the
ascribed to the lost Of Style of Theophrastus, continued sometimes startling innovations in style itself. How-
by most later writers including Dionysius, Cicero, and ever, both Montaigne and Ben Jonson {Timber, 1640;
Quintilian). Demetrius adds a fourth level, the forcible. posthumous) praise the concise and abrupt style of
Medieval stylistic theory (Matthieu de Vendome, Sallust and Seneca, the "Senecan amble." And both
Geoffroi de Vinsauf, John Garland) is closely imitated regard style as the expression of the man himself,
from Latin models (Cicero and Horace especially), but Montaigne by implication, Jonson (following Juan Luis
with an even stronger practical bent than that of the Vives) fairly explicitly ("No glasse renders a mans
Romans. The doctrine of the three styles is extended "). They are
forme, or likenesse, so true as his speech
from style to subject and leads to Vergil's Wheel, in joined by Robert Burton {Anatomy of Melancholy,
which the three divisions are adapted to epic, didactic, 1621): "stylus virum arguit, our style bewrays us,"
and pastoral {Aeneid, Georgics, and Eclogues). The almost Buffon. A more fully baroque conception ap-
word stilus itself is much more frequently used. But pears in Martin Opitz {Buch von der deutschen Poeterei,
one great original mind naturally towers above the rest. 1624), with his exaltation of decoration as a principal
Dante is perhaps the first to use the term in a vernacu- quality of style and his admiration for magnificent
lar language exactly in its modern sense; periphrases. However, for the extreme presentation of
baroque theory we must turn to Tesauro's // can-
tu se' solo colui da cu' io tolsi
nocchiale Aristotelico (1654), an amazing compendium
to hello stilo chem 'ha fatto onore.
of rhetorical figures, conceits, and verbal tricks (and
("It is you alone from I whom took the beautiful style
which has brought me honor"; Inferno, i, 86-87). their equivalents in painting and sculpture), with a
remarkable classification of sources of metaphors by
In De vulgari eloquentia he offers a new interpretation place, time, dress, and so on, which anticipates many
of levels of style, extending the notion beyond genres modem studies of imagery. Everything becomes a
to constructions and vocabulary. conceit and creates astonishment. That this extrava-
During the Renaissance, understandably, depend- ganza claims to be (and to some extent is) based on
ence on classical models is still greater, especially in Aristotle is a good example of the way classical models
the series of commentaries on Aristotle by Italians, are completely transformed and distorted by baroque
beginning with Robortello (1548). In general, Italian writers or artists.
and French preoccupation with the problems of a Comparison with Tesauro demonstrates the prudent
national literary language tended to distract attention moderation of the French classical school. Boileau
from style in itself. On the other hand, there is more retiu"ns to the notion of clarity as the supreme quality,
stress on poetics and less on rhetoric than in the work the three styles receive much attention (Boileau and
of the ancients, and this helps to detach the concept Rapin both warn against the dangers of the grand
of style from a narrowly practical purpose. And in the style). La Bruyere insists on propriety (in Quintilian's
discussion of the qualities of style, though clarity still sense of the mot juste). However, we must not overlook
appears, beauty and splendor of language come to Boileau's part in popularizing the bold ideas of
overshadow it, e.g., in Trissino's La poetica (1529) or Longinus, and Bernard Lamy {La rhetorique, ou I'art
Ronsard's Abrege de I'art poetique (1565); elocution, de parler, 1675) moves a step further towards Buffon. 331
STYLE IN LITERATURE
Every man has his own way of gesticulating or walking, In some ways the study of style becomes less impor-
and so it is with writing (cf. Jonson): there are as many tant during the romantic period and after, for several
styles as there are persons writing. But Lamy goes reasons: the literary reaction against classical rhetoric
further: personal differences of style are the direct (Guerre a la rhetorique . . Hugo); the growth of
. .
product of physical differences in the brain and nervous historical linguistics, with consequent rejection of the
system. This materialist and scientific approach, not static and synchronic approach of rhetoric; above all,
far removed from Locke, anticipates not only the the biographical conception of criticism which con-
eighteenth century but also the nineteenth (Gourmont) centrates on the personality, not the text. Still, although
and the twentieth (I. A. Richards). Lamy also examines it is in some ways a return to Plato and Longinus,
the influence of climate on national styles and distin- romanticism is perhaps the first great revolution in the
guishes genre styles and period styles (he is perhaps theory of style, founded on the development of two
one of the first to view style historically). central and closely related ideas: the style is the man;
The eighteenth century is still dominated by classical content and style are inseparable. The first is vividly
rhetoric, but as we should expect there is a serious put by Newman: "we might as well say that one man's
attempt to put it on a rational philosophical founda- shadow is another's as that the style of a really gifted
tion. Thus when Lord Kames (Elements of Criticism, mind can belong to any but himself. . . . Literature
1762) discusses beautv of language at great length, he is the personal use or exercise of language" (The Idea
in fact talks mainlv about the logic of synta.\. Swift of a University). On the second, De Quincey records
and Buffon maintain that passion in style should never a remark of Wordsworth's: "It is in the highest degree
prevail over reason, Laharpe that style is the just and unphilosophic to call language or diction 'the dress of
proportionate expression of feelings; Buffon and thoughts' ... he would call it "the incarnation of
Johnson agree that things should only be named in thoughts.' " This demolishes not only a favorite image
general terms. Clarity is still put first among qualities view of style as super-
of the old rhetoric but also the
by Kames (who goes so far as to say that it "ought imposed ornament on which that rhetoric was based.
not to be sacrificed to any other beauty whatever") Similar views are expressed in the nineteenth century
and by Crevier (Rhetorique fran(;oise, 1765). The three by, for example, Wackernagel, Schopenhauer, G. H.
levels of style continue to flourish (Rollin, Voltaire, Lewes, Flaubert, and Henry James. It is clear that style
Marmontel); Crevier makes them the basis of a system- in this sense, since it is the inevitable expression of
atic classification of noble and low words, the latter mind and be taught (again the
personality, cannot
of course to be excluded. A favorite idea of the period, annihilation of the a view put by
old rhetoric),
which goes back at least to Quintilian, is that style Chateaubriand, Brimetiere, and Walter Raleigh (Style,
is the dress of thought (Kames, Johnson. Crevier). 1897), but carried to extreme lengths by Remy de
The works of the professional rhetoricians, like du Gourmont (Le Probleme du style, 1902) in his attack
Marsais {Des tropes. 1730) and Crevier, can be regarded on the manuals of .\ntoine Albalat. Wackernagel
as the ultimate point of the classical system. Their (Poetik Rhetorik und Stilistik, 1836-37) significantly
methodical treatment of figiu-es, sensible and intelli- transforms the classical three levels into the style of
gent, is a monument of eighteenth-century rationalism. intellect, the style of imagination, and the style of
However, the most famous and influential study, feeling.
Buffon's Discours stir le style (1753), is not the work To this mainstream of romantic thought (even today
of a rhetorician but of a scientist. As we should expect, far from exhausted) we must add the scientific and
we find the rational emphasis of the period, with traces perhaps the aesthetic movements of the nineteenth
of a more markedly scientific attitude: thoughts and century. Aestheticism is an offshoot of romanticism,
ideas are what style expresses les idees settles forment

(
but its preoccupation with form tends towards a new
le fond dtt style); movement is given importance, ap- separation of style and content, as when Walter Pater
propriately to the age of Newtonian physics (Le style compares the writer's language to the sculptor's marble
n'est que I'ordre et le mouvement qu'on met dans ses or Robert Louis Stevenson attempts to analyze verbal
pensees); the qualities of good style are luminosity, music. The application of science is seen incidentally
precision, simplicity, clarity. On the other hand, Buffon in Lewes's comparison of style to an efficient machine,
anticipates the future with his insistence on color and and systematically in Herbert Spencer's naively inge-
energy, and on the organic imity of style, its resem- nious reduction of style to the law of minimum effort.
blance to works of nature. And of course there is Le More significantly, Gourmont (an interesting amalgam
style est I'homme meme, foreshadowed, we have seen, of scientific and aesthetic approaches) makes style a
by earlier writers but never so clearly stated. In spite of product of physiology, an idea we have already noticed
the scientific context in which it appears, it may be in Lamy but here developed under the influence of
332 considered the foundation of romantic views of stvle. Taine and the French Naturalist school.
SUBLIME IN EXTERNAL NATURE
The last fifty years have seen a great revival of "Sublime" was for many years a rhetorical concept.
interest, theoreticaland technical, in the phenomena Yet even though Boileau's Traite de I'art poetique was
of style. This movement has been both literary (the known in England from the time of its publication in
reaction against biographical criticism and the realiza- 1674, it is many years before we find the kind of
tion of the supreme importance of the work itself) and estimate of Longinus implied bv Alexander Pope in
linguistic (the reaction against historical linguistics; An Essay on Criticism, first published in 1711 (lines
between langue and parole- the
Sanssiire's distinction 675-80):
growth of structuralism). There has been a return to
Thee, bold Longinus! all the Nine inspire,
some of the objects of classical rhetoric, though with
.\nd bless their Critick with a Poet's Fire,
methods based on advances in linguistics and an
An ardent Judge, who Zealous in his Trust,
attempt to go beyond mere classification. The results
With warmth gives Sentence, yet is always Just;
are too varied and too controversial to permit easy Whose own Example strengthens all his Laws,
summarizing: the most striking features are perhaps, and Is himself the great Sublime he draws.
on the literary side, the new importance attached to
figures, especially imagery, and, on the linguistic side, But in the meantime, during the late seventeenth cen-
the notion of style as an individual system within a tury, a "natural Sublime was developing in England
"
general code. The use of computers has been valuable with the result that travellers to the Alps were both
not so much in solving particular problems of attribu- appalled and enthralled by the vast and grand in exter-
tion as in drawing attention to style as a set of detecta- nal Nature [see Moimtains, . . .]. A climax emerges in
ble patterns. the extraordinary ambivalence of Thomas Burnet, in
A Sacred Theory of the Earth (Latin, 1681; English,
BIBLIOGRAPHY 1684), who on the one hand condemned mountains as
monstrosities, the "ruines of a broken World," and on
There is surprisingly little on the historical development
of theories of style, and the subject is best studied in general
the other responded to their majesty emotionallv as
histories of criticism: W. H. Atkins, Literary Criticism ir>

had no English writer before that time. In England
J.
Aritiquity (Cambridge. 1934); E. Faral, Les arts poetiques a "natural Sublime" preceded the "rhetorical
'
du Xlle et du Xllle siecles (Paris, 1924), includes the key Sublime.

texts in full; G. Saintsbury, A History of Criticism (Edin- In 1688 John Dennis, an English dramatist and critic,
burgh and London, 1900-04); B. Weinberg, A History of crossed the Alps and left an accoimt of the experience
Literary Criticisjii in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago, in a journal-letter, later published in his Miscellanies
1961); R. Wellek, A History of Literary Criticism 1750-1950
(1693). Like manv before him, he pondered the prob-
(New Haven, 1955-). A most useful work, though elementary
lem whether mountains had been original with the
in intention, is L. Cooper's Theories of Style (New York,
creation of the world, or whether they were rains, a
1907), which includes representative essays from Plato to
result of destruction by the Flood. Mountain travel was
the end of the nineteenth century, in English or translated
still very dangerous, and some part of the "horror and "
into English. For post-1900, see, for example, Cohen,

J.
Structure du langage poetique (Paris, 1966); R. Fowler, ed.. "terror" expressed by Dennis was the result of natural
Essays on Style and Language (London, 1966); H. A. and instinctive fear. "We walk'd upon the verv brink,
Hatzfeld, A Critical Bibliography of the New Stylistics in a literal sense, of Destruction," he wrote. "One
(Chapel Hill, 1953); J.
Leed, ed.. The Computer and Literary Stumble and both Life and Carcass had been at once
Style (Kent, Ohio, 1966). destroy 'd." Everywhere about him, Dennis saw the
R. A. SAYCE ruins of a broken world: "Ruins upon Ruins in mon-

strous Heaps, and Heaven and Earth confounded." The
[See also Ambiguity; Beauty; Criticism; Form; Metaphor;
frightful view of precipices and foaming waters that
Poetry and Poetics; Rationality; Rhetoric; Romanticism;
fell headlong from them "made all such a Consort up
Structuralism.]
for the Eye, as that sort of Musick does for the Ear,
in which Horrour can be joyn'd with Harmony." The
Alps are works which "Nature seems to have design'd,
and execut'd too in Fury. Yet she moves us less when
she studies to please us more." Before his Alpine
SUBLIME IN journey Dermis had been "delighted" at the beauty of
EXTERNAL NATURE hills and valleys, meadows and streams, but that had
been "a delight that is consistent .with reason. But . . .
Radical though England was in the "new science," transporting Pleasures followed the sight of the Alpes,
it remained conservative in Uterary criticism, drawing and what imusual Transports think you were those, that
primarily from French rhetoricians. In France the were mingled with Horrours, and sometimes almost 333
—
with despair. " In a sentence Dennis expressed the idea The Pleasures of the Imagination, as published, deal
of the SubHme that was to become a new aesthetic with two groups of "pleasures": a "secondary" (Spec-
experience: "The sense of all this producd different tator 416-20), in which Addison studies the effect upon
emotions me, viz., a delightful Horroiir, a terrible
in imagination of various arts, architecture and landscape-
Jov, and at the same time, that I was infinitely pleas'd, gardening in particular. These essays, like a group of
I trembled." Dennis returned to England to write papers on Milton, may be said to treat the "rhetorical
various works in which he developed an aesthetic only- Sublime." Thev are than the first group
less original
dawning when he went abroad, to attempt to establish of essays (.Spprtofor 411-15), inwhich he discussed the
new literary criteria, and to make the first important effect of the primary pleasures of imagination. While
distinction in English literary criticism between the he was dealing with what is there called "the Sublime
Beautiful and the Sublime, categories which remained in external Nature," it is significant that he carefully
sharplv opposed in his mind. avoided in this group of essays the word "Sublime,"
.\nthony Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury,
.\shlev' using such adjectives as great, stupendous, unlimited,
made the Grand Tour in 1686, two years earlier than spacious, unbounded, and though on only two —
Dennis, but did not publish his memoirs of it until Tlie occasions vast, which he probably considered, as did
Moralists appeared in 1709. Perhaps like Dennis he the French, an adjective of excess. The primary pleas-
had written a journal-letter. His account of the ures of the imagination are such as man receives, not
mountain-experience an episode in a grand tour of

is through books but directly from Nature. They come
the universe, on which a master conducted a pupil. to him through his senses, most of all through sight.
It begins with sight of a vast tract of sky above the "By pleasures of imagination," Addison said {Spectator
mighty Atlas, rearing his snow-covered head, where 411), "I here mean such as arise from visible objects.
"huge embodied rocks lie piled one on another." "See . . . We cannot, indeed, have a single image in the
with what trembling steps poor mankind tread the fancy that did not make appearance through
its first
narrow brink of the deep precipices, mistrusting even the sight." In the essays Addison discussed three
the ground which bears them." They ponder the evi- categories, "the great, the uncommon and the beauti-
dences of ruin they see on all sides, "whilst the appar- ful."His treatment of "beauty" remained conventional,
ent spoil and irreparable breaches of the wasted moun- that of the "new or uncommon" somewhat vague. His
tain show them the world itself only as a noble ruin." originality lay in his stress upon the effect on imagina-
"Midway the mountain," the travellers felt that "space tion of greatness, particularly as it was perceived
astonishes ; but space did not appall Shaftesbury as through the eyes. Classical, medieval, and .\rabic
it had Blaise Pascal who wrote in his Pensees (1670, philosophers had stressed the importance of sight, but
posthumous): "The eternal silence of these infinite in the period of the telescope and the microscope it
spaces me." To Shaftesbury the apparent

terrifies took on new significance. To Locke, sight was "the
infinity of space led men to thoughts of God, in whose most comprehensive of all the senses," to Berkeley "the
"immensity all thought is lost, fancy gives over its most noble, pleasant and comprehensive of all the
flight, and wearied imagination spends itself in vain, senses." More than one philosopher of the period
finding no coast nor limit of this ocean." Shaftesbury paused to consider the problems of a man bom blind.
made no such sharp distinction as Dennis between But although .Addison shared with predecessors and
beauty and sublimity: to him the Sublime was a higher contemporaries his interest in the effect of sight, he
and a grander Beauty. was original in his emphasis on the influence of sight
So far as England was concerned, the most important less on the mind, than on the imagination.
early treatment of the Sublime was that of Joseph In Spectator 414 Addison particularly developed the
•Addison in his Pleasures of the Imagination. Drafts of idea of the great as a primary stimulus to the imagina-
some of the papers had been written well before the tion. Works of art may be beautiful, but they cannot
full text was published in the Spectator in 1712. Even rise to "greatness." "There is something more bold and
in his earliest printed work, his Oration in Praise of masterly in the rough careless strokes of natiue. than
the New Philosophy, delivered when he was still a stu- in the nice touches and embellishments of art." "By
dent at O.xford, Addison had shown the impact upon his greatness," he wrote in Spectator 412, "I do not mean
imagination of a greatly expanded telescopic and micro- only the bulk of any single object, but the largeness
scopic "Nature" in the new universe. When he set out of a whole view." His memory went back to his Conti-
on the Grand Tour in 1699, he was better prepared nental travels:

than some of his predecessors for experience with the
"grand" in Nature. "The Alps," he wrote, "fill the mind Such are the prospects of an open champaign country, a
with an agreeable kind of horror, and form one of vast uncultivated desert, of huge heaps of mountains, high
334 the most irregular, mis-shapen scenes in the world." rocks and precipices, or a wide expanse of waters where
— —
we are not struck with the novelty or beautv of the sight, be the characteristic of your piece." Mallett willingly
but with that rude kind of magnificence which appears in responded with "great scenes": the violence of storm,
many of these stupendous works of nature.
eruptions, earthquakes, volcanoes, the Deluge. This,
A reader becomes aware that Addison is greatly Thomson replied,

"
"is arousing fancv — enthusiasm
interested in what we now think of as psychological rapturous terror.
effects of vastness and greatness upon the imagination. 1744-46 appeared editions of three long poems,
In
In this particular essay he continued: all concerned in part with the Sublime: James
Thomson's complete Seasons, Mark Akenside's The
Our imagination loves to be filled with an object, or to grasp
Pleasures of Imagination, Edward Yoimg's Night
at anything that is too big for its capacity. We are flung
Thoughts. Having wisely left to Mallett the most vio-
into a pleasing astonishment at such unbounded views, and
feel a delightful stillness and amazement in the soul at the
lent manifestations of natural forces, Thomson sent his
apprehension of them. The mind of man naturally hates imagination over the British Isles, Europe, and upon
every thing that looks like a restraint upon it, and is apt occasion South -America, which he had not seen, finding
under a sort of confinement when the sight
to fancy itself both the Beautiful and the Sublime. "Spring" alone,
is pent up in a narrow compass, and shortened on every inwhich he emphasized Beauty, is limited in its canvas.
side by the neighborhood of walls or mountains. On the and mountains became more
In the other seasons, rivers
contrary, a spacious horizon is an image of liberty, where and more majestic as the various books grew under
the eye has room to range abroad, to expatiate at large on the poet's hand. "Air, earth and ocean .smile immense";
the immensity of its views, and to lo,se itself amidst the "Earth's universal face is one wild dazzling waste."
variety of objects that offer themselves to observation.
its
When shadows far horizon becomes a
fall, the
Such wide and undetermined prospects are as pleasing to
"bomidless deep immensity of shade." "Solemn and
the fancy, as the speculations of eternity or infinitude are
slow the shadows blacker fall/ And all is awful listening
to the understanding.
gloom aroimd." Nature grows increasingly richer, more
Here is Addison's attempt at explicating what in mod- diversified, more boundless, more sublime:
ern times is "agoraphobia" and "claustrophobia."
Nature! great parent! whose unceasing hand
In the last analysis, .Addison declares {Spectator 41.3)
Rolls round the Seasons of the changeful year.
that such appreciation of and aspiration toward the
How mighty, how majestic are thy works!
great is man's gift from God, who has "so formed the With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul.
soul of man, that nothing but himself can be its last, That sees astonish 'd, and astonish d sings!
adequate, and proper happiness." God has made man ("Winter," lines 106-10).
"naturally delighted in the apprehension of what is
great or imlimited." From Infinite God through the In his earlier version of The Pleasures of Imagination
vastness of Nature to the soul ofman; from the soul (1744), Mark Akenside, like Addison before him,
of man through vast Nature to God such was the — treated the three categories of the sublime, the won-
process of what can be called "The Aesthetics of the derful, and the fair, the second of which he omitted
Infinite." in a later edition. Unlike Thomson, .'\kenside was not
There was nothing particularly original in Addison's a descriptive but a philosophical poet, less interested
development of the categories of beauty or novelty, in scenery than in its effect upon the imagination.
but his analysis of greatness was of the first importance. There was a significant difference, he felt, between
As we shall see, his ideas were versified by Mark responses to the Beautiful and the Sublime:
Akenside and made into an elaborate system by

DifF'rent minds
Edmund Burke. His analysis of beauty and sublimity Incline to different objects: one pursues
also lay behind various of Immanuel Kant's conceptions The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild;
in his Kritik der Urleilskraft (1790). To some extent .\nother sighs for harmony and grace.
his distinction between the Beautiful and the Sublime And gentlest beauty (III, 546-50).
lay behind a new descriptive poetry in eighteenth-
The Beautiful and the Sublime were not antithetical
century England (discussed in Moidntain Gloom and
Mountain Glory, 1959). The sense of a new "vast
to Akenside as they were to Dermis. Rather as with —
Sublime" is to be seen particularly in the "excursion"
Shaftesbury — the Sublime was the highest Beauty:
poets who sent their imaginations on grand tours of . . . celestial truth
the imiverse to marvel at all that was vast or grand Her awful light discloses, to bestow
mighty continents with mountains and oceans, majestic A more majestic pomp on beauty's frame.
(II, 97-99)
rivers,subterraneous regions with caverns measureless
to man. "Sublimity," James Thomson wrote to David To Akenside as to Thomson color was equated with
Mallett who was planning The Excursion (1728), "must beauty, light with sublimity. His "high-born soul," 335
refusing to be satisfied with "earth and this diurnal Great minds, enlarging as their views enlarge;
scene," spreads its wings and takes off on a cosmic Those still more godlike, as these more divine.
voyage through streams of hght, past the planets and (IX, 1059-64)
the "devious comets until she "looks back on all the ' Yoimg added to the concept of infinite space an idea
Starrs whose blended light, as with a milky zone invests that had been dawning in his century infinite time. —
the orient." "Eternity," he said, "is written in the stars." As
Lorenzo journeyed in the heavens among stars and
. . . she springs aloft
planets, he learned
Through fields of air; pursues the flying storm;
Rides on the vollev'd lightnings thro" the heav'ns, The boundless space through which these rovers take
Or, yok'd with whirlwinds and the northern blast Their restless roam, suggests the sister thought
Sweeps the long tract of day (I, 186-91). Of boundless time (IX, 1172-74).
A climax in the poetic treatment of sublimity came Lorenzo returned from his cosmic voyaging with a new
in the "Ninth Night" of Thomas Young's Night feeling for grandeur, a new awareness of the range of
noughts (1745-46). Young paid no attention to Beauty, imagination, a new sense of God:
none to landscape. As the title implies, the scene is True, all things speak a God; but in the small.
laid at night. Young's external is dark and void Nature Men trace out him; in great, he seizes Man;
of color. His character, Lorenzo,had remained uncon- Seizes, and elevates, and raps, and fills (IX, 772-74).
vinced throughout eight long and tedious books of the

From Art through grand Nature in the landscape
\lght Tliotiahts. to be converted finally as the result
of an enlarged and enlarging world, then through cos-
of a series of cosmic voyages on which his mentor
mic Nature, the imagination of the eighteenth century
conducted his imagination. Young used the technique
rose to the source of eternity and infinity. From the
of cosmic voyagers of the seventeenth century. "The
Infinite, through the new space discovered by astron-
soul of man was made to walk the skies."
omy, vastness descended to carry a new sense of the
remote past, men had found "the great" in
In the
Sublime to exalt "the wide Sea and Mountains
the Seven Wonders of the World works of .Art, not — Earth." Such is the process of "The Aesthetics
of the
of the
Nature. More recently they had sought it in the land- "
Infinite.
scape of Nature, in the
Not long after Thomson, .\kenside, and Young had
Seas, rivers, mountains, forests, deserts, rocks. published their poems, Edmund Burke, then a student
The promontory's height, the depth profound of nineteen, read before a club at Trinity College,
Of subterranean, excavated grots, Dublin, the draft of an essay published in 17.56 or 1757
Black-brow'd, and vaulted high, and yawning wide
as A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas
From Nature's structure, or the scoop of Time.
of the Sublime and Beautiful. Addison's Pleasures of
(I.\, 905-09)
the Imagination was clearly one of his points of
But great though these may seem to man, they were departure, but similarities with the three poets may
not enough for Young's imagination. "But what of vast also be seen. Particularly in his penetrating analysis
in these?" he asked, and replied, "Nothing — or we must of color and light, his debt to Thomson, .Akenside, and
own the skies forgot." Greatness is found not in the Yoimg is greater than to Addison. Burke's treatment
landscape of earth but in the space of the heavens, of Beauty is more conventional than that of the
that "noble pastirre of the mind, "
where the soul Sublime, which recalls the pleasure-pain theory
"expatiates, strengthens, and exults." There she frequently discussed by Locke, Shaftesburv, and Hume.
. . . can rove at large;

The quahties of Beauty are pleasant ones, such as
There, freely can respire, dilate, extend.

smallness, smoothness, delicacy, variation, color. Those
In full proportion let loose all her powers; of the Sublime are terror, obscurity, difficulty, power,
.\nd, imdeluded, grasp at something great. vastness, leading to magnificence and infinity.
(IX, 1016-19)
The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature,
In his series of cosmic voyages Young's Lorenzo foimd
when their causes operate most powerfuUv is Astonishment;
and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its
his mind and soul expanding with the enlargement of
motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this
space:
case the mind is so entirely filled with its objects, that it
. . . How great. cannot entertain anv other. . . . Hence arises the great
How glorious, then, appears the mind of man power of the sublime, that far from being produced by them,
When in it all the stars, and planets, roll! it anticipates our reasonings, it hurries us on by an irre-
336 .\nd what it seems, it is; Great objects make sistible force.
—
SYMBOL AND SYMBOLISM IN LITERATUBE
"Whatever is fitted in anv soul, "

Burke went on, "to described both the majesty and terror of universal
excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, darkness:
whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about
She comes! she conies! the stable Throne behold
terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to Of Night primaeval and of Chaos old. . . .
terror, is a source of the sublime, that is, it is productive There at her felt approach and secret might,
of the strongest emotions which the mind is capable Art after Art goes out and all is Night. . . .
of feeling." "All general privations," he wrote, "are Lo! thy dread Empire, CHAOS! is restpr'd;
great, because they are all terrible; Vacuity. Darkness, Light dies before thy imcreating word;
Solitude, and Silence." Thy hand, great Anarck! lets the curtain fall,
Naturally Burke had much to sav of color and light. And universal Darkness buries All.
Ordinarily color belongs to Beauty, but it niav mount
to the Sublime if it is strong and violent. But light
BIBLIOGRAPHY
when it is more than "mere light" — approaches the Joseph Addison, The Spectator, ed. Donald E. Bond
Sublime: the light of the sun which blinds, lightning (Oxford, 1965). Mark .\kenside. The Pleasures of Imagination
involving grandeur or terror, rapid transition from light (London. 1744). B. Sprague .Allen, Tides in English Taste
to darkness or from darkness to light. "Extreme light,
(Cambridge, Mass., 1937). Edmund Burke. A Philosophical
Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
by overcoming the organs of sight, obliterates all ob-
Beautiful (London, 1958). R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of
jects, so as in its effect exactly to resemble darkness."
Nature (Oxford, 1945). Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl
Light may be Sublime because of either magnificence
of Shaftesbury, The Moralists: A Philosophical Rhapsody,
or horror. The sublimity of light partakes to some
in Characteristics, ed. John M. Robertson (London, 1900),
degree of all the qualities of the Sublime that have II, 122ff. John Dennis, Miscellanies in Verse and Prose
been listed: it may
by its suddenness, over-
astonish (London, 1693), in Critical Worts, ed. Edward Niles Hooker
whelm by vastness or power, evoke an aesthetic re- (Baltimore, 1939-43), II, 350ff. Christopher Hussey. The
sponse by its magnificence, or rouse the passions by Studies in a Point of View (London, 1927).
Picturesqtie:
terror in excess or by privation. Elizabeth Manwaring, Italian Landscape in Eighteenth
Burke rises to one of his few emotional heights in Century England (New 'V'ork, 1925). Marjorie Hope Nicolson,
his analysis of the power of darkness. Darkness, he tells Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory (Ithaca, 1959); idem,
us, is more productive of sublime ideas than light.
Newton Demands the Muse (Princeton, 1946). James
Thomson, Complete Poetical Works, ed. J. L. Robertson
"Night increases our terror more perhaps than any
(London. 1908). Walter Whipple, The Beautiful, the
thing else." If light may be Sublime, darkness is more J.
Sublime and the Picturesque in Eighteenth-Century British
so. Burke's usual objectivity and dispassionateness de-
Aesthetic Theory (Carbondale, III., 1957). Edward Young,
part when he ponders the effect of darkness on human Night Thoughts (London, 1793).
imagination. Light may be sublime in its magnificence,
pain, or danger. Darkness, the greatest of the "priva-
MARJORIE HOPE NICOLSON
tions," is still more sublime because more terrible. In [See also Beauty; Cosmic Voyages; Cosmology; Infinity;
a section on the sublimity of darkness, Burke remem- Mountain Attitudes; Nature; Space; Taste.]
bered the poet who, "blinded by excess of light," closed

his eyes in endless night, recollecting that although
Milton's Heaven was a place of sublime light, God
himself could not be seen even by Cherubim and
Seraphim. God circled his throne vrith the majesty of SYMBOL AND SYMBOLISM
darkness: IN LITERATURE
Fountain of light, thyself invisible
The word "symbol" has had a long and complex
Amidst the glorious darkness where thou sitt'st
history since antiquity. Today it may designate very
Throned inaccessible, but when thou shadest
The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud
different sorts of concepts in the most varied contexts.
Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine. The use in mathematics or symbolic logic is almost
Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear. diametrically opposed to its use in literary criticism,
{Paradise Lost, III, 375-80) ar d even there it vacillates, for "symbol " often can-
not be distinguished from "sign," "synecdoche" and
It was not Burke or Young, Thomson or Akenside "allegory." In Northrop Frye's influential Anatomy of
who best expressed the eighteenth-century response to Criticism (Princeton, 1957) it is defined "as any unit
the great "privation " of light. It was Alexander Pope of any work of literature which can be isolated for
who in the ending of 77ie Dunciad (1728; 1741-42) critical attention" (p. 367). 337
SYMBOL AND SYMBOLISM IN LITERATUBE
The word comes from the Greek verb symbaltcin. 1859) a distinction between schematism (the general
"to put together," and the noun symholon. "sign," signifying the particular, as in abstract thought),
"token" which originally referred to a half-coin which allegory (the particular signifying the general), and
the two parties to an agreement carried away as a symbolism (the miion of the general and the particular)
pledge for its fulfillment. Late in the seventeenth cen- which alone is art, is drawn. Similarly Solger considers
tury its use, e.g., in Leibniz, seems to have served often all art symbolic. Solger defines the beautiful in his
as a designation for a mathematical sign. Its application Vorlesungen idier Asthetik (1829), as the union of the
to literature with a clearly defined meaning, contrast- general and the particular, of concept and appearance,
ing it with allegory, occurred first in Germany late in of essence {Wesen) and reality. "The symbol is the
the eighteenth century. Symbol, Sinnhild. emblem, existence of the Idea itself. It is really what it signifies.
hieroglyph, allegory were used almost interchangeabh' It is the Idea in its immediate realit)'. The symbol is
by Winckelmann, Lessing, and Herder. Only Kant in thus always true in itself: not a mere copy of something
Die Kritik der Viieilskraft (Critique of Judgment; 1790) tnie" (p. 129). Hegel, in his Vorlesungen iiber Asthetik
gave symbol a more preci.se meaning in the conte.xt (1835; the lectures were delivered in the 1820's) differs
of aesthetics. He expressly rejects "the modem logi- from the majority of his contemporaries by confining
cians" (i.e.. Leibniz and Wolff) who use it in opposition "symbolic" to an early stage of art, to what in their
to "intuitive representation." "Symbolic representation terminology would be allegorical art. Symbolic art, for
is only a kind of intuitive representation," and symbols Hegel, where there is no concrete togetherness
is art
are "indirect representations of the concept through of meaning and form: it is the first stage exemplified
the medium of analogy." "Beauty is a symbol of moby the art of ancient India and Egypt. In general,
rality" (paragraph 59). Goethe, who began to use the German authors climg to the romantic formulas.
term after 1797, drew then the distinction between Heinrieh Heine in a passage later to be quoted by
symbol and allegory most clearly, particularly in Baudelaire, proclaims himself a "supernaturalist in
Maximen und Rcjiexionen: "True symbolism is where art." "1 belieye that the artist cannot find all his types
the particular represents the more general, not as a in nature, but that the most significant types, as inborn
dream or a shadow, but as a living momentary revela- symbolism of native ideas, are revealed, as it were, in
tion of the Inscrutable." And perhaps most sharply: the soul." "Colors, and forms, tones and words, ap-
"Allegory changes a phenomenon into a concept, a pearance in general, are only symbols of the Idea"
concept into an image," while symbolism "changes the [Samtliche Werke, ed. O. Walzei, Leipzig [1912-15],
phenomenon into the idea, the idea into the image, 6, 25, 23). Also Friedrich Hebbel, though highly
in such a wav that the idea remains always infinitely Hegelian in his speculations on tragedy, sees "every
active and miapproachable in the image, and will genuine work of art as a mysterious, ambiguous, un-
remain inexpressible even though expressed in all lan- fathomable symbol" {Tagebitcher, 2, 96; February 2,
guages" (Nos. .314, 1112, 111.3). Schiller, a close student 1841).

of Kant, had used the term as early as 1794 in a review The German discussion continued throughout the
of Matthissons poems, suggesting that the poet needs century, and becomes increasingly suspicious of the
a "symbolic operation" to change inanimate nature idealist interpretation of symbol. Friedrich Theodor
into human nature. Nature should become a "symbol Vischer's last paper, "Das Symbol" (1887) (in Altes
of the internal harmony of the mind with itself" by und Neues. N. F, 1889) marks a temporary end as
a "symbolism {St/mbotik) of the imagination." In a Vischer moves toward a psychological and empirical
letter to Goethe Schiller praises Shakespeare's Richard aesthetic while still clinging to the essence of the
III for using "symbols where natiu'e cannot be idealist interpretation. He analyzes the different
depicted" (Nov. 28, 1797) and recommends the intro- meanings of the term sharply distinguishing it from
duction of "symbolic devices" (Behelfe) to take the myth. Symbolism in poetry is animism, anthropo-
place of an object (Dec. 29, 1797). In the Preface to morphism, inspired by the truth that the universe,
Die Braut von Messina (1803) Schiller asserts boldly nature and spirit must be one at their roots. It is an
that "everything in poetry is only a symbol of the real." act of empathy which Vischer analyzes in purely
The proliferation of the term and concept is, how- psychological terms. A third use of symbol, as con-
ever, due to the German romantics, to the brothers sciously contrived symbolism, as the poetic repre-
Schlegel (though in .\ugust Wilhelm's writings which sentation ofwhat is universally significant and typical
stress theimagery of literature the term Sinnbild pre- seems to Vischer dangerously near to allegory which
dominates), to F. W. Schelling, Novalis (Friedrich von with him and all the Germans is simply non-art.
Hardenburg), K. W, F. Solger and many others. In Goethe's and ScheUing's concept won out abroad.
338 Schelling's Philosophie der Kuruit (1802, published in It penetrated to England mainly through S. T. Cole-
SYMBOL AND SYMBOLISM IN LITERATURE
ridge and Thomas Carlyle. Coleridge in The States- monopolizing the term, has dealt symbolism a hard
man Manual (1816) defines symbol "by a
's translucence blow." (See "La poesie symboliste et socialiste" in
of the special ( = generic) in the individual, or of the Revue des deux mondes, N.S. 5 [1844], 669-82, trans.
general in the special, or of the universal in the general; M. Gilnian, in The Idea of Poetry in France [1954],
above all by the translucence of the eternal through p. 225.) But Limayrac's prophecy proved to be quite
and in the temporal. It always partakes of the reality wrong. Baudelaire, in the fifties, espoused a theory of
which it renders intelligible; and while it enunciates universal analogy and correspondences best known
the whole, abides itself as a living part in that unity through his sonnet "Correspondances." But this repre-
of which it is the representative." While Coleridge sented only an early occult stage of his thinking. His
often wavered in his use and sometimes thought of later aesthetics centers rather on creative imagination
symbol only as synecdoche ("Here comes a sail" instead than on symbol. Symbol occurs interchangeablv with
of "a ship"), symbol became the central concept of allegory, cipher, hieroglyphic, and even emblem.
the young Thomas Carlyle in life and literature. Baudelaire, whatever his practice, thus cannot be
Carlyle interpreted Goethe as a symbolist. Goethe has called a symbolist. He died in 1867 almost twenty years
"an emblematic intellect," "the figurativeness is in the before the movement which appealed to him as a
very centre of his being" (Essays, Centenary edition, forerunner. Also Stephane Mallarme's aesthetic does
1, 244; 2, 449). In Sartor Resartus (1831) a whole not center on the symbol. He aims rather at the crea-
chapter called "Symbolism" develops a total view of tion of a special poetic language which would evoke
art and life as symbolism. Carlyle influenced two great and suggest as if by magic, the central mystery, the
writers profomidly: Ruskin also developed a theorv of Idea, Silence, Nothingness. Art is both abstract and
symbolism in art, but tried to combine symbolism with obscure. Art must "evoke, in a deliberate shadow, the
naturalism. "Symbolic" beauty for him surpasses but object which is silenced, be allusive, never direct." The
must not suppress "vital" beauty (Modem Painters, in "symbol," which Mallarme uses sparingly, would be
Worjis, Library edition, 4, 144). Carlyle's friend and only one device to achieve this effect. Still, one sees
correspondent Ralph Waldo Emerson was then ex- how the whole tendency of aesthetic thinking in France
pounding a most extreme symbolist theory of poetrv. was preparing for the acceptance of the term as a
"The whole of nature is a metaphor of the human slogan.
mind." Analogy is the key to the vmiverse. Still, The term symboliitne as a designation of a group
Emerson, differing from the tradition of Swedenbor- of poets was first proposed by Jean Moreas (pseudonym
gian "correspondences on which he drew, insists on
' for Jean Diamantopoulos, 1856-1910). In 1885 he was
the "accidency and fugacity" of the symbol. All sym- disturbed by a journalistic attack on the decadents in
bols are "fluxional." "In the transmission of the which he was named together with Mallarme. He
heavenly waters, every hose fits every hydrant," says protested: "The so-called decadents seek the pure
Emerson strikingly advocating the pervasiveness and Concept and the eternal Symbol in their art, before
shifting convertibility of symbolism, an "incessant anything else." With some contempt for the mania of
metamorphosis" (Complete Works, Centenary edition, critics for labels, he suggested the term Symbolistes
1, 32; 3, 20, 34-35). to replace the inappropriate decadents (Michaud
The symbolist conception also penetrated to France: [1947], 2, 331). In 1886 Moreas started a review Le
there are echoes, in Madame de Stael who knew the Symboliste which perished after four issues. On Sep-
Schlegels, in Alexandre Vinet, in Charles Magnin, and tember 18, 1886, he published a manifesto of Sym-
particularly in Pierre Leroux, an early Utopian socialist. bolisme in Figaro. Moreas, however, soon deserted his
In a series of remarkable articles in the Revue encijclo- own brain-child and founded another school he called
pedique. Vol. 52 (1831), Leroux exalted poetry as the ecole romane. On September 14, 1891, in another
language of symbols, as a system of correspondences, number Moreas blandly announced that
of Figaro
a network of "vibrations." Elsewhere Leroux recog- symbolisme was dead. Thus symbolisme was only an
nizes that in his sense "metaphor, symbol, myth are ephemeral name for a very small clique of French
but different degrees of allegory" and sees in svmbol poets. The only person still remembered aside from
"an intermediary form between comparison and Moreas is Gustave Kahn. It is easy to collect pro-
allegory properly speaking. It is truly an emblem, the nouncements by the main contemporary poets repudi-
metaphor of an idea" (in Oeuvres 1, 330-31). Thus the ating the term for themselves. Verlaine, in particular,
term shifts from a rhetorical category to an element was vehemently resentful of this Alleinandisme and
in a mystical view of nature. Oddlv enough another wrote even a little poem beginning A has le symbol-
critic, Paulin Limayrac, concludes that "Symbolic po- isme mythe/ et termite (Invectives, 1896).
etry has no future in France, and socialism, by In a way which would need detailed tracing, the 339
term, however, caught on in the later 1880's and early movement: the precursorship of Baudelaire who died
1890's as a blanket name for recent developments in in 1867, the second phase when Verlaine and Mallarme
French poetry and its anticipations. Before Moreas' were at the height of their power before the 1886
manifesto, Anatole Baju, in Decadent (April 10, 1886), group, the third phase when the name became estab-
spoke of Mallarme as "the master who was the first lished,and then in the twentieth century what Michaud
to formulate the symbolic doctrine." Two critics, calls Neo-symbolisme represented by "La Jeune
Charles Morice, with La littirature de tout cl I'heure Parque" of Valery and L'annonce faite a la Marie of
(1889) and Teodor de Wyzewa, born in Poland, first Claudel, both dating from 1915. It is a coherent and
in the essay "Le Symbolisme de M. Mallarme" (1887), convincing conception which needs to be extended to
seemed to have been the main agents, though Morice prose writers and dramatists: to Huysmans after Au
spoke rather of synthese than of symbol, and Wyzewa rebours (1884), to the early Gide, to Proust in part and
thought that "symbol" was only a pretext and ex- among dramatists at least to Maeterlinck who with
plained Mallarme's poetry purely by its analogy to his plays L'intruse and Les aveugles (1890) and Pelleas
music. As early as 1894 Saint Antoine (pseudonym for et Melisande (1892) assured a limited penetration of
Henri Mazel) prophesied that "imdoubtedly, symbol- symbolism on the stage.
ism will be the label under which our period will be Knowledge of the French movement and admiration
classed in the historv of French literature" (L'Ermitage, for it soon spread to the other European countries. We
June 1894). must, however, between reporting on
distinguish
It is still a matter of debate in French literary history French events (and even the enthusiasm reflected by
when this movement came to an end. It was revived translations) and a genuine assimilation of the French
several times expressly, e.g., in 1905 around a review movement by another literature. This process varies
Vers et prose. Its main critic, Robert de Souza, in a considerably from country to country; and the varia-
series of articles "Ou nous en sommes" (also published tion needs to be explained by the different traditions
separately, 1906) ridiculed the many attempts to bury which the French importation confronted.
symbolism as premature and proudly claimed that In English, George Moore's Confessions of a Young
Gustave Kahn, Paul Verhaeren, Francis Viele-Griffin, Man (1888) and his Impressions and Opinions (1891)
Maurice Maeterlinck, and Henri Regnier were then as gave sketchy and often poorly informed accoimts of
active as ever. Valery professed so complete an alle- Verlaine, Mallarme, Rimbaud, and Jules Laforgue.
giance to the ideals of Mallarme that it is difficult not Mallarme's poetry is dismissed as "aberrations of a
to think of him as a continuer of symbolism, though refined mind
and symbolism is oddly defined as "say-
"
in 19.38, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of ing the opposite of what you mean." The three essays
the symbolist manifesto, Valery doubted the existence on Mallarme by Edmund Gosse, all dating from 1893,
of symbolism and denied that there is a symbolist are hardly more perceptive. After the poet's death,
aesthetic ("Existence du symbolisme," in Pleiade ed., Gosse turned sharply against him. "Now that he is no
[1957], 1, 686-706). Marcel Proust in the posthumously longer here the truth must be said about Mallarme.
published last volume of his great series, Le temps He was hardly a poet." Even Arthur Symons, whose
retrouve (1926), formulated an explicitly symbolist aes- book, The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899),
thetic. But his own attitude to symbolist contem- made the decisive breakthrough for England and
poraries was often ambiguous or negative. In 1896 Ireland, was very lukewann at first. While praising
Proust had written an essay condemning obscurity in Verlaine (in Academy, 1891) he referred to the "brain-
poetPi' (in Chroniques). Proust admired Maeterlinck but sick little school of Symbolistes" and "the noisy little
disliked Charles Peguy and Paul Claudel. He even school of Decadents" and in later articles on Mallarme
wrote a pastiche of Regnier, a mock-solemn description he complained of "jargon and meaningless riddles." But
of a head cold. When Le temps retrouve (1926) was then he turned around, and produced the entirely
published and when a few years later (1933) Valery favorable Symbolist Movement. It should not, however,
Larbaud proclaimed Proust a symbolist (Preface to be overrated as literary criticism or history. It is a
Emeric Figer, L'esthetique de Marcel Proust), symbol- rather lame impressionistic account of Nerval, Villiers
ism had, at least in French poetry, definitely been de risle-Adam, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Laforgue, Mal-
replaced by surrealism. larme, Huysmans, and MaeterUnck with emphasis on
Andre Barre's Le symbolisme (1911) and particularly Verlaine. There is no chapter on Baudelaire. But most
Guy Michaud's Message poetique du symbolisme (1947) importantly the book was dedicated to W. B. Yeats
as well as many other books of French literary scholar- proclaiming him "the chief representative of that
ship have with the hindsight of literary historians, movement in our country." The edition of Blake, which
340 traced the different phases of a vast French symbohst Yeats had prepared with Edwin Ellis in 1893, was
introduced by an essay on "The Necessity of Symbol- to an end at the time of his writing. Wilson's sources
ism," and the essay "The Symbohsm of Poetn "
(1900) were the writings of Huneker, whom he admired
was Yeats's full statement of his symbolist creed. greatly, and the instruction in French literature he
Symons' dedication to Yeats shows an awareness of received at Princeton from Christian Gauss. But the
symbolism as a truly international movement: "In insight into the unity and continuity of the interna-
Germany," Symons says, exaggerating greatly, "it tional movement and the selection of the great names
seems to be permeating the whole of literature, its was his own. We might only wonder about the inclu-
spirit is that which is deepest in Ibsen, it has absorbed sion of Gertrude Stein.
the one new force in Italv. Gabriele D'.\nnunzio. I In the United States. Wilson's reasonable and mod-
am told of a group of symbolists in Russian literature, erate plea for an international movement was soon
there is another in Dutch literature, in Portugal it has displaced by attempts to make the whole of the Amer-
a little own under Eugenio de Castro.
school of its I ican literary tradition symbolist. F. O. Matthiessen's
even saw some faint stirrings that way in Spain." The American Renaissance (1941) is based on the dis-
Symons should have added the United States. Or tinction introduced by Goethe, .'\llegory appears as
could he in 1899? There were intelligent and sympa- inferior to symbol: Hawthorne inferior to Melville. But
thetic reports of the French movement very early. in Charles Feidelson's Stimbolism and American Liter-
T. S. Perry wrote on "The Latest Literary Fashion in ature (1956) the distinction between modern symbo-
France" in The Cosmopolitan (1892), T. Child on lism and the use of symbols by romantic authors is
—
"Literary Paris The New Poetry" in Harper's (1896), completely obliterated. Emerson, Hawthorne, Poe,
and Aline Gorren on "The French Symbolists" in Melville, and Whitman appear as pure symbolists
Scribner's (13 [1893], 337-52). The almost forgotten aiant la lettre. and their ancestry is traced back to
Vance Thompson, who fresh from Paris, edited the the Puritans who, paradoxically, appear as incomplete,
oddly named review Mile Neic York, wrote several frustrated symbolists. It can be objected that the old
perceptive essays, mainly on Mallarme in 1895 (re- Puritans were sharply inimical to images and symbols
printed in French Portraits in 1900) which convey some and that there is a gulf between the religious concep-
accurate information on his theories and even attempt tion of signs of God's Providence and the aesthetic use
with some success some explication of his poetry. But of symbols in the novels of Hawthorne and Melville
only James Himeker became the main importer of and even in the Platonizing aesthetics of Emerson.
recent French literature into the I'nited States. In 1896 The svmbolist conception of .American literature is
he defended the French symbolists against the slurs in still prevalent today. owes its dominance to the
It
Max Nordau's Entartung and began to write a long attempt to exalt the great American writers to myth-
series of articles on Maeterlinck, Laforgue, and many makers and providers of a substitute religion. James
others not bothering to conceal his dependence on his Baird in Ishmael (1956) puts it strikingly: Melville is
French master, Remy de Gourmont to whom he dedi- "the supreme example of the artistic creator engaged
cated his book of essays. Visionaries (1905). But the in the act of making new symbols to replace the 'lost'
actual impact of French symbolist poetry on .\merican symbols of Protestant Christianity. "
A very active trend
writing was greatly delayed. Rene Taupin in his in American criticismexpanded symbolist inter-
L'influence du sytnbolisme franqais sur la poesie pretation to all tvpes and periods of literature. The
americaine (1929) traced some echoes in forgotten impact of ideas from the Cambridge anthropologists
American versifiers of the turn of the century but only and from Carl Jung is obvious. In the study of medieval
two Americans living then in England, Ezra Pound texts, a renewed interest in the fourfold levels of mean-
around 1908 and T. S. Eliot aroiuid 1914, reflect the ing in Dante's "Letter to Can Grande" has persuaded
French influence in significant poetrv. a whole group of .American scholars led by D. W
More recently and in retrospect one hears of a Robertson, to interpret Chaucer, the Pearl poet, and
symbolist period in .American literature: Hart Crane Langland in these terms. The symbolist interpretation
and ^Vallace Stevens are its main poets; Henry James, reaches heights of ingenuity in the writing of Northrop
Faulkner, and O'Neill, in very different ways and in Frye who began with a book on Blake and. in The
different stages of their career, show marked affinities Anatomy of Criticism (1957), conceived of the whole
with its techniques and outlook. Edmund Wilson's of literature as a self-enclosed system of symbols and
Axel's Castle (1931) was apparently the very first book myths, "existing in its own universe, no longer a
which definitely conceived of symbolism as an interna- commentary on life or reality, but containing life and
tional movement and singled out Yeats, Joyce, Eliot. reality in a system of verbal relationships." In this
Gertrude Stein, Valery, and Proust as outstanding grandiose conception all distinctions between periods
exanrples of a nx)vement which, he believed, had come and styles are abolished: "the literary universe is a 341
"
universe in which everything is potentially identical enough by expounding their common creed: their
with everything else." The old distinctions between and music, in short, their
belief in the marriage of Idea
myth, symbol, and allegory disappear. One of Frye's belief in the ideal of Mallarme. Following a vague
followers, Angus Fletcher, in his book on Allegory suggestion made by Remy de Gourmont the redis-
(1964), exalts allegory as the central procedure of art, covery of Gongora by Ortega y Gasset, Gerardo Diego,
absorbing symbolism. Damaso Alonso, and Alfonso Reyes around 1927 fits
The story of the spread of symbolism is very differ- into the picture; they couple Gongora and Mallarme
ent in other countries. The effect in Italy was ostensibly as the two poets who in the history of all poetry have
rather small. Soffici's pamphlet on Rimbaud, in 1911, gone furthest in the search for absolute poetry, for the
is usually considered the beginning of the French quintessence of the poetic.
symbolist influence, but there was an early propa- In Germany, the spread of symbolism was far less
gandist for Mallarme, Vittorio Pica, who was heavily complete than Symons assumed in 1899. Stefan George
dependent on French sources, particularly Teodor de had come to Paris in 1889. had visited Mallarme and
Wyzewa. His articles, in the Gazetta letteraria (1885- met many poets, but after his return to Germany he
86),on the French poets do not use the term; but in deliberately avoided the term "symbolism" for himself
1896 he replaced "decadent" and "Byzantine" bv and his circle. He translated a selection from
"symbolist." Tlie poets around Ungaretti and Montale Baudelaire (1891) and smaller samples from Mallarme,
spoke rather of i'mwtismo. In a book by Mario Luzi, Verlaine, and Regnier in Zeitgenossische Dichter (1905),
L'idea simbolista (1959), Pascoli, Dino Campana, and but his own poetry does not show very close parallels
Arturo Onofri are called symbolist poets. to the French masters. Oddly enough, the poems of
While symbolism, at least as a definite school or Viele-GriflBn seem to have left the most clearly
movement, was absent in Italy, it is central in the discernible traces on George's own writings see B. —
history of Spanish poetry. The Nicaraguan poet Ruben Boschenstein in Euplwrion, 58 (1964). As early as 1892
Dario initiated it after his short stay in Paris in 1892. one of George's adherents, Carl August Klein, protested
He wrote poems imder the symbolist influence and in George's periodical. Blatter fi'ir die Kunst. against
addressed, for instance, a fervent hymn to Verlaine. the view of George's dependence on the French.
The influence of French symbolist poetry changed Wagner, Nietzsche, Bocklin, and Klinger, he says, show
completely the oratorical or popular style of Spanish that there is an indigenous opposition to naturalism
lyrical poetry. The closeness of Guillen to Mallarme in Germany as everywhere in the West. George himself
and Valery seems too obvious to deny and the spoke later of the French poets as his "former allies
Uruguayan poet Julio Herrera y Reissig (187.3-1909) and in Gundolf's authoritative book on George (1920),
is clearly in the symbolist tradition, often in the most the French influence is minimized if not completely
obscure manner. Still, the Spanish critics favor the term denied. Among the theorists of the George circle
modemisino which is used sometimes so inclusively that Friedrich Gundolf had the strongest symbolist leanings;
it covers all modern Spanish poetry and even the Shakespeare und der deutsche Geist (1911) and Goethe
so-called "generation of 1898," the prose writers (1916) are based on the distinction of symbol-allegory
Azorin, Baroja, and Unammio, whose associations with with symbol always the higher term. Still, the term
symbolism were quite tenuous. "Symbolism" can apply symbolism did not catch on in Germany as a name
only to one trend in modem Spanish literature as the for any specific poetic group, though Hofmannsthal,
romantic popular tradition was stronger there than e.g.,in "Das Gespriich viber Gedichte" (1903), pro-
elsewhere. Garcia Lorca's poetry can serve as the best claimed the symbol the one element necessary in po-
known example of the peculiar Spanish synthesis of etry. Later, the influence of Rimbaud apparently—
the folksy and the symbolical, the gypsy song and myth. largely in German translation — on Georg Trakl has
Still, the continuity from Dario to Jimenez, Antonio been demonstrated with certainty by H. Lindenberger
Machado, Alberti, and then to Guillen seems evident. in Comparative Literature, 10 (1953), 21-35.
Jorge Guillen in his Harvard lectures. Language and But if we examine German books on twentieth-
Poetry (1961), finds "no label convincing." "A period century literature "symbolism" seems rarely used. A
look." he argues, does not signify a "group style." In section so called in Willi Duwe's Die Dichtung des
Spain there were, he thinks, fewer "isms" than else- 20. Jahrhunderts. published in 1936, lists Hofmannsthal,
where and the break with the past was far less abrupt. Dauthendey, Cale, Rilke, and George, while E. H.
He reflects that "any name seeking to give unity to Liith's Literatur ah Geschichte (Deutscfie Dichtung von
a historical period is the invention of posterity" (p. 1885 bis 1947), published in 1947, treats the same poets
214). But while eschewing the term "symbolism" he under the label "Neuromantik und Impressionismus."
342 characterizes himself and his contemporaries well A later section "Parasymbolismus deals with Musil "
and Broch. German literary scholarship has not been direct outgrowth of symbolism. The mere fact that they
converted to the term, though Wolfgang Kayser's arti- appealed to the early symbolist Innokentv Annensky
cle "Der europaische Symbolismus" (1953; included in shows the continuity with symbolism in spite of their
Die Vortragsreise, Bern, 1958), had pleaded for a wide distaste for the occult and their emphasis on what they
concept in which he included D'Annunzio, Yeats, Val- thought of as classical clarits. Symbolism dominates
erv, Proust, Virginia Woolf, and Faulkner besides the Russian poetry between about 1892 and 1914. Then
French poets. futurism emerged as a slogan and the Russian formalists
In Russia we find the strongest self-styled "symbolist" attacked tlie whole concept of poetry as imagery.
group of poets. The close links with Paris at that time If we glance at the other Slavic countries we are
may help to explain their appearance, or possibly also struck by the diversity of their reactions. Poland was
the strong consciousness of a tradition of symboli.sm early informed about the French movement, and Polish
in the Russian Church and in some of the orthodox poetr\' was influenced by the French symbolist move-
thinkers of the immediate past. Vladimir Solovev was ment but the term Mlada Polska ("Young Poland") was
regarded as a precursor. In 1892 Zinaida Vengerova preferred. In Wilhelm Feldniann's Wspolczesna litera-
wrote a sympathetic account of the French symbolists tura polska ("Contemporary Polish Literature, 1905) "
for Vestnik Evropy while in the following year Max contemporary poetry is discussed as "decadentism but '
Nordau's Entartung caused a sensation for its satirical Wyspiahski (a symbolist if ever there was one) appears
account of recent French poetry which had repercus- imder the chapter heading: "On the heights of roman-
sions on Tolstoy's \Vliat is Art? (1898). Valery Bryusov ticism." All the histories of Polish literature speak of
emerged as the leading symbolist poet: he translated "Modernism, "Decadentism, "Idealism, and "Neo-
" " "
Maeterlinck's L'intrttse and wrote a poem "Iz romanticism" and occasionally call a poet such as
Rimbaud " 1894 he published two
as early as 1892. In Miriam (Zenon Przesmycki) a symbolist but they never
little volumes entitled Russkie simvolisly. That year seem to use the term as a general name for a period
Bryusov wrote poems with titles such as "In the man- in Polish literature.
ner of Stephane Mallarme" (though these were not In Czech hterature the situation was more like that
published till 1935) and brought out a translation of in Russia: Bfezina. Sova, and Hlavacek were called
Verlaine's Romances sans paroles. Bryusov had later symbolists and the idea of a school or at least a group
contacts with Rene Ghil, Mallarme's pupil, and derived ofCzech symbolist poets is firmly established. The term
from him the idea of "instnmientation or "orchestra- "
Moderna (possibly because of the periodical, Modemi
tion in poetry which was to play a great role in the
"
Revue founded in 1894) is definitely associated with
theories of the Russian formalists (Lettres de Rene Ghil, decadentism, fin de siecle, a group represented by
Paris, 1935). In the meantime Dimitri Merezhkovsky Arnost Prochazka. A hymnical, optimistic, and even
had, in 1893, published a manifesto: "On the causes chiliastic poet such as Otokar Brezina cannot and could
of the decline and the new trends of contemporary not be classed with them. The great critic F. X. Salda
Russian literature, which recommended symbolism,
" wrote of the "school of symbolists" as early as 1891,
though Merezhkovsky appealed to the Germans as calling Verlaine, Villiers, and Mallarme its masters, but
models, to Goethe and the romantics rather than to denied that there is a school of symbolists with dogmas,
the French. Merezhkovsky pamphlet foreshadows the
s codices, and manifestoes. His very first important arti-
split in the The younger

Russian symbolist movement. cle "Synthetism in the new art" {Literarni Listij, 1892)
men, Alexander Blok and Vyacheslav Ivanov as well expounded the aesthetics of Morice and Hennequin for
as Bely, drew apart from Bryusov and Balmont. Blok the benefit of the Czechs, then still mainly dependent
in an early diary (1901-02) condemned Bryusov as on German models.

decadent and opposed his Parisian symbolism with his The unevenness of the penetration of both the influ-
own Russian variety, rooted in the poetry of Tyutchev, ence of the French movement and notably of the
Fet, Polonsky, and Solovev (Literatumoe Nasledstvo, acceptance of the term raises the question whether we
27-28 [1937], 302). Vyacheslav Ivanov in 1910, shared can account for these differences in causal terms. It
Blok's view. The French influence seemed to him sounds heretical or obscurantist in this age of scientific
"unreasonable in an adolescent way and, in fact, not explanation to ascribe much to chance, to chance con-
very fertile,
"
while his own symbolism appealed to tacts, and personal predilections. Why was the term
Russian nationalism and to the general mystical tradi- so immensely successful in France, in the United States
tion {Apollon, 8 [1910], 13). Later Bely was to add and in Russia, less so in England and Spain and hardly
occultism, Rudolf Steiner and his "anthroposophy." at all in Italy and Germany? In Germany there was
The group who even the tradition from Goethe and Schelling to F. T.
"
of poets called themselves "Acmeists

(Gumilev, Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam) was a Vischer of the continuous debate about symbol. One 343
can think of all kinds of explanations: a deliberate also elsewhere. In English, Yeats and Eliot; in the
decision by the poets to move away from the French United States, Wallace Stevens and Hart Crane; in
developments, or the success of the terms Die Modenw Germany, George, Rilke, and Hofniannsthal; in Russia.
and Xeuromantik. Still, the very number of such ex- Blok, Ivanov, and Bely; in Spain and South America,
planations suggests that the variables are so great in Dario, .\lachado, and Guillen. If we, as we should,
number that we cannot account for these divergencies extend the meaning of symbolism to prose, we can see
in any systematic manner. it clearly in the late Henry James, in Joyce, the later
Finally, if we discuss the exact contents of the term Thomas Mann, in Proust, in the early Gide, in Faulkner
"symbolism" in literary history, we must distinguish and D. H. Lawrence, and if we add the drama we
among four concentric circles defining its scope. M recognize it in the later stages of Ibsen, and in Strind-
its narrowest "symbolism" refers to the French group berg, Hauptmann, and O'Neill. There is symbohst
which called itself so in 1886. Its theory was rather criticism of distinction: an aesthetics in Mallarme and
nidimentarv. These poets mainly wanted poetry to be Valery, a looser creed in Remy de Gourmont, in Eliot,
nonrhetorical, i.e., thev asked for a break with the and in Yeats and there is a flourishing school of
tradition of Hugo and the Pamassiens. They wanted symbolist interpretation particularly in the United
words not merely to state but to suggest; they wanted States.
to use metaphors, allegories, and symbols not only as Much of the French "new criticism" is frankly
decorations but as organizing principles of their poems; symbolist. Roland Barthes' pamphlet. Critique et lerite
they wanted their verse to be "musical," in practice (1966), pleads for a complete liberty of symbolist in-
to stop using the oratorical cadences of the French terpretation. Symbolism in this sense can be defended
alexandrine and, in some cases, to break completely as rooted in the concepts of the period, as distinct in
with rhyme. Free verse — whose invention is usually meaning and as clearly setting off the period from that
ascribed to Gustave Kahn — was possibly the most preceding it, realism or naturalism. The difference
enduring achievement which has survived all vicissi- between symbolism and romanticism is less certainly
tudes of style. Kahn himself summed up the doctrine implied. Obviously there is a continuity with romanti-
simply as "antinaturalism, antiprosaism in poetry, a cism, and particularly German romanticism; also in
search for freedom in the efforts in art, in reaction France, as has been recently argued again by Werner
against the regimentation of the Parnasse and the Vordtriede in his \ovalis und die franzosischen
naturalists" (La societe noutelle, .i^pril 1894). Symbolisten (1963). The direct contact of the French
"Symbolism" in a wider sense refers to the broad with the German romantics, however, came late and
movement in France from Nerval and Baudelaire to should not be overrated. Jean Thorel's "Les roman-
Claudel and Valery. We can characterize it by saying tiques allemandes et les symbolistes fran9ais" seems to
that in symbolist poetry the image becomes "thing." have been the first to point out the relation (in
The relation of tenor and vehicle in the metaphor is Entretiens politiques et litteraires, 1891). Maeterlinck's
reversed. The utterance is divorced from the situation: on Novalis (1894) and his little anthology (1896)
article
time and place, history and society are played down. came late in the movement. But Wagner of course
The inner world, la duree, in the Bergsonian sense, is mediated between the symbolists and German mythol-
represented or often merely hinted at as "it," the thing ogy though Mallarme's attitude, while admiring the
or the person hidden. The grammatical predicate has music, was tinged with irony for Wagner's subject-
become the subject. Clearly such poetry can easily be matter (Oeuvres, Pleiade ed., pp. 541-45). Early in the
justified by an occult view of the world. But this is century, Heine, a rotnantique defroque as he called
not necessary: it might simply imply a feeling for himself, played the role of an intermediary (cf. Kurt
analogy, for a web of correspondences, a rhetoric of Weinberg's Henri Heine: du symbolisme
heraut
metamorphoses in which everything reflects everything franqais, 1954). E. T. A. Hoffmann was widely trans-
else. Hence the great role of synaesthesia, which, lated into French and could supply occult motifs, a
though rooted in physiological facts, and found all over transcendental view of music, and the theory and
the history of poetry, became at that time merely a practice of synaesthesia.
stylistic device, a mannerism to be easily imitated and Possibly even more important were the indirect
transmitted. contacts through the English writers discussed: through
On the third wider circle of abstraction the term Carlyle's chapter on symbolism in Sartor Resarttts, and
can be applied whole period roughly between
to the his essay on Novalis; through Coleridge from whom,
1885 and 1914. "Symbolism" can be seen as an inter- through another intermediary, Mrs. Crowe, Baudelaire
national movement which radiated originally from drew his definition of "constructive imagination "; and
344 France but produced great writers and great poetry through Emerson, who was translated by Edgar Quinet.
SYMMETRY AND ASYMMETRY
There was also Edgar Allan Poe who drew on Cole- circle, the use of"svmbolism" in all literature, of all
ridge and A. W. Schlegel, and seemed so closely to ages. Here the term, broken loose from its historical
anticipate Baudelaire's views that Baudelaire quoted moorings, lacks concrete content and remains merely
him as if he were Poe himself, sometimes dropping the name for a phenomenon which is almost universal
all quotation marks. in all art.
The enormous Poe on the French dem-
influence of
onstrates, however, most clearly the difference between BIBLIOGRAPHY
romanticism and symbolism. Poe is far from being a
Max Schlesinger, Ceschtchte des Symbols (Berlin, 1912);
representative of the romantic world view or of its still useful.
romantic aesthetics which imagination is conceived
in On early history much in R. Wellek, History of Modern
as transforming nature. Poe has been aptly described Criticisvi, 1750-1950, 4 vols. (New Haven, 1955-65). On
as an "angel in a machine": he combines a faith in Goethe's predecessors: Curt Miiller, Die geschichtlichen
technique and even technology, a distrust of inspira- Voraussetznngen des Symbolbegriffes in Coethes Kunstan-
tion, a rationalistic eighteenth-century mind with a schauung (Berlin. 1937). On Goethe see Maurice Marache,
vague occult belief in "supernal" beauty. The distrust Le symbole dans la pensee et I'oeuvre de Goethe (Paris, 1960).
of inspiration, an enmity to nature, is the crucial point
On French developments before 1886: Margaret Gilman,
The Idea of Poetry in France (Cambridge, Mass., 1958).
which sets off symbolism from romanticism. Baudelaire,
Angelo P. Bertocci, From Symbolism to Baudelaire (Carbon-
Mallarme, and Valery all share it; while Rilke, a
dale, 111., 1964).
symbolist in many of his procedures and views, appears
On movement: .\ndre Barre, Le symbolisme:
the French
as highly romantic in his reliance on moments of
Raynaud, La melee poetique
essai historique (Paris, 1911). E.
inspiration. For this reason the attempt to make du symbolisme, 3 vols. (Paris, 1920-23). G. Michaud, Mes-
Mallarme a spiritual descendant of Novalis, as sage poetique du symbolisme, 3 vols. (Paris, 1947). A. G.
Vordtriede tried to do, must fail. Mallarme, one might Lehmann, The Symbolist Aesthetic in France, 1885-1895
grant, aims at transcendence but it is an empty (Oxford, 1950). K. Cornell, Tlie Symbolist Movement (New
transcendence, whereas Novalis rapturously adores the Haven, 1952). M. Decaudin, La crise des valeurs symbolistes
unity of the mvsterious universe. In short, the romantics (Toulouse, 1960),
were Rousseauists; the symbolists, beginning with On the international movement: Edmund Wilson, Axel's
Baudelaire, believe in the fall of man or, if they do

Castle (New York, 1931). Maurice Bowra. The Heritage of
Symbolism (London. 1943). Anna Balakian, Tlie Symbolist
not use the religious phraseology, know that man is
Movement: A Critical Appraisal (New York, 1967); a good
hmited and is not, as Novalis believed, the Messiah
sketch. Georgette Donchin, The Influence of French
of nature. The end of the romantic period is clearly
Symbolism on Russian Poetry (The Hague, 1958). Rene
marked by the victory of positivism and scientism, Taupin, L'inftttence du symbolisme franqais sur la poesie
which soon led to disillusionment and pessimism. Most americaine de 1910 a 1920 (Paris, 1929). Enid L. Duthie,
symbolists were non-Christians, even atheists, although L'infiuence du symbolisme franqais dans le renotweau
they tried to find a new religion in occultism or flirted poetique de I'Allemagrte (Paris, 1933). Ruth Z. Temple, The
with Oriental religions. They were pessimists who need Critic's Alchemy: A Study of the Introduction of French
not have read Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hart- Symbolism into England (New York, 1953).
mann, as Laforgue did, to succumb to the mood of ren6 wellek
decadence, fin de siecle, Cdtterdanmienmg, or the
[See also Allegory; Expressionism; Impressionism; Natural-
death of God prophesied by Nietzsche.
ism in Art; Romanticism; Style.]
Symbolism is also clearly set off from the new avant-
garde movements after 1914, i.e., futurism, cubism,
surrealism, expressionism, etc. There the faith in lan-
guage has crumbled completely, while in Mallarme and
Valery language preserves its cognitive and even magic
power; Valery s collection of poems is rightly called SYMMETRY AND ASYMMETRY
Channes. Orpheus is the mythological hero of the poet;
charming the animals, trees, and even stones. With NoN HABET Latinum nomen symmetria ("Latin does
more recent art the view of analogy disappears: Kafka not have a word for 'symmetry' "). This eye-opening
has nothing of it. Post-symbolist art is abstract and remark occurs in the midst of Pliny's Natural History
allegorical rather than symbolic. The image, in sur- (Book 34, Ch. 65; Loeb edition. Vol. 9, 174/76). Having
realism, has no beyond: it wells, at most, from the made this remark Pliny uses the word several times
subconscious of the individual. as if it were a well-established loan-word (from the
Finally, there is the highest abstraction, the largest Greek). There is corroborating evidence that indeed 345
it was. Vitruvius, a near contemporary of Pliny, also patterns, perhaps even to a fault. Book 13 of Euclid's
uses the word several times in his De architectura, and Elements is a splendid essay on the existence, con-
its connotations indicate more or less the meaning struction,and uniqueness of regular solids in space, and
which it may have in a textbook on architecture of as such is a triumphant exercise in mathematical
it
today. symmetry in our present-day sense. It is even a hall-

Antiquity and After. "Symmetrv" is a Greek term mark and acme of Greek originality. And vet it is an
and a Greek conception, and, as Pliny already sensed, isolated achievement of Greek rationality, exclusive,
there is perhaps no proper verbal equivalent for it in and compartmentalized.
any European idiom. However, the term does not occur However, almost every great Greek philosopher had
in Homer, and it may have indeed been post-Homeric a thematic duality in his thinking. In Anaximander it
by formation. Homeric terms have a peculiar verbal was injustice and retribution; in Heraclitus it was
strength, and they also have a central meaning which change and constancy in the cosmos; in Parmenides
they usually retain even if their later connotations are it was the ontological contrast between Being and
spread over variant possibilities. But the term sym- Appearance; in Empedocles it was, quite primitively,
metry was not of this kind. Rather, in the classical and insensitively. Love and Strife; in .\naxagoras it was
Hellenic era, the term belonged to a group of terms mind versus the senses; in Democritus it was the work-
and locutions that designated harmony, rhvthm, bal- ing physicist's contrast between the material and the
ance, equipoise, stability, good proportions, and even- void, or between the full and the empty, or between
ness of structure. the particle and the field; in Plato it was the
When translating from the Greek for the general epistemologist's difiêrence between opinion and
reader it is best to follow Pliny's (and Vitruvius') exam- knowledge and the idealist's dualism between body and
ple and let the term symmetry stand as it does, rather soul, either or both of which Plato may have inherited
than render it by a locution that, for a scholar, might from Socrates; and in .\ristotle it was the hardiest
perhaps better fit the context. It is true that the dic- duality of all, the gigantic contrariety between the
tionary meaning of the term symmetry has shifted since Potential and the Actual.
antiquity, but none of the original connotations has Lesser Greek philosophers dwelt on lesser dualisms,
become obsolete, certainly not entirely so. What has imimaginative ones, Aristotle reports {Metaphysica
seriously changed is this, that one of the connotations 986a 23-986b 4) that a school of Pythagoreans drew
that originally —
was barely there in a dictionary sense, up a list of ten opposites, viz., Limit-L'niimited, Odd-
that is —has gradually grown to prominence, and even Even, Unity-Pliu'ality, Right-Left, Male-Female, Rest-
paramountcy. It is the connotation of "bilateral" Motion, Straight-Crooked, Light-Darkness, Good-Evil,
symmetry, what is the same, of mirror symmetrv.
or, Square-Oblong, .\ristotle is apparently not impressed
This symmetry allows a strictly geometric definition, with the particular selection of pairs in this list, because
which can be applied to a visual tableau of any dimen- he adds that Alcmaeon of Croton (of whom .\ristotle
sion. If the tableau is spatial, that is, three-dimensional, does not know whether he inspired the Pythagoreans
a "mirror any (two-dimensional) plane in its entire
"
is or they him) held similar views, but stated that there
extension, and it decomposes the tableau into two is nothing fixed about pairs of contraries and that they
half-spaces, such that a design in one of the half-spaces can be made up as the context demands it. .\nd
has, by reflection, a mirror image in the other. A design Aristotle firmly adds that the real outcome of such
and its image are geometrically congruent, except that reflections is only this that "contraries are first princi-
they differ in a sense of orientation, as a right-hand ples of things." If "contraries "
are meant to be polari-
glove diffêrs from its left-hand mate. ties and dualities then this finding of Aristotle is just
In a two-dimensional tableau a "mirror" is a straight as much a leitmotif in the natural philosophy of our
line, any straight line, and on a one-dimensional axis centujy as it was in classical Greece.
it is a point. Right and left, above and below, front In addition to dualities from nature and knowledge
and back, when paired in a three-dimensional tableau as listed above, therewas also an all-Greek antithesis
refer to mirror reflections with respect to three mutu- of nomos ("human law," or "norm ") and physis ("natu-
ally perpendicular planes. "Before" and "after" corre- ral law"), and it was a dominant trait in statements
spond to a bilateral symmetry on the time axis, if, as of Sophists on moral, social, and political issues
usual, this axis is represented by a (Euclidean) straight (Guthrie, III, 55-134). As a curiosity we note that an
line. anonymous Sophist (cf. lamblichus, Protrepticus, Ch.
Greek Dualities. From our retrospect, Greek philos- 20) dwells on the contrast between lawlessness
ophy was little affected by symmetries and asym- (anomia) and order (eunomia) in such a manner as to
346 metries, but, from the first, had dualities in its thought make him very like a champion of "law (nomos) and
—
order (eunomia)" in our sense today (Guthrie, III, 71). an Apollo-like "symmetry" on a monumentally de-
Plotinus versus Romantics. The Greeks have some- signed figure of Alexander the Great, which the twen-
how created the impression on romantics of all ages tieth century is taking pains to redress (cf. G. T.
perhaps beginning in antiquity with early Hellenophile Griffith).
Stoics, and certainly modern times with the very

in Still, there have been indomitable romantics even
early romantic Johann Joachim Winckelmann that — in the twentieth century, as there always will be.
were the
dualities embodiment of an indissoluble union Hermann Weyl, after quoting a brief poem in adoration
of beauty, harmony, symmetry, etc., and that promi- of —
symmetry the poem was published in 1921 by the
nent Greeks were likely to have statues of Pindaresque poetess Anna Wickham —
also transcribes it into purple
symmetry, even if a Herodotus, Socrates, .\ristotle, and prose thus:
even Plato would hardly conform to this physical ideal
Symmetry, as wide or as narrow as you may define its
au naturel.
meaning, is one idea by which man through the ages has
The first to dissent was, most unbelievably, Plotinus,
comprehend the created
tried to order, beauty, and perfec-
one of the most nonrealistic of philosophers, and he tion (Weyl, p. 5).
turned his dissent into a major philosopheme about
symmetry, which he presented renowned essay in his To which a Plotinus could retort that itmight also be
"On Beauty" (Enneads 1, 6) and some other passages. in the beauty of a corpse, or the order and perfection
Plotinus asserts and reasons that symmetry (vj avfifieTpia, of a row of tombstones.
TO avfifieTpof} is neither a necessary nor a sufficient The Twentieth Century. There are two great works
prerequisite for beauty (t6 Ka\6i/), even if, admittedly, about symmetry in the twentieth century, and, by
"beauty is in the eye of the beholder" (this cliche is content though not by exposition, the present article
Plotinus'). is intended to be, without hyperbole, only a supple-
The context suggests that it is the purpose of Plotinus ment to these. One of the works is the large post-
to refute a widely held tenet. Being a good philosopher, Victorian treatise On Growth and Form by D'Arcy
he first gives a clearly formulated version of what it Wentworth Thompson, classicist, naturalist, biologist,
is that he is going to refute. He announces that he is and a translator of Aristotle's Historia animatium. The
going to refute the thesis other is the small mid-century volume Symmetry by
Hermarm Weyl, leading mathematician and connois-
that the symmetry of parts towards each other and towards
seur of physics, with an acute sense of philosophy and
a whole, with, besides, a certain charm of color, constitutes
the beauty recognized by the eye. that in visible things,
poetry. There are books from this century by other
as indeed in all else, universally, the beautihil thing is

authors, some quite learned, but they in no wise com-
essentially symmetrical, patterned (cf. Beardsley, p. 80; pare with these.
trans. Stephen McKenna). Nowadays symmetry may be conceived narrowly or
Our concep-
broadly, specifically or comprehensively.
Plotinus' refutation of this thesis goes as follows. A
tion of it will be a fully comprehensive one, and it
thing cannot be endowed with symmetry unless it can
is only from an approach as broad as ours that the
be decomposed into parts which are symmetrically
above-mentioned treatise of Thompson appears to be
paired. Therefore, symmetry were a necessary con-
if
a work on symmetry, perhaps even the leading one.
dition of beauty, a beautiful thing would have to be
Still, the chapter on Bilateral Symmetry in Weyl's book
decomposable, and a simple, that is, indecomposable
(pp. 3-38) is, on the whole, unsurpassable.
thing could not be beautiful. This would, according
Also, nowadays, symmetries, if broadly conceived,
to Plotinus, exclude from the contest for beauty such
seem to occur everywhere and anywhere; in nature,
things as monochromatic colors, single tones, the light
in cognition, even in perception; in moral and religious
of the sun, gold, night lighting, and so on (ibid.), which
tenets; in aesthetic expressions and aspirations; and,
Plotinus finds absurd. On the other hand.
generally, in mimetic experiences of any kind. The
Symmetry cannot be a sufficient condition of beauty, be- mimesis involved may be rigorous or proximate, faith-
cause an object that remains symmetrical can lose its
ful or distorted, inward or outward, sensuous or ra-
beauty: "one face constant in symmetry, appears sometimes
tional, realistic or idealistic.
fair, —
sometimes not" and when a body becomes lifeless,
Any meditation on symmetry must also account for
it loses most of its beauty, though not its symmetry (ibid;
various modes or distortions of symmetry. It also be-
also, Enneads VI, 7, 22).
comes necessary to distinguish between mere distor-
Plotinus of course, did not convert a single romantic. tions of symmetry and direct violations of symmetry,
In the nineteenth century, the ultra-romantic historian and between outright contrapuntal asymmetry and
(a very good one) Johann Gustav Droysen impressed more complementary nonsymmetry. 347
In nature, a deviation from symmetry may be quite prerequisite for most physical activities, such as walk-
small, or quite large. For instance, a honeycomb is ing, seeing, hearing, using one's hands, etc. In the
renowned for its hexagonal and dodecahedral sym- internal anatomy, some organs, like lungs and kidneys
metries. Its construction is a testimonial to the intelli- conform to this symmetry, but others, very basic ones,
gence, industry, and social instincts of the bee. In actual the heart and the alimentary canal do not. Why this
physical detail, the symmetries are not quite as regular should be so is most baffling, to the general reader at
as proverbially assumed (Weyl, p. 91). but the approxi- any rate. Even the outward symmetry is not very
mation to symmetries is a really good one. rigorous, especially in the adult. In fact, the outward
A tree in nature is another matter. In its Platonic deviation from symmetry, especially in facial contours
idea, as it were, the tree is nature's most imposing frequently bespeak character and personality, even
model for cylindrical symmetry, and there are speci- superiority.
mens that are impressively regular. However, a tree For the comprehension of those things it is not at
may also be gnarled, very much so, and this need not all helpful to read in a very scholarly (and equally dull)
impair its health, and may even enhance its beauty. book that "all asymmetries occurring [in the human
Ordinarily a painter would not take out the gnarls body] are of secondary character" (cf. Weyl, p. 26).
merely for the sake of restoring the "ideal" symmetry More helpful is the suggestion, which, in depth, may
that was "ideally" intended. A "modern" painter, of have been articulated by Weyl himself, that "the
whatever persuasion of modernity, is even likely to deeper chemical constitution of our human body shows
distort the distortion over-realistically, if he is inter- a screw, a screw that is turning the same way in every
ested in the tree at all. one of us. "
But some of the explanatory details bearing
This is perhaps the place at which to cite a pro- on this vitalistic "turning of the screw" are very
nouncement of Dagobert Frey, which, however "con- disquieting, inasmuch as a "wrong" turn of the screw
temporary," is only a pale replica of the shining origi- may be vindictively lethal (Weyl, pp. .30-38).
nal of Plotinus: "Symmetry signifies rest and binding, Circularity. A circle is rich in symmetries. It admits
asymmetry motion and loosening, the one order and mirror symmetry with respect to everyone of its in-
law, the other arbitrariness and accident, the one finitely many diameters. As a mathematical conse-
formal rigidity and constraint, the other life, play, and quence of this the circle can also be rotated into itself
freedom" (cf. Weyl, p. 16). aroimd the center by an arbitrary angle; in fact, if two
It is noteworthy that a very special instance of this diameters form an angle a, then mirror reflection with
pronouncement had been uttered by Democritus, many respect to one diameter followed by a reflection with
centuries before Plotinus: "according to Theophrastus, respect to the second diameter will rotate the circle
Democritus says that plants with straight stems have by the double angle 2a.
shorter lives than those with crooked stems because Apparently because of this wealth of symmetry, for
it is harder for the sap to mount straight up than 2000 years, from Plato to Tycho Brahe, and including
sideways" (Regn^ll, p. 51). Copernicus, scientific astronomers somehow took it for
Good and Evil. The between Good and Evil
contrast granted that a celestial orbit of the kind that came
in Paradise Lost, or between Light and Darkness in, under their observation is, or ought to be, a circle, or
say, Zoroastrianism is, from our broad approach, a a circle rolling off on a circle (epicycle), or a figure
symmetry by polarity. .\s a religious tenet in advanced mathematically equivalent to such a one. They
theological stages, this symmetry is rational and ideal- undoubtedly had it in their thinking that what is
istic, in earlier creedal stages it is sensuous and realistic. aesthetically (and ontologically) appealing is also
It is remarkable that in the Old Testament there is kinematically distinguished and dynamically prefera-
very little of this polarity in the advanced theocratic ble. But a mechanical preference from outward math-
message of the leading prophets, much less than in the ematical symmetry, while frequently profitable, can
fullyreligious or only semi-secular thinking of an also be misleading, and in the present case it certainly
Anaximander, Xenophanes, Aeschylus, Empedocles, was the latter. It was miraculously divined by Kepler,
and Plato, in classical Greece. However, by religious and then mathematically rationalized by Newton that,
intensity, Greece was probably less theocratic than Old under gravitation, the closed orbit of one celestial body
Israel. —
around another in an "ideal" two-body setting is not —
The Human Body. The role of symmetry in animate just a circle, but an ellipse, any ellipse. The ellipse can
life is both crude and subtle, disquieting and incom- have any eccentricity, that is any measure of deviation
prehensible. from a circle. A circle can also occur; but it occurs
The human body is outwardly endowed with a then only as a case of an ellipse whose eccentricity
348 bilateral symmetry which seems to be a near- happens to be zero. But since the eccentricity can be
any real miinljer lietween and 1, this is a most reasoning too. In the twentieth century updated ver-
unlikely value to occur. Even if, by an unlikely chance, sions of this question arise in any evolutionary theory
a pure circle does eventuate, that form undoubtedly of cosmology as well, especially when there is seem-
is very unstable; the smallest perturbation would ingly conflicting evidence that the evolutionary process
quickly make it into an ellipse of a small but non-zero might have started ten. or thirteen, or fifteen billion
eccentricity. Thus, in thi.s case, the figure with a wealth years ago. Most importantly, however, while in oiu
of symmetries is exceptional within a large family of stream of consciousness and variety of experience,
figures each having only a few symmetries; and the especially experience of and in the mind, there is a
wealth of symmetries makes the exceptional figure very qualitative difference between "past" and "future,"
unstable and most unlikely to occur. "before" and "after," yet there is also great need in —
Still, circular motion does plav a role, in all parts any kind of organized knowledge, scientific or his-
of physics, as a constituent of any wave-like event; of torical, legal or medical, ethical or religious — for the
an ordinary wave on the water or in the air; of an representation of time on a geometrically interpreted
electromagnetic wave in the propagation of light, as time axis, on which the present is a point, and past
a dual to the photon: and of a de Broglie wave, as and future are half lines that are bilaterally symmetric
a dual to the corpuscular aspect of any elementary with regard to this point. .And bilateral symmetry, in
particle of matter. \ wave, wherever and however its mathematical conception, does not provide for a
occurring, is a composite bundle of "simple" waves, distinction of the two halves that are symmetrically
so called"monochromatic" ones, and the mathematical opposed to each other or paired with each other.
structure of a simple wave is always the same. The The philosopher Henri Bergson was very insistent
pulse of a monochromatic ray of energy is rigorously that, because of and of related ones, geo-
this trait
invariant in time and thus constitutes a most "depend- metrically controlled time be banished from the pre-
able" clock (atomic clock). The Cireeks were already cincts of his elan vital and evolution creatrice and
groping for such a clock. Aristotle reports that some the related vitalistic manifestations. Bergson never
philosopher(s) before him not only measured time by seriously proposed to show how to keep this geometri-
the daily rotation of the celestrial sphere but even cally controlled time from intruding into the precincts
defined it quantitatively in this way. Surprisingly, of his vital processes. But even if he had done so
Aristotle frowns on this definition {Physica Book 4, Ch. successfully, the problem of the symmetry and
X, 218b 1-5). asymmetry of time within the general intellectual cli-
Returning to gravitation we note that physicists mate of our time would not have been thereby resolved
nowadays, out of their fertile imaginations, have by half, because the problem is fully encountered in
imputed a nuclear structure com- to gravitation too, exact science, even in the ease of physics itself. In fact,
plete with corpuscles, hopefully named gravitons, and nineteenth-century physics arrived at conclusions
with dual de Broglie waves, hopefully spoken of as which as a package were ill-assorted, and physicists
gravitational waves. Whenever these will be con- around 1900 were discomfited by them. The following
clusively verified to "exist," circularity will have finally were several of the items of the odd assortment.
come to gravitation too; and how a Eudoxus and a (1) Some physical processes are reversible, meaning
Ptolemy would welcome such a newcomer would be that it is theoretically possible —
though perhaps none
worth knowing. too probable — that they be rim totally in reverse, as
Time's Arrow. For whatever reasons, perhaps for when a movie is shown backwards. Of such kind are
"magical" ones, an asymmetry, when pronounced, can all purely mechanical processes that, schematically, do
be perturbing, both to our reason and to our psyche; not involve the macroscopic production and propaga-
and nothing can be more, or more universally perturb- tion of heat.
ing than the asymmetry of time, which cosmology and However, the creation and propagation of heat
(2)
evolution like to call the arrow of time, and physics is meaning that a physical process in a
irreversible,
its irreversibility. closed system involving them cannot be totally re-
When Saint Augustine asked, as others had already versed so as to restore the initial situation in its
asked before him, what God had been doing before entirety. Rudolf J.
E. Clausius also introduced (1850)
creating the world, his query was a challenge to creed a quantitative measure of irreversibility which he
and theology. But when Schoolmen, believers in Crea- termed entropy, and he posited the so-called second
tion, asked the parallel question how and why God law of thermodynamics by which for a closed physical
had chosen to create the world at the instant of time system the total entropy of the system cannot decrease
at which he had done so, then this question was not in time but only increase or at most remain constant.
addressed to theology only, but, in a sen.se, to scientific (3) And yet, the nineteenth centiu-y also erected the 349
"kinetic theory of matter" which, quahtatively and cosmological theories emerging, even when no tech-
quantitatively, interpreted thermal energy in terms of nical inconsistencies could be argued. An even greater
mechanical motions and collision of molecules. Now, difficulty,from entropy, is posed by any theory of a
mechanical processes of this kind are totally reversible, cosmogonic creation of the universe, assuming as most
and theories do, that there really was a Creation. In theories
was recognized as paradoxical that the completely re-

of today — as in fact, much more naively, in the theories
— almost
It
model of the kinetic theory was apparently able

versible gas of the pre-Socratics any cosmogonic theory
to explain irreversible processes, i.e., phenomena whose of creation starts out with a physical state in which
development shows a definite direction in time (Ehrenfest, there is some kind of turbulence, or less systematically,
p. 13). turbulent disorder, or at least formlessness. Out of this
initial state develops some kind of gaseous or galactic
This paradox was somehow overcome (Ehrenfest, p.
organization on a comprehensive universal scale, and
3) by an argument from probability. There is in the
together with this various standard physical processes
argument a step that is intuitive, but, in full, the argu-
begin to take place, some reversible and some
ment is "technical," and a faint residue of discomfort
irreversible. How all this could accord with the second
seems to linger on. Also, a parallel difficulty, if not
law of thermodynamics nobody dares to suggest, but
a paradox, from the organic world picture remains, and
there seems to be an understanding among cosmologists
it is the following.
in the second half of the twentieth century not to allow
(4) If the second law of thermodynamics is presumed
this difficulty to prevent speculation.
to apply to the entire universe as one physical system,
Present-day Dualities. In bilateral symmetry, how-
as physics around 1900 was bound to presume, then
ever much it might deviate towards asymmetry, the
the total entropy of the system must be constantly on
parts that are "symmetrically" opposed are expected
the increase. However, "entropy also measures the
to be, at least in a recognizable approximation, equal
randomness or lack of orderliness of the system, the
and conformable, by congruence or other modes of
greater the randomness the greater the entropy" (Blum,
On
equality. In a duality however —
or in a polarity, which
p. 15). the other hand.
is an intensified duality —
the entities that are opposed
Living organisms represent systems that are highly are expected to be different, and even contrary, by
"organized", that is, they display less randomness than the contrast, or otherwise. Usually, a duality contraposes
materials from which they are "built"; and therefore
it is
two contrasting aspects of the same whole, and an
justifiable to say that a decrease in entropy is involved in
asymmetry contraposes two complementary parts of
their building (Blum, p. 99).
a whole larger than either part. But this criterion is
Thus, whenever a form or unit of life comes into being sometimes not easy to apply, and, altogether, sym-
on any spot of the universe then any such occurrence, metries, asymmetries, and dualities overlap in impor-
taken by itself, runs counter to the general trend to- tant ways.
wards an increase of the entropy, and, in fact, Thus, Plato's dichotomy, which is meant to be a
logical procedure for arriving at a definition of any-
. . . the small local decrease in entropy represented in the
thing definable (Sophist 218D-231B) proceeds by
building of the organism is coupled with a much larger
exhibiting a succession of dyads; and it cannot be
increase in the entropy of the universe (ibid.).
readily made out whether in Plato's construction the
phenomena
In sum, since any organization of parts and two elements in a dyad are symmetric, asymmetric,
some appropriate sense,
of the universe represents, in or dual. Leaping ahead from Plato's procedure by an
the creation of design and symmetry in the order of ingenuous dichotomy to a present-day procedure by
the imiverse, and randomness represents the opposite an intricate computer, in which so-called "informa-
of design and symmetry, therefore, by the second law tion" is coded, produced, and transmitted by a succes-
of thermodynamics, that is, by the arrow of time, the sion of dyadic yes-or-no signals, it is again not easy
order of the universe cannot but gradually disintegrate to decide whether the two possibilities "yes" and "no"
and dissolve. It is true that in the immediate vicinity are symmetric, asymmetric, or dual.
of a rise of life there is a preservation and even a small But there are significant contemporary cases in
strengthening of the symmetry. But these features are which there are no such doubts. For instance, the
confined by location, and fleeting by duration, and they opposition between corpuscles and de Broglie waves
are compensated for by an acceleration of the process in particle physics is a pronounced duality, because
of decline in the remainder of the universe. the selfsame particle is sometimes a corpuscle and
In the twentieth century it has been difficult to sometimes a wave, depending on the context. That is,
350 reconcile this bleak vista with the outlook of most an elementary particle exhibits properties that can be
best explained by endowing the particle with features the points of the space from their given ordering into
of both a corpuscle and a wave. In an ontological any other. In order to arrive at a general mathe-
interpretation of the entire theory, corpuscle and wave matically oriented notion of symmetry, it is also neces-
may perhaps be viewed as complementary parts of a sary to consider not only single automorphisms but
unit larger than either, but in the prevalent inter- certain assemblages of automorphisms called groups
pretation in working physics they are different but (for the definition of a "group" see Weyl, pp. 47, 144,
coextensive aspects of the same whole. Furthermore, and passages on other pages listed in the index to the
in its purely mathematical apparatus, this duality is book under "group"). Now, the mathematical notion
but an instance of an extremely comprehensive duality, of symmetry demands that there shall be given some
the only one of its kind, which is spread through all group of automorphisms. If such a group is given and
parts of mathematical analysis, and in which the held fast, then a figure in space is called symmetric
two magnitudes which are contraposed are distinctly if each automorphism of the group leaves it unchanged.
heterogeneous. Thus, symmetry is a relative concept. .\ figure is not
Yet, there is another case from particle physics, a just symmetric tout court, but it is symmetric relative
which again belongs to the doubtful cate-
baffling one, to a given group of automorphisms, which, in a logical
gory, namely the opposition between matter and anti- sense, has to be given first.
matter. The transformation which creates the opposi- The symmetry of a figure is "interesting," or "mean-
tion is "charge conjugation" that is the replacement ingful," or "relevant," mathematically or aesthetically,
of electrons by positrons ( = anti-electrons) and of if the automorphisms of the underlying group are
positrons by electrons throughout a physical system in "interesting," or "meaningful," or "relevant"; in short,
its entirety. It would be a case of symmetry ratlier than if the underlying automorphisms are "good" auto-
of asymmetry, except for the fact that in our part of morphisms.
the miiverse, at any rate, the anti-particles are much In our Euclidean space, by "normal" standards of
less stable than the particles. Furthermore, the imstable taste, mathematical or aesthetic, the "best" auto-
"free" positron becomes very stable when bound with morphisms are those that transform figures into
a neutron to form a proton. .\nd the resulting pair "congruent" ones, thus leaving (Euclidean) distances
composed of electron and proton is in a sense onlv and angles unchanged. These are the so-called
a duality, because by its mass the proton is quite orthogonal transformations. They consist of transla-
unequal to the electron, being about 18.35 times larger. tions, rotations, mirror reflections, and combinations
General Symmetries. Let us suppose that a three- of such. Different from these, yet still very "normal"
dimensional tableau consists of a mirror, a design in are so-called dilations (Weyl, pp. 65, 68). A dilation
front of the mirror, and its reflection in the back of is merely a change of scale; all distances are changed
the mirror. If we "erase" the physical trace of the in the same ratio, and angles remain the same. Weyl
mirror, making it thus "invisible" and "two-sided," then lists numbers of finite groups of orthogonal trans-
large
there is no front and back of it, and the design and formations for plane and space, and notable physical
its reflection have become indistinguishable and inter- and ornamental designs which are symmetric relative
changeable. That is, mathematically, a mirror reflection to these; he also asserts (pp. 66, 99), that in the case
does not actually break up the space into two halves, of the plane these groups were already determined in
one and the other in back, and transform the
in front substance by Leonardo da Vinci, but he does not give
front half into the back half, but it transforms the entire a reference showing where to find them in Leonardo's
space into itself. And this transformation happens to works.
be such that any of the two halves goes into the other From this approach, an "obvious" asymmetry is
and that the points on the mirror itself remain each frequently a regular symmetry with respect to a group
where it is. Now, a tableau in the space is (bilaterally) of automorphisms that are not strict orthogonal trans-
symmetric with respect to a mirror, if the transformations but obvious distortions of such. The leading
formation we have just described leaves the tableau case is a reflection in a curved, or rather corrugated
imchanged, that is, leaves it looking after the trans- mirror in an amusement park. A reflection in a cor-
formation as it looked before the transformation. rugated mirror is still a reflection, and it still produces
Inasmuch as a mirror reflection of the space is a a "bilateral symmetry," even if distorted. In our "neu-
transformation of the entire space into itself it is called tral" physical perception there is no difference be-
an automorphism. In general, an automorphism of a tween the distortion in the cornigated mirror of an

space, any space, is an invertible transformation of the amusement park for vulgar purposes, and the distortion
entire space into itself, and such a transformation is in the nonrealistic painting of an artist from an exalted
nothing other than a rearrangement of the totality of inspiration. o5i
As an aside we note that in the physical theory of that it is not at all easy to draw up criteria of "internal
elementary particles certain approximate symmetries symmetry" which fit Euclidean space and no other.
have been called broken symmetries. In cosmology there is a quest for homogeneity of
Homogeneity. The orthogonal transformations in another, though related kind. It does not refer to the
Euclidean space are not only arbiters of symmetry for structure of the spatial substratum of the universe but
designs that are outwardly imposed on the space as to the mode of distribution of matter in it. This
their background and framework, but their presence homogeneity, when assumed present, falls under the
also creates a certain internal eyenness of the structure so-called Cosmological Principle, and a report on it
of the space as such, taken by itself. For space as is given in the article on Space.
substratum of the universe, and within a theologico- Symmetry in Physics. The terms "symmetry" and
nietaphysical imagery, internal evenness of stnicture "symmetry law" occur frequently in present-day
of a space was already adiunbrated by Nicholas of Cusa physics, and we now comment on this occurrence.
in the first half of the fifteenth century, but professional We have stated above that, in a spatial setting, an
mathematics began to be properly aware of it only impression of symmetry arises if a design is not changed
in the course of the nineteenth century. In mathe- by a group of automorphisms of the space, and we
matics, the feature of "evenness of structure" that we add to this that, as far as design is concerned, the
have in mind, is nowadays termed homogeneity, and imderlying space is a setting for it, and any auto-
is defined below. It is again a relative concept and, morphism of the space is a certain change of this
again, a group of automorphisms of the space is setting. Quite generally, in mathematics and mathe-
involved. The demand is that the group be transitive. matically controlled science, the imperviousness to
By this is meant that any point P of the space can changes within a setting is technically called
be carried into any other point Q by at least one of "invariance" ( relative to these changes). In this sense
the automorphisms. If this is so, then the space is a law of symmetry is a particular case of a law of
homogeneous (with respect to the given group). invariance, and, to begin with, the two are not
Obviously the homogeneity of a space is the more coextensive because symmetry involves a connotation
interesting if the underlying group of automorphism of space, whereas invariance is more comprehensive.
is more important. If the space is a so-called metric However, in physics many invariances involve space
space, it is usually expected that the underlying variables, or at least space data, and in this way the
automorphism shall at least be isometric, meaning that terms symmetry and invariance have drawn ever closer
the transformations preserve the distance between any together and have become almost synonymous.
pair of points. Thus, a present-day physicist may view even the
Our common Euclidean space is certainly homo- nineteenth-century law of conservation of energy as
geneous with regard to orthogonal transforma- a symmetry law. The nineteenth century envisaged
tions; in fact, the mere translations suffice for homo- various forms of energy, mechanical, thermal, electri-
geneity, so that rotations and reflections ought to se- cal, etc., and admitted that the\'may be transformed
cure some further properties of Euclidean space, which into each other, that is, change over into each other.
might perhaps be even characteristic of it. Such at But the law maintained (and continues to maintain)
any rate was the expectation of the physicist and that throughout such changes of form, the total amount
physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz; he took a physi- of energy in a closed physical system remains constant,
ologist's interest in the nature of Euclidean space, that is invariant. To this and the following see the first
which, to him, was the space of physiological percep- half of Eugene P. Wigner, Symmetry and Reflection.
tion. Helmholtz emphasized the fact that any two It is not always easy to decide how two physical
planes which go through a point can be transformed laws of symmetry relate to each other. It can be stated,
into each other by a rotation around the point ("local for instance, that Newton's force of gravitational
mobility"), and he apparently was under the impression attraction (inverse square of the distance) obeys two
that this, together with homogeneity, holds for laws of symmetry, a spatial and a temporal, .\ccording
Euclidean space only. But Friedrich Heinrich Schur to the spatial law, the force of attraction is invariant
(1852-1932) demonstrated that all this also holds for for all orthogonal transformations of space, not distin-
any non-Euclidean space of constant ciu-vature, guishing between points of origin or directions in
whether the curvature is negative a la Bolyai- space. According to the temporal law, it is invariant
Lobatchevsky, or positive a la Riemann (and Beltrami). in time.
Schur even demonstrated this for spaces of any number As two laws of symmetry are sepa-
just stated, tliese
of dimensions, no matter how large. rate, and have equal standing. However, the theory
352 It is also a curious fact of present-day mathematics of relativity erases the separateness, and geology casts
TASTE IN AESTHETICS
doubt upon their equal standing. In fact, the general a magnet in action, he exclaimed that the world is full
theory of relativity, by the very formulation of the of Gods. .'Vnd so it iseven today.
phenomenon of gravitation, fuses the two laws of
symmetry into one, so that they cannot be separated. BIBLIOGRAPHY
On the other hand, in geology, the temporal invariance Monroe C. Beardsley, Aesthetics from Classical Greece
is part of the general law of uniformitarianism which to the Present (New York and London, 1966). Harold F.
seems to assert that, say, in the rise of the solar system, Blum, Time's Arrow and Evolution (Princeton, 1951). Paul
or at least in the evolution of the earth, the familiar and Tatiana Ehrenfest, The Conceptual Foundations of the
laws of "classical" physics are "eternal," that is Statistical Approach in Mechanics (Ithaca, 1959). G. T.
temporally invariant, and thus have always been before Griffith, Alexander the Great, The Main Problems (Cam-
what they are presently. This seems to make the bridge and New York, 1966). W. K. C. Guthrie, A History
temporal symmetry of the gravitational force hier- of Greek Philosophy, 3 vols. (Cambridge and New Y'ork,
1962; 1965; 1969), Vol. III. lamblichus, Protrepticus, ed. H.
archically prior, and thus superior to the spatial one.
Pistelli (Stuttgart, 1888). Pliny, Natural History, The Loeb
In basic physics of the twentieth century, as the
Classical Library, 10 vols. (Cambridge, Mass. and London,
century progressed, the number of invariance proper-
1938-63). H. Regnell, Ancient Views on the Nature of
tieshas shown a tendency to increase (Wigner, p. 60).
Life (Lund, 1962). D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, On
There has been many a period of anguish when two Growth and Form (Cambridge, 1917; 1942). Hermann Weyl,
leading symmetry laws were seemingly in an irrecon- Symmetry (Princeton, 1952). Eugene P. Wigner, Symmetries
cilable clash with each other. Occasionally such a and Reflections (Bloomington and London, 1967).
period of anguish was followed by a period of relief
SALOMON BOCHNER
when, to the soothing accompaniment of a Nobel prize,
[See also Beauty; Cosmology; Nature; Optics and Visionj
the clash was somehow composed.
Space.]
On the other hand, the twentieth century also undid
at least one law of the preceding century. It was the
law of similitude. Although not very important, it was
treated with respect. It asserted
. . . that physical e.\periments can be scaled; that the abso-

TASTE IN THE HISTORY
lute magnitude of objects be irrelevant from the point of
view of their behavior on the proper scale. The existence
OF AESTHETICS
of atoms, of an elementary charge, and of a limiting velocity
FROM THE RENAISSANCE
spelled the doom of this principle (Wigner, p. 5).
TO 1770
We might add that the elementary charge, that is the

magnitude of the electron, seems to be the most im- "Taste" is relevant to the history of ideas as the power
placable of the instruments of doom. of liking or disliking something, and of ruling one's
This doom reached beyond the law of similitude, judgment or conduct according to this power. Still, in
which is a not-too-important law of physics. It also this broader meaning, "taste" is used very widely but
enveloped the serene vision of Leibniz that space is rather atypically; it is of major importance only as
nothing but order and relations, and perhaps also applied to aesthetics, where it becomes, during the
with predestined harmony ensuing; it somehow also seventeenth century, one of the central and most con-
enveloped the creeds of the eighteenth and nineteenth As such, it is the subject of many
centuries
— "naive" creeds in the eighteenth century
troversial notions.
discussions and of extremely wide implications the —
and less naive ones in the nineteenth — that, in spite basic dimensions of which follow below.
of all vehemence and violence in man, everything will The main feature of aesthetic taste is that it is con-
in the end turn out to be continuous, controllable, and ceived as an instinctive feeling, independent of reason-
adjustable to scale. ing; but, for many authors, reflection may at least
But these creeds overlooked the electron. James partially modify its responses. An inferior kind of taste
Clerk Maxwell, at the height of Victorianism, tried to is considered to cherish some aspects of beauty which
forget about the electron, by creating a magnificent do do not necessarily, correspond to absolute
not, or
field theory in which everything can be adjusted to aesthetic value as established by the rules of art; a
scale, but it was not enough for physics; the electron superior kind of taste, increasing its importance with
simply had to be considered and taken very seriously the crisis of "classical" aesthetics, is itself the standard
indeed. Magnetism is a close kin to electricity. When of aesthetic value and the foundation of the rules. As
Thales of Miletus, almost twenty-six centuries ago, saw such, taste is first considered as the power of evaluating 353
TASTE IN AESTHETICS
beauty insofar as it is inherent in objects; afterwards, questi moderni; ma poi, ch'io comenciai a gustare
it is rather seen as the power of evaluating the response questi antichi, mi sono venuti in odio quelli
of the mind to objects, with beauty no longer being modemi. . . . ("I also used to like the Modems; but,
a characteristic of things in themselves, but consisting as soon as I began tasting the Ancients, I came to hate
in a relationship between the mind and its objects. die Moderns. . .

."; Quellenschriften, 1890). Other
The increased importance of taste as a standard of Renaissance views include F. Rinuccini, who used gusto
beauty raises the problem of its being universal or as a synonym of "right judgment" (Rinuccini, 1840).
merely relative, a problem particularly felt by "neo- Gusto is used in connection with beauty by
classical" aesthetics, once more in quest of established Michelangelo (Buonarroti, 1863), by Ariosto in 1532
values; but as tastes are manifestly different in man- Âriosto, 1532), by Leone Ebreo in 1535 (Leone Ebreo,
kind, a imiversality of taste may be asserted only with 1929), bv Cellini and Varchi (Cellini, 1857; Varchi,
respect to "good" taste, in contrast to a "bad" taste 1857-58), by Dolce in 1557 (Dolce, 1557), by Zuccolo
which is relative. But who is endowed with "good" in 1623 (Croce, 1946b), by Graziani in 1671 (Graziani,
taste? A minority of people, of course; for some au- 1671), but only occasionally; it does not become an
thors, only a few connoisseurs living in nonbarbaric important notion in Italian aesthetics until C. Ettorri's
ages. The basic condition for belonging to this minority // buon gusto componimenti rettorici (1696), and
ne'
may be that of having a good education and polished then probably under Spanish or French influence. Af-
manners; here it is assumed, as most authors do, that terwards, its fortime was assured, as shown in 1708 by
taste may be educated by exercise or by study. On the a work of L. .\. .\luratori, Delle riflessioni sopra il buon
other hand, the factual disparity of tastes in different gusto . . and by the foundation in Palermo
. (1708),
nations and eras raises the problem of elaborating a in 1718 "Accademia del buon gusto"
of an
typology, and of justifying historically and psychologi- (Mazzucchelli, 1753-63). For Muratori, taste (also
cally this diversity, which, though generally considered called giudizio and dritta ragione] is a power of judging
as not consistent with perfect "good" taste, is not individual cases which cannot be decided according
always referred to as altogether "bad" or "perverted" to universal rules (Baeumler, 1923). In fact, the first
taste, but as an intermediate condition. extensive use of "taste" as a mysterious, instinctive

.Another question is that of the foundation of taste. power enabling man to make the right choice in the
Is taste a simple, unique faculty or an assemblage of different circumstances of life, as the foundation for
different faculties? How is it connected with other a civilized behavior, occurs in the works of the
faculties, especially with reason and with other feel- Spaniard Gracian, in 1647 (Borinski, 1894); but he also
ings? Its relationship to reason does not only concern uses it in a specifically aesthetic sense (Gracian, ed.
the possibility of arguing about taste, but, more basi- del Hoyo, 1960). Nevertheless, taste had (in Gracian's
cally, the problem as to whether taste should be con- day) not yet become a central notion in Spanish aes-
sidered as a power related to that of immediate assent thetics: Feijoo, in his Razon del gusto (1727-30), still
to basic truths, i.e., to right reason (common sense, applies this term indiscriminately to food, drink, music,
natural light of reason). If so, in taste, is the judgment etc., identifying it with the feeling for the pleasurable.
about beauty founded on the pleasurable feeling raised
by beauty, or vice versa? An identification of "taste" m
and "judgment" (of beauty) is frequent, but neither In France, taste is applied to beauty at least as early
universal nor univocal. A further basic problem is that as 1645 by Guez de Balzac (Borgerhoff, 1950), and is
of the relationship of taste to the judgment of truth, used with this meaning by Moliere in 1659 (Moliere,
and to the judgment (or feeling) of utility, of bodily 1659; 1663; 1669), and by La Fontaine in 1668. La
pleasure, and of goodness. In the course of the eigh- Rochefoucauld, in a posthumous essay, Du gout, is
teenth century taste grows more and more independent probably the first theorist of taste in France. Taste is
of other factors; at that time aesthetics is being recog- variable, depending on personal inclinations and cir-
nized as a particular science, and it tries to assert its cumstances, but good taste (ban gout) is an instinctive
individuality by claiming to rest on an original princi- power of correct evaluation based on judgment (juger
ple, not subordinated to those of other branches of sainement, discemement. lumiere naturelle) rather than
knowledge. on feeling; it concerns all kinds of intellectual, moral,
and aesthetic objects (La Rochefoucauld, 1949). Mere's
n bon goust (1677) is very similar; it is thought to be
Taste (Italian, gusto) seems to have been connected un sens interieur peu connu, independent of learning,
for the first time with beauty in Renaissance Italy. but founded sur des raisons tres-solides; mais le plus
354 Filarete wrote in 1464: Ancora a me solevano piacere souvent sans raisonner (Mere, 1930). For Saint-
TASTE IN AESTHETICS
Evremond, on the contrary, taste may, as hon gout, reasoning; it is the faculty enabling one to apply to
bon sens, be close to reason, but more generally it is individual cases the rules of art, and to establish excep-
relative and whimsical (von Stein, 1886). Malebranche tions to them (Encyclopedic, 1757; von Stein, 1886).
in La Recherche de la verite (1674) regards taste as
pertaining to sensory things (beaiitez sensibles), an IV
inferior, sensitive kind of beauty, and holds it as relative In Britain, taste as "inclination" is used by Caxton
(Malebranche, 1958f.). But, if for Rapin and Bouhours in 1477 (Caxton, 1893); it appears later (1502) with
taste is relative to centuries and to nations (von Stein, the meaning judgment" (.Atkynson, 1893),
of "intviitive
1886), for Bouhours good taste, especially connected and in the tliis is connected with
seventeenth century
with aesthetics, is a sort of instinctive good judgment, beauty, e.g., by Milton and Congreve (Milton, 1671;
une espece d'instinct de la droite raison. And La Congreve, 1694). Norris, in 1691, mentions a "moral
Bruyere writes that good taste is the effect of sound tast" [sic]. But a theory is not developed until the
judgment: Entre le bon sens et le bon gout il y a la eighteenth century, when it centers on aesthetics much
difference de la cause a son effet (Les Caracteres, "Des more in Britain than in France. The irrationalist view
Jugements," 1694). This rationahst conception of good appears with Shaftesbury. Taste as a sense for beauty
taste, shared by Mme Dacier (Dacier. 1684), reaches is closely connected with common sense and with
a climax in aesthetics with Crousaz (1715), who con- moral sense, which reveal themselves through internal
siders taste a sentimental substitute for reason, which sensations. Taste is the internal sense of a harmonic
can be improved by education (Baeumler, 1923). order perceived in certain objects and belonging to
This attitude is opposed, under English influence, by them and to the perceiving mind as well; it is inborn,
the Abbe Dubos (1719); taste as a sensitivity to beauty but it needs refining; it depends on the character of
is for him basically a matter of feeling; this feeling a nation, but, stripped of accidental influences, it is
is not a .substitute for reason, or the expression of an universal (Formigari, 1962; Morpurgo, 1962b). For
unconscious rational judgment: it is the basis of the Addison, ". . . the Taste is not to conform to the [niles
judgment of beauty, as a special faculty, defined as a of] Art, but the .\rt to the Taste"; taste is imiversal
"sixth sense" (Baeumler, 1923). A lively discussion with if it is duly educated (admiration for the classics), but
Charles Rollin ensued (Rollin, 1725). Cartaud de la in some degree it is innate if present at all (Addison,
Vilate was also inclined to irrationalism; and he was Tlie Spectator, No. 29, 1711; No. 409, 1712). Hutcheson
especially interested in the study of the evolution of (1725) proceeds on the same line as Shaftesbiu-y, stres-
taste through the ages (Cartaud, 1736). sing the universality of taste, and the fact that the taste
But the rationalist trend still dominated in French for beauty is independent of considerations of utility
aesthetics.For the Abbe Batteax (1747), taste is knowl- (von Stein, 1886; Tonelli, 1955a); and Webb insists on
edge of rules through a feeling which can be educated the universality of taste (Tonelli, 1955a). The connec-
(Baeumler, 1923, von Stein, 1886). Diderot conceives tions between beauty and utility, and even that be-
taste as a faculty of immediate judgment; a faculty tween beauty and morality, taken for granted in French
acquired through recurrent experiences, of grasping the aesthetics, are no longer taken for granted in Britain
tnie and the good, with whatever renders it beauti- after Hutcheson questions the first, and Gerard (see
ful, and of being instantly and vividly affected ijaculte below) the second.
acquise par des experiences reiterees, a saisir le vrai Hume declares in his essay "On the Standard of
et le bon, avec la circonstance qui le rend beau, et d'en Taste" (1757) that beauty does not belong to things
etre promptement et vivement touclie; Belaval, 1950). in themselves: taste expresses the reaction of the mind
Vauvenargues (1746) and D'Alembert (Encyclopedic, to things. Nevertheless taste, judging about beauty and
1757) seem to subordinate taste to reasoning about virtue as well, is universal, due to the uniformity
(Vauvenargues, 1746; Baeumler, 1923; Encyclopedic, of human nature, in spite of accidental differences
1757; von Stein, 1886). For Voltaire too taste comes (Wellek, 1955; Tonelli, 1955a). Hume's aesthetic sub-
close to reasoning, and may be corrected by reasoning; jectivism marks a turning point in British aesthetics.
really good taste is universal, in spite .of national and For Burke (1759), taste is a composite of different
other differences of taste in general (Encyclopedic, powers; it is universal, and independent of utility
1757; Wellek, 1955). One of Voltaire's most famous (Tonelh, 1955a; Formigari, 1962; Morpurgo, 1962c).
critical works is entitled Le Temple du gout (1733). Gerard (1759) carefully distinguishes taste from moral
A later supporter of rationalism in taste is Pierre sense, but if beauty is independent of virtue, it is not
Mingard (Felice, 1773; see also: Duclos, 1805). But independent of utility. Taste seems to be universal
Montesquieu revives, at least partially, the irra- (Tonelli, 1955a). For him, as well as for other authors,
tionalism of Dubos, for whom taste is independent of taste is not a simple power: judgment is one of its 355
TASTE IN AESTHETICS
components (Green, 1934). Hume ( 1762) considers taste (Tonelli, 1955a). For Riedel (1767) taste is irrational
universal, although this universality is restricted to a and almost completely relative (Tonelli, 1955a). After
few connoisseurs; taste is not independent of consid- 1768, Kant develops in a very original way his notion
erations of utility (Tonelli, 1955a; Wellek, 1955). Al- of taste in the framework of his new philosophy. Taste
though Dr. Johnson makes concessions to relativism in is considered as universal, but a posteriori and subjec-
taste, he asserts after all the presence of universal tive, as a sensible judgment on the form of intuition
common sense (Wellek, 1955). The only significant (ToneUi, 1955a). Sulzer's position is eclectic (1771):
supporter of absolute relativism in taste is Joseph taste is a special power, distinct from reason and
Priestley (1777), who applies to this subject the aes- moral feeling, and nevertheless it is the internal feeling
thetic principles elaborated by Mandeville and Hartley for truth and goodness; beauty, perceived by taste, is
(Tonelli, 1955b). During the late eighteenth century, neither perfection nor goodness, but the highest beauty
interest in the problem of taste is less intense in Britain: is connected with both. Taste is universal, and its judg-
much attention is given to the theory of sublimity, and ment can be rationally tested (Sulzer, 1792). In 1755,
usually theories of the sublime are not referred to Herder was awarded a prize in a competition an-
taste. nounced by the Berlin Academy on the "causes of the
corruption of taste." For Herder, on Hamann's sugges-
tion (Grappin. 1952), taste is a product of genius, as
In the seventeenth centiory in Germany Geschmack it corresponds to the orderly use of the genius's powers;
("taste") is used occasionally in the modem sense it acts through reason and judgment, but it is not the
(Harsdorffer, 1651), but as late as 1687 Christian same as virtue (Ursachen des gesunknen Geschmacks
Thomasius prefers the term bon gout for a quality he . . . [1775], sec. 1).
requires of gentlemen. Aesthetic interest in the subject

is not yet aroused: Leibniz, in 1712, is satisfied with BIBLIOGRAPHY
a short personal interpretation of Shaftesbury's doc-
Th. Abbt, Vermischte Werke (Berlin and Stettin, 1780), IV,
trine (Leibniz, 1887). Only with Bodmer (1727) taste
46. Addison, The Spectator. No, 29 (1711); No. 409 (1712).
becomes a basic subject in aesthetics, but it is conceived J.
L. Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (1.532), Canto XXXV, 26. W.

as a purely intellectual judgment which generates a
.\tk\Tison, Th. a Keinpis: a full devotit and gostely treatyse.
subsequent feeling (von Stein, 1886). Gottsched (1730), Early English Text Society (1893). Book I, Ch. XXII, 171.
referring to Leibniz, defines good taste as a correct A. Baeumler, Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft. Ihre Ceschichte
judgment of the senses on beauty (i.e., sensitive per- und Stjstcmatik (Halle, 1923); reprinted as Das Irra-
fection) which is known clearly but not distinctly; this tionalitiitsproblem in der Aesthetik und Logik des 18.
judgment is confirmed by reason, applying the rational Jahrhunderts bis zur Kritik der Urteilskraft (Darmstadt,
rules of perfection (Gottsched, 1751; Tonelli, 1955a). 1967); Crousaz, pp. 43-49; Dubos, pp. 49-.51; Muratori. pp.
Similar ideas are expounded in 1734 by U. Konig 51-53; Batteux, Voltaire, d'.\lembert, pp. 74-75; Konig, p.
J.
82; Meier, pp. 90f. A. G. Baumgarten. Metaphysiea (Halle,
Baeumler, 1923), by A. G. Baumgarten
(Tonelli, 1955a;
1739), sections 607-08. Y. Belaval, L 'esthetique sans paradoxe
in Metaphysica (Baumgarten, 1739) and by G. F. Meier
de Diderot (Paris, 1950), pp. 75-80. E. B. O. Borgerhoff, Vie
(Tonelh, 1955a; Baeumler, 1923). Lessing about 1758
Freedom of French Classicism (Princeton, 1950), p. 14. K.
still sponsors a rationalist view (Tonelli, 1955a); the
und die Hofliteratur in Deutsch-
Borinski, Baltasar Cracian
same is true for what R. Mengs calls "the best taste" land (Halle, 1894), pp. 40-43. F. Braitmaier, Ceschichte der
(Mengs, 1762). Th. Abbt in 1762 considers taste as re- poetischen Tlieorie und Kritik von den Diskursen der Maler
quired not only for appreciating art but also for science bis auf Ussing (Frauenfeld, 1888), II, 192f. D. Boiihours,
(Abbt, 1780). But Crusius' "moral taste" is conceived Lm maniere de bien penser dans les otivrages de Vesprit
asan individually variable capacity to enjoy goodness (Paris, 1687), p. 382. M. Buonarroti, Le rime (Florence.
—
and beauty (Crusius, 1744) and even philosophy, ac- 1863), pp. 27, 253. F. Cartaud de la Vilate, Essay critique
cording to G. H. Schramm, a pupil of Crusius et philosophique sur le goust (Paris, 1736). [W.] Caxton's
Historic of Jason, Early English Text Society (1912), p. 72.
(Schramm, 1772). With Moses Mendelssohn, the
B. Cellini, I trattati dell'oreficeria e delta scuttura (Florence,
rationalist view is questioned: taste is independent of
1857), p. 41. W. Congreve, Vie Double Dealer (1694), I,
intellect, and it is considered as relative; it is related
2. B. Croce, Estetica come scienza dell'espressione e lin-
also to the sublime, and in this respect it seems to be
guistica generale (Bari, 1946a), "Storia." Ch. Ill; idem, Storia
universal (Braitmaier, 1888; ToneUi, 1855a).
della eta barocca in Italia (Bari, 1946b), Ch. V: Zuccolo,
For Kant in 1764, taste is independent of intellect 167. C. A. Crusius, Anweisung, vemiinftig zu leben
p.
and of considerations of utility, and it is different from (Leipzig, 1744), sec. 108f. Mme .\nne Lefevre Dacier,
the moral sense; it is related to the sublime also. Kant Preface to her translation of .Aristophanes' Plutus and Les
356 develops an extensive national typology of taste Nuees (Paris, 1684). L. Dolce, Didlogo della pittura (Venice,
TECHNOLOGY
1557). C. Pinot-Duclos. Oemres completes {Pdhi, 1806), Vol. (London, 1691-93), I, 186. (;)uellen.?chriften f'iir Kunst-
X, Considerations sur le ôfit. Enctjclopedie, on dictionnaire geschichte. New Series III (Vienna, 1890), IX, 291. F. Rinuc-
raisonne des arts, des sciences et des metiers. Vol. VII (Paris, cini, Ricordi storici dal 1282 al 1460 (Florence, 1840),
1757), art. "Goiit" by Voltaire, Montesquieu. d'.\lenibert. "Documenti," p. 148. C. RoUin, Traite de la maniere
C. Ettorri, Ilbuon gusto ne' componimenti rettorici (Bologna, detudier et d'enseigner les belles-lettres (Paris. 1726), Vol.
1696). B. Feijoo y Montenegro, Teatro critico universal I, Reflexions gencrales sur le gout. R. G. Saisselin, Taste in
J.
(Madrid, 1727-30), Vol. VI, Disc. XI. F. B. de Felice, Eighteenth Century France (Syracuse, N.Y., 1965). G. H.
L'Encyclopedie, ou dictionnaire universel raisonne des Schramm. Versuch iiber den philosophischen Geschmack
connaissances humaines. Vol. .X.XII (Yverdon, 1773), art. (Jena. 1772), pp. 12, 49. H. von Stein, Die Entstehung der
"Goijt" by Mingard and d'Alembert. L. Formigari, L'estetica neueren Asthetik (Stuttgart, 1886): Saint-Evremond, p. 93;
del gusto nel Settecento inglese (Florence, 1962): Shaftes- Rapin. Bouhours. p. 93; Batteux. p. 94; Montesquieu, p. 95;
bury, pp. 28, 31f., .3.31., 5.3f., 62f.; Burke, p. 81. F. Gallaway, Hutcheson. pp. 188-90; d'Alembert. p. 287; Bodmer. pp.
Reasoti, Rule and Revolt in English Classiciim (New York, 286-89. J. G. Sulzer. Allgemeine Theorie der schonen KioKte
1940). B. Gracian, El Criticon. Part I, Crisis III, in Obras (Leipzig. 1792). Vol. II, art. "Geschmack," with important
completai. ed. del Hoyo (Madrid, 1960), p. 533a. J.
C. bibliography. C. Thomasius, Kleine deutsche Schriften
Gottsched, Versuch einer critischen Dichtkunst . . . (1730; (Halle. 1701). p. 48; idem. Discurs, welchergestalt inan denen
Leipzig, 1751; reprint Darmstadt, 1962), pp. 12.3f. P Frantzosen im gemeinen Leben nachahmen solle (1687). G.
Grappin, La theorie du genie duns le preclassicisme allemand Tonelli. Kant, dall'estetica metafi.'iica all'estetica psicoem-
G. Graziani, Cromuele (Bologna, 1671),
(Paris, 1952), p. 217. pirica, Memorie della Accademia delle Scienze di Torino,
Preface. C. C. Green. The Neo-Classic Theorij of Tragedy Series 3. Vol. 3, Part II (Turin, 19.5.5a): Hutcheson, pp. 11 If.;
171 England during the Will Centurij (Cambridge, Mass., Hume. pp. lOOf.. 212; Burke, pp. 11 If.; Gerard, pp. 102.
1934), pp. 738, 760f, G. P Harsdorffer, Die Fortpftanzung 112f.; Gottsched. p. 24; Konig, p. 31; Meier, p. 32; Lcssing.
der Hochloblich Fruchthringenden Gesellschaft, mif einer Mendelssohn. Riedel, p. 212; Kant, pp. .59-63, HI, 113f.,
Rede von dem Geschmack vermehret (Niirnberg, 1651). 174-77; idem, "Estetici minori britannici del Settecento,"
J.
G. Herder, Vrsachen des gcsunknen Ceschmach bei den in Giomale critico della filosofoa italiana. 9 (195.5b):
verschiednen Volkern, da er gebliiht (Berlin, 1775), Sec. I. Mandeville. p. 31; Hartley, pp. 37f.; Priestley, pp. 204f. B.
E. N. Hooker, "The Discussion of Taste, from 1750 to 1770, Varchi. Storic Fiorentine (Florence. 1857-58), Book VIII, p.
and the New Trends in Literary Criticism," FMLA, 49 191. L. de Clapier de Vauvenargues, Introduction a hi con-
(1934). H. Klein, Tliere is no Disputing about Taste. Unters. naissance de I'esprit humain Book I., n. 12,
(Paris, 1746),
zum englischen Geschmacksbegreiff im IS. Jhdt. (Miuister. "Du gout." R. VVellek, A History of Modern Criticism:
1967). de La Bruyere, Les Caracteres . . . , eds. Servois 1750-1950, Vol. I (New Haven, 1955): Voltaire, I, 38-42;
J.
and Rebelliaux (Paris, 1923), "Des jugements." J.

de La Hume, I, 107; Home, I, 109; Johnson, I, 95,
Fontaine, Fables (1668), Book V, F. de Marcillac de La
1.
GIORGIO TONELLI
Rochefoucauld, Maximes et autres oeuvres morales (1655),
ed. Borrot (Paris, 1949), p. 131: Reflexions diverses, X, (See also Beauty; Neo-Classicism; Relativism in Ethics;
"Du gout." G. W. Leibniz, Die philosophischen Schriften. Sublime.]
ed, C. I. Gerhardt (Berlin, 1887), III, 4.30f. Leone Ebreo,

Dialoghi d'Amore. ed. Gebhardt (Heidelberg, London, 1929),
p. 1.33. N. Malebranche, Recherche de la verite (1674), in
Oeuvres completes (Paris, 19.58f.), I, 149; idem. Meditations
chretiennes (1683),
scrittori
ibid.,
dTtalia (Brescia. 1753-63), Vol.

X, 43. G. M. Mazzucchelli, Gli
II, Part IV, 2389.
TECHNOLOGY
p.
G. McKenzie, Critical Re.9ponsive7ie.9S. A Study of the Psy-

Civilization, even in a most elementary form, implies
etiological Current in Later XVIII Century Criticism
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1949), Ch. IV. R. Mengs, a degree of command over nature. Indeed, in its early
Gedanken iiber die Schimheit und den Geschmak in der stages, a civilizedcommimitv, so far as it can be stud-
Mahlerei (Zurich. 1762). Ch. II. A. Gombaud de Mere, ied, may be said to be coextensive with its technics.
Oeuvres completes, ed. Boudhors (Paris, 19.30), II, 127-29; It seems likelv however that once a society reaches
see also pp. 38f. J.

Milton, Paradise Regained (1671), Book a certain stage in the development of technics and of
IV. line 347. Moliere, Les precieuses ridicules (1659), Scene social organization it faces, in effect, a wide choice
X; idem. La critique de I'ecole des femmes (1663). Scene of options. Thus it may seek wealth and power by
VII; idem. La Gloire du Dome du Val-de-Grace (1669). line
enslaving its neighbors or by compelling them to pay
360. G. Morpurgo Tagliabue. // concetto di gusto nellTtalia
tribute; it may evolve a bvireaucratic form of govern-
del Settecento (Florence. 1962a); idem. "La nozione di gusto
ment, or become a theocracy or a military tyranny.
nel secolo XVIII: Shaftesbury e .\ddison," Rivista di Estetica,
In any of these cases it is unlikely that there will be
8 (1962b); idem. La nozione di gusto nel Will secolo: E.
Burke (Milan, 1962c). L. A. Muratori, Dclle riflessioni sopra
much further progress in technics; for they provide
i7 buon gusto nelle scienze e nell'arti (Venice, 1708). Norris, and rival solutions to the problems which
alternative
J.
Practical Discourses upon several Divine Subjects, 3 vols. would otherwise be solved by technics, or else they
TECHNOLOGY
induce a static society in which inventive impulses are and Ptolemy had the professional touch which was
stifled. lacking in Hellenic speculative thought. But unfor-
The civihzation of China, ancient, extensive, and tunately .Alexandria, with its famous Museum and Li-
resiUent, gave the world a number of great inventions brary, had no no stimulating partner, anywhere
rival,
ofwhich the most prominent were probablv paper and in the ancient world. Experience suggests that if sci-
gimpowder. Yet, in spite of the evident genius of the ence and technics are to flourish several competing
individual Chinese inventor, the total achievement was centers of excellence are required: if there is only one
disappointing. Chinese technics could not overcome the opportunities for profitable debates are so restricted
the obstacles which, one infers, a static society put in that intellectual stagnation is sooner or later inevitable.
the way. Inventiveness in China seems to have been As for the rest of the then civilized world, the major
diverted from its basic purpose of satisfying wants and cities exemplified not so much technical abilities as the
needs; instead a great deal of effort was apparently administrative gifts of the Roman rulers.
put into what mav be called "frivolous invention": that With the slow rise of Christian Europe from the
is, into creating amusing toys such as kites, puzzles, ruins of the Roman Empire, a new form of society
games, automata, and firecrackers. It is only fair to add, emerged that was to prove favorable for the renewed
however, that "frivolous invention" was well known advance of technics. The reasons for this are probably
in medieval and Renaissance Europe and is not many and certainly complex. Nevertheless specific and
uncommon in the modern world! In the case of China readily identifiable features of this society must have
we mav tentatively assume that the diversion and been important. For one thing the imiversal acceptance
ultimate frxistration of the inventive impulse was due of a dogmatic monotheistic religion was associated with
to the values inculcated by the powerful bureaucracy, the establishment of a common educational or cultural
the low esteem in which utilitarian motives were held, system of which a characteristic feature was the medi-
and the real lack of incentives to economic activity. eval university. Again, the nature of Christian teaching
The experiences of classical antiquity tend to confirm meant, or at least could mean, the dismissal from nature
that the progress of technics can be arrested at any of all arbitrary wills — the
whole pantheon of gods,
stage by imfavorable social influence. In particular it goddesses, and minor spirits —
and the substitution of
has frequently, and plausibly, been suggested that the one rational, omnipotent, and benevolent God as Ar-
institution of slavery accounts for the ultimate failure chitect of the Universe and ruler of all things. The
of Greek and Roman science and technics. On the other consequence of such a belief for the advance of tech-
hand it must be admitted that the ancient civilizations nics as well as of science need hardly be emphasized.
of the Middle East had many technical achievements But perhaps most important of all, the Europeans
to their credit, especially in such fields as metallurgy revealed an admirable willingness to learn from out-
and civil engineering. The Greeks, who were seafarers siders.
and traders, were littleconcerned with technics and At the dawn of the Middle Ages, which we assume
made few significant inventions. Yet one mav hazard began with the reign of Charlemagne, the Europeans
the guess that, after the foundation of .Alexandria, when v\ere undoubtedly inferior to the contemporary .Arabs
Greek genius fused with the more pedestrian but com- and Chinese in both technics and the arts of living.
plementary abilities of the Egyptians, there was at last They had, however, sufficient humility to admit this,
the real possibility of a progressive science and tech- tacitly at least, and in the following centuries they
nology. Egyptians seem to have been in some respects freely copied the inventions and the arts of the civili-
curiously free from that deep-seated fear of nature zations of -Asia and Africa. In fact, a readiness to imitate
which troubled all other men, including Greeks and appears to be essential for the spread of invention and
Romans. The Egyptians practiced human dissection; for the furtherance of technics in general: this seems
they were also skilled metallurgists. By repute experi- to be as much a characteristic of progressive industrial
mental chemistry, in the form of alchemy, began in enterprises in the modern world as of progressive na-
Egypt. Egyptians were of necessity expert irrigation tions and civilizations in the past. It is only by imitat-
engineers and hydrologists and they introduced such ing, by copying and adapting, that a class of technicians
useful inventions as the water clock, or clepsydra, and can be built up; and it is mainly from such a class that
the .\rchimedean screw. Was it perhaps symbolic that one may expect original inventors to emerge in due
the only one of the SevenWonders of the ancient world course. It follows that historians who extol the .Arab
which served a useful pvu"pose and was not an instance and Chinese civilizations at the expense of medieval
of conspicuous consumption was the Pharos at .Alex- Europe miss an essential point. After all, the first ques-
andria? tion to ask about any invention is not who made it,
35o The science of Alexandrians like Eratosthenes, Hero, but how widespread was its use.
TECHNOLOGY
If we assume Middle Ages ended with the

that the and lightness:
rising standards of precision, reliability,
count of inventions
fifteenth century then a simple a process punctuated and expedited by such "revolu-
made or adopted by Europeans during the period tionary" improvements as the inventions of the fusee,
confirms that it was, as regards technics, more creative the stackfreed, the spring or "clockwork" drive, the
than any previous epoch in recorded history. Among pendulum clock, and the anchor escapement. Before
the more important medieval inventions were the very long a class of skilled clockmakers, the first of
stirrup, paper, gunpowder, firearms, the weight-driven the precision engineers, was established. This had ob-
clock, the mariner's compass, the spinning wheel, the vious economic and technical importance. On another
Saxon plough, the windmill, the crank, the horse collar, plane, however, the mechanization of time measure-
the steering rudder, the printing press, and the three- ment had very far-reaching consequences. Throughout
masted Most of the earlier inventions were copied
ship. antiquity and up to the middle of the fourteenth cen-
from the Arabs and the Chinese; most of the later ones tury it had been customary to divide the period be-
were made by Europeans themselves. Many were most tween sunrise and sunset into an equal number of hours
likely made simultaneously but independently by with the consequence that the length of the hour varied
different men in Europe and elsewhere; scholars have with the length of the day; with, that is, the time of
long recognized that simultaneous invention is a very was a reasonable procedure in days when
the year. This
common occurrence. there were no powerful sources of artificial light so
The weight-drivenclock, perhaps the most re- that most communal activities ceased with nightfall.
markable of all medieval inventions, appeared, it is Accordingly was the practice to calibrate sundials
it
believed, towards the end of the thirteenth century with hour marks to suit the time of year. But with
having in all probability evolved from a long line of the advent of the mechanical clock the practice of
astronomical models. The mechanical clock does not astronomers, who had long taken the length of the hour
measure the duration between two events, as an hour to be uniform by day and by night, now became the
glass or a calibrated candle does; as its circular dial common practice of men. The public clock, on
all
and moving hand indicate, it is really a device for church or castle, proclaimed the time to all men. With
indicating the position of the sun with respect to a the improvement in clocks went the further subdivision
meridian of the (supposedly) fixed earth. of the uniform hour into uniform minutes and seconds.
The apparent diurnal motion of the sun is for all This meant that all men could now regard time as an
practical purposes uniform. But it is impossible to infinitely extended dimension against which all events
obtain continuous imiform motion from any motive and were ordered. It was not so much the inter-
affairs
agent without some form of self-controlling or feed- val between specific events as an eternal process
back mechanism. imderlying them. Ever since the Middle Ages the
In the medieval weight-driven clock this problem steady, uniform tick of the clock has marked the pas-
is solved by combining a basic principle with a sage of time in this cosmic sense. It is hardly surprising
brilliantly ingenious kinematic invention. The uniform therefore that the mechanical clock inspired the famil-
and constant force of gravity, acting on a suspended iar and persuasive seventeenth-century image of a
weight, is transformed by means of an escapement "clockwork" universe and no doubt it contributed to
wheel into an alternating horizontal force which is then Newton's formulation of absolute, true, and mathe-
applied to an inertial system consisting of two equal matical time which, he asserted, flows equably without
masses at the opposite ends of a horizontal, centrally relation to anything external.
pivotted rod. The by the cyclic
inertial system, driven No doubt, the geometrization of time also owed
force, oscillates to and fro with a uniform beat whose something to the revival of interest in Euclid in the
period, or duration, is determined by the geometry of Middle Ages and to mathematically inclined philos-
the machine and the magnitudes of the weights and ophies such as the various forms of Platonism. So, too,
masses. The invention of the escapement wheel could, did the geometrization of space which helped artists
in principle at any rate, have been made at any time; to invent new techniques of painting pictures as "true
but the basic physics of the weight-driven clock was to nature
"
and not as symbolic representations. At a
not formulated until the seventeenth century: as the more humdrum level the development of cartography
foregoing words "force," "inertial," and "masses" marked the same sort of change when symbolic dia-
imply. One may, therefore, properly designate this grams, such as the T-O maps, gave place to realistic
invention as precocious, for it was based on principles representations of land forms.
which could not be scientifically explained at the time. Accompanying and reinforcing the emergent tech-
Crude as the first weight-driven clocks were, the nics of the Middle Ages was a new attitude to nature
process of "evolutionary" improvement assured rapidly which was, in part, a product of Christian teaching. 059
TECHNOLOGY
But it had other roots too, for an important component of themselves cause fundamental changes in thought.
of the new attitude was the rise of what have been Thus the widespread application of the mechanical or
called the heretical sciences — alchemy, astrology, and weight-driven clock necessarily changed, or helped to
magic. These represented a bold attempt to appro- change, men's ideas about time, compelling everyone
priate the secret and innermost processes of nature; to accept the notion of the imiform hour, minute, and
in Robert Lenoble's expressive phrase, to break the second and furthermore to consider time as a process
"tabu on the natural." However we apportion the which transcends all particular events. In addition the
credit for the new attitude, there can be no doubt that machine itself suggested a model for the universe which
men became more courageous and enterprising in the many found particularly satisfying. Again, technics
One aspect of this was the relaxation
face of nature. provides men with new and improved tools which, in
in the medical schools of the medieval universities of enabling him to extend his mastery over nature, also
the ancient prohibition of human dissection. .serve to extend his knowledge. The invention of the
At the same time the mining industries of Europe mariner's compass coupled with improvements in ship
were being developed, differing from the practice of building and design enabled Portuguese and Spanish
the ancient world in that the miners were now free navigators to extend knowledge of the world from the
men and not condemned slaves. Mining was, from the margins of Europe to the vast globe itself — now
early days, big business. It needed not only large-scale actually confirmed to be a globe — over
which the
social and financial organization but also the services observed laws of nature were found everywhere to be
of a wide range of technics. It posed proljlems in civil imiform and constant. Finally, we recognize that the
engineering, in ventilating and pumping and hence in development of technics may change the course of
the generation of power, in imderground and surface thought bv ameliorating the conditions of life, by
transport, and in the treatment of metals. Accordingly providing cumulative evidence that men may hope
mining expedited the growth of applied sciences such increasingly to determine their own destinies — that is,
as metallurgy and "pure" sciences such as chemistry by giving sanction to the idea of progress — and by
and geology. Indeed, the acknowledged excellence of assisting in the spread of secular learning. The last is
German chemistry was said to have been due to the exemplified bv the great medieval invention of the
extensive mining industries of that country. In short, printing press.
mining has been one of the seedbeds of Western science The achievements of the period which ended in 1500
and technology. .\.D.provided a good deal of the knowledge, in terms
The last aspect of medieval and Renaissance technics of hard-won experience, and nivich of the morale and
that we shall mention was the proliferation of attempts inspiration for that remarkable movement which swept
to devise a perpetual motion machine. This utilitarian Western Europe in the seventeenth century and which
aspiration was based on the consideration that perpet- is known as the "Scientific Revolution. "
The distinctive
ual motion was not an absurdity: the motion of the creed of the new movement was the "mechanical
heavens, the tides, streams and rivers, and the winds philosophy," an expression which neatly summed up
are all apparently "perpetual." And it was not until its adherents' indebtedness to medieval and Renais-
after the "Scientific Revolution" of the seventeenth sance mechanical inventors; those whom Leonardo
century and the demonstration that the atmosphere Olschki has called the "artist-engineers" who flourished
acts as a heat engine powered by solar energy that notablv in northern Italy. Only a mature civilization,
the rational basis for the attempt to make such ma- urban and technical rather than rural, could have given
chines was finally destroyed. rise to the mechanical philosophy. In fact the greater
Medieval and Renaissance perpetual motion ma- part of medieval technics had been forged in the cities
chines, indeed machines in general, were characterized of northern Italy and of southern Germany. The Italian
by an exuberant delight in elaboration; gear trains were cities tended to excel in the mechanical arts, architec-
added merelv for the sake of complexity as well as ture, and civil engineering; the German cities in the
in the hope of hitting on a more subtle science of metallurgical and chemical arts (Gutenberg, the
mechanics that would transcend mere earthboimd me- inventor of the printing press was, significantly, a
chanics. The latter endeavor failed, but not before men goldsmith by trade).
had taught themselves a great deal about the principles Peripheral Europe — i.e., Britain, Scandinavia, the
of machines. The period was intensely machine- Iberian Peninsula, North Germany, and Poland had,
conscious, as the famous notebooks of Leonardo testify. in comparison, done very little. Yet with the scientific
When we consider medieval technics in retrospect revolution the center of gravity of technics — and of
we can see that tliev affected intellectual life in several science — began to move towards the north and the
360 different ways. In the first place certain inventions may west, just as, five hundred years earlier, it had moved
—
TECHNOLOGY
in the same direction when tlie Italians and South pulleys, gears, etc.), its effect, or the work done, must
Germans took up the technics of Africa and Asia. always be numerically the same, for nothing is lost in
The century of revohition and of change was notable the working of a perfect machine.
tor many men of genius. We shall consider, briefly, two Entailed therefore by the axioms of the seventeenth-
such men whose works proved to be complementary. century science of mechanics were two basic and re-
One, Galileo, was a genius who built on the achieve- lated concepts; that of the quantifiable efficiency of
ments of his predecessors. The other. Francis Bacon, machines and that of power. The f|uest for perpetual
contemplating the triumphs of the past and considering motion was abandoned, for the logical implication of
the negligible contributions that his fellow countrymen the concept of efficiency is that restoration, or recov-
had made, drew up a program or plan for the conscious ery, of the initial situation is the utmost that can be
advancement of technics which, in detail, in insight, expected even of an ideal engine. In 1704 Antoine
and in eloquence of exposition, had not been rivalled Parent initiated a fruitful debate when he computed,
up to his day; nor, one may guess, has it been rivalled using the newly invented calculus, the maximum
since. efficiency' of an "undershot waterwheel of perfect
"
Galileo's method of science need not be discussed construction but inherently incapable, he believed
in detail. It was based on a Platonic faith in a mathe- wrongly, of perfect operation. (The fact that the wheel
matical order in nature, on the practice of abstraction rotates diminishes the impact of the water on its blades,
and intuition of the form of individual mathematical while the water leaving the machine — the tailrace
laws of nature, and also on the use of experimental must have some residual velocity. These, apparently
test, under conditions as close to the ideal as possible. imavoidable, defects must reduce the efficiency of the
The rise of such a philosophy in a machine-conscious machine. Eighteenth-century engineers were to dem-
community is hardly surprising. But if it owed some- onstrate how they could be eliminated.)
thing to practical mechanics — as the opening words Francis Bacon's ideas were interesting mainly from
of Galileo's Two New Sciences indicate it was in — the social and political points of view. He commended
return able to make a fundamental contribution to the technical innovation in preference to military conquest
advancement of practical mechanics. For, following as the humane wa> of augmenting national wealth; he
Galileos work, an ancient but fundamental fallacy identified the obstacles to the progress of science and
foimded in common sense and experience was removed he pointed out that the supremacy of Europe was due
from mechanics. Experience shows that it always re- not so much to military or civic superiority, as to the
quires more effort to work a machine than merely to possession of certain key inventions such as firearms,
hold it in equilibrium. This had been generalized into the printing press, and the mariner's compass.
a plausible law; that the force required for motion is Inventions, according to Bacon, fall into two more
always greater than the force required for equilibrium. or less distinct categories; those which can be made
But the application of Galileo's principles of abstrac- only if the appropriate know ledge is available — we call
tion and idealization shows that this is not so: the the.se science-based inventions — and those which are
inequality arises not from some basic principle but know ledge and
substantially independent of scientific
from the fact that machines are imperfect; they
all which could, theretore, have been made at any time
distort under load and they suffer from friction. A in the history of civilization; we may call the latter
friction-free and otherwise perfect machine would "empirical "
inventions. The obvious importance of the
ultimately be as easy to move as to hold in equilibriiuu. former provides, in Bacon's view, strong additional
This insight opened up a new vista for technics. .\ grounds for encouraging the progress of science, of the
numerical measure of the efficiency of machines now acquisition of knowledge.
became possible. The machine need not
efficiency of a Bacon wrote before the "mechanical philosophy"
be expressed in normative terms this machine is — of Boyle and Newton) appeared in England. He
(e.g.,
"better than that one

"
—
but as a simple fraction. In was no mechanic and his advice, that if one wants to
the case of a machine which is perfect in both design command nature one must first learn to obey her,
and construction the fraction, which is the ratio of the suggests an attitude favorable for biological sciences
output of work to the input of power or "effect" to — and technics. Generally, however, since his day the
"effort "
—
is necessarily equal to unity. In any practi- mechanistic approach, exemplified by mechanical
cable and therefore imperfect machine the fraction engineering, physics, and chemistry, has triumphed.
must be less than one. But Galileo's work also leads Bacon serves to remind us that an alternative form of
us to express the effort of any motive agent in terms technics might, conceivably, have developed since the
of a measurable unit of power since, if the agent is seventeenth century. But this is merely conjectural.
applied to the simple and perfect machines (levers, What is undeniable is that if we combine Bacon's broad 361
—
TECHNOLOGY
vision with the practical aspects of the new science nology, cannot of itself lead to radical new depar-
it
of mechanics we see how the practice of technics was tures; can lead only to the progressive improvement
it
becoming self-conscious and at the same time increas- of the machine as specified and that within the limits
ingly science-based. In short, "technologv" the word — of the materials and auxiliary devices available.
was a neologism in the seventeenth century — was be- The second notable event was the reiolutiunary
ginning to replace the more elementary "technics." invention bv James Watt of a practicable form of steam
Up had been
to the seventeenth century the English engine. This followed painstaking fundamental re-
mere imitators German, French, Italian, and Dutch
of search in the new science of heat; a science to which
inventions; they had been, indeed almost notoriously, Watt's friend Joseph Black haii contributed. Watt's
incapable of making inventions of their own. Never- engine worked, as did Newcomen's, by condensing
theless a considerable body of native craftsmen had steam to form a vacuum but condensation was now
been built up and they began to show their quality carried out in a separate cylinder, or "condenser,"
when, in 1712, Thomas Newcomen invented the first which could be kept cold all the time and did not have
successful "fire" engine. This was, in Bacon's sense, a to be heated up once a cycle. This gave a great econ-
science-based invention for its operation depended on omy of heat and therefore of fuel; it also clarified the
harnessing the pressure of the atmosphere; a phenome- idea that a heat engine works by virtue of a flow of
non which had been discovered by seventeenth-century heat from a hot to a cold body, the cold body being
scientists.Huvgens and Papin, among others, had no less essential than the hot body, or furnace. Further
envisaged such a machine. Newcomen's achievement to reduce waste of heat. Watt used steam at atmos-
lay in devising it in thoroughly practicable form pheric pressure rather than cold air to drive the piston
steam in a cylinder, fitted with a piston, is condensed, in the hot or working cylinder. Finally, to obtain the
leaving a void, so that the external atmospheric pres- best possible economy he proposed to operate the
sure can act on the piston — and in making the engine engine "expansively "
allowing the pressure of driving
automatic or self-acting. His was not only a major steam to fall steadily as the piston travelled down the
invention in its own right but one of the greatest cylinder. In this way he sought to extract the last ounce
achievements in the historv of technology, comparable of "duty," or as we should now say energy, from the
with the weight-driven clock and the printing press. hot steam.
The main use for Newcomen's engine was as a mine If the industrial revolution may be said to have
pumping engine and as such its progress in the first begim in one particular industry it was in that of
half of the eighteenth century was slow but assured. textiles rather power than in or mining. In 1769
But in the second half it was associated with two Richard .\rkwright was awarded a patent for the roller
remarkable events. The first was when the engineer spinning of cotton. Roller spinning was not a novel
John Smeaton (1724-92) applied to the design and idea, but Arkwright was the first to achieve it in prac-
operation of the engine a new technique which can tice. To do this the design of his machine had to satisfy
be described as svstematic evolutionary improvement. four critical requirements. It had to have more than
One component of the engine is systematically varied, one set of rollers, their relative speeds of rotation had
all the rest being kept constant. The change in per- tobe correct, their distance apart had to be about the
formance of the engine is then noted with each varia- same as the average length of the fibers (much less and
tion of the component. The variation which gives the the fibers are broken, much more and the thread comes
best result is selected and the procedure is repeated apart), and, lastly, the pressures between each pair of
for each component in turn. In this way Smeaton could rollers had to be correct. There was wide scope for
obtain the best design and the conditions for the best error and therefore failure. It is to the credit of .Ark-
performance of a machine of given size. wright that he eventually succeeded and made the
This svstematic technique had obvious affinities with mechanical spinning of cotton, the key to the
the experimental procedures of the time and, quite mechanization of the textile industries, possible.
possibly, with those of Newton in particular. Equally, Arkwright's spinning machine, or "water frame"
it was obviously a corollary of the Galilean theory of stimulated the mechanization of the other textile
machines, for the possibility of optimizing the per- processes. By the beginning of the nineteenth century
formance of an engine in such a way depends on prior everv such process from the preliminary treatment of
recognition of the concept of quantifiable efficiency. the raw fibers to the final weaving of the threads had
Smeaton had, as it happened, already applied his tech- been successfully mechanized and could be driven
nique to the improvement of the performance of either by water or by steam power. And all the essen-
waterwheels. But while this technique is important, tial inventions, from the early fly shuttle to Richard
362 indeed essential, in any society with an advanced tech- Roberts' self-acting mule, were, in Bacon's sense,
TECHNOLOGY
"empirical. "
Science was not involved at anv stage: gines. What, indeed, were the limits of efficiency of
the details and operations of the machines could have the steam engine?
been easily understood by a contemporary of In 1824 a French engineer of genius, Sadi Carnot,
Leonardo. There is no evidence that the pioneers of propounded a remarkable synthesis of knowledge. It
textile technology made scientific studies of fibers by was known by then that radiant heat from the sun was
using microscopes or any other .scientific devices avail- responsible for the movements of the atmosphere and,
able at that time. Furthermore, few of them bothered ultimately, for the hydrologic cycle: it was also known
to become Fellows of the Roval Society. The textile that heat, or rather the How of heat, caused many other
revolution was, in short, initially based on empirical natural phenomena. The steam, or heat engine works
inventions. So, too, was the new technology of indus- by virtue of the flow of heat from a hot body, or
machine tools which developed in America and
trial furnace, to a cold body, or condenser. By considering
England in the first half of the nineteenth century, and the principles of Watt's expansive engine and bv treat-
which certainly owed something in its early days to ing the flow of heat as strictly analogous to the flow
the rapid progress of textile machinery. of water, Carnot was able to envisage an ideal heat
The mechanization of the textile industries, and the engine; one which could, from a given flow of heat,
successful harnessing of waterwheels and earlv steam \ield enough power to restore, or recover the initial
engines to power such delicate processes as spinning (thermal) situation. Carnot did not consider the actual
and weaving, constituted one of the great triumphs of conversion of heat into mechanical energy: he believed,
technology. It was the first instance of what is now with the majority of engineers and scientists of the
exemplifiedin the wide range of mass production time, that heat is always conserved, .although some of
As early as 1835 Andrew Ure, in the course
industries. were incorrect, the
his assimiptions basis of his argu-
of a paean of praise for the new textile factories, ment was soimd and his realization — derived from an
asserted that the essence of the system lav in dividing ob\ious hydraulic analogy — that the greater the "fall
"
which could
the production process into stages, each of of heat, or the temperature difference over which an
then be dealt with by self-regulating automatic ma- engine works, the greater its efficiency, was correct.
chinery. He underestimated the difficulties of taking This was consistent with, if it did not explain, the
this one stage further, but his insight was nonetheless superior efficiency of high pressure (or high tempera-
remarkable for the time. ture) steam engines and it led him to recognize the
Science may not have been involved in the invention theoretical (and the ultimately practical) superiority
of textile machinery; but it played a vital role in the judgment which was vindicated
of the hot air engine, a
solution of the related problems of power. In England by the invention of the Diesel engine at the end of
and in France throughout the eighteenth century the century. In fact the history of the steam engine
increasing attention had been paid to the efficient and of heat engines generally, must be divided into
generation and transformation of power. In England two distinct periods, before and after Carnot.
industrial revolution made this particularly urgent for The ideal Carnot engine may be considered, in ab-
the best river sites for water power were quickly taken; stract terms, as marking the end of the spectrum of
and, as mills prospered and expanded, even these were all thermo-mechanical transformations in nature and
found to be inadequate. The demand for power was in art. In this Galilean sense, it provided the basis for
insatiable; the need for efficient generation was a new science — thermodynamics — which when it was
paramount. reconciled with the correct, dynamical theory of heat
Inevitably, the two major power technologies tended proved to be as fundamental as Newtonian mechanics.
to converge. Techniques and devices used in steam Thermodynamics is concerned with the transformations
engines were applied to water power and vice versa: of energy and the conditions under which they take
designers of industrial waterwheels were often design- place. After Carnot, notable contributions were made
ers of steam engines also. For a long period the advan- by Joule, Helmholtz, Thomson, Clausius, and Gibbs.
tages of steam and water power were fairly evenly But besides its applications to sciences such as physics,
balanced. But the efficiency of the steam engine was chemistry, and meteorology, thermodynamics has
steadily being increased and the appearance of the high influenced the development of cosmological thought.
pressure steam engine after 1800 widened the field of Its implications in this respect were understood from
application to include land and sea transport and a the beginning, but the idea of a thermodynamically
great range of industrial purposes. Further, it became doomed universe is still plausible.
apparent in the first two decades of the century that The intellectual and psychological origins of ther-
the economy of high pressure steam engines could be modynamics are to be foimd partly in the science
increased considerably above that of low pressure en- of heat, but mainly in Carnot s deep understanding of 3b3
TECHNOLOGY
the mode of operation of the Watt-type expansive The impressive innovations of the twentieth century
condensing engine, in the increasingly wide range of —automobiles, commimications technology,
air travel,
appHcation of steam power in the early nineteenth computers, control systems, and a multitude of con-
century, and in the impressive amount of mechanical simier goods —
have enormously improved the material
work that steam engines could perform. In fact the conditions of life. In other respects their direct effects
establishment of thermodynamics was the second oc- have not vet become clear although there is no doubt
casion on which a major technological advance led to (hat thev have had a cumulative if ambiguous iuHiience
new departures in science and to a change in general on the commonly accepted idea of progress. Historians
thought. As the mechanical clock contributed to the have usually related the rise of this idea to the substi-
formulation in the seventeenth century of the idea of tution of social theories for religious beliefs and to the
a "clockwork" universe, so the refinement of the heat advance of pure science. Although it is clear that
engine left its mark on the cosmology of the nineteenth technology, too, has been concerned, this aspect has
century. not been studied in anv detail. The time is certainly
The middle of the nineteenth century was a period ripe for such a studv for in some quarters technology
of intellectual synthesis, when electromagnetic field- has,today, become suspect. It is said to have put
theory, the principle of natural selection, the con- immense destructive powers in the hands of irre-
servation of energy, and the laws of thermodynamics sponsible politicians; reckless technological develop-
were all established. Since then social changes have ments often cause pollution of the environment; tech-
hastened the proliferation of science if not necessarily nology generally is accused of debasing the quality of
its rate of progress. The recent increase in the numbers life by imposing excessive specialization and an imdue
of scientists has been accompanied by the greatly mechanization of the conditions of work. But the first
increased application of science to the processes of two are as much the outcome of common hmuan fail-
innovation. It may even be said that a new mode of ings as a consequence of our inability to develop a
technological innovation has emerged. Applied science system of technology more in accord with Bacon's
laboratories, copied originally from nineteenth-century organic precepts. The last is a product of social orga-
German university laboratories, now study materials nization and not, directly, of technology. Indeed, there
and processes relevant to the needs of industrv and are grounds for believing that the inventive faculty and
also serve as sources of scientific invention. The dis- invention generally might be harmed by excessive
covery of the techni()ue of directed scientific research specialization.
has brought developments in social organization There are, as we have seen, a number of different
whereby scientific manpower can be deployed to solve modes of technological innovation. Before the seven-
such massive problems as those of nuclear power and teenth centurv inventions (empirical or scientific) were
space travel. The Baconian dream has, in the course diffused by imitation and adaptation while improve-
of eighty years or so, become reality. With all this there ment was established by the survival of the fittest. Now,
has occurred a .subtle shift in conventional ideas: the technologv has become a complex but consciously
notion of "open-ended "
technology is now widely directed group of social activities involving a wide
accepted. It would be considered foolish, today, to try range of skills, bv scientific research,
exemplified
to specify the limits, other than those imposed by logic, managerial and practical and inventive
expertise,
of the possible achievements of technologv. abilities. The powers of technology appear to be
There is evidence to suggest that during the nine- milimited. If some of the dangers may be great, the
teenth century the absolute laws of Newtonian physics, potential rewards are greater still. This is not simply
the indestructible atoms of Daltonian chemistry, and a matter of material benefits for, as we have seen, major
the "iron" laws of classical economics together with changes in thought have, in the past, occurred as con-
a reasonably complete knowledge of the size, nature, sequences of technological advances.
and resources of the planet constituted, between them,
barriers bevond which technological development HIBLIOCRAPHY
could not proceed. The limits were known and any
General Works. Eugene S. Ferguson, BibUo^raphij of the
suggestion that technology might be capable of
Historxjof Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1968). Friedrich
indefinite extension would have been rejected. This has
Klemm, Technik: eine Geschichte ihrer Prohleme (Munich,
now changed, due largely to the recent achievements 1954), trans. Mrs. D. W. Singer as A History of Western
of technologv and, no less, to the di.ssolution of the Technology (London and New York, 1959). Joseph Needham,
old nineteenth-century certainties, social and eco- Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge. 1954-).
3d4 nomic as well as scientific. Charles .Singer, E. ]. Holmyard, A. R. Hall, and T. I.
—
TEMPERANCE (SOPHROSYNE)
Williams, A Histori/ of Technoh*î/, 5 vols. (Oxford and New culture frequently appear in such joiunals as Archives Inter-
York, 1954-58). A. P. Usher, A Histonj of Mechanical Inven- nationales d'Histoire des Sciences. Isis, Annals of Science,
tions, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1954; reprint 1959). and Journal of the History of Ideas.
Works Relating Technology to Science and Other Social
D. S. L. CARDWELL
Activities. A. C. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo: the Histon/
of Science. a,d. 400-1650 (London, 1952); reprinted as Me- [See Alchemy; Baconianism; Newton on Method;
also
dieval and Early Modern Science, 2 vols. (London and New Progress; Work.]
York, 1959). R. J. Forbes and E. J. Dijksterhuis, A History

of Science and Technology. 2 vols. (London, 196.3). Lewis
Muniford, Technics and Civilization (New York, 1934;
reprint 1963). Lynn White, Jr., Medieval Technology and
Social Change (Oxford and New York, 1962). TEMPERANCE (SOPHROSYNE)
Works Having Relevance for the History of Technology.
B. Bury, The Idea of Progress. An Inquiry into its Origin
AND THE CANON OF THE
J,
and Growth (London, 1920; various reprints). A. R. Hall,

CARDINAL VIRTUES
The Scientific Revolution, 2nd ed. (London, 1962; reprint
1957). Robert Lenoble, "La pensee scientifique," in Maurice The history of temperance is the history of sophros-
Daumas, ed., Histoire de la science (Paris, 1963). \\'. Warren yne {au<ppoai<'Tf). The cardinal virtue of moderation,
Wagar, "Modem Views of the Origins of the Idea of self-knowledge, and self-restraint sdphrosijne in
28 (1967), 55-70.
P'rogress," Journal of the History of Ideas, Greek — took the Latin name temperantia in Cicero's
A. N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (London rhetorical and philosophical works, which set the style
and New York, 1925; reprint 1957). for later usage in the West. Sophrosyne derives from
Works Dealing with Individuals, Topics, or Periods. the adjective sophron {saophron in Homer): "of sound
D. S. L. Cardwell, Waff to Kelvin and Clausiu.^. The
Thermodynamics and the Early Industrial Age (London,
Ri.ie of mind "
— used at first to describe a person (either himian

or divine) who behaves in a way consistent with his
1970). Sadi Carnot, Reflexions sur la puissance motrice du
nature or station (like Apollo in Iliad 21. 462-64, when
feu (Paris, 1824; facsimile ed. 1953), trans. R. H. Thurston,
he refuses to fight with another god on behalf of
republished with introduction by E. Mendoza as Reflectiorts
on the Motive Power of Fire (reprint, 1960). Carlo CipoUa,
"wretched mortals") or who shows good sense, as op-
Clocks and Culture, 1300-1700 (London, 1967). See also the posed to frivolity or even witlessness (Odtjssetj 23.
various papers by Derek de Solla Price and by Silvio .A. 11-13, .30). The words saophrosync and .saaphron are
J.
Bedini in Technology and Culture, and elsewhere. John rare in Homer, but later Greeks read the concept back
Diebold, Automation: the Advent of the Automatic Factory into many situations in epic poetry that seemed to
(New York, 1952). Galileo Galilei, De motu and Lc typify the classical idea of the virtue. Hence certain
meccaniche, trans. 1. E. Drabkin and Stilhnan Drake as On Homeric characters became exemplars of sophrosyne
Motion and On Mechanics (Madison, 1960), with useful
in its several aspects, masculine and feminine: Odysseus
introductions and notes by the translators; idem, Discorsi
for his endurance and especially for his triumph over
intorno a due Nuove Scienze (1638), trans. H. Crew and
wisdom of old age, Penel-
. . .
Circe, Nestor for having the

A, de Salvio as Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
ope and Andromache for
. . .
being good wives.

(New York, 1914; also reprint). Norman T Gridgeman,
It was in the archaic age that sophrosyne first be-
on Charles Babbage, Dictionary of Scientific Biogra-
article
phy (New York, 1970-), 1, 354-56. H. J. Habbakuk, Amcriion came a "cardinal" virtue in the true sense, a quality
and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century (Cam- on which hinged personal or political well-being and
bridge, 1962). R. L. Hills, Power in the Industrial Revolution success. It had not been essential to the arete ("excel-
(Manchester, 1970). Thomas P. Hughes, ed.. Selections from lence") of the hero in the age idealized by Homer,
the Lives of the Engineers . . .by Samuel Smiles (Cambridge, whose primary needs were for courage and skill in
Mass., John Jewkes, David Sawers, and Richard
1966). battle, but in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.
Stillerman, The Sources of Invention (London, 1958). A. G.
changed conditions in the Greek world led to the rise
Keller, A Theatre of Machines (London, 1964). Leonardo
of the polis ("city-state") and with the polls came new
Olschki, Geschichte der neusprechlichen wissenschaftlichen
values essential for To adapt the words of
its welfare.
and Halle, 1919-27). L. T. C. Roll,
Literatur, 3 vols. (Leipzig
A Short History of Machine Tools (Cambridge, Mass., 1965). M. I. Finley, was necessary to tame the
Jr. (p. 129), it
Andrew Ure, The Philosophy of Manufactures (London, hero in order that the community might grow, and
1835; reprint 1967). Edgar Zilzel, "Concept of Scientific one of the forces that tamed the hero and made him —
Progress," Journal of the History of Ideas, 6 (1946), 325-49. a citizen —
was sophrosyne.
The main journals for the history of technology are; The Delphic code with its cautionary maxims,
Technology and Culture, and Transactions of the Netvcomen "Know thvself," "Nothing in excess," "Think mortal
with the impact of technology on
Society. Articles dealing thoughts," expres.sed the chief implications of sophros- 3o5
yne in the archaic age. Apollo, the "far-darter, "
the first recorded reference to what later came to be called

god of remoteness and limitation, who punished hybris the "cardinal" virtues. In his eighth Isthmian Ode,
and defended the frontier that separates man from the Peleus and the other Aeacids are cited as models of
gods, was the divine teacher of archaic sophrosyne, and justice, courage, sophrosyne, wisdom, and piety (a fifth
tlie —
Seven Wise Men including Pittacus, Solon, virtue often included in the canon). The implications
—
Chilon, Thales, and the rest applied ApoUine moral- here are primarily political, since the Aeacids stand
itv to the problems of the polis. Elegiac and lyric for the people of Aegina, who, only two years before
poetrv in the sixth and fifth centuries reveal what the composition of the Ode in 478 B.C., had shared
sophrosyne now meant for the individual and society. with .Athens the glory of defeating the Persians at
Theognis of Megara, writing in the middle of the sixth Salamis.
century, is the first to oppose sophrosyne to hybris in The choral odes of Attic tragedy employ both the
political life. His view is that of the conservative oli- mythical and the gnomic themes of earlier lyric poetry
garchy; the sophrosyne he admires is essentially the to comment on the situation of the tragic hero, who
kind of repressive discipline later identified with is often conspicuously deficient in sophrosyne (self-
Sparta. He also accepts the older, Homeric sophros- knowledge, self-restraint, moderation). .Attic tragedy,
—
yne soundness of mind, good sense and like con- — in fact, reflects the first great flowering of sophrosyne.
temporary poets extends still further the meaning of There is clearly an intimate connection between the
the word, which now begins to imply sobriety, both conditions in Athens that gave rise to tragedy in the
actual and metaphorical, sanity, the conduct proper late sixth century B.C. and those that caused sophrosyne
to a good wife, and in general the avoidance of im- to be recognized at just thistime as one of the essential
moderate or irrational behavior. values for the polis. Attic epitaphs now begin to de-
Theognis (sixth century B.C.) is an innovator in two scribe the excellence of the dead in terms of arete and
ways especially important for the later treatment of sophrosyne, testifying to the emergence of a new civic
sophrosyne in literature and art: he is the first to ideal which combines the heroism of the soldier in time
personify the virtue and the first to cite an exemplar. of war with the sobriety and moderation of the patri-
The exemplar is the mythical Cretan king, Rhadanian- otic citizen in time of peace. It has often been observed
thys, mentioned in a context that suggests intellectual, that tragedy owes much to the historical conflict re-
rather than moral, implications for sophrosyne (The- sulting from the encoimter of the heroic individual with
ognidea, lines 699-718). The personification occurs in the restrictions necessarv for the survival and prosper-
a passage modelled on Hesiod's famous description of ity of the polis. The expression of these restrictions,
how the Iron Age will come to aii end, with the depar- both social and religious, was sophrosyne, which in-
ture from the earth of Aidos (Modesty) and Nemesis hibited its possessor from overstepping boundaries set
(Works and Days, lines 190-200). Theognis substitutes by the gods or his fellow citizens.
Sophrosyne for Aidos and lists her companions as Pistis A principal theme of Greek tragedy is the catas-
(Good Faith) and the Graces (lines 1135-42). Sophros- trophe that befalls the hero whose self-assertion leads
yne is here considered a social virtue, and it is notable him to ignore such limits. The situation is clearest in
both that she is the archaic successor to the epic Aidos Aeschylean tragedy, which consistently links sophros-
and that she is linked with other values that elsewhere yne with a set of desirable qualities (justice, piety,
form part of the aristocratic, Dorian ethos. freedom, masculinity) and opposes it to arrogance,
The archaic age made a further contribution to the imrestrained emotionalism, immoderate behavior, and
history of sophrosyne by popularizing themes, myths, other forms of hybris. It is in Aeschylus, moreover, that
and gnomic sayings related to hybris and its conse- we first begin to see sophrosyne as an Athenian arete
quences, a subject destined in tragedy to provide the politike, different in important ways from the Dorian
principal context for the development of the cla.ssical brand. From the final scene of the trilogy of the
concept of sophrosyne. Lyric poetry, especially the Oresteia we learn that sophrosyne constitutes a mean
choral odes of Pindar, abounds in reflections on man's between tyranny and anarchy, and that it is to be for
fatal tendency to indulge in excessive hopes and ambi- the Athenians one of the cornerstones of their demo-
tions, to refuse to limit his thoughts to what befits his cratic constitution. The timing of the Oresteia in the
mortal nature, to aspire, in the cliches of archaic lyric, year 458 B.C., so soon after the great extension of Attic
to "marry the daughter of Zeus" or "climb the brazen democracy by Ephialtes, makes this trilogy a significant
heavens." Ixion and Bellerophon become types of this comment on political affairs in a period when other
kind of hybris; their fall is interpreted as a lesson to sources are rare. Athenian political history in the next
"think mortal thoughts" — the primary text of archaic hundred years ebb and flow of her citizens'
reflects the
366 sophrosyne. It was a lyric poet, Pindar, who made tlie fidelity to tlie gift bestowed on them at the end of the
a
trial scene in the Eiimenides. when the Furies, trans- conflict between the rational and the irrational that
formed into goddesses of bliss and blessing, utter their forms the core of his tragedy. For him its basic meaning
majestic benediction and visualize the Athenians is "self-restraint," and only now does it regularly have
"seated beside Zeus, beloved by Athena, sophronountes such connotations as chastity, sobriety, continence, in
en chronoi — learning temperance as time goes on" (line preference to the older implications — good sense,
1000). soundness of mind, sanity — although these are by no
If the Aeschylean conception of sophrosyne can be means forgotten. It is characteristic of Euripides to
glossed by the ApoUine "Nothing in excess" and "Think play off one meaning against another — chastity against
mortal thoughts," the Sophoclean virtue is closer to moderation, sobriety against wisdom and thus to —
"Know thyself." The failure in sophrosyne that marks show the danger of a one-sided virtue. The Hippolijtus
such heroes as Ajax, Antigone, Oedipus, Electra, and and the Bacchae, each of which presents a hero who
Deianeira is a failure in self-knowledge, amounting is at once sophron and hybristic, fanatically virtuous /
sometimes to delusion, sometimes almost to madness. and yet blind to the wholeness of life, reflect an ad-
The hero is blind to something essential in himself or vanced stage of the criticism of conventional values
his situation, and tragedv arises from the interplay that had been initiated by the pre-Socratic philoso-
between his circumstances and his admirable but im- phers, carried further by the Sophists, and intensified
perfect nature. Secondary characters and Choruses by the abnormal conditions resulting from the war with
typically urge a kind of sophrosyne already Sparta.
recommended by Oceanus in Prometheus Bound — Other themes to which Euripides frequently recurs
cautionary, self-protective quality, equivalent in con- are the question of how sophrosyne and other virtues
duct to obedience. Rightly regarding such sophrosyne originate, whether in nature or training — an important
as incompatible with the heroic ideal for which he will aspect of the current debate over the priority of phi/sis
sacrifice everything, including life itself, the Sopho- ("natiu'e") or nomas ("convention"); the possibility of
clean hero rejects it as ignoble, and it remains for the a sophron eras, love guided by reason and thus less
poet to show, through a variety of dramatic devices, destructive than the immoderate passions of Medea and
what sophrosyne really is: the self-knowledge that Phaedra (a topic taken up in the next generation by
enables man to face reality, renounce delusion, and Plato); the claim ofAthens to a mythical past in which
understand his part in the cosmic pattern. The speech her kings and people had excelled in sophrosyne
in which Ajax interprets the procession of the seasons (manifested in the compassionate treatment of enemies
and the alternation of night and day as examples of and suppliants); and the efficacy of sophrosyne as a curb
tlie limits imposed on all elements in the imiverse {Ajax, on anger and cruelty, always, in Greek tragedy, more
lines 646-77) is a striking forenmner of the "cosmic dangerous passions than sexual excess.
justification" for the practice of sophrosyne that Plato In his manipulation of the last two of these themes
was to express a century later in the Gorgias (506D- Euripides has much in common with Thucydides,
508C). It is also typical of the Sophoclean irony by whose History of the Peloponnesiat^ War depicts the
which the poet reveals to us a fundamental aspect of disastrous victory of the irrational over the rational in
his tragic view through the words of a hero who is public life and often shows the tragic consequences
tragic precisely because he is unable to accept that of savagery and hatred. The most significant contri-
view. Ajax's hostility to sophrosyne represents an ex- bution of Thucycfides to the history of sophrosyne lies
treme version of the polarity (seen throughout Greek in his analysis of its political implications. In tlie con-
history) between sophrosyne and the heroic principle. between Athens and Sparta that is the primary
trast
But it also reflects the sharp and specific questioning theme of the History he consistently treats sophrosyne
of traditional values that marked the sophistic revolu- as a Spartan quality, emphasizing its relation to the
tion in education and permeated Greek thought during Spartan characteristics of conservatism, discipline,
the last third of the fifth century. slowness to act, and isolationism in foreign policy. It
The plays of Euripides reflect still more directly this commonly denotes moderation or stability in govern-
crisis in Athenian culture. They reveal far less of a ment. In spite of his admiration for Pericles' own
conscious hostility to sophrosyne on the part of the moderation and astute balance of political values,
tragic hero, but a much greater sense of helplessness Thucydides rarely describes Athenian policy as soph-
to achieve so rational an excellence. They incidentally ron; he reserves the word for the Dorian ethos to such
display a tremendous increase in the scope of the word an extent that sophrosyne sometimes amounts to a
sophrosyne as it was popularly understood, and a keen slogan for the oligarchic factions and the Spartan sym-
interest in the contrast between various implications pathizers in the Greek cities. This situation is accepted
of the word. Euripides consistently relates it to the by other writers of the late fifth century, especially 367
the poets of Old Comedy and the Attic orators, for (pliiouesis or sofihiu), justice (dikaiusijne), courage
whom the closest equivalents to sophrosyne are terms (andreia), and temperance (sophrosyne). Hitherto a
like aprapiwsijne ("minding one's own business ') and shifting group, unstable in number and content, they
hestjchki ("cjuietness"), both of which had been part owed their origin as a vaguely defined canon to the
of the aristocratic and Dorian set of values from the needs of the developing polis: hence the\' first appear
age of lyric and elegiac poetry. in literatme in the time of Pindar and .-Aeschylus, both
In the fourth century the situation abruptly changes. of whom recognize piety (euseheia) as a member of
Now the /\ttic orators regularly claim sophrosvne as the group. What Plato did'in Republic IV was to
a specifically .\thenian virtue and a democratic one exclude piety and establish the other four as the excel-
at that. The and
disillusionment with pro-Spartan lences proper to the soul and the state, when each is
oligarchic politics that resulted from the Tyranny of in its ideal condition. Sophrosyne is at first (389D-E)
the Thirty in 40-4 B.C. was the immediate cause of the defined as obedience, and control of the appetites for
change, and the sophron polites {"citizen ") depicted food, drink, and sexual indulgence, a definition explic-
by the fourth-century orators, is invariably a fervent itly described as a popular one. Hence it is the arete
democrat, a foe of both oligarchy and Sparta, a citizen proper to the third class in society (the farmers, crafts-
who benefits the state by his inoffensive, law-abiding men, and tradesmen) and to the corresponding part
conduct and his generosity in the performance of of the soul, the appetitive faculty. But sophrosyne as
"liturgies" — outfitting warships, subsidizing religious Plato further defines it is also a kind of harmony in
processions, and the like. There is even a counnon- the soul and the state, "sounding the same note in
place, used by both Lysias and Isaeus, according to perfect miison throughout the whole" (432A), and as
which the most valuable liturgy is to be a kosmios such it is necessary to each class and each faculty. It
("orderlv") and sophron citizen. is the virtue that enables all classes and all parts to
The political aspects of sophrosvne are much disagree on the rule of the naturally superior — the philoso-
cussed by the fourth-century philosophers also. Plato, phers in the state, the rational faculty in the soul
in fact, makes sophrosyne so central to his conception (442C-D). Sophrosyne produces a polis that is just and
of the ideal state and the soul in optimum condition peaceful and a soul that is balanced and harmonious.
that at times — especially in his late dialogues — it be- So great is Plato's temperamental affinity for so-
comes for him the most important of the cardinal phrosyne that he tends expand its functions and
to
virtues. make it virtually synonymous with justice in some

Socrates dominates the first stage in the development contexts, with wisdom in others. He is concerned al-
of Plato's concept of sophrosvne. To judge by the ways to reconcile it with courage, and in the Statesman
picture that emerges from the dialogues of his acbiiirers and the Imus, as well as the Republic, he devises modes
(not only Plato, but Xenophon,
and Antisthenes, of education that will prevent the soul and the state
Aeschines of Sphettus), his own sophrosyne was marked from being damaged by the conflicting demands of the
by a rigorous self-knowledge and a kind of asceticism two polar tendencies.
often described in such terms as enkrateia ("self- The importance of sophrosyne increases in Plato's
control'), autarkeia ("independence"), and etiteteia later dialogues, keeping pace with his increasing inter-
("frugality") —
all words that are linked with sophros- est in movement and change, of which the irra-
yne in later Cynic writings. Plato's early dialogues are tional —
the appetites and passions forms one aspect. —
permeated by the Socratic conception of virtue as The study of physics and cosmology gave new support
knowledge, and by Socrates himself as the exemplar to the view expressed as early as the Gorgias (503-08)
of sophrosyne (dramatized in tlie Charmides). A some- that identical principles produce excellence in every
what later stage finds Plato refining and deepening the context, so that cosmos in the universe, justice in the
popular definition of sophrosyne as the restraint of state, health in the body, and sophrosyne in the soul
appetite. His own distinctive contribution is the theory are completely analogous,all of them manifestations
that all virtue depends on the orderly arrangement of of order and harmony. No passage concerned with
faculties within the soul, a condition achieved by the sophrosyne in the Laws proved more influential than
practice of sophrosyne. This view is first advanced in the statement that "likeness to God" (liomoiosis theoi)
the Gorgias and is developed in great detail in the depends on (716C-D). Later philosophers
this virtue
Republic. and Church Fathers, who were keenly interested both

Few of Plato's achievements in the Republic have in the imitation of God and the question whether moral
more enduring significance for the history of ideas than virtue is proper to the Divine nature, quoted and
his establishment, in Book IV, of the four cardinal commented on this passage more than on any other
368 virtues as an exclusive canon, consisting of wisdom dealing with sophrosyne, except for the great myth of
the Phaedrus. Thejmaê of the charioteer controllin g connection with epideictic oratory and ethical persua-
the two horses an d using their motive power to ris e sion, defining it, with an eye to its social significance,
jhrou^h the heavens to the realm of the Forms becam e as the virtue that disposes men in regard to the pleas-
a symbol of sophrosyne for patristic writers, who ures of the body as the law commands (1366b 13-15).
sometimes conflated the Platonic myth with biblical In his celebrated discussion of age-groups and charac-
allusions, often to Ezekiel (Ambrose, De Virginitate I. ter-tvpes he assigns sophrosyne to men in their prime,
17-18). who alone combine courage with temperance (1390b
In co ntrast to the expi&nsive tendencies of Plato, wh o 3-4).
makes all the virtues ii ltiinatpl y identical with on e The Hellenistic philosophical schools afford several
another, Aristotle tends to define each one as precisel y different views of sophrosyne. The Epicureans accept
as possible, severely limiting their scope and also dis- the popular definition (restraint of appetite), and con-
tinguishing moral from intellecttial arete . He finds the cede that sophrosyne is necessary for a life of tran-
Platonic tetrad, newly defined according to his own quillity, but virtue is to them only the means; pleasure
standards, insufficient to do justice to the entire range is the goal. The Cynics fear pleasure and exalt a kind
of human conduct, and in both the Nicomachean Ethics of sophrosyne verging on asceticism. They relate it to
and the Rhetoric adds several other moral virtues to frtigalitv (euteleia), and independence (autarkeia), and
the canon of the Republic. Flis most enduring contri- divorce it from the theoretical life. The anti-
entirely
bution to ethical doctrine is the theory of the Mean, thesis to in Cynic thought is neither hybris
sophrosyne
according to which each moral virtue is a inesotes, a nor akolasia, but extravagance (tnjplie). The Cynic
mean state (relative to the person concerned), located diatribe, often called a sophronizon logos ("a sobering
between the two extremes of excess and defect. This discourse "), influenced a wide variety of literary types,
theory is an outgrowth of the traditional Creek feeling the Stoic moral treatise, Roman satire, the oratory of
for moderation which had already given rise to the the Second Sophistic, and the homilies of certain
Delphic maxims, the pre-Socratic search for balance Church Fathers, to all of which it imparted a strong
and proportion in the physical miiverse. the myths of flavor of Cvnic sophrosyne. Hence the wide diffusion
hybris in lyric and tragic poetry, and Plato "s efforts in Greco-Roman literature of the ascetic concept of
in the Philebus to apply an absolute metron ("measure") the virtue, which Antipater summed up in his epitaph
to moral decisions. It is, in fact, a manifestation of for Diogenes, when he described the famous wallet,
sophrosyne, which thus becomes the true basis of cloak, and staff of the Cynic prototype as the weapons
Aristotle's moral doctrine. When used to arrive at a oiautarkes sophrosyne (Palatine Anthology, Rook 7.65).
definition of sophrosyne itself, however, the theory of For sophrosyne, however, by far tlie most important
the Mean produces a virtue much more limited than of the Hellenistic schools was the Stoic, which revived
that which in Plato's later dialogues had sometimes the Platonic canon (henceforth more often called Stoic)
threatened to swallow the entire canon. It is very close and made it the center of its moral teaching. Rejecting
to Plato's first definition of sophrosyne in the Republic: .Aristotle's distinction between moral and intellectual
for Aristotle sophrosyne is a mesotes concerned with virtue, the Old Stoa regarded all virtues as manifesta-
three kinds of bodily pleasure: eating, drinking, and tions of phronesis in different situations. Thus sophros-
sexual intercourse (1118a 23-26). The vice of excess vne was defined as phronesis in matters of choice and
is undue indulgence in tliese appetites {akolasia. avoidance {Stoicorum veterurn fragmenta, 1. 201); the
"wantonness "), while the vice of defect is insufficient opposing vice, however, was still the .Aristotelian
enjoyment (anaisthesia, "lack of feeling "), a vice that akolasia. The traditional connection of sophrosyne with
Aristotle admits is rarely encountered. Such a sophros- self-restraint was not forgotten; Ariston of Chios as-
yne is stripped of the intellectual, political, and aes- signed to it thepower to regulate the appetites (ibid.,
thetic nuances that had clustered around it in earlier 1. 375), and Chrysippus, with his doctrine that sophros-
Greek thought. yne renders the impulses steady (ibid., 3. 280), provided
In the Rhetoric and Politics, however, Aristotle ad- a bridge to the great innovator of the Middle Stoa,
mits more traditional definitions (modesty, obedience, Panaetius, who emphasized the role of the impulses
opposition to hybris). His discussion of sophrosyne in in moral conduct. Panaetius, conflating some doc-
the Rhetoric is of special interest because it was trines of Plato and Aristotle with those of Zeno, mod-
through Peripatetic and Stoic rhetoric that knowledge erated the rigors of the Old Stoa and made it more
was transmitted to most edu-
of the cardinal virtues acceptable to the Roman ruling class. He considered
cated Romans, and thence to the Middle Ages and the sophrosyne a practical, not a theoretical, virtue, and
Renaissance. Aristotle's is the first extant consideration he taught that all forms of virtue have their origin in
of the role of sophrosyne in rhetoric; he studies it in the appetites and impulses natru'al to man. Sophrosyne 009
— —
from the human instinct for order, propriety, and

arises Cicero's speeches employ laudotio and lituperatio. in
moderation (Cicero, De officiis 1. 4. 11-14); since this which, among the four virtues, temperantia (with its
(imHke the impulses which give rise to courage and antitheses) receives by far the greatest attention, not
justice) is an impulse peculiar to man, not shared by only because accusations of luxuria and avaritia had
animals, Panaetius sets it high on the scale of virtue, long proved most effective in arousing indignatio and
and he associates with it the principle of decorwu {to odium, but also because Cicero sincerely believed that
prepon), which is essential for every form of excellence. these were the vices most typical of Rome and most
There is a strong aesthetic element in Panaetius' view dangerous to the welfare of the Republic. In his highly
of sophrosvne. related to his belief that this virtue successful manipulation of the topic of the virtues and
assures the development of a harmonious and attractive vices Cicero goes far beyond his own technical pre-
personality. Cicero's tendency to link sophrosyne with cepts in De inventione and De oratore and even out-
humanitas owes much to Panaetius. strips Aeschines, the Attic orator most adroit in the
Rome's earliest contacts with (ireek literature prob- use of this topos. His praise of Pompey's temperantia,
ably occurred in the theater, where before the end of and the dementia of Caesar
of the pudicitia of Caelius,
the second centurv B.C. translations and adaptations was imitated by generations of orators and historians,
of tragedy and comedv must have introduced many while his great sequences of denunciatory speeches, the
Romans to the concept of sophrosyne. A little later Verrines, the Catilinarians, and the Philippics, all of
came the systematic study of rhetoric and philosophy, which temperance to the problems of the Re-
relate
in both of which the canon of Platonic-Stoic virtues public, provided a model for Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus.
held a prominent place. Sophrosyne, the most Hellenic In spite of enormous differences in style and historical
of these virtues, was the hardest to transplant, bvit in —
method in spite, even, of Sallust 's and Tacitus' reac-
some of its nuances it bore a sufficient resemljlance tion against Ciceronian precedents, all three of the
to certain traditional Roman values pudicitia ("chas- great Roman historians focus attention on the vitia
tity "), modestia ("moderation "), fnigalitas. and principum as the source of decay in the state and
verecundia ("modesty ")
— to encourage the Romans to recommend temperantia, moderatio, or some other
naturalize it and even claim it as their own, by ascrib- aspect of sophrosyne as a cure for the nation's ills.
ing it to some of the heroes and heroines of the early Under the Empire, the virtues of the Princeps are
Republic — the Elder Cato, Piso Fnigi, Scipio Africanus naturally the subject of anxious concern, beginning
Major, Lucretia, and Verginia in particular. Cicero, as with the presentation to Augustus of the shield in honor
part of his attempt to give Rome a philosophical vo- of his virtus, dementia, iitstitia. and pietas. From this
cabularv, sviggested several Latin renderings for so- time on, dementia, a virtue subordinate to sophrosyne
phrosyne temperantia, moderatio, modestia, and in the Stoic system, becomes one of its two most sig-
frugalitus (Tusculan Disputations 3.8) — of which tem- nificant aspects in Roman political life; the other is
perantia became the most popular, although by no pudicitia, which is ascribed to a number of Emperors
means the only accepted equivalent. both in literary eulogies and on the imperial coinage.
It was Cicero who made the first systematic efforts The ethical commonplaces of late antiquity, trans-
to natnralize sophrosyne. His contribution took two mitted with little variation in all the philosophical
forms: the translation or adaptation of rhetorical and schools, gain fresh vitality with the coming of Christi-
which sophrosyne was defined
philo,sophical treatises in anity. At first a well-foimded distrust of anything
and discussed with reference to various modes of per- closely identified with paganism caused Christian
suasion or the ethics of the individual and the state, apologists to ignore the Stoic canon, although each of
and the use in his own oratory of the topic of the the virtues separately foimd support in the early
virtues and vices. His succinct exposition of the rhetori- Church and all were transformed by the concept of
cal fimction of the Stoic virtues in De inventione con- Divine Grace as the source of virtue. Sophrosyne won
stituted a principal source for medieval definitions of an especiallv enthusiastic welcome, being identified
the canon; adaptations and commentaries on this brief with those qualities of purity, chastity, sobriety, and
text (and on the corresponding passage in the nearly self-denial that the Christians regarded as peculiarly
contemporaneous Hhetorica ad Herennium) had enor- their own. There was even a danger that an exaggerated
mous impact on the Latin West. The most influential regard for chastity as the essence of sophrosyne might
of his philosophical expositions of the virtues was De distort the classical virtue beyond recognition. With
officiis on Panaetius' interpretation of the
(based the triumph of Christianity, Clement, Origen, and the
canon), which became, in the Renaissance particularly, Cappadocians among the Greek Fathers, Lactantius,
a favorite source of advice, the model for vernacular Ambrose, and Augustine among the Latin, began freely
370 handbooks on morality and conduct. Almost all to adapt the doctrines of pagan philosophy to Christian
"
theology and morals. Not only did they use the topic of Petrarch,which began to adorn Italian coffers (cas-
of the virtues, borrowed from pagan rhetoric, to em- aroimd the middle of the fifteenth century. Tem-
soiii)
bellish their own homilies and funeral orations, adding perance, chastity, and sobriety were among the so-
to the classical sophrosyne a new emphasis on hagneia called "Gift-virtues," derived from the Gifts of the
Holv
("holiness") and kat}iarotes ("purity"), but they devel- have a long history in art.
Spirit in Isaiah 11:2; these
oped and refined such Platonic and Neo-Platonic The following discussion, however, will confine itself
teachings as the need to practice sophrosyne in order for the most part to instances in which the cardinal
to achieve likeness to God, and they emphasized the virtues appear as a group, with only occasional refer-
fundamental importance of this virtue for the ascetic ences to separate representations of temperance.
life (now seen as the Christian continuation of the Late antiquity may now and then have seen the Stoic
theoretical life extolled in Greek philosophy), and its tetrad portraved together, but no example has survived,
crucial role in the conversion from evil to good. Patris- and properly speaking the iconography of the cardinal
tic innovations included the identification of biblical virtues begins in the Carolingian period. A poem by
figiu'es (Joseph, Susanna, Judith) as types of sophrosyne; Theodulf of Orleans purports to describe a plaque in
the interpretation of many scriptural texts (Matthew the Palace at Aachen, which showed a tree rooted in
5:28 and 19:12, Luke 12:35-38, the Sixth and Tenth a globe and bearing on its branches personifications
Commandments, several of the Beatitudes) as injmic- of the cardinal virtues and the liberal arts. The virtues
tions to the practice of this virtue; the derivation of are identified by an elaborate set of attributes, Pnt-
all virtues from love (rather than wisdom); and the dentia by a book. Vis (Fortitudo) by a dagger, a shield,
recognition of the example of Christ and His Blessed and a helmet, by a sword, a palm-branch, a
lustitia
Mother as the supreme justification for the practice set of balances, and a crown, and Moderatio (Tem-
of temperance. perantia) by a bridle and a scourge (Diimmler I, 46).
In late antiquity and the Middle Ages the most The virtues as they actually appear in miniatures of
interesting additions to the classical doctrine of tem- the ninth century are more modestly equipped. They
perance were those that related it to the monastic life usually adorn the pages of Gospel-books or other
title
(where, because of its identification with chastity, one liturgical texts, and they are normally placed in the
of the three great monastic vows, it enjoyed great four corners of the page, enclosed in medallions, while
prestige) and those that integrated it into the complex the center is occupied by the Prankish king or the
systems of virtues and vices that proliferated from the biblical David, the model for Carolingian rulers. In
time of Evagrius Ponticus in the East and John Cassian the earliest extant example, the Vivian Bible (843-51),
in the West. The writings of Cicero, especially his all four virtues are half-figures (two male, two female),
rhetorical works and the commentaries they inspired, holding palm branches and stretching out their hands
the encyclopedic works of Martianus Capella and towards the central King David. In other manu-
figure.
Isidore of Seville, the Moralia of Gregory the Great, Pmdentia invariably holds
scripts of the ninth centurv
Macrobius' commentary on Cicero's Somnhim Sci- a book, Fortitudo arms and armor, lustitia a set of
pionis, and Martin of Braga's Formula tsitae Iwneslae, scales, and Temperantia a torch and jug (Figure 1).
derived from Seneca's lost De ojficiis, were the chief They are never accompanied by accessory virtues or
transmitters of classical doctrine about the virtues. In opposing vices. Their portrayal is static, entirely lack-
the Carolingian Age Alcuin's On Rhetoric and the ing in the drama of the psychomachia, the combat
Virtues and similar works of the "advice to princes between virtues and vices popularized since the fifth
type revived the political significance of the cardinal centiuy by the manuscripts of Prudentius.
virtues. At this point they sprang to life in art. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries several inno-
vations occur. The virtues are illustrated in important
THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE devotional treatises and theological tracts, as well as
CARDINAL VIRTUES deluxe Gospel-books, sacramentaries, lectionaries, and
Each of the cardinal virtues had an independent life the like. They also appear on an infinite variety of small
in art, separate from the other three. In antiquity, objects, usually religious in nature: portable altars,
justice and wisdom were most often represented, espe- shrines, reliquaries, tabernacles, book-covers, candle-
cially in Greco-Roman coinage. In the early Middle sticks,and fonts (Katzenellenbogen, 1964). New sym-
Ages and at the begimiing of the Renaissance certain bolic objects and animals are now added to the reper-
aspects of temperance were prominent in popular tory of the artist in France, Germany, and the Low
iconographic cycles: Pudicitia and Sobrietas among the Coimtries. Prudence mav have a serpent or a dove;
victorious virtues in the Psyclmniachia of Prudentius Fortitude may tear apart the jaws of a lion; Justice
(a.d. 410), and Chastity (Pudicizia) among the Trionfi may hold a sword, a plvmibline, or a set square; and 371
to the Neo-Pythagoreans, and Philo Judaeus, imitated

by Ambrose and Augustine, had long ago identified the
Rivers of Paradise with the Stoic virtues. In the twelfth
century and thereafter parallel groups of seven at-
tracted attention, under the influence of such works
as Hugh of St. Victor's De quinque septenis, Pseudo-
Vincent of Reauvais's Specuhim and the
morale,
Sumina Thomas. Now the three Pauline virtues
of Saint
(faith, hope, and charity) are added to the Platonic
()uartet, and the resulting seven virtues are linked with
other sevens: vices or deadly sins. Sacraments, Gifts

of the Holy Spirit, the derived "Gift-virtues," and the
seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer. The most effective
way of illustrating the relation among the virtues was
7P |,% ^'-^-^
the Tree, the arbor bona rooted in humility and bearing
among its branches the seven virtues. This device,
which goes back at least to Saint .\ugustine, was popu-
larized by the treatise De fructu spiritus el cartiis
ascribed to Hugh of Saint Victor and by illustrations
to such widely-read works as the Speculum virginum
usually attributed to Conrad of Hirzau, Lambert's Liber
floridui; and Herrad of Landsberg's Hortus deliciarum.
Miniatures in French manuscripts of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, especially Rooks of Hoiu's, de-
velop the iconography of the cardinal virtues, some-
times alone, sometimes in relation to the other sevens.
The most influential such book was Somme le Roi,
compiled in 1279 for King Philip of France, and illus-
trated by a comprehensive set of pictures reproduced
in many manuscripts. One page, in a manuscript of
1295, devoted to the cardinal virtues, shows two of
them in action: Prudentia teaching three pupils, Tem-
perantia advising a woman at table to refuse a
proffered goblet, and two in heraldic fashion: Fortitudo
holding a disk with a .symbolic bird, and lustitia with
Figure 1. Cardinal virtue page from Marmoutier SatT;tinent;try.
S19, folio I73v, executed at Tours, ca. 850. autun, bibliotheque a sword and scales (Figure 2). A century later the
MUNICIPALE derivative Relleville Rreviary combines seven virtues,
seven Sacraments, and seven vices in an intricate icono-
Temperance may have a spray of flowers, a sheathed graphical scheme which sets side by side the cardinal
sword, or (most often) two vessels, with which she virtues as portrayed in the Sotnme le Roi manuscripts
mixes water and wine, a visual reminder of the root- and the "Gift-virtues "
in the same
Thus the source.
meaning of temperare. In Mosan art she is sometimes illustration devoted Sacrament of Marriage in-
to the
identified by a bridle (Tervarent, 1964), but in spite cludes the scene of Temperance at table from the
of Theodiilf's poem, this is the rarest of her attributes, cardinal virtue page, and also a picture of Judith de-
until it is revived by Giotto early in the fourteenth capitating Holofemes, which in Somme le Roi had
century and popularized by Raphael in the sixteenth. exemplified the vice of lechery and drunkenness, op-
Literai-y sources are responsible for much of the posed to the "Gift-virtue" of Chastity (Godwin, 1951).
interest in the virtues and many of the ways which
in Chastity herself was portrayed in Somme le Roi as a
they are depicted. The theory of the macrocosm and woman standing on a pig and holding a disk inscribed
the microcosm, set forth in Radulphus Glaber's Historia with a dove.
sui temporis (1059) inspired the equation of many The tradition of the Psychomachia had little effect
tetrads — the cardinal virtues, the Rivers of Paradise, on the iconography of the cardinal virtues until the
the Evangelists, the Iâtin Fathers, the Seasons. Mysti- thirteenth century, when they began to be portrayed,
372 cal interpretations of the number four go back at least not in combat with the vices, but in triumph over them.
The vices may be represented by personifications trod- important; the tetrad (with or without the Pauline
den underfoot, symbolic animals ridden by the virtues, virtues) adorns chapels (such as the Spanish Chapel in
historical exemplars seated at the feet of the virtues, Santa Maria Novella, Florence), pulpits (those of the
or genre-scenes suggesting the vices in action. A series Pisani in Pisa and Siena, some of which antedate the
of thirteenth-century reliefs on the portals of Gothic fourteenth century), baptisteries (Florence, Bergamo),
cathedrals (Paris, Chartres, Amiens, Reims) shows campaniles (Florence), tabernacles (Or San Michele,
twelve virtues as seated, feminine figures, each identi- Florence), and tombs (Saint Peter Martyr in Milan,
fied by the symbolic animal, bird, or plant on the disk Saint Augustine in Pavia), but now they also appear
she holds; underneath, a genre-scene suggests the opin places of civic and secular importance, a return to
posing vice (Katzenellenbogen, 1964). The twelve vir- the political significance that the virtues had enjoyed
tues include two of the cardinal tetrad (Prudence and from the time of their origin in the fifth-century Greek
Fortitude) and subdivisions of the other two, according citv-states. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
to the well-known Ciceronian and Macrobian lists conditions in the Italian cities were ripe for the revival
(Chastity for Temperance, Obedience for Justice; see of the virtues as aretai poUtikai. and we find, especially
Tuve. 1963). The North Porch at Chartres, however, in Florence, the most Athenian of the communes, many
presents a different series of triumphant virtues, this examples of their display in public places.
time the group of eight comprising humilitv plus the They adorn the Loggia dei Lanzi and the seven
theological and cardinal virtues. Although their tri- panels painted by the Pollaiuoli and Botticelli for the
umph is portrayed in the older, Romanesque style Mercanzia, and they accompanied the personified
(standing figiires holding symbolic objects and tram- Commvme in Giotto's lost fresco for the Palace of the
pling underfoot personified vices) the number eight and Podesta. In Venice the capitals of the columns of the
some of the attributes point towards the future, espe- Doges' Palace were adorned with the seven virtues.
cially the Italian virtue-cycles of the fourteenth cen-
tury. Thus the vice opposed to Temperance in this
seriesis Wrath tearing her garments, just as in Giotto's
fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, possibly in-

spired by the North Porch at Chartres.
Previous to Giotto, the cardinal virtues had been
depicted only rarely in Italian art, although Roman-
esque mosaic pavements in Pavia and Cremona show
scenes of the psychomachia involving other sets of
virtues. Very nearly unique is a portrayal of the cardi-
nal virtues through genre-scenes, in the choir mosaics
of San Savino in Piacenza (1 107), where a duel suggests
Fortitude; a king pronouncing judgment. Justice; a
game of chess. Prudence; and a .scene of revelry. Tem-
perance. The mosaic in the Cupola of the Ascension
in St. Mark's, Venice, dating from ca. 1200, includes
the cardinal virtues in a group of sixteen, which reflect
the influence of Byzantine processional scenes by way

of Ravenna. The cardinal virtues display attributes
popular in twelfth-century French manuscripts; Pru-
dence, two serpents; Justice, scales; Fortitude, a lion
whose jaws she tears apart; and Temperance, a pitcher
from which she pours water into a bowl (Figure 3).
Giotto's sequence of eight virtues and eight vices
(ranged along opposite walls in the Scrovegni Chapel,
1306) popularized one hitherto rare attribute of Tem-
perance, the sheathed sword, which thereafter ap-
am
peared in several Florentine and Neapolitan reliefs and
statues. In the fourteenth century Italy takes the lead
from France, not so much in devising new ways to
represent the virtues as in finding new contexts in Figure 2. Somme le Roi: cardinal virtues. Paris, Arsenal, MS. 6329.
which to display them. The religious ambience is still folio 96v, 1295. photo BIBLIOTHiQUE NATIONALE, PARIS 373
FiciRE 3. Mosaics from Cupola of

the -\scension. Si. Mark's. Venice,
showing two cardinal virtues. Tem-
perance and Prudence, ca. 1200.
PHOTO ANDERSON-ART REFERENCE
and the Porta della Carta was flanked by statues of with winged figures of the cardinal and theological
Fortitude, Temperance, Justice, and Charity. In virtues hovering above his head and defeated heretics
Perugia the Collegio del Canibio set the cardinal vir- crouched at his feet; in the lower register are personifi-
tues in a wholly secular environment. In Siena the cations of the liberal arts and sciences, at whose feet
frescoes of Good and Bad Government by .\mbrogio in turn sit their historical exemplars.
Lorenzetti in the Palazzo Pubblico constitute the most 2. The use of the virtues in funerary sculptiu'e, at
complex and original of the political cycles involving first for saints, popes, and bishops, then (in Naples) for
the virtues and vices. In the Fresco of Good Govern- royalty, and finally for laymen of less exalted rank
ment the personified Commune sits in the midst of six (Figure 4).
virtues, the cardinal four augmented by Pax and Afag- 3. The appearance of typical figures, biblical or
nanimitas, while the theological virtues hover over- historical, to represent virtues as well as vices.
head. Temperance holds an hourglass (one of the earli- .\mong the symbols and attributes popularized at
est examples of this attribute); Justice holds an upright this stage, and carried from Italy north into France,
sword, a crown, and a severed head; Fortitude has a England (where the virtues are always rare), and the
sword; Prudence points to an inscription. Low Countries, those of Prudence and Temperance are
In addition to this rebirth of their civic importance, the more diverse. Justice and Fortitude show fewer
the following are the most significant tendencies in the innovations, although it is at this time that the column
iconography of the cardinal virtues in fourteenth- and (recalling Samson and representing strength) becomes
fifteenth-century Italy: a popular attribute of Fortitude. Prudence now often
1. The integration of these virtues into great suni- carries a mirror, sometimes entwined by a serpent, and
mae of human life, like that on the campanile in she iLSually has at least two faces, sometimes three,
Florence, with its reliefs of seven virtues, seven planets, representing her attention to the past and the future,
mechanical arts, and Sacraments, or Andrea
liberal arts, as well as the present. Temperance may now have a
da Firenze's Triumph of Saint Thomas in the Spanish bridle (she wears the bit in her mouth in the Scrovegni
Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, where the saint sits Chapel) or a sheathed sword (also Giottesque), or an
374 enthroned between saints and doctors of the church, hourglass (a pun on tenipus). She may even take the
form of an ancient Venus Pudica, entirely nude, as on century, linked in some way to Giusto Menabuoi's lost
Giovanni Pisano's pulpit in the Duomo in Pisa (ca. frescoes in the Church of the Eremitani in Padua, the
1310), or of a very lightly clad, classical Diana, as on typical figure defeated by Temperance is likely to be
the tomb of Pius II, now in Sant' Andrea della Valle Epicurus, but may be Tarquin. Prudence usually tri-
in Rome (ca. 1473). umphs over Sardanapalus, Justice over Nero, and For-
In France the virtues are not associated with sepul- titude over Holofernes. The subject provided a popular
chral ornament in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- theme for pageants and tapestries in the sixteenth
turies, but early in the sixteenth are introduced into century.
this context by Italian sculptors, who usually employ Not until the fifteenth century are typical figures,
the attributes conventional in Italy. Suddenly, however, whether historical or biblical, associated with the car-
French sculptors, such as Michel Colombe, adorn with dinal virtues, sometimes in conjunction with a similar
highly original types and emblems of the virtues the treatment of the liberal arts. Thus Pesellino's two
tombs of the Duke of Brittany in Nantes (1507) and panels (ca. 1460) now
Birmingham, Alabama, show
in
the Cardinals dWmboise in Rouen (1515). Prudence the liberal arts with their champions seated at their
now holds a compass, as well as a mirror; Fortitude feet and the seven virtues in the same position with
holds a tower from which emerges a dragon, whose theirs: Faith, Charity, and Hope (with Saint Peter,
neck she grasps; Temperance has a clock as well as Saint John the Evangelist, and Saint James Major) are
a bridle, and only Justice, with scales and sword, is
identical with her Italian counterpart. These attributes

(the "new" or "Rouen" iconography) are simplified
versions of an even more bizarre set that (see Tuve,
1963) probably originated among manuscript illumi-
nators patronized by the Dukes of Burgundy, as early
as 1410. They appear in the famous Rouen manuscript
of a French translation of Aristotle's Ethics (Bibl.
munic. MS 927), about 1454, and in various treatises
of the "advice to princes" type, usually involving

adaptations of the Ciceronian doctrine of the cardinal
virtues. In such illustrations Temperance has not only
the bridle and the clock (the bit worn in her mouth
and the clock on her head), but also a pair of spectacles
in one hand, spurs on her shoes, and a windmill on
which she rests her feet. The other virtues have corre-
spondingly elaborate attributes (Figure 5), explained
in a set of verses that accompany the pictures in a
manuscript (ca. 1470) of a French translation of Martin
of Braga's Formula litae honestae (Tuve, 1966).
Although pagan antiquity certain mythical and
in
were customarily linked with partic-
historical figures
ular virtues, and Philo and the Church Fathers re-
garded various persons from the Old Testament or the
New as types of virtue or vice, systematic correlations
in early medieval art were limited to a small group
(Samson as a type of fortitude, Judith, Susaima, or
Joseph in Egypt as types of chastity and temperance).
Typical figures were assigned to the liberal arts much
earlier than to the virtues (Chartres in the thirteenth
century, the Spanish Chapel in the fourteenth), and,
by the fourteenth century, the personified vices tram-
pled underfoot in Romanesque versions of the psy-
chomachia had given way to historical exemplars,
sometimes trampled, sometimes merely sitting in defeat
Figure 4. Tomb of Pope Pius II, Sant' .\ndrea della Valle, Rome,
before the personified virtue. In a series of miniatures with four cardinal virtues, two theological virtues, ca. 1473. photo
from the early and middle years of the fourteenth ALIN/UU-ART REFERENCE BUREAU 375
Figure 5. Cardinal virtues with the "new iconography" from B.N. MS. fr. 9186. foHo 304r, French translation of Martin of Braga's Formula
OlD vitae honesuie, ca. 1470. photo biblioth^que nationale, Paris
•
>^'
Figure 6. Cardinal and theological virtues with historical representatives, Pesellino. > 1460. SAMUEL H. KRESS COLLECTION, BIRMINGHAM
MUSEUM OF ART, BIRMINGHAM, AL.ABAMA
flanked by Prudence and Justice on one side, Fortitude with Lechery on the familiar pig in an engraving cited
and Temperance on the other. At the feet of the cardi- by Tervarent. The popularity of the emblem books,
nal virtues sit Solon, Solomon, Samson, and Scipio from the middle of the sixteenth century until the
Africanus (Figure 6). A more elaborate iconography eighteenth, gave to the iconography of the cardinal
dominates Perugino's series in the CoUegio del Cambio virtues a last injection of new life. The earliest emblem
in Perugia towards the end of the fifteenth century: book, that of .\lciati (1.531). drew upon the Hiero-
each of the (seated) personified virtues is identified by glyphica of HorapoUo, dating perhaps from the fifth
familiar attributes and an explanatory inscription, century in .Alexandria and published by the Aldine
while below her stand three historical representatives, Press in 1505; it was followed by the Hieroglyphica
two Roman, one Greek. With Justice are associated of Valerian! in 1556 and, most influential of all, the
Camillus, Pittacus, and Trajan, with Prudence, Quintus Iconologia of Cesare Ripa, first published in 1593 with-
Fabius Maximus, Socrates, and Numa Pompilius, with out illustrations, then in illustrated editions from 1603
Fortitude, Lucius Sicinnius, Leonidas, and Horatius to the final, five-volume production in Perugia,
Codes, and with Temperance, Scipio Africanus, Peri- 1764-67. Ripa's Iconologia was the great source book
cles, and Cincinnatus. for baroque artists, some of whose works — like the
Symbolic animals, birds, and even fish were linked stuccoes of Serpotta in Palermo — would be impossible
with virtues and vices in ancient literature (Aristotle, to interpret without the help of the emblem books.
the Neo-Platonists, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder in partic- kn early reflection of Ripa's advice on how to depict
ular), and this tradition, augmented by the writings of the cardinal virtues is the Sala Clementina in the
the Fathers (especially commentaries on the Hex- Vatican, painted by the .\lberti brothers. An elaborate
aemeron) and popularized by tlie Pliijsiologus and the example is Gaulli's set of virtues on the cupola of Sant"
Bestiary, flourished in the Middle Ages. .At first, in both Agnese in the Piazza Navona, 1667-71 (Figure 7).
literature and art, animals more often represented vices Among the more abstruse emblems connected with
than virtues, and was natural for a virtue to be shown
it the cardinal virtues by Ripa and his followers are the
riding or standing on a beast symbolic of the vice she ostrich, which symbolizes Justice because its feathers
overcame, as Chastity in the 1295 manuscript of are all of equal length, the deer, linked with Prudence
Somme le Roi stood on a pig, symbol of lechery. It because it ruminates like a sage, and tlie diamond,-
will be recalled that she held a disk or shield with a symbol of Fortitude because of its adamantine hard-
picture of a dove (the turtledove symbolizes chastity ness. Temperance received a great variety of new
in Aristotle's History of Animals); this emblematic or emblems, including a pair of red-hot tongs and a bowl
heraldic association of animals with virtues is familiar of water in which to temper them. Giuseppe Raffâelli
from the early thirteenth century on the Gothic cathe- depicted her with precisely these attributes in his statue
drals. In the revival of the motif of the psychomachia for the ambulacrum of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.
that occurs in the fifteenth century personified virtues Drawing upon many ancient and medieval sources,
sometimes ride on animals that symbolize their own including the epigrams in the Creek Anthology and the
characteristics, rather than the opposed vices. Bestiary, the emblem books
ascribe to each of the
In the sixteenth century the emblem books intro- virtues both animal and vegetable symbols.
duced a host of new symbolic animals into the company After the close of the eighteenth century the vogue
of the virtues. Thus Chastity riding an elephant fights for personified abstractions perished, along with the 377
THEODICY
ture (East Lansing, 1952). Samuel C. Chew, The Pilgrimage

of Life (New Haven, 1962). E. Diimmler, ed., Poetae latini
aevi Carolini, in Moniwwnta Cennaniae Historica. M. I.

Finley, Jr., The World of Odysseus (New York, 1954), p. 129.
Frances G. Godwin, ".\n Illustration to the De Sacramentis
of St. Thomas Aquinas," Speculum, 26 (1951), 609-14.
Werner Jaeger. Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (Cam-
bridge. Mass., 1961). Adolf Katzenellenbogen, Allegories of
the Virtues and Vices in Mediaeval Art from Early Christian
Times to the Thirteenth Century, trans. .\lan J.
P. Crick (New
York, 19641. Karl Kiinstle, Ikonographie der christlichen
Kunst. Vol. I (Freiburg, 1928). fimile Male, The Gothic
Image: Religious Art France of the Thirteenth Century,
in
trans. Dora Nussey (New York. 1958). Herbert .Musurillo,
S.
J.,
"The Problem of Ascetical Fasting in the Greek Pa-
tristic Writers," Traditio, 12 (1956), 1-64. Helen North,
Sophrosyne: Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek
Literature (Ithaca, 1966). Erwin Panofskv, The Iconography
of Coreggio's Camera di San Paolo (London, 1951); idem.
Tomb Sculpture: Four Lectures on Its Changing Aspects from
Ancient Egypt to Bernini (New York, n.d.). Theognis, Theog-
nis, poeines elegiaques, ed. Jean Carriere (Paris, 1948).
Rosamond Tuve, "Some Notes on the Virtues and Vices,"
journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 26 (1963),
Figure 7. Temperance and related figures, pendentive of cupola, 264-303; 27 (1964), 42-72; idem. Allegorical Imagery: Some
Sant' -Agnese in .\gone. Piazza Navona, Rome, G. B. GauUi (Bacic- Mediaeval Books and Their Posterity (Princeton, 1966). Guy
cio), 1667-71. PHOTO ali.nabi-abt reference bureau de Tervarent, Attributs et symboles dans
profane I'art
1450-1600: Dictionnaire d'un langageperdu (Geneva, 1959);

taste for allegory and the wit that delights in learned Supplement et index (Geneva, 1964), p. 437. Raimond Van
and allusive jests, such as inspired the ceiling of the
Marie, Iconographie de I'art profane au moyen dge et d
la renaissance (The Hague, 1931).

Camera di San Paolo in Parma (Panofskv, 1951). Even
in Rome the nineteenth and twentieth centuries pro- HELEN F. NORTH
duced few additions to the historic iconography of the (See also Cosmology; Happiness; Historiography, Influence
cardinal virtues, if we
except the Torlonia Chapel in of Ideas on; Holy; Iconography; Myth in .\ntiquity; Plato-
the Lateran Basilica and the four busts over the main nism; Pre-Platonic Conceptions; Rationality; Stoicism.]
portal of the Ministry of Grace and Justice on the Via
Arenula. Yet for a thousand years the iconography of
the cardinal virtues has provided an accurate indication
of the ebb and flow of interest in Platonic-Stoic ethics,
and of the impact made at various times, in various THEODICY
places, by new interpretations of the virtues, their
relation to one another and to other "value-systems," /. DEFINITION OF THEODICY
and their importance for the religious, social, political, It generally agreed that the term "theodicy" (in
is
and personal life of Western man. It is undoubtedlv French theodicee), formed from two Greek words, Se6s
significant that inour own time the cycle of Seven ("God") and SUri ("justice"), was devised by Leibniz
Deadly Sins executed by Sidney VVaugh for Steuben From his youth Leibniz
late in the seventeenth century.
Glass has never been balanced by a series of cardinal had habitually used the phrase "the justice of God"
and theological virtues, as it surely would have been in discussing the problem of evil, but the term
in thirteenth-century France or fourteenth-century "theodicy" appears late in the 1690's. Having been
Florence. trained in the law, Leibniz regarded theology itself as
the highest form of jurisprudence, and consequently

BIBLIOGRAPHY treated the problem of God's relation to the evils of
H. F. A. von Arnim, ed., Stoicorum veteriim fragjnenta, the world after the analogy of a case at court. It was
4 vols. (Stuttgart, 1964). Morton \V. Bloomfield, The Seven the widespread popularity of his Essais de theodicie
Deadly Sins: An Introduction to the History of a Religious . . . (1710, hereafter referred to as Theodicy) which
378 Concept, with Special Reference to Medieval English Litera- brought the term into general use.
— —
THEODICY
Theodicy in its narrow sense is thus the defense of man has faced his life with self-consciousness. In the
God, the supreme creator, ruler, and judge of the first chapter of his book on prayer (1932) Friedrich
universe, against charges brought about by a consid- Heiler has pointed out complaints, protests, and
eration of both moral and natural evil. Leibniz himself attempts to coerce, in the face of undeserved sufferings,
exemplified this meaning in a short treatise written as in the traditions of many ancient or tribal cultures. In
a quasi-legal brief, and published independently in the ancient China the question of the cause of suffering
same year as the Theodicy: The Cause of God argued was addressed to Shang Ti, the Highest Lord. The
in Terms of His Justice (Causa Dei asserta per justitiain mystical pantheism of the Vedanta in India evaded
eius). the problem through identity with the One, but in the
Linked to this meaning, however, is a second one more personalistic mysticism of the Bhagavad-Gita the
the philosophical study of the compatibility of evil with dialogue between Krishna and Arguna includes a
the idea of God. Thus Leibniz, writing to Des Bosses reproach for the world which is answered
evil in the
(Feb. 5, 1712; trans. Loemker, p. 601), defined theodicy by the god. Although the Buddha was skeptical about
as "a kind of science, as it were, namely the doctrine the gods, the content of his enlightenment concerned
of the justice of God —
that is, of his wisdom together the fact of evil, its subjective cause, and its resolution.
with his goodness." A theodicy in this sense should Though polytheistic, the religions of the Mesopotamian
examine the interrelationships of three concepts: the river civilizations anticipate a doctrine that is firmly
nature of God and his providence, the nature of evil, entrenched in the history of the Hebrews, and still
and the meaning of justice. prevails in the orthodox theistic faiths historically de-
Since these concepts require further presuppositions rivative from this — the conviction that there is a
as broad as the field of natural theology itself, a third, divinely appointed equation of suffering with sin and
broader meaning of theodicy has arisen: it has become of reward with loyalty. As Saint Augustine expressed
a synonym for philosophical theology. Grounds for this it, —
"There are two kinds of evil sin and the penalty
use of the term may also be found in Leibniz himself, for sin" (Again*? Fortunatus. 15; in Earlier Writings).
since his Theodictj, the only inclusive philosophical It deserves notice, however, that the Hebrew scriptures
work which he published during his lifetime (1646- also contain the great poetic refutation of this theory
1716), contained wide perspectives on his whole system of evil as retribution — the book of Job, which also
of thought. Christian Wolff established this wider use makes the point that the only resolution of the problem
of the term, and the Scholastic tradition has generally is in the realm of personal commitment or faith. Also
followed it. In the reform of the French educational reflected in later books of the Hebrew canon, as well
system carried through in the early nineteenth century, as in early Christian heresies, is the dualism of gods
the year course in philosophy of the Lycee was divided —
good and evil adhered to in the religion of Iran.
into four sections: psychology, logic, morals, and In Greece the highly individualized natures of the
theodicy (or natural theology). This usage is retained gods render the problem of theodicy meaningless, for
in P. Janet and G. Seailles, L'Histoire de la philosophic: the society of gods is almost at one with the society
les problemes et les Scales (Paris, 1887; II, Part iv), of men, and human responses must be adjusted to
them very much as they must be adjusted to other,
//. THEODICY IN HISTORICAL RELIGIONS admittedly more powerful, humans. But in the great
In the narrow and proper sense of the term, myths, particularly as they are treated in Greek trag-
theodicies can arise only in traditions of ethical theism. edy, the gods fade into insignificance in the face of
The problem presupposes the existence of one God the awesome powers and harsh sufferings common to
with a moral character engaged in the order of the the human situation, and the treatment of themes such
world, although a polytheism in which the gods are as pride and retribution achieves a universal human
themselves bound by a superior moral fate, or one in significance.
which the religious loyalty of the individual or the Thus there have arisen in all religious considerations
group is restricted to one god (henotheism) also may and natural, certain lines of thought
of evil, both moral
raise the question of justice in the face of persistent demanding a theodicy or suggesting ways of avoiding
However, polytheism, the pantheism of a monistic
evil. one: by rendering evil subjective, to be overcome by
absolute,and the dualism which assigns the evil to a the discipline of thought and will; by a dualism or
god or demon apart from the good provide ways of pluralism of good and evil forces; by making suffering
avoiding the problem of theodicy altogether. a retribution for sin; by overcoming the distinction
Nevertheless, complaints about the actions ot the between good and evil through mystical identification
upon whom the values of life
religious being or beings with God, so that what is, is good; or by a nommder-
depend but who have permitted evil occur wherever standing commitment of faith to the goodness of God 379
—
THEODICY
and to justification in a life after death. The ground The argument has been repeated by skeptics until
is thus prepared for a philosophical theodicy. today and various consequences drawn from it; one
possibility, of course, is Epicurean deism or atheism.
///. PHILOSOPHICAL THEODICIES The second contribution to a theodicy in late classi-
Greek Theodicy. The first philosophical resolution
1. cism is Plutarch's criticism of the Stoic ethics of obedi-
of the problem of evil is found in the dualism of the ence to the universal reason governing the world, on
early cosmologists, which separated the good from the the charge that Stoicism makes God the source of all
—
bad a separation which was retained by Plato and evils (De Stoicarum repugnantiis. Sees. 32-37; the
Aristotle, however much these may have shifted the criticism is levelled against Chrysippus, Treatise on the
reference of the two poles. In each case, whether in Gods). Plutarch's own solution is Plato's; God cannot
Anaximander's separation of bounded order from be identified with natiu-e as the Stoics hold; God can
unbounded matter (apeiron), or the Pythagoreans' only be good, and evil must have some other source,
dualism of even and odd, or Plato's and Aristotle's whether in lesser powers or in matter.
distinction between form and matter, the two are 2. Christianity and Saint Augustine. It is only when
assigned distinct metaphysical statuses, even though the the Western theistic religions, them influenced
all of
latter, the evil, is in some way subordinate or subject by the Hebrew scriptures and by Greek thought, seek
to the former, the good. In Heraclitus, on the other a clarification and defense of faith in the face of
hand, and the Stoics, who appropriated his theory of paganism and heresy that the problem of theodicy
two poles are absorbed into
the eternal logos-fire, the becomes vital. The retributive theory of suffering re-
a unity which transcends both but is in some higher mains strong in these faiths, although protests were as
way good, requiring submission by the individual to old as the Book of Job and the teachings of Jesus and
this ultimate order which determines his destiny. To Paul. The eschatological hope of a final judgment and
oversimplify somewhat, the philosophic tendency is to promise of eternal life with rewards for the faithful
resolve the problem of evil, either through a dualism and good, and punishment for sinners, was the ultimate
in which the good is free of evil yet controls it, or moral world order. But the questions
justification of a
through a pantheism in which evil is somehow less real of why a creator of perfect power, wisdom, and good-
and existent than the "tnily" good, though inseparable ness can create a world containing evil, and how his
from the apparent good. The two movements are fully foreknowledge is compatible with human freedom,
synthesized by Plotinus and those who follow him; developed as foci for discussion. A tough-minded
following both the Stoic doctrine of the One and the orthodoxy (Tertullian, for example) turned to the
logic of a hierarchical scale of being, Plotinus makes paradoxes of the gospel as justification for theoretical
matter the source of evil, but places it also at the outer skepticism and an affirmation of faith in the impossible.
extreme of nonbeing, removed from the One, the most thinkers, Platonism provided an antidote
But, for
ineffable source of all goodness and harmony. In every fordoubt and for the dualistic heresies of Gnostic and
case, evilis either reducible to some source other than Manichee. A universe which is the creation of a perfect
thegood (dualism), or it is merely a limitation of the being must, to adequately reflect his greatness, be as
good (negation), and the problem of a theodicy (which full as possible of all degrees of finite goodness and
involves culpability of the good) is avoided. thus also contain levels of evil as their negation; in
In the Hellenistic period, however, there were two such a world, Greek thought supports revelation in
distinct approaches to a theodicy, which established holding man

be free and therefore capable of evil,
to
precedents for later discussions. One was the challenge yet destined also to find his way from the lower level
which Epicurus directed at God's power or goodness. of sense and matter to the higher level of grace.
According to Lactantius (A Treatise on the Anger of It was Saint ,\ugustine who, after passing through
God, Ch. 13) he reasoned as follows: Manichaean and Neo-Platonic phases of thought, pro-
vided that complex synthesis of doctrines about evil
God either wishes to take away evils and is unable; or he and the justification of God which came to prevail in
able and unwilling; or he neither willing nor able;
is is is
Western Christian orthodoxy; it was adapted by
or he is both willing and able. If he is willing but unable
Thomas Aquinas to the Scholastic tradition and by
he is feeble, which not in accordance with the character
Leibniz to the context of the modem scientific and
is
of God. If he is able and unwilling, he is envious, which

rationalistic moods.
is equally at variance with God. If he is neither willing
nor able, he is both envious and feeble, and therefore not Augustine's theodicy is eclectic and resists sys-
God. If he is both willing and able, which alone is suitable tematization. He modified Plotinus' theory of evil as
for God, from what source then are evils? Or why does he negation by making it a matter rather of privation
380 not remove them? in each created being that is evil which deprives it
THEODICY
of the particular form or purpose which is natural to revived after Kant by Schleiermacher and others, and
it. To this must be added Augustine's concern about found support in theistic interpretations of evolution
the inwardness of experience, the motive rather than in the nineteenth century.
the external consequence of action. Evil is deficiency, 3. Theodicy in the Reformation and Leibniz. In the
therefore no cause can be formd for it (City of God theological conflicts of the Reformation another critical
XII, 7). Hence evil has no independent status; it is reaction to the .\ugustinian theodicy developed. Both
always parasitic on the good (Enchiridion, Chs. 1.3, 14). Luther and Calvin followed Augustine's doctrine that
But since being and goodness must be defined in terms all evils follow from the sin and fall of man. But Luther
of the particular final cause inherent in each created in particular, in the tradition of voluntarism, stressing
being, onlv free creatures can experience evil. faith as independent of reason, repudiated the entire
conception of a philosophical theodicv on fideistic
When the will abandons what is above itself and turns to
what is lower, it becomes evil, not because that to which
grounds. Not God is to be justified, but man. To raise
it turns is evil, but because the turning itself is wicked (Citij

the speculative question of a theodicy merely reveals
God XII, the entire sinful condition of man. Onlv faith has the
of 6).
assurance that God will use the evil of the world for
So man's fall brought evil into the world, and it is
his own ends. Faith exceeds our present understanding
relative to man and to other free creatures. as does the justice of God in accepting sinners.
To this theory of evil as privation, Augustine adds This skepticism of the intellect, which shifts the
analogical arguments of an aesthetic and part-whole problem of theodicy from philosophy to revelation and
nature. What appears to be evil seen in isolation or faith, is, of course, as old as Job, and has continued
in too narrow context could be seen as a necessary mitil now, in the Neo-Orthodoxy of our times (Karl
component in a larger context. Thus evil can be under- Barth, Die kirchliche Dogmatik, Mimich [1932], Vol. 3,
stood in relation to good as ugliness stands to beauty; Parts 1-3). But theological controversy made inevitable
it provides the contrast (darkness, disharmony) which a revival of metaphysics and natural theology, particu-
lets the good (light, harmony) stand out more brightly larly the Neo-Platonic view that evil becomes mean-
and perfectly. Thus death, to which everything tran- ingful in the larger and higher context of the purpose
sitory is subject, itself enhances the degrees of perfec- of creation. Nicholas of Cusa argued that since all
tion in creation. Likewise the atonement provides a creation is an image of the divine, the world is as good
completely just balance for sin, preserving the harmony as it possibly could be, given its status as contingent
and goodness of the whole. and finite (De hido globi, I). In the argument for the
The wide range of arguments by which Augustine goodiress of the world, teleological or "physico-
sought to exonerate God from any charge of moral or theological" arguments eventually assume a priority
metaphysical imperfection and to derive all evil from over the other traditional forms, so that by the seven-
man's sin were the foundation for theological optimism teenth century nature has been freed from the curse
in the first centuries of the modem world. Thomas of Adam, and its newly discovered mathematical and
Aquinas used both his theory of privation and the organic harmonies appear as empirical evidence for
so-called aesthetic argument, and although there were the justice of God. The preoccupation of the early
departures from it in such Scholastics as Ockham, it Boyle Lectures with teleological considerations marks
established the tradition of philosophical theology. a high point of this development.
[Summa Tixeologica I, 4-49; On Free Will III, 9, 26.) The defense of God against the attacks of atheists
The theory that evil is necessary to the total good and "libertines" was a prominent concern of thinkers
because it serves as discipline to the moral and spiritual of the seventeenth century, and the problem of man's
life is neglected in .\ugustine, but has been traced to freedom in its relation to God's omniscience and power
another church father, Irenaeus, by John Hick in Evil became an important issue in the theodicic argument.
and the God of Love (1966). The "Irenaean type of In his apologetic work, left incomplete as the Pensies,
theodicy," also indebted to aspects of Platonism, holds Pascal attributed evil to man's sin, to be overcome by
that the evils of the world are required by a God of the redeemed in mystical revelation through faith.
love who seeks the development of his free creatures Spinoza, by contrast, had exonerated God from both
from their original innocence into full spiritual beings. good and evil, these being relative to what is useful
Hence, as in Augustine, there is no intrinsic or surd or harmful to man, and capable of being understood
evil; evil is justified as the means of developing man through an adequate grasp of God and the active
from bondage to self-conscious participation in the emotions which arise from this.
Kingdom of God. This disciplinary view, which Hicks Like Spinoza, Leibniz had a sharp sense of the reality
argues was eclipsed by the Augustinian arguments, was of the problem of evil, particularly the historical evils 381
THEODICY
which beset Europe. The task of theodicy was therefore not only in the spirit of intellectual optimism of the
to show that the reahty of evil is compatible with, Enlightenment, but also in the clarity and depth of
indeed, follows from, the creation and providence of the criticisms which it evoked. In spite of the harsh
a God whose attributes are perfections. In addition to conflictsbetween Newtonians and Leibnizians, Samuel
the great Theodictj of 1710, he wrote many briefer Clarke's Boyle Lectures show a great agreement on
ones, including "Von der Allmacht und Allwissenheit teleological and theological principles. Pope's Essay
Gottes und der Freiheit des Menschen" ("Of the on Man is widely regarded as having been influenced
Omnipotence and Omniscience of God and the Free- by the Theodicy, perhaps through conversations with
dom of Man"); from the early Paris years the Confessio Bolingbroke. Appearing in many editions in France,
philosophi ("Confession of a Philosopher," edited by Leibniz' work supported a popular optimism which
I. Jagodinski, Kazan [1915]); the Discours de la mita- Voltaire, stirred bv the destnictive fury of the Lisbon
physique ("Discourse on Metaphysics," 1686), espe- earthquake, satirized in Candide and helped to dispel.
cially section 30 (Wiener, pp. 3.31-34); and the Causa It was this theological current whose logic Hume
Dei. already mentioned. To the Theodicy, written exposed with relentless analysis in the Dialogues con-
discursively for a wide circle of readers, he added as cerning Natural Religion (1779); in it Philo states
an appendix, an "Abridgment of the Argument Fie- Epicurus' old dilemma in the simplified form (it cannot
duced to Syllogistic Form" (the Abrigi, Gerhardt VI, be true, both that evil exists, and that God is both
376-87; trans. Wiener, pp. 509-22), which set die omnipotent and perfectly good) in which the problem
arguments against God in twelve syllogisms, and of theodicy has recently been revived.
—
refuted them in counter-syllogisms a logical process Immanuel Kant criticized all previous attempts at
which Hume and Kant adopted in their refutations. a theodicy in his short essay "Ueber das Misslingen
Leibniz repeated, in general, the Augiistinian- aller philosophischen Versuche in der Theodicee ("On "
Thomistic argimients, with some adaptations to fit his the Failure of All Philosophical .\ttempts at a
analytic logic of propositions, his monadic theory of Theodicy "). was written in 1791, after the three
It
substance, and a quasi-mathematical conception of the Critiques but before his work on "Religion within the
principle that of all possible events, the best possible Limits of mere Reason." In his precritical period he
always occurs. His analysis is aided by clear definitions had still been intent upon settling the "distinctness of
of justice (as the love of the wise man), of freedom the fimdamental principles of natural theology and
as self-determination, and of will, anticipatory and morals" bv placing teleology at the center of his argu-
consequent. As Thomas had done before him, he ment. Now, having placed the problems of theology
discusses three kinds of evil: metaphysical, moral, and beyond the range of theoretical reason, establishing the
natural. Metaphysical evil is essentially finiteness or primacy of the practical reason and the moral law,
privation in the law of individual natures. Moral evil defining its postulates, and, finally, reconciling the two
or sinis real; it is based on unclear and inadequate through teleological judgments involving feelings of
knowledge; and God, who determined the law of each perfection, he applies these insights in a revision of
individual nature as the best possible in itself and in the problem of theodicy in a style reminiscent of
the harmony whole universe, is not responsible
of the Leibniz' Causa Dei . . . . not only in its syllogistic
for it. Natural evil is determined by laws which also structure of defense and rebuttal, but in his tripartite
define the best possible consequences. Thus in every ordering of the divine attributes: goodness, omniscience
case evil must be judged teleologically in terms of the and omnipotence, and holiness. These, he holds, must
best possible whole. God is justified because evils are be challenged by the empirical fact of disteleology or
used to achieve greater goods than would otherwise anti-purpose (Zweckwidrigkeit). Moral anti-purpose
be possible; evil historical events are processes of (das Bose) refutes will as means; physical anti-purpose
retrenchment and of the clearing of obstacles for a (Evil) refutes will as end; and a third anti-purpose, the
better future (reader pour nneux sauter); on the same disproportion of physical suffering to moral evil, refutes
grounds suffering is justified as retribution for evil the holiness of God's justice. Hence all previous
actions. The indestructibility of the monads is the theodicies, resting upon the intellect, have failed.
assurance of an immortality in which the greatest yet there is the demand for cosmic justice, with
harmony and justice will continue to be achieved. Since inadequate support from experience, and Kant pro-
truths of fact lie beyond the range of any finite analysis, poses that "more effective grounds may be found,
we cannot now completely comprehend the place of which will absolve the wisdom which has faced
any event in the total harmony. accusation, not ab instantia since we can never be
4. Criticisms of Theodicy in the Enlightenment and certain that our reason can arrive at the insight through
382 in Kant. The wide influence of the Theodicy is shown experience alone of the relationship in which the world
THEODICY
stands to the highest wisdom" (Academy ed.. VIII, 263). others, who thus vacated the theodicy problem rather
Following the insight of Job's triumph over his friends, than solved Darwin s theory of evolution intensified
it.
he finds these grovmds not through speculative wisdom the meaning of evil in nature by stressing the role of
nor through moral wisdom alone, though both assure struggle, but also invited a positive but hardly justified
us of the possibility of a teleology, but through "truth- argimient by the Social Darwinists that nature supports
hilness" (Wahrhaftigkeit) — not
which is im-
truth, progress and the improvement of forms of life.
available — and a sense of moral uprightness and formal Thinkers like R. A. Tsanoff have found natural evil to
conscientiousness. This is not a simple justification arise from the disharmonies and disturbed relations
through faith, but through the cosmic demands implicit which take place between old and new orders of life,
in the moral uprightness of the individual, which are while Henderson and others offered statistical evidence
possible but not justifiable theoretically. of a teleological principle in nature. Thus encouraged,
5. Theodicies after Kant. Kant's emphasis upon the theistic and idealistic thinkers revived the Irenaeian
inward, moral basis of theodicy had lasting conse- theodicy, holding that evil and freedom are the
quences upon followers and opponents alike. The in- divinely chosen conditions by which men are disci-
tense moralism of Fichte is shown in his view that plined to become members of the Kingdom of God.
nature is the battle-ground on which man achieves In the face of the great moral and historical catas-
freedom. Condemning Leibniz for undertaking a trophes of this century, and the decline of philosophical
theodicy with "indeterminate abstract categories," theology which accompanied them, the problem of
Hegel finds one in history. At the conclusion of his theodicy has been largely absorbed through the rise
Philosophy of History he wrote, "That the history of of religious humanism, or a fideism which distrusts
the world is this process of development and the actual intellect, or a secular skepticism. Yet there is renewed
coming-into-being of spirit, underneath the variable evidence that the problem is still alive, in recent dis-
dramas of its histories — this is the true theodicy, the cussions by thinkers of an analytic type who have
justification of God in history" (Glockner ed., II, 569; restored and given rigorous formulation to the objec-
see also II, 42). The attainment of freedom in the state, tions of Hume and Kant, with what must be admitted
and the process of self-conscious assimilation by men to be still inconclusive results. Since these discussions
of the absolute justify the sufferings of history. Leaning move from the question of theodicy to the question
upon Hegel's dialectical logic, later Hegelians showed of evidence for the existence of God, they need not
that this was a return to the Neo-Platonic theory that be discussed here. The works by Hick, Flew and
evil is a more complete good seen partially. (See also Maclntyre, and Pike listed in the Bibliography will
Josiah Royce, for instance, in Studies in Good and Evil introduce the reader to these recent studies.
[1898], passim.)
.\nother type of post-Kantian inversion of the prob-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
lem of theodicy is found in the work
French of the
personalist, Henry Dumery, author of The Problem of Saint .'\ugustine. Earlier Writings, trans. J.
H. S. Burleigh
God Philosophy of Religion (Evanston, 1964), who

in (London and Philadelphia, 1953); idem. The City of God,
trans. Marcus Dods (New York, 1948; also reprint asp. Book I,
reflects also the influence of such Kant-inspired thinkers
12. E. S. Brightman. A
Philosophy of Religion (New York,
as Henri Bergson and Nicholas Berdvaev, God cannot
1940). Karl Barth, Die hirchliche Dogmalik (Munich, 1932),
be objectified; to find the answer to the place of evil
English trans. G. T. Thomson (Edinburgh. 1958), Vol. III.
we must discover the immanence of God as the Henry Dumery, The Problem of God in Philosophy of Reli-
transcendent unity, the radical spontaneity, the power gion, trans. C. Courtney (Evanston, 1964). A. Flew and
to change, within man. The internal dialogue of the A. Maclntyre, eds., New Essays in Philosophical Theology
person with the absolute within him is the path to the (London, 1955). G. "VV. F. Hegel, Werke. ed. Hermann
resolution of evil and the vindication of God. This is Glockner, 26 vols. (Stuttgart, 1927-40). Friedrich Heiler,
Kant with some Bergsonian support. Prayer: A Study in the History and Psychology of Rehgion.
In the nineteenth century there were other attempts ed. S. McComb and J. (London and New York. 1932).
E. Park
to overcome the problem of theodicy by reinterpreting L. J. Henderson, The Fitness of the Environment (Boston,
19.58). John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (London, 1966);
the nature of God. Scientism absolved nature from all
see also an abridged summary, "Evil," Encyclopedia of
good or bad, and the growth of social injustices and
Philosophy (New York, 1967), III, 136-41. David Hume,
concern for their reform emphasized moral evil and
Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (Edinburgh, 1779).
human responsibility rather than the justice of God. R. Jolivet, "Evil," New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York,
The conception of a God perfectly good but without 1967), V, 665-67. Karl Jung, Antwort auf Hiob (Zurich,
absolute power was revived with effectiveness by John 1952); trans. K. F. C. Hull as Amwer to Job (London, 1954).
Stuart Mill, William James, E. S. Brightman, and I. Kant, Ueber das Misslingen alter philosophischen Verstiche 383
THERIOPHILY
ill der TheocHzee, in Gesammelte Schriften, 23 vols. (Berlin, above all creation. It is clear that anti-intellectualists
1902-55), VIII, 253-72. Lactantius, A Treatise on the Anger would not agree with the second clause in this sentence
of God, trans. William Fletcher (Edinburgh, 1871). G. W. and would put a higher value on instinct than on
Leibniz, Philosophische Schriften, ed. C. I. Gerhardt, 7 vols. rationality. The biblical source of man's superiority is
(Berlin, 1875-90); idem, Samtliche Schriften und Briefe, Genesis 1:28, where God gives man dominion "over
published by the German Academy, formerly the Prussian every living thing that moveth upon the earth." In the
Academy (Darmstadt and Berlin, 1923 — ; still incomplete),
later history of theriophily the biblical verse, as
these are the most useful editions; idem, Essais de theodicee
revealed evidence of human uniqueness and nobility,
sur la bonte de dieu. la liberte de rhomme, et I'origine du
is used to refute the idea of animal nobility. The matter,
mal (1710); trans. E. M. Haggard as Essays on the Goodness
however, was complicated since the pagans did not
of God, the Freedom of^4an. and the Origin of Evil (London,
1951). Unfortunately Haggard omitted from his translation deny that the beasts had souls, whereas the Christians
the important appendices: Leibniz' reduction of his argu- either denied it outright or granted them an inferior
ment to syllogistic form is translated in the Leibniz Selec- kind of soul which could not be said to survive
tions, ed. Philip R Wiener (New York. 1951; 1959), pp. death —a soul which in the words of Deuteronomy
509-22; The Philosophical Papers and Letters of Leibniz, ed. 12:23 was in their blood or was identical with it.
L. E. Loemker, rev. ed. (Dordrecht, 1969) contains early The

The Background in Folklore. cleverness, the
attempts at the problem (pp. 146-47, 216-27, 321-23).
stupidity, the faithfulness, the prudence, the temper-
S. Mill, Three Essays on /ic/igioii( London, 1874); idem. An
J. ance, as well as their antitheses, of certain beasts is
Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy (London,
witnessed in fables and legends which go back to early
1865), Ch. VII. Nelson Pike, ed., God and Evil: Readings
Indian civilization. The Sanskrit book of parables
in the Theological Problem of Ecil (Englewood Cliffs, 1964).
Pahchatantra, like the Pali Buddhistic Jataka, is full
Josiah Royce, Studies in Good and Evil (New York, 1898).
F. R. Tennant, Philosophical Theology (Cambridge, 1930), of such tales, and they reappear in Aesop, Babrius, and
Vol. II, Ch. viii. R. A. Tsanoff, The Nature of Evil (New Phaednis. Thev are retold, as in Reynard the Fox (Le
York, 1931). Rcnnan de Reynard, ca. 1170-1250), and with elegance
by Jean de La Fontaine in the seventeenth century.
LEROY E. LOEMKER
But alongside such legends and fantasies we find Aris-
[See also Evil; Existentialism; Free Will in Theology; Cod; totle listing animal characteristics in the opening of
Hegelian Perennial Philosophy.)
Book VIII of his Historia animaUiim. There he points
. . . ;
out that human psychological traits are shared by the

beasts — traits such as gentleness or fierceness, mildness
or cross temper, courage or timidity, fear or confidence,
high spirit or low cimning, and "something akin to
THEIUOPHILY sagacity.
"
Sometimes, as in Pliny and Aelian, science and folk-
Theriophily is a word coined in 1933 by the author lore were blended and stories of the most improbable
of this article to name a comple.x of ideas which express kind were preserved for future generations to use as
an admiration for the ways and character of the ani- scientific fact. Such stories include that of Chrysippus'
mals. Theriophilists have asserted with various dog which, looking for its master in a wood, comes
emphases that the beasts are (1) as rational as men, to a triple fork. He sniffs down two of the branches
or less rational than men but better off without reason, and finds no scent of his master. He then without
or more rational than men; (2) that they are happier sniffing darts down the third branch, thus proving his
than men, in that Nature is a mother to them but a reasoning powers. It was, as appears, customary to
cruel stepmother to us; (3) that they are more moral explain the behavior of the beast in himian terms,
than men. projecting into them the same psychological motives
The whole idea or movement, insofar as it is a fairly that might be foimd in human beings on analogous
widespread set of attitudes, is a reaction against the occasions.
dogma of the superiority of mankind to all other forms Diogenes ofSinope. The first theriophilist of impor-
of life. The dogma, as it influenced Western Europe, tance is Diogenes of Sinope (ca. 412-323 B.C.), the
had two sources: one in pagan antiquity, one in the famous Cynic (from kvwi>, ki'I'os, "dog "). Diogenes was
Bible. The former maintained that man's uniqueness looking for an exemplar of the life according to nature,
lay in his rational animality. He shared his senses and something that his contemporaries had often found in
appetites, as Aristotle puts it in his De anima (413b) savages. But animals seemed even more natural than
and elsewhere, with the beasts and the plants; but his Scythians or Ethiopians; for himian beings, in whatever
384 reason was his possession alone and it elevated him state they might be found, were after all living in a
THERIOPHILY
society controlled by law and law was a human, not for it as, be denied, it exhibits a power greater
it caiuiot
a natural, invention. "Natural" to the Cynic meant that and more wonderful than either." Animals
in its effêcts
which was untouched or, as he would say, uncorrupted all reason, but some are more rational than others. "I
by art. But almost every act of a man was changed do not believe," says Gryllus (in a sentence that was
by invention, technique, artificiality. Diogenes seeing to be reproduced by Montaigne and to echo through
a dog drinking by lapping up water from a puddle, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), "there is
saw that cups were a superfluity. He threw away his such difference between beast and beast in reason and
cup. He saw that the beasts wore no clothing except understanding and memory, as between man and man."
their fur or feathers; why then should a man need more The General Superiority of the Beasts. Some
than a rag or two to shield him from the rain and cold? admirers of the animals cared nothing for reason and
Diogenes wrapped a coarse cloth round his body; it were especially interested only in man's inferiority to
became known as the tribon or philosopher's cloak. the beasts in some detail or other. The question of
Again, the beasts had no houses and were satisfied with whether or not man was favored by Nature had
dens in the ground or a cave; Diogenes crept into a apparently been discussed as early as the fifth century
wine jar. The beasts had no regulations for eating or B.C. by Xenophon; he depicts a conversation between
copulation; they simply satisfied their innate appetites. Socrates and Aristodemus who discuss the question
VVhy should a man do differently? The beasts ate their {Memorabilia I, iv, 2 and IV, iii, 9-12). Anaxagoras,
food raw; why then cook? Polygamy, incest, can- another fifth-century philosopher, is also reported to
nibalism are wrongly censured; they all follow from have recognized degrees of intelligence in the beasts,
natural habits and should be adopted rather than though he admitted that mankind stood at the head
rejected. of the animate hierarchy. Our real difference from the
None show that the animals were
of this tended to animals, he thought, is not our intelligence —for they
rational, and indeed, as far as the Cynics were con- too possess that faculty —but the fact that we have
cerned, reason was of doubtful value. Instinct was more leaders, laws, arts, and cities (something that was to
natural than reason and if one were seeking the life be said of the animals too later on).
according to nature, then one would follow instinct That some people anticipated the Cynics in using
and "divorce old barren reason from his bed." Follow- the animals as exemplars is seen in a passage of the
ing the animals, moreover, increased one's autonomy, Clouds of Aristophanes (lines 1427-29), where Pheidip-
one's autarky, that goal which the Greek ethicists pides justifies beating his father by the example of
strove to reach: to be free of all claims made by any- "cocks and other beasts." The joke would have meant
thing external to one's self. One became self-dependent little if some debaters had not used similar arguments.
and never dependent on externals. Bv abandoning By Aristotle's time the question must have been
family ties, social relations, political duties, and all the commonly discussed, since in the De partibiis animal-
delights that come from one form or another of artistry, ium (687a), he refers to the argument that the beasts
one became completely free and at the same time close are better off than we because of their corporeal
to the animal. endowment — horns, claws, hooves —whereas man is
Plutarch. The Cynic's point of view, since it born naked and defenseless. Aristotle's reply to this,
deprecated the use of reason, did not include any a reply which hardly meets the point, is that the human
theory of animal rationality. But at the beginning of hand is a better weapon than anything given to the
the Christian period Plutarch wrote a dialogue (usually beasts for it can vary the weapons as tlie need arises.
called Gryllus, from the name of the protagonist) in Though Aristotle himself believed in the superioritv
which Odysseus, cast up on the witch Circe's island, of man, he was used by others to demonstrate the
isallowed to speak with some of the Greeks whom antithetical idea. For in his Historia animalium here
Circe has turned into animals; if any wish to regain their and there he speaks of the cleverness of the swallows
himian shapes, they may do so. Gryllus is a pig. He in building their nests, the medical knowledge of the
is far from wishing to become a man again. To begin Cretan goats, the singing lessons given by the mother
with, the life of the beasts is more natural than that nightingale to her young, and so on.
of hmnan beings, for the souls of the beasts are able As earlv as Democritus (fifth century B.C.) we find
toproduce that virtue which is peculiar to each species the animals praised for their sobriety, for knowing the
without any instruction. Animals moreover have more extent of their needs and never seeking to go beyond
wisdom and prudence than men, for these virtues are them. Diogenes again is cited as witness to the animals'
implanted in animals by Nature, not by art. If you do health and longevity as well as to their lack of super-
not want to call this reason, says Gryllus, "it is time fluities. The New Comedy also played on this theme
for you to find out a finer and more honorable name of man's misery as compared with the animals; men i3o5
—
THERIOPHILY
use their reason for endless arguments; the beasts are men were by it. From Saint .'\ugustine to Saint Thomas
free from contention. We are slaves to opinion; they Aquinas and beyond runs a thread of explanation of
simply follow the commands of Nature. In a fragment something which is and ought not to be. Yet for all
of Philemon (ca. 361-263 b.c.) we find the beasts their preoccupation with human misery and sin, for
praised for their "single natxire": all lions are brave, all their contempt for the world and their vearning
all hares timid, all foxes live in the same way. But every to escape into a happier realm, the men
of the Middle
man lives own individual nature. In
according to his .\ges seem never to have maintained that human beings
Menander (342-291 B.C.) man is the one "uruiatural were inferior to the beasts, though some might be
animal." Whatever evils happen to an animal come beastly.
from Nature. But besides those which are natural, men In the sixteenth century, when skepticism and the
invent evils. "We someone sneezes; if
are pained if depreciation of learning went hand in hand, when faith
someone speaks ill, we are angry; if someone has a arose once more to preeminence as against reason, and
dream, we are frightened; if an owl hoots, we are when the classical writers became better known, there
terrified. Straggles, opinions, contests, laws, all these also began a wave of theriophilv which is hard to
evils are added to those in natiu-e." And like Gryllus, distinguish from satire. It may be said to begin with
one of Menander's characters declares that if he were G.-B. Gelli's Circe (1549). This work takes up the theme
to be born again, he woiJd choose an\' animal rather of Plutarch's Gryllus but extends it from the pig to
than the human. The beasts have no flatterers, no all the animals, begirming with the oyster and ending
sycophants, no criminals. with the elephant. Circe seems to the writer of this
One of the major sources of later theriophily is Phny article to be one of those books of paradoxes which
(ca. A.D. 23-79), for Pliny was read by everyone and were current at the time and which go back at least
his Natural History was a sort of encyclopedia. In the to Maximus of Tyre (second century .\.d.). One of the
proemium to this work (VII, 1) he wrote the famous best known of such writings is Ortensio Landi's
words, "it is hard to tell whether Nature has been a Paradossi (1543). The whole purpose of the paradoxes
kindly parent to man or a cruel stepmother." To the is to startle public opinion by proposing, in apparent
other animals she has given a natural covering — shells, seriousness, ideas generally supposed to be false, such
hulls, spines, shaggy hair, fur, feathers, scales, fleeces as, that it is better to live as a peasant than as a
but man "she casts forth on his natal day, naked upon courtier, better to be poor than rich.Others have
a naked soil, casts him forth to weep and beg; and maintained that Circe is a serious book and that its
no other animal weeps from the moment of its birth." major theses are to be taken as the genuine opinion
What folly, he continues, to think that such a creature of its author. Such problems are difficult, if possible,
is born Other animals know from birth
to a high estate! to solve and we shall simply describe the contents of
whether they are to walk, swim, or fly. But man lies the little book.
helpless and can neither talk, walk, nor eat without In Circe Ulysses interviews a large range of animals
instruction.Man alone knows grief, the desire for excess and finds that all but one have no wish to return to
or luxury, ambition, avarice, superstition. He alone humanity. Each points out some advantage that ani-
worries about his sepulture and an afterlife. Man alone mals have over men. The oyster, relying on Pliny, says
makes war on his kind. In short, man is the most that .Nature has given ovsters an instinctive dread of
unhappy of all animals and most of man's evils come their enemies — something which she has not given
from man. —
men a shell for clothing, and a habitation. The mole,
Montaigne. Whether the ancients were serious in who was a farmer in his previous existence, laments
their praise of animals cannot be answered simply. man's need to work, famine, drought, and that steady
Sometimes, as would seem to be true of Plutarch, they war against hostile forces which is man's lot. Animals
used the theme for purposes of satire. But it is likely have none of this to endure. The snake, who was a
that the Cynics at any rate were serious since thev physician before his enchantment, knows more than
seem to have carried over their theriophilv into action. the average man about human disabilities, speaks of
The theme could not very well be continued into hiunan intemperance which leads to so many ills. When
Christianity because of the biblical passage cited above Ulysses points out that medicine can cure these, the
and of the dogma of man's superiority. One could snake launches into one of those diatribes against med-
hardly rank an animal above the image of God icine which were common at the time and fiu-thermore
endowed with soul, 'iet the Christian belief in man's points out that the beasts have no need of that
superiority was sometimes shaken by the awareness of empirical art, a fact which shows their superiority to
evil, and there were plenty of writings on the problem man. And when Ulysses mentions human longevity as
386 of evil during the Middle Ages to show how worried contrasted with the brevity of animal life, the snake
THERIOPHILY
replies that the beasts at anv rate don't worry them- many, either failed to read his essay through or failed
selves about death. The hare,who comes next, delivers tounderstand it. The\ read into its author a theriophilic
a sermon on all the forms of human misery. A man prejudice that was not there.
is miserable if rich, for he is surrounded by envious Montaigne did pick up from the ancients all the
enemies; if poor, well, says the hare, there no need is stories ofanimal intelligence and morality which had
to sav why he is miserable. There are no rich nor poor been passed on by Plutarch and Pliny. He speaks of
among the beasts. No beast has to sell himself because the government of the bees; the architectural skill of
of povertv. The roebuck prefers animal life for four the swallow; the deliberation and foresight of the
reasons: the animal has no economic worries, no fear spider in spinning her web; the medical knowledge,
of the future, no suspicions of his fellows, no fear of the temperance, the chastity of various animals. He
the law. The doe, who had been a woman, gives Ulysses argues that if it would require reason in men to pro-
a feminist sermon. Female animals are not slaves to duce works of art such as the beasts produce, it must
their mates; theydo not bring forth their young in pain; require reason in the beasts as well. He substantiates
they have no trouble rearing them; they are the equals his argument by resorting again to Plutarch, this time
of the males in every way. The lion objects to human to the piece "On the Cleverness of the Beasts" (De
psvchological evils — ambition, envv, anger — none of sollertia animalium, in Moralia XII, 9.59A). In Thrace,
which exists among the beasts. So it goes until Ulysses for instance, the foxes when they come to a frozen
comes to the elephant. The elephant had been a river, put their ears close to the ice to test its thickness.
philosopher and can see the superiority of human If they hear the water running beneath, they conclude
knowledge. Animals cannot know universals; their that the ice is too thin to support their weight. This
knowledge is confined to particulars. Moreover human is a case of syllogistic reasoning on their part. Not only
knowledge is more certain than that of the beasts. can the animals reason, regardless of what tradition
Therefore he alone of Circe's animals will return to has said, but they are morally better than men. They
human form, bewailing the shortsightedness of his fel- do not war on others of their kind nor are they sub-
lows, who prefer a momentary sensory pleasure to the servient, like human beings, to one another. They have
lasting delights of reason. their own medical lore: the goats of Candia cure their
Circe had a great vogue, and imitations of it and wounds by eating dittany, the tortoise purges itself by
of the Gryllus theme continued down into the eight- taking origanum. Many of them show that they are
eenth century. It appeared in the theater and Merritt capable of learning things that are not relevant to their
Hughes has shown how it was used even in Spenser's natural wayof life —
e.g., dancing to music, guiding
Faerie Queene (Hughes, 194.3). To see society from the the blind, working a treadmill. Finally, since it takes
point of view of a foreigner —
a Persian or Chinese or greater intelligence to teach than to learn, they have
—
.\merican Indian was a favorite device for gaining been our teachers; for we have learned weaving from
distance and an apparent objectivity; to see it from the spider, building from the swallow, music from the
the point of view of an animal was even better. The swan and nightingale, medicine from various animals.
idea gained such popularity that it can be found in Montaigne gives examples of animal piety, fidelity,
popular imagery in the caricatures Le monde
of gratitude, magnanimity, and thus proves an "equality
renverse. where beasts play the roles of men and men and correspondence" between them and us.
those of beasts. The device reappeared in our own time Probably the most shocking thing about these
in Edmond Rostand's Chantecler (1910). thoughts was that they lowered man from his pinnacle
If one man is to be selected as the main vehicle of and to all intents and purposes reduced him to the level
theriophily in the seventeenth century, it is Michel de of the animals. Man had always had a special position
Montaigne. In his essays On Pedantry (I, 25) and On between the angels and the beasts and now it began
the Cannibals (I, 31) he expresses his primitivistic to look as if he was losing that position. Montaigne,
sympathies, whether in earnest or not, and in the moreover, had support for his ideas; not only his main
Apology for Raimond Sebond (II, 12) he engages in disciple, Pierre Charron, but also from the earlv zoolo-
a eulogy of the animals which maintained that their gists, Rorario, Gilles the piscatologist, Franzius, Wilde,
brutal stupidity surpasses all that our divine intelli- and Goedaert the entomologist, none of whom rank
gence can do. With that equilibrium of temper that with the great names in their fields but all of whom
characterizes Montaigne, he ends fiis essay not by were respected in their day. These men, either because
concluding that the beasts are our superiors but simply they were credulous or because they had an unshakable
many
"
by saying that Nature, "our great and puissant mother, confidence in ancient authority, repeated of the
gives to each that which is suitable to its kind. His old yarns and lent the prestige of their scientific posi-
adversaries in the seventeenth century, and they were tion to the spread of such ideas. oo7
THERIOPHILY
It was Descartes who made the most effective attack the epistemology of John Locke as modified by E. B.
on theriophilv with his doctrine that animals were de Condillac in France. Condillac"s Essai sur I'origine
simply complicated machines; their soul, as the Bible des connausances hiimaines (1746) puts the source of
seemed to sav, was their blood. Descartes did not say, all ideas in sensation. In his Traite des animatix (1755)
as has been asserted, that they had no feelings, but he argues that animals have the same sort of feelings
merely that their feelings were material effects of what that men have, on the ground that they have sense
were known as animal spirits, a gaseous substance organs just like ours. They are not capable of the subtle
which moved the muscles. But the most important reasoning of men but as far as their needs demand
point for Descartes was that if the beasts could reason, intelligence, they possess it. They are therefore not
then they would have to have immaterial souls, for superior to men, in the opinion of Condillac, for after
reason depends on the apprehension of immaterial all we are not automata. Once it was granted that they
ideas, universals. Since the immaterial is unchanging could have ideas and feelings of the same general type
and hence indestructible, an immaterial soul would be as human ideas and feelings, the kinship of all animate
immortal; but that would be unthinkable if their soul life was established. The eighteenth century saw the
is their blood. Hence theriophilv is contrary to Scrip- quickened development of entomology and zoology;
ture. With the Cartesian thesis propounded, the seven- and as men investigated the behavior of the beasts and
teenth centiu'y split on the issue; and various books insects, they found groimds for greater admiration for
were written pro and con. The clash in opinion was these creatures. This admiration has continued into our
not so much over the question of whether the animals own times and there are few men who are not
were happier, more moral, more rational than man. awestruck by such things as the migration of birds, the
but whether they had souls or were machines. The only dance of the bees, the provisions made by wasps of
relevance of the issue to our topic is whether the food for their larvae which thev will never see. A
possession of a soul is in itself a mark of superiority. philosopher like Henri Bergson, though hardly a
Some seventeenth-century writers, La Rochefoucauld theriophilist, nevertheless utilized the work of the
for instance, saw little to praise in the mere pos- zoologists to demonstrate his theories of intuition. The
session of that instniment, but he may not have been work of J. H. Fabre in entomology supplemented that
typical. of R. A. F. de Reaumur, just as the work of Konrad
Eighteenth Century and Later. The eighteenth cen- Lorenz supplemented that of G. ]. Romanes.
tury was on the whole anti-Cartesian. Hester Hastings If one wishes then to depreciate intelligence, one
(1936) has shown how the scientific approach to animal has as much material in the writings of the scientists
life took precedence over the philosophic; and while as our forefathers had in those of Aristotle, Aelian,
men did not weary of the theoretical refinements of Pliny, and Plutarch. Moreover it is based on better
their predecessors' doctrines, theriophily became more evidence. Inane as some of the traditional stories are,
of a feeling for the sufferings of animals than an they lie behind the long history of man's admiration
appraisal of human life. The feeling as it grew in for the beasts, which in modern times has been ex-
intensity started the Hmiiane Societies. Because of the pressed in stories of animal courage, fidelity, kindness.
efforts of Flichard Martin, an Irish M.P., the Royal \n outstanding expression of modern theriophily is
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to .Animals was contained in the famous lines of Walt Whitman from
founded in 1824. In the United States the American Song of Myself:
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are
(A. S. P. C. A.) was founded1866 by Henry Bergh.
in
so placid and self-contain'd,
It came to be believed that whether beasts had a I stand and look at them long and long,
material or immaterial soul, whether they could reason Thev do not sweat and whine about their condition.
or not, theywere capable of suffering, and that sufficed They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
to create a bond between them and us. As for the Thev do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.
question of their rationality, instinct and its supposed Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania
of owning things,
wonders supplanted it; a scientific zoology took the
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thou-
place of natural history, the questions that had stirred
sands of years ago.
the theriophilists were settled in the laboratory and
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
field rather than in the study.
At the same time new philosophic tenets developed The one outstanding item that is missing from
in the eighteenth century brought the animals and man Whitman's lines is mention of the rationality of the
closer together. The gap between animal and human beasts. But its absence would not have been lamentable
ooo psychology created by Cartesianism was bridged by to a mystic like WTiitman.
—
TIME
BIBLIOGRAPHY its rotating motion, indicated their incapacity to sepa-
For the documents illustrating ancient theriophily. see

rate time from its content. The reference to the celes-
A. O. Lovejov and G. Boas, Primitivism and Related Ideas tial sphere and its revolving motion had far-reaching
in Antiquity (Baltimore, 1935), Chs. 4 and 13; for Mon- effects on the subsequent development of the concept
taigne, his predecessors, and disciples, see G. Boas, The of time: it focussed the attention of philosophers on
Happy Beast (Baltimore, 1933); for the eighteenth century, the regular periodicity of the celestial motions by
see Hester Hastings, Man and Beast in French Thought of which time can be measured, and thus it deepened the
the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore, London, and Paris, distinction between the qualitative content of time and
1936), which contains a detailed bibliography. For a criti-
metrical aspects.
its
cism of the writer's views on the Grylhis and on Gelli's
The correlation of time with spatial motion became
Circe, see Merritt Hughes, "Spenser's Acrasia and the Circe
the source of the relational theory of time according
of the Renaissance," Journal of the History of Ideas, 4 (Oct.
1943). For one of the most fertile sources of theriophilist
to which "time is nothing by itself '
(Lucretius, De
ideas in the eighteenth century, see Pierre Bayle, Diction-
rerttm natura, I, 459f.) and cannot be separated from
naire historique (1697), the article on Rorarius, especially concrete changes occurring in it. Finally the alleged
remarks C, E, F, G, H; see also the article on Barhe, remark inseparability of time from spatial displacements
C. .\ modern edition of Cirre is Giovanni B. Gelli, Circe, created the tendency to exaggerate the analogy be-
ed. Robert M. Adams, trans. Thomas Brown (Ithaca, 1963). tween space and time and, eventually, to spatialize
time altogether and thus virtually to eliminate it: this
GEORGE BOAS
extreme tendency is very conspicuous in the Eleatic
[See also Chain of Being; Hierarchy; Longevity; Man-
school; the sphere of Parmenides is timeless because
Machine; Nature; Primitivism; Rationality; Skepticism.]
of its exclusively spatial and, consequently, immutable
character. Similarly, Zeno's four arguments against the
reahty of motion (and, implicitly, against the reahty
of time) were based on the assimilation of time to a
geometrical line. According to Zeno, temporal inter-
TIME vals are adequately symbolized by spatial segments;
both are divisible ad infinitum, and to the point-like
The consciousness of time is inseparable from that extremities of linear segments correspond the dura-
of change. But while the awareness of change as one tionless extremities of temporal intervals — instants. The
of the most pervasive and omnipresent features of impossibility of building motion from motionless posi-
human experience is present on the lowest level of tions, and durations from the durationlcss instants,
human and also probably subhuman intelligence, the follows naturally.

consciousness of time, especially in its conceptual form, Eleatism was the metaphysics of timeless Being in
appeared much later. Just as it was difficult to separate its most radical form; it exerted a powerful influence
space conceptually from its concrete content, it re- on the sub.sequent history of Western thought, even
quired a considerable effort of abstraction to differen- though it has never reappeared in such extreme form.
tiate time from changes and events "taking place" in In other words, time and becoming, instead of being
it. The mythological image of time as a person which completely eliminated in the Eleatic fashion, retained
drags all things into a ceaseless flux was the first crude their existence, even though it was of an inferior and
step in this direction. less dignified kind than that of immutable Being. This
Greek and Medieval Thought. A definite separation can be seen clearly in the atomists; although they did
of time from its content was suggested by the early not deny the reality of time and motion, they did not
Pythagoreans: "Time is said to come from the Un- include them among their first principles which, ac-
limited, that is from infinite space" (E. Zeller, A His- cording to them, were matter and space only.
tory of Greek Philosophy, trans. S. F. Alleyne, London Lucretius' view that "time is nothing in itself, " quoted
[1881], I, 468-69). While time was no longer personi- above, was an echo of Epicurus' view that time was
fied, it was still reified, and this reification was another no more than an "accident of accidents" (ot/iTujua
step toward the separation of time from its concrete ovTTToiixaTov) siucc its existence was merely a function
sensory content. The fact that time itself was regarded of the changing configurations of atoms. This was
rather illogically —
as being subject to time (as "coming probably the view of the early atomists as well; ac-
from infinite space") clearly showed the difficulties to cording to Sextus Empiricus, Democritus regarded time
which this early reification of time led. On the other as itself mider the aspect
"an appearance presenting
hand, the fact that some early Pythagoreans identified of dayand night if he called time "uncreated," he
";
time with the celestial sphere, or, more likely, with meant by it that motion (on which, in his view, time oo9
TIME
depended) is without beginning. With such a view of the circular motion of the heaven: "Everything will
time and with their anticipation of the law of constancy eventually return in the self-same numerical order, and
of matter, the atomists greatly strengthened the static I converse with you staff in hand, and you will
shall
and siibstantialist modes of thought. sit you are sitting now, and so it will be in everything
as
The antisubstantialist trend in Greek philosophy was else, and it is reasonable to assume that time too will
represented bv Heraclitus of Ephesus, a philosopher be the same (The testimony of Eudemus of Rhodes;
"
of "becoming" par e.xcellence. In his opposition to the cf. H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der
Eleatics, he went much farther than the atomists who, Vorsokratiker, 6th ed., Berlin [1951], 58B.34). This was
while admitting the reality of motion, still retained its also the view of .Archytas of Tarentum who defined
"
immutable vehicle, i.e., substantial matter; for their time as "the interval of the universe.
atoms remain eternally the same in the successive The subsequent development of Greek, medieval,
positions of their trajectories. Heraclitus' denial of the and modern philosophy was largely dominated by the
immutable vehicle of motion followed from his insis- contrast between the timeless realm of Being and the
tence on the radical fluidity of everything and on the temporal realm of change; in was a contin-
this sense it
irreversibility of becoming: "You cannot step twice into uation of the dialogue between and
Parmenides
the same river." For the motion of immutable particles Heraclitus. In most philosophical systems Being was
Heraclitus substituted the dynamic unity of process in endowed with a more dignified status of the tnie reality
which each momentary phase was continuously trans- of which the temporal realm is merely a pale, shadowy
formed into its "opposite," that is, into a subsequent, replica. For Plato, in the Timaeus, the basic reality
qualitatively different phase. Heraclitus was apparently belongs to the timeless essences (Ideas) while the
aware that the continuity of change (his dynamic temporal realm is that of ceaseless change, generation,
"unity of opposites") resists the usual conceptvial treat- and decav; time itself is of derivative nature, being
ment and even a strict application of the law of con- merely a "moving image of eternity." To this meta-
tradiction: "We step and we do not step into the same physical dichotomv of Being and Becoming, of perfec-
river; we are and we are not" (frag. 81). This clearly tion and imperfection, corresponds the epistemological
anticipated the future Hegelian view of becoming as dichotomy of two kinds of knowledge tnie knowledge —
a synthesis of being and nonbeing. whose object is the immutable realm of Ideas, and mere
Yet, Heraclitus' view was not free of spatial imagery, opinion, concerning the temporal realm. In the philos-
which was hardly compatible with his in.sistence on ophy of Aristotle the timeless Ideas of Plato were, .so
tlie qualitative aspect of time and its irreversibihty. to speak, compressed into one single entity — God, the
This was shown by his belief in the Great Year, i.e., immovable source of every motion. Like Plato,
tfie periodic recurrence of all events in the same order. ,\ristotle held the relational view of time; time is
This year, for Heraclitus, was equal to 10.800 years inseparable from motion for without motion (in the
(according to another source 18.000 years). According broader .\ristotelian sense of change) there would be
to the testimony of the Stoics and of Simplicius (whose no time. But while Aristotle's Prime Mover has all the
reliability on this point has been questioned by attributes of the Eleatic One, his view of the physical
Friedrich Schleiermacher, Ferdinand Lasalle, John world — or at least of its —
sublunar part was similar to
Burnet, Geoffrey S. Kirk), it measured the period the view of Heraclitus. Aristotle rejected the atomistic
separating two successive conflagrations in which the explanation of qualitative change and diversity by the
old world perishes and a new one is reborn. Heraclitus' displacement of homogeneous and unchangeable ele-
idea of cyclical becoming was a culmination of the ments; he denied the existence of atoms and of the
early pre-Socratic views about the periodicity of the void, and reaffirmed the reality of qualitative change.
worlds. The view of Anaximander, Anaxagoras, and He viewed the four sublunar elements as mutually
Empedocles was that the existing universe is the result transformable in a way analogous to the Heraclitean
of the diHêrentiation of the original chaos — watery, transformation of opposites. Every such transformation,
fiery, or qualitatively undetermined — into which it inchiding even change of position, implies a transition
would eventually return and from which a similar from potentiality to actuality; only the Unmoved
universe will emerge. In such view the successive cos- Mover is exempt from this passage. In introducing the
mic cycles were similar in their general features only, concept of not-vet-existing possibility and in insisting
not in all their specific details; but the latter view, on the contingency of the future, .\ristotle came very
upholding a complete identity of the successive cycles, close to the idea of an "open future, which is the "
emerged was the idea of eternal recurrence

soon. This central theme of modern process philosophy.
of everything which some Pythagoreans accepted, It must also be noted that in spite of his insistence
liyU influenced probably by their identification of time with on the inseparability of time and motion, Aristotle was
— "
TIME
careful enough not to identify them. Since there are in all but name. Like ,\ristotle, the Stoics also specu-
various motions of different speeds occurring simulta- lated about the paradoxical nature of the present
neously, "the time is absolutely the same for both" moment; according to Plutarch, Chrysippus de-
There are thus absolutist elements in
{Physics, IV, 14). nied the infinite divisibility of time, i.e., he accepted
Aristotle's view of time which vaguely foreshadow the existence of temporally extended moments,
Newton's view. This is also clear from his comment thus curiously anticipating the modem hypothesis of
own definition of time. ,\fter defining time as
"
on his "chronons.
the "numerical aspect of motion with respect to its .Although Plotinus' Ineffable One possesses all the
successive parts," he raises the question whether time attributes of the Eleatic Being, he retained change and
can exist without the counting activity of mind; and time on the lower phenomenal level. He tried to make
his answer is affirmative: time is numenis numerabilis, the relation between the temporal and timeless level
i.e., an objective reality susceptible of being counted more intelligible by his idea of emanation, i.e., by the
but independent of the act of counting, consequently process of degradation by which the lower degrees of
independent of the existence of the counting mind. The reality proceed from the higher ones. This idea was
sphere of the fixed stars represents the absolutely uni- implicitly present in Plato's view of the realm of
form cosmic clock by which time is measured; its change which "never truly is," forever oscillating be-
perfectly uniform rotation is, within the realm of tween Being and Nothingness. According to Plotinus,
change, the closest imitation of the immutability of change and time appear on the second level of ema-
the Prime Mover. nation with the World Soul in which incfividual souls
Aristotle apparently also accepted the idea of eternal are contained. Unlike the Divine Intellect at the first
return of all the events, at least if we accept his level of emanation, souls are unable to grasp tlie time-
authorship of the following passage in Problemata: less truth instantaneously, but only gradually, step by
"Just as the course of the firmament and each of the step, in a laborious process of reasoning. Succession
stars is a circle, why should not also the coming into and change are thus mere results of human inability
being and the decay of perishable things be ?f such to grasp everything at once. As in Plato, time is "the
a kind that the same things again come into being and moving [and therefore imperfect] image of eternity ";
decay?" (The Works of Aristotle, ed. W. D. Ross, 0.xford but "motion is understood by him in a psychological
"
[1923], VII, 916a). Aristotle realized that the cycHcal sense, as "movement of the soul without this move-
";
character of becoming would imply a relativization of ment time would disappear (Enneads, III, 7, 12). From
succession: if the Trojan War will inevitably recur, then this correlation of mind and time it follows that when-
in a sense we are living "prior" to it. The author of ever there is time, there is mind at least in a rudi-
Prohleinata, however, refused to accept the ultimate mentary form, and vice versa. In this feature Plotinus'
consequence of the idea of eternal recurrence: "To thought is near to modern temporalistic panpsychism
demand that those who are coming into being should (Bergson, Whitehead); but by his concept of timeless
always be numerically identical, is foolish" (ibid). Like truth and by his adherence to the cyclical theory of
Plato, Aristotle associated the cosmic period ("the time he stands at the opposite pole.
Great Year") not with a periodically recurring universal The Greek dualism of the timeless realm of perfec-
conflagration, but with a return of all celestial bodies tion and the changing realm of decay, with the con-
to the same configuration. The idea of any cosmic comitant contrast between timeless divine insight and
cataclysm was incompatible with Aristotle's belief in temporal (therefore incomplete) himian knowledge
the incorruptibility of the celestial clockwork. dominated all medieval thought. Christian, Jewish, and
The cyclicity of time was upheld also by the Stoics. Islamic. There were only a few theologians who did
.\ccording to them, at the end of each cosmic cycle not accept predestination as an inevitable consequence
the universe is dissolved into the original fire. This will of the time-transcending divine knowledge which em-
coincide with the beginning of another cycle in which braces the totality of all successive events in one single
the events of the previous cycle will be reconstituted act totum simiil. In the thought of Saint Augustine
in all their detailsand in the same order. But Stoics there were the same two trends as in Plotinus: on one
followed ,\ristotle by believing that another Socrates side, time was characterized as "distension of soul
who will marry another Xantippe and be accused by {Confessions, Book XI) and thus correlated with
another Meletus will not be numerically identical with psychological reality. Augustine's description of oiu-
the previous Socrates since numerical identity implies consciousness of time belongs to the finest and subtlest
an uninterrupted existence. Some younger Stoics, in pieces of introspective analysis. On the other hand,
conceding small differences between successive recur- again like Plotinus, he excluded time from the highest
rences of Socrates, gave up the circularity of becoming level of Being; time was created by God with the 391
—
TIME
creation of the world; Non in tempore, scd cum tempore long as time was still regarded as inseparable from
finxit Deus mundum (De civitate Dei, XI, 5). motion, in the sense of the relational theory. For what
Saint Thomas equally stressed the immutability of becomes of the imity and uniformity of time, if there
God {Summa Theologica, Qu. 9). It would seem then is no uniform cosmic clock by which time can be
onlv consistent for Saint Thomas to accept complete measured? There are only two ways to avoid this
predestination (Q\i. 22. 23, 24). It was exceedingly difficulty; either to accept fully the consequence of the
difficult to reconcile this view with the freedom of will relational theory and to concede that without the
which he postulated on ethical grounds. More consis- privileged cosmic clock there should be as many times
tent on this point were the Protestant reformers of the as there are motions tot tempora quot mottis; or to
.sixteenth century who did not hesitate to negate free- give up the relational theory altogether, that is, to
dom completely in the name of divive omniscience and make time completely independent of any concrete
predestination. The Greek influence can be seen also physical motion; only in this way would the imity and
in the fact that some Christian thinkers, like Origen, the uniformity of time not be affected b\' the diversity
accepted the eternity of the world and even and variability of ph\sical motions. was the second It
metempsvchosis (transmigration of souls); even Saint solution which was gradually adopted by the incipient
Thomas was aware that the .\ristotelian proof of the modem from its physi-
science. This separation of time
Prime Mover did not imply the creation of the world cal content was made
by the fact that doubts
easier
in time, the truth of which must be accepted on faith, about the uniform cosmic clock began to arise even
but cannot be proved (ibid., Qu. 46). prior to the elimination of the last celestial sphere. The
Even the idea of eternal return did not completely fact of the precessional motion, already known to the
disappear during the Middle Ages as is shown by the Greek astronomers, made it necessary to postulate an
decree of 1277 which threatened excommimication of additional sphere beyond the eighth sphere; only to
those who accepted the Neo-Platonic idea of a Great this ninth sphere —
and not to the sphere of the "fi.xed
Year lasting 36,000 years. It is true that because of the stars" —did the truly uniform revolving motion belong.
Judeo-Christian emphasis on the irreversibility of cos- Further observations raised the doubt whether any
mic and human history this doctrine was foreign to uniformly running celestial clock exists at all in nature.
that period; thus even Origen rejected the idea of Doubts of this kind were expressed by Nicolas Bonnet
eternal recurrence because of its incompatibility with ajid Grazadei d'.\scoli in the fourteenth centxiry; they
human freedom, while .\ugustine rejected it on the nevertheless insisted that the existence of true mathe-
ground that the incarnation of Christ could occur only matical time does not depend on the existence of such
once. Thomas .Aquinas pointed out that the cyclical a clock. Similarly. Bernardino Telesio in his De rerum
view of time implies the re-creation of numerically nattira . . though he retained the Aristotelian
. (1565),
identical individuals —
an operation which because of cosmology, held that time is logically prior to motion
its intrinsically contradictory character is even beyond and change; while motion cannot exist without time,
God's power. But neither Duns Scotus nor William of time which, according to him, exists by itself (per se),
Ockham shared Thomas' view. Nicolas Bonnet and can exist without motion. .\ similar foreshadowing of
Francois de la Marche insisted on God's power to Newton's concept of absolute time can be seen in the
restore any past motion, and consequently, any past tliought of Francisco Suarez, even though he too
interval of time. Since the restoration of any past retained the .Aristotelian cosmic clockwork. He distin-
interval of time implies the concomitant elimination guishes two kinds of diu-ation; "flowing imaginary
of that portion of the past which separates the re- extension "
(spatium imaginarium fluens), which flows
created interval from the present moment, this claim uniformly (immittabile in suo fluxu), and concrete
was in direct opposition to Thomas' view of the change which coexists with it and, so to speak, fills
intrinsic indestructibility of the past which even God's it Thus the distinction between time
{quasi replens).
omnipotence is unable to change; Praeterita autem non as a homogeneous container and its concrete changing
fuisse contradictionem implicat (Qu. 25. art. 4). content is clearly drawn; the former is intrinsically
Time in Classical Science. W'hile the time of the irreversible, the latter is not (Disputotiones meta-
Aristotelian and medieval cosmology was relational, it physicae. C. L. sec. IX. 15).
was still imiform and in this sense universal since it But even after the definitive removal of the celestial
was physically embodied in the uniform rotation of clockwork, the concept of absolute time was formed
the sphere of the fixed stars which represented the only gradually and after some hesitation. This is clear
absolute cosmic clock. But with the removal of this in the thought of G. Bruno, in particular in articles
privileged cosmic clock by Giordano Bruno, the unity 38-40 of his Cninoeracensis acrotismus seu rationes
392 and uniformity of time was greatly compromised as articulorum physicorum adversus Peripateticos Witten- (
TIME
berg, 1588). Certain of its passages show that Bruno val dualism of two realms, eternal and temporal, was
was leaning toward the relational theory of time as, retained in various systems of pantheistic monism and
for instance, when he claims that there are as many its echoes can be found in other systems too. The
times as there are stars (tot tempora quot astra). On transcendent eternity of the medieval God was re-
the other hand, guided by the analogy of infinite space placed by the impersonal immanent order of nature
of which particular spaces are mere parts, he speaks which was as much beyond time and change as the
of universal time {tempus universale) of which particu- Eleatic Being, Plotinus' One, or Aristotle's and Aquinas'
lar durations are finite portions. Time would e.vist even God. From Giordano Bruno to F. H. Bradley this basic
if all things were at rest and motionless; against pattern remained the same. "Thus also the divine mind
Aristotle, Bruno holds that change is a necessary condi- contemplates everything one altogether simple act
in
tion for the perception of time, but not for its existence. at once and without succession, that is, without the
Similar hesitancies may be traced in the thought of difference between the past, present and future; to Him
Pierre Gassendi. In his Philosophiae Epicuri Syntagma all things are present "
(G. Bruno, Opera latine con-
in 1649, only six years before his death, he speaks of scripta, Florence [1889], I, 4, pp. 32-33). "In eternity
time in the characteristically Epicurean way as an there is no 'before' and 'after'; for it follows exclusively
"accident of accidents," that is, accidens accidentium. from the divine perfection that God's decrees cannot
Against this relational view of time, Gassendi equally be different and could not have been different" (B.
imambiguously insists on its absolute and independent Spinoza, Ethica, I, prop. 33).
nature, e.g., when polemic with Descartes he
in his The second quotation shows that the immutability
says: "Whether things are or not, whether they move of the eternal order of nature implies the strictest
or rest, time always Hows at an equal rate." This sen- determinism. In this respect the ancient deterministic
tence occurs almost verbatim in the passage of Isaac tradition was strengthened by the mechanistic physics
Barrow, Newton's tutor (Mathematical Works, ed. \V. of the seventeenth century. Galileo, like Bnmo before
Whewell [1860], II, 160f.), where it is stated that mo- him and Spinoza after him, upheld the dualism of
tion presupposes time, but not vice versa, and that time timeless divine perfection and of imperfect, time-
continues to flow even if all things stand still. Gassendi's consuming human knowledge: "We proceed in step-
influence on Barrow and Newton is also clear in his by-step discussion from inference to inference, whereas
view linking the infinity of space and time with the He conceives through mere intuition. The divine . . .
divine omnipresence and everlasting duration, and his intellect . . . grasps the essence of the circle without
insistence that both time and space existed prior to any temporal discourse {senza temporaneo discorso) and
the creation of the world (Syntagma philosophicum. thus apprehends the infinite array of its properties"
Opera omnia. Lyons [1658], I, 183. 225). Newton's (Opere, Florence [1855], VII, 129). Galileo still speaks
characterization of time, in the scholium of his Philos- of God; Spinoza speaks of Deus sive natura, while in
ophiae naturalis principia mathetnatica (1687), was the Laplace the timeless order of nature is already thor-
culmination of the process by which the concept of oughly secularized and depersonalized: what was the
time was separated from that of concrete physical omniscient divine insight in theology becomes in his
change: thought the universal cosmic formula containing all the
Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and by its

details of the cosmic history —
past, present, as well as
future (Essai philosophique sur la probabilite. Paris,
own nature, flows uniformly on, without regard to anything
1814).
external. Relative, apparent and common time, is some
Neither Bruno nor Spinoza, nor certainly Laplace,
sensiblemeasure of absolute time (duration), estimated by
ever denied temporal succession on the "lower" or
the motions of bodies, whether accurate or inequable, and
is commonly employed in place of true time; (Andrew . . .
phenomenal level; it was only on the "higher" level
Motte's translation, revised by Florian Cajori). of the ultimate reality that time was abolished. This
dualism of two realms, timeless and temporal, was
For more than two centuries this concept of time retained by post-Kantian idealism. It was prepared by
remained practically unchallenged by physicists; James Kant's view that time is a mere form of sensibility,
Clerk Maxwell's definition of time in his Matter and applicable legitimately only to the phenomenal, but
Motion (1877) is identical both in spirit as well as in not to the noumenal realm. This explains why the
letter with that of Newton. "Absolute Ego" of Fichte, in spite of his verbal em-
Time in Modem Philosophy. Modern views of time phasis on becoming (Werden) and activity (Urtdtig-
its
(1500-1900) were shaped by the merging of two keit), remains timeless (of. Grundlagen der Wissen-
influences: of the previous philosophical tradition and schaftslehre, Berlin [1845], p. 217; Fiir die blosse reine
of the nascent classical science. The Greek and medie- Vemiinft ist alles ziigleich). From such a point of view 393
—
TIME
it was only consistent for Fichte to adhere to the most from its nature: the substance which contains in itself
rigorous form of determinism {Die Bestimmung des all its future states as its own predicates (Discottrs de
Menschen. Sdmtliche Werke. Berhn [1845], II, 182-83), la metaphysique. 8). His view that somebody with a
while Kant used Laplacean language prior to Laplace suflicieut insight "would see the future in the present
when he claimed that a complete insight into the as in a mirror" ("On Destiny or Mutual Dependence,"
character of man would make his thoughts and actions Leibniz Selections, ed. P. P. Wieijer, New York [1951],
as predictable as the solar and lunar eclipses (Critique p. 571 followed from his theory of pre-established
of Practical Reason, trans. T. K. Abbot, 6th ed., London harmony and fully anticipated the passages of Kant,
[1909], p. 193). Fichte, and Laplace, quoted a'uove. Far more explicit
Schelling's view of time is similar, at least in that was the elimination of succession and change in J. F.
phase of his thought which accounts for the close
first Herbart and J. M. E. McTaggart. Herbart's immaterial
kinship of his Identitdtsphilosopliie with the thought units, die Realen, are qualitatively different, but
of Bruno and Spinoza. The position of Hegel was far absolutely imnuitable; the illu.sion of succession and
more ambiguous. On one side he stressed explicitly his change arises because to our shifting attention they
agreement with Heraclitus; on the other side, he appear in different aggregations. In McTaggart's
stressed the timelessness of his Absolute Idea. Hence monadism true reality belongs only to a timeless series
two divergent interpretations of Hegels dialectics: one of which the temporal series is merely apparent
interpreting it as the dynamic, historical process perspective representation. More recently, Bertrand
(Benedetto Croce, ]. N. Findlav), the other, represented Russell's "logical atomism "
bears a clear similarity to
mainly by McTaggart, according to v\hich the dialec- the static pluralism of Herbart, as one historian of
tical movement is merely in our mind, being nothing .^nglo-American pluralism has noted (Jean Wahl, Les
but a series of successive approximations by which we philosophes pluralistes d Angleterre et d Amerique.
come closer to the timelessly realized "Infinite End," Paris [1920], p. 217). Wittgenstein's explicit denial of
or Absolute Idea (J.
M. E. McTaggart, Studies in the the passage of time (Tractatus Logico-philosophicus
Hegelian Dialectics, 2nded., Cambridge [1922], p. 171). [1921], 6. 3611) is a consequence of his logical atomism.
On the other hand, Schopenhauer's view of time was These prevailing static tendencies explain why the
quite imambiguous. Under the influence of Kant, he concept of absolute time, upheld by Gassendi and
regarded time as only phenomenallij real; the thing- Newton, has not been accepted by philosophers as
in-itself which, according to him, is the Universal Will, unanimously as it has been by scientists. Closest to
is, despite the apparently dynamic connotation of this Newton's view was John Locke; but even Locke, in
term, beyond both space and time, and he explicitly pointing out the impossibility of comparing two
assimilated it to the Eleatic One and All (h koX irav). successive intervals of duration (which cannot be
Only later, in the second edition of his main work superposed because of their very succession), antici-
(1844), did he realize that this view is incompatible pated the later criticisms of Bergson and Poincare in
with another of his basic claims, viz., that we directly this regard. The most outstanding opponent of Newton
intuit the cosmic Will in our own consciousness; how was Leibniz, who was engaged in a long polemic with
can we perceive the timeless reality directly through Newton's disciple, Samuel Clarke, about the status of
our essentially temporal introspection? He then cor- space and time; Berkeley's objections were directed
rected his view by saying that the will of which we mainly against the concept of absolute space.
are aware is not the thing-in-itself, but an appearance, Both Berkeley and Leibniz upheld the relational
even though somehow more basic [V rphanomenon) theory of space and tima time is "the order of succes-
than other appearances. The same distinction between sion of perceptions," and as such it is inseparable from
temporal appearances and the static substratum concrete events. From this standpoint the "flow of
underlying them is found in F. H. Bradley, one of the empty time "
is without meaning. But while Berkeley
most outspoken defenders of static monism in the claimed that the infinite divisibility of change and time
twentieth century. In his main book. Appearance and (both being inseparable) is a mere fiction, since math-
Reality (1893), he tries to show the contradictory and ematical diu-ationless instants are never perceptible
therefore unreal character of change and of time as and are therefore imreal, Leibniz — like Descartes
well as of diversity in general; the transcendent Abso- believed that both time and any concrete change is
lute must be free of these contradictions. divisible ad infinitum, i.e., consists of ever-perishing
The denial of time was frequently but not always instants. (It should be recalled that the alleged inde-
associated with monistic tendencies as different kinds pendence of perishing temporal instants was used by
of static pluralism show. That the dynamic character Descartes as the basis for his view that the world is
o94 of Leibniz's monad is more apparent than real is clear maintained in existence by continuous divine creation.)
—
TIME
While David Hume accepted Berkeley s view of its ontological status. Arthur Schopenhauer's combina-
indivisible temporal moments {minima sensibilia), Kant and of the empirical-psychological
tion of the Kantian
sided with Leibniz in accepting the mathematical approach was only apparently paradoxical; he saw in
continuity (infinite divisibility) of all phenomenal the abnormal modifications of temporal awareness an
changes. Thus for Berkeley and Hume, time shared the additional corroboration of the phenomenal, and,
discreteness of perceptual changes, while for Leibniz ultimately, of the illusory character of time.
and Kant concrete changes shared the infinite divisi- This is related to the fact that the theory of evolu-
mathematical time. Locke adopted an inter-
bility of tion, in spite of its emphasis on the historical aspects
mediate position in drawing the distinction between of reality, was not — in its initial impact at least
immediately experienced qualitative duration and the opposed to the static and
view of the
substantialistic
homogeneous duration of the physical world (Essay world; on the contrary, since for some time it even
Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Ch. 14). strengthened it. Darwin's theory of the origin of species
This distinctionbecame the ground for another widely was strictly mechanistic and in this way fitted perfectly
accepted distinction between the durational "specious into the Laplacean framework of classical physics.
present" in psychology and the mathematical present Herbert Spencer, unquestionably the most influential
of physical and physiological time. On this point both philosophical interpreter of evolution in the last cen-
Leibniz and Kant remained completely Newtonian and tury, made an ambitious attempt at deriving "the law
Cartesian. of evolution" from the law of conservation of energy.
The introspective approach to the problem of time, This law itself was regarded by him, as well as by
initiated by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, led to two Helmholtz, Hackel, Ostwald, and others, as the basis
divergent developments: (1) to Kant's epistemological of the law of causality. Conversely, classical principles
analysis of time in the Critique of Pure Reason, and like ex nihilo nil fit and causa aequat effectum guided
its subsequent modifications in neo-Kantianism and Robert Mayer (1814-78) in his experimental search for
phenomenology; (2) to the systematic investigation of the law of the conservation of energy. Friedrich
temporal awareness in the empirical and experimental Nietzsche, in spite of his contempt for static concepts
psychology of the nineteenth century. ."According to such as "substance, "
"Being, "
and others, did not find
Kant, time is an a priori form of inner — and indirectly it incongruous to combine the evolutionary philosophy
of outer — sense which is both "empirically real and of Overman with the eternal return of all the events
transcendentally ideal"; it guarantees by its own nature (die ewige Wiederkunft der C.leichen) inwhich becom-
the a priori and synthetic character of arithmetical ing, in virtue of its own circularity, was subordinated
operations, whose universal validity is independent of to Being.
experience precisely because they take place in the Time in Contemporary Philosophy and Science. The
ideal medium of time. But while time is a necessary radical reaffirmation —
or as George Boas called it the —
condition of all experience — both introspective and "acceptance of time," had to wait until the end of the
sensory — it does not apply to transcendent "things- last century. The main intellectual obstacle to it was
in-themselves," including our "intelligible character" the static determinism of the Spinoza-Laplacean type,
which underlies our "empirical ego." In phenome- which only a few "heretical thinkers dared to ques- "
nalizing both physical and psychological time, Kant tion. Among them was Charles Renouvier who
greatly strengthened static modes of thought as the suggested the existence of absolute beginnings (les
subsequent development of German philosophy commencements absolus) in nature; Emile Boutroux

showed. who in his De la contingence de la nature (1874)
Empirical psychologists in the nineteenth century suggested that physical determinism is valid only on
were opposed to Kant's a priori view of time; they the macrophysical scale and that tliere may be micro-
pointed out that the consciousness of time is subject physical indeterminations too small to be detected by
to development and to individual and even pathologi- the methods available at that time (op. cit., Ch. IV).
cal modifications. This view was strengthened by the C. S. Peirce expressed a similar view about the merely
theory of evolution and its applications to psychologi- approximative character of classical determinism ("The
cal phenomena; Herbert Spencer's Principles of Pstj- Doctrine of Necessity Examined, The Monist, 2 [.\pril "
chology (1855) contains long polemical passages show- 1892], 321-.37). Meanwhile William James also argued,
ing the incompatibility of Kant's view with the as Peirce had, for the objectivity of the chance-element
observations of genetic psychology and psychopathol- in nature ("Dilemma of Determinism," 1884); his re-
ogy. But despite their opposition to Kant, empirical jection of determinism, tfiough motivated mainly by
and genetic psychologists eventually reinforced the ethical reasons, was also based on his rejection of the
tendency to phenomenalize time and thus to weaken timeless 'block-universe which strict determinism 395
— "
TIME
implies, and which is incompatible with genuine by A. O. Lovejoy, although he insisted against Bergson
phiralit)' as well as with real succession. that the temporal segments must have sharp boundaries
A far more systematic formulation of James's if the genuine difference between the successive phases
pluralistic temporalism took place later, in his A should be preserved. Although critical of some aspects
Pluralistic Universe (1909) and his posthumous Some of James'sand Bergson's thought, Lovejoy shared with
Problems in Philosophy (1911). In these books James's them their temporalism —
the term which he himself
debt to Renouvier acknowledged, but far more
is still coined for doctrines which took time as an essential
decisive and explicitly acknowledged was the influence category of all existence.
of Henri Bergson. In his first book Essai sur les donnees Another outstanding temporalist or "process philos-
iinmediates de la conscience (1889), Bergson reached opher" is Alfred North Whitehead; his metaphysics of
a conclusion similar to a pivotal idea in James s Princi- events with its emphasis on "the creative advance of
ples of Psychology (1890), namely, the continuity of nature, "the immortality of the past (from which the
introspective experience
— "the stream of conscious-
"
irreversibility of Becoming follows), and the denial of

ness" or "true duration" (duree reelle) — which both diu-ationless instants was very close to the views of
thinkers stressed against artificial conceptualization and James and Bergson. Besides acknowledging his affinity
atomization. (It is fair to stress that some of the philo- with Bergson's views. Whitehead also stressed his debt
sophically most important sections of Principles of to Samuel Alexander s work Space, Time and Deity
Psychology had been published previously in Mind (1920), and, to a lesser degree, to Lloyd Morgan and
[1884] under the title "On Some Omissions of Intro- C. D. Broad. Like .Alexander, and also under the influ-
spective Psychology.") The dynamic continuity of ence of the relativity theory, \Vhitehead stressed the
psychological time is both unity and diversity; but it inseparability of space from time; but unlike Alex-
is neither the abstract homogeneous unity of mathe- ander, Morgan, and Broad, Whitehead regarded, in the
matical time nor the dust-like multiplicity of the later phase of his thought at least, his own concept
externally related durationless instants; it is the mnemic of novelty as incompatible with classical determinism.
continuity in which no sharp separation can be drawn Broad's original view about "the reality of the past
between the successive phases, despite their qualitative and the unreality of the future was given up later "
heterogeneity. by his belief in precognition which requires the pre-

In his later books Bergson generalized his intro- e.xistence of the future in some form. John Dewey, who
spective analysis by applying its results to duration was one of the first to welcome Peirce's rejection of
in general. Every duration, he held, is essentially in- classical determinism ("The Superstition of Necessity,
complete in the sense that each of its moments intro- Monist, 3 [1893], 362-79), unlike other process philos-
duces an element of novelty not contained in the past. ophers, did not regard the reality of all-pervasive
In ignoring irreducible element of novelty change optimism: "change
as the source of
—cosmic
this is
previously stressed in Boutroax's contingentism and nothing to gloat over {Experience and \ature,
"
Peirce's tychism — radical determinism as well as radi- Chicago [1925], p. 71). It is, however, fair to state that
cal finalism virtually and sometimes even explicitly the term "meliorism, coined by William James, de-
"
eliminate time altogether in fusing the successive scribes far more accurately than "optimism" the view
phases into a single instantaneous unity of the of the process philosophers mentioned. An even more
Laplacean formula or of the immutable Absolute. In pessimistic view of time is that of Heidegger; his
such a "block universe" — whether
— "everything of the naturalistic connotation of becoming is completely divorced from
or idealistic kind is given" (tout est that of evolution and is viewed only
creativity; time
donne) which is contrary to the most obvious experi- in its tragicand destructive aspects.
ence. Equally false is radical indeterminism, which, in The interest in the problem of time was not confined
moment, ignores the
positing creatio ex nihilo of each to process philosophers only. Thus Josiah Royce used
dynamic continuity of duration and thus makes both the durational present as a model for understanding
memory and causation impossible. Mathematical the relation of time and eternity; the divine conscious-
continuity (infinite divisibility) belongs only to the ness, "Eternal Now," is still temporal, although its
spatial segment by which duration is inadequately temporal span is incomparably wider than that of the
symbolized, not to duration itself. In other words, the human specious present. Bertrand Russell, who favored
durationless present is a fiction not only in psychology, the concept of mathematical instants in his Principles
but in physics as well; even the physical processes have of Mathematics (1903), gave it up in his article "On
a fine pulsational structure, even though their temporal the Experience of Time in Monist (25, 1915). Husserl's
"
span enormously shorter than that of mental events

is phenomenological analysis of time in Die Phdnomenol-
396 {Matter and Memory, Ch. IV). This view is also shared ogie des inner Zeitbewusstsein (1966) was in his own
—
TIME
view in many respects similar to the introspective ately from the relativistic space-time diagram. Even
analvsis of Bergson (cf. Roman Ingarden, "L'intuition the famous "paradox of twins," first mentioned bv Paul
bergsonienne et probleme phenomenologiqiie de la
le Langevin in 1911. implies the metrical, not the topo-
constitution," in "Bergson et nous," Bulletin de la logical relativity of temporal intervals; the twins aging
Societe Franqaise de Philologie [1959], 165-66). at different rates, both move in the direction of the
The development of physics in the twentieth century future and it is one
a misunderstanding to claim that
profoundly modified the classical concepts, including can make an exploratory "round trip" to the future
that of time. The theory of relativity proposed the and back.
union of space with time; the significance of this union Dynamization of space is even more conspicuous in
is still being discussed. According to the widespread, the general relativity theory which fuses the physical
but very questionable view, means an assimilation it content with the variable spatiotemporal continuum,
becoming-
of time to the fourth dimension of the static, and thus challenges the classical container-like charac-
less continuum
—
"space-time." Serious objections have ter of absolute space and time. Thus time is inseparable
been raised against such interpretation not only by from concrete physical events in a sense much more
philosophers like Meyerson, Bergson, and Reichenbach, radical than the classical relational theory of time
but also bv scientists like Eddington, A. A. Robb, and suggested. Thus the gravitational and inertial field
Whitrow. Occasionally Einstein himself stressed that both being according to the principle of equivalence
even within the relativistic "space-time" the time di- two aspects of the same phenomenon — are not in
mension is not equivalent to the spatial dimensions. space-time; they are nothing but certain local irregu-
It is far more correct to speak of the dynamization larities of space-time, and the changes in the local
of space rather than of the spatialization of time; the curvature of space-time appear to us as the displace-
relativization of simultaneity means that "instanta- ments of bodies in the allegedly inert space. The reces-
neous space," that is, the class of simultaneously exist- which suggested the idea of the
sion of the galaxies
ing events, cannot be imambiguously carved out of the expanding space shows how far modern cosmologies
four-dimensional world-process. It is also significant are from the immutable space of Newton.
tliat while the succession of causally related events Significant changes of the concept of time are also
remains a topological invariant within relativity phys- suggested by the ciuantimi theory and wave mechanics.
ics — i.e., the world-lines remain irreversible in any The implications of these changes point in the .same
frame of reference — it is not so for the spatial distances; direction as those of the relativity theories. The quan-
thus the relativity of simultaneity can equally appro- tum character of the microphysical processes makes
priately be called the relativity of justaposition. It has probable the view that physical time — like psycho-
been correctly pointed out that in the relativistic phys- logical time — is not divisible ad infinitum: that is. that
ics the past is separated from the future not by the there are the minimum intervals of time which are not
durationless three-dimensional "Now" spreading in- further divisible since they coincide with the elemen-
stantaneously across the universe as in the physics of tary events of nature. This is the meaning of "I'atome
Newton, but, even more by the four- effectively, du temps" of Poincare, of "quantum of time' of
dimensional region of "Elsewhere." It can also be Whitehead, and of "chronon" of some contemporary
shown that an event which is in the causal future for physicists. It is always possible to assume that under-
a certain observer cannot be in the causal past of any lying the temporally indivisible events of microphysics
conceivable observer. This follows from Minkowski's there is the mathematical, infinitely divisible duration
formula for the invariance of the world interval: of Newton and Locke; but this view implies the abso-
lutist distinction between homogeneous container-like

I = S^ - Cîto - (,)2 const.
time and its concrete physical content, which the pres-
s is spatial distance separating two events, (fj — tj) ent trends in physics make improbable. It is true that
being their separation in time. for practical purposes, that on the macrophysical
is,
The most common source of the antitemporalistic level where the magnitude of Planck's constant h can
misinterpretations of the relativity theory is the confu- be disregarded, and where the interval of chronon is
sion of the metrical invariance with the topological practically equivalent to a mathematical instant, time
invariance of time; while the latter is preserved, the remains very approximately continuous. The chronon
former is not. This can be shown when we analyze theory would remove the distinction between physical,
the popular relativistic paradoxes. Some of these infinitely divisible duration and psychological time — or
"paradoxes" are due to sheer ignorance; for instance, rather it would reduce this distinction to that of degree
under no circumstances can anybody or anything only, the physical "chronons" being of incomparably
"travel backwards to the past" as it follows immedi- shorter temporal span than the temporal minima sen- 397
TIME AND MEASUREMENT
sihilia in psychology. But since these temporal minima 4, 18 and J.

M. E. McTaggart, "The Unreality of Time,"
cannot be conceived as sharply separated, a serious in Mind. N.S., 17 (1908), while Josiah Royce, in Lecture
difficulty arises as to how to synthesize conceptually 3, The Worhl and the Indiiidiiat. Vol. II (New York, 1901),
tries to synthesize the temporalistic and eternalistic view.
the individuality of events with the continuity of be-
Reaffirmation of the reality of temporal succession are;
coming. It is probable that without a radical modifica-
Henri Bergson, Oeitvres completes (Geneva, 1945); William
tion of our conceptual tools this will be impossible.
James,A Pluralistic Universe (New York, 1910); idem. Some
Such modification is suggested by some recent attempts
Problems of Philosophy (New York, 1911); Samuel Alexander,
at constructing "topology without points" or "fuzzy Space. Time and Deity (London, 1920); ,\. N. Whitehead,
set theory." Processand Reality (Cambridge, 1929); Charles Hartshorne.
Another even more important philosophical conse- "Contingency and the New Era in Metaphysics," Journal
quence of the existence of Planck's constant is the of Philosophy. 29 1932); Mary F. Cleugh, Time and Its
(
indeterminacy of the microphysical processes, formu- Importance in Western Thought (London, 1937); Paul Weiss,
Reality (Princeton, 1938); A. O. Lovejoy, Rea.mn, the Un-
of this principle
— "uncertaintyTheprinciple"
lated by Heisenberg (1927). two different names
or "indeter- derstanding and Time (Baltimore, 1964); Philip P. Wiener,
principle" — suggest two radically different

"The Central Role of Time in Lovejov's Philosophy," Phi-
minacy
losophy and Phenomenological Research. 23 (1963).
interpretations of it. The first interpretation, more
On the physical status of time: H. Poincare, "La mesure
conservative in its outlook and favored more by tradi-
du temps," Dernieres pensees (Paris. 1913); Einstein-
tionally oriented philosophers than by physicists, re-
Lorentz-Minkowski-Weyl, The Principle of Relativity, trans.
gards microphysical indeterminacy as a result of the W. Perret and G. B. Jeffrey (London, 19.52); A. S. Eddington,
interference of the process of observation with the The Nature of the Physical World (Cambridge, 1928), Chs.
process observed. The second interpretation, more III-V; £. Meyerson, Identite et realite. 5th ed. (Paris, 1951);
favored by physicists, regards it as a manifestation of idem, Lm deduction relativiste (Paris, 1925), Ch. 7; A. A. Robb,
objective indeterminacy in nature. The first inter- The Absolute Relations of Time and Space (Cambridge,
pretation leaves the Laplacean determinism intact; the 1921); H. Mehlberg, "Essai sur la theorie causale du temps,"
second one suggests the objective status of chance in Studia philosophica (Leopolis [Lvov], 1935); H. Reichen-
bach. The Philosophy of Space and Time (New York. 1958);
the sense of Boutroux and Peirce, that is, of the "open
idem. The Direction of Time (Los Angeles, 1956); A. Griin-
world" (H. Weyl's term), forever in growth and forever
baum. Philosophical Problems of Space and Time (New York,
incomplete, in which the future remains genuinely
1964); M. Capek, The Philosophical Impact of Contemporary
ambiguous and, though influenced by the past, is not
Physics (Princeton, 1961); G. J. Whitrow, The Natural Phi-
predetermined by it. While the first interpretation is
losophy of Time (London and Edinburgh, 1961); A. N. Prior,
more congruous with the philosophical tradition glori- Papers on Time and Sense (London, 1968); idem, Past. Pres-
fying static and immutable Being, the second inter- ent and Future (London, 1967); idem. Time and Modality
pretation viewed with sympathy by the process-
is (London and New York, 1957).
oriented thinkers. Thus the discussion concerning the On the perception of time, see William James, Principles
interpretation of this principle is merely the most of Psychology. Vol. I (New York, 1890), esp. Chs. 9, 15;
recent phase of the ancient dialogue between Par- Bertrand Russell, "On the Experience of Time," Monist. 25
menides and Heraclitus. (1915); Edmund Husserl, Die Phiinomenologie des innem
Zeitbewusstsein, ed. R. Boehm (The Hague, 1966); Paul
Fraisse, Psychologic du temps (Paris, 1957) contains a very
BIBLIOGRAPHY complete bibliography.
For the history of the concept of time, Walter Cent, Die

MILIC CAPEK
Philosophie des Raumes und der 7,eit, 2nd ed. (Hildesheim, (See also Atomism; Cosmic Images; Cycles; Determinism;
1962) is a very useful sourcebook. For the concept of time Evolutionism; God; Pragmatism; Pre-Platonic Concep-
in medieval cosmology see the relevant chapters in Pierre tions; Pythagorean Relativity; Skepticism; Space;
. . . ;
Duhem, Le systeme du monde. Vols. I-X (Paris, 1913-59). Uniformitarianism.l

Z. Zawirski's L'eiulutioti de la notion du temps (Krakow,
1934) includes the modifications of the concept of time in
recent physics. \ very extensive bibliography of recent
English articles on time C. Smart, Problems of
is in
J. J.
Space and Time (New York, 1964) while The Voices of Time,
ed. J. T. Fraser (New York, 1965) is a cooperative volume
dealing with the historical, psychological, biological, and
physical aspects of time. The origins of the concept of time are lost in the mists
Modem restatement of the Eleatic denial of time are of prehistory but from our knowledge of surviving
F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality (London, 1893), Chs. primitive races it would seem highly probable that the
—
lives ofour remote ancestors were far less consciously ades, etc. — were distinguished. There were momentary
dominated by time than are ours. For example, al- pauses at the end of each prescribed period, for exam-
though the children of Australian aborigines are of ple, at the end of a day, when one god with his burden
similar mental capacity to white children, they have (in this case representing the next day) replaced an-
great difficulty in telling the time by the clock. They other god with his. A remarkably precise astronomical
can read off the position of the hands on the face of calendar was developed embodying correction for-
a clock as a memory exercise but they are quite unable mulae that were even more accurate than our present
to relate it to the time of the day. There is a cultural leap year correction which was introduced about a
gap between their conception of time and ours which thousand years later by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.
they find difficult to cross. Nevertheless, all primitive Our correction is too long by 0.03 days in a century,
peoples have some idea of time and some method of whereas the corresponding Maya correction was 0.02
reckoning, usually based on astronomical observations. days too short. Despite this astonishing achievement
The Australian aborigine will fix the time for a pro- the Mayas never seem to have grasped the idea of time
posed action bv placing a stone in the fork of a tree, as the journey of one bearer and his load. Instead, each
or some such place, so that the sun will strike it at god's burden came to signify the particular omen of
the agreed time. the division of time in question — one year the burden
Primitive man's sense of rhythm was a vital factor might be drought, another a good harvest and so on.
in his intuition of time. Before he had any explicit idea
of time, he seems to have been aware of temporal
associations dividing time into intervals like bars in Unlike the Mayas, the ancient Greeks were not
music. The principal transitions in nature were thought obsessed by the temporal aspect of things. At the dawn
to occur suddenly, and similarly man's journey through of Greek literature two contrasting points of view are
life was visualized as a sequence of distinct stages found in Homer and Hesiod. In the Iliad Olympian
theology and morality are dominated by spatial con-
"
later epitomized in Shakespeare's "seven ages of man.

Even in so culturally advanced a civilization as the cepts, the cardinal sin being hubris, that is going be-
ancient Chinese different intervals of time were re- yond one's assigned province. Homer was not inter-
garded as separate discrete units, so that time was in ested in the origin of things and had no cosmogony.
effect discontinuous. Just as space was decomposed into On the other hand, Hesiod in his Works and Days gave
regions, so time was split up into areas, seasons, and an account of the origin of the world, and his poem
epochs. In other words, time was "boxed." Even in can be regarded as a moralistic study based on the time
late medieval Europe the development of the mechan- concept.
ical clock did not spring from a desire to register the Two centuries or more later (sixth century B.C.) the
passage of time but rather from the monastic demand Ionian pioneers of natural philosophy visualized the
for accurate determination of the hours when the vari- world as a geometrical organism or a live space-filling
ous religious offices and prayers should be said. substance. Heraclitus. on the other hand, believed the
It was a long step from the inhomogeneity of magical world to be a soul involved in an endless cycle of death
time as generally imagined in antiquity and the Middle and rebirth, the very essence of the universe being
Ages with its specific holy days and lucky and unlucky' transmutation. A similar emphasis on time and soul
secular days to the modem scientific conception of characterized the Orphic religion which appears to
homogeneous linear time. Indeed, man was aware of have provided the mythical background of Pytha-
different times long before he formulated the idea of goreanism. According to Plutarch, when asked what
time itself. This distinction is particularly well illus- Time was, Pythagoras replied that it was the soul, or
trated by the Maya priests ofpre-Columbian central procreative element, of the universe. Pythagoras is
America, who, of all ancient peoples, were probably a shadowy figure but to him was attributed the
the most obsessed with the idea of time. Whereas in celebrated discovery, following experiments with a
European antiquity the days of the week were regarded monochord, that the concordant intervals of the musi-
as being under the influence of the principal heavenly cal scalecan be expressed by simple ratios of whole
bodies, e.g., Saturn-day, Sun-day, Moon-day, etc., for numbers. This was perhaps the most striking illustrative
the Mayas each day was itself divine. Every monument example of Pythagoras' doctrine that the nature, or
and every altar was erected to mark the passage of ultimate principle, of things is not some kind of sub-
time. The Mayas pictured the divisions of time as stance, as the lonians thought, but is to be foimd in
burdens carried on the backs of a hierarchy of divine number.

bearers who personified the respective numbers by For the early Pythagoreans the concept of number
which the different periods — days, months, years, dec- itself had both spatial and temporal significance. Num- oaa
a
bers were represented by patterns of the type still rejected the idea that time can be identified with any
found on dominoes and dice. This led to an elementary form of motion. For, he argued, motion can be uniform
theory of numbers based on geometry. Number, how- or nonuniform and these terms are themselves defined
ever, was also regarded from a temporal point of view. by time, whereas time cannot be defined by itself.
This is evident in the Pythagorean use of the giio»non. Nevertheless, although time is not identical with mo-
Originally, this was a time-measuring instrument — tion, it seemed to him to be dependent on motion.
simple, upright sundial. The term then came to mean Possibly influenced by the Pythagoreans, he argued that
the figure that remains when a square is cut out of time is a kind of number, being the numerable aspect
the corner of a larger square with its sides parallel to of motion. Time is therefore a numbering process
the sides of the latter. Eventually it denoted any num- founded on our perception of "before and "after in " "
ber which when added to a figurate number, for exam- motion: "Time is the number of motion with respect
ple a square number, generates the next number of to earlier and later" {Physica. ed. 'VV. D. Ross, Vol II,
the same shape. The early Pythagoreans regarded the Book IV, 219a). Aristotle regarded time and motion
generation of numbers as an actual physical operation as reciprocal. "Not only do we measure the movement
in space and time, beginning with the initial unit or by the time, but also the time by the movement, be-
monad. In general, they failed to make any clear dis- cause they define each other. The time marks the
tinction between the abstract and the concrete and movement, since it is number; and the movement the
between logical and chronological priority. time" (ibid.). Aristotle recognized that motion can
These distinctions were clearly drawn by Parmen- cease whereas time cannot, but there is one motion
ides, the founding father of deductive argument and that continues unceasingly, namely that of the heavens.
logical analysis. Way of Truth he criticized
In his Clearly, although he did not agree with Plato, he too
current cosmogonies for their common assumption that was profoundly influenced by the cosmological view
the universe began at some moment of time. "And what of time. N4oreover, although he began by rejecting any
need," he asked, "could have stirred it up, starting from a.ssociation between time and a particular motion in
nothing, to be born later rather than sooner?" This favor of one between time and motion in general, he
question was answered by Plato who claimed that time came to the conclusion that time is closely associated
is coexistent with the universe. But he was deeply with the circular motion of the heavens, which he
impressed by Parmenides' acute criticism of the ideas regarded as the perfect example of uniform motion.
of becoming and perishing and by his conclusion that For Aristotle the primary form of motion was uni-
time does not pertain to anything that is truly real. form motion in a circle because it could continue
The difficulties involved in producing a logically indefinitely, whereas uniform rectilinear motion could
satisfactory theory of time and its measurement were not. Any straight line necessarily had finite end points,
emphasized by Parmenides' pupil Zeno of Elea in his since he did not have the modem mathematical con-
famous paradoxes. For, although these paradoxes were cept of the infinitely extended straight line. For Aris-
primarily concerned with the problem of motion, they totle, therefore, time was intimately connected with
raised difficulties both for the idea of time as continu- miiform circular motion.
ous or infinitely divisible and for the idea of temporal Belief in the cyclic nature of time was widespread
atomicity. Unlike the Pythagoreans, who tended to in antiquity, since most ancient peoples tended to
identify the chronological with the logical, Parmenides regard time as essentially periodic. Long before Aris-
and Zeno argued that they are incompatible. totle, this idea led the Greeks to formulate the concept
The influence of Parmenides and Zeno on Plato is of the Great Year, and this is presumably what the
evident in the different treatment of space and time Pythagorean .\rchytas of Tarentum had in mind when
in Plato's cosmological dialogue the Titnaeus. Space he said that time is the number of a certain movement
exists in its own right as a given frame for the visible and is the interval appropriate to the nature of the
order of things, whereas time is merely a feature of universe —a
definition that may well have influenced
that order based on an ideal timeless archetype or realm Aristotle. There were, however, two distinct inter-
of static geometrical shapes (Eternity) of which it is pretations of the Great Year. On the one hand it was
the "moving image,
being governed by a regular
"
simply the period required for the Sun, Moon, and
numerical sequence made manifest by the motions of planets to attain the same positions in relation to each
the heavenly bodies. Plato's intimate association of other as they had at a given time. This appears to have
time with the imiverse led him to regard time as being been the sense in which Plato used the idea in the
actually produced by the revolutions of the celestial Timaeus. On the other hand, for Heraclitus it signified
sphere. the period of duration of the world from its formation

400 This conclusion was not accepted by Aristotle who to its destruction and rebirth. Whereas Plato seems to
have refrained from giving any estimate of the length of hours had to be varied according to the time of vear.
of the Great Year, HeracHtus, with no particular astro- The resultwas that many of the ancient water clocks
nomical interpretation in mind, gave 10,800 years as were instruments of considerable complexity.
its duration. He may have arrived at this figure by The earliest known attempt to produce mechanically
taking a generation of 30 years as a day and multi- a periodic standard of time is a device illustrated in
plying by 360, the (approximate) number of days in by Su Sung in a.d. 1092. It was
a Chinese text written
the year. powered by a waterwheel which advanced in a step-
The two interpretations of the Great Year were by-step motion, water being poured into a series of
combined by the Stoics who believed that, when the cups which emptied (or escaped) every quarter of an
heavenly bodies return at fixed intervals of time to the hour, when the weight of the water in the cup was
same relative positions as they had at the beginning sufficient to tilt a steelyard. The mechanism was then
of the world, everything would be destroyed by fire. unlocked until the arrival of the next cup below the
Then would be restored anew just as it was before
all water stream when it was locked again. An astronomi-
and the entire cycle would be renewed in every detail. calcheck on timekeeping was made by a sighting tube
pointed to a selected star. Since the timekeeping was
in governed mainly by the flow of water rather than by
The idea of time in antiquity differed from ours not the escapement action itself, this device mav be re-
only because it was thought to be cyclical but also garded as a link between the timekeeping properties
because the lack of reliable mechanical clocks pre- of a steady flow of liquid and those of mechanically
vented its accurate measurement. This impeded the produced oscillations.
development of the modern metrical concept of time. The fundamental distinction between water clocks
Moreover, the scale of "hours" was not uniform. In- and mechanical clocks, in the strict sense of the term,
deed, our present system of dividing day and night is that the former involve a continuous process (the
together into twenty-four hours of equal length was flow of water through an orifice) whereas the latter
not employed in civil life until the fourteenth century are governed by a mechanical motion which continu-
A.D., although it had already been used by astronomers. ally repeats itself. The mechanical clock, in this .sense,
Previously, it was the general custom to divide the appears to have been a European invention of the late
periods of light and darkness into an equal number of thirteenth or early fourteenth century. The first clocks
"temporal hours" (horae temporales, as they were of this type were public striking clocks, the earliest,
called by the Romans). The number was usually twelve. as far as we know, being set up at Milan in 1309. The
Consequently, the length of an hour varied according type of motion employed in these clocks, known as
to the time of year and also, e.xcept at the equinoxes, the "verge" escapement —
probably from the Latin
a daylight hour was not equal to a nocturnal hour. tirga, a rod or twig —
was an ingenious device in which
this mode
Strange as of reckoning time may now seem, a heavy bar pivoted near its center was pushed first
we must remember that most human activities took one way and then the other by a toothed wheel driven
place in the hours of daylight and also that early civili- by a weight suspended from a drum. The wheel ad-
zations were in latitudes where the period from sunrise vanced by the space of one tooth for each to and fro
to sunset varies far less than in more northerly parts. oscillation of the bar. Since the bar had no natural
For their standard hours, the astronomers took "equi- period of its own, the rate of the clock depended on
noctial hours" (Jiorae equinoctales). These were the the driving weight, but was also aflêcted by variations
same as the temporal hours at the date of the spring of friction in the driving mechanism. Consequently, the
equinox. accuracy of these clocks was low and they could not
The only mechanical time-recorders in antiquity be relied on to keep time more closely than to about
were water clocks, but until the fourteenth century a quarter of an hour a day at best. An error of an hour
A.D. the most reliable way to tell the time was by means was not unusual. Until the middle of the seventeenth
of a sundial. Both types of clock were used by the century mechanical clocks had only one hand and the
Egyptians. Later they were introduced into Greece and dial was divided only into hours and quarters.
eventually became widespread in the Roman Empire. The word "clock" is etymologically related to the
Vitruvius, writing about 30 B.C., described more than French word cloche, meaning a bell. Bells played a
a dozen different types of sundial. He also described prominent part in medieval life and mechanisms for
a number of "clepsydrae" or water clocks. To obtain ringing them, made of toothed wheels and oscillating
a uniform flow of water they were designed so as to levers, may have helped to prepare for the invention
keep the pressure head constant. In order to indicate of mechanical clocks. Indeed, some early clocks were
"temporal" hours, either the rate of flow or the scale essentially mechanisms for striking the hours. 401
Music provides another instance of the growing lation ofmoney, however, the emphasis was on mo-
importance of temporal concepts in the Middle Ages. bility. In men were beginning to believe
other words,
Early medieval music was all plain chant in which that "time is money" and that one must try to use it
notes had fluid time-values. Mensural music in which economically and thus time came to be associated with
the duration of notes had an exact ratioamong them- the idea of linear progress.
selves appears to have been an Islamic invention. It In the course of the fourteenth century many public
was introduced into Europe about the twelfth century. mechanical clocks that rang the hours were up in set
About this time there appeared in Europe the system European towns. They were very expensive and, de-
of notation in which the exact time-value of a note spite their lack of accuracy, they were a source of pride
is indicated by a lozenge on a pole. to the citizens. Clocks were made with curious and
complicated movements. It was easier to add wheels
IV than to regulate the escapement. Moreover, in view
The cardinal factor, however, in causing time to of the general belief that a correct knowledge of the
become a concept of primary importance was the relative positions of the heavenly bodies was necessary
spread of Christianity. Its central doctrine of the Cruci- for the success of most human activities, many early
fixion was regarded as a unique event in time not clocks involved elaborate astronomical representations.
subject to repetition and so implied that time must be The most celebrated was the Strasbourg clock set up
linear rather than cyclic. Before the rise of Christianity in 1350, but the most elaborate was the astronomical
only the Hebrews and Zoroastrian Iranians appear to domestic clock made at about the same time by Gio-
have developed teleological conceptions of the uni- vanni de' Dondi. From about 1400 there are records
verse implving that history is progressive. The histori- of the purchase of domestic clocks by royalty, but until
cal view of time, with particular emphasis on the the latter part of the sixteenth century these clocks
nonrepeatability of events was, however, the very es- were very rare.
sence of Christianity. The contrast with the Hebrew Although medieval scholars were not concerned with
view is clearly brought out in the Epistle to the He- machines, they became more and more interested in
brews (9:25-26); "Nor yet that he should offer himself clocks, particularly because of their connection with
often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place astronomy. Already in the fourteenth century Nicole
every year with the blood of others; For then must Oresme (1.323-82), Bishop of Lisieux, likened the uni-
be often have suffered since the foimdation of the verse to a vast mechanical clock created and set mov-
world; but now once end of the world hath he
in the ing by God so that "all the wheels move as harmoni-
appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.' ously as possible." The great leaders of the scientific
Nevertheless, the idea of denominating the years revolution of the seventeenth century were much con-
serially in a single era count, such as the Olympic cerned with horological questions and metaphors.
dating from 776 B.C. and the Seleucid from 311 B.C., Early in the century Kepler specifically rejected the
did not originate in the Christian era until it was old quasi-animistic magical conception of the universe
introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in a.d. 525, and the and asserted that it was similar to a clock, and later
B.C. sequence extending backwards from the birth of the same analogy was drawn by Robert Boyle and
Christ was only introduced in the latter part of the others. Thus the invention of the mechanical clock
seventeenth century. In medieval Europe, as in me- played a central role in the formulation of the mecha-
dieval China, ancient Greece, and pre-Columbian nistic conception of nature that dominated natural
America, time was not conceived as a continuous philosophy from Descartes to Kelvin. An even more
mathematical parameter but was split up into separate far-reaching influence has been claimed for the me-
seasons, divisions of the Zodiac, and so on, each exert- chanical clock by Lewis Mumford who has argued that
ing its specific influence. In other words, magical time it "dissociated time from human events and helped
had not yet been superseded by scientific time. More- create the belief in an independent world of mathe-
over, throughout the whole medieval period, there was matically measurable sequences: the special world of
a conflict between the cyclic and linear concepts of science" (Technics and Civilization, p. 15).
time. The scientists and scholars, influenced by astron- Nevertheless, this development was for a long time
omy and astrology, tended to emphasize the cyclic hampered by the lack of any accurate mechanical
concept. The linear concept was fostered by the mer- means for measuring small intervals of time. Thus, in
cantile class and the rise of a money economy. For, his famous experiments on the rate of fall of bodies
as long as power was concentrated in the ownership rolling down an inclined plane, Galileo measured time
of land, time was felt to be plentiful and was associated by weighing the quantity of water which emerged as
402 with the unchanging cycle of tlie soil. With the circu- a thin jet from a vessel with a small hole in it. It is
not surprising that he refrained as far as possible from Barrow realized that to understand this method it was
giving a concrete value for the acceleration due to necessary to study time, and he was particularly con-
gravity and that when he did state a value it was less cerned with the relation of time and motion. "Time
than half the correct amount. The construction of does not imply motion, as far as its absolute and in-
precision timekeepers was stimulated by the needs of trinsic nature is concerned; not any more than it im-
astronomy and navigators, and they contributed to the plies rest;whether things move or are still, whether
development of science itself. we sleep or wake, Time pursues the even tenour of
its way. However, he argues, it is only by means of
"
motion that time is measurable. "Time may be used

A new era opened in the history of chronometry as a measure of motion; just as we measure space from
when Galileo discovered a natural periodic process that some magnitude, and then use this space to estimate
could be conveniently adapted for the purposes of other magnitudes commensurable with the first; i.e.,
accurate timekeeping. As a result of much mathe- we compare motions with one another by the use of
matical thinking on experiments with oscillating pen- time as an intermediary. Barrow regarded time as
"
dulums, he came to the conclusion that each simple essentially a mathematical concept which has many
pendulum has its own type of vibration depending on analogies with a line "for time has length alone, is
its length. In his old age he contemplated applying similar in all its parts and can be looked upon as
the pendulum to clockwork which could record me- constituted from a simple addition of successive in-
chanically the number of swings, but this step was first stants or as from a continuous flow of one instant; either
taken successfully by Huygens in 1656. Strictly speak- a straight or a circular line" (Geometrical Lectures,
ing, the simple pendulum in which the bob describes London [1735], Lecture 1, p. .35). The reference here
circular arcs is not quite isochronous. Huygens dis- to "a circular line shows that Barrow was not com-
"
covered that theoretically perfect isochronism could pletely emancipated from traditional ideas. Never-
be achieved by compelling the bob to describe a cy- theless, his statement goes further than any of Galileo's,
cloidal arc. His first pendulum clock with cycloidal for Galileo only used straight line segments to denote
"cheeks" was constructed in 1656. Great as was particular intervals of time. Barrow was very careful,
Huygens' achievement, particularly from the point of however, not to push his analogy between time and
view of theory, the ultimate practical solution of the a line too far. Time, in his view, was "the continuance
own
"
problem came only after the invention of a new type of anything in its being.
of escapement. Huygens' clock incorporated the verge Barrow's views greatly influenced his illustrious suc-
type, but about 1670 a much improved type, the an- cessor in the Lucasian chair, Isaac Newton. In particu-
chor type, was invented that interfered less with the lar, Barrow's idea that irrespective of whether things
pendulum's free motion. move or are still time passes with a steady flow is
The invention of a satisfactory mechanical clock had echoed in the famous definition at the beginning of
a tremendous influence on the general concept of time. Newton's Principia (1687). "Absolute, true and mathe-
For, unlike the water clocks, etc. that preceded it, the matical time, wrote Newton, "of itself and from its
"
mechanical clock if properly regulated can tick away own nature, flows equably without relation to anything
continually for years on end, and so must have greatly Newton admitted that, in practice, there
external."
influenced belief in the homogeneity and continuity may be no such thing as a uniform motion by which
of time. This belief was implicit in the idea of time time may be accurately measured, but he thought it
put forward by Galileo in the dynamical part of Two necessary that, in principle, there should exist an ideal
New Sciences (1638). For, although he was not the first rate-measiuer of time. Consequently, he regarded the
to represent time by a geometrical straight line, he moments of absolute time as forming a continuous
became the most influential pioneer of this idea sequence like the points on a geometrical line and he
through his theory of motion. believed that the rate at which these moments succeed
Nevertheless, for the first explicit discussion of the each other is a variable which is independent of all
concept of geometrical time seems that we must go

it particular events and processes. His belief in absolute
to the Lectiones geometricae (1669) of Isaac Barrow, time was supported by the argument for absolute mo-
written about thirty years after the publication of tion that he based on his celebrated experiment with
Galileo's book. Barrow, who occupied the chair of a rotating bucket of water. He thought that it was not
mathematics Cambridge in which he was succeeded
in necessary to refer to any other body when attaching
by Newton in 1669, was greatly impressed by the a physical meaning to saying that a particular body
kinematic method in geometry that had been devel- rotates, and from this he concluded that time as well
oped with great effect by Galileo's pupil Torricelli. as space must be absolute. 4Uo
Newton's views made a great impression on the scale of time is therefore based on our concept of
philosopher John Locke in whose Essaij concerning universal laws of nature. This was already recognized
Human Understanding (1690) we find the clearest last century, long before the advent of modem ultra-
statement of the "classical" scientific conception of precise time-keeping, in particular by Thomson and
time that was evolved in the seventeenth century; Tait in their treatise Natural Philosophy (1890). In
. . . duration is but as it were the length of one straight discussing the law of inertia they argued that it could
line extended in infinitum, not capable of multiplicity, be stated in the form: the times during which any
one common measure of all
variation or figure, but is exist- particular body not compelled by force to alter the
ence whatsoever, wherein all things^ whilst they exist speeds of its motions passes through equal spaces are
equally partake. For this present moment is common to all equal; and in this form, they said, the law expresses
things that are now in being, and equally comprehends that our convention for measuring time. It is easily seen
part of their existence as much as if thev were all but one that this implies a unique time-scale except for the
single being; and we may truly say, they all exist in the
arbitrary choice of time unit and time zero.
same moment of time (Book II, Ch. 15, Para. 11).
In practical life the precise standardization of time
Newton's conception of time has been frequently measurement began with the foundation of the Royal
criticized. If time can be considered in isolation "with- Observatory in 1675, and was further developed when
out relation to anything external," what meaning could Greenwich time could be taken on each ship after John
be attached to saying that its flow is not uniform and Harrison had perfected the chronometer, about 1760.
hence what point is there in saying that it "flows The conventional nature of our choice of time zero
equably"? This objection does not apply to the idea in civil time was clearly revealed when, in 1885, to
of time formulated by Newton's contemporary Leibniz cope with the fact that solar time varies by four
who rejected the idea that moments of absolute time minutes in a degree of longitude, it was found necessary
exist in their own right. Instead, he thought of them to divide the globe into a series of standard time-belts.
as classes of events related by the concept of simul-
taneity and he defined time as the order of succession W
of phenomena. Today this is generally accepted, and Until the beginning of the present century it was
we regard events as simultaneous not because they universally assumed that time is like a moving knife-
occupy the same moment of time but simply because edge covering all places in the universe simultaneously
they happen together. We derive time from events and and that the only arbitrary elements in its determi-
not vice versa. Nevertheless, Leibniz' definition of time nation were our choice of time unit and time zero.
as "the order of succession of phenomena " is in- It therefore came as a great shock when, in 1905,
complete insofar as it concentrates on the ordinal Einstein discovered a previously unsuspected gap in
aspect of time without explicit reference to its dura- the theory of time-measurement. For, in his analysis
tional aspect and its continuity. of the nature of the velocity of light it occurred to
Newton recognized the practical difficulty of ob- him that time-measurement depends on simultaneity,
taining a satisfactory measure of time. He pointed out and that although this idea is perfectly clear when two
that, although commonly considered equal, the natural events occur at the same place it was not equally clear
days are in fact unequal. We now know that in the for events in different places. Einstein realized that the
long run we cannot base our definition of time on the concept of simultaneity for a distant event and one
observed motions of any of the heavenly bodies. For in close proximity to the observer is an inferred con-
the Moon's revolutions are not strictly uniform but are cept depending on the relative position of the distant
subject to a small secular acceleration, minute irregu- event and tlie mode of connection between it and the
laritieshave been discovered in the diurnal rotation observer's perception of it. If the distance of an exter-
of the Earth, and so on. Greater accuracy in the meas- nal event is known and also the velocity of the signal
urement of time can, however, be obtained by means that connects and the resulting percept, the observer
it
of atomic and molecular clocks. Indeed, the greatest can calculate the epoch at which the event occurred
accuracy so far achieved is with a frequency standard and can correlate this with some previous instant in
in the radio range of the spectrum of the caesium atom his own experience. This calculation will be a distinct
and is of the order of one part in 10^', which corre- operation for each observer, but until Einstein raised
sponds to a clock error of only one second in 3000 the question it had been tacitly assumed that, when
years. we have found the rules according to which the time
Implicit in these developments is the assumption that of perception is determined by the time of the event,
all atoms of a given element behave in exactly the same all perceived events can be brought into a single ob-
404 way, irrespective of place and epoch. The ultimate jective time-sequence the same for all observers. Ein-
stein not only realized that it was a hypothesis to terms of time dilatation has come from the study of
assume that, if they calculate correctly, all observers cosmic-ray phenomena. Elementary particles known
must assign the same time to a given event, but he as mu-mesons, found in cosmic-ray showers, disinte-
produced cogent reasons why, in general, this hypoth- grate spontaneously, their average "proper lifetime"
esis should be rejected. (that is time from production to disintegration accord-
Einstein assumed that there are no instantaneous ing to an observer travelling with a meson) being about
connections between external events and the observer. two micro-seconds (two millionths of a second). These
The classical theory of time, with its assumption of particles are mainly produced at heights of about ten
worldwide simultaneity for all observers, in effect kilometers above the Earth's surface. Consequently,
presupposed that there were such connections. Instead, those in the laboratory on photographic
observed
Einstein postulated that the most rapid form of com- plates must have travelled that distance. But in two
munication is by means of electromagnetic signals (in micro-seconds a particle that travelled with the veloc-
vacuo), including light rays, and that their speed is the ity of light would cover less than a kilometer, and
same for all observers at relative rest or in uniform according to the theory of relativity all material parti-
relative motion. He regarded this assumption as a cles travel with speeds less than that of light. However,
consequence of the principle of special relativity (as the velocity of these particles has been found to be
it is now called) which asserts that the laws of physics so close to that of light that the time-dilatation factor
are the same for all such observers. He found that, is about ten, which is the amount required to explain
although the invariance of the velocity of light is com- whv it is that to the observer in the laboratory these
patible with the idea of worldwide simultaneity for particles appear to travel about ten times as far as they
all observers at relative rest, those in uniform relative could in the absence of this effect.
motion would, in general, be led to assign different Although the theory of relativity has undermined the
times to the same event and that a moving clock would classical concept of universal time, the same for all
appear to run slow compared with an identical clock observers, it has led to time-measurement's becoming
at rest with respect to the observer. even more significant than before in physics, since time
It is well known that Einstein's theory automatically standards are now tending to be regarded as primary
explained the failure of the Michelson-Morley experi- standards for spatial as well as for temporal measure-
ment for measuring the Earth's velocity through the ment. This is because the theory leads us to reject the
luminiferous aether and has been successful in explain- classical rigid body concept, since it implies the in-
ing many other results that could not be accounted stantaneous transmission of a disturbance through the
for in the classical theory of time. The phenomenon bodv from one end to the other, and this is incom-
of the apparent slowing down of a clock in motion patible with the basic assumption that no signal can
relative to the observer is called "time dilatation. "
It measurement
travel faster than light. Instead of spatial
is essentially a phenomenon of measurement applicable depending on the idea of the rigid body, it can be based
to all forms of matter and is a reciprocal effect: if A on the radar principle. According to this, distance is
and B are two observers in uniform relative motion, measiued in terms of the time taken by light (or other
B's clock seems to A to run slow and equally A's clock electromagnetic signals) to traverse it. This technique
seems to run slow according to B. This reciprocity no is now being used by radio astronomers to redetermine
longer holds, however, if forces are applied to change the scale of the solar system.
the motion of one of the observers. In particular, if Although the laws of nature do not enable us to
A and B are together at some instant and at a later define a local standard of rest, in principle this can
instant the motion of B is suddenly reversed so that be determined by the bulk distribution of matter in
he eventually comes back to A with the same speed, the universe. According to most current cosmological
the time that elapses between the instant at which B theories, there is at each place in the universe a prefer-
left A and the instant when he returns to A will be ential time-scale for the description of the universe,
shorter according to B's clock than according to As. being that associated with the local standard of rest,
Consequently, although we accept Isaac Barrow's view and these local time-scales all fit together to form one
that "Time is the continuance of anything in its own worldwide cosmic time. It is with reference to this that
being, " the special theory of relativity prevents our we can give objective meaning to such concepts as the
agreeing with him unconditionally when he went on age of the Earth, the age of the solar system, the age
to say "nor do I anyone but allows
believe there is of our Galaxy, and the age of the universe. Thus,
that those things existed equal times which rose and despite the theory of relativity, we can still retain the
perished together." concept of a unique cosmic time-scale for our descrip-
Empirical evidence that can only be understood in tion of the physical universe and the dating of events. 405
TOTALITARIANISM
BIBLIOGRAPHY totalitarianism became increasingly controversial after

the transformations following Stalin's death (1953).
The subject of time and measurement is discussed at
length with many references in G. Whitrow, The Natural Comparison of past Fascist regimes and evolving
J.
Philosophy of Time (London, 1961; New York. 1963). The Communist systems posed many new problems of in-
history of practical time-measurement is outlined in F. \. B. terpretation and methodology. This comparison was
—
Ward, Time Measurement Part I: Historieal Review, 4th even more complicated by the fact that after World
ed. (London, 1958). A more popular account is given in War II, when most of the standard works on totali-
F. le Lionnais, Time, trans. W. D. O'Gorman, Jr. (London, tarianism were published, the discussion became
1962), A classic work on ancient methods of time- closely related to the confrontations of the cold war.
measurement is M. P. Nilsson, Primitive Time-Reckoning Hence, many mid-centiu-y critics denounced totalitar-
(Lund, 1920). A good short account will be found in the
ianism as a purely polemical term, an instrument of
chapter by E. R. Leach. "Primitive Time-Reckoning" in A
anti-ideology rather than a useful means of political
History of Technology, ed. C. Singer et al., Vol. I (O.xford,
analysis.
1954). Chinese views are discussed by |. Needham, Titne
Though this growing criticism of the concept of
and Eastern Man (London, 1965). See also J.
Needham et
al., Heavenly Clockwork (Cambridge, 1960). Maya achieve- totalitarianism refers to specific contemporary constel-
ments in time-measurement are described by J. E. S. lations as well as to deep differences between Fascism
Thompson, The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization (Norman. and Communism, the fact remains that modern dic-
Okla., 1956). Ancient ideas on time are discussed by S. G. F tatorship in its most elaborate forms is an important
Brandon, History, Time and Deity (New York, 1965); M. topic of comparative analysis. The search for common
Eliade, Cosmos and History: the Myth of the Eternal Return, features and for a general theory explaining the struc-
trans. W. R. Trask (New and J, F. Callahan,
York, 19.59); ture and practice of such regimes has not only pro-
Four Views of Time in Ancient Philosophy (Cambridge, duced a wealth of pertinent material and inter-
Mass., 1948). Greek ideas are briefly discussed by G. J.
pretations, but at the same time has sharpened the eye
Whitrow, "The Concept of Time from Pythagoras to .\ris-
for similarities and differences alike. This results in
totle," in Proceedings VUI International Congress of the
efforts to distinguish various types of totalitarianism
History of Science (Ithaca. N.Y., 1962; Paris, 1964). The
invention of the mechanical clock is discussed by C. M.
rather than completely to abolish the idea itself. Com-
CipoUa, Clocks and Culture. 1300-1700 (London, 1967). mimist theory has of course never adopted the term
Ideas on time in different civilizations are described in in its general sense but has always aimed at expanding
various chapters of The Voices of Time, ed. J.
T. Fraser (New the notion of Fascism by applying it very broadly to
York, 1966). non-Communist states and "capitalistic "
societies of
The quotations of .Aristotle are from Aristotle, Physica. various forms.
trans. R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gave, in The Works of Aristotle. Aside from such ideological and propagandistic con-
ed. W. D. Ro.ss, Vol. II (Oxford, 1930). The cultural influence seems important whenever
troversies, another question
of the mechanical clock in modern civilization is discussed the concept of totalitarianismis discussed in a compar-
by Lewis Mumford in Technics and Civilization (New York
ative analysis. The question is whether the structure
and London, 1934), Ch. 1.
and workings of "totalitarian" regimes can be seen as
G. J.
WHITROW basically chfferent from "classical" dictatorship, i.e.,
Cosmology; Cycles; Music

[See also Astrology; Continuit) ;
despotism or tyranny as described time and again since
and Science; Newton on Method; Number; Pythagorean the days of Plato and Aristotle. Most definitions of
Doctrines; Relativity; Space; Time.] totalitarianism concentrate on the fact that modern
dictatorship tends to an extreme model of centralized,
imiform control of all provinces of political, social, and
intellectual life. This tendency leads far beyond older
forms of absolutism and autocracy. A phenomenon of
the twentieth century, totalitarianism is seen as pri-
TOTALITARIANISM marily conditioned and facilitated by modern industrial-
ism and technology in the "age of the ma.sses." Modem
/. CONTROVERSIAL DEFINITIONS organization, communication, and propaganda offer
In the strict sense of terminology, the concept of the means for all-embracing controls, for total mobil-
Totalitarianism originated with and was applied to izing, and for terrorist regimentation (Cleichschaltting)
Fascism in Italy, to National Socialism in Germany, of the life and thinking of every citizen as never before
and to tlie consolidation of Stalinism in Russia. Related in history.
to a specific form and state of modem dictatorship as As a political system, totalitarianism appears to be
developed during the 1920's and '.30's the concept of a concrete product of the crises following World War
TOTALITARIANISM
I. emergence of Fascism and National Socialism

TTie of veiling and legalizing differed. As to the second
Commimism is clearly bound to the politi-
as well as of question, the situation seems reversed: Fascist and Nazi
cal and socioeconomic results and to the ideological self-interpretation largely endorsed totalitarianism,
confrontations associated with the war and its after- while Communist ideology tended to avoid totalitarian
math. At the same time, all the regimes tending to terminology in justifying the claim for exclusive power;
government are distinguished from
totalitarian forms of but this made little difference as soon as Stalin suc-
older forms of absolutism and dictatorship by their ceeded in supplanting party Rile by one-man leader-
ambiguous relation to modem democracy. While prin- ship. The third question evidently poses the main
cipally opposed to a pliualistic system of representative problems. Even Fascism and National Socialism show
parliamentarism, such regimes claim a higher form of different stages of development, the Italian version
popular government and democratic legitimacy. This lasting almost twice as long; yet both ended prema-
is demonstrated in the staged approval by plebiscite turelv, by a military defeat from outside effecting the
or acclamation of the acts of a Leader or of a monopoly death of the Leaders. On the other hand, the Stalin
partv claiming to represent the volonte generate ("gen- regime was one important stage in a much longer
eral will") in state and society. Different as the his- process; after 1953, adherence to the Leader gave way
torical conditions, the social and national framework, again to one-party rule.
the ideological positions and aims mav be, the common From such observations, the prime importance of
denominator of totalitarianism is to be found in the Party-Leader relations for determining the type of
methods and practice of Riling, in the techniques of dictatorship becomes evident. Moreover, any definition
domination. and application of the concept of totalitarianism de-
First of all, totalitarian regimes deny the right of pends on which historical frame of reference is used.
existence to competing political parties and groups as In this respect three main groups of interpretation may
well as to individual freedom; tolerating autonomous be noticed. The one confines totalitarianism to the
sectors of life and culture would be a contradictio in period from 1922 to 1953, reaching from Mussolinis
adjecto. While the ideological superstructure may aim advent to Stalin's death. Another school of thought
at a higher, definite form of freedom for all, the actual emphasizes the Fascist character of totalitarianism,
consequence is the abolition of personal liberties and with the consequence of either limiting it to the
the negation of all activities outside the state with "Fascist period" between the wars, or even extending
respect to the regime. Individuals and groups are to it to all "fascistoid" tendencies and right-wing dicta-
be integrated into a closed, compulsory system defined torships before or after World War II. In a much
in terms of a future order of state and society, and broader sense, totalitarianism is defined as a tendency
dynamized by an ideological sense of mission for a inherent in all modem states aiming at a perfectionist
greater nation, a better race, a dominating class. This management of socioeconomic crisis, and development
corresponds to the total monopoly of the government by means of political and ideological monopoly of
by a party, political clique, or a Leader. Decorated power, be it in the name of capitalist or socialist
with the attributes of infallibility, these supreme rulers one-way solutions. This last interpretation seems more
demand a pseudoreligious worship by the masses; the appropriate to a comparative analysis asking for com-
party — or the Leader— is always right, constitutes the mon traits in the exercise and sanction of power.
new dogma of a total consensus, a complete identity Totalitarian politics can indeed be reduced to a
between leadership and population. syndrome of traits based on four main arguments that
The ideal-type definition of totalitarianism offers of characterize the sociopolitical structiu'e and the ideo-
course no more than a framework for a concrete anal- an official ideology
logical justification of a system: (1)
ysis; but this is true for the concepts of social and of exclusive and comprehensive claim based upon rad-
political science in general. There are three main in- ical rejection of some aspects of the past and chiliastic
dices by which similarities and differences among claims for the futiue; (2) a centralized, unitary mass
totalitarian dictatorships may be measured: how they movement claiming classless equality but organized
come to power, how they interpret themselves, and hierarchically as a single, monopolistic party under
how they develop, when compared with other tran- authoritarian leadership; (3) full control of the means
sitory or developmental dictatorships. of communication and coercion; and (4) the bureau-
As to the first question, a distinction has been made cratic direction, via state control or socialization, of
between pseudolegal (Fascist) and revolutionary (Com- the economy and social relations. While a more differ-
mimist) seizure of power; yet in all cases a Putschist, entiated view of totalitarian politics no longer keeps
coup d'itat technique in completing the process of to the fiction of a monolithic, conflict-free rule, the
power seizure was at work, while the degree and form distinction between modem and "classical" dictator- 4U /
TOTALITARIANISM
ship remains clear: absolute, exclusive ideology, legal- totalitarian-etatist (as presented dogmatically by Mus-
ized terror justified by chiliastic promises, control of solini's Hegelian Philosopher-Minister G. Gentile) and
state and society by means of force, the forming of the totalitarian activist (leading into imperialist and
a "new man" to arise from such a perfect order, the finally even racist radicalism) are present in the con-
negation of further conflicts and the suppression of cept of totalitarian policy. German National Socialism,
opposition in favor of ideo-political unity and techno- though under different national conditions, demon-
logical efficiencv, and the irrational equation of oli- strates a similar combination of state-absolutist and
garchical leadership with the interests of the "whole," radical-absolutist revolutionary elements. But while the
the Volksgemeinschaft ("commimity of the people") or Hitler regime realized a dictatorship of utmost radical
the workers and peasant class. consequence, the rhetorical use and the philosophical
exposition of the idea of totalitarianism remained a
H. HISTORICO-POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT domain of the Italian fascists, whether it was concen-
The and the main stages of the idea of totali-
origins trating on the etatist-institutional or (after 1933 and
tarianism reflect the problems of interpretation and the influenced by the triumph of National Socialism in
controversies surrounding the use of the term in social Germany) on the dynamic radical-revolutionary mean-
science, history, and philosophy. From the beginning, ing of the concept. The leading role of the party as
the concept of the total or totalitarian state and regime a "movement," the continuation of a revolution never
isbasic to Fascism and remains so, while its transfer completed but in fact permanent was stressed, as
and application to Communist systems, i.e., the analogy against the traditional party and state structure.
of a rightist and leftist totalitarianism poses manifold On the other hand, since the term "totalitarianism"
problems. Earlier use of the term is rare and vague; was applied by critical observers very early (1928) to
the "total war" signifies, in the period from the French both Fascism and Communism, its comparative use was
Revolution (Robespierre) to World War I (LudendorfF) not merely a product of the cold war after 1945, as
and II (Goebbels), the levee en masse ( "universal con- critics of the term have suggested. Distinction should
scription") in its most radical form; Totalitdt ("organic be made between the use of the term (negatively) by
wholeness or unity") is ascribed to the idea of the state liberal analysts (like G. H. Sabine, 1937) or (positively)
by Hegel or Adam Miiller; "total revolution" is occa- by political movements and systems posing as totali-
sionally to be found in the writings of Marx and tarian: most emphatically Italian Fascism, National
Lassalle. Socialism chiefly during the first years of the Third

Yet Italian Fascism, for the first time, transformed Reich (Hitler himself preferred the word autoritar).
such general notions into the systematic terms totali- Communists reduced the phenomenon of totalitarian-
tario and totalitarieta that were to describe and proph- ism to the confrontation of revolutionary and counter-
esy a radically new political phenomenon; the unity revolutionary systems. The Fascist theory of totalitar-
of theory and action, of organization and consent in ianism in turn has never recognized the Soviet Union
state and society alike. It was Mussolini who first (and as a totalitarian state, but instead as a class dictatorship
then repeatedly) applied the idea in this sense to the radically opposed to the Fascist idea of a unified and
Fascist state, in a speech of October 28, 1925: Tutto classless society.
nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato. nulla contro Germany, different from Italy, the idea of a "total
In
lo Stato ("Everything in the State, nothing outside the state" was developed before the Nazi seizure of power
State, nothing against the State"). This formula was, (and even outside the Nazi Party) by political lawyers
however, more than simply extreme etatism; at the and theorists like Carl Schmitt; it was the antiliberal,
same time Mussolini and other leading Fascists pro- antipluralistic consequence of a parliamentary democ-
claimed their /eroce volonta totalitaria ("violent totali- racy in crisis, the Weimar Republic. In the crucial
tarian will") and talked about the "totalitarian program period of 1932-33 this concept of a strong, monocratic
of our Revolution." state was appUed to the new reality of the Hitler
What this early vocabulary of Fascism meant, is regime. Yet for this very reason, after an initial inflation
above all a political style of violence, determination, of writings on the total state, it never became official
unconditional and absolute action, of radical demands doctrine (as in Fascism). Some protagonists of state
and intolerance. The dual aspects of the idea of totali- absolutism were even suspected of contradicting the
tarianism are clearlv visible here, as later on, in other revolutionary and racist dynamism of National Social-
non-Italian contexts: not only full and absolute power, ism.
but also a political dynamism based on dictatorial On the other hand, the structure and pohtics of the
decision and permanent action, as an emanation and Third Reich corresponded, as no other dictatorial sys-
408 confirmation of unlimited power. Both aspects, the tem, to the idea of totalitarian organization, power.
TOTALITARIANISM
and ideology. In fact, since the rise of the SS-state over basic structural elements of modern, post-democratic
the traditional state and legal system, the wartime dictatorship, independent of its self-interpretation as
regime of National Socialism with its policy of mobili- radical or progressive, democratic or revolutionary, left
zation and expansion, of persecution, terror, and exter- or right.
mination, of a declared "total war" was meant to be
as totalitarian as possible, even though the result was III. POSSIBILITIES OF APPLICATION
a guided chaos. Totalitarian order and efficiency turned As a critical concept to compare and analyze modern
out to consist of a system of arbitrary decisions and dictatorships, the idea of totalitarianism cannot be
a state-party dualism, under the sole will of the Leader. defined by a philological compilation of the uses and
But if the idea of the monolithic order of the totali- cormotations of the term. Yet most attempts at a typol-
tarian Leader system did not correspond to reality, it ogy comprising the main elements of totalitarian sys-
still was real as the principle dominating the reorga- tems have foundered on the contradiction between
Much as we know today
nization of state and society. historicaland systematic analysis. This criticism has
about the chaotic, improvised state of the Third Reich, been directed against the well-known theory of Carl
its basic drive toward totalitarian organization and mo- J.
Friedrich and Z. K. Brzezinski: its rigid form is easily
bihzation still presents the most appropriate point of attacked on the gromid that more differentiated em-
departirre for an analysis of National Socialism. pirical evidence does not fit into the axiomatic scheme.
Does this Leader principle also hold true after a Evidently modem dictatorship cannot be reduced to
critical analysis of the Stalinist system? Communist a few variables. A synopsis of various typologies rang-
theory never adopted the terminology of totalitarian- ing from Sigmund Neumann, Franz
L. Neumann, and
ism to explain or legitimize the rule of the dictator Hannah Arendt to Robert Tucker and Leonard
or the alleged dictatorship of the proletariat. But the Schapiro would offer a wider range of features and
idea to represent a more perfect, true form of democ- variables for comparisons capable of dealing with sys-
racy, at times even claimed by Hitler, does not in itself tems of very different historical and intellectual, eco-
contradict the totalitarian character of a political nomic and social conditions. Such a typology, while
movement or system. Indeed totalitarianism differs operating on various levels of comparison, presents a
from former types of dictatorship by its capacity to more complicated, less perspicuous picture than the
handle democratic formulas and fictions, while using gross equation of Fascist and Communist systems. But
all the possibilities of modern communication and it remains the only way to reconcile social theory and
technology to manipulate the consent or submission historical evidence, and to save the concept of totali-
of the masses. This pseudodemocratic base of totalitarianism as a useful tool from its uncritical friends
tarian systems should however not be mistaken for and its adversaries alike.
reality, as is done by both conservative critics who This means first of all that there can be no short
explain totalitarianism simply as the consequence of definition of totalitarianism that will cover the pioneer
democracy, and by apologists of Communist or Fascist example of the idea. Fascist Italy, together with
systems who praise the "democratic" quality of plebi- Hitlerism and Stalinism. Instead certain features can
scites and acclamations. The very fact that the ruling be discerned as "typical," which then or now may also
clique or leader seek to legitimize their dictatorship be discerned in other dictatorships (in Latin America,
by appeals to mass support does not prove the demo- the Balkans, Spain, and notably China). The most im-
cratic quality of a regime but signifies the specific form portant characteristic remains, in all cases, the extraor-
of mass dictatorship in a democratic age. Thus the dinary position of the Leader. His rise is of course
range of the idea of totalitarianism is not only a matter bound to the general conditions allowing for dictatorial
of definition but depends on the question, whether it rule, but the character of a totalitarian system is un-
is restricted to systems that proclaim to be (or become) thinkable apart from Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, or
totalitarian, or extended as a tool of critical analysis Franco and Mao. They rank above
as historical forces
and comparison, to dictatorial systems with a different any other factor, including ideology or doctrine which
vocabulary and dogma. In the first case, the idea of they use at will; this applies also to the use of Marxism
totalitarianism would be no more than a rather curious by Stalin, quite contrary to attempts to distinguish
piece of exaggerated power philosophy, typical of the principally between Fascist and Communist systems
self-styled superman attitude of Mussolini's Fascism, on the ground of their profound ideological differences.
with little explanatory value as to the working of the Hitler's neglect or violation of basic ideas of National
Fascist system, and even less of the Hitler regime. In Socialism or the contradictory insertion of a Leader
the second case, however, the idea of totalitarianism cult into Marxism is ample proof of the dominating,
must be further developed to signify and explain the all-important role of the Leader; it is typical also of 409
—
TOTALITARIANISM
his relationship to the (allegedly omnipotent) party as service of the "whole" to which totalitarian ideology
well as to all other agencies of power and influence. is geared.
Either by purges or through the tactics of dhide et It has become clear how important in this connec-
impera, the Leader maintains a monopoh' position tion the pseudodemocratic appearance must be for a
least successfully defended by Mussolini — that makes regime claiming To uphold the fiction
total consent.
all authority derive from and depend on his arbitrary of a volonte generale embodied in the regime of one
will, and not even on the will of the seemingly omnip- leader and one party, as opposed to the empirical truth
otent one party. that difiêrent individuals and groups naturally ask for
It is the "Leader" state, indispensable as the one- representation in different parties and power agencies,
party system may be for any totalitarian regime, that a totalitarian regime could not be satisfied with older
determines the real power structure of such dictator- techniques of autocratic rule by military repression or
ship, whatever qualities mav be ascribed to its aims, religious sanction. It is only by ruling in the name of
or doctrines. Here more than anvAvhere else the com- the people that modern dictatorship can expect the
mon totalitarian rationale is superior to any distinctions more or less voluntary support of the masses which
made between left or right, progressive or reactionary is necessary for large-scale mobilization and effective
regimes. One may indeed conclude that the totalitarian functioning. This is helped by the extensive use of
character which allows for close comparison of differ- modem propaganda, concentrating mainly on the
ent regimes dependent on a cluster of forces in which
is glorification of the Leader and on the manipulation
the Leader supersedes party and ideology; conse- of his charismatic and pseudoreligious qualities. Among
quently, Leninist or post-Stalinist dictatorship has to the basic preconditions of totalitarian dictatorship
be defined in more specific terms. ranges the pseudodemocratic fiction that by mass
The same applies to the unlimited power of the meetings and other emotional processes of communi-
Leader versus state and law. This explains the typical cation the individual is directly linked to, and repre-
coe.vistence of extremely arbitrary acts with adminis- sented by, the Leader — without the need of interme-
trative and legal continuity, in the sense of a "dual diate agencies like free parliaments or interest groups:
state" (E. Fraenkel) in which order and chaos, stability it is the fiction of direct mass democracy.
and revolution form a pair. In reality, such a dualism In conclusion, the justification and usefulness of the
was only tolerated to provide pseudolegal cover for concept of totalitarianism seems quite independent of
arbitrary actions, with no legal security or predicta- the occasional misuse of the term in the service of cold
bility available outside the will of the Leader. This was war and other propaganda. If there is no doubt about
clearly the case in both the Hitler and the Stalin re- some basic differences between Fascism and Commu-
gimes, with only superficial differences of more pseudo- nism in the realm of ideological goals and social policy,
legal (the German tradition) or more revolutionary the distinction between right and left totalitarianism
camouflage; again Mussolini, while following the same is much harder to establish in the actual working of
line, was least successful in view of the powerful rem- systems like the Hitlerian or Stalinist; at the same time,
nants of monarchy and church in Italy, despite his the similarities of basic features of rule are striking.
regime. While those systems seem to be a matter of the past
Another important feature also distinguishing totali- and history may not repeat itself, basic components
tarian systems from older forms of dictatorship, is the of the idea of totalitarianism remain present in our age
degree to which individual and private life is controlled of democracy, of mass movements and profound social
and subjugated to a "new morality" of collective be- change. This is a potential to be mobilized by future
havior. The regime demands quite openly the complete Leaders whenever social crisis, emotional need for
politicizing of all realms of life, and its success in security, and ideological conviction, and the hunger
performing this part of totalitarian control reveals the for power coincide in the belief that only by concen-
degree to which the regime is able to realize its claim trating all forces in one power agency and by com-
to fuse state and society, party and people, individual pletely subduing individual freedom to the chiliastic
and collective into the ideal of total unitv. It is here promises of a political movement and its deified
that ideology aims to perform its central function: to leaders, can the problems of modem society be solved.
justify or even glorify the violation and abolition of In this way, the idea of totalitarianism is not a phe-
existing laws and morals in favor of higher goals of nomenon of the past bound to the unique constellation
national and racist, or social
and class-oriented ideals of the interwar period, but is part of the modernizing
ofcommunity, again in the sense of a totality of means process of nations and societies in the age of mass
and ends superseding individual sacrifices and sub- democracy, bureaucracy, and pseudorehgious ideolo-
410 limating terror and crime when they are used in the gies.
TRAGIC, SENSE OF THE
BIBLIOGRAPHY tive; man himself is involved in it in a manner different

from the theorist's impersonal study of the datum. This
A. Aquarone, L'oTganizzazione dello Stato totalitario
(Turin, 1965). H. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2nd complexity may be expressed by observing that the
ed. (New York, 1957). J.

The Politics of Totali-
A. Armstrong. struggle against evil may become ironic. For the evil
tarianism (New York, 1961). R. Aron, D&mocratie et totali- is often in one's self; or it may be identified with the
tarisme (Paris, 1964). K. D. Bracher, The German Dictator- world to which one owes one's being, or with an
ship (New York, 1970); idem, with W. Sauerand G. Schulz, unnamed and mysterious power in the world. Tragic
Die ruitionalsozialistische Machtergreifung (Koln, 1962). action in its generic sense is an ironic struggle with
Z. K. Brzezinski,Vie Permanent Purge (Cambridge, Mass., evil.
1956); idem. Ideology and Power in Soviet Politics (New Irony is understood here to be ambiguity in speech
York, 1962). H. Buchheim, Totalitdre Herrschaft (Munich,
or human action used for purposes of communication.
1962). N. Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millenium (London,
An evil event becomes ironic when its ambiguous
1957). W. Ebenstein, Totalitarianism (New York, 1962). M.
character is perceived and used. The peculiar tragic
Fainsod, How Russia is Ruled, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.,
character of the protagonist's struggle turns upon his
1963). E. Fraenkel, The Dual State (New York, 1941). C. J.
Friedrich, ed.. Totalitarianism (Cambridge, Mass., 1954); perception of evil and upon his possible creative use
idem, with Z. K. Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and of it. Therefrom follows the characteristic salvation of
Autocracy, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1965); idem, "The the tragic hero, his victory in defeat. This use of the
Changing Theory and Practice of Totalitarianism," /( Po- evil in the struggle against it was recognized by
litico, 33 (1968), 53ff. D. L. Germino, The Italian Fascist Aristotle in his account of the fimction of tragedy as
Party in Power (MinneapoHs, 1959). J. A. Gregor, The Ideol- means of pity and
the catharsis of pity and terror by
ogy of Fascism (New York, 1969). W. Komhauser, The Poli- 1449b 25-30). Hegel suggests the same
terror {Poetics,
tics of Mass Society (London, 1960). W. Laqueur and G.
recognition when he remarks that the tragic hero
Mosse, eds. International Fascism 1920-1945 (New York,
plucks for himself the fruit of his own deeds.
1966). A. G. Meyer, The Soviet PoUHcal System (New York,
The most notable Western interpretations of the evil
1965). B. Moore, Socio/ Origins of Dictatorship and Democ-
involved in dramatic encounter are the Tragic, the
racy (New York, 1966). F. L. Neumann, Behemoth, 2nd ed.
(New York, 1944). S. Neumann, Permanent Revolution (New Orphic, and the Christian. The first of these, as the
York, 1942). G. H. Sabine, A History of Political Theory (New title suggests, has become standard or typical. The
York, 1937). L. Schapiro, "The Concept of Totalitarianism," diversified forms of the tragic can be regarded as
Survey, No. 73 (1969), 93ff.; idem, with J.
W. Lewis, "The envisaging human action, according to a characteristic
Roles of the Monolithic Party under the Totalitarian pattern or form, in the several contexts which are
Leader," China Quarterly, 40 (1969), 39ff.; idem. The Origin determined by these three ways of understanding evil.
of the Communist Autocracy (London, 1955). B. Seidel and
S. Jenker, eds., Wege der Totalitarismus-Forschung (Darm- THE PATTERN OF TRAGEDY
stadt, 1968). Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian De-
L.
J.
Aristotle understood a tragedy to be an artificial
mocracy (Boston, 1952); idem, Political Messianism (New
Mind (New
thing, an imitation (mimesis) of the nature of man
York, 1960). R. C. Tucker, The Soviet Political
York, 1963); idem, "The Dictator and Totalitarianism,"
coming to mature self-realization. This dramatic doc-
World Politics, 17 (1965), 555ff. trine should be interpreted within Aristotle's meta-
physics and is skillfully replaced in this context by K.
KARL DIETRICH BRACHER
Telford (1965, pp. 89f.). An actual and complete human
[See also Authority; Crisis in History; Democracy; Despo- action must, Aristotle held, have a certain magnitude
tism; Nation; State.] or significance. It is a whole having concrete parts.
These parts, beginning, middle, and end {Poetics, 1450b
26f.), occur in temporal succession and can be under-
stood as a unity by reference to a principle.
The principles of necessity {av6cyia}) and likelihood
SENSE OF THE TEAGIC (to EtK69, 1451b If.) are exhibited in the definitions of
the three parts of an action. The beginning of an action
The term "tragic" has always referred to some aspect is not altogether necessitated by preceding events but
of man's concrete involvement with evil and with his is reasonably (probably) followed by other events. The
effort to comprehend and to deal with it. As theory

it end is necessitated by all that precedes and is followed
is to data, so the theory of evil might be thought to by no further part of that action. The middle is both
be related to tragedy. But a caution must be sounded, necessitated by what precedes and points with proba-
for evil is not an objective datum, as it were, presented bility to subsequent events. A man's action, consisting
for our inspection and understanding. It is also subjec- in his free decision and its consequences up to a termi- 411
nal effect, would satisfy these conditions. The conse- descriptive of a great many, if not all, tragedies. To
quence of a decision can be foreseen only with proba- take one instance: in Sophocles' Antigone, both Creon
bility, but once enacted the decision takes its place and .Antigone move through the pattern; but the insight
in the necessary order and exercises compelling power of the play as a totality lies in the evident point that
upon the present. This nece.ssity in its action upon the although each may be justified in his own course of
protagonist acquires the terrifying force of fate. action, no reconciliation between the two is possible;
Aristotle mav be interpreted to hold that the appro- there is no just universe which includes both.
priate pleasure of tragedy follows upon a catharsis of There are other accounts of the pattern of tragic
the audience's emotions of pity and fear (and like action. Gilbert Murray develops an elaborate one in
emotions) effected by means of the dramatic pres- "An Excursus on the Ritual Forms Preserved in Greek
entation of incidents involving pity and fear. Pity is Tragedy" contributed to TJiemis by Jane Harrison
a human reaction to events which awaken our sympa- (Cambridge, 1917). Kenneth Burke describes his un-
thy, or an inclination to identify one's self with the derstanding of the tragic rhythm in terms of "purpose,
personages caught up in these events. Terror is the passion, perception" in A Grammar of Motives (New
concurrent reaction to that which repels or overawes. York [1945], pp. 38f.); cf. also Francis Fergusson, The
Bv awakening the audience's pitv the poet induces the Idea of a neater (Princeton [1949], Ch. I). These
audience to participate in the terror which the pro- accounts are not inconsistent with the one presented
tagonist also senses. This is terror in the face of fate. here. The "three unities," however, which express what
Hence the audience comes to share to some degree the neo-classic authors learned from Aristotle by way
in the heroic manner in which the protagonist con- of J.
C. Scahger (Poetics, 1561) and L. Castelvetro
fronts this fearful fate. The peculiar quality of the (Poetics, 1570), communicate only a superficial grasp
hero's suffering both attracts and repels the audience of this pattern.
and readjusts its inclinations to approach the humanly The tragic view of life may, up to this point, be
attractive and from evil.
to flee said to be the faith, or at least the hope, that the
It is essential now to determine how to recognize struggle will indeed be followed by an insight which
the completeness of an action involving the piteous will illuminate the decision or reaffirm the value of
and the terrible. This action must have a beginning, the stniggle, even though the value may be affirmed
a middle, and an end, and be unified by the principles onlv in an ironic sense. However, this faith or this hope,
of necessity and likelihood. In .Aristotle's favorite expressed in so abstract a manner, scarcely does justice
drama, the Oedipus Rex of Sophocles, these three parts to the hero's motivation to embark upon the tragic
are easy to recognize. Briefly, the beginning is Oedipus' action. Moreover, this pattern may be discovered in
identification of himself as the father of his family, the other kinds of action; thus, it is not sufficient to define
just king of Thebes, able and obligated to rid Thebes the tragic sense.
of the plague, sign of the gods' displeasure. The middle
is the struggle to retain this character and also to effect TRAGIC ACTION
the desired riddance. The end comes with his self- For a fuller imderstanding of the nature of the tragic
recognition as an offense to the gods and the cause struggle we must turn to the evil which precipitated
of the plague through his foretold and foreordained it or which emerges from it. The situation is as if the
incest and patricide. Thus, the drama moves through tragedian had asked himself: Why is man involved with
a decision concerning identity and role, a struggle to the evils of the world? Why does man seem to suffer
retain this identity and role, and an end or insight into unjustly? Then the poet seeks an answer to these ques-
the erroneously and arrogantly assumed identity and tions by placing heroic men in extreme situations, those
role. The completeness of the action may be inter- demanding the utmost of human exertion and wisdom,
preted as the return of the end to the begirming, a in order to see what emerges of value and what human
return in which the past is seen to bear unexpectedly wisdom can make of the evil. The tragic artist, of
upon the present yet in a manner which is in accord course, must work within a context which is already
with fate. A complete action of this kind must be structured by a number of beliefs. The most pertinent
distinguished from a series of events which is merely of these beliefs concern the human being and his fate,
calamitous, pathetic, or piteous but which is not his relation to the world, and his involvement with
accompanied by an insight, for the insight which others. Such contexts, bearing upon the tragic sense,
reevaluates the series of events or sets it into a new can most easily be specified by reference to the myths
perspective is essential. about the nature of evil which are characteristic of
Variations upon this pattern of decision, struggle, and each belief. We shall, therefore, examine the tragic
412 insight-laden return to the decision are demonstrably sense in its relation to three different myths concerning
the nature of evil: the Ancient Greek (or Tragic), appropriateness, for it accords with the movement of
Orphic, and Christian. the whole history of tragedy, to involve others in the
1. Ancient Greek Tragedy: The Dionysian Vision. hero's struggle and epiphanv. Aeschylus and Sophocles
The Greek understanding of the nature of evil and illustrate e.speciallv well the quasi-religious character
man's relation to around the notion of fate

it cluster of the hero's trial, purifying insight, and its often
or necessity. This compeHing element in human life revivifving public effect.
flows mainly from the past. Fate in the Homeric writ- Aeschylus made frequent references to the indiffer-
ings is an altogether obscure power, perhaps dominat- ence of the gods and the nonjustice or injustice of the
ing the gods (in its older form) or perhaps obedient events which they let occur. But he also makes explicit
to the gods. It is most important to recognize that this the law that the human good iswisdom and that wis-
fate is "noumenous or divine
related to the sense of "
dom is linked with suffering (e.g., Agamemnon, 160ff.).
power power had gone through the ethical

before that The Prometheus who can suffer without yielding to
phase of evolution which divided its good from its evil the injustice of Zeus is the true purveyor of wisdom
component. Both fate and the Homeric gods are in- to man. And Orestes, cursed before his birth by the
different to man's ideas of good or of justice. Precisely ciuse upon the house of Atreus, was condemned by
the nonhuman character of this power, a character the gods no matter what choice he would make, yet
which shades off into malevolence, is that which is he did not remain quiescent nor take refuge in suicide
terrible in itself and strikes terror to man's heart. but pressed active obedience to the limit and accepted
In addition, the gods are jealous and send evil fortime the consequent madness with the sacrificial fortitude
to the man of hybris who dares to rival or to challenge which led finallv to a change in tlie order of human
them. Hybris, although often translated as "pride, "
is justice. Sophocles dwelt upon the inscrutability of the
not felt as a sin. Yet it is a dangerous possession, for gods and of fate, yet he saw heroic virtue in learning
it dares much and is regarded by Aristotle as a flaw of the human status and in retaining it in spite of
of the heroic character. Hybris is the quality of self- misfortune.
confident greatness which makes for heroic virtue. It Euripides seemed to judge the gods to be irrational,
is mask of divinity which certain men tend to
the and hence he turned with the practicality of the
assume and which is destined to be torn from them Sophists to study man's struggle with other persons or
to expose the suffering humanity beneath. The presence with himself in his effort to dominate his own destruc-
of hybris in the persons of Hector, .'\chilles, or tive passions. His last play, the Baccliae. tells of Agave's
Agamemnon is their moving element. Such men are discovery of the destructive character of a Dionysian
often blinded by a jealous god and brought low ac- fertihty cult to which she was fondly attached.
cording to the standards of their world. The tragic Pentheus, her son, slain by her and the chorus, also
spirit appears in their struggle to remain themselves acquired a new evaluation of those passions which he
and to retain their human dignity despite their check- had mistakenly thought easy to civilize. Perhaps fate
mate by fate or bv the gods. Though they acknowledge becomes somewhat more humanized in this context,
their defeat by the gods or their domination by fate, but it seems to become Apollonian or perspicuous in
they transform this defeat and this domination into a principle onl)' with the philosophers.
kind of bitter victory. The hybris which was their The tragic vision of these writers, especially of
undoing is also the occasion of their heroism. Thus, Homer, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, has always been
within this context two elements are essential to tragic regarded as archetypal. The rationale of this evaluation
action; a fateful power, which is indifferent or hostile most likely lies in their intuition of the trans-human
to man, and a hero, one moved by hybris, who fears and altogether mysterious character of the evil to
this fateful power but yet is imdaunted by it. which some men are subject. The remark of Heraclitus
Aristotle and many recent writers regard tragedy as is descriptive of this trans-human quality: "To god all
a prolongation of the chthonic religion centered aroimd things are beautiful and good and just, both those which
the birth, life, and death of the god. Indeed the priest- men call just and those which they call unjust" (frag.
king, leader of the Dionysiac chorus and ritual scape- 61). The point is the inappropriateness to the divine
goat, is said to have evolved into the hero of tragedy. of metaphors and explanations drawn from human life
Such a leader is caught up in the inexorable movements and its conventional values. The source of the evil of
by which time is fulfilled. He is in an admirable posi- fate is external to man's being; it is visited upon men
tion for exhibiting the hybris and suffering the fate of by impersonal force or by the nonhuman gods. Such
man in conflict with the indifference of time and sea- an evil cannot be said to be deserved, nor to be excus-
sonal change. Even ff this genealogy of the tragic hero able in terms of some obscure cosmic justice, nor to
were historically incorrect, it would retain an aesthetic be explained away by a theodicy. But the significant 413
point is that certain of the men caught in this net are attitude of Mersault in Camus' L'£tranger or of
not passively resigned; they do not turn away in Bertrand Russell in "A Free Man's Worship. "
But again
neurotic flight: thev do not attempt to disguise their in modern times this fate or natural law is understood
suffering in pious platitudes. On the contrary, these tobe penetrable by the scientific intellect and even
men around whom the tragic net drawn become
is tobe determinable by technology. At the same time,
heroes. To a dark fate and to a superhuman malig- man is seen as just another sort of object within this
nancy, they oppose heroic virtue, the straightforward universe. Thus, he tends in some recent writing to lose
affirmation of human dignity and freedom. his unique status and his human value. He tends to
The tragic sense is traditionally best understood fade into the cosmic background of objects. Samuel
against the background of this cosmic evil. What good, Beckett's characters in Endgame or in Krapp's Last
what rationality, what order or justice there is does Tape appear to be losing their human identity, and in
not exist apart from man. And yet this impersonal and Robbe-Grillet's novels objects may be more important
irrational evil which brings unmerited suffering upon than people just because they are not people. This
a man is that which elicits liis heroic character and meaningless modem cosmos has lost its ironic charac-
brings him to those efforts which do build value, order, ter; likewise, modem man has lost his tragic resolution
rationality, and justice in the world. The inhuman evil and his hybris. He has become as meaningless as the
of the cosmos is, thus, ironic in that it is the source cosmos itself. Thus, if the literature of the absurd pre-
and provocation of human good. It is in the end only serves some awareness of the nonhuman character of
ambiguously evil. the cosmos, its writers do not communicate the con-
We shall return presently to elements of this classic viction that man retains the power of reaching tragic
view of tragedy which are present in other contexts. proportions within it.
We should first some recent opinions to

take note of 2. Orphic Evil and the Apollonian Vision. After the
the effect that tragedy of an even approximately Greek great tragedians' contemplation of a nonhuman power
kind can no longer be written at all, since the present of fate, power of this sort appears to become somewhat
climate of belief no longer nourishes the tragic sense. more perspicuous to the philosophers and their
Confidence in the power of technology to bring Apollonian minds. But although Plato asserted that
nature and fate itself under our control, to prolong Ufe philosophers produced the truest tragedies {Laws, VII,
indefinitely, to cure suffering, even mental anguish, and 817B), his meaning may perhaps be understood with
to relieve all human wants by means of applied science reference to the Orphic religion by which, according
have radically altered beliefs about the universe. They to some scholars, he was influenced. The Orphic reli-
have also changed human character. The consequence gion was a relatively late arrival upon the Greek scene
is that only pathos, not tragedy, is the burden of much and represents the evolution of religious feeling and
of recent literature. Nietzsche stands solidly with the concepts at a stage where the divine goodness had
view that the powerful Dionysiac conception of man become distinct from evil. According to the Orphic
and his relation to fate cannot be recaptured without dualistic myth, the gods are perfect and divine. And
radical and universal changes in human character (cf. in this respect the human psyche is homogeneous with
his Birth of Tragedy from The Spirit of Music). Still the gods; human evil is the consequence of the soul's
attempts to communicate a sense of the tragic do exist falling or straying away from its natural domain and
in modern times. To take an example, Thomas Hardy becoming imprisoned in the body. Thus the world of
attempted tragedy, but he is said to have offered only becoming, the body in particular, is the source of all
relatively quiescent actors caught in a fate made up evil and of all tragic action which responds to that
of unforeseen accidents and mechanical determination. evil. Philosophy offers that wisdom or gnosis which can
Again, Arthur Miller's Willy Loman, in Death of a free the soul from its prison and return it to its heaven.
Salesman, or the actors in Albee's Who's Afraid of Hence philosophy is the art of separating the soul from
Virginia Woolf have their illusions painfully stripped its body; it is the practice of death.
from them. But their illusions are said to be rather silly Socrates, who held that we err only through igno-
to begin with, and no one of them achieves a notable rance, and who believed heaven to be blameless, quite
insight into human destiny and freedom. reasonably turned his toward
efforts, in Republic, II,
On the other hand, one may speculate that contem- purging the ancient myths of elements which might
porary literature of the absurd represents a return to lead the youth astray. Suggestions of the gods' injustice,
something like the nonhuman cosmos of the Greek of their unconcern for human standards of virtue, of
tragedy. However, emphasis in modem times is cer- their double dealing, and of their jealousy in short, —
tainly placed upon the indifference rather than upon of all those traits which belonged to a Titanic and
414 the malignancy of fate; one remembers here the final uncivilized nature —were uncompromisingly censored
by Socrates. Plato's fanciful mathematics of the mar- the body came to appear as an inhuman evil that called
riage number (Republic, VIII, 546) suggests a convic- for an intransigeant affirmation of the human. The
tion of the basic Apollonian character of fate. But beginnings of such an assertion might be discerned in
undoubtedly Socrates' career best represents Plato's the medieval poem, ".Aucassin and Nicolette. "
Also it
feeling for the tragic. In the Apology, Crito, and Phaedo is possible to read Milton's epic. Paradise Lost, so that
Socrates is presented as reaffirming his life's decision Satan is its real protagonist. This Satan manifests heroic
to struggle against sophistry both within himself and dignity and virtue in his unequal combat with a frigidly
in others and as achieving again his insight that his perfect deity. Finally one may perceive a demytholo-
decision was a just one, that virtue is knowledge, and gized version of this Puritanism in reverse in some of
that the death which frees the soul from its prison is Bernard Shaw's writings. Evil in his plays, even in Saint
a good. Moreover, Socrates is presented as the artist Joan, has been leveled down to ignorance, egoism, and
of life; he has the art of manipulating circumstances middle-class hypocrisy. The virtues which he would
and of utilizing whatever misfortune occurs, even death inculcate are honesty and objectivity, and their pre-
itself, as a means for affirming the nobility and integrity condition is rejection of the "manufactured logic about
of the virtuous human soul. duty."
Even so, Apollo does not triumph completely within 3. The Universe of Christianity. The Christian tra-
the Platonic dialogues. God still withdraws his hand dition inherited the Hebraic ethical monotheism. The
from the tiller of the universe for one-half of the cycle Christian, devoted to the one and holy God, creator
of the Great Year (Politicus, 270A, 273). Also there of heaven and earth, experienced difficulty from the
remains a scandalous and irrational factor in the very beginning in reconciling this devotion with the
temporal world. With a dash of imagination one may fact of evil in creation. Happily, though, the myth of
see an intellectualized version of Dionysian madness Adam was at hand to indicate the human origin of
in the a-rational receptacle of the Titnaeus (48D f.), evil and to provide a basis for interpreting the begin-
which is the matrix of all becoming and the vessel of ning of history as the fall of the first Adam and the
the Demiurge's making. Tragedy for Plato, then, may culmination of history as the advent of the second
not be merely the simple drama of separating body Adam, the perfect man.
from soul, for the human soul too is made by the God's creation was, therefore, good; evil entered it
Demiurge. It is at best an imperfect imitation of ideal later with \dam's desire to be "as a god, knowing good
perfection and retains some tincture of the a-rational from evil." Evil, then, became man's doing, the result
character of the receptacle. In short, tragedy for Plato of his grandiose self-misidentification, of the conse-
is the failure to achieve human virtue, but this failure quent perversion of and of his losing struggle
his love,
involves a complex understanding and use of the a- to save himself. The might then be sup-
tragic spirit
rational element within the psyche itself. posed to be exhausted in the assertion of man's hope
The Gnostic dualism of soul and body passed into for a return to Grace and to his original being. And
the Christian West through Saint Paul and Neo- so it might appear in the writings of Saint Augustine,
Platonism and became allied with Stoic doctrine, espe- or of Dante, or in the medieval ecclesiastical drama.
cially the doctrine of virtue. This dualism of moral The tragic form at the least remains in the sequence
tragedy remains evident in persistently recurring of man's acceptance of his own opinion as truth and
Puritan traits, fear of the body, rejection of physical of his own desire as determinative of value, his failing
beauty, and reprobation of sensuousness and emotion- struggle to maintain this self-centered and autarchic
ality. Puritanism, however, as Nietzsche insisted, did conviction, and final insight, aided necessarily by the
not give birth to much of the kind of writing which gift of faith, into his creaturely dependence upon the
can easily be recognized as tragic. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Creator. In these terms each individual man as well
Progress is not a work of tragic art. However, Racine, as mankind are potential tragic actors.
schooled in Jansenism, may fairly be assigned a place This basically good Christian universe, however,
in this part of the tradition. In his theater, for instance, seems to fail in eliciting the range and possibility of
in Androtnaque or and
in Berenice, the rule of reason human heroism with the fullness achieved in the con-
morality triumphs over emotions, mainly the emotions text of Greek tragic thought. Christianity, in brief,
aroused by Venus. Racine's theater is a school of great- seems to define all but human evil out of existence.
ness of soul where the magnanimous soul succeeds in And man's tragic plight seems almost too easily
neutralizing passion, and in vindicating the aristocratic remedied by observance and discipline. Moreover,
conception of virtue. many facts do not seem to square with the Adamic
We should also take notice of a curious sort of re- account of evil. The suffering of animals and children
ver>ê effect in consequence of which the rejection of are instances in point, so also is the disproportionate 415
misery of a "just" war. It must be recalled, though, saved him. His evil plight he sees as internally deter-
that the Christian tradition and there are
is very rich, mined; his guilt is altogether his own.
in it elements which hark back to something like the Shakespeare, on the other hand, is not without a
Greek tragic sense. These elements ought not to be generous share of the ancient tragic spirit. This sense
ignored. is manifested, for example, in Hamlet and emphasized
Jaspers and others have argued that tragedy is no by the failure of generations of critics to pluck out
longer possible in a Christian universe, because evil the heart of his mystery. The rottenness of Denmark,
is transcended. Yet Adam's original sin remains to place the inconstancy of the Queen, and Hamlet's own
this transcendence into question. .According to this inability to determine the character of the evil and
doctrine Adam's guilt infected the essence of human and to the realm suggest
to restore health to himself
nature. It is the presupposition of all human acts and the mysterious and prehuman origin of this evil. As
cannot be considered to be the just desert of any man in Greek tragedy, the action acquires magnitude by
in the sense of being the appropriate consequence of itsinvolvement in the political order and even in the
his willed acts. In this respect, original sin bears some cosmic order. The kingdom participates in Hamlet's
analogy to the blindness visited by a god upon the struggle with fate and might be reinvigorated by his
Greek hero. dauntless though failing efforts. However, to see in
Still another possibly older apprehension of the na- Fortinbras, who would tempt fortune "even for an
ture of evil present in Christianity can be discovered eggshell," the hope for victory in defeat may be a thin
within the Adamic myth. There, it will be recalled, hope. No doubt there will always be something rotten
an accoimt of Adam's was offered which carried
fall in Denmark. King Lear also suffers disproportionately
his decision back to other beings. Thus, Adam was not judgment. His time of trial in the storm
for his errors of
alone in guilt, for he was tempted by Eve, who had on the heath suggests the mysterious and cosmic char-
been tempted by the serpent, who in turn had been acter of the fate which has caught him up. To his
inspired by Satan. Now it is quite possible to suppose anguished question, "Is man no more than this?" the
that Satan and the serpent embody something of the powers of nature, human natxire included, seem to
nonhuman or prehuman evil fate which must in some answer affirmatively. Man is a reed to their careless
ine.xplicable way have been present with or before power. Still, the tragic hero in his extremity reiterates
creation. This prehuman evil emerges in the book of witli Pascal that he remains a thinking reed. And Lear
Job. Job clearly presents the contrast of the just and accepts an old man's death with gentleness and dignity.
good aspect of God with a possibly more ancient and Among modem writers Dostoevsky manifests an
inscrutable concept of God whose ways may seem evil especially profoimd sense of the Christian and the
to the man who is suffering unjustly. Job does not tragic. The Karamazov family symptoms
exhibits the
attempt to justify this injustice; rather he acknowledges of inherited evil. This again is the prehuman evil of
the mystery. Perhaps again, one catches a glimpse of which Melville has given us the most impressive symbol
this more ancient deity in the anguished cry of Christ in the great white whale, only with the Karamazov
on the Cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou for- family this evil belongs to the soul and to the age. The
saken me?" (Matthew 27:46). And it is also present brothers Demitri and Ivan thresh about in a meaning-
between the lines of Saint Paul's remark to the effect less universe. Nevertheless, Demitri and Ivan bear their
that man's wisdom is foolishness to God. extreme suffering with a determination to press their
It should occasion no surprise, therefore, that later self-declared freedom to its utmost. In particular. Ivan
writers, although imbued with Christian beliefs and is troubled to see how a imiverse such as theirs, ruled
attitudes, should sometimes seem to hark back to the by impersonal forces, where the suffering of persons
spirit of Greek tragedy, whereas at other times they is intense and unjust, can be accepted by Alyosha in
deal with merely himian evil, remediable by religious Christian faith. Like Job's, Ivan's dilemma is unre-
or ethical discipline or even by personal or institutional solved; nevertheless, his suffering is illuminated by
rearrangements. intervals of insight, and these suggest something of the

Evil, then, for the Christian tradition is both pre- possibility of human transcendence. .\\\ in such a world
human, an externally determined fate, and Adamic or is not lost, although much is.
human and ethical. Exemplifying the latter is Mar- Ibsen, deeply influenced by Kierkegaard and his
lowe's The Tragedtj of Dr. Faustus. Faustus has chosen enigmatic struggle for and against Christianity, com-
to seek omnipotence by mastering natvue through posed dramas in which contemporary mores and
knowledge and magic. In the end the wheel turns, middle-class conventions come into unexpected conflict
death and the Devil claim him, and he admits that with the past and its necessities. In Ghosts this past
416 the faith, which he can no longer recover, would have visits Oswald Alving in the guise of inherited disease
—
UNIFORMITARIANISM AND CATASTROPHISM
which destroys his sanity. In order to involve the audi- and H. Paolucci, eds., Hegel
(1910), several versions. .\nne
ence more intimately in the dramatic action, Ibsen left on Tragedy (New York, 1962). M. Peckham, Beyond the
the insight or reconciliation of Chosts inexplicitly Tragic Vision (New York, 1962). D. D. Raphael, The Paradox
expressed, with the expectation that the audience of Tragedy (Bloomington, Ind., 1960). P. Ricoeur, The
would complete it. Some critics, consequently, have Symbolism of Evil, trans. E. Buchanan (New Y'ork, 1967),
pp. 218-31. M. Scheler, "Zum Phaenomen des Tragischen."
foimd the play to be trivial or brutal, effecting no
Vom Umsturz des Werte; Abhandlungen und Aufsatze, 4th
catharsis. Others regard the tragedy as belonging to
ed. (Bern, 1955). K. \. Telford, Aristotle's Poetics (Chicago,
Oswald's mother, for although her hopes are blasted
1965), trans, and analysis. R. VVellek, A History of Modern
by her son's insanity, she wins her way through to an
and (New Haven and London,
— the
Criticism, Vols. I 11 1955),
imderstanding of the ghosts moral hypocrisy Vols. Ill and IV (1965).
which haunt them all in the twilight of their middle-
class existence.
EDWARD G. BALLARD
T. S. Eliot's Murder in tlie Cathedral, like his "The [See also Catharsis; Dualism; Empathy; Evil; Irony;
Waste Land," embodies a share of the complex Chris- Mimesis; Necessity; Sin.]
tian sense of the tragic. The author leads the Arch-

bishop back to Canterbury, where everyone knows he
will be unjustly killed by some agency of the King.
The portrays the complete ir-
play, like Antigone,
reconcilability of thepowers of the spirit and those UNIFORMITARIANISM
of the world, an opposition which is the source of AND CATASTROPHISM
disorder, even within the mind of Becket himself.
In brief, then, the tragic sense is constituted by an Uniformitahianism assumes the principle that the past
awareness of the ironic character of man's struggle with is uniform with the present in terms
history of the earth
evil. It is often embodied in a complete action which of the physical laws governing the natural order, the
brings the protagonist's world into question. This physical processes occurring both within the earth and
questioning has proceeded within contexts defined by on its surface, and the general scale and intensity of
three mythological views. The consequences of this these processes. It asserts further that our only means
confrontation with evil, especially the confrontation of interpreting the history of the earth is to do so by
with an evil deriving from a nonhuman soiu'ce, have, analogy with events and processes in the present.
when carried to the limit, resulted in the affirmation Catastrophism assumes the principle that conditions
ofhuman dignity and freedom. This affirmation consti- on the earth during the past were so different from
tutes a sort of victory despite the overpowering force those existing in the present that no comparison is
of evil. possible, that earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the

elevation of mountains and floods occurred during the
BIBLIOGRAPHY past on a scale many times greater than that of any

similar events observable in the modern world, and that
\ bibliography is included in T. R. Henn, The Harvest
geological events in the past were often so violent and
of Tragedy (London, 1956), pp. 295-98, and in W. Kerr,
catastrophic, that they sometimes destroyed all the
Tragedy and Comedij (New York, 1967), pp. 343-50. R. B.
Sewall, The Vision of Tragedy (New Haven, species living in particular districts.
1959), pp. 148f.
includes other listings. In addition see the following: W. The questions raised by the conflicting assumptions
.\rrowsmith, "The CriticismGreek Tragedy," Tulane
of of uniformitarianism and catastrophism apply most
Drama Review, 3 (1957), 31-57. E. G. Ballard, Art and directly to the interpretation of geological history, but
Anahjsis (The Hague, 1957), pp. 154-84. J. L. Duchemin, are not restricted to it. These questions arise in science
L'AFfiN dans la tragedie grecque (Paris, 1945). M. Esslin, whenever there is need to interpret natural events
The Theater of the Absurd (New York, 1961). \V. C. Greene, occurring at a distance in space or time. In these
Moira: Fate, Good and Evil in Greek Thought (Cambridge, circumstances the separation of the events or processes
Mass., 1944). K. Jaspers, Tragedy is not Enough, trans.
from the observing scientist requires him either to
H. A. Reiche, T. Moore, and W. H. Deutsch (Boston, 1952).
interpret them by analogy with events and processes
W. Krutch, The Modern Temper (New Ybrk and London,
J.
closer at hand and more directly observable, or, to
1930). A. C. Mahr, Origin of the Greek Tragic Form (New
assume that the distant events are the result of proces-
Y'ork, 1938). O. Mandel, A Definition of Tragedy (New York,
1961). G. Nebel, Wettangst und Gotterzom, eine Deutung ses unknown to him and are, therefore, impossible to
der Griechischen Tragodie (Stuttgart, 1957). Friedrich interpret. If a scientist attempts to interpret distant
Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragodie aus dem Geiste der events by analogy, he is assuming the uniformity of
Musik (1872), trans, from 1886 ed. as The Birth of Tragedy the natural order through space and time. 417
The terms "catastrophism" and "uniformitarianism" accepted unquestioningly by late seventeenth- and
were introduced in 1837 by William Whewell in his early eighteenth-century writers on the origin of the
History of the Inductive Sciences to describe the two world. Even if one leaves aside extravagant and uncrit-
leading schools of theoretical geology at that time. ical writers like Thomas Bumet whose Sacred Theory
Catastrophism, which was the older theoretical view- of the Earth (1681-89) was an imaginative but com-
point, was in England widely accepted and defended pletely uncritical account of the origin and history of
by the older generation of geologists, but its leading the earth, the ideas of a cautious and disciplined scien-
exponents were then on the Continent. Leopold von like John Ray nonetheless take for granted that the
tist
Buch, the German geologist, had presented a theory account in Genesis did reflect the actual events which
of craters of elevation to account for the form of occurred at the origin of the world and, furthermore,
volcanic mountains. He supposed that such volcanoes that the present world was temporary and would dis-
as Teneriffe in the Canary Islands had not been built appear in a great conflagration at the day of judgment.
up gradually by many repeated volcanic eruptions In the early eighteenth century, it became generally
carried on over an immense period of time, but by recognized that the fossils found were the
in rocks
an upheaval of the surrounding rock strata, and that actual remains of once living animals. For geologists
this upheaval had been essentially a single event, cat- in Italy fossils demonstrated that the Italian rock strata
astrophic in nature, and without parallel in the mod- had been laid down beneath the sea, because the well
em world. Von Buch presented this theory in 1824 after preserved fossil shells in the Italian strata were recog-
a visit to the Canary Islands, and in 1829 Lônce £lie nizably similar to the shells species living in the
de Beaumont published his theory of the sudden and Mediterranean. For geologists in England and in
simultaneous elevation of mountain chains. He had northern Europe, however, the recognition of fossils
been struck by the fact that a number of ranges of as the remains of once living animals posed the
mountains tended to be composed of rocks of similar difficulty that they belonged to species without
geological age and showed similarities of structure. For counterparts in the north Atlantic, or in other parts
instance, de Beaumont suggested that the Pyrenees had of the world, for that matter. Thus the fossils of the
been uplifted in a single sudden upthrow (en un seul English strata suggested the existence of multitudes of
jet) and that this elevation had occurred at the same species in the past which had since died out. The
time as that of the Alps. Von Buch and de Beaumont disappearance of such multitudes of species also
suggested that in the geological past there had occurred suggested that they must have been destroyed by some
events on such an enormous scale as to be catastrophic great catastrophic event on the earth's surface.
in nature and without counterpart in the modem expe- Of the geological theories put forward during the
rience of man. Their view of the history of the world eighteenth centiu'y, perhaps the most influential was
was that while conditions on the earth's surface in that of Abraham Gottlob Werner. As a professor at
modem times, that is, since the appearance of man the School of Mines at Freyburg, Werner became
on earth, had been relatively orderly and calm, undis- expert in the recognition of rocks and minerals.
turbed by any great changes which might destroy a In 1793 PeterSimon Pallas, as a result of his study
significant portion of life on earth, this stable and of two principal mountain ranges of Siberia,
the
reliable condition of the earth's surface was of rela- decided that the characteristic structure of mountain
tively recent appearance. During the geological past, ranges was a central core of granite with schistose rocks
they assimned that, while there may have been long containing no fossils along the flanks of the granite,
periods of calm conditions, the earth had also been and with fossil-bearing limestone rocks lying outside
subjected repeatedly to enormous changes, great shak- and above the schistose. Pallas' observations on the
ings of the surface of the whole earth, which had structure of mountain ranges, and those of Horace
resulted in the throwing up of mountain ranges, vast Benedict de Saussure on the Alps, appear to have been
floods, subsidences, and other catastrophes. used by Werner in the development of his theory of
In assuming the extraordinary and catastrophic na- the earth. Wemer assumed that the granite represented
Buch and de Beaumont
ture of the earth's history, von the original surface of the earth formed when the earth
were part of a tradition of geological thinking which had cooled from a molten mass. He thought that the
extended back to the seventeenth century and was schistose rocks had been deposited from the universal
deeply influenced by the account of the Creation in ocean, which, in the first stages of the earth's history,
Genesis. Genesis takes for granted that the condition had covered the whole surface of the earth and had
of the world at the time of its creation was different been as deep as the mountains are high. The schistose
4iO from its present state, and this assumption was rocks had been chemical precipitates from the
primordial ocean, but at a later stage mechanical sedi- ing, but as intermediate stage in a continuous process.
ments had been deposited from this ocean, giving rise Hutton's theory reflects the calm inquiring rational
to the strata of limestone, shale, and sandstone. spirit of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment; Hutton
Werner's assumption that granite represented the possessed the same temper of mind as David Hume,
original surface of the earth and was consequently the the philosopher, or Adam Smith, the economist. His
oldest rock, was challenged in 1795 by James Hutton theory was attacked immediately as being dangerous
Theory of the Earth with Proofs and Illustrations.
in his to religion, and the force of this criticism was
Hutton had been impressed by the fact that the strati- sharpened by the political consequences of the French
fied rocks were sediments which, to his mind, must Revolution. In Great Britain the French Revolution
have been laid down beneath the These sediments,
sea. was felt to endanger the whole fabric of social order,
laiddown originally as soft mud, or marl, had
sand, of which the Christian religion was the essential foun-
somehow been consolidated into solid rock and had dation. Hutton's theory left no place for the Mosaic
then been raised from the sea bottom to form dry land account of Creation and of the Flood. It assumed that
and even hills and mountains. The force which pro- the earth and the physical order of nature were eternal
duced both the consolidation of sediments into rock and unchanging. At the same time that Hutton's theory
and their elevation into hills and mountains was heat. was being attacked on religious and scientific grounds,
Hutton was evidently impressed by the discovery of liberal political ideas had become unpopular in Britain,
specific and latent heats by his friend Joseph Black, and a repressively reactionary tone dominated politics.
the physicist. Hutton considered heat as a force At Edinburgh where Hutton's friends continued to
inherent in matter, moreover, as a repulsive force, support his theory after his death in 1797, Robert
derived ultimately from the sun. It might assume the Jameson, professor of natural history at the University
form of specific heat; in which case it influenced the of Edinburgh, was one of the most vigorous exponents
volume of matter, or, latent heat, which determined of the Wernerian theory. Consequently, the contro-
the fluidity of matter, or light, or electricity. Heat versy between the Wernerians and Huttonians raged
which was so diverse in its form and its effects, existed with a special vigor at Edinburgh between 1800 and
abundantly within the earth and acted both to consoli- 1810. Hutton's friends, several of whom were associ-
date sediments into rock and to elevate them. In 1788 ated with the Edinburgh Review, tended to be liberal
Hutton discovered in Glen Tilt in the highlands of in their outlook, whereas the Wernerians were Tories,
Scotland, a dyke of granite, which had clearly intruded and these political associations tended to deepen and
into the surrounding schistose strata. Not only had the embitter the scientific controversy.
granite intruded into the stratified rock, but it had The Wemerian-Huttonian controversy at Edinburgh
intruded in a molten condition because the strata in did have the effect of convincing geologists of the
the vicinity of the dyke were much altered, as if by dangers of theoretical controversy. Thus, when the
heat. Hutton was greatly excited by this discovery Geological Society of London was founded in 1807,
because it meant that the granite was not the oldest its members decided to avoid theoretical discussion in
rock and did not represent the primordial surface of favor of a broad program of geological field studies.
the earth. Instead, it represented a later intrusion, and Geological evidence, which could not be interpreted
the oldest rocks discoverable were stratified rocks in terms of the Huttonian theory, was also accumulat-
which had themselves originated as sediments. How- ing. In 1811 Alexandre Brongniart and Georges Cuvier
ever, these sediments represented the detritus of some published their description of the Tertiary strata of the
preexisting land. Hutton was aware that the whole Paris basin. Among these strata Cuvier and Brongniart
surface of the land was subject to relentless forces of found a repeated alternation of fresh water and marine
erosion and was being worn down steadily by rain and sediments. Such an alternation required either repeated
running water. The wearing down of the land was incursion of the sea over the land, or repeated sub-
necessary to create the sediments which were deposited sidences and re-elevations of the land. Hutton's
on the sea bottom. These sediments accumulated over theory provided for neither contingency. At the same
immense periods of time, were then in turn hardened time, Cuvier and Brongniart had described a whole
into rock by heat, and elevated from the sea to form series of sediments unknown to Werner. In 1812 Cuvier
hills and mountains. Hutton saw this process of the also published the first edition of his RechercJies sur
wearing down of land, the deposition of sediments and les ossemens fossiles (1812-26) based upon his recon-
their re-elevation extending indefinitely into the past struction of fossil animals during the preceding fifteen
and continuing indefinitely into the future. He saw the years. This work presented to the scientific world a
present surface of the earth, not as fixed and imchang- succession of populations of animals, all extinct, and 419
sometimes both larger in size and more numerous in Ireland, where thev found clear evidence that that
species than the animals of modern times. Cuvier particularh- famous basalt formation had resulted from
asserted that each successive assemblage of fossil spe- a volcanic outflow.
cies of animals had been destroyed by a geological In general, British geologists tended to abandon
catastrophe, such as might occur when the sea rose Werner's idea that rock strata had been formed by
to cover the land. He did not hesitate to extend the crystallization or deposition from a universal ocean,
consequences of his observations made in the Paris and had accepted the Huttonian idea that the strata
basin to the whole world. Cuvier was as skillful a had been laid down beneath the sea and had subse-
politician as an anatomist, and his theory of successive quently been elevated. However, in accepting the
catastrophes, the most recent of which was the flood concept of movements of the land thev necessarily
described in the Bible, appealed strongly to the reli- accepted the occurrence of catastrophes during the
gions because it allowed the numerous and striking history of the earth, because they could not conceive
recent discoveries in paleontology to be reconciled, how elevations sufficient to create the existing hills and
however uncritically, to the biblical account of crea- mountains could occur without catastrophes. In 1814
tion. After 1815 Cuvier's catastrophism was perhaps the English geologist Thomas Webster published a
keyed to the intellectual tone of the Bourbon restora- description of the geology of the Isle of Wight in which
tion, but it was also popular in the English-speaking he showed that the chalk strata forming the central
world. An English translation by Robert Kerr was range of hills in the island were vertical or very steeply
published at Edinburgh in 1815 and again in manx inclined and that they formed one side of an anticlinal
subsequent editions. fold, the opposite side of which, he discovered on the
Perhaps paleontology tended to strengthen the south shore of the Isle of Wight. Webster showed that
plausibilitv by the fact that the
of catastrophism the strata must once have been continuous in a great
discovery of so many large and remarkable fossil ani- arch extending across the whole Isle of Wight and that
mals suggested that catastrophic events on earth must most of this arch had since been removed. The chalk
have been needed to bring about their disappearance. strata which had formed this arch had been formed
In 1812 the skeleton of a remarkable fossil reptile, as horizontal beds of sediment in the sea, so that their
seventeen feet long, was found in the blue Lias forma- upraising to form the arch had required their uplift,
tion at LymeFiegis on the coast of Dorsetshire. This bending, and disturbance on a great scale. This kind
reptile, which had paddle-like appendages to equip it of disturbancewas explicable to Webster only by some
for swimming, and which in some respects resembled enormous convulsion of a kind entirely different from
a fish, in 1816 was named Ichthvosaurus. In 1820 an- anything experienced in modern times. The basic as-
other large swimming reptile, also from the blue Lias, sumptions of geologists in the 1820's, whether Hut-
and with a remarkably long neck was described by tonian or Wemerian, was stated by William Whewell
William Daniel Conybeare and was named Plesio- in 1831:
saurus. This was followed by the discovery of the

In the dislocation of provinces, in the elevation of hills from
enormous Megalosaurus by the Reverend William the bottom of the sea, in the comminution and dispersion
Buckland in the Stonesfield slate, and of the Iguanodon and
of vast tracts of the hardest rock, in the obliteration
by Gideon Mantell in Sussex. In 1825, in the third renewal of a whole creation they seemed to themselves to
edition of his Recherches. Cuvier described the
. . , see . the manifestation of powers more energetic and
. .
Pterodactyls, a group of fossil flying reptiles. These extensive than those which belonged to the common course
discoveries all exerted a profound effect on both the of every day nature. They spoke of a break in the
. . .
scientific and popular imagination and presented a continuity of nature's operations; of the present state of
vi\id picture of the abundance, diversity, and enormous things as permanent and tranquil, the past having been
progressive and violent William Whewell, review of Lyell's
size and strangeness of past forms of life.
(
Principles of Geology. BriHsh Critic. 9 [1831], 190).

One of the points which had been at issue between
the Huttonians and Wernerians had been the question During the 1820's the evidence for convulsive and
of the origin of basalt. Werner had considered that catastrophic changes in the history of the earth seemed
basalt had been formed by crystallization from water, so compelling and universal that the revival of James
whereas Hutton and such French geologists as Jean Hutton's concept of a continuous process shaping the
Etienne Guettard and .Nicholas Desmarest considered earth's surface indefinitely through time is a develop-
it a volcanic rock. The volcanic origin of basalt was ment requiring some explanation. Two factors seemed
generally accepted in Britain after 1813 when the to have plaved a role. The first may have been an
Reverend William Buckland and the Reverend William increasing interest in the study of volcanic activity in
420 Daniel Conybeare visited the Giant's Causeway in different parts of the world.
Beginning in 1797 Leopold von Buch (1774-1852) had been formed by a process of upheaval from below,
made extensive studies in the Alpswhere he deter- the upheaving force being volcanic rocks which could
mined that their structure showed that they had been not find their way to the surface because of the thick-
uplifted. From his further observations on the Alban ness of the overlying rock strata.
Hills and Vesuvius in Italy and on Etna in Sicily he In 1822 William Daniel Conybeare suggested that
became convinced of the vast extent and power of volcanic activity sustained over a long period might
volcanic activity, and of its capacity to uplift whole be able to produce a large scale elevation of the land.
areas of country. In 1802 he visited the Auvergne Volcanoes were studied by Charles Daubeny, and by
district of France where he found a series of volcanoes George Poulett Scrope and both studied the area of
of different ages, all of which were connected with e.xtinct volcanoes in the Auvergne district of France
an underlying platform of granite. He decided that the and Sicily.

as well as those in Italy
mass of trachyte forming the Puy-de-D6me was simply The other which may have played a role in
factor
granite which had been softened and pushed up as a extending the time scale of earth history was the de-
protuberance. The other Puys, which possessed the velopment of paleontology, which had also seemed to
conical forms and craters characteristic of volcanoes, support catastrophism by requiring the extinction of
had been formed by the ordinary process of volcanic so many successive assemblages of animals and plants.
eruption, .\fter a visit to Norway, where he observed However, the succession of floras and faunas revealed
granite veins extending into an overlying fossil-bearing by paleontology also required greatly lengthened pe-
limestone which was highly altered along the lines of riods of time. In addition, the detailed study of the
contact, von Buch travelled to Madeira and the Canary fossil animals and plants fomid together in a single bed
Islands. There he saw the results of volcanic activity frequently suggested the existence of conditions
on a still larger scale and studied the way in which analogous to those of the present. For instance, in the
the islands had been formed as a result of volcanic Tilgate Forest bed, studied by Gideon Mantell in 1822
action. He concluded that most oceanic islands were and subsequent years, there was a collection of the
the products of volcanic activity. bones of turtles, one or more species of crocodiles,
When von Buch studied the form of volcanoes he freshwater shells, and the remains of various plants
noted that they were both conical in form and strati- including tree ferns and large weeds. There were
fied, with the strata sloping away on all sides from the successive layers of clay and sand, such as might have
crater'ssummit. He decided that this structure was not been laid down in a modern river delta, and the animals
the result of accumulated lava flows, because the lava and plants were comparable to those which might live
emerged in small streams which did not form continu- in a river delta in a modern tropical country. These
ous sheets over the whole surface of the mountain. fossils, therefore, suggested that conditions on the
When he compared his observations in the Canary earth's surface at a very remote period of time had
Islands with those he had made in central France, von been comparable with those of modern times, although
Buch decided that each volcano had resulted originally the climate and latitude of Great Britain had then been
from a dome-shaped extrusion of molten rock from the much warmer. In 1824 Charles Lyell gave a reverse
interior of the earth. If this extrusion broke through kind of analogy when he compared the plants and
to the surface, it solidified while retaining its form and animals living in modern freshwater lakes in Scotland
gave rise to a dome-shaped mountain such as the Puy- with the fossil animals and plants found in freshwater
de-D6me in Auvergne. More often, however, the marls of the Paris basin, and found the assemblage of
extrusion might burst like a bubble at the summit and species very similar in both instances.
collapse inward, thereby forming a cone-shaped vol- From 1820 to 1828 Charles Lyell was first a law
cano of typical form with a crater marking the site student and later a practicing barrister, but through
of explosion. In this theory each volcanic mountain was the whole time, he was an enthusiastic amateur
the product of a single violent eruption instead of the geologist and naturalist. He travelled frequently and
accumulated product of a long series of eruptions extensively. In 1818 he had toured Switzerland and
extended over a great period of time. Von Buch called northern Italy. In 1820 he returned to Switzerland and
the interior molten mass, whose extrusion from the this time went as far south in Italy as Rome. He made
interior of the earth had given rise to the volcano, a frequent excursions on horseback through southern
"Crater of Elevation. "
He thought that their extrusion England, and in 1823 spent many weeks in Paris where
uplifted the rock strata of the surrounding country in he became acquainted with the Parisian geologists and
a catastrophic manner. studied the geology of the Paris basin. In 1824 he spent
On Europe, von Buch again studied
his return to an extended period in Scotland. These travels gave him
the Alps for a number of years and decided that they a broader experience of landscape, geography, and 421
geology than many of his contemporaries had. In 1828 catastrophic events of unknown origin and magnitude.
Lyell travelled with Roderick Murchison through the Lyell assumed that the order of nature and the physical
Auvergne district of France, then southward to Nice laws of nature remained constant through time. He
and along the coast into Italy. At Padua, Murchison saw, too, that our only possibility of attaining knowl-
turned back, but Lyell went on south through Italy edge of the geological past was by analogy with mod-
to Naples and made a tour of Sicily. One of his chief em conditions. The geologist had to assume that con-
geological discoveries during this journey was that the ditions in the past were comparable to those of the
Tertiary beds of the Paris basin formed only the earliest present and that processes going on in the past were
part of the succession of Tertiary formations, and that comparable to processes going on at the present time,
in Italy and Sicily there were three series of Tertiary or else he would have to abandon all hope of acquiring
strata, each successively younger than those of the Paris any knowledge of the past.
basin. Ultimately he named them the Eocene, Miocene, Furthermore, Lyell's principle of uniformity opened
and older and newer Pliocene formations, of which the up to the geologist a multitude of questions for investi-
Eocene represented the beds of the Paris basin. Taken gation because the whole present order of nature,
together, the whole series of Tertiary strata were at existing both over the earth's surface and within its
least equal in total depth to the succession of secondary interior, became relevant to his purpose. Hence, the
strata in England. In southern Italy and Sicily Lyell geologist must seek to learn what is going on at the
found that the newer Pliocene strata contained fossil present in order to understand what has gone on in
shells, almost entirely belonging to species still living the past. Catastrophism, on the other hand, removes
in the Mediterranean. He also found that these strata the necessity for investigating modern processes be-
which were close to the active volcanoes of Vesuvius cause events in the past are considered to have no
and Etna appeared to have been uplifted by volcanic counterparts in the present. The explosion which oc-
activity. He became convinced that volcanic activity curred at thetime of emergence of a "Crater of Eleva-
and earthquakes were both the causes of and manifes- tion "
occurred only once and is not to be understood
tations of uplift. from the study of modern volcanic activity. The effect
In a letter to Roderick Murchison written as he was of catastrophic explanations in each instance in which
returning northward, Lyell expressed the geological they were used and in which they are used today, is
conviction to which his tour had led him: to close off further investigation. Lyell stressed that
an enlarged view of the existing order of nature was
That no causes whatever have from the earliest time to
the primary requisite for a geologist, and the chief
which we can look back, to the present, ever acted but
means of attaining this enlarged view was travel. He
those now acting and that they never acted with different
wrote:
degrees of energy from that which they now exert (Life.
Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell Bart, ed. K. M. To travel is of first, second, and third importance to those
Lyell, 2 vols., London [1881], I, 234). who desire to originate just and comprehensive views con-
cerning the structure of our globe (Lyell, Principles of
He was stating the central principle of what was to Geology, llth ed.. 2 vols., London [1872], 1, 69).
be known as uniformitarianism. \s a principle, it was
the outgrowth of Lyell's geological experience, but it During his lifetime Lyell upheld the principle of
must be emphasized that it was not, and is not, a imiformity in eleven successive editions of his Principles
demonstrable scientific conclusion. Instead, it is a of Geology, published between 1830 and 1872, and in
statement of faith and a working hypothesis which is, other books and memoirs. With unequalled insight, he
nonetheless, a hypothesis indispensable to the progress interpreted a vast range of geological data in terms
of geology as a science. Lyell assumed that gradual of processes observable in the modem
world. Of even
causes acting through long periods of time might exert more far-reaching was his influence on
significance
large-scale effects. His further assumption, that all Charles Darwin. During the voyage of the H. M. S.
geological effects are the result of gradual causes acting Beagle, 1831-36, Darwin came to appreciate the great
over large periods, required him to study relentlessly value of the approach to geology embodied in Lyell's
the existing processes going on both in the earth and Principles. He then applied the same principles to the
over its surface, to pursue their consequences, and to interpretation of the geological history of species and
estimate their rates. His principle of uniformity reconsidered what would be the effect of a modern
quired Lyell always to attempt to explain geological process, namely, natural selection, if it had continued
phenomena and never to abandon this attempt to seek to act through an indefinite period of past time.
422 explanation by dismissing phenomena as the result of Darwin's theory of the origin of species by natxiral
UNIFORMITARIANISM IN LINGUISTICS
selection may be considered an application of Lyell's BIBLIOGRAPHY

principles of uniformity to tfie living world.
Frank Dawson Adams, T)ie Birth and Development of the
Towards the end of Lyell's life uniformitarianism was
Geological Sciences Loren Eiseley,
(Montreal,
1938).
attacked by the physicist, Lord Kelvin, who in 1865 Darwin's Century (New York, 1958). Archibald Geikie, The
argued that if the earth had been formed originally Founders of Geology (London, 1897). Patsy A. Gerstner.
as a hot molten body which had later cooled but which 'James Hutlon's Theory of the Earth and His Theory of
also continued to lose heat by radiation, its age could Matter,"Isis. 59 (1968), 26-31. Charles C. Gillispie, Genesis
be calculated by extrapolating backward from its pres- and Geology (Cambridge, Mass., 1951). Leonard G. Wilson,
ent rate of heat loss. Kelvin assumed that there was "The Origins of Charles Lyell's Uniformitarianism," Uni-
no source of heat within the earth, other than that formity and Simplicity, ed. Claude Albritton, Geological
which was present there when the earth was formed.

Society of America, Special Paper 89 (New York, 1967),
35-62.
On his assumptions he showed that the age of the earth
could not be greater than 100,000,000 years and was LEONARD G. WILSON
probably much less. This short and restricted time span [See also Continuity and Discontinuity; Evolutionism; Re-
for the age of the earth would not allow sufficient time ligion and Science; Uniformitarianism in Linguistics.]
for the extremely slow gradual geological processes,
as viewed by Lyell, to bring about the actual geological
changes which had occurred. The history of the earth
if thus compressed in timewould necessarily become
violent and catastrophic. This concept of the earth's UNIFORMITARIANISM
severely limited age would not allow time, either, for IN LINGUISTICS
the slow process of evolution of living species by natu-
ral selection, as viewed by Charles Darwin. 1. Uniformitarianism in Geology. The term "uni-
In the face of Kelvin's calculations, geologists tended formitarianism" was introduced by William Whewell
to retreat from their advocacy of uniformitarianism in 1840 to label a certain scientific theory, contrasted
after Lyell's death in 1875. In 1897 Sir Archibald with catastrophism. The issue as discussed by Whewell
Geikie wrote that uniformitarianism "in its extreme and his contemporaries primarily presented itself in
form is probably held by few geologists in any coun- geology. Charles (later Sir Charles) Lyell (1830) was
try." By "its extreme form" Geikie meant chiefly a the most prominent advocate of uniformitarianism.
uniformitarianism which would rule out events on a In geology, the issue arose for two main reasons. (1)
catastrophic level in volcanic activity and mountain It appeared from the geological record that there were
building during the geological past. However, with the changes, in both the inorganic and the organic realms,
discovery of radioactivity, it was pointed out by Ernest too great or too sudden to be accounted for by causes
Rutherford in 1904 that the radioactive elements did now known to be in operation. ( 2) Even more impor-
provide a steady source of heat within the earth. The tant, anything like a literal interpretation of the Bible
assumptions on which Kelvin had based his estimates seemed to call for a catastrophic view. It was not
of the age of the earth were, therefore, invalid and generally supposed that the Creation, or Work of the
his calculations meaningless. Geologists did not, how- Six Days, took six twenty-four hour periods to com-
ever, recover immediately their confidence in uni- plete, was generally supposed that, instead of
but it
formitarianism, and in many instances they continued setting the universeup by a "single decree" (as Leibniz
to believe that volcanic activity and mountain building called it, Causa Dei, §42, and Fifth Letter to Clarke,
had gone on during particular periods of the geological §66), after which only "secondary causes" were at
past on a scale, and with an intensity, unparalleled in work, the Creator divided his total act of creation into
the present. In recent years, however, radioactive several separate acts, of which all but the first
methods of dating rocks have shown that instances of supervened upon and altered a world already in opera-
supposed catastrophic volcanic activity and mountain tion. In addition to the Creation, another episode from
building have, in fact, occurred over long periods of Genesis — the Flood — had obvious bearing on geology.
geological time. There is, therefore, little reason to And one who applies the uniformitarian idea not, as
believe that they ever involved systematic volcanic Lyell did, only in geology, but in all natural science
eruptions or earthquakes of magnitude greater than would exclude all miracles, whether alleged in the Old
those which occur on earth today. The principle of Testament or the New: the burning bush, Aaron's rod
uniformitarianism may be considered vindicated by turning into a serpent, the rolling back of the waters
modem science. of the Red Sea, Christ walking on water, etc. And it 423
happened that in Genesis there is a hnguistic episode partisans or critics, put the issue in terms of "proba-
that poses scientific problems rather hke those of the bility, "
this being determined by what was most con-
Creation and the Flood. formable to the Creator's intention (Lyell [1830-33],
Lyell's uniformitarianism is conimonlv treated only 1, 164, quoted by Gillispie [1951], p. 121; Huxley, in
as a precursor of Darwin's evolutionism. It is clear — see Darwin [1888], 1, 541). Lyell's formulation was
especially Eiseley (1958), who in effect (pp. 108, 11.3, muddied by the self-imposed limitation, justified no
115) defends the way in which Hu.\ley (1869) distin- doubt but trouble-making, that he only imdertook to
guishes evolutionism from uniformitarianism — that defend uniformitarianism in application to strictly
Darwin went beyond Lyell not merely in dealing with geological phenomena, not carrying it back "beyond
the biological realm, including man, but also in his the veil of stratified rock" (Huxley [1869], p. 313) to
positive theory of natural selection. Uniformitarianism the earliest stages of our terrestrial globe, nor forward
(extended to organic evolution) said there was a law; to living organisms. In other words, he virtually situ-
Darwin said what the law was. And we may distinguish ated geology in between physics (and chemistry and
between uniformitarianism and evolutionism as fol- astronomy) and biology, and for the most part refrained
lows. Uniformitarianism as such says nothing about tlie from treating its border-sciences, either imiformitari-
limits of change over time, but says only that the anly or in any other manner. There is onlv a termi-
"laws" or "causes" of change are uniform over time, nological difference between saying, with Hitxley (ibid.,
i.e., are the same at all times. We may call "qualified pp. 315, 319) that this limitation of scope imposed by
imiformitarianism" the doctrine that admits one ex- Lyell is inherent in uniformitarianism, and saying that
ception to this, two exceptions, namely a
or at most Lyell himself was not an out-and-out uniformitarian.
first moment of the universe and perhaps also a last Lyell's views on organic evolution are very compli-
moment, in which, respectively, creation was started cated (Eiseley, Ch. 4).
and annihilation was completed. It was thought to be 2. Uniformitarianism and Linguistics. Uniformi-
a corollary of uniformitarianism that only those laws, tarianism did not have any detectable direct influence
or those causes, which are atwork now adapting — a upon linguistics until more than thirty years after Lyell
phrase of Newton's, these were called verae causae — set it forth in geology. We first describe the circum-
were ever at work. stances of this detectable impact, and then go back
Uniformitarianism so defined says nothing as to to look at the situation in linguistics before then.
whether life evolved from inorganic matter, or man The impact was due, in part, to Lyell himself. Chap-
from brute, or some other species of living thing from ter 23 of hiswork. Geologic Evide7tces of the Antiquity
another species. How it differs from evolutionism may of Man (1863), is entitled "Origin and development
be brought out by an example: the causal relation of of languages and species compared. "
The leading
life to inorganic matter. According to uniformitarian- thoughts are that (1) there are various analogies be-
ism, either (1) there was never a time when there were tween languages and biological species as regards mu-
not living things on the earth, or (2) there was such tation, splitting of one species (or language) into two,
a time, and a later time when there were living things, arrested development, competition among different
but the transition from the earlier to the later state species (or languages), and so forth, and (2) sometimes
could be exhaustively explained in terms of laws that we can see more clearly what happens to species,
held good at both states and indeed at all states. Of sometimes to languages. Lyell was looking for light
the two possibilities compatible with uniformitarian- on what happened to species, and he thought that some
ism, only the second is evolutionary. What uniformi- light might come from what happened to languages.
tarianism rules out is the supposed possibility that the Lyell's concern with language was distinct from, and
transitionfrom an earlier stage with no life to a later independent of, a concern with language as a power
stage with life was accomplished not by the prevailing of man. The latter concern —
seen for instance in
laws of nature but by a miracle or other extraordinary Darwin's Descent of Man (1871) and Expression of the
direct intervention of the Creator. Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), includes such
What was the argument for uniformitarianism'r' In questions as how far language resembles and how far
retrospect we are inclined to see the issue as at bottom it differs from such other things as gestures, brute cries,
one of scientific autonomy. Was natural science to be etc., and whether it can be regarded as having evolved
—
guided constrained, as those who deplored the from any of them.
guidance would say —
by premisses allegedly furnished Lyell's Chapter 23 began with a quotation from
by Revelation, or was natural reason to be its own sole F. Max Miiller, and the next year Miiller returned the
lawgiver? Lyell and his contemporaries did not, how- compliment by quoting Lyell (Miiller [1864], Ch. 5,
424 ever, see the issue in this way. Both sides, whether pp. 232, 239ff.). Miiller might have done so from mere
courtesy or timeliness. But beyond this obvious ac- upon linguistics, to consider at the same time certain
knowledgment, Miiller in the same work took account influences of biology upon linguistics.) For one thing,
of Lyell's ideas in a much profounder way. For in an linguistics was concerned with normative questions to
earlier chapter (Ch. 2) he virtually incorporated a far higher degree than was biology. There was, for
uniformitarianism into linguistics, by formulating two example, a counterpart in linguistics but not in biology
"principles on which the science of language rests, to the literary "quarrel of the ancients and the mod-
namely, that what is real in modern formations must erns." This dispute — ably described in Chapter 14 of
be admitted as possible in more ancient formations, Highet (1949) and in wimsatt and Brooks (1966), pp.
and that what has been found to be true on a small 214, 262, 437n., 523-24— concerned the relative value
scale may be true on a large scale." The eminent of ancient languages and literatures as compared with
American linguist W. D. Whitney, in his review of this modern languages and literatures. Whereas there was
book (1865, p. 567), commented disdainfully, "We never a time in biology when the study of fossils was
should have called these, not fundamental principles, more highly esteemed than the study of living plants
but obvious considerations, which hardly required any and animals, it was only after centuries of debate that
illustrations." But this disparagement was unfair if, as the study of living languages and literatures (written
seems to be the case, Miiller was the first in linguistics or oral) came to be considered not inferior to the study
to formulate them. It should be noted, moreover, that of Latin and Greek. And the debate was, in effect,
Whitney did not question the truth of Miiller's princi- ended sooner for literature than for language: the
ples, .'^gain, in 1885, Whitney admitted their truth and "progressive" view prevailed, very broadly speaking,
questioned the importance of stating them. That he for literature already in the Enlightenment, but for
was himself uniformitarian was stressed, shortly after language not until romanticism. The chronicle is well
his death, bv the great Indo-Europeanist Karl Bnig- told in the various writings of the ardently progres-
mann ([1897]; cf. W. P. Lehmann, Language, 34 [1958], sivist, and yet remarkably objective linguist Otto Jes-
179-80, n. 2). persen (e.g., 1922).

Through the German linguist Friedrich Techmer we The maxim, therefore, that we ought to interpret
gain further information on the channel of influence. dead languages in the light of the living ones was more
He cites (1880,1, 119) a passing allusion by Geiger controversial in linguistics than its counterpart was in
( which suggests that the uniformitarian-

1869, p. 65) biology. was countervailed by the argument that,
It
catastrophist issue was familiar; in Techmer himself, as the living languages have degenerated from the dead
familiarity with the issue is simply one instance of a classical languages, to use the former as a guide is to
general familiarity and sympathy with British logic and interpret the perfected and optimal form in the "light"
scientific method. The same familiarity and sympathy of the corrupted and obscured form. In biology a like
are manifest in Kruszewski (1884-90,' 1, 295; 3, 167) argument was heard only in a very few special cases,
a few years later. for instance, in the opinion about ancient man that
Besides the major influence of uniformitarianism, "There were giants in those days." The superior
linguistics shows influence from geology in two minor importance of the classical languages was bolstered by
ways, namely, in its metaphors "substratrun " and a judgment about the superior importance of written
"linguistic paleontology." On substratum, see Y. language over spoken language. According to this
Malkiel, Language, 43' (1967), 231ff. On linguistic judgment, if we have only written records of ancient
paleontology, see Pictet (1859-63); Techmer (1880), 1, languages, this is, to be sure, a loss, but not an essential
60-61; Saussure (1922), §5.4.3; Nehring (1931). The loss. In biology, per contra, it was generally recognized
history of the lattermetaphor deserves further investi- that if, e.g., one classified fossil molluscs exclusively
gation. It doubtless involves some connection between according to properties of their shells, this basis of
A. Pictet (1799-1875) and F.-J. Pictet (1809-72). Both used for lack of anything better, was
classification,
Pictets were professors at the University of Geneva. forced upon us by the circumstance that only their hard
F.-J. Pictet was an eminent paleontologist; both shells, and not their soft inner vital parts, got preserved.
Darwin and Huxley speak respectfully of his review The view attained in the nineteenth century, that we
of The Origin of Species. lacked information about such "vital parts" of the
3. Geology, Biology, and Linguistics. The metaphor classical languages as their system of intonation, the
"linguistic paleontology" exploits a certain obvious and the full extent of
details of their pronunciation,
analogy between "dead" languages and fossils. (It and style within
differences of dialect, social class,
should be borne in mind that paleontology, the study them, and that in drawing inferences about them we
of fossils, belongs both to geology and to biology; this should take as our models the living languages that
fact leads us, when considering influences of geology we could more fully observe this view was in effect — 425
uniformitarian, though there was no demonstrable "polygenist" view and the "monogenist" view can
influence from geology. claim compatibihty with the Babel story. But neither
Having seen that uniformitarianism involved taking in Leibniz' time nor
in Miiller's nor in ours has any
a position on the interpretation of those episodes of great been achieved in working out the
success
the Bible that concerned geology, we may inquire what monogenist view in any detail.
positions linguistics took on the corresponding As for the hypothesis that the pre-Babelian language
linguistically relevant episode. Linguistics had no was Hebrew, linguistic science was not in a position
Lyell, and the problem arises, Why not? to refute this hypothesis definitely until about the
Several ingredients of an explanation present them- 1860's, i.e., Comparative Method reached the
until the
selves. One of them — the normative aspect of linguis- stage to which Schleicher brought it.
tics — has already been discussed. In the second place, In the fourth place, linguistics was subject to more
the hypothesis of uniform change had a very different constraints than geology. Even if relieved of heter-
aspect in linguistics than in geology, and this for onomy from Revelation, linguistics was still subject to
several reasons. Rate of linguistic change was less
(1) constraints external tofrom physics, from geology,
it,
easily quantified than, for example, rate of sedimen- and from biology. Archbishop Ussher's chronology,
tation, glacial advance, or lava flow. The point is fixing the Babel episode at 2347 B.C., gave the linguist
not that it was less easily measured, but that the very only several thousand years to work within, as noted
definition of what to measure was less easy. (2) If one by Sapir in his discussion of Herder ([1907], p. 117;
estimated the rate of language change impres- cf. Jespersen [1922], p. 28), but the natural sciences
sionistically, one might well have had the impression did not allow him much more. Given the obvious fact
that it was highly variable. In particular, it was that man is of relatively recent origin, and given the
plausible to suppose an acceleration in times of social opinions prevailing in the nineteenth century about the
upheaval, or of decline in level of education, etc. (3) age of the earth and the durations of the several
The mathematics of probability and statistics, which geological periods, there were still only a few thousand
could be put to good use in quantifying rate of linguis- years available to the linguist the origin and
for
tic change, had not been sufficiently developed until diversification of language. Geology and evolutionary
the early nineteenth century, and, when it was devel- biology were themselves oppressively constrained in
oped, it was not regarded by linguists as one of their their available time span by current physics (Eiseley
available tools. [1958], Ch. 9); for instance, in 1893 Lord Kelvin
In the third place, there are significant differences accepted an estimate of the earth's total age as 24
between the linguistic aspects of the Confusion of million years. Contrast this with the fact that by 1907
Tongues at Babel and the geological aspects of the B. B. Boltwood, using the half-life principle of radioac-
Creation and the Flood. The Babel story, taken tive decay, had arrived at an estimate 100 times that
literally, says that by extraordinary, supernatural inter- of the earlier one (personal communication from Matt
vention God replaced a linguistic unity by a linguistic Walton, 1963; not in Eiseley). Present-day estimates
diversity that was sufficient to frustrate universal com- agree more or less with Boltwood's value rather than
munication, but this left room for great latitude of Lord Kelvin's, and the antiquity of Homo sapiens has
opinion about the nature of the replacement. One likewise greatly expanded.
extreme possibility was that God maximized the In the fifth place, linguistics was preoccupied with
diversity; the consequence of this for scientific linguis- another task. Whitney (1867, p. 3), sketching the his-
tics would be that we could not by any set of regulari- tory of linguistics, spoke for the prevailing view when
ties account for the relation between the lingua he called the recognition of an Indo-European family
adamica (whether this was Hebrew or some other "the tiuTiing point in this history, the true beginning
language) and all the now existing languages. The other of linguistic science." The challenge of followingup
extreme possibility was that God minimized the this recognition led to devising the Comparative
diversity; the post-Babelian languages, each of them Method (Bloomfield [1933], Ch. 18), and to refinements
describable as gotten by a set of regularities from the of methods in historical linguistics. The grand project
lingua adamica, differed from one another just barely of working out, by the and the comparative
historical
enough to frustrate universal communication, yet not methods, the detailed history of the Indo-European
so much as to frustrate scientific understanding of their family and also of various other families (Semitic,
relationships. This seems to have been Leibniz' view, Dravidian, etc.) occupied nearly all the energy put into
in keeping with God works every-
his principles that linguistics in the nineteenth century. But the historical
where by and that he achieves maximal results
rules and comparative methods did not^ — except perhaps for
42d with the minimum means. Thus both the so-called their indications that Hebrew was not the same as
—
—
Proto-Semitic yield any result that challenged re- geology) with a roughly defined task, and required
ceived interpretations of the Bible. Besides the reason about thirty years to work its way through to a more
already given — great uncertainty about the rate of precise conception of and to the formulation
its task
linguistic change — there was another, that needs to be of a method —

the comparative method for achieving—
set forth rather fully. This other reason was that the it. The culminating figure was August Schleicher (es-
comparative method carmot settle the question pecially his work of 1861-62), to whom we next turn.
whether all human languages are descended, by The founders were Rasmus Rask, Jakob Grimm, Franz
uniformitarianly acceptable processes, from a single Bopp, and August Pott, whose manner of discovery
ancestor. The diversity of known languages is such, and has been aptly compared by Antoine Meillet (see
the imperfections of the method are such, that the Jespersen [1922], p. 55) with that of Columbus. By the
method breaks down before it reaches the end of our 1860's, as the inherent limitation of the comparative
quest, which is the beginning in time of language. This method became clear, linguists became aware of a veil
limitation became clear to linguists in the second half like the "veil of stratified rock" which Lyell (according
of the nineteenth century. to Huxley) acknowledged from the outset.
The reason for the incapacity is that the comparative So much for the differences between geology and
method does not admit of unlimitedly recursive appli- paleontology on the one hand, and linguistics on the
cation. Taking historical, documented languages as our other. Let us close this section by noting an important
input, we get as output Proto-Indo-European. And resemblance. Whitney, quoted above, called the rec-
taking other sets of documented languages as inputs, ognition of the Indo-European family a turning point
we get Proto-Semitic, Proto-Finno-Ugric, Proto- in linguistics. The reason why it was a turning point
Algonquian, and so on. The idea occurs to us that we is revealed by a phrase in the famous remarks (1786)
could treat these reconstructed proto-languages as of Sir William Jones which are generally given credit
inputs in their turn, and thus get further back in time for starting the new tiun. Greek, Latin, and the newly
to the beginning of language. But no one has succeeded discovered Sanskrit, Jones says, show an "affinity . . .
in doing this in a generally accepted way, nor is there so strong thatno philologer could examine all the three
any prospect of it. without believing them to have sprung from some
The incapacity may be stated in terms of time. The common source which, perhaps, no longer exists ."
. .
several outputs of the comparative method take us (Jones [1788], pp. 421-22). This prospect was exciting
back perhaps 6,000 years. (This is the rough time-depth for two reasons. First, for the thought not new, as —
that Pedersen [1931, p. 319] proposes for Proto- Hoenigswald (1963, p. 3) notes, but newly interesting
Indo-European; the estimates reported in Cardona, that a major language should have entirely dis-
Hoenigswald, and Senn [1970] do not go back so far.) appeared. The comparable interest in extinct plants
According to any dating that places the origin of lan- and animals is well described by J. C. Greene (1959).
guage appreciably earlier than that, there is an appre- In each case, apart from the supposed bearing upon
ciable temporal gap between the origin(s) and the the revelations of the Bible, there was food for
earliest states that we can reconstruct by the compara- uniformitarian thought: the proposition that the laws
tive method. According to Ussher's chronology, there of nature do not change over time did not mean that
would be a gap of about 1,700 years (since he gave the states of nature do not change; the uniformitarian
2347 B.C. as the date of the Babel episode); according did not have to maintain that at all times the species
to timetables furnished by the physics and the geology of plants and animals, and the languages, were just
of the late nineteenth century, there could be at most what they are now. The second reason for excitement
a gap of a few thousand years; according to present-day was the hope, and the prospect, that the lost source
timetables, the gap might be as great as some hundreds language could be recovered. The analogy between the
of thousands of years. (Haas, 1966, discusses repeated hoped-for method of recovering the lost language and
applications of the comparative method; she finds it the method of recovering extinct plants and animals
possible to repeat the method as much as three times, between the comparative method of linguistics and
but the time depth thereby reached is still only about paleontology —
is a rather remote one, but we know
five thousand years, i.e., to about 3,000 B.C. See p. 140, from remarks by Hegel, W. von Humboldt, and others,
Table 12 and n. 66.) that Cuvier's comparative anatomy inspired the foun-
The fifth point of difference between linguistics and ders of comparative linguistics.
geology may be summarized as follows. Uniformitarian August Schleicher (1821-68). Schleicher's un-
4.
geology began with a proposed straightforward method usually complex views cannot be accurately described
and a proposed limitation upon its scope. Comparative in brief compass. Here we are concerned only with
linguistics began (at about the same time as Lyell's his relation to imiformitarianism (cf. Hoenigswald 427
[1963]; [1966], pp. 1-2 and n. 13; Jespersen [1922], German movement called "Neogrammarianism"
pp. 71-83; Maher [1966]; Oertel [1902], pp. 39-42, appeared on the linguistic scene. Neogrammarians'
53-54, 58-59; Pedersen [1931], Ch. 10 and pp. 31 1-13; platform had many components, two of which are
Robins [1967], pp. 178-82; Schmidt [1890]). relevant here: (1) their conception of sound-laws, and
Schleicher's work (1863) on Darwinism and linguis- (2) their view of sound-change as gradual and largely
tics is interestingly like Lyell's work of the same year unconscious.

in itscomparison of languages with biological species. The thesis that "Sound-laws have no exceptions" is
Schleicher says that whether or not Darwin's natural- the best known Neogrammarian thesis. Cassirer
selection hypothesis is true of species, it is certainly incisively noted (1953, ^1.7, esp. p. 169) the resem-
true of languages. This from entitling us to call
is far blance between this thesis and the doctrine of the
Schleicher a Darwinian, but at least there is a measure physiologist Emil Du Bois-Reymond in his celebrated
of agreement. lecture of 1872 (only a few years before the launching
On the other hand, Schleicher was no uniformitarian. of their program), proclaiming laws of nature that were
Employing a certain interpretation of Hegel's contrast exceptionless, over all time and all space. Apparently
between Spirit (which expresses itself in History) and Cassirer meant to suggest the hypothesis that the
Nature, he eclectically combined it with the pre- Neogrammarians were deliberately intending to apply
Hegelian, eighteenth-century opinion that the his- or adapt Du Bois-Reymond's doctrine to and
linguistics,
torically attested language changes are deteriorations, this hypothesis may well be true. But if that was their
or forms of decay; he posited an earlier stage of lan- intention, their application was faultv in two notable
guage which languages were perfected, and a later
in ways. (1) The sound-laws did not hold for all time and
stage during which they deteriorated; because only the all was expressly limited to a certain
space; each law
earlier stage involves Spirit, he assigned it to History language over a certain limited period, and was only
(in the Hegelian sense), with the result — confusing to claimed to be a "law" in the respects that it (a) applied
us today — that his stage of History is prehistoric and to all instances, within the stated language during the
his stage of Nature includes all the historically docu- stated period, that fell within its scope, and (b) was
mented changes. Now obviously any such contrast not subject to voluntary control. ( 2) It is one thing
between a stage of History and a stage of Nature in to claim that sound-change is subject to exceptionless
language is intensely un-uniformitarian. It is one thing laws, and another to claim that those laws are the
to simply say nothing about prehistoric languages, i.e., extremely simple ones that linguists are able to pick
to limit the scope of one's consideration to the histori- out, such as Grimm's Law. The first point is less of
cally documented languages, and another thing to a fault than the second, because in spite of Du Bois-
make a positive claim, as Schleicher did, about prehis- Reymond's thesis it was not established usage to make
torical "History. "
We shall now see the reaction in the timelessness (invariance over all time) essential to the
1860's and '70's to this claim. In leaving Schleicher, concept of "law of nature."
let us remark as a last point that one of his major Effectively, Neogrammarianism separated language-
contributions — the model of relationships
family-tree changes into those that fell under (exceptionless) laws
—
within a language-family had an un-uniformitarian and those that did not; changes of the former sort were
tinge, insofar as it committed itself to treating the split held to be unconscious, those of the latter sort con-
of one language into two as a sudden, cleancut separa- scious and moreover voluntary purposeful, deliber- (
tion, contrary to what we observe today as the ordi- ate). It was hypothesized that sound-changes were of
nary, hardly observable process of language-change the former sort. It was furthermore supposed that for
(Bloomfield'i 19.33], pp. 347, 364, .394, 481). A few years the most part sound-change is not merely unconscious
after Schleicher, a more realistic model was proposed but gradual. The supposition was expressed by using
by his pupil Johannes Schmidt (Pedersen [1931], pp. the slogan that was always on Darwin's lips, Natura
314-15; Bloomfield [19.33], pp. 317-18, 340). imn facit saltus ("Nature does not make leaps "). Lin-
The Neogrammarians. Since the imiformitarian
5. guists' use of this slogan may look like an influence
attempts to get at the origin of language by the com- from Darwin, and thus eventually from uniformitari-
parative method showed no prospect of success, we anism, but in fact this influence is superficial and the
are not surprised to encounter, in the decades following real source of the doctrine is to be found elsewhere,
Schleicher, explicit recommendations to abandon in psychology, as the following paragraphs will show.
"glottogonic "
inquiries (Jespersen [1922], pp. 96 and used by Darwin
First let us consider the slogan as
412 quotes the Societe de Linguistique de Paris in 1868 himself. Darwin emphasized the Non saltus maxim
and Whitney in 1871). even to the point where Hitxley thought he overworked
428 .'Miout fifteen years after Schleicher's fioniit. the it. But Darwin's reason was that he saw that uniformi-
tarianism admits of degrees, and in his effort to show a perceiving individual A, to divide language-changes
that an impeccably uniformitarian explanation of or- into changes of which A is aware and changes of which
ganic evolution could be given, he chose as a matter he is unaware. (It was a feature of the psychology of
of policy to be excessively rather than insufficiently their day to contrast consciousness or awareness, called
uniformitarian whenever threatened with the prospect apperception, with perception.) And in dealing with
of erring either on the one side or the other. But when the perception, and the awareness, of language-
the slogan gained currency beyond the circle of changes, the Neogrammarians made use of the fairly
geologistsand biologists, it was construed not as a recent psychological discovery called "the phenom-
maxim method but as an alleged fact about nature.
of enon of the just noticeable difference." This phenom-
Taken as a maxim of method, Non saltus is perhaps enon was of interest to psychologists because of (1)
compatible with uniformitarianisni but surely not es- Fechner's attempt to quantify it and (2) the prospect
sential to it. One might even claim that a certain that such a quantitative treatment would make a
amount of discontinuity is an obvious fact of experi- scientific treatment of the mind-body relation possible.
ence, and so a vera causa, just as the Hindu philosopher But it was of interest to linguists not for either of these
Shankara argued that "A person main-
(also Sainkara) reasons but for a third reason, a "qualitative "
rather
taining that the people of ancient times were no more than a quantitative aspect, which we might call "the
able to converse with the gods than people are at nontransitivity There is an
of indistinguishability. "
present would thereby deny the (incontestable) variety important difference between identity and indistin-
of the world" (Sacred Books of the East, 34, 222-23; guishability. Identity is a transitive relation, i.e., if A
cited by Deussen [1912], p. 38), and as Charles Peirce, is identical with B and B is identical with C, then A
arguing against causal determinism, urged that chance is identical with C. But if A is indistinguishable from
presents itself as a vera causa. B and B is indistinguishable from C, then no conclusion
Those who imported Non saltus into the description can be drawn; it neither follows that A is indistinguish-
of language-change disregarded such considerations, it able from C nor that A is distinguishable from C. To
seems, and had only a rather loose analogy in mind. use the technical labels, indistinguishability is neither
We can see easily enough what the analogy was. We a transitive nor an intransitive relation, but something
know that languages change, but we know this by in between, which is called "nontransitive."
inference, not by direct observation, somewhat as we That language-change may be so gradual as to escape
know waterways wear away stone (the Colorado
that notice — that it may be "insensible," to use the eight-
River system has excavated the Grand Canyon), or that eenth-centvu'y term — was observed already in ancient
the hour hand of a watch moves one twelfth as fast times; but the hypothesis (1) that the presently
as the minute hand, and the minute hand one sixtieth observed language diversity could result from an origi-
as fast as the second hand. The Non saltus maxim is nal unity by changes that were in large part gradual,
a rather clumsv attempt to harmonize the Vera causa and (2) that the principal locus of language change
maxim with uniformitarianism, simply brushing aside lay in the imperfect imitation by children of the speech
the necessary truth that unless a change is truly contin- of their elders, had to wait until the nineteenth century
uous in a strictly mathematical sense, it is a succession to receive serious consideration. Neither hypothesis
of discrete steps, and whether this succession is per- would be accepted without qualification at the present
ceived as discrete or as continuous depends upon the time; but what is relevant is that the hypotheses them-
discriminatory power of the perceiving agent. To put selves are uniformitarian in character, and the question
the point more bluntly, Darwin naively took man as is whether the linguists who put them forward were
the measure in deciding whether a change was big actually influenced by Lyell. It appears probable that
enough to count as a leap (saltus) or not. there was little direct influence, that there was a fair
It so happened that those who took the slogan over amount of indirect influence via Darwin (insofar as
into linguistics, though naive as regards the deeper Darwinian ideas had become common property of the
methodological issues involved, were not naive in "average educated man"), but that in large part the
taking man as the measure. It is true that they took influence came from psychology, and in particular from
man as the measure, but not true that they did it its recent heightened appreciation of the just-
naively. For they were concerned not with change in noticeable difference and the "threshold," and its
general, but with man's perception of change; and in accompanying recognition that indistinguishability (of
dealing with man's perception of change it was not sounds, etc.) is nontransitive.
naive, but rather was inherent in the nature of the Uniformitarianism in Recent Linguistics. In
6.
project, to take man as the measure. In other words, 1950 Morris Swadesh launched a method, glotto-
for their project it was entirely suitable, relative to chronology, that deserves mention here because it 429
' "
proposed a compara-
uiiiforinitarian refinement of the Puhvel (Los Angeles. 1966), pp. 1-12. Leonard Huxley, Life
tive method.had two main postulates: ( 1) The
It and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, 2 vols. (London. 1900);
vocabulary of any language can be divided into two cited from the two-volume edition (New York, 1901).
parts, the basic vocabulary and the rest; languages may

Thomas Henry Huxley, "Geological Reform," Presidential
Address to the Geological Society of London 1869);
differ in their nonbasic vocabularies, but all languages (
reprinted in his Collected Essays, 8, 305-39; and cf. pp.

agree in the meanings expressed in their basic vocabu-
viii-xi; idem. Collected Essays, 9 vols. (London, 1893-94);
laries.(2) Change in a language's basic vocabulary
cited from (New York, 1897). Dell Hymes, ed.. Language
(which consists in the replacement of one item by Culture and Society (New Roman
in York. 1964). Jakobson,
another item with the same meaning) proceeds at a "Franz Boas's Approach to Language," International Journal
more or less constant rate for all languages at all times. of American Linguistics, 10 (1944). 188-95; reprinted in
It is postulate (2), uniform rate of change for re- Sebeok, 2, 127-39. Otto Jespersen, Language (London,
placements in basic vocabularies, that makes the 1922); idem, Linguistica (London, 1933). Sir William Jones.
method uniformitarian. To determine this constant "The Third Anniversary Discourse. On the Hindus," Feb.
rate, it was assumed that replacement, which is dis- 2, 1786, in Asiatick Researches, Vol. I (Calcutta, 1788),
reprinted, idem. Works (London, 1799), 19-34. Mikolaj
crete, could be represented without serious distortion as
I.
Kruszewski, "Prinzipien der Sprachentwicklung," Interna-

a continuous process amenable to the differential and
tionale Zeitschrift fiir Sprachwissenschaft, 1 1884), 295-307;
Under that assumption, there resulted
(
integral calculus.
2 (1885). 258-68; 3 (1887), 145-87; 5 (1890), 133-44, 339-60.
as a corollary to postulate (2) a half-life principle just
Charles Lyell. Principles of Geology, 3 vols. (London, 1830,
as in the mathematical model for radioactive decay.
1832, 1833); idem, Tlie Geological Evidences of the Antiquity
And actually it was the application to radioactive
of Man (London, 1863). John P. Maher, "More on the His-
decay, and especially its recent application in arche- tory of the Comparative Method," Anthropological Linguis-
ology to radiocarbon dating, that inspired Swadesh's tics, 8, No. 3, Part 2 (1966), 1-12. Friedrich Max Miiller,
method and aroused hopes (Swadesh, 1952).
for it Lectures on the Science of Language, Second Series (London,
After about a decade of discussion both postulates 1864); cited from (New York. 1865). Alfons Nehring,
came to be judged unrealistic (Hymes [1964], pp. "Sprachwissenschaftliche Palaontologie," in Actes du
567-663, including pp. 622-23, a bibliography). How- Deuxieme Congres International dc Linguistes (Geneva,
1931; published 1933), pp. 191-94. Hanns Oertel, Lectures
ever, the basic ideas of the method have not been
on the Study of Language (New York, 1902). Holger
shown to be wrong in principle.
Pedersen, Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century
(Cambridge. Mass.. 1931). Adolphe Pictet, Les origines
BIBLIOGRAPHY indo-europeennes, ou les Aryas primitifs, Essai de paleontol-
Leonard Bloomfield, Language (New York, 1933). Amo ogie linguistique, 2 vols. (Paris and Geneva, 1859. 1863).
Borst. Der Turmbau von Babel, 4 vols. (Stuttgart, 1957-63). R. H. Robins, A Short History of Linguistics (Bloomington,
Karl Brugmann, The Nature and Origin of the Noun Gefiders 1968). Edward Sapir, "Herder's Ursprung der Sprache,"
in the Indo-European Languages (New York, 1897). George Modern Philology, 5 (1907), 109-42. Ferdinand de Saussure,
Cardona, Henry M. Hoenigswald, and Alfred Senn, eds., Cours de linguistique generale, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1922). August
Indo-European and Indo-Europeans (Philadelphia, . . . Schleicher, Compendium der vergleichenden Gramniatik der
1970). Ernst Cassirer, T}ie Philosophy of Stfmbolic Forms, indogermanischen Sprachen, 2 vols. (Weimar, 1861, 1862);
Vol. I (New York. 1953). Francis Darwin, Life and Letters idem, LHe darwinische Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft
of Charles Darwin, 3vols. (London, 1888); cited from the (1863); an English abstract arranged by Huxley appeared
two-volume edition (New York, 1898). Paul Deussen, The in TlieReader (London, 27 February 1864); see L. Huxley,
System of the Vedanta (Chicago, 1912). Loren Eiseley. Life and Letters .... 1, 227 and T H. Huxley, Collected
Darwin's Century (New York, 1958); cited from the 1961 Essays, 2. 80. Johannes Schmidt, "Schleicher" (1890),
reprint. Lazarus Geiger, Die Ursprung der Sprache (Stutt- reprinted in Sebeok 1, 374-95. Thomas A. Sebeok, Portraits
gart, 1869). Charles C. Gillispie. Genesis and Geology of Linguists, 2 vols. (Bloomington, 1966). Shankara
(Cambridge, Mass., 1951); cited from the reprint (New York, (Samkara), Commentary on the Vedanta-Sutra, in Sacred
1959). John C. Greene, The Death of Adam (Ames, Iowa, Books of the East, Vol. 34 (London, 1890); Vol. 38 (London,
1959); cited from the reprint (New York, 1961). Mary R. 1896). Morris Swadesh, "Salish Internal Relationships,
Haas, "Historical Linguistics and the Genetic Relationship International Journal of American Linguistics, 16 (1950),
of Languages," in Current Trends in Linguistics, eds. Thomas 157-67; idem, "Lexico-statistic Dating of Prehistoric Ethnic
A. Sebeok and Charles A. Ferguson (The Hague, 1966), III, Contacts," Proceedings of the Anierican Philosophical Soci-
113-53. Gilbert Highet, The Classical Tradition (New York, ety, 96 (1952), 452-63. Friedrich Techmer, Phonetik, 2 vols.
1949); cited from the reprint (New York, 1957). Henry M. (Leipzig, 1880). William Whewell, Philosophy of the Induc-
Hoenigswald, "On the History of the Comparative Method, tive Sciences (London, 1840). Andrew D. White, A History
Anthropological Linguistics, 5, No. 1 (1963), 1-11; idem, of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom,
"Criteria for the Subgrouping of Languages." in Ancient 2 vols. (New York, 1896); see Ch. 17. "From Babel to Com-
4oU Indo-European Dialects, ed. Henrik Bimbaum and Jaan parative Philology, " 2, 168-208. William D. Whitney, re-
UNITY OF SCIENCE FROM PLATO TO KANT
view of Miiller, Lectures on the Science of Language. Second guished the five mathematical arts (arithmetic, plane
Series, North American Review. 100 (1865), 565-81; re- and solid geometry, astronomy, and harmonics), from
printed in Whitney's Oriental and Linguistic Studies (New all the other arts, for though, like the others, they are
York, 1873), pp. 239-62; idem. Language and the Study of they contain
undertaken for their practical utility,
Language (New York, 1867); idem, "Remarks on F. A.
some apprehension of true being. Those who study
March's Paper on The Neo-grammarians," Proceedings of
them, however, accept their principles uncritically as
the American Philological Association (1885), xxi. William
self-evident or absoluteand no attempt is made to
K. Wimsatt and Cleanth Brooks, Literary Criticism: A Short
History (New York, 1966).
account for them. Plato envisaged a science, "dialec-
tic," which is superior to the mathematical sciences,
RULON WELLS because it takes their assimiptions not as principles,
[See also Classification of the Sciences; Language; Linguis- but as hypotheses, using them as stepping stones for
tics; Structuralism; Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism.] ascending to a single principle, not itself hypothetical,
the first principle of everything, or the Form of the
good. In doing so dialectic destroys their hypothetical
character, that is, renders them intelligible or known,
UNITY OF SCIENCE for "that which imparts truth to the things that are
FROM PLATO TO KANT known and the power of knowing to the knower you
affirm to be the Form of the good. It is the cause of
"The professors of wisdom in Greece did pretend," knowledge and truth" [Republic 508). Moreover,
says Francis Bacon, "to teach a universal Sapience. . . .
dialectic shows the interconnections of the sciences
And it is a matter of common discourse of the chain with one another and their relation to the nature of
of the sciences how they are linked together, insomuch being. Plato asserts it to be the distinguishing mark
that the Grecians, who had terms at will, have fitted of the dialectician that he has the ability to see the
it of a name of Circle Learning" (Valerius Terminus, sciences as comprising one whole (ibid. 537).
Ch. I, Works, VI, 43). The ideal of such a universal In opposition to the Platonic conception of the unity
knowledge has played a dominant role in the course of the sciences with respect to their principles, there
of European culture, both scientific and humanistic, is which denies the possibility
the Aristotelian view
whether expressed in the educational requirements for of a supreme science from which the basic truths of
merely the Roman orator and architect or at its apogee the particular sciences can be deduced (Analytica
in the eighteenth-century Encyclopedie for the posteriora 76a 16-25). These basic truths are indemon-
enlightenment of a whole age. It is partly in relation strable. Nevertheless there is a science which embraces
to this ideal that the more limited concept of the unity the others. "We suppose," says Aristotle, "that the wise
of the exact sciences arises; partly, however, it arises man knows of all things, as far as possible, although
from the nature of science itself. In a science the search he has not knowledge of them in detail" {Metaphysica
for unity and for intelligibility are inseparable. It is 982a 10). "In knowing the most universal things he
natural for this search to extend itself beyond the knows in a sense all the instances which fall under the
confines of the individual science to all the sciences universal " (ibid. 23). While each of the special sciences
taken together. investigates some kind of being with a view to demon-
The main conception of the unity of the sciences strating its essential properties, the highest degree of
until the time ofKant can, for convenience of classifi- imiversal knowledge, or first philosophy, investigates
cation,be considered in relation to the ways in which the properties of no genus, but only the properties of
the sciences were in general, following Aristotle, dis- being as being. Included also in first philosophy are
tinguished from one another: (1) by their principles the common which hold for
principles or axioms
or logical foundations, (2) by their subject matters, and everything that is insofar as it is and not insofar as
(3) by their methods. Consequently there are concep- it belongs to some genus. The most certain of these
tions of iinity underlying the principles of the different is the principle that "the same attribute cannot at the
sciences, of unity with respect to their subject matters, same time belong and not belong to the same subject
and of imity with respect to their methods. To these and in the same respect" (ibid., 1005b 19). Aristotle
we can add a fourth conception of imity with respect also mentions the law of excluded middle, Among the
to the end or ends of science. indemonstrable basic truths of a science some are pe-
culiar to that science and some are common to all the
UNITY OF PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE sciences, "but common only in the sense of analogous,
In the case of principles two powerful traditions being of use only in so far as they fall within the genus
were established by Plato and Aristotle. Plato distin- constituting the province of the science in question" 431
{Analytica posteriora 76a 37). Taking "common" in this portant modifications of tradition. Where for the scho-
sense, Aristotle says, "In virtue of the common ele- lastics being was the first and
of the transcendentals,
ments of demonstration I mean the — common axioms the others were coextensive or convertible with it,
which are used as the premisses of demonstration, not either singlv, as in the case of imitv, truth and goodness,
•
the subjects or the attributes demonstrated as belonging or in disjunction as in the case of substance-accident,
to them — all the sciences have communion with one necessary-contingent, actual-potential, etc., Bacon
another" (ibid. 77a 26). presents a list only of disjunctive transcendentals and
With West assigns being to membership one of the disjunctive
— "Much,
the rediscovery of Aristotle in the in the in
thirteenth century, the conception of a universal sci- pairs Little; Like, Unlike; Possible, Impossi-
ence of being as being emerges again. In his Commen- ble; likewise Being and Not Being, and the like" (ibid.,
tarv on Aristotle's Metaphysics Saint Thomas .Aquinas Book III, Ch. I, Works. VIII, 473). He does not appear
defines metaphysics as the science which investigates to regard these pairs of disjunctives as coextensive with
the most intelligible things, that is to say. the most anything. What he considers important, however, is
universal principles. These are being and the conse- that first philosophy be concerned with "the operation
quent attributes of being, such as one and many, of these Common .Adjmicts" insofar as "they have
potency and act. Without knowledge of these universal efficacy in nature," and without regard to divisions of
principles it is not possible to have a complete knowl- the sciences.

edge of any genus or species of things. Moreover, it Plato's notion that there is a single science which
should not be left to anv one of the particular sciences gives certaintv to the principles of the other sciences
to investigate these principles, for, as necessary to the emerges again in the seventeenth and eighteenth
knowledge of any genus whatever, they would equally centuries, most notablv with Descartes, Leibniz, Hume,
have to be investigated in all the particular sciences. and Kant. Descartes' metaphysics gives certainty to the
Aquinas concludes that there must be one universal other sciences in two ways; one, by the removal of
science whose concern is these principles (Expositio, the hyperbolical doubt to which even mathematics is
Prooemium). subject — the atheist mathematician cannot know that
It is not possible here to trace the meanings attached his science true — and the other by showing that the
is
to "being" from Aristotle through the periods of scho- Cartesian physics is not merely a new hypothesis but
lasticism and into the eighteenth century when it be- is and that the physics of Aristotle is false. Prior
true,
came, as the highest abstraction, the vacuous subject to producing his Principles of Philosophy Descartes
of Wolff's ontology, a science given pride of place in presented all his treatises in the physical sciences as
the classification of the sciences in the Discours prelim- resting on hvpothetical principles, which, though
inaire de I'Encyclopedie. However, in the seventeenth confirmable by experience, he considered himself able
century Francis Bacon, for the specific purpose of to deduce from the primary truths of his metaphysics
giving unity to the sciences, took over the Aristotelian (Discourse on Method. Part VI). Later he was to claim
notion of first philosophy, and adapted it to his own for his Meditations that they "contain the entire foun-
thoroughgoing philosophical materialism, substituting dations of mv physics "
or "contain all its principles"
nature for being. For Bacon first philosophy is a uni- (Oeuvres. Ill, 297f., 233). It is more specifically Medi-
versal science, "the mother and prior to
of the rest," tation V. determining the essence of material things
all divisions by subject matter (De augmentis scien- to be extension, and Meditation VI. establishing the
tianim. Book III, Ch. I, Works. VIII, 471). It has two real distinction between the mind and the body, which
parts. First, it is a repository of all axioms not peculiar banish substantial forms from nature and demonstrate
to any of the particular sciences. Unlike the axioms that all physical phenomena, including living phenom-
of Aristotle's first philosophy, however, they are not ena, whether plant, animal, or human, are governed
common to all the sciences, but are such as are shared by purely mechanical principles. These principles are
by two or more. Moreover, where for .\ristotle it is extended even to the scientific treatment of the pas-
impossible in demonstration to pass from one genus sions: "my aim has been to explain the passions . . .
to another, the principle function of the axioms for only as a physicist" (ibid., XI, 326). Thus Descartes
Bacon is precisely that of making these transitions aptly compared philosophy as a whole to "a tree,
possible, "in order that solution of continuity in sci- whose roots are metaphysics, whose trunk is physics,
ences may always be avoided. For the contrary thereof and whose branches, which issue from this trank, are
has made particular sciences to become barren, all the other sciences," in particular, medicine, me-
shallow, and erroneous "

(ibid.. Book IV, Ch. I, Works, chanics, and morals (Principia philosophiae. Preface).
IX, 14). Secondly, first philosophy is a doctrine of Leibniz attributes a similar role to metaphysics in
432 transcendentals (Being, One, etc.), but again with im- relation to the natural sciences, but for different rea-
sons. Because physical nature is the phenomenal been established. Metaphysics for Kant is the same as
expression to a perceiver of immaterial or metaphysical for ,\ristotle, that is, it "considers evervthing in so far
substances, the principles governing phenomena are as it is" (Critique of Pure Reason, B 87.3). The outcome
ultimately grounded in metaphysical principles. "We of the transcendental investigation was that of showing,
acknowledge that all phenomena are indeed to be however, that metaphysics is restricted to everything
explained by mechanical efficient causes but that these insofar as it is in nature, that is, insofar as it is an object
mechanical laws are themselves to be derived in gen- of possible experience. Thus the only metaphysics
eral from higher reasons and that we thus use a higher which is possible is that which he had called the pure
efficient cause only to establish the general and remote science of nature. Nature includes the objects of both
principles'" (Specimeti Dynamicum, Loemker, p. 722). psychology and phvsics. Physics becomes a subalter-
Physicists must not, like the scholastics with their sub- nate of this pure science of nature when concepts of
stantial forms, introduce metaphysics into physics. The empirical origin such as motion, impenetrability, and
two spheres are separate. The sole function of meta- inertia are introduced. Nevertheless physics must use
physics in relation to the physical science is to provide principles of absolute universality for the whole realm
the foundations of their principles {Discourse on Meta- of nature, both psychological and physical, such as
physics, Sec. X). "every substance is permanent "

and "every event is
What Descartes and Leibniz in their different ways determined by a cause according to constant laws."
claimed for metaphysics, Hume claimed for his new When Kant speaks of "the pure science of nature,"
"science of man, "
an empirical psychology conceived he treats it as an existing science in no need of a
by analogy with Newton's natural philosophy. Because transcendental deduction for its own sake. When,
all sciences "return back by one passage or another however, he speaks of the same thing under the name
to the science of human nature, Hume proposed ".
"
. . "metaphysics of nature," then he considers that his
to march up directly to the capital or centre of these transcendental investigation will put that metaphysics
sciences, to human nature itself. . . . From this station on "the secure path of a science. For this new point
we may extend our conquest over all these sciences. of view will enable us to furnish satisfactory proof
. . .
There is no question of importance, whose decision is of the laws which form the a priori basis of nature"
not comprised in the science; and there is none which (ibid., B xix). Moreover it will make possible an
can be decided with any certainty, before we become exhaustive knowledge of the principles which consti-
acquainted with that science. In pretending therefore tute this pure science. Kant also provided the same
to explain the principles of human nature we in effect kind of foundation for the metaphysics of morals as
propose a compleat system of the sciences, built on for the metaphysics of nature, for the supreme princi-
foundations almost entirely new, and the only one on ple of morality is an a priori synthetic practical propo-
which they can stand with any security "
(Treatise of sition, and its possibility like that of the a priori syn-
Human Nature, Introduction). Hume mentions seven thetic propositions of the other sciences requires a
sciences: mathematics, natiual philosophy, natural re- demonstration in order "to prove that morality is no
ligion, logic, morals, criticism, and politics. Of the first mere phantom of the brain."
three he says onlv that it is, "impossible to tell what (\n a priori proposition, in contrast to a posteriori
changes and improvements we might make in these particular facts, is universal and necessary, e.g., truths
sciences" by bringing the science of man to bear on of mathematics, laws of nature, rules of logic; a .syn-
them. In the case of the last four sciences Hume carried thetic proposition, in contrast to an analytic truth by
out his project thoroughly and psychologized them all. definition, goes l)evond the definition of the subject,
Kant, too, was to introduce a new science to lay e.g., the planets all move in elliptical orbits around the
the foundations of the other sciences. He raised three sun; an a priori synthetic proposition is a universal,
questions. How is pure mathematics possible? How is necessary judgment going beyond definition and sense-
the pure science of nature possible? How is meta- particulars.)
physics as science possible? These can all be summed
up in one question, how are a priori synthetic judg- UNITY OF SUBJECT MATTER
ments possible, or what are the groimds for taking such "Let no man," says Bacon, "look for much progress
judgments as true? This is the object of a "transcen- in the sciences unless natural philosophy be carried
. . .
dental" inquiry. The first two of these sciences Kant on and applied to particular sciences and particular
considered secure and certain. They actually exist as sciences be carried back again to natural philosophy."
sciences and therefore are possible. The only reason This holds not only for "astronomy, optics, music, a
for undertaking an inquiry into their grounds was for number of mechanical arts, medicine itself," but also
the sake of metaphysics, whose possibility had not yet for "what one might more wonder at, moral and polit- 433
ical philosophy, and the logical sciences" {Novum diversifiedbv the kinds of beings which they investi-
organum. Book II, Aph. Ixxx, Works, VIII, 112). Bacon gate. There is for Spinoza only one substance, God or
does not regard these other sciences as parts of natural nature, and for Leibniz only one kind of substance,
philosophy, but as having their "roots" in it. Natural monads. In Spinoza's world the essence of any individ-
philosophy however, contains within it certain
itself, ual finite thing is the power or effort by which it
constituent sciences which form a pyramid. These are endeavors to persevere in its being. This conatus fol-
distinguished from one another not by their subjects, lows from, or is a mode of, the infinite power of God,
but by their levels of generality in knowledge of the a power which can be expressed to the perceiving
one subject, nature. At the base of the pyramid is intellect either as infinite extension or as infinite
natural historv. On that is built physics, which has two thought {Ethics, Part I, definitions 4, 6). Corre-
parts, one less general and one more general. On spondingly, the conatus constituting the essence of the
physics is built metaphysics (a science distinct from individual thing can be expressed either as body or as
first philosophy) which brings the axioms of physics mind. Thus physics on the one hand and the science
imder more general axioms. At the vertical point
still of the thoughts and emotions of the mind on the other
of the pyramid is "the summary law of nature" i.e., — are knowledge merely of the same conatus, but as
"the force implanted by God in the first particles of differently expressed, and the order of causes in the
matter from the multiplication whereof all the variety one science be identical with the order of causes
will
of things proceeds and is made up" {De principiis, in the other (ibid.. Part II, prop. 7). Spinoza's proposed
^brks, X, 345), though knowledge of it is probably aim of acquiring "the knowledge of the union which
beyond the reach of the human mind. The three the mind has with the whole of nature "
required the
inductively ordered levels, natural history, physics, and study of Moral Philosophy, the Theory of the Educa-
metaphysics, are "the true stages of knowledge." Given tion of Children, the science of Medicine and the art
the one subject, nature, it is Bacon's logic of induction of Mechanics {De emendatione, II, 13-15). Leibniz too
which alone determines both the divisions and the adopts a double aspect conception, but in his case it
unity of the sciences which comprise natural philoso- is used for correlating metaphysics, the science of
phy. Bacon also divided all human learning on the basis beings as they are in themselves, that is, as indivisible
of Memory (History), Imagination (Poetry), and Reason spiritual substances, with physics, the science of these
(Philosophy). same beings as they appear, that is, as material
Hobbes's materialism taken in conjunction with his phenomena or extended masses. "These two realms are
logic or method has similar reductive consequences for distinct, each one being governed by its own laws. . . .
the division and unity of the sciences, though the But the two very different series are in mutual corre-
method is now deductive, not inductive. As knowledge spondence in the same corporeal substance and
of causes, science is in every case knowledge of the harmonize so perfectly that it is just as if one were
motions of bodies by which effects are generated. These ruled by the influence of the other (Loemker, p. 675). "
motions are the single subject of all sciences, one sci-

ence being distinguished from another only by the UNITY OF METHOD
complexity of the motions which it investigates. Thus According to Aristotle there is not a single method
after first — which consists of definitions of
philosophy applicable to all subject matters, but each has its own
the most general names — comes geometry, the science appropriate method (Metaphysica 995b; De anima
of the simple motions of a body by which lines, sur- 402a; Ethica 1094b). While this was being reiterated
and figures are produced. Then follows the sci-
faces, by Saint Thomas in the thirteenth century, two of his
ence concerned with the effects of the impact of contemporaries formulated conceptions of a universal
moving bodies; then the science of the effects of the method of discovery applicable in all the sciences;
internal motions of bodies, that is, physics or the study Roger Bacon in his scientia and
experitnentalis,
of sensible phenomena such as light, colors, sounds, Raymond LuUy in his ars magna, the one empirical,
tastes, odors, heat, etc., and of the senses themselves; the other a priori. Bacon calls his experimental science,
then moral philosophy or the science of the motions "this great mistress of the speculative sciences,"
of the mind such as appetite, aversion, love, attributing to it "the same relation to the other sciences
benevolence, etc., for these are motions consequent as the science of navigation to the carpenter's art and
upon the motions of sense; and finally, because the the military art to that of the engineer. ... It directs
motions of the mind are the causes of the common- other sciences as its handmaids, and therefore the
wealth, there comes civil or political philosophy {Con- whole power of speculative science is attributed espe-
cerning Body, Ch. VI, Sees. 6, 7). cially to this science" {Opus maius. Part VI, p. 633).
434 For Spinoza and Leibniz also the sciences are not Knowledge is acquired in two ways, either by reasoning
or by experience. Experience includes what is learned logic, but it was, he says, arithmetic and algebra which
not only through the external senses but also through revealed to him the role of signs or characters in
internal illumination or divine inspiration, the latter making demonstration in the sciences possible. "It is
being important for both rehgion and for the principles as if God, when he bestowed these two sciences on
of the speculative sciences. Bacon worked out no rules mankind, wanted us to realize that our understanding
of operation for his new experimental science and it conceals a far deeper secret, foreshadowed by these
is not a precursor of his namesake's logic of induction. two sciences" (trans. Loemker, p. 340).
However, he assigned to it three prerogatives. The first Descartes too had drawn his inspiration for a uni-
is deduced from princi-
that of verifying conclusions versal method for the sciences from the study of math-
ples. This is not so much a method of testing hypotheses ematics, but what he saw as significant was not, as with
as of giving certainty to conclusions and removing Leibniz, the use of symbols in algebra, but the logical
doubt, and is not therefore properly a method of interconnections of all the parts of geometry. These
discovery. But in its second and third prerogatives it "had caused me to imagine that all those things which
is one of discovery. In the second it discovers new fall under the cognizance of man might very likely
truths within a science which are incapable of being be mutually related in the same fashion (Discourse "
deduced from the principles of that science, and in on Method, Part II). This conviction is expressed in
the third it operates without reference to the limits an early opuscule: "All the sciences are interconnected
of any of the particular sciences, but by its own power as by a chain; no one of them can be completely
investigates the secrets of nature. grasped without the others following of themselves and
Like Bacon, and those in the tradition of Aristotle, so without taking in the whole of the encyclopaedia
Lully believed that each branch of inquiry rested on atone and the same time Oeuvres, X, 255). Descartes
"
(
a limited number of principles and basic concepts. To began his first work on method, the Regulae, with an
this he added the notion that if letters of the alphabet explicit attackon the Aristotelian specialization of
were substituted for these elements, and combined in methods according to subject matter. He did so on two
every possible way in a purely mechanical fashion, grounds, first, that the mind in its cognitive exercise
everything which it is possible to know in that subject is no more differentiated by its subjects than is the sun
could be discovered. Thus the great art was capable by what it illuminates, and, second, that everything
of yielding universality of knowledge. Lully enjoyed knowable is logically linked. The logical order, or
as great a following among his contemporaries as "order of reasons" which proceeds from the simpler
Thomas Aquinas and the basic idea underlying the to the more difficult, nms directly counter to the "order
great art continued to exercise a fascination until the of subject-matters," the latter being "good only for
seventeenth century, when became incorporated in

it those for whom all reasons are detached" (ibid.. Ill,
the ars combinatoria of Leibniz. But where Lully 266f.). To isolate a branch of knowledge by subject is
assumed that each branch of knowledge had its own to deprive it of its scientific character and render it
simple elements, Leibniz believed it to be possible to a mere There can therefore be no plurality
collection.
find a single set of irreducible concepts common to of sciences but only one universal science, whose parts
all the sciences. Once all these concepts were given are undifferentiated by subjects. Leibniz took the same
their characteristic numbers or signs, their combina- view of his demonstrative encyclopaedia, pointing out
tions could generate a complete "demonstrative that as in geometry the demonstrative order does not
encyclopaedia": permit everything belonging to the same subject to be

dealt with in the same place. Because the encyclo-
Now since all human knowledge can be expressed by letters paedia would result in the dissolution of the divisions
of the Alphabet, and since we may say that whoever under- of the sciences by subject, an index would be an essen-
stands the use of the alphabet knows everything, it follows
make possible
tial part of the project in order to it
that we can calculate the number of truths which men are
to bring together all propositions bearing on any one
able to express, and that we can determine the size of a
subject [New Essays, Book IV, Ch. XXI).
work which would contain all possible human knowledge,
In the eighteenth century the most insistent voice
in which there would be everything which could ever be
known, written, or discovered; and even more than that, on the identity of method in all the sciences was
for it would contain not only the true but also the false Condillac's. Like Leibniz, he saw the perfect existing
propositions which we can assert, and even expressions example of this method in algebra, with its use of signs.
which signify nothing (ed. Wiener, p. 75). Algebra provided "a striking proof that the progress
of the sciences depends uniquely on the progress of
Leibniz claimed to have derived the basic idea of the language, and that well constructed languages alone
art of combinations from the study of Aristotle's formal can give analysis the degree of simplicity and pre- 435
—
cision of which it is susceptible" (Oeuvres, II, 409 b). of the content of the science and the relation of its
He did not, hke Leibniz, conceive the possibility of parts to one another. This regulating idea gives the
a single language for all the sciences; each would have science the same kind of unity as that possessed by
its own, while using exactly the same method of analy- an animal organism, and just as the parts of each sci-
sis. The more radical part of Leibniz' ideal, that of ence form an organic whole, so also do all the sciences
a universal language, emerges again, however, with taken together. "Not only is each svstem articulated
Condorcet. This language would, he says, be like alge- in accordance with an idea, but they are one and all
bra, "the only really exact and analytical language yet organically united in a system of human knowledge,
in existence, '
containing within it "the principles of as members one whole, and so as admitting an
of
a universal instrument applicable to combinations architectonic of all human knowledge (ibid., B 863).
"
all
of ideas," and as easily available to all as the language This whole of human knowledge will be directed by
of algebra itself [Sketch, pp. 197f.). an idea, in the same way as is each of its constituent
sciences, in order that the essential ends of reason
TELEOLOGICAL UNITY served by each will be viewed under one ultimate end,
Says Socrates in the Republic:

namely, "the whole vocation of man." The highest
degree of formal unity in tlie natural sciences
If we do not know the Form of the good, though we should
psychology, physics, and a third science which is a
have the knowledge possible of all else, vou know
fullest
that that would be of no use to us, anymore than is the

systematic union of the two is pursued under the
first —
regulative idea of the whole of nature as the work of
possession of anything without the good. Or do you think
there is any advantage in universal possession if it is not
a supreme intelligence. Practical reason, or morality
good, or in understanding the whole world except the good? also operates under a regulating idea, that of a King-
(Republic 50.5), dom of Ends. This idea provides a means of formulating
the moral law; "every rational being must so act as
In its relation to all other knowledge .\ristotle's first
if he were by his maxims in every case a legislating
philosophy exercises the same function as Plato's
member in a universal kingdom of ends." Such a king-
is "the most authoritative of the sciences
dialectic. It
dom could be realized only if nature harmonized with
and more authoritative than any ancillary science," for hiunan ends, that is, only if the kingdom of nature and
it knows supreme good in the whole of nature,

the
the kingdom of ends were united under one supreme
and therefore the end to which the other sciences are
ruler. Hence the moral idea of God is that supreme
directed (Metaphysica 982b 5). Saint Thomas and the
regulating idea which brings all the sciences into sys-
medieval philosophers follow .Aristotle in assigning to
tematic unity in the science of moral theology. It is
metaphysics the status of ruler of all the other sciences
moral theology which "enables us to fulfill our voca-
as directed to one end, and for Kant this legislation
tion," or attain our highest end.
as a regulative guide constitutes the very essence of
philosophy. The pursuit of sciences with a view to
BlBUOGR.\PHY
attaining their greatest logical perfection he calls "the
scholastic concept" of philosophy. The Works of Aristotle Tratislated into EngUsh, ed. J. A.
Smith and W. D. Ross (Oxford, 1908-52). The Works of
But there is likewise another concept of philosophy, a
Francis Bacon, ed. Ellis, Spedding, and Heath (Boston, 1864).
concepttis cosmicus. which ha.s always formed the real basis Tlie Opus Maius of Roger Bacon, trans. R. B. Burke (Phila-
of the term 'philosophy,' especially when it has been as delphia, 1928). Oeuvres phihsophiques dc Condillac, ed.
it were personified and its archtype represented in the ideal Georges Le Roy .\. N. de Condorcet, Sketch
(Paris, 1947-51).
philosopher. On this view philosophy is the science of the
for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind
relation of all knowledge to the essential ends of human (1795). trans. ]. Barraclough (New York, 1955). Oeuires de
reason (teleologia rationis humanae), and the philosopher and P. Tannery (Paris, 1897-1913).
Descartes, ed. C. .Adam
is not an artificer in the field of reason, but himself the The English Works of Thomas Hobbes. ed. VV. Molesworth
lawgiver of human reason (Critique of Pure Reason, B 867). (London 1839-45). D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
(1739-40), ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (O.xford, 1888). I. Kant,
Reason, in exercising its purely logical function, is
Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N. K. Smith (London, 1933).
concerned with bringing the manifold knowledge pro-
G. \V. Leibniz, Selections, ed. P. P. \\'iener (New York, 1951).
vided by the understanding to the highest degree of
New Essays Concerning Human Understanding (1704) trans.
systematic unity. It is this unity which distinguishes
A. G. Langley (LaSalle, 111., 1949). Gottfried Wilhelm Leib-
science from a mere aggregate of things known. In niz. Philosophical Papers and Letters, trans, and ed. L. E.
pursuit of this end reason is compelled to operate with Loemker (Chicago, 1956). Raymundi Lultii Opera ea quae
the idea of the form of the whole of the science in ad adinventam ah ipso arteni universalem . . . pertinent
question, an idea which determines a priori the scope (Strassburg, 1617). Plato, Republic, trans. A. D. Lindsay
UNIVERSAL MAN
(London, 1920). The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza. of existence, it is well to reflect upon its nature, to
trans. R. H. M. Elwes (London. 1883-84). Thomas Aquinas, determine which of its features are peculiar to the age
Expositio in libros Metaphysicorum, ed. M. R. Cathala and that brought it forth and which can be thought of as
R. M. Spiazzi (Turin, 1950); The Division and Methods of being of general cultural value. This can best be done
the Sciences, Questions V and VI of his Commentary on
by turning which con-
to the historical literature from
theDe Trinitate of Boethius. trans, with an introduction by
temporary and educational thought derives its
social
Armand Maurer (Toronto, 1953).
conceptions of the universal man. His thought and
ROBERT McRAE mode of life, the intellectual and social conditions that
[See also Baconianism; Causation, Final Causes; Certainty; once sustained him: these are subjects developed in
Classification of the Sciences; EnUghtenment; God; Platon- several studies of Renaissance culture and of its repre-
sentative personalities.
Burckhardt maintained that citizens and subjects,

UNIVERSAL MAN condottieri and princes, artists and intellectuals, all
contributed to the formation of a new and distinctive

The term "universal man" was coined by Jacob human type in Renaissance Italy. Powerful, highly
Bnrckhardt, the Swiss historian and exponent of cul- individualistic natures were to be found in each of these
tural history, in his classic study. Die Kultur der groups: complete persons, as developed intellectually
Renaissance in Italien (1860). He used it to charac- as they were emotionally, as capable in theoretical
terize the fully developed personalities of fifteenth- matters as they were in practical affairs. The mer-
century meaning by the uomo universale a dis-
Italy, chants, statesmen, and rulers who patronized the arts
tinctive social type: one who combines comprehensive and studied the classics, and the productive artists who
learning with the practice of one or more of the arts added to their mastery of several arts and crafts a
or professions. mastery of intellectual culture, found their counterpart
Although the idea has its source and most significant in the humanists, the intellectuals who combined a
development in the context of Renaissance history, it scholarly passion for antiquity with concern for the
also plays a role in pedagogical thought (discussed practical needs of their own society: "While studying
below) and social criticism. In these domains, it repre- Pliny, [the humanist] made collections of natural his-
sents a cultural ideal — as it did for the Renaissance. tory; the geography of the ancients was his guide in
Contemporary discussions of the complete man as an treating of modern geography, their history was his
educational and social goal are marked, however, by pattern in writing contemporary chronicles and . . . ;
nostalgia rather than by genuine aspiration. Renais- besides all this, he often acted as magistrate, secretary,
sance universality is most often used as a foil, setting and diplomatist ." (1950, p. 85). These were the
. .
off by sharp contrast the specialization of knowledge, "many-sided men," a type which markedly increased
the one-sided personal development, and the philis- in number in the course of the fifteenth century; and
tinism fostered by modem technocratic society and among them arose the "all-sided," giants who
its scientific culture. In the abundant literahu-e on "mastered all the elements of the culture of the age."
Leonardo da Vinci, for example, Morris Philipson has This is the universal man, exemplified for Burckhardt
found a reflection of our own cultural discontent. If by Leon Battista Alberti and Leonardo.
Leonardo has become a sort of archetype, it is ". . . Since Burckhardt, Alberti and Leonardo, and many
as an ideal of fulfillment in an age of frequent frustra- other Renaissance figures besides, have been seen and
tion, as an idea of completeness in an era of frag- understood in the light of his idea of universality. Yet
mentation, as a joyous expression of how optimis- Burckhardt barely sketched the features of the com-
tic-dreamer and practical-planner might be combined prehensive nature of the Renaissance man. He based
in this world of narrow specialties giving lip-service his incisive portrayal of Alberti upon some of Alberti's
to the gods of "creativity' " (Leonardo da Vinci, Aspects literary works and upon an incomplete fifteenth-
of the Renaissance Genius [1966], p. vii). century biography which gives a naive but enthusiastic
This sense of wholeness, the versatility and unity of account of Alberti's gymnastic feats, of his study of
personality which Leonardo represents, seems to be music and law, physics and mathematics, of his work
denied us. Yet it is precisely because these charac- in the arts, his literary writings in Latin and the
teristics are rarely realized today that the idea of uni- vernacular, and of the personality traits that sustained
versal man attracts (and deserves) attention. When a this vigorous, productive life: his iron will, his gener-
human type of great social worth threatens to pass out osity, his sympathetic delight in all creation of form, 4o7
UNIVERSAL MAN
natural and human. Burckhardt did not venture to the universal man and the intellectual culture and
define the unifying principles or logical character of social institutions of his time.
Alberti's world of thought. And in Leonardo's case,
although he regarded him "as the finisher to the
beginner, as the master to the dilettante," he refrained 1. Humanism and the Universal Man. Most (but not
even from describing the range of his achievements. all) of the complete personalities Burckhardt referred
He left to future historians the task of analyzing the to had been educated in the classical, humanistic
intellectual culture of the universal man. But if he did learning of their time. Burckhardt noted that the
not investigate the theoretical grounds of Renaissance man was no longer identified
learning of the universal
universality, he did show how the political institutions with the encyclopaedic knowledge of the medieval
and conditions of hfe in the Italian city-states provided thinker, but he did not establish a connection between
a social context from which this type of person could humanism and the rise of the many-sided or all-sided
emerge. man. He did not credit humanism with fashioning an
The wealth and leisure, the municipal freedom and ideal of the complete man nor with providing a ciuric-
social equality obtaining in the urban centers of ulum appropriate anything, he tended to be-
to it. If
Renaissance Italy played a significant role in promoting lieve thatno such objective was entertained by those
who would seem to have striven to fulfill it.
"
man's recognition of himself as "a spiritual individual,

much as these conditions had in ancient Greece. To It was an English historian of Renaissance classical
them, Burckhardt added his distinctive conception of education who showed that the full development of
the "rational "
or "artificial "
character of the Renais- the personality which Burckhardt described corre-
sance state as particularly conducive to the full devel- sponded to the avowed objectives of humanist
opment of the individual's personality. Whether re- educators. William Harrison Woodward's Vittorino da
publics or despotisms, the political order of the Feltre and Other Humanist Educators (1897) is based
Renaissance city-states was the "outcome of reflection upon a close study of the famous teacher and upon
and calculation. "
emancipated from the
Public life, humanistic treatises on education (many of which he
traditional constraints of feudal society, came to be translated and published in this work). He found in
deliberately shaped by the individuals and families who these writings, as in Vittorino's teaching, a conscious
seized and held power. The precariousness of a social revival of both the ancient rhetorical tradition of gen-
order that could invoke few customary sanctions to eral education {encyklios paideia) and its underlying
support it, and the fact that power and status within ideal of the whole man. Vittorino called his method
it could be won by intelligence and forcefulness, stim- of education "encyclopaedic," by which he meant a
ulated to the fullest possible degree the self-realization balanced combination of intellectual, moral, and phys-
of the individual. Liberated from traditional concep- ical training. Another humanist educator, Battista
tions of fixed class and corporate bounds, the individual Guarino, explicitly identified humanistic learning with
was seized by the impulse to realize all his natural Greek paideia and Roman hwnanitas; and Maffeo
powers, to mold the self as well as the state as a work Vegio, in a treatise De educatione liberorum (ca. 1460),
of art. hailed the humanistic restoration of the "universal"
At this point, Burckhardt introduced his seminal idea education of the ancients {qui orhis doctrinarum appel-
of the development of the individual, and of the uni- latus est).
versal man. Although it gave rise to controversy as to In point of fact, humanistic education was far from
whether "individualism and "universality" were not
"
universal or encyclopaedic in the sense of all-en-
also to be found in the Middle Ages (of course they compassing. If anything, it represents a narrowing
are, but they assume a diffêrent form in medieval of the Seven Liberal Arts of medieval secondary edu-
culture), this dispute has not been able to dislodge so cation. It dropped the mathematical Quadrivium
apt and useful an idea. It has been thoroughly incorpo- (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) and deleted
rated in Renaissance historical writing from John logic from the literary Trivium (grammar, rhetoric,
Addington Symonds' Renaissance in Italy (1875-86) dialectics). But it greatly expanded the study of "let-
down to the present, and its elaboration by subsequent ters" by adding poetry, history, and moral philosophy
historians has shed considerable light, not only upon (which was understood as a form of eloquence) to
several Renaissance personalities, but upon the course grammar and rhetoric, as well as by adding Greek to
of Renaissance cultural and social developments as Latin letters (Kristeller, 1961, 1965). The Renaissance
well. The treatment which the concept has received studia humanitatis was thus strictly literary and clas-
in Renaissance histories and biographies will be sical; but founded as it was upon the tradition of
4oO sketched below by considering the relations between classical eloquence, it revived and adopted the ancient
UNIVERSAL MAN
rhetorical ideas of general education. Its guiding prin- monious marriage of classical culture with the political,
ciple was the ideal of classical humanitas: cultivation economic, and social concerns of the urban patriciate.
of "the whole man, body and soul, sense and reason, One of his late works gives the reverse of this picture.
character and mind" (Marrou, 1948). The subject of De iciarchia (1469) is the public respon-
This "general" education (general because it was sibilities (chiefly educational) of the humanist scholar.
neither technical nor professional in nature) was re- Alberti also extended to the artist this conception of
garded by the humanists as the finest preparation for the whole man. In De pictura (1435) he urged the
public and private life. Bearing out Burckhardt's de- painter to become and acquire a general edu-
literate
scription of the union of theory and practice in the cation. This first on painting was also the first
treatise
humanists. Woodward noted the humanistic conviction work to encourage development of that wide range
that the practical ends of the individual and society of interests and general competence which in fact came
would be furthered by a general, i.e., liberal education. to characterize the Renaissance artist.
On the one hand, humanistic learning (particularly in The embraced by the artistic exponents of
learning
was directed toward formation
the secondary schools) the humanistic ideal was not always, and not even
of the person. The was encour-
desire for distinction typically, classical and literary, however. Alberti and
aged by the humanists as a stimulus to learning, and Leonardo, the two whom Burckhardt singled out as
distinction required not only intellectual culture but most fully representative of his all-sided man, achieved
and the acquisition
virtue, the cultivation of character, their imiversality outside the confines of humanistic
of certain personaland social graces as well: eloquence, learning, as did Michelangelo who seemed to his age
dignity of bearing, accomplishment in various forms the truly universal artist of all time. Alberti was a
of recreation and diversion. Moreover, the studia humanist, to be sure. He was in fact the epitome of
hutnanitatis was to lead to the perfection of man as the Renaissance humanist, animated as he was by the
a political being (as citizen, courtier, or ruler, as the desire to achieve that personal excellence which tri-
case may be). In this regard, the union of scholarly umphs over human frailty, death, and time, and bend-
and practical was built into the very system
interests ing all his liberal learning at the same time to practical
of humanistic studies which is directed simultaneously and social needs in characteristically humanistic fash-
toward thought and action: literature and society, po- ion. .\lberti the Latinist wrote vernacular dialogues on
etry and history, rhetoric and moral philosophy all — moral philosophy for the non literatissimi cittadini of
were necessary for the complete man. Finally, classical the lay society of his time; and it was for the sake
studies provided authorities for a wide range of matters of justifying this use of the Tuscan tongue as an instru-
of social and public concern, from statecraft (Aristotle's ment of learning and prose literatiue that he worked
Politics) to management of a household (Plutarch and out its first grammar. For the crafts of painting and
Cicero), from agriculture (Vergil) to the art of war sculpture he provided a theoretical basis and, by
(Caesar). grounding them in the "sciences" of perspective and
The humanists thus appear to be directly responsible anthropometry, drew them into the circle of the liberal
for popularizing the ideal of the well-rounded man. arts. Complementing this work, he applied the mathe-
And formal education was not their only instrument matical learning of the schools, and his humanistic
for propagating and diffusing this ideal. They promoted knowledge of Ptolemy and Vitruvius, to problems of
it in their writings as well; universalizing the general, surveying, map-making, and the construction of
literary culture of the ancient orator, the humanists measuring devices and simple machines. For a friend
recommended it (as P. O. Kristeller has pointed out) who was a Papal Secretary, he devised the method of
in treatises addressed to diverse groups in Renaissance coding by means of a cipher-wheel and of decoding
society, to princes and citizens, to women, courtiers, by frequency analysis. And for architects and builders,
and artists — to all who professed "hiunanity." Several he set forth in his famous De re aedificatoria (1452)
of Alberti's works exemplify this tendency, as does the engineering knowledge of antiquity and his own
Baldassare Castiglione's // cortigiano (1528). Castig- day, the rules of classical architecture, and a theory
lione required the courtier to join to his customary of universal Harmony which formed the aesthetic out-
martial virtues and to his loyalty to his prince the look of his age and fostered its quest for propor-
humanistic virtues of eloquence, a literary education, tionality.
and a certain accomplishment in painting, music, and This quest for proportionality, however, which was
dancing. In the same spirit, although written a century at once an aesthetic, a scientific, a moral, and a meta-
earlier and with a bourgeois audience in mind, Alberti's physical objective, as Alberti's writings attest, bespeaks
Defamilia (ca. 1434) sets forth, in the ideahzed figures a mathematical rather than a humanistic treatment of
of his own prominent merchant-banking family, a har- problems. It belongs to a current of thought which is 439
—
UNIVERSAL MAN
just as fundamental to Renaissance culture as humanism .\like as thev are in their artistic and scientific
but is logically distinct from it. Alberti embodies both however, Alberti and Leonardo did not share
pursuits,
currents, as did the classical culture of antiquity. His the same "universe" of learning. It is not simply that
Platonic conviction that the intellectual should serve Leonardo's thought includes sciences such as botany,
as guide and teacher of his age gave an ethical, a zoology, geology, and hydraulics which are either not
humanistic consistency to the diversity of his works. found at all, or found only in very rudimentary form,
But methodologically, once he moved outside the in .\lberti. more remarkable is Leonardo's utter
W'hat is
sphere of literature, philology, and moral philosophy disregard of humanistic values and the classical, literary
to accomplish this task, mathematics became the method of humanistic study. Leonardo was, as he
organon of all his undertakings. It was by holding to confessed, an omo sanza lettere. But his disinterest in
a mathematical intuition of reality (which he recovered the studia humanitatis and his strictures against book-
from classical sources), by working it out in a variety learning cannot be accounted for solely by the fact
of technical problems (often in accordance with clas- that he was trained as an apprentice in a workshop
sical exemplars) that ./Îberti's thought developed in rather than educated, as ,\lberti was, in a humanistic
several fields of learning — fields which were hitherto gymnasium. Self-taught in almost everything he did,
quite disparate, but in which he, and Leonardo after Leonardo would have mastered the humanistic learning
him, brought about a new methodological unity and of the time had he been vitally interested in it. He
achieved a new, nonliterary kind of universality. did teach himself Latin, in fact, when he was forty-two,
2. Mathesis Universalis. Recent studies of Leonar- but he used it to gain access to the physical knowledge,
do's thought have tended to find the basis of Leonar- not the literary culture of antiquity and the Middle
do's universality in his distinctive fusion of mathe- Ages. The humanistic mode of learning was alien to
matics and sensory experience. Ernst Cassirer (1927), him because, as his work and statements prove, the
Ludwig H. Heydenreich (1944), Erwin Panofsky kind of knowledge he sought was to be found in nature,
(1953), V. P. Zubov (1962), and Eugenic Garin (1965) not books. He restricted himself quite deliberately to
all stress the significance of Leonardo's geometric sperienza (bv which he meant chiefly visual experi-
formulation of technical and physical problems in ac- ence), having won from its mathematical analysis, so
counting for the scope and unity of his thought. This he thought, the rare prize of certain knowledge.
also holds true for .\lberti's artistic and scientific work. This divergence between humanism and what was
Burckhardt was right in maintaining that Leonardo to become in the scientific academies of the seven-
brought to fulfillment what .\lberti had begun, for teenth century an independent, empirical-mathemat-
Alberti and Leonardo are very much They were
akin. ical mode of inquirv, is not yet felt in ,\lberti. In many
both practicing artists, practicing surveyors and map- respects, technical and empirical thought was still
makers, practicing engineers. Both figure in the history more primitive in the early fifteenth century than it
of astronomy, geography, mechanics, anatomy, optics, had been in antiquity, so that Alberti found many
and perspective. Leonardo's chief art was painting, of his most fruitful technical ideas in the classical
of course, whereas Alberti's was architecture; and authors. Moreover, his humanistic ideas mingle with
Leonardo brought his mathematical vision to bear on his artistic and mathematical ones at the deeper level
a greater variety of problems than Alberti did and he of his fundamental intuition of the world and man. The
penetrated them more deeply; but both had the same idea of proportion which figures in his thought as an
intention of discovering in the world of experience its ideal of morality and mores — an idea that echoes
lawful, proportional structure. This was the methodo- Cicero's notion of decorum and Plato's idea of justice
logical objective that made it possible for them to unite complements his vision of the "outer" world of nature.
art and scienct;, and theory and practice, as they did. Balance, measure, or proportion in man reflects the
The diversity of their interests sprang in both cases definition .\lberti gave ofcosmic beauty, that natxu-al
from a commitment to practice and experience, "the "Harmony of all the parts, in whatsoever subject it
common mother of all the sciences and arts" appears, fitted together with such proportion and con-
(Leonardo, ed. Richter, I, * 18). And both used mathe- nection that nothing can be added, diminished, or
matics in the several arts and sciences they pursued altered but for the worse" (De re aedificatoria IX, 5).
as the instrument by which to grasp the rational prin- .\lberti's successor knew nothing bond of this vital
ciples of experience. If the studia humanitatis may be between the moral and the physical world, between
regarded as a revised and expanded Trivium, the disci- man and nature. The proportion or measure that con-
pUnes comprehended by ,\lberti and Leonardo repre- stitutes the form of both the inner and outer world
sent a Quadrivium systematically expanded to include in Alberti's thought is metaphvsically conceived, of
440 all the sciences of measurement. course, and Leonardo, who developed and sharpened
UNIVERSAL MAN
the empirical-mathematical method he shared with was purely contemplative and academic; the mode of
Alberti, evidently could not admit this conception into life of the Renaissance man includes practice of the
his thought. With Leonardo's greater awareness of his arts or crafts or some form of public involvement. The
distinctively "scientific" methods and objectives, the Schoolman belonged to a religious order; the Renais-
two currents of thought that Alberti held together in sance man belongs to the lav world (even when, as
one view of man and the world parted wavs. in the case of .Alberti, he has taken Holy Orders). The
The humanistic movement also encouraged this sep- urban society of the time, not the cloister or the imi-
aration. In contrast to early humanistic treatises on versity, fostered hisdevelopment and supported him.
education which included mathematics, dialectics, and This social fact basic to the revival and ready
is
astronomy in their ideal curricula, the humanistic cur- acceptance of the humanistic ideal of encykhos paideia.
riculum of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries What made the educational ideas of antiquity vital
came to be strictly defined as a program of literary, once more was their responsiveness to the needs of
historical, and ethical studies. The artistic-technical Italian society, particularly those of its dominant class,
interests of an Alberti could not be an integral part the urban patriciate. One such feature of classical
of this studia humanitatis any more than the investi- paideia was its public-spirited ethos stemming from the
gation of nature could be pursued bv means of litera- Greco-Roman conviction that man, the complete man,
ture. Humanism and the natural-scientific mode of is a political animal. In fifteenth-century Florence, this
thought were found to follow different methodological principle served both to elevate bourgeois life, and to
principles, and this intellectual fact shaped the specific reconcile intellectuals to public and political concerns.
i.e., the particular completeness and
"universality," Moreover, the humanists found in the literary or
comprehensive content of thought, of the two main rhetorical learning of antiquity an educational ideal
examples of the Renaissance universal man. that met the cultural aspirations of their society while
3. The Universal Man in Renaissance Society. satisfying practical needs. Humanistic learning
its
Different as they may be in method and objectives, enhanced the dignity of despots, of the urban pa-
humanism and empirical-mathematical thought are triciate, and of the humanists themselves by making
alike in their departure from the Scholastic form of classical culture a sign of nobilitas. a nobility more
medieval universality. For sheer comprehensiveness, rational (and hence a matter of tirtii) than that of the
neither the studia humanitatis nor the sciences of old landed aristocracy which was an accident of birth,
measurement embraced b\ an .\lberti or a Leonardo of fortuna. It provided a general preparation for the
can compete with Roger Bacon's proposed encyclo- variety of practical and pubhc positions that had to
paedia of knowledge or the Summa Theologiae of be filled. And because the state of social and techno-
Thomas .\quinas. The two forms of Renaissance learn- logical development reached by the Italian states in
ing are limited, first to the world of experience, then the fifteenth century was comparable to that of classi-
to the domain of either phvsical or cultural and social cal civilization, Renaissance society could indeed profit
experience. But with this narrowing of scope came a from knowledge of its political and practical arts.
rational grounding of knowledge. The principles of The esteem won by the manual and practical arts
thought in the humanities and natural sciences are (such as painting and surveying) is also an index of their
positive; those of the Scholastic organization of knowl- usefulness to the ruling class of the Italian states. They,
edge are metaphysical and theological. Roger Bacon too, enhanced the dignity of princes and patriciate and
intended to unif\' the sciences of his encvclopaedia bv they furthered their very real interests of wealth and
placing them in the service of theology; and the power. The methodical and practical spirit of Renais-
Summa Theologiae, as its name declares, is a work of sance urban life is stamped upon the scientific achieve-
metaphysics or philosophical theologv which purports ments of the artistic-technical ciu"rent of thought,
to ground the knowledge of all things in "truths" pro- products of applied mathematics in almost every case;
vided by Sacred Doctrine. cryptography, survey maps and scaled nautical charts,
The representatives of Renaissance universality machines and mechanical principles. In this cultural
entertained no such systematic, metaphysical aim, nor domain, humanism, the kind of problems
as in that of
was their learning encyclopaedic. The defining charac- considered and the way those problems were handled
teristic of their thought is not its generality, but rather depended in many ways upon the practical needs of
(as Burckhardt saw and Cassirer demonstrated) its Italian society and the level of institutional and techni-
union of experience and reason, of practice and theor)'. cal development it had achieved.
This basic feature is manifest in the many-sided nature Both types of the Renaissance universal man, the
of the Renaissance man, as it is in the practical and humanist and artist-scientist, grew out of the orderly,
positive cast of his knowledge. The Schoolman's life practical, and confident urban world of fourteenth- and 441
UNIVERSAL MAN
fifteenth-century Italy, and when the bourgeois basis Alberti became for Leonardo an autonomous intellec-
of that civilization collapsed, both they and the culture tual endeavor: "The acquisition of any knowledge
they bore were overcome by hostile social forces. Three whatsoever is always useful to the intellect, because
major stages of social change were distinguished by it be able to banish the useless things and retain
will
Alfred von Martin in the first sociological study of those which are good. For nothing can be either loved
Renaissance culture as a whole, Soziologie der Renais- or hated unless it is first known {Notebooks
" ed. . . . ,
sance (1932). It is useful to consider these stages here, MacCurdy, p. 95). Like Machiavelli, who was very
especially since the art historian, Arnold Hauser, has much his counterpart, Leonardo sounds the keynote
already shown how the three periods of Renaissance of the modem European ethos of ethically-indifferent
art to which Alberti, Leonardo, and Michelangelo scientific inquiry.
belong correspond to and reflect certain social features In Leonardo we see most clearly the separation of
of the "heroic age of capitalism," the classical "age humanism and the artistic-technical current of thought
of the rentier" which succeeded it (at least in Florence) as their distinctivemethods were clarified and as the
toward the end of the and the courtly
fifteenth century, civic ethic,which bound the two for Alberti, dissolved.
society of sixteenth-century Italy dominated by Spain Bv the time Castiglione's Courtier {11 cortigiano) was
and the Counter-Reformation Church. Many of the published in 1528, the humanistic ideal of the complete
featru-es that characterize them as universal men have man had shaken off its republican, bourgeois origins
their source in this changing social context, too. to attach itself to the courtly principles which were
Alberti belongs to the expansive and pubUc-spirited to dominate Italy and Europe in the succeeding age,
life of the first period whereas Leonardo belongs to and science and technology, severed from social con-
the second, when Florence yielded to the princely rule siderations, began their autonomous career. The ra-
of Lorenzo de' culture came to be

Medici and its tional spirit of Renaissance civilization survived in the
shaped by Neo-Platonic and he lived well into

ideas, and empirical-mathematical sciences
literary-historical
the time of the invasions that followed on the heels it founded, butonce integral conception of man
its
of Lorenzo's death. Leonardo sank no roots in Medici and the world had begun to pull apart. Then, in the
Florence (or in Medici Rome), nor did the republican following decades of the sixteenth century, as the
tradition and civic outlook of Florentine humanism combined forces of Spanish-Imperial arms and the
touch a vital chord in him. His patrons were great Counter-Reformation Church dealt the death blow to
princes and condottieri, and finally the King of France; the social institutions of Renaissance Italy, the classical
and as he passed from the service of one to the other, cultiu-e which those institutions supported was utterly
he remained peculiarly detached from political events transformed. Michelangelo confronts us with a totally
and factions, peculiarly neutral. He served equally well different outlook. Hailed by his contemporary Vasari
both the brutal and ruthless Cesare Borgia and the as "the perfect exemplar in life, work, and behavior,"
Florentine Republic under Piero Soderini. When the "divine " Michelangelo renounced the rational
Ludovico Sforza met his sorry fate after having been principles fimdamental to Renaissance universality.
Leonardo's patron at Milan from 1481 until 1499, Painter, sculptor, architect, and poet, Michelangelo
Leonardo redirected many of the ideas he had devel- drew little from and contributed less to the two posi-
oped for a Sforza equestrian monument toward a mon- tive currents of Renaissance thought. His literary in-
ument for the very condottiere who defeated Ludovico terests were centered in Dante and the Bible, not
at the behest of the King of France. classical antiquity; and his moral, aesthetic, and
This detachment from political and moral issues in cosmological conceptions were nourished by
matters of patronage also marks Leonardo's view of Savonarola and Florentine Neo-Platonism, not by
knowledge. Alberti, who never engaged in military humanism and the empirical-mathematical mode of
engineering, could still bind his technical-scientific thought. Michelangelo's genius, which felt constrained
endeavors to his humanistic ethic, seeing that they bv man and matter, produced its gigantic works in
served in fact some constructive social purpose. No isolation and out of an inner wrestling of the soul with
such optimistic outlook was possible for Leonardo who its personal angels and demons. The pubhc life of the
advertised himself to Ludovico Sforza as a master of Renaissance had been destroyed: "I keep to myself,"
artillery, fortifications, and the advanced weaponry of he wrote to his nephew in 1548, in response to his
the day. Yet for all the violent and destructive ends warning not to associate in Rome with Florentines who
to which his science was immediately put, Leonardo had been banished from their (and his) native city. "I
adopted toward it a Faustian attitude of limitless ex- go about little, and I speak to nobody least of all — to
pansion. The pursuit of physical knowledge which was Florentines. If a man salute me in the street I cannot
442 checked and directed by ethical considerations in do otherwise than answer him with fair words: then
UNIVERSAL MAN
I pass on. If I could know which of them were exiles BIBLlOGRAPHy
I would pass by with no reply whatever . .
."
The major works on Renaissance culture dealing with the
(Michelangelo, ed. Garden, p. 232). To this witness of
man
the cataclysmic changes of the sixteenth century — an idea of universal
Renaissance in Italien:
are Jacob Burckhardt, Die Kultur der
Ein Versuch (Basel, 1860) trans.
age which Rome was sacked by Imperial armies
in S. G. C. Middlemore as The Civilization of the Renaissance
(1527), Florence besieged and her republic subverted in Italy(London, 1950, and other editions); John Addington
for all time by the Medici and by Imperial forces Symonds, Renaissance in Italy. 7 vols. (London, 1875-86);
(1529-30), and Italy subject to direct or indirect Ernst Cassirer, Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophic
—
Spanish rule the order of the world had again become der Renaissance (Leipzig and Berlin, 1927), trans. Mario
incomprehensible and providential. Neither humanism Domandi as The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance
nor science entered the circle of Michelangelo's inter- Philosophy (New York and Evanston, 111., 1964); Erwin
Panofsky. ".\rtist. Scientist, Genius: Notes on the 'Renais-
ests. Art was his society and his world, and the Maker
himself had become his patron; ". . , there are many
sance-Dammerung,'" in The Renaissatice, A Symposium
who believe — myself among them — that it was God
(New
satice
York. 1953), pp. 77-93; Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renais-
Thought I: The Classic, Scholastic, and Humanist
who laid this charge [the constniction of St. Peter's]
Strains (New Y'ork, Evanston, London, 1961), and idem,
111.,
upon me" (ibid., p. 308). Renaissance Tliought II: Papers on Humanism and the Arts
It was Michelangelo who first detached art from the (New Y'ork, Evanston, 111,, London, 1965); Eugenio Garin,
scientific preoccupations of the classical period. In Scienza e vita civile nel Rinascimento italiano (Bari, 1965),
Michelangelo the moral life came to be conceived in trans. Peter Munz as Science and Civic Life in the Italian
theological terms once again. Impelled by a rehgious Renais.mnce (New Y'ork, 1969). See also Joan Gadol, Leon
longing for release and regeneration, this late embodi- Battista Alberti, Universal Man of the Early Renaissance
ment of the Renaissance universal man unloosed the (Chicago and London, 1969); Ludwig H. Heydenreich,
human spirit from its rational bonds to phvsical and Leonardo da Vinci (Berlin, 1944), English trans., 2 vols, (New
York, 1955); V. P. Zubov, Uonardo da Vinchi, 1452-1519
social experience, and in so doing brought about the
(Moscow and Leningrad, 1962), trans. David H. Kraus as
final dissolution of the Renaissance view of man and
Leonardo da Vinci (Cambridge, Mass., 1968); Morris Philip-
the world.
son, ed., Leonardo da Vinci, Aspects of the Renaissance
Art, science, and literary humanism henceforth Genius (New York, 1966), The Leonardo quotations are from
pursued their own independent careers. The cohesion 77ie Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, ed. Jean Paul
of Renaissance universality was gone, and it was not Richter, 2 vols. (London, 1883), and The Notebooks of
to be restored any more than were the peculiar social Leonardo da Vinci, ed. Edward MacCurdy (London, 1908;
conditions which had once favored its rise. But the New York, 1938); the Michelangelo quotations, Michel-
ideal of a rational unification of knowledge persisted; angelo; A Record of His Life, ed. R. W. Garden (London,
it passed from humanism and empirical-mathematical 1913). For classical and humanistic education, Werner
thought, which did not of themselves issue in a system- Jaeger. Paideia (Leipzig, 1933-34), English trans. Gilbert
atic ordering of knowledge, to philosophy which

Highet, 3 vols. (New York, 1939-44); Henri Ir^nê Marrou,
did.
Histoire de I'iducation dans I'antiquiti (Paris, 1948), trans,
Renaissance universality holds a logical, as well as a
as A History of Education in Antiquity (London and New
chronological, place between the theological syntheses
York, William Harrison Woodward, Vittorino da
1956);
of medieval learning and the modern philosophical Feltre and other Humanist Educators (Cambridge, 1897);
syntheses of rational knowledge. Neither the studia idem. Studies in Education during the Age of the Renais-
humanitatis nor the sciences of measurement could sance (Cambridge, 1924); Eugenio Garin, // pensiero
embrace the entire globus intellectualis. since neither pedagogico dell'umanesimo (Florence, 1958). For Renais-
is a system of philosophy; but they both prepared the sance social history in relation to its culture, see the
way for the modern unifications of learning which, interpretive essays by Wallace K. Ferguson in Renaissance
from the time of Francis Bacon and Ren6 Descartes, Studies (New York, Evanston, 111., London, 1970); A. von
have regarded as "knowledge" only that which is Martin, Soziologie der Renaissance (Stuttgart, 1932), trans.
groimded in experience and reason. The achievement as Sociology of the Renaissance (New York and Evanston,
III., 1963); Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art (New
of Renaissance thought is positive knowledge, the dual
Y'ork, 1952); Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian
tradition of the cultural and the empirical-math-
Renaissance (Princeton, 1966); Lauro Martines, The Social
ematical sciences. And it is this scientific tradition World of the Florentine Humanists, 1390-1460 (Princeton,
which has provided the cumulatively changing con- 1963); Marvin Becker, Florence in Tyansition (Baltimore,
tents for the modem syntheses of knowledge from 1967-68).
Francis Bacon to the Encyclopidie of Diderot and JOAN KELLY GADOL
d'Alembert, from Leibniz to the twentieth-century [See also Education; Individualism; Renaissance Human-
philosophy of culture of Ernst Cassirer. ism.] 443
UTILITARIANISM
UTILITARIANISM all showed evidence of benevolent intention. And

benevolence was, for Hutcheson, a natural propensity
The central thesis of utilitarianism, in its most general to seek "the greatest happiness for the greatest num-
form, is that actions are to be judged solely by their bers" (a phrase which he may have been the first in
consequences and are not right or wrong in themselves. England to use). In saying this Hutcheson gave the
The term is most commonly used, however, to refer moral senise theory a more definite utilitarian twist than
to the more specific view put forward in the eighteenth either Butler or Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury thought that
century by Helv6tius in France and Jeremy Bentham what those actions approved by the moral sense had
and his followers, the Philosophical Radicals, in in common was a tendency to promote the harmony
England, that the rightness of any action is determined of the universe. Consequently he is probably closer to
by a single criterion, its contribution to the greatest natural law theory than to utilitarianism. Hume, whose
happiness of the greatest number. Utilitarians have moral theory follows Hutcheson quite closely, was
often been moral reformers; but some have claimed more interested in Hutcheson's subjectivism than in his
tobe merely stating what is impUcit in the generally utilitarianism. His accovmt of benevolence is closer to
accepted moral rules. Most have combined these posi- Butler's than to Hutcheson's: man's natural generosity
tions. They have said that the utilitarian principle islimited, and does not, as a rule, extend beyond his
underlies ordinary moral reasoning, but that, because immediate acquaintances to mankind in general. On
this has not been realized, individuals and communities the other hand, the combination of self-interest, limited
have often held moral beliefs which are inconsistent generosity, and the requirements of social living result
with utilitarianism and which a more careful analysis in a moral sense which approves of those qualities that
of their own views would lead them to renovmce. are useful to the possessor or to other people affected
Utilitarianism needs to be distinguished from natural by them.
law theory, which in some ways it resembles. Many John Stuart Mill, in his essay on Bentham, says that
of the Greeks, including Aristotle, had said that the he was anticipated by John Brown and Soames Jenyns;
ultimate good is eudaimonia, but they seem to have but, at least in part, their view was that, since the pains
meant, not happiness in Bentham 's sense, but some- and pleasures of eternity far outweighed those of this
thing like a happy (or blessed) condition of the soul. life, and since God happened to reward those who
The crucial distinction is between the gratification of considered others as well as themselves, the far-seeing
the desires a man actually has and the gratification of egoist would adopt a utilitarian policy. This view
the desires a fully rational, or perfect, man would have. attained great popularity, especially through the writ-
Most of Bentham 's precursors are at least partly influ- ings of William Paley; but it is a form of the self-
enced by natural law theory. Thus Richard Cumber- interest theory rather than of utilitarianism proper.
land, Bishop of Peterborough, sometimes considered Perhaps the most wholehearted English endorsement
the first English utilitarian, includes moral perfection of utiUtarianism apart from Bentham's was William
as well as happiness in his common good. Godwin's. Godwin summarizes his moral theory in just
Many members of the "moral sense" school came two sentences: "The end of virtue is to add to the sum
close to utilitarianism but in them, too, the theory is of pleasurable sensations. The beacon and regulator of
modified, though in varying degrees. Bishop Butler in virtue is impartiality, that we shall not give that exer-
a note to one of his sermons makes the tentative sug- tion to procure the pleasure of an individual, which
gestion (which he may not mean to endorse) that God might have been employed in procuring the pleasiue
is probably a utiUtarian, but that men had better not of many individuals" (Political Justice, 3rd ed., II, 493).
be. It is reasonable, he concedes, to suppose that God He did not hesitate to accept those consequences of
approves of these actions which lead to general happi- utilitarianism that had made Butler shy away from it.
ness in the long run. Men, however, are likely to make He repudiated the virtue of promise-keeping, for ex-
mistakes in trying to decide which actions will in fact ample: if the promised act promoted the general hap-
have Consequently it is safer for them to

this result. piness, one ought to do it, whether one had promised
trust to the immediate judgments of conscience, by to or not; if it detracted from the general happiness,
which they may know immediately what actions are one ought not to do it, even if one had promised to.
right, as distinct from what ultimately makes them Promises, then, were either irrelevant to morality or
right. Francis Hutcheson went much further than hostile toit. He did not hesitate to say that, if one
Butler by insisting that the rightness of an action simply could save only one person from a burning building,
consisted in its rousing feehngs of approval in all nor- and had to choose between one's own mother and some
mal men. Those actions which did rouse such approval, great man more likely to contribute to human happi-
444 however, had another characteristic in common: they ness, one should save the latter.
UTILITARIANISM
It is hardly surprising that Godwin was the target Consequently Bentham and Mill tried to base utili-
of a pamphlet published in 1798 attacking "the leading tarianism upon psychological hedonism. On this view,
principle of the new system of morals. "
The "leading the desire to escape pain and obtain pleasure is simply
principle" is from which, according to
utilitarianism, a psychological (ultimately a biological) fact about
the anonymous author (actually Thomas Green of men, and, since morality can be derived from it, there
Ipswich) Godwin's scandalous conclusion follows is no need for intuitions about special moral facts. But
logically; that we are entitled, in the interests of the psychological hedonism leads to egoistic hedonism, not
general happiness, to ignore all general rules, and to utilitarianism. It is our own pleasure that nature
hence law and convention, and also all emotions, such bids us seek, not that of others. There is indeed one
as friendship or filial affection. obvious way which utilitarianism can be based on

in
The early utiUtarians were on two fronts:
fighting egoism. The relation between them can be said to be
against the self-interest school and against the belief that of means to end. Though not a utilitarian, Hobbes
that moral rules are binding quite apart from their had argued that men could satisfy their individual
consequences. Inevitably both controversies became desires only by cooperating with other men, and that
entangled in a different one, between naturalism on cooperation was only possible if men agreed to aim
the one hand and, on the other, nonnaturalism and its at a compromise between their various desires rather
The The
'
concomitant, intuitionism. "principle of utility than insisting on those desires as such. half-loaf
merely states that an action is right only if it contrib- offered by society was better than the no-bread of the
utes more to the general happiness than any alternative state of nature. Brown, Jenyns, and Paley also regarded
action open to the agent. That principle itself might utilitarianism as a means to attaining happiness for
result from the psychological fact that men (either oneself, through the mediation of God. Neither of these
instinctively or as a result of social conditioning) tend views was acceptable to Bentham and Mill. If the
to subordinate all other considerations to the general greatest happiness is good only as a means to one's
happiness. But equally it might just be an irreducible own happiness, it will follow that self-interest should
fact that men ought to do this, whether they actually take precedence whenever the two conflict. Hobbes
do or That they ought to do this, it might be said,
not. and Paley, for different reasons, maintained that they
is known by intuition. There is no reason, then, why never could conflict in the long run, but this seems
utilitarianism should not be combined with intuitionism doubtful.
and nonnaturalism; and Henry Sidgwick did so com- The usual view is that Bentham and Mill failed
bine it. dismally in their attempts to base utilitarianism on
Bentham and his followers, however, derided egoism. Bentham seems simply to make the transition
intuitionism ("ipse-dixitism,Bentham called it) be- " without arguing for it. Mill, in the notorious fourth
cause, they said, it amounted to exalting one's own chapter of Vtilitarianism (1863), is said to have been
prejudices into eternal and immutable principles. betrayed into gross logical howlers by attempting to
Utilitarianism, they claimed, provided an objective argue for it. Mill's argument may, however, be more
criterion which its rivals lacked. In one way, this claim subtle than is generally realized. The happiness of the
was justified. If happiness is simply the fulfillment of individual consists simply in the realization of whatever
individual desires, whatever they may be, then desires he may happen to have. Some of these, of
utilitarianism can be said to aim at the gratification course, are biological in origin; but others (and even
of everyone's desires (or as many as possible) instead the biological ones to a limited extent) will depend
of foisting on the individual what others happen to on social conditioning, on what David Hartley called
desire for him. Bentham, who was primarily a legal "associations. "
Now, if Hobbes is right, men in society
reformer, was anxious that criminals should be judged will be conditioned to associate their own happiness
by the harm they actually did, not by the feelings of with that of others. The ultimate justification of society
revulsion individual judges might have for their actions. isself-interest; but society will not work smoothly if
But the desire that everyone's desires should be grati- men think of "the laws of nature "
(the rules of behavior
fied is itself the desire, not of everyone, but of the necessary to keep society together) as mere means to
utilitarian —who may therefore be accused, at least at an end, to be broken whenever there is no chance of
this higher level, of foisting his own prejudice on detection. Society will see to it that the individual will
others. To escape this charge by saying that the greatest come to think of himself, in Mill's words, as "a being
happiness principle itself is an objective moral princi- who of course pays regard to others" (Utilitarianism,
ple known by intuition is to weaken the force of Everyman ed., p. 30).
Bentham 's diatribe against intuition as another name The happiness of others, that is to say, is not thought
for prejudice. of as a means, but as an end in itself. We have been 445
UTILITARIANISM
conditioned to desire it. Conditioning is not possible of a given amount. The job of finding equivalent sen-
unless there is some inherent desire with which the tences can be well or badly done. "One day in prison
conditioned desire can be associated; but the condi- or a fine of $10,000 "
would be an absurd sentence.
tioned desire is quite as genuine a desire as (and may The two kinds of pain, then, are not wholly incom-
even, on occasion, be stronger than) the original desire mensurable. In ordinary life, we do constantly have
which engendered it. Man's two masters, pain and to choose between alternative courses of action. Often
pleasure, drive him into society, in the way outlined the questions we ask ourselves are; Which will I enjoy
by Hobbes; but Hobbes failed to notice that, as a result, more? Is it worth giving up this for the sake of that?
society will see to it that he forms the associations These questions admit of no precise answer, but they
between his own pleasures and the pleasures of others can be answered. It is not absurd then, to suggest that
which make him aim at the greatest happiness rather the question: Ought I to do this or that? amounts to;
than simply at his own happiness. But this is an Will this or that cause more pleasure in the long nm
inaccurate wav of putting it; for, since his happiness to all concerned?
is whatever he and he has been conditioned
desires, There is, however, something quite different that is
to desire the as his own,

happiness of others as well often meant when it is said that pleasures are incom-
the sharp distinction between his own happiness and mensurable. .Most of us do not believe that, to use G. E.
that of others breaks down. We should distinguish Moore's example, "the state of mind of a drimkard,
rather between what he desires for himself and what when he is intensely pleased with breaking crockery,
he desires for others. Both are desires that he has; and, is just as valuable in itself — just as well worth having,
since his happiness consists in the gratification of his as that of a man who is fully realizing all that is exquis-
desires, we may sav, paradoxically, that the happiness ite in the tragedv of King Lear, provided only the mere
of others is part of his happiness. This is no contra- quantity of pleasure in both cases is the same" (Ethics,
diction. ,411 that is meant is that one of the things the p. 238). Some kinds of pleasure, we think, are more
individual desires is that the desires of others shall be valuable than other kinds; and this is not the same as
gratified so far as is possible. Whether or not this view saying that they yield greater pleasure.
is a sound one, to interpret Mill as putting it forward In answering this objection Bentham and Mill part
at least leaves him guiltless of the grosser confusions company. Bentham argues that, when the dimensions
attributed to him. Moreover, this interpretation takes of pleasure are taken into account, the difference be-
account of the influence on Mill of his father, James tween higher and lower pleasures is, after all, a quanti-
Mill, and of Hartley, who was of course one of the tative one. Mill does not, however, take this line. "It
major influences on James Mill. is quite compatible with the principle of utiHty, " he
Utihtarianism, as formulated by Bentham, gives rise says, "to recognize the fact, that some kinds of pleas-
"
to some obvious Bentham, the

objections. .According to ure are more desirable and more valuable than others
way to determine the rightness or wrongness of a given 7). His critics have not thought so:
(op. cit., p. in
action is to ask oneself the question; Will this action conceding that the distinction between higher and
cause more pleasure, on balance, to all those affected lower pleasures is quahtative and not quantitative Mill
by it, than any alternative action open to the agent? has, it is said, tacitly admitted that there is something
But how can this be answered unless one can measure else, apart from pleasure, that is intrinsically good.
pleasures? Bentham seemed to think that it made sense This criticism has given rise to a modified version
to talk about the units of pleasure (or of pain) caused of utilitarianism, called Ideal Utilitarianism by Hastings
to a given person by a given action. In fact, however, Rashdall, and put forward by him and by G. E. Moore
there are no such units. Pleasures, the critics of utili- in the first years of this century. They differed from
tarianism insisted, are incommensurable. It is impor- the older, or hedonistic, utilitarians in maintaining that
tant, however, between two different
to distinguish other things (notably truth, beauty, and love) were
things that may be meant by this. If you say that you good in themselves as well as pleasiu-e or happiness.
get more pleasure from music, say, than from reading Consequently thev altered the utilitarian formula to
detective stories, you do not mean that it is a matter "the greatest good of the greatest number." They
of indifference whether you read two detective novels agreed with the hedonistic utilitarians, however, in
or attend one symphony concert. This is a valid criti- judging actions solely by their consequences, their
if it is meant to be very
cism of the hedonic calculus efficacy in producing good states of affairs. (Some
There is, however, a sense in which we can
precise. philosophers, indeed, added moral perfection to the
and do weigh one pleasure or pain against another. list of goods; but to say this is to abandon what is
A judge, for example, may offer a convicted person distinctive about utilitarianism.)
446 a choice between a term of imprisonment or a fine In one respect Sidgwick had already made a step
UTILITARIANISM
in It would seem
the direction of ideal utilitarianism. do what you sincerely think to be right, you deserve
to followfrom the hedonic calculus that there is no praise, even if what you do is not actually right." Once
moral difference between a situation in which A the confusion between "right" and "praiseworthv" is
benefits (obtains 50 units of pleasure, sav) at the ex- cleared up, there is no further difficulty about motives
pense of B (say 40 units of pain) and one in which for the utilitarian. He can, quite consistently, praise
A and B both obtain moderate benefits (sav 5 units the man who acts from a benevolent motive even if
each). The total increase in human happiness (10 units) the results are unfortimate in a particular case, since
is the same whichever we choose. To meet this objec- actions done from good motives generally have good
tion Sidgwick modified the greatest happiness formula results. It is indeed a corollary of utilitarianism that
by making the equal distribution of happiness a rean action is to be praised if the consequences of prais-
quirement as well as its maximization. It would seem ing it are good, not if the consequences of doing it
to follow that equahty, as well as happiness, is good are good.

in itself. Ideal utilitarianism does not escape this objec- The other objections are essentially those which
tion, since we need to amend the "greatest good" Green brought against Godwin, and which made Butler
formula in the same wav. It is, however, easier for the decide that utilitarianism was better left to God.
ideal utilitarian to accommodate the change: since he Utilitarianism, it is said, cannot account for contractual
has already admitted a multiphcity of goods, he need obligations: as Godwin realized, it makes the act of
not shrink from regarding the equaUzation of good as promising irrelevant to morality. Nor can it account
itself a good. for private and domestic obligations: to one's friends,
Most of the criticisms leveled at utiUtarianism, how- one's wife or husband or children, or to the mother
ever, apply with equal force to both kinds. This is true whom Godwin would leave to perish in the flames.
even of the objection that utilitarians put the promo- The utilitarian, it is argued, denies all obhgations ex-
tion of happiness on a level with the relief of misery, cept the single one of indiscriminate benevolence. To
which has seemed to many a more stringent obligation. this most utihtarians have replied that promoting hap-
The be faced with the same prob-
ideal utilitarian will piness (or good) requires a certain amount of orga-
lem, both because happiness is one of his goods, and nization. Division of labor may be necessary here as
because similar questions arise about tnith and beauty, elsewhere: we are more likely to get results if everyone
as contrasted with the removal of ugliness or error. has a special responsibilitv for the welfare of a few
Utilitarians have sometimes tried to meet both these individuals. This is the rationale of family obligations.
objections and the one about equal distribution bv .\ somewhat similar account mav be given of promises.
invoking the economist's principle of marginal utility. It would be impossible to cope with the world imless
This would not, however, explain why the obligation inanimate objects behaved predictably according to —
to relieve misery is felt to be of a different kind from fixed laws which can be discovered. In the same way
the obligation to increase happiness; nor would it pre- society functions much more smoothly if human be-
vent equality of distribution from ever conflicting with havior is predictable. Even predictably hostile behavior
maximization. may be easier to cope with than random behavior. The
A more important objection is that we often judge making and keeping of explicit undertakings is then
an action right or wrong because of the motive or a useful social device which, in spite of Godwin, may
intention and not because of the actual consequences. easily be justified on utilitarian grounds.
(For this reason Hutcheson's utilitarianism went no This may explain why we beUeve that private or
further than making evidence of benevolent intention contractual obligations have a special force. It would
the feature which all actions approved by the moral follow, however, that, if ever these obligations con-
sen.se have in common.) The utilitarian replies that this flicted with the general obligation to promote happi-
is merely because, in ordinary speech, we fail to distin- ness (or good) thev should be subordinated to it. And
guish between a right action and a praiseworthy one. it is just this that the opponents of utilitarianism deny.
If a man which of two alternative actions
asks himself No one disputes that we are justified in breaking a
is right, he is own mo-
not, as a rule, questioning his promise in order to save a life, or gain some other
tives. His only motive may be to do whatever is best end which outweighs anything achieved by keeping
far
in the circumstances; but he will not be satisfied if we the promise. But when there is only a slight advantage
you do will be right,
say to him: "In that case, anything to be gained by breaking the promise, it would gener-
so you can stop worrying about which to do." "If you ally be said that the obligation to keep it comes first.
do what you sincerely think to be right, you will do Bentham accounted for this by distinguishing between
what is right" does not mean that you can never make and second order evil. First order evil is the pain
first
mistakes about what is right. What is meant is: "If you caused to particular individuals; second order evil is 447
UTILITARIANISM
the harm done to the community in general by the action doth in this instance produce much good and
shattering of pubhc confidence in, for example, the no harm to mankind; therefore it is lawful: this were
institution of promise-making. wrong. The rule is framed with respect to the good
Second order evil, however, would seem to require of mankind, but our practice must be always shaped
pubhcity; and it is objected that we do not think it immediately by the rule" {Works, ed. Luce and Jessup,
right to break a promise, for the sake of a slight in- 6, 34).
crease in good, even no one would know of the

if This quite explicit statement of rule utiUtarianism
breach. A promise made to a dying man, for example, does not seem to have attracted much attention, and
is usually held to be binding even after the man has modem interest in the theory apparently stems from
died, whether others know about it or not. an article by R. F. Harrod in Mind for 1936. Even
Exactly the same sort of point can be made about then, it was not till the nineteen-fifties that general
justice. The utilitarian, it is said, is committed to the interest was roused. Some of the modem exponents of
view that the end justifies the means, with all its rule utilitarianism have, however, suggested that the
totahtarian implications. One can imagine circum- traditional utilitarians have been misinterpreted, and
stances in which good consequences might result from that they were, at least impficitly, nile rather than act
punishing an innocent man (if he is generally beheved utilitarians. This claim has been made by mid-twen-
to be guilty, say, and riots would result from acquitting tieth-century philosophers: for Mill by J.
O. Urmson,
him). Of course, if it were known that he were for Hume and Austin by J.
Rawls, and for Hutcheson
innocent, there might be general insecurity and loss by D. Mabbott.
— the very great second order
J.
of confidence in the law If mie utilitarianism is to be genuinely distinct from
evil we associate with a police state. But most of us act utiUtarianism, it will presumably assert that con-
think it wrong to pimish the innocent, even if the forming good in itself, and not merelv good
to a rule is
second order evil can be avoided. as a means. For good as a means, and the end
if it is
Like the objection about higher and lower pleasures, is the general welfare, what is in dispute is simply the
this one has given rise to an amended utihtarian theory, factual question whether one ever can increase the
sometimes called Rule UtiUtarianism which case the (in general good by contravening a rule which could not
more traditional theory is called .^ct Utilitarianism) and advantageously be broken by everyone. The mIe
sometimes Restricted Utilitarianism (in which case the utilitarian says that even if the general good could be
traditional theory is called Extreme Utilitarianism). increased by such an action, it would stiU not be right.
According to this amended theory, the test of rightness Why not, imless something else, namely the following
is not whether an individual action will have better of general rules, is good in itself as well as happiness
consequences than any alternative but whether it (and, for the ideal utilitarian, truth, beauty, etc.)? It
would have such consequences if it formed part of a has .seemed to some critics that this assertion is patently
general practice. Some statements of rule utiUtarianism absurd, and they have called it derisively "rule-
give it conformism by suggesting that
a slight flavor of worship."
the test whether the proposed action is or is not
is One way of defending the assertion is to invoke the
in conformity with an existing social norm: the test imiversalization principle. This is often held to be a
of such norms is whether their general adoption makes principle of reason, quite independent of utilitarianism.
for the general good. If so, it seems reasonable to suppose that a sound moral
At least at first sight this revision of utilitarianism theory wiU comply with it as well as with the utiU-
seems to meet the objections just discussed. Whatever tarian formula. But a utilitarian who reaches the con-
may be said about individual acts of promise-breaking clusion that he ought to break a promise made in secret
or injustice, a general practice of disregarding under- to a dying man, or that he ought to punish an innocent
takings or punishing the innocent whenever it seemed man whom everyone else beUeves to be guilty, is not
expedient could hardly have good consequences. departing from the principle of universaUzation. Not
It does not seem to have been noticed that rule only does he think it right to act as he is acting, in
utilitarianism was propounded by Bishop Berkeley in the peculiar circumstances in which he finds himseU:
Passive Obedience. "In framing the general laws of he also thinks it right that everyone else in those cir-
nature," Berkeley says, "it is granted we must be cumstances should act in that way. One relevant cir-
entirely guided by the public good of mankind, but cumstance is that no one else knows the truth about
not in the ordinary moral actions of our fives. Such what he is doing. This can hardly be ignored: for it
a rule, if vmiversally observed hath, from the nature is only because of it that second order evil may be
of things, a necessary fitness to promote the general presumed not to occur, and the absence of second order
well-being of mankind: therefore it is a law of nature. evil is clearly a relevant circvunstance. It would seem,
44o This is good reasoning. But if we should say, such an then, that merely appealing to the universalization
UTILITARIANISM
principle will not enable us to avoid the objections made thing else is right, besides the maximization and equal
to act utilitarianism. distribution of welfare. But what? It is hardly plausible
What makes the difference is not the presence of to say that conforming to rules is right in itself, apart
universalizability, but the absence of secrecy. What the from its consequences. UniversaHzability, as we have
rule utilitarian needs to say is that one should always seen, will not do; and modem rule utilitarians are
act according to principles one is prepared to ac- unlikely to follow Berkeley and invoke the will of God.
knowledge pubhcly. however, that this is
Is it clear, One suspects that they have in mind something which
an independent principle, and not one that can be is often confused with universalization; fairness or
derived from utilitarianism itself? Predictabihty would justice. Whether utilitarianism can account for justice
seem to demand that men should not profess one set is one of the crucial questions. If the principles of
of principles and act on another. Consider the conse- justice cannot be derived, as Mill thought, from the
quences if a utilitarian does decide that the general maximization of happiness principle, there remain two
welfare demands that on occasion he depart from possibilities. It may be that justice is concerned with
certain "secondary principles" in secret. If he is asked the equal distribution, rather than the maximization
whether utihtarianism ever does lead to this departure, of happiness (or good), inwhich case we are faced with
he has to say that it never does. He cannot say that between two utilitarian principles, and obvi-
a conflict
it follows from utilitarianism that it is permissible to ously need to find some way of reconciling them. Or
break promises made to dying men; for then it would it may be that justice is right quite apart from its
become impossible for a known utilitarian to comfort consequences, which is what the critics of utihtarianism
dying men by making promises to them. To avoid this have always said. In either case, the problem does not
second order evil he must practice deception, not only seem to be solved by making conformity to rules an
about his own actions, but about the true nature of independent good.
utilitarianism itself. But it is presumably in the general
interest that utihtarianism should be practiced with BIBLIOGRAPHY
understanding. This deception, then, will in itself lead N. Rescher, Distributive Justice (Indianapolis, 1966), has
to second order evil. a comprehensive bibliography. The classical texts of hedo-
It is at least arguable that, when Mill and other nistic utilitarianism are: J.
Bentham, Introduction to the
traditional utiUtarians lay the stress they do on "sec- Principles of Morals and Legislation (London, 1780); J.
S.
ondary principles " and say things like "it would be Mill, Utilitarianism (London, 1863); and H. Sidgwick, The
unworthy of an intelUgent agent not to be consciously Methods of Ethics (London, 1874; 7th ed., 1907). The chief
works of the eighteenth-century forerunners of utilitarian-
aware that the action is of a class which, if practiced
ism are: F. Hutcheson, Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas
generally, would be generally injurious and that this
of Beauty and Virtue (London, 1725); idem. Essay on the
is the ground of the obligation to abstain from it" (op.
Nature and Conduct of the Passions, ar\d Illustrations upon
cit., p. 18), they are merely spelling out Bentham's
the Moral Sense (London, 1728); idem. System of Moral
contention about second order evil and are not depart- Philosophy (London, 1755); Brown, Essays on the Charac-
J.
ing from act utilitarianism. The case may have been teristics (London, 1751); C.-A. Helv^tius, De I'esprit (Paris,
different with Berkeley, since he did think that some- 1758); A. Tucker, The Light of Nature Pursued (London,
thing else was good in itself besides attaining the gen- 1768-77); W. Paley, Priticiples of Moral and Political Philos-
eral good, namely, loyal obedience to the commands ophy (London, 1785); W. Godwin, Enquiry concerning Po-
of God. Even Berkeley, however, gives utilitarian rea- litical Justice (London, 1793). For ideal utilitarianism the
sons for God's willing us to conform to general rules. main sources are G. E. Moore, Principia ethica (London,
1903); idem. Ethics (London, 1912); and H. Rashdall, Theory
The reasons are that predictability is important, and
of Good and Evil (London, 1907). Apart from G. Berkeley,
that men are fallible in judging the consequences of
Passive Obedience (London, 1712), rule utilitarianism is
their actions.
developed mainly in articles by R. F. Harrod, Harrison,
We would seem, then, to have this position: If the
Rawls, R. B. Brandt, and others. There is
J.
a bibliography
J.
rule utilitarian is merely saying that it is not possible and a critique D. Lyons, Forms and Limits of Utilitarian-
in
to promote the general interest by breaking general ism (Oxford, 1967). General historical accounts of utilitar-
rules in secret, he does not differ from the act utilitarianism are: L. Stephen, The English UtiUtarians (London,
ian, who has always maintained that, when second 1900); E. Albee, A History of English Utilitarianism
order evil is taken account of, his theory does not (London, 1901); fi. Hal^vy. Growth of Philosophical
commit him to this kind of deception. To differ signifi- Radicalism (London, 1928); J.
Plamenatz, The English
cantly from the act utilitarian, the rule utilitarian must Utilitarians (Oxford, 1949).
maintain that it is sometimes possible to attain the

D. H. MONRO
general good in this way, and that, even then, the [See also Equality; God; Happinessand Pleasure; Justice;
action is not right. This amounts to saying that some- Law, Natural; Pragmatism; Right and Good.] 449
UTILITY AND VALUE IN ECONOMIC THOUGHT
UTILITYAND VALUE Carl Menger, one of the founders of the modern theory
IN ECONOMIC THOUGHT of utility ("Principles of Economics," 1950; German
what others called
original, 1871), also used "value" for
"utility" and even decried the use of this last term
1. The common word "utility" was introduced into otherwise than as a synonym of "usefulness." Jevons
the special vocabulary of the social scientist only in himself began by emphasizing that "value depends
the last half of the eighteenth century. By it the initia- entirely on utility. " .\nd nowadays most economists
tors understood that inherent property of a thing which would agree with his position. All this shows that the
in Enghsh is best rendered by "usefulness." Thus, Abbot modern concept of utility is so intimatelv connected
Ferdinando Galiani (Delia moneta, 1750) defined utilita with that of economic value that it is well-nigh impos-
as "the power of a thing to procure us felicity." Simi- sible to separate them in thought or analysis.
larly, Jeremy Bentham at first spoke of utility as "that 2. The notion of utility, in fact, goes back under
property in any object, whereby it tends to produce other names twenty-five centuries to the philosophers
benefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness" {An of ancient Greece, who first raised the problem of what
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, endows certain things with an economic value. The
1780). But the meaning of the term has shifted contin- march of ideas has been unusually slow and exasper-
uously and even today "utility" circulates with various, atingly tortuous, not only because there were nmnerous
albeit cognate, connotations. By referring to the prin- genuine obstacles to circumvent, but also because at
ciple of utility as the principle of the greatest happiness times spurious ones were created. Nevertheless, one
of the greatest number, Bentham himself paved the can distinguish four salient landmarks.
way for this terminological license. The ensuing confu- The earliest landmark is represented by a thought
sion prompted W. Stanley Jevons to insist that "Utility of a very modern facture. There are two elements
is not an Intrinsic Quality, " but "the sum of the pleas- involved in economic value: an intrinsic property of
ure created and the pain prevented" (The Theory of the commodity and the user's ability to enjoy it. As
Political Economy, 1871). Xenophon observed in his Oeconornicus, even though
In the end, Bentham was disturbed by his license, a flute has no value for one who cannot play it, it has
but blamed the unfortunate choice of the term for his a market value because others can. However, the fa-
confusion, and the French for insisting on that choice. miliar conviction that science requires a monistic ex-
The choice was indeed unfortunate, especially in the planation led a long line of students to move away
case of those Romance languages which do not distin- from this thought in order to look for a single cause
guish between "utility" and "usefulness." But even an of value.
English-speaking person needs some mental effort to Clearly, such a cause must be either in us or in
relate "utility" to pleasure. Moreover, "utihty" can things, but not in both. .And S'nce in early times hardly
hardly evoke a relationship between an individual and anyone could think of pleasure as a measurable entity,
the things and services available to him, which is the the tenet that "the value of a thing lies in the thing
core of every modern definition of the concept. Several itself" — as Say was to formulate it not very long
J.
B.
other economists have also expressed their dissatisfac- ago — won by default. Other factors, however, account
tion with the term and made various suggestions, not for the long survival of this commodity fetishism, a
always well inspired, for a new label. Unfortvmatelv, second landmark. There was, first, the authority of
even "ophelimity," the term coined by Vilfredo Pareto Aristotle,from whom the idea originated {Nicoma-
to cleanse the terminology of anv vernacular overtones, chean Ethics 1 133a 25-26). Secondly, any thought that
did not prevail. The prestige of Jevons added to that there may after all be a subjective element in economic
of Bentham sufficed to enthrone "utility" in economics. value was stifled by the so-called paradox of value,
A passage from an Oxford lecture delivered in 1833 which, according to Plato {Euthydemus 304), was
by W. F. Lloyd admirably illustrates how clear the known even to the poet Pindar. This paradox points
whole picture becomes if one is not entrapped by the out that some vitally important things (such as water)
ambiguity of Bentham's license: have a very low exchange value or none at all, while
others (such as chamonds) have verylittle importance
The utility [usefulness] of com is the same after an abundant
and a very high exchange value. Ergo, value cannot
har\'est as in time of famine. . The term value [utility]
. .
be in man.
therefore does not express a quality inherent in a commod-
ity, [but] a feeling of the mind, and is variable with the
Like many other traditional dogmas, commodity
variations of the external circumstances which can influence fetishism suffered a setback during the Age of the
any variation of the intrinsic qualities
that feeling, without Enlightenment. And, as always, the reaction embraced
450 of the commodity which is the object of it (pp. 174, 181). the diametrically opposite view. This view, the third
landmark, is that "a thing does not have value because, This time, however, Bentham's echo — that "all men
as is assumed, it has a cost; but it has a cost because [even madmen] calculate" pleasure and pain — falls
it has value [in use]," as Etienne de Condillac sum- much short of the convincing power of Plato's original
marized it about 1745 (Oeuvres philosophiques . . . ,
argument.
2 vols. [1948], 2, 246). Even though Plato's analysis of pleasure and pain,
The fourth landmark is the modern theory which spread throughout the Dialogues, is not as systematic
views utility as being neither in things nor in us, but as Bentham's, recent trends in utility theory show that
in a relation between us and things, and which explains Plato's is superior. Whilst Bentham maintains that
value as the balance determined by the members of pleasures and pains are "addible" so that in any situa-
an economy between utility and di.sutility. tion the net result is a quantum of either pleasure or
pain, Plato argues that although they "both admit of
U more and less" neither can be subtracted from the other
1. In retrospect it may seem curious that the rich because "the negation of pain will not be the same
intellectual legacy of ancient Greece included no sys- with pleasure" (Philebus 41, 43). This idea is furtlier
tematic economic study apart from a few uninteresting strengthened by several observations The Republic in
works on oikonomia, on rules for good housekeeping. on the nature of wants and, especially, on their hierar-
But the attention of an inquisitive mind will never be chy. Plato even notes that new wants emerge with the
The ancient Greeks
arrested by a stationary process. increase in income and also touches the important idea
were and navigators over many
a nation of busy traders that basic wants are irreducible to one another. Else-
seas, but their economy was nevertheless stationary, where (Euthydemus 299), he adumbrates another vital
in the sense that, apart from random fluctuations principle for the theory of utilitv, namely, the principle
caused by natural phenomena, economic life went from that every want is satiable.
day to day without any perceptible change. What 2. We owe to .Aristotle the fundamental distinction
should surprise us, therefore, is that in spite of this fact between value in use and value in exchange (Politics
many of their writings are studded with ideas on value 1257a). Less known is the fact that both his Politics
and utility which even nowadays, after the theory of and Topics contain many other first thoughts on utility.
consumer behavior has become a highly developed We find, for example, the idea that "the more con-
branch of the economic science, retain their full sig- spicuous good" is the more desirable and also the
nificance. concept of complementarity among commodities,
No modern utilitarian has been able to add anything which F. \'. Edgeworth was to introduce in economics
substantial to Plato's clear formulation of the doctrine. more than two thousand years later. Also, the observa-
He tells us repeatedly that life is a "juxtaposition "
of tion that wants satisfied by material consumption alone
pleasure and pain, and that "each one of us has in his are subject to satiety was made again in 1855 by
bosom two counsellors, both foolish and also antago- Richard Jennings. On the other hand, Aristotle's analy-
nistic; of which we call the one pleasure, and the other sisbecomes cumbersome as he forces upon it his
pain" (Protagoras 357; Laws I. 644, V. 733). After more strongly ethical views. While recognizing that the
than two thousand years, Bentham, the modern archi- number of human wants is normally unlimited, he
tect of utilitarianism, echoed this verv thought in the contends that a good household should aim at setting
opening sentence of An Introduction to Principles of a limit to the satisfaction of these wants (Politics I.
Morals and Legislation: "Nature has placed mankind 9-10). He denounces the craving for money on
also
under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain the part of money-making people as abnormal and the
and pleasure. Hermann H. Gossen, the first author of
"
practice of "money-breeding" (money-lending) as the
a mathematical theory of utility, in 1854 also began most obnoxious of all. So set was Aristotle on this point
hisEntwicklung der Gesetze des menschliches Verkehrs that he invoked the legend of King .Midas in its support
und der daraus fliessenden Regeln fitr menschliches without realizing that the legend illustrates only the
Handeln (1854; "Exposition of the Laws of Human principle of want irreducibility. Even if everything
Relations and the Resulting Principles for Human .Ac- Midas touched had turned into bread, he still would
tions") with it: "Man wants to enjoy life, and on this have died of thirst.—
he sets his life goal," because this is the Creator's law. Unfortunately, the most fateful of Aristotle's
In a quite modern vein, Plato (Philebus 21, trans. B. thoughts on value are crowded in a few pages of
Jowett), further argues that and if you had no ". . . Niconiachean Ethics (1132a- 1133b) and more often
power of calculation you would not be able to calculate than not are off the mark. His argument that commodi-
on future pleasure, and your life would be the life, ties could not be exchanged with one another if every
not of a man, but of an oyster or 'pulmo marinus.'" commodity did not possess one measurable quality 451
common to all, is the origin of commodity fetishism. some authors with original thoughts. The truth is that
In a somewhat cryptic sentence Aristotle asserted that this period contributed an erroneous idea which had
what renders all commodities comparable is XP^"*. grown out of the fact that throughout Western Europe
which means "need" and may mean also "demand." the structure of production remained practically con-
Most likely, all he wanted to say was that exchange stant over the years. The idea, which constituted an
is possible because people, generally, have the same analytical obstacle for a long time, is that demand is
wants. Aristotle was very clear on the point which an invariant coordinate for each community. We find
anticipates the teaching of classical economists: the it first stated in an essay, Delia moneta: trattato mer-
quality that endows commodities with value is labor, cantile (1686), by an Italian scholar, Geminiano
and the value of a commodity is proportional to the Montanari. But its clearest formulation came some
amount of labor embodied in it. But, like many after twenty years later from the financier John Law: "If
him, he simply begged the question of whether every the Quantity of Wine brought from France be a 100
kind of labor is reducible to the same unit of measure- Timn, and the Demand be for 500 Tunn, the Demand
ment. is greater than the Vent" {Money and Trade p. 4). . . .
,
A logician of Aristotle's stature could not possibly Even Galiani spoke of the demand for wheat in the
overlook the logical implication that, if value is in Kingdom of Naples as a fixed quantity, .^nd, along with
things (in whatever form), then exchange cannot in- Montanari, he insisted that only fashion, "an affection
crease it — an idea that Karl Marx, in particular, was of the mind," may change the demand.
to defend in modem times. The point that after a just The mercantilist mood induced later writers to rep-
exchange or a remuneration everyone must come
just resent demand by an invariant expenditure, instead of
out without gain or loss harmonized splendidly with an invariant quantity. According to this view, the price
Aristotle's ethical views. But the fallacy, shielded by of a commodity is the quotient between the money
such a high authority, constituted the sturdiest obstacle allocated for that purchase and the quantity of the
for more than two millennia to a clarification of the commodity brought to the market, as Richard Cantillon
problem of utility. neatly explained in a celebrated essay of 1755 (Essai
3. With the fate that awaited knowledge after the sur la nature du commerce en general). This fallacy
Athenian Akademeia came to an end, the rekindled is stated in equally plain words by Adam Smith {The
intellectual activity of the Middle Ages found no other Wealth of Nations [1776], Ch. vii) and appears several
authoritative guide than Aristotle's integrated philo- times in Karl Marx's circuitous discussion of demand
sophical system. So, as the Scholastic doctors turned {Capital. Ill, Ch. x).
J.
B. Say derived from it the
their attention during the thirteenth century to man's theorem that the rise of price is in direct ratio to the
secular problems, they found Aristotle's ethical views demand, and in inverse ratio to the supply.
of economic life perfectly congenial to the Christian One exception strengthens the view that this errone-
teachings. Aristotle's thought that the basis of value ous conception of demand was fostered by the con-
is xpe'** offered to Saint Thomas Aquinas a splendid stancy of economic patterns. The great variations
ground for arguing that value represents the need of in grain prices caused by climatic fluctuations led
the whole society, not the whimsical need of the indi- Gregorv King to ob.serve as early as 1686 that the
vidual. Moreover, this need must reflect social justice, smaller the crop, the greater its cash value. King,
without which any society is doomed. However, in the however, remained totally ignored for almost two
end the Scholastics began to ask what value is, instead centuries. —
Only much later with A. A. Cournot (1838)
of what it should be. It was Saint Antoninus who, about in France and Fleeming Jenkin (1870) in England, and
the middle of the fifteenth century, reached the highest independently of King's work — did the notion of de-
point on a trail broken by Duns Scotus. In his explicit mand at a price emerge to clear the way for the mod-
formulation, the value of an object involves (1) its em theory of utility.
quality in comparison with other similar objects, (2) 5. The publication of Galiani's Delia moneta (1750)
its scarcity, and (3) its complacibilitas — a notion equiv- was an important event, not because the treatise
alent to that of utility as defined later by Galiani and abounded in remarks which redistilled systematically
Bentham. some thoughts of Plato's and Aristotle's or because it
During the next three hundred years or so until
4. — substituted utility for Saint Antoninus' complacibilitas,
the —
the problem of value even
Enlightenment but because it marked a change of temper. The treatise
suffered a regress. If some histories of economic contains the first sparks of subjectivist ideas, of the
thought leave a different impression it is only because recognition of man as the center of everything social,
the historian, either through ignorance of the older which was in line with the reformist ideas of the Age
452 writings or through faulty logic, gratuitously credited of Enlightenment. Gahani thus argues that the only
a
invariable standard of value man himself, for while

is mand for manufactured wares, should have inspired
the value of all things changes, "man has been, is, and Adam Smith to see in labor alone the source of value.
will be everywhere the same self." And in his analysis Unfortunately, the rise to glory of the classical school
of man's behavior we find the thesis that the desire alsomeant a total return to the Aristotelian ideas and
for "rank, titles, honor, nobility, authority" is stronger hence a setback for the correct approach to the prob-
than that for luxuries, and the desire for luxiu-ies lem of utility initiated by Galiani and Turgot. While
stronger than the desire of the hungry for food — classical economists freely admitted that a thing must
thesis germane to a recent idea that man works harder have some use value in order to have a market value,
for that additional income which elevates him on the they scorned — as
David Ricardo did most clearly in
(Milton Friedmann and L. J. Savage,
"
social scale the essay "Absolute Value and Exchangeable Value
1948). written shortly before his death in 1823 any thought —
Most important of all is the fact that Galiani antici- that the individual may have something to sav about
pates the highest thought advanced on utility, namely, the value of a commodity. And with his excellent logic
the modem theory of choice. Value, he says, is "an Ricardo could but acknowledge and defend the star-
idea of the balance between the possession of one thing tling conclusion that the value of the income of a
and that of another in the mind of an individual." No society does not increase at all if, after any technologi-
wonder then, that Galiani himself did not grasp the cal innovations, the society produces more goods with-
full relevance of this thought. Otherwise he would not out employing more labor.
have continued to cling to the Aristotelian fallacy that There certainly was an anachronism in the re-
in a just exchange there can be neither loss nor gain. enthronement of the notion of an invariant demand,
The idea of subjective choice is even more sharply just as the forces of the Industrial Revolution began
outlined in a little known essay, "Valeurs et monnaies" swaying markets and values. The problem of why
by Turgot (1768): people do not spend their income entirely on bread
or entirely on pearls did not exist for the followers of
If the same individual has a choice among several objects
Adam Smith even after Lord Lauderdale lectured them
useful to him,he may prefer one to another. He will . . .
on its importance. Small wonder then that a consum-

judge that one object values more than another; he will
compare them in his mind, choose those he prefers and
. . .
mate economist and philosopher such as J. S. Mill could
leave the others (Oeuvres proclaim in 1848 that "happily, there is nothing in the
. . . [1844], I, 80).
laws of value which remains for the present or for any
Turgot goes on to explain that choice reflects the hier- future writer to clear up; the theory of the subject is
archy that exists among the individual wants. He also complete" {Principles of Political Economy . . . 7th ed.
is the first writer to admit that in barter each party [1961], p. 436).
values what it gets more than what symp- it gives. But, The whole spoke the language of utility,
British as a
tomatically, Turgot still could not free himself from as the historian Elie Halevy judged. Only the British
the Aristotelian tradition completely, for he goes on economists, who lived under the great shadow cast by
to argue that in free barter the gains of both parties Adam Smith and Ricardo, remained immune to
must be equal. Bentham's influence. Even in the awakening from their
5. Thoughts such as Turgot 's betrayed the increasing slumber Bentham's utilitarianism played a very small
economic awareness brought about by the increased role. The event came as economists everywhere were
commercialization of economic life and, especially, by compelled to pay attention to the increasing impor-
the ebullient transformation of the Industrial Revolu- tance of the consumer in an expanding market capable
tion. Students of economic affairs not only became of satisfying a growing spectnim of wants. It was not
more problem of value but
visibly interested in the a mere coincidence that, almost at the same time and
also, on the disappearing trails of mercantilism, began independently of each other, foiu- authors came up with
searching for the source of value. An economy, such an almost identical theory of utility: H. H. Gossen in
as that of France ruined by the wars of Louis XIV Germany (1854), W. Stanley Jevons in England (1871),
and crippled by a nobility who deserted the country- Carl Menger in Austria (1871), and Leon Walras (1874)
side for Versailles, led Francois Quesnay to see the in France. Gossen alone poses a problem to the his-
source of value in natural resources, particularly in the torian because at the time the historical school of
agricultural ones. "Rich peasants, rich kingdom," is the thought ruled supreme in Germany. But this condition
way he epitomized his doctrine. Equally natural is accounts for the injustice done to the author who not
the fact that an economy —
such as England's diu'ing only anticipated the others by many years, but also
the —
same period which could not find enough hands excelled them in many respects. Even today his name
to keep pace with a revolutionary increase in the de- is overshadowed by those of the otliers. 453
in measured by the amount of money its members would

1. The notion of utility, under uhatever form, could pay for each commodity rather than go without it.
never have acquired its importance in economics 2. Benthamism was so much in the air, both in
if it had not been for the law that came to be attached England and on the Continent, that (with the notable
to it. This law, which is known as the Principle of exception of Carl Menger) the early writers on utility
Decreasing Marginal Utility, simply states that for any followed Bentham's hedonism and equated utility with
given indivkluai each additional unit of a commoditij the pleasure experienced by an individual during the
increases utility by a decreasing, magnitude. Curiously, act of consumption. This is especially true of Cossen
it was a mathematician, Daniel Bernoulli, who first and Edgeworth and, to .some extent, of Jevons. It is
formulated the principle (1738). .\s he tried to solve from this position that Edgeworth, with whom hedo-
the St. Petersburg paradox (a gambling paradox), nism reached its apogee in economics, was able to
Bernoulli was led to argue that the etnolumentum defend the cardinal nieasurability of utility by invoking
(Latin for "advantage") of the ducat a gambler gains the law of sensations enunciated by G. T. Fechner and
is smaller than tire emolwnentum of the ducat he loses. E. H. Weber in 1860. Utility is measurable, he con-
Owing to the lack of mathematical interest of the tended, because an actual pleasure may be measured
traditional economists, Bernoulli's e.soteric memoir in terms of its "atoms," i.e., in terms of "just percep-
remained unknown to them for almost two centuries. tible increments" (Mathematical Psychics, 1881). .\nd,
So, as far as social scientists are concerned, Bentham even though not quite in the same vein as Bentham,
was the first to formulate the Principle of Decreasing Edgeworth expressed his belief in the eventual con-
.Marginal Utility for the case of money {Principles of struction of a hedonimeter for measuring actual pleas-
the Civil Code, 1802), and Lloyd (op. cit., 1833) the ures.
first to formulate it for a commodity. But economics could not go on indefinitely with a
Behind the apparently simple enunciation of the notion of utility which implies that the consumer de-
principle, there lie some strong assumptions and some cides whether or not to buy more coffee while drinking
intricate issues. The least vulnerable of these assump- coffee. The modern notion of utility embodies an idea
tions is that every conunodity is cardinally measurable, laboriously outlined by Richard Jennings in an essay
which in common terms means that every instance of that received hardly any attention at the time (1855).
a commodity is a sum of perfectly identical parts (or Utility (Jennings used "value") is the expression of the
units). Obviously, this is not true for a vacation or a expected pleasure at which the individual arrives on
stamp collection, for instance. the basis of his past actual pleasures. However, it is
The truly vulnerable assmnption, that utility, too, the unique, vet totally ignored, merit of Gossen to have
is cardinally measurable (in some fictitious units that perceived that one can go deeper than that. Indeed,
have come to be called "utils"), goes back to Bernoulli Go.ssen alone saw that actual pleasure is governed by
and Bentham. But Bentham went further and main-
to a second diminishing principle: Any pleasure dimin-
tained that the utilities of all individuals have a com- ishes in intensity and duration icith its repetition, and
mon measure and hence can be added together to yield the sooner the repetition, the greater the diminution.
the total pleasure of a community, just as the addition When all is said and done and utility is taken in
of all individual farm areas yields the total farm area Jennings' sense, the fact that milk tastes better if con-
of a country. Once, he did admit that "you might as sumed less frequently has more to do with the Principle
well pretend to add twent)' apples to twenty pears" of Decreasing Marginal Utility than the fact that the
and even denounced the nieasurability of the individ- intensity of the pleasiue of drinking milk decreases as
ual's utility; but he set a lasting pattern for social one is drinking milk.
scientists in arguing that without the addibility of 3. Still another idea of how man values things is that
different utilities "all political reasoning is at a stand- of Carl Menger (1871), who never accepted the view
still." Certainly, without this addibility Bentham's that value (by which he meant utility) is mea.surable.
principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest Menger's position was that man's wants are hier-
number becomes vacuous. He therefore had a reason archized and that the first unit of an individual's re-
for dreaming about a "political thermometer." Vain sources has a higher importance than the second be-
though such a hope is, economists have kept looking cause it satisfies a more urgent need. This simple idea
for a "welfare fmiction" by which to measure the is, in essence, a nonquantitative form of the Principle
welfare level of any economy. Even .41fred Marshall of Decreasing Marginal Utility for any commodity that
(1879), in a controversialargument which was first may satisfy several wants. Perhaps this is why the first
advanced by a French engineer, J. Dupuit (1844), formulations of this principle, by Daniel Bernoulli and
454 claimed that the total utility of any community is Bentham, pertained to money, not to a commodity.
Menger's nonmatheniatical approach soon died away which John has

result obtains in the equivalent case in
under the mathematical landsHde caused in economics twelve dollars and the prices are two dollars for a
by Jevons and W'alras. Yet, every time a justification bushel and fifty cents for an egg. But if, as it may well
of the Principle of Decreasing Marginal Utility is happen, the marginal utilities are such that AjCj and
offered in the current literature, it invokes only AoCo do not meet, then John must choose to have
Menger's hierarchy of wants. either only potatoes or only eggs, according to which
commodity has everywhere a greater marginal utility.
IV In any case, the optimal distribution of the budget is
1. All founders of the utility theory had some doubts unique, which is a direct consequence of the Principle
about the cardinal measurability of utility, but they of Decreasing Marginal Utility.
took for granted that die utility of each commodity The fact that a glance at Figure 1 suffices to clarify
is independent of other commodities, that the utility many issues of value is the reason why economists still
of bacon, for instance, does not depend on how many use this highly unrealistic framework. For example, the
eggs one has. This means that, if .v,, .v,, x„ denote . . . , diagram (with A,Ci and \fi2 being drawn as they are)
the amounts of the various commodities possessed by shows that John's dollar buys more utility when spent
an individual, his total utility is the sum of the single on potatoes than on eggs. This simple point explains
utilities, l'i(.vi) + ('.(.v,) + • • •
+ V„(x„). It goes away the paradox of value. The same diagram shows
without saying that the assumption greatly simplifies that as a potato seller John gains the amount of utility
the analysis of value. Let John have six bushels of represented by the area MAjCj, and as an egg seller
potatoes which he can trade at the price of four eggs he gains the greater amoimt MAjCj (which may be
for a bushel. In Figure 1, let number of bushels
the infinite if the first potato is indispensable to life). There
be measured from Oj to -Xj and the number of eggs can be then no just exchange And
in .Aristotle's .sense.
from O^ to Xj. Let A,Cj represent John's direct mar- to know whether there are just exchanges in Turgot's
ginal utility of potatoes when consumed as such and sense we need the interpersonal comparison of utilities
let AoCo represent his indirect marginal utility of pota- in which Bentham believed.
toes derived from the eggs obtained by trading. If John 2. The independence axiom was discarded as Edge-
wants to maximize his total utility a basic assumption — worth (Mathematical Psychics, 1881) proposed to
of every utility theory —
he should, obviously, trade the represent total utility by a general function
sixth and fifth bushels: their indirect utility is greater C'(.Xj,.Vo, .... .\„). The diagram supplied by Edgeworth
than their direct utilitv. .And he should stop trading for the representation of exchange under these general
at the point M, where the two curves intersect, because conditions has become the most popular in economic
the direct utilitv of the fourth bushel is greater for him analysis. Let potatoes and eggs be measured on OXj
than its indirect utility. And if John possessed initially and OX,, respectively (Figure 2). Let Cj, C2, C3, . . .
twenty-four eggs instead of six bushels of potatoes, he

should end up with the same distribution of commodi-
ties, four bushels of potatoes and eight eggs. The same
X,
Eggs
Figure 1 455
be John's utility isolines, a utility isoline being the loci measurable utility is indispensable for explaining value.
of all combinations of potatoes and eggs that have the It was, however, Vilfredo Pareto (Manuale di econo-
same utility. Naturally, utility increases as we move mia politica, 1905) who first constructed a consumer
from an isoline to a "higher" one, from C2 to C3, for theory which does not require the notion of utility at
example. The alternatives open to John, whom we may all. His point of departure is that an individual con-
now assvmie to have ten bushels
and be able to trade fronted with two baskets of commodities will always
one bushel for six eggs, are represented by the points either prefer one basket or be indifferent as to which
of the budget line BjBj. The budget distribution that one he Given this faculty of binary choice, Pareto
gets.
nia.\imizes John's total utility is the point M at which reasoned that, by asking the individual to choose be-
one isoline is tangent to this budget line. Clearly, with tween M and every other possible basket, we can
isolines having the shape shown in Figure 2, all other determine an indifference curve, i.e., a curve that rep-
possible distributions of John's budget lie on lower resents the loci of all baskets "indifferent "
in relation
isolines. Therefore, John will trade foiu- bushels of to M. The procedure does not refer in any way to
potatoes for twenty-four eggs and retain six bushels utility. And once the indifference curves are deter-
for his own consumption. The same solution is valid mined, they help determine the optimal distribution
if John has, say, six dollars and the prices are sixty cents of any budget in exactly the same manner as the utility
for one bushel and ten cents for an egg. isolines. Furthermore, we can construct a function
3. Obviously, for the optimal budget distribution to V(xj,X2, . . . , x„) such that its value is constant on each
be unique the utility isolines must be convex toward indifference curve, just as the utility fimction
O (as they have been drawn in Figure 2). A new C/(X],.r2, . . . , x„) is constant on each isoline. The only
difficulty arises now because the Principle of Decreas- difference is that V is not uniquely determined — any
ing Marginal Utility does not suffice to guarantee this increasing hmction of V, say V'-, would do.
convexity. The shape of the utility isolines depends, It is for the fimction V that Pareto coined the term
in addition, on the relation between the commodities. "ophelimity "
But, as was argued in subsequent devel-
As Edgeworth noted, commodities mav be rival like — opments, we may still speak of utility and of V as its
—
margarine and butter if an increase in one diminishes ordinal, instead of cardinal, measure. Tliis means that
the marginal utility of the other. They may be comple- the value of V simply orders all baskets according to
mentary — like bread and butter — if an increase in one the individual's preferences. Today the notion of an
increases the marginal utility of the other. However, ordinal utility dominates consumer theory, the central
there is no way to reduce the convexity property to problem of which is how to derive an ophelimity
a property related to this classification. The convexity fimction from directly observable budget data.
of the isolines had to be added as a new axiom for 2. In fact, this problem is relatively old. It was first
which no transparent explanation has yet been offered. formulated in a neglected memoir of an Italian engi-
The axiom says that along any isoline the marginal neer, G. Antonelli (1886). And, as happens quite often,
rate of substitution increases in favor of the commodity the glory went to the more famous rediscoverer of the
that is decreased. idea, in this case to Pareto (1905). In simple terms,
Pareto's idea was this: if the optimal distribution of
every possible budget has been determined by obser-
1. Before the emergence of the modern school of vation, every indifference curve can be determined by
utility, thoughts on value, demand, and exchange ordi- the tangential artifice shown in Figure 2 for C3. But
narily reflected the economic conditions prevailing he ignored the fact that this artifice (which in mathe-
diu'ing each period. A turning point in this respect took matics is called "integration") is not always available
place following the process of mathematization fos- for more than two commodities. An obvious para-
tered by that school. Utility theory has ever since been dox — known as the integrability problem — thus arose
its own source of new ideas, suggested primarily (and, to intrigue many a mathematical economist. Some light
at times, exclusively) by its mathematical framework. was caston Pareto's theory of choice and the integra-
An excellent illiLstration is the observation made bv bility problem when it was shown (Georgescu-Roegen,
Irving Fisher in his doctoral dissertation (1892). The 19.36) that argument failed to include two
Pareto's
pure geometry of Edgeworth's diagram led Fisher to axioms any commodity may be substituted for
(1) that
note that in order to determine the optimal budget another so that the first and the second basket be
distribution we do not need to know how many utils completely indifferent, and (2) that the binary choice
each isoline represents: the knowledge of the isolines is transitive. (Choice is transitive if A being chosen over
as such suffices. This simple geometrical tnith caused B and B over C, A is chosen over C.)
the first serious dent in the idea that a cardinally 3. In a signal contribution, Paul A. Samuelson (1938)
presented a theory of choice based, not on the com- with strong reservations. Some authorities on the sub-
parison between two baskets, but on observable budget ject of utility openly doubted their ability to construct
data. His point of departure is that John, by choosing a cardinal scale even for their own utility. Various
the budget distribution M, reveals that he prefers M suggestions have been made as to what piece of the
to any other distribution (such as M') compatible with theoretical apparatus may be at fault. Most probably,
his budget. To this transparent definition, Samuelson the culprit is the assumption that an individual may
added only an equally transparent axiom: // a budget be perfectly indifferent between a dollar in hand and
reveals that t}ie basket A is preferred to B, no budget the probable prospect of winning ten dollars. Indeed,
can reveal that B is preferred to A. Samuelson claimed this assumption overlooks the fact that risk adds a new
that this axiom alone suffices for deriving by integration and irreducible dimension to man's choice (Georgescu-
the indifference varieties and hence for constructing Roegen, 1954a).
an ophelimity function. In fact, the axiom expresses Whatever the fault, the operational feasibility of the
only a condition equivalent to the Principle of De- project has never moved beyond the paper-and-pencil
creasing Marginal Rate of Substitution. And as shown stage and Ramsey's new vision of a psychogalvanom-
by Jean Ville (1946) and later, but independently,
first eter had no better fate than Edgeworth's hedonimeter.
by H. S. Houthakker (1950), Samuelson's idea calls for 2. The conclusion of a recent approach to the proc-
a strongeraxiom (analogous to the transitivity of binary ess of choice is that utility is not even ordinally meas-
choice). But soon thereafter it was proved that even urable (Georgescu-Roegen, 1954a). The point of de-
this stronger axiom does not entail the existence of an parture is Menger's framework: man chooses in
ophelimity function. It still leaves large domains for response to his varied wants and in accord with the
which there is no comparability among the commodity hierarchy of these wants. But the new approach notes
baskets (Georgescu-Roegen, 1954b). The problem of that at the bottom of the hierarchy are the most urgent
what set of economically meaningful postulates would wants, which are groimded in the biological nature of
make the Antonelli-Pareto idea work still awaits its man and consequently are ordered alike for all human
solution. If it is ever solved, it will very probably cause beings. These are followed by the social wants, which
a greater stir in mathematics than in economics. have the same order for all persons belonging to the
same culture. Lastly, there are the personal wants;
VI these vary irregularly from one individual to another.
1. Developments on an entirely different track sug- Moreover, only some of the personal wants may possi-
gest that economists have never abandoned the hope bly compensate for each other. That is, a person might
of proving that utility is after all cardinally measurable. be just as happy with more records and fewer movies.
A remarkably elegant scheme for determining a cardi- But biological and social wants are irreducible. He who
was developed by Frank P. Ramsey
nal scale for utility does not have enough to eat carmot satisfy his hunger
Morgenstem and John
(1926) and, independently, by O. by wearing more shirts.
von Neumann (1944). The scheme follows Bernoulli's In this framework, choice is determined by the least
idea in reverse. Bernoulli determined the stake of the important want that can be satisfied in the given situa-
gambler from the knowledge of the gambler's utility tion. For example, a person who does not have enough
function. The authors just mentioned proposed to de- food will prefer the grocery basket with the greatest
termine the utility function of an individual with the food value. But between two baskets with the same
aid of the odds which that individual would be just food value, the same person will choose the one with
willing to accept. They reasoned that if an individual tastier foods, taste thus becoming the least important
is just willing to pay five dollars for a lottery ticket want. Should the baskets differ only with respect to,
that gives him one chance in two of winning twelve say, packaging, the next want will come into play.
dollars, we can infer that for that individual the utility Choice, in this case, completely orders all possible
of the additional seven dollars is equal to the utility baskets, but there are no completely indifferent baskets.
of the five dollars that he may lose. By experimenting The resultis that choice no longer yields indifference
with various gambling propositions, we may thus de- lines and hence cannot be represented by an ophelimity
termine step by step how great is the utility of the index.
individual's n-th dollar in comparison with all his other Several criticisms may be levelled against this ap-
dollars. This is tantamount to constructing a utility proach. There is, first, the fact that wants are not
scale which, like that of temperature,is completely sharply defined notions and hence fit poorly into a
determined once the origin and the unit of measure- quantitative framework. Blurred as the hierarchy of
ment are chosen arbitrarily. wants may be, it offers a legitimate, objective basis for
The idea was received with enthusiasm as well as the interpersonal comparison of welfare — without 457
UTOPIA
which taxation must remain a completely arbitrary Morgenstern and John von Neumann, Theory of Games and
operation. It also justifies, for example, such useful Economic Behavior (New York, 1944); Vilfredo Pareto,
analytical tools as the distinction between wage goods Manuel d'economie politique (Paris, 1909), an expanded
version of his Manuale di econoniia politica (Milan), pub-
and luxury goods.
lished in 1905 but dated 1906; Frank P. Ramsey, The Foun-
The preceding picture is foreign to the utility theory
dations of Mathematics and Other Logical Essays 1926; New
launched by Gossen, Jevons, and Walras. This theory
(
York, 1950); Paul A. Samuelson, ".\ Note on Pure Theory

has instead accumulated an impressive mathematical
of Consumer's Behavior," Economica, N.S., 5 (1938), 61-71
arsenal around the idea of the complete reducibility
and .353-54; Jean Villa, "The Existence-conditions of a Total
of wants, which is tantamount to the assumption of Utility Function" (1946), Review of Economic Studies, 19
complete substitutability among commodities. The ul- (1951-52), 123-28.
timate product needs unparsimonious stressing: the General surveys of the technical aspects of the problem
modern utility theory reduces all wants to one general of utility are: Kenneth J.
.\rrow, "Utilities, .\ttitudes.
abstract want called "utility." In line with this reduc- Choices: A Review .Article," Econometrica, 26 (19.58). 1-23;
tion, one need not say "these people need more shoes ';
John S. Chipman, "The Foundations of Utility," Economet-
instead, "these people need more utility" should suffice. rica. 28 (1960), 193-224; Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen,
"Utility," International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences,
The reduction is responsible for the fact that the same
17 vols. (New York, 1968), 16, 236-67 (it includes a substan-
theory teaches that there is no objective basis for inter-
tial bibliography); George Stigler, "The Development of
personal comparison of utility. All this may again be J.
Utility Theory" (1950), reprinted in J. J.

Spengler and
due to a particular feature of the economies in which
W. R. Allen, eds.. Essays in Ecotiomic Thought: Aristotle to
the builders of the modern theory of utility lived. Those
Marshall (Chicago, 1960), 606-55. from Journal of Political
were not economies in which a low income kept basic Economy, 18 (1950), 307-27, 373-96.
wants in front of everybody's eyes; they were econo-
NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN
mies where most people were able to satisfy even many
personal wants. Modem utility theory is a theory of [See also Economic History; Economic Theory of Natural
a consumer who has a relatively ample income and Liberty; Happiness and Pleasure; Social Welfare; Util-
itarianism.)
whose economic choice is guided only by the quantities
of commodities.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
In addition to the classic authors (ancient and modem),
the following special works cited in the text may be con- UTOPIA
sulted for details: Giovanni B. .Antonelli, Sidla teoria mate-
matica della economia politica (1866; Milan, 1952); M. The word "utopia" derives from two Greek words,
Friedman and L. J.
Savage, "The Utility Analysis of Choices einoTTos and oiiTowos, meaning respectively "good
Involving Risk," Journal of Political Economy, 56 (1948),
place and "no place." Utopian writings have reflected
'
279-304; Ferdinando Galiani, Della moneta (1750; Bari,

this ambiguity, being sometimes visions of good and
1915); NicholasGeorgescu-Roegen (1936), "The Pure The-
possibly attainable social systems and at other times
ory ofConsumer's Behavior," reprinted in Nicholas
fantasies of a desirable but unattainable perfection. The
Georgescu-Roegen, Analytical Economics: Issues and Prob-
lems (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), pp. 133-70; idem, "Choice,
imaginary societies denoted by the term "utopia" are
Expectations, and Measurability" (1954a), reprinted ibid., all presented as better than any existing society because
pp. 184-215, from the Quarterly Journal of Economics, 68 of the rationality, harmony, utility, and order prevail-
(1954), 503-34; idem, "Choice and Revealed Preference" ing within them. Furthermore the imagined social
(1954b), reprinted ibid., pp. 216-27, from Southern Eco- systems they embody are better in the sense that men
nomic Journal. 21 (19541, 119-30; Hendrik S. Houthakker, living in these regimes are either morally better people,
"Revealed Preference and the Utility Function," Eco- happier, more self-fidfilled, or freer because conflicts
nomica, N.S., 17 (1950), 159-74; John Law, Money and Trade have been eliminated from their environment and
Considered ivith a Proposal for Supplying the Nation with
personality. L'topian writings have been one expression
Money (1705), reprinted in Oeuvres completes, 3 vols. (Paris,
of the belief that given reasonable, natural, and truly
1934) I. 4; William "A Lecture on the Notion
F. Lloyd,
just institutions man's lot can really be immeasurably
of Value as Distinguishable Not Only From Utility But Also
From Value in Exchange" Economic History, 1 improved. Since the seventeenth century Utopian writ-
(1833),
(1927), 170-83; Alfred Marshall, The Pure Theory of Domes- ings have been a constant expression of social idealism,
tic Value (1879), Reprints of Scarce Tracts in Economics hope, and optimism even though some utopists have
and Political Science, No. 1 (London, 1930); Oskar stressed the illusory nature of their visions and have
UTOPIA
found in their impossibility a despairing statement of lic of Plato owes something to this real, but in his time
human and man's radical imperfection. Most
finitude already archaic and passing, social organization.
Utopias have been produced within Western civili- The Republic (ca. 370-360 B.C.) is the first great
zation. Though other cultures had myths of a golden extant Utopian work detailing the institutions of an
age and other proto-utopian forms, only the Chinese ideal social order. It is not, however, the first of such
seem to have produced indigenous Utopian writings speculations in Greek culture, for Aristotle mentions
prior to the influence of Western culture. Even in in his Politics (Book II, Chs. 7 and 8, 1266a-1268b)
China the genre did not flourish imtil Western civili- Phaleas of Chalcedon who, he says, "was the first to
zation impinged upon Chinese consciousness influenc- affirm that the citizens of a state ought to have equal
ing a few writers like K'ang Yieu Wei (1858-1927), possessions," and Hippodamus of Miletus "who was the
whose The United States of the World appeared in first person not a statesman who made inquiries about
1935, fifty years after it was begun. In the West, Utopias the best form of government. The Republic appeared
"
owed much to ancient classical images of ideal social at a time when the polls or city-state was proving to
existence. be an inadequate institution. Too small to organize
Perhaps the earliest expression of utopianism in large areas or to rule over subject peoples, it was large
Greek culture is the portrayal of the Golden Age in enough to unruly factions and demagogic
contain
the works of Hesiod (ca. 750 B.C.). Hesiod describes leaders. Populationgrowth and the militancy of the
a time when ". . , the fniithil earth spontaneously bore Greeks whose internecine quarrels tended to embroil
[men] abundant fruit without stint. And they lived in city-states in each other's aifairs had resulted in a
ease and peace upon their land with many good things period of warfare which would end only when the Pax
rich in flocks and beloved of the blessed gods (Hesiod, "
Romana was imposed upon the ancient world. Plato's
Works and Days, 109-21). Here the perfect social Republic attempted to provide guidance to Athens and
condition is in the pre-urban past in which neither men its competitors in this time of troubles and to assure
nor classes struggled for power or property. Idleness, good men that the pursuit of justice and virtue would
luxury, war, religious strife and other forms of conflict, be rewarded in this life and the next {Republic X, 621).
ennui and malaise find no place in a rustic setting The ideal republic as he sketched it was not only
where men and happily at peace
five simply, morally, a reasoned contrivance enabling men to live the good
with themselves and nature which abundantly supplies life but the timeless, eternal, and good form of social
their needs. Many cultures preserve the image of such organization. It was, like Plutarch's Sparta, the ulti-
a golden age in the past and thus know of a Utopia mate rationalization of the ancient city controlhng
gone and not to be regained as long as life is compli- every aspect of social e.xistence in the name of justice,
cated, urbanized, and filled with contention, and eco- order, freedom, peace, strength, stability, and goodness.
nomic scarcities are man's inheritance. Lewis Mumford Ruled by wise men, protected bv valiant warriors, and
has argued (Daedahis [Spring 1965], 27.3) that "Such served by men of lesser abilities, Plato's republic, like
a society had indeed come into existence at the end most Utopias conceived before the eighteenth century,
of the last Ice Age, if not before, when the long process was anything but democratic. The division of labor was
of domestication had come to a head in the establish- elaborate and controlled by the governing intellectual
ment of small, stable commimities, with an abundant elite who toil but organized production and
did not
and varied food supply. ." The first Utopias would
. . distribution and kept the population limited to an
seem to be the pleasant but nostalgic folk memories optimal level. These philosopher-nilers regulated the
of this state, standing in idealized contrast to the urban beliefs of the people, teaching each class what it ought
regulated world of war and social strife which suc- to know and training each for its social role. They
ceeded as Iron-Age populations grew and rational and decided all questions of government and maintained
religious control systems were elaborated with the an ideal status quo in this most static and unhistorical
founding of the ancientcities. In Greek thought this of realms. Often described as a form of commimism,
second urban stage of civilization produced a series the Platonic republic is perhaps more accurately
of visions of an ideal order which also harked back described as a rationalized version of the communi-
to a once real social condition. The ancient cities were tarian ideal embodied in the polls. While the work is
rigidly structured institutions which Mumford has Utopian in the sense of being an unrealizable ideal,
called (ibid., p. 283) "not only 'utopia' but the most many of the institutions with which it is provided were
impressive and most enduring of all Utopias. . . . For or were thought to have been in existence somewhere
to an extraordinary extent the archetypal [ancient] city in the ancient world. As a guide to action, action which
[everywhere] placed the stamp of divine order and would realize only in imperfect and changeable form
human purpose on all its institutions. . .
." The Repub- the idea of a perfect pohs, the Republic was not wholly 459
UTOPIA
Utopian and in this respect as in many others it served imique cult has attracted later writers. The vision of
as model and source for later utopists. peace and harmony which possessed the Deutero-Isaiah
Sparta, so well disciplined, pure and successhil, also has its Utopian aspects as do other eschatological
inspired the admiration not only of Plato but of many and apocalyptic portions of the Bible. The pseudo-
other writers, one of whom left an account of its legis- epigraphic works of the Jews and early Christians make
lator which became a source for later utopists. much of epochs and eons to come which will be totally
Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus (ca. a.d. 100), the Spartan different and better than this decayed and sorrowful
lawgiver, describes the social institutions which world. The vision of paradise held by early Christian
Lycurgus is supposed to have created for the Spartans writers added another not dissimilar Utopian element.
and which made them austere, morally upright, simple, Nevertheless the biblical tradition has consistently
self-sacrificing, brave, hardy, and in a way happy in worked against utopianism while furthering chiliastic
their freedom. Lycurgus stands in Utopian and much and millenarian beliefs; it has done so because the trans-
nonutopian political writing as the archetypal legis- formations of man's life which are revealed are really
lator, the charismatic leader who, given the power and the works of God and not of men, reordering their life
opportunity, shaped the destinies of a real people as in a rational and natural way. The apocalypse of Peter
decisively as have his descendants, who have in nu- contains a typical and short account of such super-
merous Utopias transformed the characters of ordinary natural paradise which God, not men, will produce.
men into perfect and ideal citizens. Lycurgus equalized (Cf. Eurich, p. 18.)
property in Sparta, all but abolished money, regulated Speculations about such an ideal existence had
and ordered the lives of its citizens for their own and perforce to be speculations about God's providence and
the state's good. The social order he created and the not men's plans and efforts.The stress in the Christian
training and education which he designed to sustain traditionupon the sinfulness and imperfection of fallen
it were directed to making the Spartans an efficient man also worked against utopianism. There could be
military power capable of defending their liberty and but one perfect man, Christ Jesus, and only the City
way of life which they saw almost as divine and of God, not of this world, manifested through grace
unchangeable. Plutarch reports that the Spartans the perfections for which Utopians longed and hoped.
honored Lycurgus as a god, consecrating a temple to The world as a place of sin, disorder, and suffering
his memory. The image of Sparta and the possible could be purged, judged, and redeemed, but it could
changes which an enlightened legislator could make not be radically reformed and perfected by fallen men.
offered utopists a fascinating vision of rational social Paradise lost or regained was the only Utopia possible
control and a means of realizing it if only the proper and God alone held its keys. From the beginning of
leader could be found. the Christian era to the sixteenth century Christian
Later descriptions of ideal societies owe much to Utopian longings usually took the form of millenarian-
other classical works. Idyllic depictions of the Golden ism and Utopia the appearance of a redeemed world.
Age among Arcadians, Hyperboreans, Panchaeans, and Christianity did, however, provide one notable
Atlanteans appeared in the works of Euhemerus, Ovid, source and sanction for Utopian thought and practice.
Lucian of Samosata, and others. Plato's Laws (ca. 340), The account of the first Christians contained in The
and Xenophon's Cyropaedia, while
Aristotle's Politics, Acts of the Apostles presents the apostle Peter as a
not Utopias, provided materials from which later preacher of a social as well as a religious gospel.
writers borrowed institutions, notions of enlightened
.\nd they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and
rule and conceptions of human goodness and happiness fellowship, and breaking of bread, and in prayers.
in . . .
to be found in civic, particularly urban, life. The foun- And all that believed were together, and had all things
der of Stoicism, Zeno of Citium, and later Stoics as common; .\nd sold their possessions and goods, and parted
well as eclectic thinkers like Cicero, enlarged the them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continu-
image of an ideal social order to include all mankind ing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread
and not merely those within a walled city. from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and
The ancient world produced another profoundly singleness of heart. Praising God, and having favour with
different source of Western utopianism. The Hebraic all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily
such as should be saved (Acts 2:42, 44-47).
tradition, as it came West in the Bible, has a
to the
number of Utopian elements. The view of Eden in This passage so manifestly descriptive of a sectarian
Genesis (Chapter 2) was sketchy enough to make men communist society gathered as a saved and saving
wish to describe it more fully. The conception of a remnant has been the favorite text of Utopians claiming
theocratic state in which all is ordered for the glory to be Christian since the Reformation. Used as a proof
4bU of the god of a particular people endowed with a text it was the authorization appealed to by the leaders
UTOPIA
of most nineteenth-century American religious Utopian Republic, set a pattern and a stvle for the genre which
communities such as the Rappites, the Inspirationists, was by and large imchanged until the late eighteenth
and the Oneida Community. On the whole, Christi- century. The timeless, static society in which history
anity has not been Utopian in outlook and has branded is discounted, the totalitarian patterns of control, the
as heretics those who took the apostle's message location of the society in the present but in a remote,
literally. There were consequently few Utopian works unexplored area, the concern with communism, natural
written during the Christian Middle Ages. At best the religion, and the overcoming of the problem of eco-
land of Cockane, the realm of Prester John, and per- nomic scarcity by means of a strict control of produc-
haps Dante's scheme for a imiversal monarchy show tion, distribution or population — all these became
that a glimmer of utopianism persisted. hallmarks of the genre in the sixteenth century.
The Renaissance, which gave expression to so many Seventeenth-century Utopias are perhaps the most
new currents of optimism and secularism, saw a rebirth fascinating of any period because they reveal so fully
of Utopian writing. Nicholas of Cusa in the fifteenth The first important
the intellectual currents of the time.
century postulated a semi-utopian order embracing all one of the century was Tommaso Campanella's Civitas
mankind in a world in which politics and religion had so/is (The City of the Sun, 1602-27). Betraying an
ceased to be disruptive forces. The burgeoning life of interest in astrology, hermeticism, and esoteric knowl-
Italian city-states led men .such as Leonardo da Vinci edge, his work also shows this defender of Galileo to
to think about remaking their world. The utopianism have been an ardent proponent of the new science and
of such artists and architects, if it can be called that, a reviler of Aristotle. Campanella's vision possesses an
was a reflection of urban growth. Its character has been almost chiliastic dimension, for the future includes
nicely summed up by Eugenio Garin (in Les utopies great changes, even the establishment of a universal
a la renaissance, "La cite id6ale de la renaissance Christian monarchy. Campanella's world is one replete
itahenne, p. 35). What mattered to these men were
"
with inventions in which new scientific knowledge is
earthly ends and values. Political reorganization was applied for man's welfare, but more interesting is his
to be the strategy to achieve them. Their plans were changed attitude toward the hiture and the sense of
instinct with urban life and reflected its problems, no- destiny, almost progress, which hangs over the world
tably international, and class conflict. at the end of his book:
Urban development and consciousness provided but
one stimulus to the production of Renaissance Utopias. Indeed, since these people, who know only the natural law,
Religious turmoil, the upheaval of societies occasioned so closely approach Christianity, which adds to the laws
of nature only the sacraments, which give aid in observing
by economic growth, and the emergence of larger and
these laws, I deduce the valid argument in favor of the
stronger states, the exciting voyages of discovery were
Christian religion that it is the tRiest of all and that when
potent stimuli to the production of social visions and
its abuses have been removed it will be mistress over the
precise plans. The pre-Reformation Utopia (1516) of whole world, as the more outstanding theologians teach and
Sir Thomas More has its roots in all of these elements. hope. They say that this is the reason the Spaniards dis-
More's projection of the ideal society is qualified in covered the New World (although the first discoverer is our
one important respect; Utopia is the best regime which great Genoese hero Columbus): that the whole world may
fallen sinful men unaided bv revelation are capable be gathered under one law. Therefore, these philosophers
of creating. Because it lacks Christianity, it is a must be witnesses of the truth, chosen by God. From this
radically imperfect society. I realize that we do not know what we are doing but are
It is a proclamation of the
hmits of reason and human finitude as well as a state- the instnmients of God. Those men seek new regions, led
ment on by their desire for gold and riches; but God has a higher
of social idealism. It is consequently a statement
end in view. The sun attempts to bum up the earth, not
of Christian humanism exemplifying the new-found
to produce plants, men, etc., but God uses the struggle
moral and religious earnestness in which the Reforma-
between it and them for the production of the latter things.
tion and the Coimter-Reformation were rooted. More's
Praise and glory to Him! (see Negley and Patrick, p. 345,
Utopian society is one designed to hvmible the pride trans. W. T. Gilstrap).
of its citizens through rigid controls. Its social policies
are ideal solutions to the problems of poverty, eco- This is a far more positive attitude toward history and
nomic dislocation, and bad government which six- the possibilities of human life than More could have
teenth-century societies knew all too well. The narrator imagined.
of the account of the Utopia, Ralph Hythloday, is The early German utopist, Johann Andreae, whose
presented as having been a companion of the Floren- Christianopolis (1619) appeared before the final version
Amerigo Vespucci, and himself an even
tine navigator, of Campanella's work, resembled the Italian monk in
more remarkable explorer. More's Utopia, like Plato's many ways. Andreae had been a Rosicrucian and his 461
UTOPIA
esoteric interests mingle with an interest in the new and the economic foundations of both. Harrington's
science. His Utopia, while less scientifically sophis- republicanism, his concern with agricultîre, public
ticated than Campanella's or Bacon's New Atlantis. order, toleration and a religious establishment which
possesses laboratories staffed with scientists (or perhaps could not be fractious, and above all his earnest realism
one should say natural magicians). This friend and combine to make him an attractive thinker despite the
correspondent of Kepler also tried to wed the new dullness of his books.
science to Christian beliefs and to design a systeni "to Seventeenth-century Utopias include two other types
lessen theburden of our mortality. requiring notice. The Histoire comiquc ou voyage dans
Bacon's \'ew Atlantis is not essentially different in la lune (16.50) of Cyrano de Bergerac and Gabriel de
aim though its reputation and effectiveness have been Foigny's Terra Australis incognita 1676) both describe
(
much greater because of the celebritv of Bacon's phil- Utopias in which a wide range of questions is pursued
osophical and methodological writings. Like the others, in a rationalistic fashion. Such works look forward to
he wrote to show how a Christian society could be the philosophic tale of the Enlightenment. By the end
improved by increased knowledge and a better tech- of the century a critique of Christianity in the form
nology. There is, however, a fideistic streak in Bacon's of deism had foimd expression in numerous works of
thought which tended to separate the natural and which Simon Tysot de Patot's Voyage* et aventures de
supernatural realms that blend so easilv in The Citi/ Jacques Masse (1710) is perhaps the best known.
of the Sun or later in Samuel Hartlib's Description of The succeeding age, the Enlightenment, saw the
the Famous Kingdom of Macaria (1641), a work written development of most of its cherished beliefs in numer-
"to propagate religion and to endeavour the reforma- ous Utopias. Deism continued to appear as the religion
tion of the whole world "
through sound learning, well of the truly wise. Utopias, which had always been
taught and made fruitful in practice. Bacon's descrip- moral, even strenuously so, became happv places, and
tion of Salomon's House, the first research institute it was clear that this happiness would be the product
dedicated to the advancement of learning bv coopera- it was for Diderot's Tahitians
of .sensual gratification as
tive scientific endeavor in the interest of beneficial in Supplement au lotjage de Bougainiille (The Supple-
technological application, provided images of purpose ment to Bougainville's Voyage. 1772). .Another change
and organization which inspired men as diverse as the which is noticeable in eighteenth-century Utopias is the
Christian virtuosi who founded the Royal Society of greater equality of their inhabitants; some were
London (1662) and the rather less pious authors of the communist societies with complete equality as a
great French encyclopedia edited by Denis Diderot corollary. As a consequence the attitude toward labor
and Jean le Bond d'.\lembert. tends to change as well. Earlier works had required
This interest in science and Utopian writing was not labor as a discipline or moral good: nian\' had relegated
confined to the sober and successful only. Gerrard manual labor to a specific class. Eighteenth-century
Winstanley, tlie Digger, in The Law
of Freedom (1651) writers tended to see it as creative and not degrading.
and other tracts, designed plans for the miUenniimi In real life the power of states over their subjects was
which included a place for science and secular learning. increasing; a similar trend prevails in the Utopias of
He and other millenarians who surfaced in the turmoil the time as well. Morelly's Code de la nature (1755)
of mid-seventeenth-centur\- England, were foreninners offers a view of a which is highly regi-
static society
of those nineteenth-century sectarians who thought, mented in the interest of a communist egalitarianism.
like the Shakers, that they were living in a postmillen- The greatest and most ingenious of the Utopians were
nial age. Christian sensibijities got Utopian dress of a those who placed their Utopias in the future and saw
more conventional Robert Burton's short sketch,
sort in them as the inevitable culmination of human progress.
"Democritis Junior to the Reader," included in his The first to write a Utopia set in the future was Louis
Anatomy of Melancholy (1620), This Utopian work of Sebastien Mercier, the author of An 2440 ou Reve s'il
erudition and realism is interesting in its attempts to en fut jamais (1770). The conceptual novelty belongs
make reforms plausible by citing authorities and to his contemporaries. Baron Anne Robert Jacques
historical precedents for many of his suggested Turgot, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Mar-
innovations. quis de Condorcet, Paul Henri Dietrich, Baron
James Harrington's Oceana (1656), another work of d'Holbach. and Claude .\drien Helvetius, all of whom
great analytic realism, adopts a similar stance in its elaborated theories of progress in which secular, dy-
polemics against divine-right monarchists, Thomas namic social and psychological forces acted inevitably
Hobbes, and theocratic sectaries. Oceana, like other to bring about progress in the arts, sciences, and morals.
Utopian works by Harrington, is most concerned with Condorcet s L'esquisse dun tableau historique des
462 the problems of political stability, constitutional forms, progres de I'es-prit humain (1794) contains as its last
UTOPIA
section a sketch of the hitiire state of mankind at last teristic generally lacking in earlier works: they are
Uving freelv in a rational and naturalwhichsocial order much more optimistic about the possibilities of hmn;ui
continues to perfect itself. The static mold in which betterment. Utopists of the seventeenth and eighteenth
earlier Utopias had been cast was broken. So also was centuries dreamt of making men good and happy; their
the isolation of the Utopian world for Condorcet's nineteenth- and twentieth-century successors dreamt
Utopia was to be worldwide although not realizable of overcoming disease and death to say nothing of pov-
at the same rate by all peoples. In England Richard ertv, disorder, ignorance, and crime. Science, technol-
Price had reached a rather similar conclusion although ogv, and new social institutions to promote both could
he connected progress with the realization of a

still lead to abundance while machines, relieving men of
divine providential plan —
a plan in which the founding toil, would allow all to develop mentally and spiritu-
of the United States and the French Revolution were, allv. A .somewhat greater interest in the control of
as thev were for Condorcet, significant steps into a economic and pohtical relationships tended to make
bright future. Utopian and socialist identical for many in the nine-
The eighteenth century also produced a rather teenth century. Because of this identity Utopian ideas
different kind of utopist in the person of Robert became for the first time politically effective. By 1900
Wallace, a Scottish clergyman and the author of Vari- Utopian thought had in this way affected the views of
ous Prospects of Mankind. Xatiire. and Providence manv Europe and North and South .\merica. Indeed,
in
(1761). Wallace believed that Utopias could function socialism in .America in 1890 meant not Mar.vism but
as analytic models helpful to the social theorist. the views of Edward Bellamv, whose Utopia, Looking
Utopianism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centu- Backward (1888), became a best seller, provoked much
ries was supported not only by a belief in the inevita- controversy, and was translated into many languages.
bilitv of progress, but also by the widely held doctrine Throughout the last years of the nineteenth century,
of the malleability or perfectibility of human nature looking Backward and Theodor Hertzka's Freeland
which implied that men's minds and characters could (1891) —
a more or less free-enterprise Utopia located
be quicklv molded by education to be vastly, if not in ,\frica as befitted a work coming during the
totally, different from what they were. Utopia could imperialist scramble for African territory — found not
be quicklv built. Nineteenth-centurv utopists, Saint- only readers but enthusiastic supporters gathered in
Simonians, Owenites, and other Utopian socialists clubs to promote the competing ideologies.
tended to concentrate more than their predecessors on The twentieth century has produced more Utopias
the means of getting to Utopia rather than on the than had been written by 1900. Indeed, F. T. Russell
precise form the new societv would have. For most, estimated in 19.32 that "the eighteenth century pro-
education was the favored means. Robert Owen spoke duced as many as the sixteenth and seventeenth to-
for many when he wrote in the Second Essay of Tlie gether, that the nineteenth almost tripled that number,
New View of Society (1813): and that the twentieth [had then seen] . . . almost as
manv as the nineteenth" (F. T. Russell, p. 307). Divided
Children are without exception passive and wonderfully
about equally between the political "right" and "left"
contrived compounds; which, hv an accurate previous and
these works have come mainly from the pens of
subsequent attention, founded on a correct knowledge of
Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Americans outside the
the subject, niav lie formed collectively to have any human
character. .\nd although these compounds, like all the other
South. One might surmise that maritime activity, reh-
works of nature possess endless varieties, vet they partake
gious belief, the freedom of the press, and a lively
which by perseverance under judi-

of that plastic quality, political environment which allowed widespread
ciousmanagement, may be ultimately moulded into the very involvement in political action as well as economic
image of rational wishes and desires. dynamism had something to do with both the geo-
graphic distribution of utopists and the rate of Utopian
Education was, however, but one means to this goal. publications. Perhaps increasing alienation and politi-
Some sociahsts who looked back to the French Revo- cal frustration have been factors, since many recent
lution found inspiration in the revolutionary ideals and Utopias have been thinly disguised political tracts.
practices of the Jacobins or of Gracchus Babeuf. For While Utopian writings have been concomitants of
them pohtical action, even revolution through force, social and ideological change, it is not clear that the
was the road to Utopia. For others, especially Charles increase has been greater than the increase in the
Fourier, the functioning example of a successful reading public or the number of authors. It may be
Utopian community or phalanstery would convince that the urge to write Utopias is a constant product
mankind to adopt schemes so obviously good. of social idealism, revulsion at inefficiency, waste, and
Nineteenth-century Utopias display another charac- disorder, and a desire to do something about these evils 4do
UTOPIA
even though the required or envisioned remedies are statically conceived, is maintained by the repression
of a magnitiidewhich engenders as much pessimism of spontaneity, and those in which perfection is seen
and frustration as reforming zeal. Whatever the reason as a relative condition dependent upon progress and
for the increased number of Utopias, it has not resulted individual freedom of choice and action. The static,
in literary greatness or substantial novelty. dynamic, repressive, and expansive characteristics may
H. G. Wells and Burrhus Frederic Skirmer have been owe something to the kind of men who have written
the most interesting and creative of the utopists of this Utopias and the role which these works played in their
centurv. Wells blended science fiction, prophecy, and own lives and perhaps also in those of their readers.
realistic social analysis to produce works more predic- There have been few literary masterpieces among
tive than Utopian. He has had many imitators. Scientific the Utopias, perhaps because it is difficult to write
achievement has already outrun his fantasies and interestingly of perfection, of states without the usual
verified Oscar Wilde's quip, "Progress is the realization conflicts which form the stuff of romance and tragedy.
of Utopia. "
B. F. Skinner's Walden II (1947) is interest- Moreover, the characters in Utopian works must be
ing because of its stress on the techniques of behavior- types, exemplifying classes, so they often lack individ-
istic social which for this pioneering
engineering uality. Nevertheless, at their best, utopists have shared
behaviorist psvchologist open the way to Utopia. in most of the great intellectxial debates and their works
If twentieth-century utopists have not provided have often been not only stimulants to change but
much of interest, the same cannot be said of the anti- prophetic of the future.
utopians whose parodies of the genre have subjected
it to searching and destructive criticism in many
BIBLIOGRAPHY
dystopias or anti-utopias. There have always been
anti-Utopians — realists, cautious reformers, doubters of Bibliographical works. G. Negley, The Utopia Collection
man's ability to achieve rationality, questioners of the of Duke University Library (Durham, N.C., 1965), contains
over 500 titles. United States Library of Congress, Public
an harmonious natural social order, and
possibility of
Affairs Information Service, Division of Bibliography,
most importantly scoffers who have maintained that
Utopias (Washington, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1928).
the achievement of utopists' dreams would be hving
Anthologies of Utopian writings containing bibliographi-
nightmares. Thev have been a small but respectable
cal information. H. C. Baldry, Ancient Utopias (Southamp-
company, including Aristophanes, Jonathan Swift, per- ton, 1956). G. Boas and A. O. Lovejoy, Primitivism and
haps Voltaire, Samuel Butler, and in the twentieth Related Ideas in Antiquity (Baltimore, 1935), the standard
century E. M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh, Evgeni source for selections and references dealing with "the
Zamyatin, George Orwell, and .Îdous Hu,\ley. The Golden Age. F. E. and F. P. Manuel, French Utopias: An
"
grim visions of a likely future, all too rational and Anthology of Ideal Societies (New York, 1966), mainly
orderly, which these men have conjured up have made eighteenth- and nineteenth-century selections. G. Negley
dystopias rather than Utopias of more interest since and J. M. Patrick, The Quest for Utopia: An Anthology of
Imaginary Societies (New York. 1952). contains all or parts
1930.
of thirty-three Utopias and lists the titles of over 100 other
Utopian writings have played many roles in Western
\itopias and dystopias as well as major secondary sources
thought. Some belong to the literature of whimsy and
to 1950.
escape, others to science fiction, a considerable number General works bearing on Utopian writing containing
to satire, and many to that ill-defined genre, the philo- bibliographical information. G. Atkinson, The Extraordinanj
sophic tale. Utopias have appealed in almost every Voyage in French Literature before 1700 (New York, 1920);
literary form — travels, letters, visions, dialogues, idem. The Extraordinary Voyage in Frer>ch Literature from
novels, treatises, and in both prose and verse. They 1700 to 1720 (Paris, 1922). W. Bentley, Vie Communication
have been the vehicles of seriously argued religious, of Utopian Thought: Its History, Forms, and Use (San
political, and philosophic views set out didactically in Francisco, 1955). M. Buber, Patlis in Utopia (London. 1949).
a succinctand interesting manner and of propaganda. N. Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium, 2nd ed. (New York,
Many have sought to move men to action, while others 1961). G. D. H. Cole, A History of Socialist Thought: The
Forerunners 1779-1850 (London, 1955). R. C. Elliot, The
have been visions for contemplation, dreams to think
Shape of Utopia: Studies in a Literary Cenre (Chicago, 1970).
on. They virtually defy orderly classification, though
N. Eurich, Science in Utopia: A Mighty Design (Cambridge,
some writers have tried to divide them into restrictive, 1967), is necessary reading for those interested in seven-
rigidly controlled societies, totalitarian in their social teenth-century Utopias. F^d^ration International des
policies, or expansive realms of freedom knowing only Institiits et Soci^t^s pour I'fitude de la Renaissance, Les
a minimum of control. This division coincides roughly utopies it la renaissance: collogue international (Liige, 1963);
464 with a division between those in which harmony. twelve essays dealing with Nicholas of Cusa, Robert Burton,
UT PICTURA POESIS
Jerome Cardan, Thomas More, Kaspar Stiblin, Johann of K'ang Yu Wei (London, 1958). D. Winston, lambulus.
.\ndreae, Rabelais, and others. S. R. Graubard, ed., A Literary Study in Greek Utopianism (Ann Arbor, 1956).
Daedalus. 94, 2, The Proceedings of the American Academy P. Yershov, Science Fiction and Utopian Fantasy in Soviet
of Arts and Sciences: Utopia (Richmond, 1965), thirteen Literature (New York, 1954).
papers on various topics concerning Utopia. J. O. Hertzler,
ROGER L. EMERSON
The History of Utopian Thought (New York, 1923), dated
but still useful. G. Kateb, Utopia and Its Enemies (Glencoe, [See also City; Millenarianism; Perfectibility; Progress;
1963). H. Kern, Staatsutopie und allgemeine Staatslehre: ein Renaissance; Sin and Salvation; Socialism.]
Beitrag zur allgemeine Staatslehre unter besonderer Beruck-
sichtigung von Thomas Morus und H. G. Wells (Mainz?
1951?). H. Levin, The Myth of the Golden Age in the
Renaissance (Bloomington, 1969). K. Mannheim, Ideologic
und Utopie (Bonn, 1929). trans, as Ideology and Utopia UT PICTURA POESIS
(London, 1936). A. E. Morgan, Nowhere and Somewhere:
How History Makes Utopias and How Utopias Make History
Ut pictura poesis: "as is painting so is poetry," is
(Chapel Hill, 1946), argues that More's Utopia betrays
often either implicitly or explicitly reversed to "as is
European knowledge of Peru prior to its conquest. M. H.
poetry so is painting," to indicate an extended analogy,
Nicolson, Voyages to the Moon (New York, 1948). F. T.
Russell, Touring Utopia (New York, 1932). J. Servier, Histoire if not an identification, between the two media. This
de I'utopie (St. Amand, 1967). J. Shklar, After Utopia classical theory of parallels between the arts was
(Princeton, 1957). Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian
J.
L. widely held and developed, especially from the Middle
Democracy (London, 1951), has an excellent section on how Ages through the Enlightenment, and served as the
the eighteenth-century Utopians conceived of a natural, testing gromid for theories of imitation and as the
rational political order. S. L. Thrupp, Millennial Dreams incubator for systematic aesthetics. The discussions
in Action (The Hague, 1962), E. L. Tuveson, Millennium and
often revolved around "natural" (painting)
and Utopia: A Study in the Background of the Idea of
"arbitrary" (language) signs and symbols, and the ques-
Progress. 2nd ed. (New York, 1964). C. Walsh, From Utopia
tions, usually unstated imtil the eighteenth centru'y,
to Nightmare (New York, 1962).
Studies of utopists and Utopias. W. H. G. Armytage,

were "How does painting or poetry communicate?"
Heavens Belotv: Utopian Experiments in England 1560-1960 and "What are the limits of each medium in time and
(London and Toronto, 1961). A. E. Bestor, Backwoods space?"
Utopias: The Sectarian and Owenite Pliases of Communi- Particular emphasis was always placed on the ability
tarian Socialism in America 1663-1829 (Philadephia, 1950), of the poet (or orator) to make his listener see the
is particularly good on early American communities. C. object, and of the painter to make his viewer under-
Blitzer, An Immortal Commonwealth: The Political Thought stand meaning as well as imagine action. The usual
of James Harrington (New Haven, 1960). E. R. Curtis, A major developments of the parallel include the princi-
Season in Utopia: The Story of Brook Farm (New York, 1961).
ples that both arts are imitative and that their subjects
H. Hexter, More's Utopia: The Biography of an Idea
J.
must be significant and unified human actions, usually
(Princeton, 1952). R. V. Hine, California's Utopian Com-
drawn from history, epics, romances, and the Bible.
munities (San Marino, 1953). H. J.
N. Horsburgh, "The
Relevance of the Utopian," Ethics (1967), 127-38. R. Owen,
They must, therefore, express moral or psychological
truths, hold to consistency or "decorvmi," and offer to
Utopianism and Education: Robert Owen and the Owenites.
ed. F. C. Harrison (New York, 1968). F. E. Manuel, 77ie instruct, to deUght, and to move, although these ends
J.
Prophets of Paris (Cambridge, 1962). Morelly, Code de la and their relative importance were much disputed.
Nature avec une introduction et des notes par Gilbert
. . . There were fairly regular demands that the painter as
Chinard (Paris, 1950). C. Nordhoff, The Communist Societies well as the poet possess "learning," along with innate
of the United States (New York, 1875; 1961; 1965), a famous capacity and technical training. Theorists were usually
eyewitness account of the American communities in 1874.
interested in justifying the arts in general, especially
H. Noyes, History of American Socialisms (New York,
J. in the face of criticism from historians and philosophers
1870; 1961), by the leader of the Oneida Community. C.
who challenged their utility and morality.
Rihs, "Les Utopistes contre les lumieres," Studies on Voltaire
The theory of ut pictura poesis is applied in many
and the Eighteenth Century. 57 (1967), 1321-55. Shklar,
Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau's Social Theory
J.
ways. It may mean that the poet, without any real
(Cambridge, 1969), a study of Utopian elements in Rous- attempt to compete with the painter, should give
seau's works. E. L. Surtz, S. The Praise of Wisdom: A enough concrete detail for the reader to form an accu-
J.,
Commentary on the Religiotis and Moral Problems and rate and vivid picture. This position was particularly
Backgrounds of St. Thomas More's Utopia (Chicago, 1957). common in the early eighteenth century, especially
L. G. Thompson, Ta t'ung shu: The One World Philosophy when critics examined the nature of metaphor. An 465
UT PICTURA POESIS
equally important meaning may involve the poet's Vite de pittori, scultori ed architetti tnoderni (1672),
control over the reception of detail. The poet may who claimed that both art forms appeal equally and
"frame" or "light" a scene, or he may carry a reader concurrently to the senses and the understanding,
from "foregroimd" to "middle groimd" to "back- and by Joseph Trapp, Praelectiones poetirae (1711-15;
ground," often using the painter's terminology. A kind trans. 1742), who suggested that both art forms be
of stasis is often effected, even when, as in the novels combined to appeal to the whole man.
of Henry James and Thomas Hardy, a visual composi- Some of the complexity surrounding the entire
tion evolves as characters enter a space and take places, problem of ut pictura poesis may derive from or be
almost as in a tableau. 'With ekphrasis (or ecphrasis), reinforced by the intricacy of the word sentio, which
an essentially rhetorical device in which an object in its various forms in Latin, English, and the Romance
formed in one art becomes the matter for another, the languages indicates "knowing" or "understanding" as
theorv only apparently changes or takes on another well as "experiencing through the senses." Language
dimension. The poet may indeed compete with the symbolizes while painting can imitate by natural signs,
painter or the painter with the poet to render some and the interior confusion revealed through the
art object, mav attempt, in effect, to translate it either ambivalent, perhaps ambiguous, use of sentio to record
literally or spiritually. The poet may, however, be the experience both of language and of the plastic arts
responding to a painting, simply revealing his reactions of painting and sculpture appears to be another aspect
rather than attempting in any way a reproduction. The of the general confusion of art forms. It is worth noting
converse is also tme: the painter need not be trying that in Greek graphein means "to write" or "to paint"
to reproduce the poem, or even to illustrate a facet (as does hsieh in literary Chinese), while until the late
of it, but may be revealing his intellectual and eighteenth century Western knowledge of hieroglyphs
emotional reaction to the verbal art work. was limited to seeing them as either literal or mystical
Many Renaissance theorists, while admitting, even representations of things, rather than as language.
urging, the parallels, tended to make a case for one Furthermore, the easy exchange in the arts of terms
medium as superior to, or at least competing with, the such "harmony," "proportion," "highlight," and
as
other. The most usual distinction was that poetry "decorum" encouraged difficulties as critical vocabu-
appealed to man's essential faculty, reason, while laries were sought. Such terms may well have been
painting was simply and dangerously sensory; or, the metaphors of a man who knew one art form well
conversely, that poetry appealed merely to slow reason but wanted to talk of another less known. But once
while painting rightly and immediately overwhelmed the engaging analogies were started, they were there
the viewer through sight, the greatest of the senses, to be extended. In addition, terms of plastic arts such
by being clearly imitative of nature, by, to note a as "chiaroscuro," "Claudian," and "sculpturesque,"
favorite metaphor, "holding up a mirror to life." when applied to literature, are often limited to similar
Gregory the Great in the sixth century, and during the content rather than to similar form (Giovannini, 1950).
Renaissance Savonarola and Giulio Romano asserted One major problem in considering ut picture poesis
tliat paintings are "the scriptures of the igno- is the difficulty of determining whether the many com-
rant
"
— Christ gave not only the gospels but his pictiu'e ments on the sister arts reflected a concern for aes-
on Veronica's — and so painting was seen
veil as a thetics or for social and financial position. Until the
simple and powerful alternative for language, "books eighteenth century there was little pursuit of what we
of lay-men" (Thomas Fuller, Worthies of England. would call the "aesthetics " of the parallel, as is
1662). But there is an equally strong if not "popular" evidenced by the general lack of systematic discrim-
Neo-Platonic view, well voiced by Pico della ination among all fields of learning or the arts. Even
Mirandola in Heptaplus (1489), that the picture is a the "arts "
and the "sciences " were not clearly distin-
form of revelation, an incarnation of the Word. The guished until the resolution of the "quarrel between
value of the image then is not to present truths to the the ancients and tlie moderns in the late seventeenth
"
illiterate nor is it to interact with language for a more and early eighteenth century, so from the classical
intense impact on the viewer-reader. Rather, its period through the seventeenth century, thinkers
emblematic mystery or complexity, by serving as a kind bimdled together what to the twentieth-century man
of vision, lures or thrusts the viewer to meditation on appear to be very strange bedfellows; musicians and
truths. Furthermore, since the picture can be taken in astronomers, cooks and architects. Francis Bacon, in
quickly (instantaneously?) the process of viewing De auginentis scientiarum (162.3), IV, 2, categorizes
immediately transcends the gross sensory act and is not music and painting as arts of simply sensory pleasure
far removed, at least conceptually, from Neo-Platonic with the cautionary note that they may overstimulate
4dd intuitive perception. The knot was cut by G. P. Bellori, already wayward emotions; he indicates their low rank
UT PICTURA POESIS
by not including them with the hberal arts of poetry Turner, Henri Rousseau, and Cezanne. They may be
and history, both of which demand reason and imagi- worlds of the senses, but they are also the landscapes
nation. Well past the lienaissance, painters were seen of meaning.
as mere craftsmen who made things that appealed to
the senses; they were hardly worthy of the status tradi- HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
tionally given the rational or inspired poet (Kristeller, OF THE CONCEPT
1951; 1952). .\lthough both Plato and .\ristotle referred in passing
Within from the fourteenth through the
this conte.xt, to the parallels between poetrv and painting, it was
seventeenth centuries, art theorists in Italv, France, and Horace in his Ars poetica (19-10 b.c.) who provided
England almost invariably claimed that painting, like the basis for the comparison and supplied the tag, ut
poetry, was a liberal, not a mechanical art. The essen- pictura poesis (line .361). The line itself is limited
tially sociological aim of raising the position of the enough in its immediate context: Horace is quite sim-
painter through the parallel with the poet is nicely ply saying that poetry is like painting in that a particu-
demonstrated by the arguments for the superiority of lar poem has its own virtues and so, like a particular
painting over poetr) as found in Leonardo da Vinci's painting, needs to be considered imder different physi-
Paragone in the early sixteenth century and is carried cal conditions and with different expectations (cf.
on by the Comte de Caylus, Tableaux tires de Vlliade, QuintiHan, De institutione oratorio [ca. a.d. 95],
de rodyssie d'Homere, et de J'Eneide de Virgile (1757), XII. 10.3-9). Throughout the entire poetic essay, how-
Joshua Reynolds, Discourses (1769-90), and J.
M. W. ever, he is so very ready with analogies among the
Turner, Lectures (1811-23). In the latter half of the arts — poetry, painting, drama, music, and dance— that
eighteenth century, however, social respect rose a reader's expansion of the meaning of ut pictura poesis
sharply for the painter who produced a unique work from a minor comparison to a rich analogy, or even
in a universally "read" form (R. Cohen [1964], Ch. IV). identification, is readily imderstandable. Since there
Modern scholars concerned with the interrelations was no ars pictura from antiquity. Horace's work was
of the arts often fail to recognize the differences be- -seized on by painting as an easy and appro-
critics of
tween the use of one art by another and the trans- priate and during the Renaissance the
substitute,
ference of styles from one art to another. Many studies theorists of poetry and painting were so close in their
in Geistesgeschichte, Weltanschauung, and milieu have thinking about the two arts that in many treatises the
been superficially attractive, but too often they are terms "poet and "painter" could be readily inter-
"
presumptuous or "hobbvhorsical" in the pursuit of changed": B. Daniello's Poetica (1536) was the direct
parallels (R. Wellek [1942], and R. Cohen [1964], Ch. source in both form and context of the Dialogo della
IV). The great danger in any specific application of pittura (1557) by L. Dolce, who had earlier translated
the theory of the relations between poetrv and painting Horace's Ars poetica (1535).
is that the literary critic starts to see "pictures" in even Just as Bacon's expression of a philosophia prima
the slightest touch of detail or suggestion of stasis. A (Advancement of Learning. I) is a notable attempt at
critic's interest in ekphrasis may tempt him toward a persuading scientists to search for the first and simple
full analogy between a particular poem and a particu- cause, so the man of the Renaissance hardly needed
lar painting on the basis of a few similar but minor to leap to find correspondences among the particular
details. .\ different type of danger is that many early arts, since all art reflected — perhaps refined — nature,
theoristsmust be read with particular care since thev just as nature reflected God, in "harmony, "sym- "
often use the term "poetry to mean, or to include,

"
metry, "
and "proportion. Every major theorist of
"
"drama." poetics in the sixteenth century assumed and repeat-

.'\lthough the emphasis in this study is on the art edly affirmed some unity of the arts by at least noting
object, whether verbal or plastic, as art object, the the relations between poetry and painting. Vida,
obvious must not be overlooked: a demonstrable inten- Daniello. ,\lberti, Robortello, Fracastoro, Minturno,
tion and effect of crossing art forms has an historical, Scaliger, Castelvetro, Sidney, Tasso, F. Jmiius, and
cultural, or contextual significance that transcends the Vossius all represent a common belief or search often
formally aesthetic. The medieval ordered portrait of summarized by Horace's tempting line.
the blond heroine is not only painterly and further is If Horace supplied the term for the parallel, Plutarch
not only "ideal beauty." but it is goodness as well, or preserved a vivid expression that was used by almost
even primarily. The landscapes of Pope, Balzac, the every critic of poetry or painting from the Renaissance
Brontes, Zola, and Hardy are far more than simply through the eighteenth century. In his De gloria
places in which characters move, just as are the paint- Atheniensium he cites Simonides of Ceos (ca. .556-467
ings of Bosch, the Breughels, Watteau, Constable, B.C.) as saying, "Painting is mute poetry and poetry 4d7
—
UT PICTURA POESIS
a speaking picture" (346f.) and noted that the phrase oratorio, VIII. 3; Richard Sherry, A Treatise of Schemes
was already commonplace (17f-18a). and Tropes, 1550; F. Patrizi, Delia Poetica. 1586). The
The neatest and most widely disseminated verbal second-century handbooks of Aelius Theon,
a.d.
association of Horace and Plutarch is found in C. A. Hermogenes, and Aphtonius were popular throughout
Dufresnoy's De arte graphka (Paris, 1667), of which the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and they
the opening sentence is Vt pictura poesis erit. John dictated, as an essential part of the progymnasmata
Dryden's translation (London, 1695) reflects attitudes or preliminary rhetorical exercises, much work in de-
widely accepted: "Painting and Poesy are two sisters; scription of persons, places, and things, treating "vivid
which are so like in all things, that they mutually lend description" under the general headings of enargeia,
to each other both their Name and Office. One is called ekphrasis, or hypotyposis. Dozens of refinements on
a dimib Poesy, and the other a speaking Picture." The standard descriptions hold meaning for ut pictura
popularity of the Renaissance critics, as well as of poesis but the matter is complicated since many medi-
Dufresnoy and Dryden, helped assure, with remarkably eval and Renaissance rhetoricians are in conflict over
little challenge, the continued awareness that the arts both definitions and examples for descriptio, charac-
were "sisters ' (Ovid, Metamorphoses II, 1.3-14) until terismus, effictio, mimesis, notatio, infonnatio, diatypo-
G. E. Lessing's Laokoon (1766). sis, prosopographia, prosopopoeia, and many other
Attempts to over-refine the analogy of form extended categories that demand varying amounts of formed
Aristotle's argument for the primacy of plot in drama concrete detail. From classical rhetorical theory also
and of line in painting {Poetics 1450b 1-3). This simply came the descriptio locorum, which could include not
illustrative point was fruitlessly developed in Dryden's only fields or general topography but cities and, more
rather lackluster preface to his translation of specifically, monuments or temples. For more general-
Dufresnoy's De arte graphica, "A Parallel of Poetry ized landscapes, the descriptio temporum, with its de-
and Painting" (1695). He wrote, "Expression, and all scription of spring or winter with all their mythological
that belongs to words, is that in a poem which colour- or symbolic impact, could serve as a picture. Vergil
ing is in a picture "
and compares "lights and shadows and Ovid, Sannazaro, Ariosto, and Tasso, and Spenser
with tropes and figures, "
observing that "Strong and and Milton, all give many examples of detailed land-
glowing colours are the just Resemblances of bold scape description for a variety of purposes.
Metaphors. "
He ends with the dangerous commonplace Descriptive elements such as metaphor or personifi-
that "words are . . . the clothing of thought, in the cation could be accepted as "figures of thought" and
same sense as colours are the clothing of design" (cf. therefore as parts of amplification, or they could be
Richard Flecknoe, A Short Discourse of the English seen as elements of decoration included to trap the
Stage, 1664). Much the same appears in the Abbe senses. The rhetorical principle of amplification
Batteux, Les beaux arts riduits a un meme principe through description was presented in Cicero, De
(Paris [1746], pp. and 247), and from the
138, 140, inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herentiium
(I, xxiv)
painter. Sir Joshua Reynolds, comes a confirming note: (IV, 49 and 50) and was supported in the rhetorical
"Well-turned periods in eloquence, or harmony of handbooks. Description, especially epideictic, was ex-
numbers in poetry are in those arts what colouring
. . . tensively developed in the poetics of Matthieu de
is in painting" (Discourse [1776], Vll). Vendome, Ars versificatoria (ca. 1 175) and Geoffroi de
The development of ut pictura poesis may well be Vinsauf, Poetria nova (ca. 1210). These theorists
pursued through the complexity of rhetorical theory codified the portrait, demanding very complete physi-
from the classical period through the Renaissance. cal details and an exact order of those details from the
Major canons of rhetoric inventio, dispositio, and head to the feet. In general, the twelfth-century Latin
elocutio —
were adapted from Cicero and Quintilian comoedia, the Old French fabliaux, and the medieval
and applied to the art of the poet and painter. As early romance reveal this rhetorical formula in highly
as L. B. Alberti in his Delia pittura (1436), inventio finished pictures of ideal beauty or extreme ugUness
was used to indicate the painter's genera] material, his with very little suggestion of personal observation or
ideas and forms; dispositio, the large aspects of ar- shaded attitude.
rangement or composition; and elocutio, the actual Of particular relevance to ut pictura poesis, how-
portrayal. L. Daniello in Lm poetica (1536) and B. Dolce ever, is the rhetorical device of ekphrasis and "icon,"
in Dialogo delta pittura (1557) apply more explicitly since both were used to designate a description of a
these traditional terms. work of art following the cIkovc's ("icon ") of Philostratus
Within this large framework, most rhetoricians had (a.d. 3) and the £K<ppdo£(s (ekphrasis) of Callistratus
traditionally agreed that the speaker must make an (a.d. 4). These elaborate descriptions of the second
3 or
4Do audience see as well eis hear (Quintilian, De institutione Sophistic rhetorical tradition, one of a gallery of paint-
— —
UT PICTURA POESIS
ings, the other of a group of statues, seem produced and American poets of the 1950's and 1960's offer many
in competition with the plastic arts. The work before examples of ekphrasis. the most famous being those of
is presented and then analyzed for its his-
the writer Brueghel's works by W. H. Auden and W. C. Williams.
—
and moral value its humanistic illustrative
torical Of particular interest is the tradition of "gallery
—
power? but not dealt with aesthetically. poems" in which the writer places himself in a real
The writer and orator used the plastic arts or even or imaginary galler\' and describes the works for a
competed with the plastic artist, and the detailed de- usually philosophical end by examining his created
scription of an art work ekphrasis is common to — microcosm. Common and attractive as these instances
both art critics and creative writers. of ekphrasis are— and useful when considering ut
Art critics have always needed to or wanted to — pictura poesis — they nevertheless are simply verbal
offer the work before them through language and, it descriptions,and one question raised by Lessing must
is fair to say, often saw themselves as painters with be asked: Can the reader, moving through time and
words. Philostratus and Callistratus strained to repro- adding detail after detail, in fact ever form a picture?
duce paintings and statues as well as to instruct the Or is he finally left with but a general "impression
'
reader both in art appreciation and in the entire storv that might be better and more economically gained
of which the artifact offers but a part. These critics by a very few selected details or a telling metaphor?
were widely praised and their descriptions imitated, The poets, then, used the painters, but the painters
especially in the Italian Renaissance (Philostratus was made still greater use of the poets. Just as Aristotle
later translated by Goethe with enthusiasm). To com- and Horace at least implicitly assumed that the writer
plete the circle, Titian's Bacchanal. Bacchus and would use known myth, fable, and history as inventio.
Ariadne, and The Feast of Venus were based on the so essentially did the Renaissance art theorist, from
descriptions by Philostratus. L. B. Alberti in Delia Alberti, Delia pittura (1436) on, see the painter as
pittura and, above all, G. Vasari in his Lives (1550; telling a "story in space. The generally accepted
"
rev. ed. 1568) develop many careful descriptions while dictum was that the painter should draw his subject
emphasizing the narrative and the allegorical or matter from poems, especially epics and romances, as
expressive material in the painting. Vasari, rather than well as from history. The painter, in turning to this
interpreting the evidence before him, often described "nature" to imitate, was competing directly for the
an unseen or expressionless face and
in a painting audience's approval, tempting the comparison between
assigned meaning based only on his previous knowledge the verbal and plastic rendering of a usually well-
of the scene's literary source (Alpers, 1960). Even with known event. It could be argued that the painter,
the increasingly refined techniques for visual repro- rather than being limited by his medium, actually could
duction, modem critics generally point out verbally rhetorically transcend the single, rigidly confined mo-
or even presumptuously restructure and so challenge ment since his audience could immediately supply the
the painter —both details and their arrangement to larger action of the incident from the common knowl-
illuminate an attached print. edge of the entire poem or historical period. Further-
The list of poets, novelists, and playwrights who more, by the middle of the eighteenth century, critics
were active art critics is long and in each instance a began to emphasize the imagination's power in reac-
case can be made for the interaction of forms. Bellori, tion to the plastic stimulus, so that the viewer in
Michelangelo, Lessing, Diderot, Stendhal, Baudelaire, drawing on his memory as well as on his own creative
Ruskin, Pater, Morris, Henry James, Klee, and Malraux powers joined with the painter in creating "moving
all produced a significant mass of art criticism in which pictures."
ekphrasis plays an important role. The primacy of "history" painting based on one-
But the most interesting use of ekphrasis is in the source or another was essentially unchallenged (until
enormous number of actual or imaginary works of art J. J.
Winckelmarm and Lessing) as the painter caught
portrayed by creative writers. The Greek romances and a significant impassioned moment out of time. (Hogarth
the writings of Vergil, Ovid, Statins, Martial, Lucian, in his sequences had to leap the bounds of the single
Apuleius, Claudian, the authors of the chansons de canvas, and he emphasized a "moral" rather than an
geste, Chaucer, Ariosto, Spenser, and Balzac are par- actual history.) Scenes from Tasso formed the subject
ticularly fruitful sources, as are those of many English of many paintings in the seventeenth century, the
poets in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries greatest by Poussin and Lorrain (Lee [1940], pp.
(Hagstrum, 1958; Larrabee, 1943; Manwaring, 1925; 242-50), and collections of extracts from the great
Hussey, 1927; and Jack, 1967). Poe, Hawthorne, poets, classical and contemporary, were gathered to
Browning, and Henry James constantly reveal their provide a painter with suitable models of human ac-
deep involvement with the plastic arts, while English tions and emotions (G. P. Lomazzo, Trattato dell'arte 469
UT PICTURA POESIS
delta pitiura. scultura ed architettum [1595], VI, 65, Marsilio Ficino's De vita coelitus coinparanda, con-
and Comte de Caylus, Tableaux tires de Vlliade .) . . fused or merged with the reality it represents.
Andre Felibien set the hierarchy in painting as ranging It has been persuasively argued that the emblem
from the low of still life to the high of meaningful books generated a seventeenth-century poetics based
events (preface. Conferences de I'Academie Roijale de on (/( pictura poesis: the poet word-paints his emblem
Peinture ei de Sculpture. 1669), and Reynolds in his and then eitlier reacts mystically or explores rationally,
Discourses (1769-90) suggested much the same. In the and discovers intricate, recondite, and surprising rela-
late eighteenth century Diderot's critical scaling tions and meanings. The whole theory of corre-
strongly supported the French Academy's emphasis on spondence, however, stands behind both the emblem
historical painting. books and "emblematic poetry" and so forms a general
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries both the "real" basis for illuminating metaphor.
emblem book and the figirre poem stand as vivid exam- Later developments of the important interactions of
ples of ut pictura poesis, as well as of theories that language and picture are foimd in the works of
presented the various arts either as mutually reinforc- Hogarth, Blake, ]. M. \V. Turner, and D. G. Rossetti
ing agents or as a combination forming a hybrid art as well as in the eighteenth-century political cartoon
such as the masque, ballet, or opera. and the twentieth-centurv comic strip. Much of the
The hugely popular emblem books over 3,000 — on the rela-
theoretical discussion of the film centers
editions were issued from 1531 to 1700 can be con- — tionship between the "moving image" and dialogue,
sidered a genre that demonstrates the view of poetry critics often severely limiting the film's perimeters as
and painting as "sister arts." Stimulated by interest in a medium by arguing that language should be much
medieval illuminated manuscripts and dream inter- reduced or even refined awav, an argument that reflects
pretation, as well as Egyptian hieroglyphics (Boas, an older one: the title of a plastic work is a statement
1950), the practitioner-theorists developed lengthy, about the work that may over-direct, needlessly rein-
subtle distinctions among "emblemata," "impre,?e," force, or seriously interfere with the statement of the
"devices, "
"enseigns," "hieroglyphs, "blazons," and
" work of art.
other terms (Praz, Studies, Most agreed in

1964). A figure or pattern poem (cannen figuratum) in
stressing the interrelation of a picture, motto, and which the line length presents a typographical image
poem, arguing that none of the elements could stand of the poems subject may be considered a tour-
alone and be meaningful. In contrast to the tituhis, de-force variation on the emblem books and their
a metrical description offered witli a work of art and tradition. This form,which can be found in the Greek
meaningless without that work, in tlie emblem books Anthotooif and Simias of Rhodes (ca. 300 B.C.) as well
the poem could stand alone since tlie scene was often as in Persian and Chinese literature, was popular and
at least suggested in the language, the picture alone respected throughout Europe in the seventeenth cen-
since it was in a tradition of iconographic inter- tury although it is indeed a forced joining of poetry
pretation. Their subjects might be natural phenomena, and painting. Few poems in this tradition, other than
historical, mythical, or political events, moral doctrine George Herbert's "Easter Wings" and "The Altar"
or e.xhortation. Personifications or virtues, vices, and (1633), now warrant a reading, and the form, often used
ideal or stock types as well as allegories were common; for occasional pieces, survived in a sub-literary world
the title page of Cesare Ripa's Iconologia (1593) reads of greeting cards and advertisements. One should con-
non meno utile che necessaria a poete, pittori, scultori, sider, however, Apollinaire's Calligrainmes (1918) in
per rappresentare le vitii, virtii, affetti, and passioni which the impact of the cubists' sense of "simultaneity"
humane ("not less useful than necessary to poets, is apparent. But isolated examples, such as Mallarm6's
painters, and sculptors for representing the vices, vir- complicated "Un coup de des" (1897), Dylan Thomas'
tues, emotions, and human passions"). The attractions ambiguous "Vision and Prayer" (1946) and John
of the emblem books were not onlv visual and didactic Hollander's careful Types of Sluipe (1969), simply tes-
but intellectual in that the picture and text often were tify to the form's rarity. (Note the mouse's long sad
something of a puzzle to be worked out for the pleasure tale/tail in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland [1865],
of analogy. Some had a sophistic quality in that the Ch. III.) Far more worthy of serious consideration are
puzzle could indeed be an ingenious display of wit; the innovative "concrete poets "
of post-World War II
the poet, in particular, creates rather than derives a who extended radically the traditional typographical
world of meaning from the picture. relation of form and content (Geofi^roy Tory, Champ
The emblem, then, may represent an actuality, but Fleury, 1529). Drawing on the traditional figure poem
it also means an abstract quality or relationship, means as well as on the works of Poimd, Joyce, and Cum-
470 it so richly that the image-symbol may be, as it is in mings, many international experimenters developed.
UT PICTURA POESIS
especially in Brazil and Germany, the simply clever and Thomas Warton (Chapin, 1955; Cohen, 1964),
"word game" in which "hollow" is printed with very considered description as the basis for poetrv since the
large "O's." "fear" with wavy lines, until a genuine language appealed most vividly to the image-making
unity of the linear and spatial is gained (Solt, 1968). Addison argued that the test of the "true met-
faculty.
In the late seventeenth century many political poems aphor" was whether or not there was sufficient detail
were developed within a convention traced to the for it to be painted and, in "The Pleasures of the
Anacreontea (200 b.c.-a.d. 500) as well as to Homer's Imagination," Spectator. Nos. 411-21 (1712), that a
Iliad, the making of Achilles' shield. .A poet gives direct word brought forward the image of an object and that
instructions to a painter on both the content and form the imagination could paint more vividly than nature.
for an historical, biographical, or allegorical painting Concurrently there was a developing scientific attitude
that grows in the telling. (Robert Browning's "The that demanded careful observation and detailed
Bishop Orders His Tomb" [1844] is a late variation on recording of external actuality in order to approach
this lively use of point of view.) In The Last Instnic- reality. This provided a tradition for the realism and
tions to a Painter (ca. 1667), probably by Andrew naturalism of the late eighteenth and nineteenth
Marvell, the poet is quite conscious of his aesthetic centuries, this in spite of constant "romantic" chal-
as well as his more obvious political act since near the lenges that the artist's reactions were the genuine
end he writes. "Painter, adieu! How well our arts subject of art and that art itself must always reflect
agree,/ Poetic picture, painted poetry. . . .

"
In the moral or psychological tension or conflict.
poem
"
course of the "portraits" have been "painted, In the eighteenth century, then, "description" or
as well as landscapes for the temporal action. But the "pictorialism "
developed from being an occasional
poet is aware of a commonly held distinction
clearly rhetorical device into almost the dominating matter
between the arts and suggests the limitation of expres- of a poem. A major example
is James Thomson's ex-
siveness in paintings:"Where pencil cannot, there mv traordinarily popularThe Seasons (1730-46) in which
pen shall dot/ That may his body, this his mind ex- the divine analogy of "God offered by the book of "
plain. He has explicated his own pictures in the course "nature reflected deistic as well as traditional Chris-
" "
of his poem to gain his ends with double force (cf. tian concerns and the natural world was a universal
Spenser, The Fairie Queene, III, Poem 2; Shakespeare, book in a universal language (Cohen). The old Renais-
Timon of Atliens, I; Jonson, Timber, pub. 1640, dated sance argument of art versus nature was revived, and
1641; Hobbes, "The Virtues of an Heroic Poem, some of the competition shifted from between
"
art
1675). forms to between any medium and nature. Can any

Obviously the easy distinction which allots time to language reflect the object'? Can any art equal the
poetry and space to painting is challenged in both the variety or plenitude and the "vivacity" of nature?
paintings and poetry of this period. From classical Before the mid-eighteenth century the term "philo-
times painters and sculptors do in fact present not a sophical criticism" stood for what we now call "aes-
simple action or solitary incident but a narrative. The thetics." It is not remarkable at all, given the general
many separate sequences on Trajan's Column (a.d. preoccupations of the century with its concern for
113) tell a long story which must be read as must "taste and tendency toward synaesthesia, that "aes-
"
Hogarth's sequences or the before-and-after paintings thetics" as a branch of philosophy was finally "estab-
of the nineteenth-century Hudson River School. Many lished" and named by A. G. Baumgarten in his
medieval paintings and sculptures depict within a sin- Aesthetica (1750-58). Two French authors, widely
gle frame a variety of scenes from a saint's life. Lessing popular and often translated, had continued the search
—
rejected these he makes reference to Titian's Life of for a common basis for the arts. The Abbe Dubos in
the Prodigal Son —

as literary rather than painterly. But Reflexions critiques sur la poisie et sur la peinture
such paintings are "in time," and stylistic critics such (1719) found the principle to be the imitation of the
as Leo Spitzer (1962) andMurray Krieger (1967) argue "beautiful in natiu-e, while the Abb6 BatteiLx argued
"
specifically, and Coleridge and Croce generally, that for "harmony in Les beaux arts r^duits h un meme
"
literature is an object or artifact, that poetry can principe. Examples of such works could be multiplied
ultimately be spatial or "still," com-
that the reader throughout the century since the hundreds of critics
bines the sequential details into a spatial moment, that who wrote on "taste" inevitably considered both ut
Keats in his "Ode on a Grecian Urn" both uses and pictura poesis and synaesthesia. In both David Hume,
transcends time in both content and form. "On Taste" (1757), and Edmund Burke, A Philosophical
Following the theories of the imagination of both Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime
Hobbes and Locke, early eighteenth-century literary and Beautiful (1757), there is a readiness to use not
critics, most notably Joseph Addison, along with Joseph the metaphor but the analogy of the physical taste for 471
UT PICTURA POESIS
the mental. Obviously there was widespread confusion memory if not in fact. Although such a union was
about the nature and function of the senses and facul- always imphcit in the drama and especially in the
ties as well as of the properties of natural and art Renaissance masque, the popularity of the Italian opera
objects. Both senses and faculties were readily multi- in the eighteenth century was the most immediate
plied as answers to thorny psychological and aesthetic demonstration of the concept which was expressed by
problems while there was a concurrent attempt to the Abb6 Batteux and by Francesco Algarotti in his
synthesize their functions. Saggio sopra I'opera in niusica (1755). Batteux was
The shift from imitative to affective poetry in the particularly influential since his ideas were given wide
late eighteenth century must be considered as a func- distribution by Diderot and d.-Membert in the
tion of the ever-growing concern with the interior of Encyclopidie. The culmination of such theories was,
man, his emotional responses. It would be a falsification of course, Richard Wagner's Gesamthtnstwerk thesis
to underestimate the concurrent growth and change in in the nineteenth century.
the theory of language as it concerns ut pictura poesis. Parallels between poetry and music had long been
The enormous popularity of Burkes work on the made since both functioned in time, seeking "har-
sublime promulgated widely the theory of the associa- monv, and, more precisely, both used accent, rhythm,
"
tive value of language and to a significant degree and pause. Charles Avison, in An Essay on Musical
overwhelmed the Lockean concept of language as Expression (London, 1752), developed the points that
image-maker. Such a change was the specific cause of painting and music both have harmony and proportion
the demise of descriptive writing, which was, of course, and, above all, composition. Poetry with its direct
to be reborn in the early nineteenth-century local color appeal to the reason was seen as superior to music as
and historical novel as a beginning of scientific realism. well as to painting, both of which were essentially
In 1761, both Daniel Webb {An Inquiry into the sensory, although J. J. Rousseau, Herder, and J. B.
Beauties of Painting), and Lord Kames {Elements of —
Monboddo all cultural evolutionists saw music as —
Criticism) emphasized the importance of successive preceding language historically since it was expressive
appeals to the reader in order to effect the true of man's pre-rational, perhaps spiritual, nature. Fol-
sublime; it caimot be done satisfactorily through the lowing the tradition of the lyric or song, poetry and
simple instance of the painting but can be gained in music were united to gain intensity, just as poetry and
poetry (cf. Joseph Spence, Polymetis [1747], p. 67). painting combined their powers in the emblem books.
Such theories placed greater emphasis on structiu'e or In prefaces, however, both Dryden {Albion and
dispositio in poetry and, in conjunction with Burke's Alhanius. 1685) and Gluck {Alceste, 1767) warn of
argument that words do not cause mental images of music overwhelming the language.
things but produce emotion-laden associations, reduced As long as the concept of "imitation "
prevailed and
faith in the primacy of set descriptive pieces. There the imagination was seen as an "image-making "
faculty
was, furthermore, an increased concern for revealing and language as the prompter of images, the natural
discovered value in an object rather than for reproduc- analogy was between painting and language; and lan-
ing the object itself. Goethe commented that Ewald guage with its powers of description dominated poetry.
von Kleist would have rewritten his heavily descriptive But in the latter half of the eighteenth century, with
Der Friihling (1749) with far less concrete detail and the rising interest in internal senses or psychological
far more on reactions to the objects. This was part of reactions over the reproduction of external objects and
a concern for interpretation characteristic of both with language seen as material for associative emotions,
science and deism and demonstrated by the sharp music with its suggestive powers became the appro-
interest in physiognomy as well as in elocution with priate parallel for poetry. Through the general theories
their great emphasis on facial configuration and limb of the imagination and the particular one of "sensi-
movement. bility
"
or "sympathy "
the analogy with music answered
The parallels between poetry and painting were not questions about the mysterious nature of creativity, the
enough to satisfy thinkers on aesthetics or psychology, organization or "harmony "
of subject matter, and the
and more arts, particularly music, were widely con- reader's or viewer's relation to the poem or painting.
sidered. The rise of critical interest in poetry and music Poems such as Poe's "Bells" (1849) and Verlaine's
was supported by a developing or resurrected theory "Chanson d'automne" (1866) were more than just ex-
that since all arts rose from "nature" and all satisfied periments in sovmd. (One must recall, however,
man's "taste," they should all work together in Dryden's "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687" and
expressing and appealing to human emotions. The "Alexander's Feast," 1697). The ascendancy of music
whole theory of "the association of ideas" encouraged was such that in the nineteenth century Walter Pater
472 the union or blending of contiguous objects in the could write that "All art constantly aspires toward the
UT PICTURA POESIS
condition of music" ("Giorgione," The Renaissance, "picturesque" sustained the interest in lit pictura
1873) and Verlaine, that music is all ("La po^tique," poesis. The term usually meant at this time a landscape
1884). The "symphonic poems" and "tone poems" of "suitable for a painting" or a description of either the
Franz Hector Berlioz, and Richard Strauss are
Liszt, landscape or the painting. But it was a deceptively
approaches to this problem of identity but from a complicated sociological and aesthetic movement
different starting point. reviving with new vigor disputes on the primacy of
The eighteenth-century interest in ut pictura poesis nature and art, as well as the unity of various arts and
was further supported by an attempt to elucidate par- crafts. The titles of major works indicate the variety
allels between music and color. There was a tradition of areas involved in the "picturesque vision: William
"
of comparing scales and colors of the spectrum that Gilpin, Three F^says: On Picturesque Beauty: On Pic-
goes back to Aristotle in De sensu et sensibili, and can turesque Travel; and On Sketching Landscape (1792);
be found in Indian, Chinese, Persian, and Arabic studies Uvedale Price, An F^say on the Picturesque, As Com-
(Albert Wellek, 1951; and see Praz, Mnemosyne, 1970, pared with the Sublime and the Beautiful; and, on the
for mathematics and architecture, pp. 60fF.). Athanasius Use of Studying Pictures, for the Purpose of Improving
Kircher in his Musurgia universalis (1650) confusedly Real Landscape {1794); and Richard Payne Knight, The
argued at length for the identity of colors and tones, Landscape (1794); and An Analytical Inquiry into the
so it remained for Newton in his Opticks (1704), Book Principles of Taste (1805). In discussions of "taste," the
I, Part II, to give the first generally acceptable account "picturesque" was seen as something of a middle
of the relationship. As the poet of Erasmus Darwin's ground between the relaxing smoothness of the "beau-
TfieBotanic Garden (1791), Part II, Interlude III, says, tiful" or the exciting infinity of the "sublime," the
"Sir Isaac Newton has observed, that the breadths of middle ground achieved through a kind of irregularity
the seven primary colours in the Sun's image refracted or indefiniteness in a landscape. The theory supported
by a prism, are proportional to the seven musical notes the development of genre painting and local color
of the gamut, or to the intervals of the eight sounds writing as well as attitudes toward travel, local history,
contained in an octave. . .
." Loud colors, schreiende gardening, and architecture, with these areas unified
Farben, couleurs criardes, are more than imaginative not only through similar content but through a charac-
and vivid expressions since, as Darwin continues, teristic form of roughness, of tactility often suffused
painters and musicians claim "a right to borrow meta- by pale light. The impact on the sentimental novel
phors from each other; musicians to speak of the bril- was enormous. It is fair to say that the picturesque
liancy of sounds and the light and shade of a concerto; is still very much aUve with Sunday painters but that
and painters of the harmony of colours, and the tone its most significant influence can be traced from
of a picture." Constable through ]. M. W. Turner to the French
The most dramatic result of the scientific account impressionists.
was Louis Bertrand Castel's "ocular clavecin," an Although landscape description looms so large in
elaborate instnmient for projecting colors by a key- human figure was not
eighteenth-century literature, the
board, and this enthusiastic French Jesuit spent years neglected. The period's concern with the rational
attempting to perfect his color symphonies after the rather than the mythic reading of epics, with ethics
initial annoimcement of the project in 1725. This the- and psychology, and with Locke's view of the imagi-
ory of "light shows" failed, as did that of Alexander nation and language, encouraged a wide use of the
Scriabin in Prometheus, the Poem of Fire (1909-10), Renaissance tradition of "personification by poets, "
in part because of technical problems (problems over- painters, and sculptors, as well as by critics. Because
come in Walt Disney's film. Fantasia in 1940, and with of the often necessarily generalized visualization of the
the sophisticated projectors of the 1960's) and in part passions, the virtues and vices, and natural forces the —
from the derision of such contemporaries as Diderot, most usual subjects of personification and allegory the —
Goethe, and J. J. Rousseau, the last calling him the temptation to see very close parallels among art forms
"Don Quixote of Mathematics" (Mason, 1958). Castel is particularly strong (Hagstrum, 1958; Chapin, 1955)
anticipated instruments that would "play on" the either because distinguishing details are absent or be-
senses of smell, taste, and touch, and it is fair to say cause theories of metaphor to which poets responded
that he helped prepare the way for the devotion to often demanded that "vividness" could be best attained
synaesthesia so prominent in romantic poetry (von —
by the detailed metaphor or personification — that
Erhardt-Siebold, 1932) and in such works as Baude- could be painted.
laire's "Correspondances" ( 1857). It is evident from these many concerns found in the
In spite of the late eighteenth-century interest in eighteenth century that the search for a clarification
affective rather than imitative art, the vogue of the of the use and limits of art forms was constant. In 47o
UT PICTURA POESIS
general treatises on taste, language, and the association objects of sensory perception, and the early and com-
of ideas and in both the theory and practice of descrip- mon argument, codified by Lessing, that a painting is
tion, sublimity, personification, and the picturesque, seen and absorbed instantaneously is clearly untenable.
thinkers and creators were keenly aware of the concept Lessing's position in general was weakened since he
of tit pictura poesis or, increasingly, with analogies of was so committed to a concern for beauty of bodily
music, poetry, and painting. form, especially in sculpture, that he tended to confine
The major attempt at ordering or at least checking the expression of the passions, long a key aspect of
the chaos appeared in Lessing's Laokoon (1766). history painting, to poetry alone. At the same time,
Through an adept use of example he affirmed the basic one must insist that he was not as rigid as some critics
distinction between the spatial mode of painting and have suggested. He was clearly aware of the imagina-
the temporal mode of poetry, a distinction derived tion's capacity to add time to a painting, to complete
from Moses Mendelssohn and J. J. Winckelmann and an action depicted, or for that matter, to understand,
widely developed and promulgated in much of German through the pictured act, that earlier acts had taken
aesthetic theory until the twentieth century (cf. place and were still affecting the present impassioned
Friedrich Schiller, Uber naive und sentimentalische moment.
Dichtiing, 1795). A major justification for this position One mark of the impact of Lessing is Irving Babbitt's
is that a poet can establishand develop presented The New Laokoon: An Essay on the Confusion of the
character so that a reader's sympathy and under- Arts (1910). He saw the ut pictura poesis of the eight-
standing will be with that character at any moment, eenth century as a dehumanizing rejection of action
even a moment that might make us reject an unknown The emphasis on "things" to be imitated was
for stasis.
figure. The painter does not have this opportunity to compounded by the other imitation, that of diction,
develop character but is limited to presenting the which led to a deadening of all poetry. Like his prede-
person or god in a single characteristic expressive pose, cessor. Babbitt sought too neat a compartmentalization
for otherwise a viewer simply cannot recognize and not only of art forms but of genre. The description
therefore understand the figm-e portrayed: an angry of a landscape is "nonhumanistic, "
however, only if
Venus is possible for the poet but not for the painter "humanistic" is defined as having man as its overt
unless he gives us something in addition to the object. This position is a misrepresentation of the very
figure — a symbolic artifact or a name — to indicate that humanistic position in the late eighteenth-century
the figure does indeed represent Venus. conception of landscape as meaningfully human since
The entire problem is a very rich one not yet re- it was viewed as the book of God and was, in addition,
solved. Any repeated motif, whether it be abstract a reflection of human perception or the human mind.
design or realistically repeated identical figures, tends Still further, and perhaps of greater importance
toward motion. Just as with a colonnade, the very ultimately, was the fact that a viewer was concerned
repetition moves not only through space itself but, for with that landscape and that for him it had very human
the viewer, e.xists in time. Simply determining the symbolic or emotive value.
interrelations of parts in a painting is often a complex In the nineteenth century, concrete detail was used
exercise with time introduced into spatial objects by to individuate character and place, to set, intellectually
the use of intricate detail, an obscure theme, multiple as well as visually, a particular entity apart from all
points of views, or varied reactions to an event pictured others of its class. The formation of a picture with
within a single space. A viewer must explore and language was no longer seen as a significant goal,
analyze these various components if he is to compre- although many writers and painters revealed a warm
hend or realize the painting, sculpture, or building. For preoccupation with each other's medium. The use of
that matter any three-dimensional object suggests that concrete detail took two basic directions, both easy
movement must take place by either the object or the to anticipate. The first was the continuation of scientific
viewer if its totality is to be comprehended. observation and reporting, close, precise, and extensive,
A significantly more complex aspect of time may which is best exemplified in the local color or historical
be seen by considering the fact that any painting is novel popularized by Walter Scott. His long descrip-
in time, is within a culture and within a specific traditions of both places and people are in defiance of
tion. Time, then, is part of a painting. For the viewer Lessing's argument that no reader can "compose a "
of that painting there is the eflFect of memory in that clear picture from a mass of detail; he can only admit
culture and tradition, again a fact of time that compli- to the existence of the facts. Balzac, of course, very
cates even further a viewer's exploration of the given consciously saw himself as an historian of his own time,
art object.Both time and space then are aspects of and throughout the enormous bulk of his work he
474 individual memory and of history as well as simply details clothing and architecture, making that record
UT PICTURA POESIS
an essential part of his contemporary history. In keep- Brave New World (1932) Aldous Huxley invented
ing with both his scientific and his mystical bent, his "feelies, "
films for which the audience was wired to
facial descriptions always reflect the popular pseudo- receive tactile impressions analogous to, and thereby
sciences of physiognomy and phrenology in his reinforcing, its visual ones. Post-World War II film
attempts to use all observable means to reveal the makers have, admittedly only sporadically, attempted
truth. an olfactory reinforcement by having various scents
The other direction of the use of concrete detail is carried through the ventilating systems to make more
in the suggestive; the selected dominant detail or very real their depictions of forest or sea movies.
few details will give the reader a direction to pursue In the older art forms the twentieth century has the
concerning a person or place. This more compressed concrete poetry discussed earlier, and Cezanne broke
approach may be easily seen in the works of Jane the space-time problem in painting. In Cubism, the
Austen and Stendhal, both of whom but very rarely eye moves through different planes on the flat surface
describe the physical appearance of a person or place. and, in effect, moves around the object rather than
The literature of the nineteenth century can well be viewing it from a fixed point. One can consider all art
examined by asking such simple questions as why the following Cezanne as little but a footnote, although
writer uses concrete detail and why just this much if Picasso was even more radical in that he not only
there is to be anything approximating the painting of moved around an object but through it. A variation
a picture. The nineteenth-century painter continued on space-time in twentieth-century painting was the
to develop the interest in the audience's imaginative attempt in Futurism to give a single view of successive
involvement and so, through the use of vague sugge.s- movements, which can be found in Balla's Girl Run-
tion rather than through the completeness of the medi- ning on tlie Balcony (1912) and Duchamp's Nude
eval effictki. The cooperative creative art was, then, Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1913). Extremely
necessarily sequential: painting was moved from the effective multiple-exposure photographs by such artists
simply spatial, poetry from the passively temporal. as Gjon MiH {Life, October, 3, 1969) give this sense
French criticism, since A. C. Quatrem^re de Quincy, of a full sequence of movement within a single frame,
Essai sur la nature, le but et lesmoyens de I'imitation within a single figure. But perhaps the ultimate in the
dans les beaux arts (1823), is based on the audience's history of ut pictura poesis is found in the mobile of
awareness that the art object is in fact an art object Alexander Calder. It is painting and sculpture and
and that the audience will both cooperate with and narrative as it continuously describes in time its own
submerge itself in the illusion (Gombrich, 1948). ever-varying space. If sound and language is included,
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as it often is in developments by such "New Tendency"
both accidental and deliberate mixing of the arts is Jean Tinguely and Len Lye, the traditional
artists as
constantly evident. Rimbaud arbitrarily assigned color questions about the discrimination of the arts seem
values to vowel sounds, and D. G. Rossetti both wrote fruitless.
and painted The Blessed Damozel. With the nine-

teenth-century Pre-Raphaelites and pamassiens, as ORIENTAL CONCEPTIONS
well as the twentieth-century members of the Bauhaus In China, there is little doubt but that the nature
and De Stilj, workers in a wide variety of art forms of the ideograph as well as the use of the same brush
saw their arts as sisters (Fosca, 1960; Hatzfeld, 1952; for writingand for the usually monochromatic painting
Praz, Studies, 1964; and Ringe, 1960). Both opera and encouraged the identification of the sister arts. The
ballet grew enormously in popularity, bringing many Chinese poet, Su Shih (Su Tung-po, 1036-1101) wrote,
art forms together to effect one whole. Many novelists
Tu Fu's poems are figureless paintings, Han Kan's paintings
clearly saw their world through the painter's eye. The
are wordless poems.
film, especially the "animated cartoon, has enriched "
the complexities of the drama and opera since it is Developments in the relationship of poetry and
indeed an art of "moving images" with, usually but painting are remarkably parallel to Western views.
by no means necessarily, interaction of language and Although we know painting was seen as a respectable
music. The old problems of space and time seem to avocation by the second century, it was not until the
merge in a film such as Last Year at Marienbad (1962). Sung dynasty (960-1280) that it became clearly estab-
In language development through "show and tell," lished as a fine art. In the twelfth century the state
in industrial and military training films, and in adver- examinations for official posts included one in painting:
tising on television, both language and visual image the "problem" by asking the candidate to paint
was set
are deUberately combined to reinforce each other, both a scene suggested by a few lines of poetry. (This
to clarify and to intensify meaning. In his prophetic method reflects the re-creation of poetry by means of 475
—
VIRTU IN AND SINCE THE RENAISSANCE
painting practiced at least as early as the fourth cen- Clavecin," /ourruj/ of Aesthetics and Art Criticimj. 17 1958), (
tury.) Diu'ing the later part of this period the premiss 103-16; Mary Ellen Solt, ed.. Concrete Poetry: A World View
that the painter should be a learned man became (Bloomington, Indiana, 1968); Erika von Erhardt-Siebold,
generally accepted. From the fifteenth century "figure "Harmony of the Senses in English, German, and French
poems" were well-known. Romanticism," Publications of the Modern Language A.'iso-

ciation. 47 (19.32), 577-92; and Albert Wellek, "Farben-
Western culture since the eighteenth century has
musik," Musik im Geschichte und Cegemvart (Kassel, 1951).
been rich in landscape poetry. Chinese literature,
however, reveals an older and more constant interest JOHN GRAHA.Vl
since the end of the Han dynasty (a.d. 220), although [See also China: Classification of the .\rts; Criticism, Liter-
a full development did not occur until about the fourth ary; Iconograph), -Mimesis; Poetrj and Poetics; Taste.]
century when landscape, and especially mountains,
symbolized cosmic forces. From the fourth century on,
with the introduction of Buddhism and Taoism, nature
became reality itself and, as a part of religion, an object
of contemplation. Poetry reflected this pervading con- VIRTU
cern through regular pictorialization of landscape IN AND SINCE
(Frankel, 1957, and Frodsham, 1967). THE RENAISSANCE
1. Introduction. The word "virtue" (and its counter-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
parts in most other languages) is used to attribute some
Items of major importance are Ralph Cohen, The Art of kind of value to conduct or action. Its meanings are
Discrimination (Berkeley. 1964); Jean H. Hagstnim. The therefore potentially as various as the bases on which
Sister Arts (Chicago, 1958); Ren.ssalaer \V. Lee, "It Picture men value their acts. The predominant meaning in
Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting," Art Bulletin.
English has become moral virtue; a virtuous man is
22 (1940), 197-269; and Mario Praz, Mnemosyne: The Par-
one who lives in accord with certain moral standards.
allel between Literature and the Visual Arts (Princeton.
Even in our language, however, other senses of the
1970). A full bibliography appears in Tlie Bulletin of
Biblio^rapluj (Oct. -Dec. 1971).
word survive. When we speak of the virtue of a partic-
Important corrective warnings against easily imagined

ular course of action, we mean its power to achieve
parallelisms among the arts are Reni Wellek and .\ustin certain results. We also speak (slightly archaically,
Warren, "Literature and the Other Arts," Theory of Litera- perhaps) of the virtue of a drug, meaning its inherent
ture (New York, 1949); Rene Wellek, "The Parallelism potency or efficacy. These latter senses have in com-
Between Literature and the .Arts," English Institute Annual, mon their attribution of value to action (or to the
1941 (New York, 1942); and G. Giovannini, "Method in the potential for it) on the basis of power or efficacy,
Study of Literature in Its Relation to the other Fine Arts," whereas the concept of moral virtue derives value from
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 8 (1950), 185-95.
is the fundamental division among
intent or result. This
Of particular value for general context are George Boas,
meanings of virtue: on the one hand, a "moral" sense
trans..The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo (1505) (New York,
which focuses on the conformity of actions to approved
1950) and Paul O. Kristeller, "The Modem System of the
standards or ends, on the other a "non-moral" sense
Arts: A Study of the History of .\esthetics," Journal of the
History of Ideas. 12 (1951), 496-.527, 13 (1952), 7-46. concerned with the power of an action (or an actor)
The significance of the emblem books is handled in Robert to be effective or to achieve a desired end.
J.
Clements, Picta Poesis: Literary and Humanistic Theory The history of the idea of virtue is the history of
in Renaissance Emblem Books (Rome, 1960). The rich area both these senses of the word, and of the relations
of ekphra-fis calls for more study but the following item is between them. Often the two senses have existed side
particularly useful: S. and .Aesthetic
L. .\lpers. "Ekphrasis by side, and men have not been troubled by the differ-
Attitudes in Va.sari's Lives," Journal of the Warburg and ences between them. In times of moral crisis, however,
Courtatdd Institutes. 23 (1960), 190-215.
the contradictions potentially present in "virtue" have
Various other aspects ma\' be pursued in Chester F.
come to the surface and have been employed by
Chapin, Personification in Eighteenth Century English Po-
thinkers to criticize old values and aid in the devel-
etry (New York, 1955); H. H. Frankel, "Poetn,- and Painting;
Chinese and Western Views of Their Convertibility," Com- opment of new ones. The ambivalence of "virtue"
paraHve Literature, 9 (1957), 289-307; J. D. Frodsham, provides a means to challenge dominant moral values
"Landscape Poetry in China and Europe," Comparative through an emphasis on other values also inherent
Literature. 19 (1967), 193-215; Walter John Hippie, Jr., The —
while perhaps submerged in existing language. This
Beautiful, The Sublime, and The Picturesque (Carbondale, is what occurred during the ItaUan Renaissance. After
476 1957); Wilton Mason, "Father Castel and His Color a period in which the idea of virtue came increasingly
into men's minds, Machiavelli set out a critique of activity, Savonarola added that "when he cannot do
traditional moral virtue through a reemphasis on virtue it by his virtu, he will try to be superior by fraud and
in the purely active sense. deception" (Prediche e scritti. 171, 183).
2. Early Renaissance Virtue. It is not surprising that In these citations — especially the last — glimmerings
the age of the Renaissance in Italv saw a lively interest of Machiavelli's usage of virtfd are visible. Yet there
in the idea of virtue. A concern for understanding and is gap between these writers and Machiavelli.
a definite
evaluating human action was fostered by the many and It is the between accident and purposeful
space
often novel activities of Renaissance men. The citizens awareness. Both the moral and the non-moral senses
of the various towns witnessed more political activity existed in Renaissance Italian, and the two came to
than most other Europeans; each independent town the minds of the period's writers with nearly equal
was a political nucleus, organizing its own internal life facility. But one sense did not interfere with the other,
and its relations with other towns. Economic activity a reference to the devil's or the tyrant's virtu neither
was also more varied than in nonurban areas. Banking, reflected nor created any crisis of moral action or
trading, and manufacturing raised many questions theory. This would come later.
about the effectiveness and the morality of human Several currents of Renaissance thought demonstrate
action. Yet the great traditional source of moral stand- that the understanding of virtue was a matter of con-
ards, the Church, was in the throes of a long and deep cern during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and
involving the "Babylonian captivity
crisis, of the that the word's meaning was changing. First, some men
papacy in Avignon and the scandal of the Great Schism began to evolve a conception of virtue as a generally
which followed. Men were turning elsewhere for moral admirable quality in human action, rather than the sum
counsel, above all to the great traditions of Greece and of particular qualities ("virtues ") which conformed to
Rome. It is significant too that many of the humanists religious or philosophical prescriptions. Artists sought
who led the revival of antiquity were not professional to represent not only the traditional individual virtues,
philosophers or theologians in the tradition of the but "virtue in general " {virtus generaliter sumpta), and
medieval schools, but poets, politicians, and rhetori- some complained that the existing iconographical tra-
cians with little commitment to systematic philo- dition offered no models for them to follow. It is not
sophical thought. They were therefore freer to develop entirely clear what these artists — Giovanni Pisano,
the implications of living in the urban and secular Francesco da Barberino, Filarete, whose chosen name
society of the day. meant "lover of virtue" — meant by "virtue in general,"
In the period from Dante to Machiavelli, both the but their use of Hercules to represent the quality they
"moral " and the "non-moral" senses of virtue {virtu had in mind gives an indication. Herculean virtue is
or virtt4 in Italian)were in general use. All the tradi- first of all manliness, courage, strength; what Petrarch
tional virtues were denominated as such, but the same thought about when he wrote (in lines that would be
writers who regarded faith or justice or courage as quoted by Machiavelli) "Virtu will take arms against
prime virtues also used the term in the other sense. violence/And let the fight be short!" (Italia Mia, lines
Dante, echoing ArLstotle, wrote {Convivio, I, v) that 93-96). Yet this may not have been all that was meant
"Everything is virtuous in its nature when it does that by virtus generaliter sumpta imder the aspect of
for which it is ordained." Following this definition, he Hercules. In the early Renaissance, the story of
regarded human speech as virtuous when it "makes "Hercules at the crossroads "
returned to popularity
clear himian thought," since this was its purpose in after being practically forgotten during the Middle
the divine scheme. For Boccaccio too, a virtuous Ages. Hercules' choice, which Cicero had described
speech was an effective one; neither of these writers asbeing between virtus and voluptm was recalled first
thought a speech had to be edifying to be virtuous. by Petrarch, who compared it to the fundamental
Using a similar definition, Dante attributed virtu to the moral choice he thought all men faced. Moreover,
devil as well as the saints: "He moved mist and wind following Cicero, Petrarch remarked on the closeness
by the virtu his nature gave" {Purgatorio. V, 114). Such word for man, vir, and thought
of "virtue" to the Latin
connotations survived into the fifteenth century. When that one probably derived from the other {Fam., XXIII,
Savonarola said that Florence had become the instru- 2, 28). Thus the "virtue in general symbolized by "
ment of the "virtu divina, " he meant God's power and Hercules could represent a wide range of admirable
purpose manifested in activity, not the realization of human qualities. From this point of view the lines
particular virtues. Savonarola regarded tyrants as the between such usually distinct conceptions as "virtue,"
most vicious of men, but he attributed virtii — in the "humanity, and "virifity" might become obscured.
"
sense of ability or capacity — to them also. Observing The difficulty of keeping these notions separate ap-
that the tyrant will try to excel other men in every pears clearly in one very common theme of Renais- 477
sance literature: the opposition of virtue and fortune. a man were to live well: health for one thing, and
The theme had its source in antiquity, when fortune, favorable circumstances for another. The Peripatetics
either as an abstraction or as a goddess, was thought tlius recommended a different line of conduct than the
to have considerable control over human life. Livy tells Stoics, and as Cicero several times observed, it was
that Fortuna ("fortune") was the favorite goddess of a life much more in accord with the notions of ordinary
the Romans. Yet some classical — especially
writers men than the Stoic ideal. Cicero supported the Stoics
those in the tradition of the Stoics — preserved one in some of his writings and the Peripatetics in others,
realm of life free of the dominion of fortune: the realm but for the public orator or statesman, addressing ordi-
of virtue. Seneca wrote that "Fortune can onlv take nary men in the language of evervdav life. Peripatetic
away what she has given: but she does not give virtue" ethics was the most appropriate.
{De constantia sapientiae, V, 2). The virtue he had Petrarch recalled these themes in Cicero's writings.
in mind was moral worth, honestas. The man who He often sought to approach the Stoic ideal of conduct
recognized honestas as the only good worth seeking (to which he gave a Christian coloration), and he
was free of fortune. "He who reckons other things as addressed Stoic counsels both to himself in his Secret,
goods comes under fortune's power" (Epistles. 1, xiv, and to friends and readers in his letters and other
1). The which therebv triumphed over fortune
virtue works. Yet he regarded the level of virtue to which
had a highly moralistic coloration, but at the same time the Stoics aspired as unattainable in this life. Stoicism
it connoted personal strength: the power to find fulfill- made a fine philosophic ideal, but who could actually
ment within one's self and remain indifferent to exter- live according to it? "You will act differently as a
nal rewards. Cicero often referred to the Stoics as the philosopher and as a man, "
he wrote in one of his
most manly or most virile of philosophers. letters. "No one is so given to wisdom that he does
Both the element of moralism and the element of not, when he returns to the common human state,
personal strength are present in Renaissance discussions condescend also to public ways of acting" (Fam.. XXI,
of the power of virtue over fortune. Petrarch noted 1.3, 1). The "public wavs of acting" Petrarch sanctioned
that fortvme is "the ruler of all human things except here were anything but libertine; they were the mores
for virtue" {Fam., I, 2, 24). He wrote a whole work of the best public figures, not the worst. Y'et in some
{De retnediis utriusque fortunae) with the intention of other places (notably the Secret) Petrarch seemed to
providing men with material for strengthening their regard any lapse from philosophical morality as a
inner defenses against fortune. He also distinguished descent to the level of the despised "crowd." Certainly
between "fortunatos" and the "outstanding men" he was aware that the morality of philosophers con-
whose hves he described in De viris illustribtis: "Out- trasted sharply with the way most men — even the best
standing men overcome all things bv the power of intentioned ones — actually lived their lives.
virtue." Leon Battista Alberti also wrote of virtue's The
separation between a strict philosophical mo-
dominion over fortune in terms derived from the ralityand some Renaissance ideals of conduct was
Stoics. Virtue alone brings men happiness, he said; it widened by later writers. Matteo Palmieri argued that
is more than content with itself, worth far more anger {ira) could be an aid to the virtue of courage
than all the things subject to fortime {Delia famiglia, rather than a vice, "provided that the choice of the
24, 80, 149). danger to be faced is made with virtue. To assert this "
At the same time that the traditional notion of virtue was to remove .some restraints on sheer human activity
as moral worth was being merged with the separate which had been proposed in the name of moral virtue.
sense of virtue as inner, personal strength, the human- Comparing the active life and the virtues appropriate
ists were engaged in raising broad questions about
also to it with the contemplative, the speaker in Palmieri's
the nature of moral virtue, and whether particular Delia vita civile concluded that "The solitary life is
qualities should be accepted as virtues. These Renais- placed after the active" and flatly declared that the
sance debates about moral virtue also had an important "higher" forms of virtue, "being heavenly things, are
classical background. Several of Cicero's writings re- not proper to men" (1529 ed., p. .34r). Palmieri went
port the disagreements between followers of the various further. One of the features of Stoic morality as Cicero
ancient philosophic schools represented at Rome, and had presented it was the affirmation that there was
particularly between the Stoics and the Peripatetics. no di.stinction between what was morally good,
The Stoics regarded honestas, moral worth, as the onlv honestum, and what was useful for man. Man pursued
genuine good, and instructed the wise man in indiffer- his utihty by pursuing morality. Matteo Palmieri
ence to everything else. The Peripatetics agreed that agreed that according to "subtle philosophy" this was
moral worth or virtue was the chief good, but they true enough, but pointed out that it did not fit the
478 thought that human nature required other supports if common opinion of ordinary men, who saw quite
clearly the distinction between what was morally good have a sustained concern for its meaning which raised
and what was good for themselves. Sincehe was w rit- the consideration of it to an entirely new level.
ing about ordinary life, Palmieri accepted the reality Machiavelli used the word virtu in many of the
of the distinction between what was good and what senses current in his day. When he said that "A prince
was useful (ed. cit., p. 91 r). A later humanist writer, should show himself to be a lover of the virtues, and
Giovanni Pontano, also thought it necessary to separate honor men excellent in every art" [Prince, XXI), the
the two, at least in the political sphere. Other virtues he had in mind included the standard moral
humanists used the notions of common sense and the and intellectual ones. When he said that "The virtu
observation of ordinary life to push the criticism of of infantryis more powerful than that of cavalry," he
traditional ideals of virtue further. Poggio Bracciolini meant military capacity or capacity for effective action
was aware that "vice" might sometimes play a positive in general (Disc, II, .xviii). His declaration that the
role in the world. He recognized that simple force was fortune of a city depends on the virtu of its founder
responsible for much of human accomplishment. A {Disc, I, i) may seem less traditional, but it is not; here
speaker in one of his dialogues asserted that empires "virtue" means what it meant to Dante in Convivio:
had been established by force rather than by law; it "Everything is virtuous in its nature when it does that
followed that everything achieved within them which it is ordained to do." MachiavelH attributed
depended on force too. "Everything excellent and virtue to the acbnittedly wicked Roman Emperor
worthv of remembrance has been achieved by wrong- Severus {Disc, I, x), but even Savonarola had admitted
doing, injustice and contempt for law," was the the virtu (talent or capacity) of a tyrant. The most
admittedly highly rhetorical conclusion {Utm artium, common sense of virtii in all Machiavelli's writing is
medicinae an iuris civilis, praestet, ed. Garin, p. 29). military. Most of the men described as virtuosi by
In such declarations as these, the gap between the early Machiavelli are military leaders; very often, the virtit
Renaissance concern for virtu and Machiavelli's devel- of an individual or a city is simply his or its military
opment of the idea —
the gap between accidental con- prowess. Sometimes the connotation is military even
fusion of the two basic senses of the word and the when on the surface it does not seem to be. For in-
purposeful confrontation of them narrowed. Yet only — stance, the virtue despised in a corrupt city {Disc, I,
Machiavelli would close it completelv. xviii) is revealed as military when Machiavelli explains
3. Machiavelli. Machiavelh was heir to the humanist that it was the city's security against its enemies which
discussions of virtue. In his intellectual formation and led to the diminishing regard for virtue.
in his chief occupation — a secretary the Floren-
as in Of all the specific meanings of "virtue," military
tine chancery —he had many with the humanists.
ties virtue is the one which best embodies the general
But the situation of Italy in his time was much more notion of capacity for effective action. In Machiavelli
troubled than before. Machiavelli's lifetime (1469- as in no other Renaissance writer, we see the other
1527) saw a new stage in the crisis of the Church and meanings of "virtue" measured against this funda-
the invasion of Italy by foreign armies, bringing the mental one, and often discarded when they do not meet
rapid rise and fall of individual and group political the standard. Machiavelli's rejection of traditional mo-
fortunes there, and the increasingly apparent subjection rality has sometimes been questioned, but he himself
of tlie peninsula to foreign powers. In this situation quite frankly admitted — indeed insisted on — it.
the problems of and power, grew

virtii, of morality
My intention being to write something of use to those who
more intense. Much ink has been spilled on Machi-
understand, it appears to me more proper to go to the real
avelli's use of the word virtu, and a great deal of
truth of the matter than to its imagination; ... for how
confusion about it remains. Some of the difficulties can
we live removed from how we ought to live, that
is so far
be cleared up if the linguistic and intellectual back-
he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done
ground discussed above is remembered, and if two will own niin than his
rather learn to bring about his
different facets of Machiavelli's approach to virtit are preservation. .\ man who
make a profession of wishes to
kept separate. These are, in the order we shall discuss goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief
them: (1) the confrontation between
moral traditional among so many who are not good {Prince, XV; trans. L.
virtue and the non-moral sense of virtue as capacity Ricci).
for action; (2) the development of a theory of human

action through the analysis of virtue in the second There is an echo here of Petrarch's comment about
sense. The discussion of these two topics and of the those who live in "the common human state" accepting
relationship between them should show that, while "pubhc ways of acting," but Machiavelli's moral stance
Machiavelli had no "doctrine of virtu" (that is, he did was far more radical. His reason for rejecting a strict
not always use the word to the same effect), he did philosophical morality was not, as in Petrarch, the 479
acceptance of ordinary human life, but the require- use of the word virtii to the sense defined by the physi-
ments of effective action in a world fraught with evil cian Galen: potestns quaedarn efficiendi (the power to
and danger. Consider Machiavelli's most general axiom do or accomplish something). Machiavelli's criticism of
about moral virtue: "He who ponders well the whole traditional moral virtue stemmed from its lack of this
question will find one thing that looks like virtue, which abihty. Yet how could Machiavelli be confident that
to follow would be his ruin, and another that looks the virtue he envisioned would be effective in the
like vice, which when followed brings his security and world? To answer this question, we must examine the
well-being" (XV). Following this principle, Machiavelli connection between Machiavellian virtue and five
argued that, in Hannibal, crueltv was a virtue. It was closely related topics: fortune, necessity, animality,
his "inhuman cruelty [condemned by Livy] which, audacity, and order.
together with his infinite virtues, made him always to The limit of Machiavellian virtu can be described
be revered and fearful in the eyes of his soldiers; and in a word: foriuna. Like other Renaissance writers,
without cruelty, his other virtues would not have Machiavelli sometimes described fortune's power as
sufficed for that effect. Imperceptive writers admire irresistible. "All the histories show that men can act
his action while condemning its principal cause. And in accord with fortune but not oppose them.selves to
that it is true that his other virtues would not have her; they can weave her webs but not break them"
sufficed can be observed from [the comparison with[ (Disc. II, xxix). This gave no justification for despair;
Scipio . . .
'
(
Prince. XVII). The repetition of "his other fortune's plans were never known, and men could
virtues makes the point quite clearly. The sense of
'
always hope that their own purposes would fit them.
virtue as what is morallv right has been forced out by Still, in this passage at least, Machiavelli spoke of
Machiavelli's overriding concern for effective action. fortune and "the heavens" with the respect due the
Machiavelli was not able to hold to his own conclu- gods.
sion with perfect consistency. Some princes had to be Y'et many other statements in his writings show that
regarded as wicked despite their success. Machiavelli Machiavelli did not think men's lives were wholly
was puzzled by such men, as his account of Agathocles under fortime's sway. In a famous place in The Prince
the Sicilian, t)rant of Syracuse, makes clear. he limited her control to "half our actions, or
thereabouts." What is most significant about
He who considers the actions and virtues of this man will
Machiavelli's view of fortune's boimdaries, however,
see little or nothing that can be attributed to fortune. . . .
is not their limits but their nature. Unlike other

Yet it cannot be called virtue to kill one's fellow citizens,
betray one's friends, be without faith. . . . For all that, Renaissance writers, MachiavelH refused to accept
considering the virtue of .\gathocles in getting in and out fortime's strange power as a mystery beyond man's ken
of dangers, and his greatness of soul in bearing with and and separate from his nature. On the contrary,
overcoming adversities, there seems to be no reason for Machiavelli made fortune derive from human nature
judging him inferior to the most excellent leaders. Nonethe- almost to the same extent as virtii. In Chapter XXV
less, and inhumanity, together with
his ferocious cruelty of The Prince, and in a nearly contemporaneous letter
infinite acts of wickedness, do not allow him to be enshrined
to Piero Soderini. Machiavelli attacked the perplexing
with the most e.xcellent men. Therefore, what was accom-
question why the same actions at different times
plished without either fortune or virtue cannot be attributed
yielded opposite results, and why the same results
to either one (Prince; VHI).
followed at separate times from contrasting acts. The
"Yet . . . For all that . . . Nonetheless . .

.": this is the answer lay in the harmony or discord between men's
grammar of uncertaintv. Remembering the general ways of acting and the conditions of their time. "A
statement about virtue and vice and the praise of family, a city, each man has his fortune founded on
Hannibal's cruelty already noted, it is hard to see what his st\le of action" (modo del procedere).
made Machiavelli hesitate about .\gathocles. Cesare

believe that just as nature has given men differing faces,
Borgia, whose place in MachiavelU's pantheon is so 1
so has she given them differing minds and imaginations.

famous, was also guilty of cruelty, betrayal and lack
From this it arises that everyone directs himself according
of faith; besides, Machiavelli specifically justified each
to his mind and imagination. ,\nd because on the other side
of these qualities in general terms elsewhere. It would
times and situations differ, those accomplish their desires
seem that .Machiavelli was himself somewhat awed by and are happy who fit their style of action to the time,
his own conclusions about the true nature of virtue. and those on the contrary are unlucky who argue with their
At least this passage shows that Machiavelli had a time and situation by their actions (Lettere, ed. F. Gaeta,
reluctance to give up some traditional moral standards; p. 2.30).
to understand what overcame this reluctance we must

examine the second facet of his analysis of virtue. A man's fortune thus depended first of all on himself,
Several writers on Machiavelli have compared his on his personal style. This perspective sometimes led
Machiavelli to a strong affirmation of the power of (as theabove quotation might imply) that virtii was
virtu. The Romans were successful because of lirtii. only fitabetween natiual necessity and fortune.
not foiiuna; it was their reputation for valor that Everyone by nature had a personal character, but not
earned them the good fortune of having others fear everyone was a virtuoso. One thing that distinguished
to attack them (Disc, I, ii). The men discussed in the man of virtue from others was precisely his ability
Chapter VI of The Prince had founded states bv their to overcome the defects that the rigidity of nature
own virtue, without the help of fortime. "Exainining entailed. Hannibal was a great general through making
their livesand actions, one sees that they had nothing himself feared by his men, Scipio by making himself
more from fortune than the occasion, which gave them loved by them {Disc, III, xxi; Machiavelli's choice for
material to shape in whatever wav they liked." Witli- fear over love is not so clear here as in The Prince).
out an appropriate occasion their virtue would have Y'et both these courses of action had inescapable dan-
been wasted, but without their virtue the occasion gers; the man who made himself feared would also be
would have passed unrecognized. "Their virtue made hated, the man who was loved would be despised.
the occasion known." "Thus it matters little for a military leader which of
Yet, the idea that those men succeed whose style these paths he takes, as long as he is virtuous and his
of action fits the times defined the limitations of human virtue makes him respected among the men. For when
action as well as its potential strength. In fact, Machi- the virtue is great, as it was in Hannibal and Scipio,
avelli's most consistent deduction from the idea that it cancels out all the errors that are committed through
those men are happy whose character fits the time was making one's self loved or feared too much. This is "
not that men should change to tit the times, but that not to say that these men were free of the necessary
they are luiable to do so. The fundamental notion in rigidity of human character: they were subject to the
Machiavelli's theory of human action is not the flexi- general rule that "No one can take the middle path,
bility of human nature but its rigidity. The man pni- precisely because our nature does not allow it." But
dent enough to change his actions to suit the time will they were able to "make up for their excesses bv an
"
never be found, Machiavelli declared in The Prince, extraordinary virtue.
"both because one cannot deviate from the path to The other side of virtue's relationship with fortune,
which nature inclines him, and because having always then, was her relationship with necessity. But whereas
prospered by going in a certain way, one cannot per- fortune was a limitation on the effectiveness even of the
suade himself to depart from it" (XXV; see also Lettere, virtuoso, necessity was not a limitation on virtue; it was
p. 231). Piero Soderini always acted witli "humanity rather a precondition for it. Machiavelli was intensely
and patience," and succeeded as long as those qualities preoccupied with necessity; by one count, the word
corresponded to the needs of action in his time. Julius appears seventy-six times in The Prince
(necessita)
II did everything with "force and fury"; luckily for alone. His acceptance of its place in man's life is strong
him the situation required just his temper while he and clear: soldiers who go to foreign countries "have
lived. Knowing how to act well in a certain way more necessity to fight, and that necessity makes virtue,
allowed men to succeed in their purposes when the as I have said more than once "
(Disc, II, xii). Other
times were right. But since this ability came from writers had thought necessity strengthened virtue; to
nature, not choice, it contained the seeds of failure as Machiavelli necessity created virtue. "Men never do
well as success. anything well except through necessity. Where there
is an abundance of choice, and where license can enter
Fabius Maxinuis proceeded with his army carefully and
in, everything is immediately filled with confusion and
cautiously, removed from any fury and from Roman disorder "
(Disc, Because "virtue is greater where
I, iii).
audacity; and good fortune made his style fit well with the
choice has less sway, "
wise fomiders of cities establish
times. . . . .\nd that Fabius acted in this way from his nature
laws that prevent citizens from softening under the
and not by choice is apparent, since when Scipio wanted
influence of prosperity (Disc, I, i).
to take the armies into Africa to finish up the war, Fabius
spoke much against it, like one who could not cut himself We can better understand the dimensions of
off from his own style and custom {Disc, III, ix). Machiavelli's emphasis on necessity if we see that it
is closely tied to another of his favorite themes: the

Speaking in this way, Machiavelli made fortune weigh animal or bestial element in human nature. In contrast
more heavily in the balance than virtue. to some other Renaissance writers (such as the Neo-
There is only a rough consistency at best in Platonists), Machiavelli thought that man must not
Machiavelli's view of the relationship between virtue attempt to escape his animality. Not only did he use
and fortune: he tempered his shifting emphasis from the well-known metaphors of the lion and the fox, and
one to the other with the reflection that each had declare that "a prince must know how to use bestial
control about half the time. Yet he did not reallv mean conduct as well as human" (Prince, XVIII); he also 4ol
wrote an allegorical poem which made clear his quality is his ability to order his passions so as to use
acceptance of human bestiality and its connection with their power more effectively. The difference between
necessity'. The poem, Die Golden Ass, derives from a the Roman armv and its barbarian enemies lay not in
classicallegend Apuleius popularized, but its themes superior forcefulness but in superior order; this allowed
included those of Machiavelli's major works: the rise the Romans to fight longer and more effectively than
and fall and the general affirmation
of political units their opponents. "Where an ordered virtue (virtii
that "evil follows good and good evil, and the one is ordinata) uses passion with method and plan, no
alwavs the cause of the other" (lines 103fF.). The real difficulty weakens the army or makes it lose heart. . . .
moral of the work was that man cannot escape his The opposite occurs in those armies where there is
nature (hnes 88-90); it was for this reason that the hero passion but no order" [Disc, III, .xxx-vi). "Order" — this
had to assume the guise of an ass in order to find a word is close to the heart of Machiavellian virtue. It
way out of his difficulties. In the poem a pig explains had many more senses in Machiavelli's language than
why animals are happier than men: "We are more in ours. An ordine was a method, an institution, a
friends of nature than you; thus she bestows her virtue procedure; it was the ordini of the exemplars of virtu
more on us, making vou beggars for all her goods." which Machiavelli told his readers to follow (Prince,
Whatever the allegorv of the golden ass meant to other XXVI). Fortune held swav where there was no virtii
Renaissance writers, to Machiavelli it meant that man ordinata to resist her (Frince, .XXV). What distinguished
must accept his own natural necessity, of which bes- the Roman Republic (and theRoman army) from others
tiality is both a metaphor and a part. was its ordine (Discourses, passim). Where there is good
The animal element in human necessity brings this order there is virtue.
theme close to another of Machiavelli's favorite topics, But order is also related to necessity. In a well-
audacity. In a famous passage in The Prince. Machi- ordered army, soldiers have no choice but to fight; in
avelli said that, since fortvme is a woman, the audacious a well-ordered state, the laws force citizens to virtuous
and impetuous have a better chance to master her than conduct. Order is the main principle of political life
the cautious or hesitating. \ chapter title in the Dis- for .Machiavelli, because it is the bridge between the
courses reads: "Manv times one achieves with human world and the world of natural necessity;
impetuousness and audacity things that could never be through political organization man creates his own
achieved bv ordinary means" (III, xhv). Machiavelli's world of necessity — the only environment in which his
stress on audacity was sometimes tempered by his virtit can flourish.
general principle that action must fit the times: after In the theory of human action which emerges from
all, Fabius Maximus had success with his waiting game. Machiavelh's reflection on virtit, the idea of nece.ssity
Yet this should not be seen as a contradiction. Holding is central.Only when we have surveyed the dimensions
back one's forces might be good military strategy, but of Machiavelli's belief in the power of necessity are
it was not the same thing as the hesitation that followed we prepared to appreciate the full e.xtent of his rejec-
from indecisiveness. It was indecisiveness to which tion of traditional moral virtue.

audacity was most strongly opposed, and this hnks it We noted earlier that Machiavelh hesitated to give
most clearly to the necessity which creates virtue in the title "virtuous" to Agathocles the Sicilian — despite
Machiavelli's mind: both are opposites of choice his talent, spirit, and success —because of .\gathocles'
and virtu dissolves in the realm of choice.
{elezione). wickedness. But the category of necessity makes
"Let everyone do whatever his spirit tells him, and Machiavelli's hesitation irrelevant. The men described
with audacity" {Lettere. p. 229). The virtuoso acts in in Tlie Prince are given as examples of conduct, and
accord with necessity, and with animal naturalness. "To the question of whether the wicked ones are also
Machiavelli, animals possess the pristine genuineness virtuosi had no bearing on whether they were to be
which, in man, is weakened by reason. Man's control imitated. It was enough to give the examples of
over his world depends on his attaining a level of wickedness "without entering into the merits of their
where he becomes part of the forces
instinctiveness kind, because in my judgment it is sufficient that one
surrounding him" (Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and driven by necessity imitate them." In the light of
Guicciardini. p. 197). Machiavelli's enthusiasm for necessity, his hesitant
Machiavelli would not make man so purely animal declaration that the deeds of Agathocles "cannot be
as to destroy the reason which distinguishes him from called virtue" seems to arise simply from an unwilling-
the beasts. On the contrary, ragione and pnidenzia are ness to proclaim the most revolutionary implications
often close to virtit. But whereas in most traditional of his new point of view.
ethics reason's task oppose or temper the passions,
is to This conclusion is strengthened by one element in
482 in MachiaveUi man's distinguishing and most useful Machiavelli's attitude toward virtue as he conceived
it: awareness that virtue could be dangerous. In

his tions that are his, not on other people's. '
"Only those
(juiet and peaceful times, virtue was valued less than defenses are good, certain, and lasting, which depend
in perilous and difficult ones; wealth and influence were on you yourself and on your virtue" (Prince, XVII,
valued more than personal merit. To give outstanding XXIV). Cesare Borgia's most significant accom-
men less honor than was due them wa.s a "disorder," plishment was establishing his independent power de-
Machiavelli said, 'which has caused the ruin of many spite the fact that he had received his state by the
republics. For those citizens who see themselves power of the king of France. Certainly the celebration
despised, and who know that the cause of it is the times ofindependence has obvious immediate and practical
being easv and not dangerous, think up ways to disturb import. But for Machiavelli it had a more philosophical
things,promoting new wars to the damage of the meaning as well. In MachiaveUi's day the political crisis
republic." Therewere only two ways to deal with this of Italv and the moral Church led men
crisis of the
problem: either keep everyone poor so that wealth to lose confidence in themselves and in their power
could not have unmerited influence, or else keep the to live well in the world. Machiavelli's stress on inde-
state always at war or ready for it, in order to provide pendence was a response to this condition. He saw trust
continuous opportunities for "the virtue of man" (Due, in outside powers instead of in one's own as the sickness
I, xvi). Thus virtue as Machiavelli understood it had of Italian politics; his basic objection to Christianity
a threatening aspect: if not given satisfaction, it became was that it turned men's efforts to a world beyond their
a harmful force. own. In opposition to both, Machiavelli recalled men
one of Machiavelli's most per-
All this underlines to a fundamental trust in themselves and in the natural
vasive fundamental pessimism about human
traits: his world of which they were a part. The most enduring
nature. Yet the discussion of his meditation on virtue aspect of Machiavelli's message was his defiance of
would not be complete if we failed to recall that, side despair, his insistence that even in the worst of times
bv side with this pessimism about man Machiavelli men must trust in themselves: only to do so was virtue.
nurtured a spark of optimism about nature at large. 4. Modem Virtue. The history of the idea of virtue
His belief that good could come out of evil had a in the centuries since Machiavelli's time belongs in part
definite optimistic edge in times as bad as his own. to the vast history of ethical theory (a subject dealt
Several times he affirmed his belief that virtue can with elsewhere in this work), and in part to the topic
shine most brightlv when the night is darkest; one of Machiavellism. Yet some indications about how later
these was the famous last chapter of The Prince. perspectives on virtue relate to MachiaveUi may help
exhorting the Medici to unite Italy and drive out the to place Machiavelli's thought in a broader context,
foreign invaders. Despite his general pessimism, he did and suggest its wider importance.
not believe that the total quantity of virtue in the world Men's attitudes toward virtue have continued to be
was less in his own dav than it had been in Roman shaped by changing circumstances, and especially by
times; it was onlv so scattered about that its effects the pressures on conduct and action which derive from
were felt less, and not at all in Italy- In affirming this the pohtical situation in the widest sense. In post-
belief, Machiavelli personified "the world" in a reveal- Renaissance Europe the disorder Machiavelli had
ing way. In ancient times, he said, "the world" had lamented gave way to something like the order he had
moved its virtue successively from the Syrians to the desired. The agency of this change was a creation of
Persians to the Romans, but after their time "the world which Machiavelli has often been called the prophet;
no longer kept its virtue all together" in one place the modern state. The governments of Europe gained
(Disc, II, preface). The personification of "the world" more effective control of their territories, expanding
in this passage recalls the medieval idea (still present and improving their administrative bureaucracies, and
in a quotation from Savonarola given above) that virtue gaining a monopolv of violence through a centrally
came from God. Here, however, the notion has been organized and controlled army. In this new situation
secularized, so that virtue in a political body derives the maintenance of political order seldom required the
from "the world" instead of from God. The impHca- kind of unrestricted and audacious action for which
tions of this are optimistic, since Machiavelli entrusted Machiavelli called. By the eighteenth century, as
man's destiny to "nature '
with the same willingness Friedrich Meinecke has observed, there reigned in the
that medieval men had entrusted it to the divinity. European monarchies "deep peace, order and disci-
Perhaps from the point of view of this optimism
it is pline. To continue making use of Machiavellian
. . .
that we should consider one of the most characteristic methods within the state was now entirely superfluous,
elements of virtue in Machiavelli's thought: inde- and therefore seemed hateful" (MachiaveUmn .... p.
pendence. To preserve ones independence is the first 284). Of course, rulers and governments still dealt with
rule of politics. "A wise prince should build on founda- each other in ways that recalled Machiavelli's precepts, 483
but ihia was true onl\' of relations between states, not described as "one, simple and unalterable in its essence,
of political life within them. While Machiavelli's the same in all times, climes and governments" (p. 517).
thinking might be applauded with regard to foreign It was "the constant observation of the laws that are
policv, his ideas were not likely to be seen as relevant imposed on us." Virtue was an inner light, a sentiment
to other spheres of conduct; because of this, the notion given to all men bv God. the foundation on which all
of virtue as effective action was restricted to one realm human societies and all laws were built. ITie author
of human affairs — war and diplomacy — and was not of the article noted that the original sense of vetiti had
apt to challenge the idea of virtue as morahty. In the been strength or courage, and suggested that accord-
absence of this challenge, the discussion of virtue did ingly the word virtue retained a connection with effort
not lead to a general consideration of human action and which distinguished it from goodness: "We
will
as it had in Machiavelli's thought. say that God is good, and not virtuous, because good-
Most post-Renaissance writers simply affirmed the ness is essential to his nature, and because he is fully
traditional notion of moral virtue in opposition to perfect bv necessity and without effort (ibid.). But this "
Machiavelli. Wliat was happening to the idea of virtue, statement was a mere gesture; in tlie rest of the article
however, is best understood not witli reference to one there is nothing to prevent our reading virtue as a
of these thinkers, but in connection with a man who synonvm for goodness.
has sometimes been compared to Machiavelli, Thomas The Enlightenment's conviction that virtue was
Hobbes. Hobbes's political theory was based on a very equivalent to moral it v and that its eternal essence was
stern recognition of the realities of early modern poli- not threatened by the vicissitudes of fortune was a
tics, but he did not generally consider virtue from a tribute to the high level of civilization and order
Machiavellian perspective. In Hobbes's view. achieved bv the ancien regime, but the vertu of the
Enctjclopedie had lost the compelling drive to compre-
The sum of virtue is to be sociable with them that will be
hend man's power to act in the world, the drive that
sociable, and formidable to them that will not. And the
shaped Machiavelli's meditation on i irft";. It should he
same is the sum of the law of nature; for in being sociable,
no surprise that when something like the Machiavellian
the law of nature taketh place by the way of peace and
and to be formidable, is the law of nature in war.
society;
approach to virtue reappeared, its spokesman was a
where to be feared is a protection a man hath from his man in revolt against the social and political order
own power (Elements of Law. Part I, Ch. 17, para. 15). which had grown up in Europe since the Renaissance:
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Nietzsche's concep-
For Hobbes, "force and fraud are the two cardinal tion of virtue arose from his search for man's true self
virtues" in time of war, but the same is by no means imder the manv lavers of convention and coercion that
tnie in time of peace or within a peaceful state (see hid it; his new man or "overman {Vbennenscb) was "
John Laird, Hobbes, pp. 180-81). Hobbes saw a clear the man who "become what he is," as the subtitle
has
separation between a peaceful realm of moral virtue of Nietzsche's book Ecce Homo put it. True virtue
and warlike realm of virtue in the non-moral sense; contributed to this human growth, but it had to be
the second presented no Machiavellian challenge to sharply distinguished from conventional morality.
the first. The same observation appHes to the views
Virtues are as dangerous as vices, in so far as they are
of Frederick the Great of Prussia (1712-86). In his
allowed .to rule over one as authorities and laws coming
Refutation chi Prince dc Machiavel (17.39; Voltaire
from outside, and not as qualities one develops one's self.
altered the title to Antimachiavell), Frederick rejected The latter is the only right way; they should be the most
Machiavellian virtue as meaning only the skill of a personal means of defence and most individual needs — the
rogue. True virtue, he implied, is eternal and unchang- determining factors of precisely our existence and growth,
ing, and needs no favorable circumstances to make which we recognize and acknowledge independently of the
known. Frederick later questioned some of the
it,self question whether others grow with us with the help of the
harsh criticisms he had made of Machiavelli in his same or of different principles. The extent to which
. . .
youthhil Refutation, but his change of heart regarded one can dispense with virtue is the measure of one's
strength; and a height may be imagined where the notion
onlv foreign policy, not conduct in general, or the
"virtue" is understood in such a way as to be reminiscent
consideration of virtue.
Thus b\' the eighteenth centur\' the moral sense of
of virtii — the virtue of the Renaissance — free from moralic
[sic] acid (The Will to Poiver, Sees., 326, 327).
virtue reigned unchallenged by the alternative of "the
power to act effectively." The articleon "Vertu" in Nietzsche's notion of virtue revived some of the
the famous Encyclopedic of Diderot and d'.\lembert essential elements of MachiaveUi's; virtue was power
reflected this purely moral sense. There virtue was over one's self and one's environment; it depended on
—
the harnionv of the self with the natural, biological anarchy and tvrannv render ordinary moral virtue in-
world, and one of its major components was the indi- valid and demand that men seek within themselves a
vidual's freedom or independence. Yet Nietzsche went new foundation for their action. This is the moral of
"
beyond Machiavelli. Nietzsche admired the out- the history of "virtue.

standing individuals of the Renaissance (he knew Jacob
Burckhardt, in whose work the concept of the Renais-
HIBLIOGRAPIir
sance became inseparably linked to the notion of indi-
vidualism), but Nietzsche's own individualism was Before Machiavelli, te.\ts: L. B. .\lberti. / [Miri della
much more radical than Machiavelli's had been, bi part famiolia. ed. Cecil Grayson, in 0;)rrc loliâri. Vol. I (Bari,
1960). ,\Iatteo Palmieri, Libro della vita civile (Florence,
this was due to the nineteenth century's developmental
1529). Petrarch, Le Familiari {Famitiarium rerum libri). here
or historical conception of which human personality,
cited as Fam.. ed. in 4 vols, by Vittorio Rossi, the last
stemmed from Hegel and the romantics, and which
vol. by Umberto Bosco (Florence. 19.'3.3-42). Girolamo
permitted a much greater attention to the luiiqueness
Savonarola, Prediche e scritti. ed. Mario Ferrara (Milan,
of the individual than Machiavelli's more static and 19.30).
typological psychology allowed. Yet Nietzsche's indi- Before Machiavelli, commentary: Werner Jaeger, Paideia:
vidualism aiid his conception of virtvie also drew the Ideals of Greek Culture, trans. Gilbert Highet, 3 vols.
strength from his rejection of the very institution whose (New York, 1939), on the Greek idea of virtue (arete).
discipline Machiavelli required for most virtue: the Theodor E. Mommsen, "Petrarch and the Story of the
political community or the state. Whereas Machi- Choice of Hercules," Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed.
avelli's sense of human requirements always took him Eiigene F. Rice, Jr. (Ithaca, N.Y., 19.59). Erwin Panofsky,
into the realm of politics, Nietzsche was convinced that "Artist, Scientist, Genius: Notes on the Renaissance
only the individual, the "single one "

could find human Dammerung," The Renaissance: Six E.i.wys (New York and
Evanston, 111., 1968), esp. p. 169 and n. (and the other works
self-reaHzation. The state blocked the way:
of Panofsky cited there).
Now almost everything on earth is determined hv the Machiavelli, te.xts: The most recent edition in Italian is
crudest and most evil forces, by the egotism of the purchasers the Feltrinelli Edition, Vol. I. 11 Principe c Discorsi, ed.
and the military despots. The State, in the hands of the Sergio Bertelli (Milan. 1960). here cited as Prince and Disc.
latter .wishes that people would lavish on it the same
. . respectively: Vol. II, Arte della C.uerra e scritti politici
idolatrous cult that they used to lavish on the Church mincri. ed. Sergio Bertelli (Milan. 1961): Vol. VI, Lettere,
[Scliopcnlimier as Educator. Sec. 4: Kauhnann, Xielzsche. ed. Franco Gaeta (Milan, 1961): Vol. VIII, // teatro e scritti
p. 1661. Ictterari, ed. Franco Gaeta (.Milan. 196.5); all vols, contain
bibliographical essays. Translations, unless otherwise
Earlier the development of the State had put an end identified, are by Jerrold E. Seigel. The best English
to Machiavelli's political kind of speculation about edition of the Discorsi is Tlie Di.icoursei, trans, with intro.
virtue; now Nietzsche saw in the dominance of the and notes by Leslie J. Walker. S.J. (New Haven, 19.50). The
most recent translation is Machiavelli. The Chief Wbrfcs and
state a force which stunted the development of real
Others, trans. ,\llan Gilbert, 3 vols. (Durham, N.C., 1965).
virtu. was both great insight and great
In this there
Machiavelli, commentary: Eric W. Cochrane, "Machi-
irony, for however brilliantly Nietzsche illuminated the
avelli 1940-1960." Journal of Modent History. 33 (1961).
condition of modern European man, he seems to have 1.3-36, bibliographical Felix Gilbert,
1 is a article.
been unaware that his idealization of virtu was a .Machiavelli and C.uicciardini (Princeton, 1965); idem, "On
celebration of one of the sources of that very condition. Machiavelli's Idea of Virtii," Renaissance Neivs, 4 (1951),
In Machiavelli's hero, Cesare Borgia, Nietzsche saw 53-55, and the discussion by L. C. MacKinney and Felix
only a man of power and will whose self-control sepa- Gilbert, ibid., 5 (1952), 21-23 and 70-71. R. de Mattei, Dal
rated his from vice {The Will to Power, Sec. 871);
virtii premachiavellismo all'antimachiavellisino europeo del
that the action of men like Cesare contributed to the cinquecento, course of lectures at Rome University, 1955-56
oppressive growth of state power escaped him. The (Rome, 1956). Eduard Mayer, Machiavelli's Ceschichts-
auffassung und sein Begriff virtii (Munich and Berlin, 1912).
apolitical Nietzsche fi.xed his gaze on a virtue whose
Friedrich Meinecke, Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison
worst enemv was tvrannv and whose political implica-
D'Etat and Its Place in Modern Histonj. trans. Douglas Scott
tions were anarchistic; he did not see that the
(London, 1957). Gennaro Sasso. Niccolo Machiavelli: Storia
Machiavellian virtu he invoked was an antidote to
del suo pensiero politico (Naples, 1958). Neal Wood,
anarchy and that it contained a willingness to counte- "Machiavelli's Concept of Virtii Reconsidered," Political
nance tyranny in anarchy's place. Nietz.sche's revival Studies. 15(1967), 159-72.
of Machiavellian virtii was not the result of an identical .\fter Machiavelli, texts: Encyclopedic ou Dictionnaire
aim, but of the dialectical union of opposites; both raisonne des sciences (Berne and Lausanne. 1781), Vol. 35, 4oO
VIRTUOSO
art. "Vertii.
"
Fvederkk the Great, Refutation du Prince ilc with which manv of their Elizabethan fathers had been
Machicwel {Aniimtwhiini-ll). Oeuvres (Berlin, 1846-57), Vol. occupied. CJentlemen lived less at court than on coun-
8. Thonia.s Hobbes, Etcmentx of Law, \atural and Politic trv estates, occupied with "learned Pleasure and de-
(Canibridge, 1928); idem, Lciiathan (London, 1651, and light." James's son. Prince Henry, who died in 1612
subsequent editions). Friedrich .Nietzsche, Tlw Will to Poicer. at theage of eighteen, had been well on the way to
trans. .Anthony M. Ludovici, 2 The Complete Works
vols, in
becoming the leader of the virtuosi. His Highness,
of Friedrich Metzsche. ed. Oscar Levy (Nev\- York, 1964).
wrote one of his subjects, perceiving the nobility and
Vols. 14 and 15.
the gentry "too much given to ease," attempted to
.\fter Machiavelli, coninientarv: the works of de Mattel
attract them to the study of antiquities and painting
and .Meinecke cited aljove. John Laird, Hobbes (New York,
in which he himself took great pleasure. The heir
1934; 1968). Leo Strauss, The Political Phitosoplnj of Hobbes
(Chicago, 1952). Walter Kaufmann. Metzsche (Princeton,
presumptive had already made a good beginning on
1960; 1968). the fine gallery of paintings which his brother further
developed. John Evelyn, writing to Samuel Pepys much
JERROLD E. SEIGEL
later in the century, remembered that the prince had
[See also Fortune; Happiness; Machiavellism; .Necessity; collected books and statues, and "a Cabinet of ten
Relativism in Ethics; Renaissance Humanism; Right and thousand Medals, not inferior to most .\broad, and far
Good; State; Stoici.sm.]
superior to any at Home."
In a lengthy passage in The Anatomy of Melancholy
(Part II, sec. 2, member 1621) Robert Burton
4; first ed.
seems almost to give a recipe for virtuosi, although

his purpose was to recommend study as a cure for
VIRTUOSO melancholy. He urged the melancholic to put himself
"
"Maps, Pictures, Statues, Jewels, Marbles.

to school to
The term "virtuoso" originated in Italy and was used He advised him "to view those neat Architectures,
earlier there than in England. The first English use Devices, Scutcheons, Coats of Arms," and added that
listed in the Oxford t'ng/i.s/i Dictionary was in John he should "peruse old Coins, of several sorts in a fair
Evelyn's Dian/ on March 1, 1644. when Evelyn had Callerv, .\rtificial Works, Perspective Glasses, Old
been travelling on the continent for some time. Writ- Reliques, Roman .Antiquities
"
In his usual lavish fash-
ing from Paris, he mentioned "one of the greatest ion, he added other lists which
of objects, interest in
N'irtuosas in France, for his Collection of Pictures, would mind from melancholia and pre-
distract the
.\chates, Medaills, & Flowers, especially Tulips & simiablv produce a collector and a connoisseur. It is
Anemonys." Walter E. Houghton, Jr., the first to write interesting to notice that at the conclusion of his
extensively on the subject, cites an earlier use by lengthy accoimt Burton turns to collection on the part
Henrv Peachani whose Complete Gentleman (1634) of melancholy women, almost seeming to introduce a
became a sort of handbook to the virtuosi. Discussing type that we shall find called the "virtuosa."
classical antiquities such as statues, inscriptions, coins, \ contrasting attitude is shown in one of the most
he said that the possession of rarities, because of their familiar passages in The Advancement of LeanUng
cost, "doth properly belong to Princes, or rather to (1605), in which Francis Bacon implied that what was
princely minds," then added, "such as are skilled in tobe called the "virtuoso was really a dilettante. A
"
them, are by the Italians termed Virtuosi." majority ofmen who "entered into a desire for knowl-
But the movement in Enefland had begim much edge did so for the wrong reasons from Bacon's point
"
earlier than the use of the word, .^s the term came of view: "sometimes upon a natural curiosity and
to be used before the Restoration, it implied a collector inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds
or connoi.sseur of objets dart, i.e., a gentleman — Mr. with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and
Houghton points out that the movement was extremely reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory
class-conscious — a man of wealth and leisure, a student of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and
but not a scholar. His studies were not devoted to such profession." The trxie end of learning, to Bacon, should
utilitarian ends as professional success or commercial be "the benefit and use of man ... the relief of man's
gain. There seems to have been a fusion of the long Bacon did not use the word "virtuoso" but the
estate."
traditions of scholar and courtier, the result being distinctions implied in his passagewere to become
neither the one nor the other. The idea behind the overt when the term took on new meaning in the
term emerged in England particularly during the reign period of the Restoration.
of James I in a period of wealth and comparative John Evelyn is the best single example of the English
486 leisure. Sons did not feel the devotion to public service virtuoso both before and after the Restoration.
,
VIRTUOSO
Wherever he went on his extensive travels he collected vet so-called — was still in its infancy, and a man who
curios, pictures, books, varieties of objets dart. He devoted himself to collecting in such a field seemed
visited museums and the estates of nobility and gentr\ to outsiders, particularly satirists, an Autolycus, a
reporting their collections in dozens of letters and snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. Laughter was led
passages in the Dian/. One entry for September 29, behind the scenes bv no less a person than King
1645 may give an idea of the range of his curiosity: Charles, officially the patron of the Royal Society. His
Majestv prided himself on being a scientist, and had
I went ... to see the Collection of a Nolile Venetian .Signer his ov\n laboratory in which he experimented, particu-
Rugini: he has a stately Palace, richly fiiniish'd, with statues, larly in cheniistrv. But Pepys reported in his Diunj on
heads of the Roman Enipp, which are all plac'cl in an ample
Febmary 1, 1664 that the King spent part of an evening
room: In the next was a Cabinet of Medals both Latine
laughing at the Royal Society. "Gresham College [the
& Greeke, with divers curious shells, & two faire Pearles
Ro>al Society] he mightily laughed at, for spending
in 2 of them: but above all, he abounded in things petrified.
time only in weighing of avre, and doing nothing else
Walnuts, Eggs, «hich the Vealk rattl'd, a Peare, a piece
in
of beefe, with the bones in it: an whole hedg-hog, a plaice

since they sat."
on a Wooden Trencher turnd into Stone. & very perfect: Satire after satire poured from the press, but we shall
Charcoale, a morsel of Cork vet retaining its levitie. onh with the most popular one,
here concern ourselves
Sponges, Gutts, & a piece of Taffity: Part rolld up, with The Virtuoso of Thomas Shadwell, first performed at
innumerable more; In another Cabinet, sustained by 12 the Dorset Theatre in May, 1676. This included the
pillars of oriental Achat, & raild about with Chrystal, he many themes satirized in most of the others. The ex-
shew'd us several noble Intaglias, of ,\chat, especially a periments which Shadwell reduced to laughter were
Tiberius's head, & a Woman in a Bath with her dog: Some all real ones that had been performed before the Royal
rare Cornelians. Onixes, Chrvstals &c in one of which was
Society, several bv Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke,
a drop of Water not Congeal'd but plainly moving up &
whose places in the history of .science have grown more
down as it was (shaken): but above all was a Diamond which
and more important as time has gone on. Sir Nicholas
had growing in it a verv faire Rubie; Then he shew'd us
divers pieces of Amber wherein were several Insects Gimcrack, the "Virtuoso," is discovered lying upon a
intomb'd, in particular one cut like an heart that contain'd laboratory table where he is learning to swim by
m it a Salamander {Diary, ed. de Beer, 195.5). imitating the motions of a frog in a bowl of water.
\V'hen asked whether he had practiced swimming in
In the vears following the Restoration Evelyn com- water, he replies that he hates the water and would
bined vvitli his other varied interests a knowledge of never go near it. "I content myself," he said, "with
contemporary science. the speculative part of swimming: 1 care not for the
In 1662 was established the Iôyal Society of London practical.I seldom bring anything to use. Knowl- . . .
for Improving Natural Knowledge which brought to- edge is my ultimate end." Robert Boyle's many studies
gether a group of what we today call "scientists," who on luminescence are parodied in the Virtuoso's reading
added to their number intelligent laymen divines, — the Geneva Bible by the light of a leg of pork. Robert
aristocrats, philosophers, men of letters. Scientists, in Hooke's important microscopical observations, which
any technical sense, were in the minority. An excellent laid the basis for modern microscopy, are reflected in
example of the inclusion of amateurs may be seen in Gimcrack's reiterated enthusiasm for his own expensive
the election of Samuel Pepys, tlien a naval official. microscopes. Gimcrack's nieces, resenting his misuse
Pepys, to be sure, was a "collector of sorts of ballads, "
— of their money, say that he has spent two thousand
pictures, music, books. Amateur of science though he pounds on microscopes to find out the nature of eels
was, Pepys became President of the Royal Society in in vinegar, mites in a cheese, and the blue of plums,
1684. It is interesting to notice that Pepys seldom which he finds to be living creatures. He has made
referred to the organization as "the Royal Society." a profound study of spiders but is not concerned to
In many of his notations it was, as at his first meeting understand mankind. Gimcrack offers his visitors a
on February 15, 1667, "the college of vertuosoes." lecture on ants, whose eggs he has dissected imder a
With the establishment of the Royal Society, the microscope. One visitor says in an aside "What does
term "virtuosi" came to take on new meaning, applied itconcern a man to know the nature of an ant," to
as it was to "collectors " in science. The term was used which the other replies, "O it concerns a virtuoso
seriously by the scientists themselves. Robert Boyle, for mightily; so it be knowledge, 'tis no matter of what."
example, frequently called himself and his fellow- In common with many of his coimtrynien, Gimcrack's
workers "virtuosi," and one of his works was named creator made him greatly interested in experiments by
The Christian Virtuoso. But the prevailing use of the the Royal Society, a decade before The Virtuoso, on
term outside of the Society was satirical. Science-:— not blood transfusions. These had begun with transfusions 487
"
VIRTUOSO
between dogs, continued with cross-transfusions be- that was worth hearing, but that she was fidl of admiration,
tween various animals, and came to a climax with all admiration. Several fine e.xperiments were shown her of
human transfusions, performed in France a little earlier colours, loadstones, microscopes, and of liquors; among
others, ofone that did, while she was there, turn a piece
than in E^ngland. Sir Nicholas Gimcrack, too, had
of roasted mutton into pure blood, which was very rare.
performed his first transhisions on dogs, but in human
After they had shown her many experiment-s, and .she
transfusion he went beyond the Royal Society, when . . .
cried she was full of admiration, she departed, being

still
he transfused the blood of a sheep into an insane man: led out bv several Lords that were there.
The patient from Ikmiii; maniacal or raging mad liecame
The minute-book of the Royal Society contains a list
wholly ovine or sheepish; he bleated perpetnally and chevvd
him
performed for the benefit
of the various experiments
the cud; he had uool growing on in great quantities:
and a Northamptonshire sheep's tail did soon emerge or of the Duchess. They were largely in the hands of
arise from his anus or liinnan tundamenl. Robert Bovle and Robert Hooke. except for the one
that Pepvs considered 'verv rare. This, the interested "
Gimcrack's luicle, well-named Snarl, may have the last

reader may be glad to know, was "the dissolving of
word, so far as The Virtuoso is concerned: "If the blood meat in the oil of vitriol.
of an ass were transfus'd into a virtuoso, you would Under the influence of her husband. Mistress Pepys
not know the emittent ass from the recipient philoso- became to some extent a virtuosa. After Samuel Pepys
pher." had engaged a tutor to teach him arithmetic which,
Satire upon the virtuoso continued throughout the like a majorit\' of his contemporaries, he had never
century and was still lively in the time of Addison and
learned, he noted on October 21, 1665, when a pair
Steele. In Tntler 216 for .Xugust 26, 1710 appeared of globes had been delivered to him: "This evening
"The Will of a Virtuoso." At his death, all that Sir
... I begim to enter mv wife in aritlimetic, in order
Nicholas Gimcrack left to his family were rarities such
to her studying the globes, and, I hope, I shall bring
as "a dried cockatrice . . . three crocodile's eggs . . .
her to understanding many fine things." He noted on

my last year's collection of grasshoppers . . . my rat's
Februarv 15, 1663: "After prayers to bed, talking long
testicles ... all my flowers, plants, minerals, mosses, with my wife and teaching her things in astronomy."
shells, pebbles, fossils, beetles, butterflies, caterpillars, On 13, 1664 Pepys bought a microscope,
.\ugust
grasshoppers and vermin." The third Earl of Shaftes- through which he and Mistress Pepys attempted to
bury in his Chanut eristics (1711! attempted to restore oliserve, encountering characteristic lieginners' prob-
to their original position the "virtuosi or refin'd wits lems: "mv wife and I with great pleasure, but with
of the Age, and make them what he felt they should
"
great difficulty before we could come to find the man-
be, "the real fine Gentlemen, the Lovers of Art and
'
ner of seeing anything.

Ingenuity, but throughout tlie eighteenth century the The learned lady had already become a type, as
word largely denoted the pseudoscientist rather than Moliere's comedies show, but Moliere's were not
the collector of objets dart. virtuosae. The "Philosophical Girl," like the femme
Since tlie New Science interested women almost as savante. came into her own in France. In 1686 Bernard
much as men, it is not smprising to find the develop- le Bovier de Fontenelle published his Entretiens sur
ment of a feminine counterpart to the virtuoso, the la pltimlite des mondes. It is doubtfid that any treat-
virtuosa or "Philosophical Girl," as she was frequently ment of a woman character has ever been so successful.
called. Her prototype may well be considered Seven editions had appeared by 1724, four more were
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, whom published during the eighteenth century, and at least
Charles Lamb called "a dear favorite of mine in the nine in the nineteenth century. The work became a
last who has frequently been
century but one," but world-cla.ssic with a total of almost one hundred edi-
considered "mad Madge. \ voluminous writer, an "
tions in at least six languages. Within two years of its
encyclopedic reader, she was much interested in sci- French publication it was translated into English three
ence. One of the more embarrassing occasions faced times, one of the translations, fittingly enough, by a
by the Roval Society was that upon which this spec- woman, Aphra Behn's A Discovery of New Worlds.
tacular noble lady practically ordered it to give a From the French (1688). Far from being satiric, the
command performance for her. The most familiar ac- Entretiens is a charmingly sympathetic treatment of
visit on May 23, 1667 is given by Pepys:
count of the a beautifid Marchioness who for six evenings strolled
with a Philosopher between clipped hedges of roses,
.\non came the Dnchesse with her women attending her.
. . . The Duchesse hath been a good comely woman; while he taught her the elements of Cartesian astron-
but her dress is so antic, and her deportment so ordinary, omv. together with some principles of microscopy. The
4oo that 1 do not like her at all, nor did I hear her say anything lady was an interested and highly intelligent auditor,
"
VIRTUOSO
who learned her lessons well. Here we find disquisitions cerpts of which the volumes were composed were on
on planets, the stars, themoon, Cartesian vortexes, the religious, others on were
literary matters; a numl)er
possibility of life in other planets, all that had been devoted to teaching ladies philosophical and scientific
observed in the new imiverse of space discovered bv ideas. Again we find women instnicted in astronomy
Galileo's telescope, on the one hand, Giordano Bruno's and microbiology. The latter proved particularly
philosophy on the other, with occasional excursions interesting to women, manv of whom bv this time
into the other new universe of microscopic life. possessed micro.scopes. Like publishers, glass-grinders
English women were not behind the French in read- had foimd a new public (as advertisements show),
ing Fontenelle. Joseph Addison left an amusing picture preparing for women exquisite glasses in special cases
in Tlw Guardian for September 8, 1713: which ladies could carry with them as gentlemen
carried snuff-boxes. Something of this sort Jonathan
It IS aluays the custom tor one of the young ladies to read,
Swift described in the Journal to Stella on November
while the others are at work. ... I was mightily pleased,
15, 1710 when he offered to buy a microscope for
the other day. to find them all busy in preserving several
Stella: " Tis not the great bulky ones nor the common
fruits of the season . . . reading over the plurality of worlds.
was very entertaining to me little ones, to impale a louse (saving your presence)
It to see them dividing their
speculations between jellies and stars, and making a sudden upon a needle's point; but of a more exact sort, and
transition from the sun to an apricot, or upon the Coperni- clearer to the sight, with all its equipage in a little
can system to the figure of a cheese-cake. trunk that you may carry in your pocket. Tell me, sirra,
shall I buy it or not for you?"

In more sober mood, .\ddison devoted part of Tlie Popular science was growing apace in London in
Spectator paper for October 2.5. 1712 to Fontenelle's the earlier seventeenth century, certainly as early as
discussion of a universe of life containing in large and 1713 when Alexander Pope was enthralled by an
small all possible varieties of life. Fontenelle's work astronomical lecture given by William Whiston at
set a pattern, both on the continent and in England Button's coffeehouse. Ladies did not go to coffeehouses,
for the writing of works on popular astronomy lint when Whiston's lectures were removed to a larger
intended for the layman. Various of the.se imitations hall, they were free to attend them. Richard Steele
have been discussed bv Gerald Dennis Mever in The developed a lecture-hall, the Censoriuni, in which
Scientific Lady in England, listed in the Bibliography lectures were given on science on many other sub-
as
The clo.sest approach to the Entretiens
of this article. jects. In the advertising, the presence of women was
was by Francesco .'Mgarotti in II \eutonianisrno per particularly stressed: "Which Room is conveniently
ledame in 17.37, in which the author clarified for ladies fitted for Ladies as well as Gentlemen.
the theories of light and color in Newton's Opticks. In the second quarter of the century appeared vari-
Like Fontenelle Algarotti used the device of dialogue ous textbooks on science, particularly designed for
between a noble ladv and a philosopher. Fittingly women, such as Charles Leadbetter's Astronomy: Or
enough, this was translated into English by a virtuosa, the True Sy.item of the Planets Demonstrated (1727);
Elizabeth Carter, one of the most learned ladies in Joshua Charlton's The Ladies Astronomy and Chronol-
England, who published in 1739 Sir Isaac Newton's ogy (1735). .\ few years later Charlton added A Com-
Philosophtj Explain'd. For the Use of Ladies. pleat System of Astronomy (1742) "for the Benefit of
Partly under the influence of Fontenelle, but largely Young Students. Astronomy, as one forgotten writer
"
because the English virtuosa was coming into her own, phrased it, was coming to be "made clear to the
editors found a new buying public for journals. John meanest capacity, even that of women and children."
Dunton's Athenian Mercury (1690-97) was intended John Newberv, a writer and publisher, particularly of
equally for men and women readers. John Tipper's children's books, published in the 1750's The Neicto-
Ladies Diary (1704-1804) and Ambro.se Philips' Free nian Sy.^tem of Philosophy Adapted to the Capacities
Thinker (1718-21) were issued specifically for women of Young Gentlemen and Ladies, which went through
readers, who contributed letters to both. Some numbers many editions. The little volume consisted of six lec-
of the various periodicals edited or written by Addison tures supposed to have been delivered before the
and Steele were expressly addressed to women. In Lilliputian Society by Tom Telescope, who seems to
addition, Steele published in 1714 Tfie Ladies' Library some modern readers as obnoxious a prig as Elsie
in three volmnes, each dedicated to a woman, and Dinsmore.
pretending to have been written by a woman. Steele Since eighteenth-century women had become an
himself posed only as a "Gentleman Usher," leading important source of income to publishers of periodicals,
"the Fair into their Closets, to the perusal of this useful it is not surprising to find that later in the century two
as well as delightful Entertainment." Some of the ex- women edited three of the most readable, all designed 489
VOLKSGEIST
primarily for women readers: Eliza Haywood edited how the Blood circulates in the Tail of this Fish."
The Female Spectator (1744-46) and Epistles for the Paying no attention to his finding the circulation of
Ladies (1749-50), and Charlotte Lennox brought out the blood much more attractive in Valeria's "fair
The Lady's Museum a little later ( 1760-61). All three Neck," she shows him, among other of her curiosities,
included many scientific essays. The best of them, The the "Lumbricus, Laetus, or Fossile, as Hippocrates calls
Female Spectator, was widely read both in England and it, or vulgarly in English, the Tape- Worm." There is
in the colonies. This, says Gerald Meyer, was written upon the "concealment, popular
a nice variation, too, "
"by a scientific lady, about scientific ladies, and for in Restoration comedy. When Valeria hears her father
scientific ladies." The Female Spectator, fortunate in approaching, she hides her lovci in a tub, in which
"an education more liberal than is ordinarily allowed she usually keeps fish, then warns her father not to
to persons of our sex," was assisted in her editorial touch it because it contains "a Bear's voung cub that
labors by .\lira, a "philosophress," Euphrosine, whose I have bought for Dissection." There are few more
uitellectual attainments surpassed even her admitted amusing rejoinders of a virtuosa than Valeria's when
beauty, and a nameless Widow of quality. With their her lover proposes that she elope with him; "What!
microscopes the ladies went out to the country, where and leave my Microscopes?"
they made observations on caterpillars and snails which The term "virtuoso has become much "
rarer in the
they reported as "not ugly and insignificant as they English language since the eighteenth centurs', al-
may seem to other people" but "peculiarlv graceful though it is occasionally used, particularly in the field
and majestic." That did not surprise the Female Spec- of music; as women's education has caught up with
tator, since "nothing made bv God is in itself contempti- men's, "virtuosa" has disappeared.
ble. Wonderful are all his works." Their observations
led themto ponder on microscopic anatomy and to BlBLlOGRAPin
raise the question whether dissection had proved any
Mary Benson, Women in Eighteenth Ccnturij America:
fundamental distinction lietween the sexes, which in A Stuihj of Opinion and .Sofia/ Usage (Sev.' York, 1935).
turn ledthem to reflect upon the possibility of great Mrs. Susannah CentlivTe, "The Bassett-Table" (1706). in The
improvements in women's education. During their visit Works of the Celebrated Mn. Centlivre, Vol. I (London,
to the countr) they spent their e\'enings, when weather 1761). Sir Lionel Henr\ Cust, History of the Society of
permitted, on visits to the roof of a friend who was comp. by Lionel Cust. ed. Sidney Colvin (London
Dilettanti,
the proud possessor of a telescope. So popular

was The and New York, 1914). John Evelyn, The Diary of John
Female Spectator that it was imitated and the charac- Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer (Oxford, 1955). Walter E.
ters borrowed by Eliza Havwood in the two-volume

Houghton, Jr., "The English Virtuoso in the Seventeenth
Century," Journal of the History of Ideas. 3 (1942), 51-75,
Epistles for the Ladies.
190-219. Gerald Dennis Meyer, The Scientific Lady in
We may conclude with an earlier portrait of a
England. 1650-1760 [Berkeley and Los .\ngeles, 1955).
virtuosa written by a woman, a play The Bassett-Table
Majorie NicoLson, Science and hnagination (Ithaca, 1956);
by Mrs. Susannah Centlivre (1705), a most attractive idem, Thomas Shadiveth The Virtuoso (Lincoln. 1966), with
and amusing picture of what its author called "a Philo- David Rodes. Myra Reynolds, The Learned Lady in England,
sophical Girl" and "the little She Philosopher." Instead 1650-1760 (Boston and New York, 1920). Louis Booker
of elegant trifles, her lover sends her specimens for Wright, Middle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England
microscopical dissection. We first see Valeria running (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1935). Thomas Wright, The Female
across the stage in pursuit of "the finest Insect for Virtuoso's. A Comedy: as it is acted at the Queen's theatre
Dissection, a huge Flesh Flv, which Mr. Lovely sent (London. 1693).
me just now, and opening the Box to tr\' the Experi- M.\RJORIE HOPE NICOLSON
ment, away it flew." Lady Reveller shrieks with horror
[See also .\toniisni in the Seventeenth Century; Baconian-
to learn that Valeria had dissected her dove "to see
ism; Biological Conceptions; Experimental Science; Newton
whether it is true that doves lack gall." Lady Reveller
on Method; Optics; Satire; Women.]
sarcastically suggests that Valeria might foimd "a Col-
lege for the Study of Philosophy, where none but
Women should be admitted," which Valeria would
gladl\- do if her fortune was under her control. The
"bedroom scene," familiar in Restoration comedv, has

imdergone a change. Valeria has transformed her VOLKSGEIST
chamber into a laboratory, the center of which would
seem to be a laboratory table fitted with microscopes, Volksfieist (also Volksseele, Nationalgeist or Gf'i.s( der
where fish are laid out for dissection. When her lover Xation, Volkscharakter, and in Enjglish "national char-
490 enters, she bids him look through the glass "and see acter") is a term connoting the productive principle
VOLKSGEIST
of a spiritual or psychic character operating in ditferent spirit of nations. '

Here the "general spirit of nations"
national entities and manifesting itself in various crea- is actually a result of different causes, some of them
tions like language, folklore, mores, and legal order. of a natural character like climate. Climatic conditions
Connotativelv, the German word Geist is related in are discussed extensively by Montestjuieu and by manv
meaning to the Hebrew nuih. to the Greek pneiiinii. other writers who subsecjuentlv used the term Vo/fcs-
and to the Latin spiritus. Volksjêint is the spirit Ccist) ( geist. Elsewhere it appears as a result of factors like
of a people expressing itself in certain articulated crea- religion, laws, morals, and customs which were consid-
tions. The shift to spirit as against expression, follows ered by many thinkers as expressions of the Volksgeist
the shift from the letter of the law to the spirit of the proper. Yet Montesquieu says: "The Government most
law as in Saint Paul (II Corinthians 3:6). To the extent conformable to nature which best agrees with
is that
that the term is related to genius or to ênie (as a the humor and disposition of the people in whose favor
derivation from aenius). it is associated with the Roman it is established." He thus combines the principle of
idea of genius loci, the attendant spirit of a place, nature as a norm with that of a people s genius as a
household or citv, e.g., genius urbis Ruinue. ."Mong with standard of government. Monte.squieu's analvsis of the
other parallel terms, the term Oeist and Volksgeist. spirit of laws influenced a series of German thinkers
however, connote a spirit not outside but inside a concerned with the spirit of the laws of the Teutschen
certain entity. and inspired the concepts of a ieutscher Nationalgeist,
Emergence of the Concept. The distinction intro-
1. teutsche Freiheit, etc. Friedrich Carl von Moser in Von
duced by Leibniz between dead power and living dem Dcutschen national-Geist (1765), uses Montes-
—
power {vis viva) the latter being nnderstood also as quieu's concept and gives it a nationalistic and polemic
a directive power —
became the philosophical basis for turn.
the idea of a directive principle within historical In Hume we find the concept "national character,"
entities guiding their existence in time and expressing a concept which recurs often in the nineteenth century.
itself in their creations. \s a guiding principle the In his description of this concept Hume stresses a
living power is not a logical or rational principle and peculiar set of manners; the factors determining na-
could thus be connected with various concepts expres- tional character are partlv "moral" (psychological) and
sing the irrational directive principle of human crea- partly physical, the "moral" disposition being able to
tions and evaluations as the French gout, the Italian alter even the natural one. In the context of this dis-
gusto, the German Gesclunack, or the English taste. cussion Hume considers also the difference between
Gusto has sometimes been associated with ingcnio. Negroes and whites, the former being, in his opinion,
Votksgeist as a guiding principle of peoples and naturally inferior to the latter; nature itself made an
nations appears in the context of investigations into original hierarchical distinction between these two
the historical existence of peoples. The formulation of breeds of men. Here Hume's concept of national char-
the concept goes along with the stress laid on history. acter goes bevond the domain of description and enters
The emphasis of Vico on the genetic aspect of a peo- the domain of evaluation.
ple's life is thus one of the sources of the concept: Voltaire employs the term "genius of a people" in
"since each familv had its own religion, language, his Philosophical Dictionart/ with a more general de-
name, arms, government, etc." Again,

lands, nuptials, scription of the term esprit. Speaking about different
the importance attached by Vico to "common sense cultural creations, he refers to the subtle spirit of the
. judgment without reflection, shared by an entire
. . "genius" of a nation. The study of manners (moeurs)
class, an entire people, an entire nation, the entire was one of the topics of Voltaire's reflections on history.
human race" can also be interpreted in terms of this Climate, government, and religion are for him the
concept (I. Berlin, E. Auerbach). three factors influencing the human spirit.
Edmund Burke rejected the a priori character of the The term "\ationalgeist" appears, possibly for the
science concerned with the construction of a common- first time, in the title of Carl Friedrich Moser's above-
wealth, and put forward the experimental and histori- mentioned book, Vorn deutschen natiomd-Geist (1765).
cal aspect of this scienceand of political life in general. The concept has no specific meaning here; it connotes
Burke's view served as one of the sources of the attempt merely the general patriotic ambiance. Moser is con-
to disclose the historical character of peoples and the cerned with certain political and social factors which
factors shaping their historical course. cause an artificial split among the Germans. He uses
Montesquieu in his L'Esprit des lois explicitly uses this term also in a polemic with the Catholic Church
the term "general spirit of nations ":

"Mankind is influ- and its detrimental influence on Ciermany.
enced by various causes: bv the climate, by the religion, These ideas and their linguistic expressions found
by the laws, by the maxims of government, by prece- their synthesis in the German term Volksgeist and its
dents, morals and customs; whence is formed a general derivations, Geist connoting —
even in Kant's termi- 491
—
VOLKSGEIST
nologv — not the intellectual or rational but the vital concepts of laws are for him comprehensive systems
directing factor in human life. guided bv certain principles which can be formulated.
2.Formulation of the Concept. We can point to Hegel's indebtecbiess to his predecessors comes to the
three major steps taken tow arils the formulation of the fore when, along with the characteristic features of a
concept of Volksficist. followiut; which it became one nation's spirit who.se investigation belongs to the natu-
of the kev notions of historical and literary movements. ral philosophv of world historv, he points to the natural
G. von Herder does not use the term Volksgeist, dispositions of the national spirit like the composition
J.
but only various expressions like Geist des Volkes. Geist of the body and die ways whose study belongs
of life,
der Nation, Nationalgeist (explicitly referring to to the history of the nature of man. But Hegel's main
Moser), Genius dcs Volkes, and Xationalcharakter contribution to the formulation of the concept of
(without mentioning Hume). In the line of the histori- Volksaeist is the attribution of a historical character
cal reflections mentioned above. Herder also stresses to the concept. The spirit of a nation is one of the
the importance of climatic conditions for the shaping manifestations of World Spirit {Weltgeist). That Spirit
of historical events and their direction. Vet in spite of is essentiallv alive and active throughout mankind's
the absence of the term, the trend towards the formu- history.
lation of the characteristic features of the name of Now, the spirit of a nation is an intermediate stage
"Volksgeist" can be clearly discerned. of world history as the history of the World Spirit, The
Herder refers also to "the spirit of the times" (Geist World Spirit gives impetus to the realization of the
der Zeiten). which is close to the experience of past historical spirits of various nations {Volksgeister). The
times and which is impressed on the soul. The spirit spirits of individual nations are both the articulations
of the times can be best understood from its expression iGliidcningcn) of an organization and its realization.
in folkloreand from daily experience; it expresses itself The spirits of inchvidual nations represent a segment
in vernacular speech and in popular poetry. Hence of the World Spirit out of w hich emerges the unlimited
Herder's interest in the stud\' of language and literature universal spirit. .\ comparison is introduced here be-
as two branches of mankind's historical creativity. The tween the status of an individual and that of a nation's
reference to the expressions of spirit replaces the direct spirit. In the process of his formation the individual
approach to the substance of spirit, since spirit as such imdergoes various changes without, however, losing his
can neither be described nor painted. Spirit expresses identitv, .\s a part of world history, a nation
itself through words, movements, conflicts, forces, and e.xliibiting a certain trend expressed in its Xvlksgeiit —
effects. As to the stabilitv or destructiveness of the plavs its part in the total process of v\orld history. But
national character. Herder oscillates between two once it contributes its share to world history it can
views; on the one hand, he describes it as an "innate no longer play a role in the proce.ss of world history.
idea" (Descartes) and considers it as eternal and The submersion in the total process prevents a people's
indestructible; on the other hand, he speaks of his own cultural rebirth, because it has exhausted its creativity
historical age as tending to blur the distinction between in the historical growth of its guiding .spirit. It is for
various national traits. He then calls for an urgent this reason that one of Hegel's disciples, Michelet,
investigation of these expressions of national character considered the idea of a renai.ssance of the Jewish
before thev disappear. people as philosophically impossible. The relations of
Hegel coined the term Volhgeist in 1801 in speaking state to state are uncertain, and there is no imperial
about mores, laws, and constitutions as forming the Praetor available to adjust them. The only higher judge
inner life or spirit of a people. From Hegel the term is the universal absolute spirit, the World Spirit Welt- (
apparently entered the vocabulary of different systems geist). In keeping with his general philosophical view
and intellectual movements, although the ground had which stresses the actuality of spirit as a living expres-
been prepared graduallv for this absorption through sion of the World Spirit, Hegel identifies the spirit of
the scattered ideas analyzed before. Hegel took a people with its historical and cultural accom-
cognizance of Herder's work mainly in the area of plishments, namely its religions, its mores, its consti-
folk-poetry. He referred explicitly to Montesquieu tution, and its political laws. They are the work of a
who, in Hegel's opinion, combined the true historical people, they are the people.
view with a genuine philosophical position, .\ccording \ei in spite of this vieu' which confers, as it were,
to this view legislation —
in general as well as in its an equal status on each accomplishment, Hegel tends
particular provisions —
is to be treated not as something to give priority to the political constitution and to the
isolated but rather as a subordinate component in a state. The actual state is inspired (beseelt) by the na-
whole. For Hegel, legal systems express a general atti- tional spirit and this inspiration is expressed in the
492 tude of a people and therefore the fioman or German various occurrences related to tlie state. The national
VOLKSGEIST
spirit has an intrinsic morality which expresses itself cate the common German legal system. Just as there
in the confidence prevailing among the individuals isno Prussian and Bavarian language, so there is no
imbued with the same national spirit. In addition, all room and justification for a legal system based on the
elements of the population participate in the decisions political split then prevailing in Germany. Hence the
and actions of the government. Here again the national idea of Volksgeist ceased to be a mere descriptive
spirit, though not identical with government, is related concept and became a political slogan. In spite of the
to it. The principles of national spirits (Volhsf:,eister} importance attached to the state, the interest of the
are wholly restricted on account of their particularity Historical School shifts from the state to the historical
because, as e.xistent individuals, they have their own people. This — as well as the absence of the idea of
objective actuality and self-consciousness. Out of the a World Spirit— distinguishes the conceptions of the
finitude of these minds arises the universal spirit, the Historical School from those of Hegel. The Historical
spirit of the world, free from all restriction, producing School faced a specific problem as to the justification
itself as that which exercises its right, the highest right of a deliberate legislation. Savigny 's view of this prob-
of all, over the finite spirits in the history of the world, lem was moderate; for him the legislator must be the
which is the world's court of judgment. Hegel uses also representative of a people's common convictions and
the term "genius of a nation, following the termi-
"
feelings. Other thinkers of this School rejected the idea
nology found in the preceding discussions, as well as of deliberate legislation altogether.
the term "God of a people." The identification of the Echoing the seventeenth-century criticism of natural
spirit of a people with God of the people is made science in the Middle Ages which was based on the
explicit, possibly under the influence of Hegel's histo- principle of hypotheses nan jingo ("I do not frame
rical speculations, by Nachman Krochmal, who distin- hypotheses "), some critics raised the objection that the
guishes between the partial spiritual elements charac- term Volksgeist expresses that which we do not know
teristic of the people of the world, and "the absolute or understand and reminds one of the primitive mind's
spirit" identical with the monotheistic God and char- furnishing the world with spirits — the spirit of life, of
acteristic of the Jewish people. Because of the absolute light, of fire. This criticism, however, does not diminish
character of this spiritual element it does not exhaust the impact of the concept of Volksgeist on various
itself in the limited span within the historical process, intellectual movements of the nineteenth and twentieth
but emerges time and again as the guiding principle centuries.
of the people in a cyclical process of rise and fall. 3. The Impact. Indeed, the idea of Volksgeist as a
The third component which contributed to the for- descriptive concept as well as a normative demand of
mation of the concept of Volksgeist is the Historical faithfulness to a given national genius and spirit influ-
School of Law where the issue of the relation between enced various trends in political life, in historiography,
the national spirit and the legal system became the in literature, in legal and philosophical discussions, etc.
center of a lengthy controversy. F. K. von Savigny does The various nationalist ideologies in Germany,
not use the concept of Volksgeist: however, ap-
this, France, and Poland explicitly used the concept
Italy,
pears in the works of G. F. Puchta. In Savigny we find of Volksgeist and of Volkstimi: the description of the
only terms like Volksbewusstsein or "the common latter pointed out a certain intellectual and spiritual
conviction of the people"; the loose terminology which trend within peoplehood. The nationalist ideologies
he uses conveys, however, the same meaning as the based on the concept of Volkstum or Le Peuple are
term Volksgeist. Civil law has a definite character related to this concept. Whether these ideologies have
which is the product of a people's specific character, been influenced directly by the masters of the notion
just as language, customs or constitution. These expres- of Volksgeist or by more popular thinkers who enter-
sions are linked into one whole by the people's com- tained the idea, like Justus Moser and Adam Miiller
mon convictions, by the feeling of an inner necessity in Germany, or Madame de Stael in France, is of
which excludes all notions of an accidental or arbitrary secondary importance. Sometimes those who based
genesis of such expressions. Because of the historical their ideological demands on the notion of Volksgeist
character of the system, the law must be
legal placed the political center of gravitation on the people
approached mainly law based on a plurality of legal
as as against dynasties, assuming that only the people is
systems (Cewohnheitsrecht). Savigny, however, has the authentic representative and transmitter of national
some misgivings as to the accuracy of this definition. tradition.
The idea of customary law emerging from inner and In the description of the subjects of the historical
tacit forces must be juxtaposed to a legal system based processes historical research took advantage of this
on the arbitrary decision of a lawgiver. The stress on concept. German historical literature, including the
a law emerging from history enables Savigny to advo- opus of Leopold von Ranke, displays this influence. But 493
VOLKSGEIST
the same applies contemporary

to a large extent to the economic theory as it is stated in the polemic which
France which had been influenced
historical writings in accompany these discussions. The specific Volksgeist
by Herder and by the Cierman romantic ideas. It is exliibits its uniqueness also in the economic domain.
interesting to point out that Madame de Stael, who This idea was expressed by Friedrich List (1789-1846)
carried the German influence to France, took charac- when he said that every people has its own political
terization of peoples as a basic principle for the high economy, and every great nation has to strive to be
praise of the English people and its institutions. a whole for itself. The mission of political economy
In the literary sphere romanticism is closely related is to finiiish the economical education of the nation
to the concept of Volkigeist. The shift toward the folk and to prepare it for its proper place in the universal
saga is due to the preference given to folkloric produc- association of the future.
For Jakob Grimm the
tions over individual creations. 4. The Polemic Aspect. In so far as the concept of
community was the creative force; law and poetry are Volksgeist implies a demand of faithfulness to a people's
closely related and have a common source. Wilhelm traditions and to its spiritual principles of creativity,
von Humboldt speaks about national spirit when deal- it implies pari passu the awareness of a distinction
ing with (Jreek history; and in his philosophy of lan- between different peoples' characters and their tradi-
guage, while stressing the inner activity expressed in tions. In its turn this distinction may take a polemical
language, he stresses along with the inner form of shape in adopting a critical attitude towards certain
language also its relation to Volksgeist. Though the traditions and in giving preference to others. This
linguistic capacity is a characteristic feature of man polemical aspect in the concept of a people's or a
as man, the mdividual languages are manifestations of community spirit of peoples comes to the fore in the
the national spirits. Slavic domain. \. I. Herzen speaks specifically about
The Historical .School of Law gave rise to a peculiar the Slav genius and about its incompatibility with
controversy as to the extent to which Germanic law centralized government. .\dam Mickiewicz spoke
may absorb elements of Roman law or whether it about the Slav tribe as characterized by religiosity,
should be purified trom the intrusion of elements which straightforwarcbiess, and force. In connection with
do not express the German mind. This controversy is religion as a characteristic feature of the Slavic peo-
known as the controversy between Germanists and ples, Herzen said that Russia will never be Protestant
Romanists; it centers to some extent around the prob- nor will it be and these two are inter-
jiiste-milieu.
lem known as the "reception" of Roman law into the related, since for him Protestantism was a bourgeois
texture of Germanic law. Savigny advocated tliis religion. The Pan-Slavists followed the same line,
alisorption, while those who took issue witli him argued stressing the interest in religion characteristic of the
against him and his followers on the basis of his own Russian people, an interest which is similar to that of
ideas, pushed, as it were, to their decisive and ultimate the ancient Jews. In contradistinction to the Germans,
conclusion. For Otto von Gierke the Germanic legal the Poles, according to Mickiewicz, believe in the
system is characterized by the preference given to power of great personalities and not in the opinions
organic between individuals and is thus close to
ties of the masses; while Herzen points out that the droit
the idea of tlie law of Genossenschaften. The Roman du seigneur has never existed among Slav peoples.
tradition and its manifestations in natural law, in eco- Hence there exists a natural affinity between the Slavic
nomic liberalism, individualism and capitalism has a character and the inner disposition for communism.
destructive effect on the Germanic tradition. Von The slogan of Volksgeist here takes a messianic direc-
Gierke took hirther the idea of Volksgeist as a slogan tion at times.
and stated, during World War
for nationalistic attitudes In a different context, John Dewey points to the
I, that the Volksgeist amounts to a Common Ego abuse of the term in German philosophy which used
(Gesamt-lch). The mythological interpretations of the it assume constancy where constancy was absent.
to
Volksgeist, the drawing of distinctions between Volks- American Totality. This expression, taken from
5.
geist and race, confused by the Nazi ideology, followed Walt Whitman, can be imderstood as pointing in the
this line in their own way. direction of the absorption of the concept into the
There is between the application of
a close affinity texture of the problematic ideology of the United
the idea of Volksgeist in the legal sphere and the appli- States. The prol)lem presented by such an ideology
cation of this idea or of some of its derivations in the is clear in this context: the people of the United States
sphere of economic theory. The counterpart of the are not a traditional people in the European sense of
rejection of the alleged individualism in the legal the term. Its institutions are based rather on the notion
sphere is the rejection of the isolated homo aeconom- of natural or rational law than on the legal system
494 icus, an idea allegedly characteristic of the English which expresses an accepted historical tradition. Yet
VOLKSGEIST
background rooted in princi-

in spite of this diversified in spite of the confused diversity, there resides, after
ples and based on theoretical considerations, we do find all, a higher unity and where, in a babel of peoples,
traces of the concept of Vulksgeist. Whitman refers American national character
the traces of a specifically
explicitly to Herder's idea of a national spirit, though may be discerned. The impulse towards freedom and
he places his reference in a reflection on the character the sense of law and order resting on moral basis are
of poetrv. Realh' great poetry, like the Homeric or features of this character. Thus ultimatelv the ideas
biblical canticles, he savs, is the result of a national rooted in the conception of natural law and rational
spirit and not of the privileges of a polished and select nioralitv are presented as expressions of the national
few. The idea seems to be that the national spirit is character. Here, too, a polemical note can be dis-
an expression of a whole people and against the whole
"
cerned: gloire is the motto of the Frenchman; "duty

people stand the privileged few. This identification of that of the Englishman. .\ similar idea is voiced by
a national spirit with folk elements is close to Grimm's Theodore Parker, and to some extent its echoes can
view of natural poetry as the poetrv of the people and be heard in the notion of "manifest destinv" which,
artificial poetrv as the poetrv of incfividnal poets, .^gain though related to the physical expansion of the United
this duality nins parallel to the duality between the States to the Pacific, absorbed also the view that it
law of the people and the imposed law of the jurists. is God's design that each country should wear a pecu-
The populist trend in Whitman finds its expression in liar physiognomy — as Thomas Starr King and John
his rejection of the poetry of the Old World. Here the Fiske said. George Bancroft was in his own way influ-
polemic aspect of his national feeling emerges: as long enced by similar ideas.
as the United States remains unsupplied with autoch- 6. Volkerpsychologie. The psychology of the nine-
thonous song the people lacks first-class nationalitv. teenth century gave birth to a discipline known as
The influence of the German thinkers on the .Ameri- Volkerpsiichologie. The
between this trend and
relation
can version of the idea of Volhgeist is revealed in the the concept of Volksgeist comes to the fore in the use
fact that two American thinkers, Francis Lieber and of this term by M. Lazarus (1824-1903), one of the
Philip .Schaff, who concerned themselves with this issue founders of the school. The spirit of the people is
(though their terminology were of German

differs), inherent in the social constitution and in all that which
descent. Francis Lieber did not use the term Volksgeist; makes a state. Not only is the term Volksgeist used here,
but he was aware of his relation to the German ideol- but the relation between the formative Volksgeist and
ogy and the use of the terms Volkstum and Volksgeist. statehood is also put forward. The importance of lan-
Lieber placed the emphasis on the consciousness of guage for expressing the spirit of a people also appears
unification of different peoples according to circum- in the school, mainly in the works of H. Steinthal. The
stances: either the consciousness of unitv precedes the difference between the position of this school and the
political unification as is the case of Germany and Italv, thinkers discussed above seems to lie in the fact that
or the political unity precedes the ethnic and the Volksgeist ceases to be an underlying principle expres-
cultural unity as is the case of the United States, sing itself in the historical reality of peoples, but now
Canada, and Australia. He spoke about races though becomes a product or a manifestation of the individuals
he gave to the concept a cultural and historical mean- themselves. Volksgeist subsists in the products of the
ing and not a biological one, and considered the minds of different peoples. From this point of view
Anglican race which achieved guarantees to human we may was concerned with
sav that Volkerpst/rhologie
rights, civil liberties, and self-government superior to the subject matter created by individvials and not with
the Teutonic one. one preceding them. Lazarus oscillates between a view
Philip Schaff s sketch of the character of the Ameri- which underlines the created and secondary character
can people and its components is another instance of of a people's psyche (Volksseele) and a view which
German influence on .American thinking. The concept attributes to it an independent position of its own, in
used by Schaff is national character and not Volksgeist; spite of its secondary status. There are thus elements
but the two concepts are similar in their origin. When and laws of the spiritual life of peoples and these have
Schaff says that depends ultimately upon the char-
all to be investigated by a special branch of science.
acter of the nation, he echoes the idea of Volksgeist. Wilhelm Wundt took issue with the program of this
His reference to history and his notion that every school as presented by Lazarus and Steinthal, arguing
nation has its peculiar calling is based on the connec- that their program is based on a presupposition which
tion put forward in German thinking between the defies the fundamentals of Herbart's psychology since
importance of history and the position of Volksgeist it assumes a soul other than the individual one. Wundt
as a principle operating in historv. Schaff aware of
is tried to arrive at a conclusion which takes the soul
the particular situation prevailing in America where. of the people to be an outcome of individual elaments 495
vox POPULI
and experiences, to a greater extent than had been done isten." Uiiiiersitatsredcn (Berlin, 19(K>-09). G. \V. F. Hegel,
by Lazarus in the impHcit reflections of the traditional Pluinontenologie des Geistes (1807), trans. J.
B. Baillie as
notion of Volksgeist. He stresses the genetic and causal I'hrnunienologij of Mind (New York, 1964; also reprint);
investigation of the facts underlying human society. idem, Encyklopiidie der pkilosophischen Wissenschaften
(1817); idem, GnindliiUen der Phihsophie des Rechts (1818),
Volksseele is a result of individual souls which compose
trans. T. M. Knox as Philosophy of Right (Oxford, 1942);
the collective psijctie, but the individual souls are no
idem, Vorlesungen iiber die Phihsophie der Weltgeschichte
less the results of the VolkssceU' in which they partici-
(1821), trans. Sibree as Lectures on the Philosophy of
pate. Wundt distinguishes lietween the common History (New
J.
York, reissue 1956). M. Heidegger, "Die Zeit

consciousness {Oesumtheuusntsein) which finds its
des Weltbildes," Hohwege (Frankhirt a. M., 1950). G. von
J.
expression in language, myth, and customs, and the Herder, Sinntliche Werke. ed. B. Suphan Bedin, 1877-1913),
(
common will (Gesamtimtle) which finds its expression esp. Vols. V, IX, XII, XIII, XIV, XVII, XVIII, passim. A.
in common decisions. Herzen, From the Other Shore, trans. Moura Budberg
7. Morphology of Cultures. \ scheme of types of (London and New York, 1956). R. Hildebrand, Geist (Halle
cultures was presented bv Huizinga; this, however, a. Saale, 1926). D. Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and
does not correspond to particular historical peoples and Literary, ed. T. H. Green, 2 vols. (London, 1875; London
their mind. The orbit of a certain tvpe comprises more and .New York, 196,3). K. Jaspers, Die geistige Situation der
Zeit (Berlin, 1932), trans. Eden and Cedar Paul as .Man in
than one people. The whole idea has, however, a con-
the Modern .\ge (London, 1933); Voin Vrsprung und Ziel
siderable affinity with the concept of Volksgeist.
der Geschichte (Zurich, 1949), trans. M. Bullock as Origin
Huizinga lists a Latin type of culture, an Anglo-Saxon
and Goal of History (New Haven, 1968). H. Kantorowicz,
one, and expres.ses doubts as to the existence of a Slavic "Savignv and the Historical School of Law," Late Quarterly
type as well as of a Germanic type. In Huizinga's Review. 53 (1937), .326ff. F. List, National System of Political
opinion, the Germanic type does not comprise a Economy, trans. G. A. Matile (Philadelphia. 1856). K.
plurality of nations as the Latin or Anglo-Saxon type. Lowith, Von Hegel bis Nietzsche ^Zurich, 1941), trans, as
In anv case, the types which he lists are, in a certain From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in Nineteenth
sense, Volksgeistcr projected on groups of peoples and Century Thought (New York, 1964). M. de Montesquieu,
thus transcending any particular people in uniqueness. L'Esprit des lois (Geneva, 1748). F. C. von Moser, Von dem
8. Wholes and Pattertis. The theory of Volksgeist deutschen national-Ceist {location uncertain, 1765?). J.
-P.
Sartre, Critique de la raisoti dialectique (Paris, I960). F. C.

was an attempt to understand cultures and civilizations
von Savignv. Votn Beruf unserer Zeit fiir Gesetzgebung und
as wholes and to point to empirical data as interrelated
Recht.'iwissenschaft (Heidelberg, 1814). Philip Schaff,
in these wholes. It was an attempt to identify the whole
.\mcrica, A Sketch of Its Political, Social, and Religious
with a historical people. In this sense it guided empiri-
Character, ed. P. Miller (Cambridge, Mass., 1961). Friedrich
cal and anthropological research. The direction of Schiller, Vber die d.^thetische Erzichung des Menschen
recent anthropological research retains the idea of a (1795), trans. R. Snell as On the Aesthetic Education of Man
whole but replaces it with an idea of a whole as a (New York, 1965). G. Vico, Scienza nuova (1725), trans. Max
pattern or structure related to civilizations and not to H. Fisch and Thoman S. Bergin as The New Science of
peoples; wholes are not principles operating in civili- Giambattista Vico (Ithaca, 1944; 1968). F. M. A. de Voltaire,
zations but structures of interrelated elements present Essai sur les moeurs et Vesprit des nations (1756); Diclion-
in them. This might be looked at as a turn away from Gay

naire phitosophique (1764), esp. "Esprit"; trans. Peter
as Philosophical Dictionary(New York. 1967). A. N. White-
the mythological understanding of a whole to the sys-
head, Science and die Modern World (London and New York,
tematic understanding of it. Still, the rejection of
1925). Walt Whitman, Complete Prose Works (Boston, 1898);
"rationalism" in politics as advocated by Michael
idem. Leaves of Grass and Selected Prose, ed. S. Bradley
Oakeshott and the acceptance of the "tradition" as the (New York, 1960).
guiding norm of politics, are echoes of the concept
of Volksgeist in its normative if not in its descriptive
N.\THAN ROTENSTREICH
sense. [See also Environment; Language; Law, Ancient Roman;
Nationalism; Romanticism; State; Zeitgeist.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
M . Brasch, Die Phihsophie der Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1888).
This volume includes the relevant material on M. Lazarus,
H. Steinthal, and W. Wundt. Der Volksgeist bei
Hegel und in
S. Brie,
der historischen Rechtsschule (Berlin and
VOX POPULI
Leipzig, 1909). E. Burke, Reflectiotis on the Revolution in
France (London, 1790; several reprints available). R. G. The idea of "the People" contains both descriptive
Collingwood, .An Essatj on .Metaphy.iics (Oxford, 1940). O. and normative elements. Descriptively it has referred
496 Gierke, "Die historische Rechtsschule und die German- to a racial, religious, political, and sometimes a social
vox POPULI
group of individuals. We still speak about the white should be run by reason, and to cultivate the life of
and black people, the people of God, the electorate, reason demanded leisure. The working class bv defini-
and the working people, and in each case the reference tion has no leisure.
is to a different group of men and women, Normativelv In Rome also, we find at least two meanings of "the
it ha,s been used in both a eulogistic and pejorative People." The famous monogram, SPQR, standing for
sense. Thus we find "popular" government, as democ- The Senate anil tlte Rotnan People, implied a sharp
racv, contrasted with absolute monarchv. and we mean cut between the lawmakers or the Senate, and those
bv the adjective a government of which we approve. —
who were governed though associating both in the
But we also speak of popular taste as inferior to culti- results of legislation. But the Roman population had
vated taste; fev\ writers would think themselves com- another distinction that was of social as well as of
plimented to be called popular writers if the epithet political the distinction between the
importance,
meant writers who appealed only to the masses. Few patricians and the plebeians.
ideas have been so vague as the idea of the People. The patrician was the social superior to the plebeian
Historically the idea that distinguishes the People and his rank was determined bv descent. The distinc-
from the other members of a communit)' arose in tion became political when the plebeians seceded in
Athens. A democracy was a government of the Demos, 494 and there was instituted the Tribunate of the
B.C.
a term that originally meant the free inhabitants of Plebs. Thus what began as a social distinction was
a deme or locality. In time, however, it came to mean preserved by law. No one is sure of the origin of either
the free, native, male citizens of the city of Athens. the patricians or plebeians, but we do know that the
It never included slaves, women, or resident aliens latter in historical times absorbed freedmen and resi-
The Demos had the right to vote for certain
(metoikoi). dent aliens, whereas, at least during the Republic, the
and on certain policies but was far from ever
officers former were a closed caste.
being omnicompetent. Its liberation was a gradual Some Roman writers discussed the meaning of the
affair, starting with Solon (sixth centurv B.C.) and word papulus. Cicero, for instance, in his Repuhlie (I,
developing until the overthrow of .\thenian inde- 2.5, ,39) points out that the word does not refer to the
pendence under Philip of Macedon, after the Battle whole population of a state but rather to a group
of Cheroneia (336 b.c.)
There is a tradition that the associated in their agreement with the laws and who
Athenians were proud of their democracy. Some live in the community of service. To be a member of
undoubtedly were. But neither Plato nor Aristotle the populus, then, would seem to imply a conscious
thought highlv of it. will to accept the laws and live for their observance.
The reason for their low opinion derived from a Livy too in speaking of the Tribunate of the Plebeians,
second usual meaning of "the People." To Plato the savs in his History (II, 25) that it is not an office of
People were the artisan class, hand laborers, and in the people but only of the plehs. thus differentiating
Plato's eyes such men e.xisted simplv to feed themselves the plehs from the populus. Along with this political
and to procreate. In his view they corresponded to the distinction ran a social distinction, as mentioned before.
appetites of an individual man in contrast to the The contempt that the upper-class Roman had for
military (the irascible or spirited class) and the philoso- the plebeian is best illustrated in the characters who
phers (the rational). To his wav of thinking in both plav ludicrous roles in Plautus: fishermen, pimps,
hisRepublic and The Laws, a democracy would be slaves, parasites, freedmen. The people in the sense of
government run by artisans, analogous to a man the lower classes seemed to be inherently comic, a
dominated bv gluttony and lust. tradition that continued up to the nineteenth century.
In .\ristotle a similar opinion obtained. No man, he One has but to think of the plays of Shakespeare, Julius
believed, could live the life who was occupied
of virtue Caesar, Coriolanus, A
Midstimmer Night's Dream, to
solely in earning his living. He even excluded men see this exemplified. It was not until such a novel as
engaged in retail trade from the class who should Mrs. Gaskell's Mary Rarton (1848) was published that
govern. But .\ristotle also thought of each kind of any writer took members of the working class seriously,
government as constituted for the satisfaction of a set though sympathy for their hard lot had often been
of interests. The problem of the political philosopher expressed. It had been well established in the Italian
was to find that form of government that would satisfy Renaissance that only nobles could be tragic figures;
the interests of all the citizens. And his fear of mob comic figures came from the laboring classes. We retain
rule was based on the premiss that "the Many" would this usage in adjectives such as "plebeian" and "vulgar"
govern in the interests of the poor. Still both Plato (Latin, vitlgus), which are historically synonymous.
and Aristotle were willing to admit that democracy, There was bound up in this confusion of ideas the
in the sense of a government by the working class, was notion that what is plentiful, and perhaps therefore
the best of bad governments. States, they both felt. cheap, is worse than that which is rare. The Greeks 497
vox POPULI
common people — and the word "common" not followed. I'nfortunatelv no one has found the origin
called the
is suggestive
— "the Many" (Hoi and the Romans
Polloi) of the proverb, but the idea that there is something
similarly called them "the Multitude" (multitudo). We divine in general opinion goes back at least to Hesiod
too have carried on this tradition in using "rare" for (eighth century B.C.). In I Samuel 8:7, where the people
something precious, and "ordinary" or "common" for come to Samuel and ask for a king, God says to His
something cheap and therefore undesirable. Indeed this high priest, "Listen to the voice of the people, "
or in
tradition may lie behind that contempt for the vulgar the Vulgate, bv which these words were transmitted
which has never died out and which only in the middle to medieval Christians, Audi vocein populi. In this case
of the twentieth century began itself to be condemned. the voice was not the voice of God at all, and God
Christianity, influenced perhaps by Stoicism, intro- saw in the request something which His people would
duced the notion that all men, regardless of social regret in time to come. But He did say to listen to
position or nationality, are brothers. To the Stoic, the them and grant their request. Thus biblical justification
Emperor Marcus Aurelius and the slave Epictetus, was given for the theory that in the beginning kings
were equals, at least before the law or "in the eyes were elected by the popuhis. Similarly' bishops, how-
of God." This notion was perpetuated in the Middle ever nominated, had to be approved by the people
Ages in religious matters, though not in either political and popular consent was expressed in all probability
or social circles. In Pauline Christianity we are all by acclamation. But there is no ca.se of either a king
members of one body, and in Saint Augustine all who or a bishop having been elected by popular vote in
belong to the City of God are equals. But neither man the sense of universal franchise. Kings were sometimes
thought that this idea applied to all human beings. It elected by the nobility and bishops chosen from a list
applied onlv to true Christians. The City of God does submitted by a group of other bishops, but the phrase,
not exist here on earth and "Thy people Israel" itita "bv the consent of the people," was always retained.
plebs Israel) are far from being everyone. They are The People, in the sense of the working classes, took
the elect. .\ popuhis. says Saint .\ugustine, following no part in such elections other thaji that of acclaiming
Cicero, are men boimd together in harmonious com- the new bishop or king. In literature they retained their
munion (concordi communioiie) (City of God, XIX, color of the comic or the brutal. The one exception
23-24). The existent city was founded by Cain and is to this rule occurred in the case of shepherds. In
inherently evil. Hence the people, as well as their literary history two strains join here, that of the
princes, participate in hereditary guilt. This may seem pastoral poetry of Theocritus and Vergil and that of
like a rather discouraging outlook, but the fact remains the biblical accoimt of the annmiciation to the
that for Saint .\ugustine one's social position counted shepherds from Luke 2. This double strain gave
for nothingwhen it was a question of God's grace. This shepherds as literary figures a special place of esteem,
view was important and was kept alive throughout the though the service of actual shepherds was far from
Middle Ages when revolts of peasants and laborers, delightful. This is not the place to expatiate on this
beginning with the Bagaudae in the fourth century and curious bit of literary history, but it may be noted that
including the Lollards in the fourteenth, broke out it became traditional well into the eighteenth century
frequently and were put down only by superior force. when rural life began to take on romantic coloring.
One sees the idea appearing in the slogan of John Ball Its importance for us is that it contained in it the seeds
(1381) when the couplet of an element in the history of the People which has
been neglected, if known. For sympathy with the
When .\dam delved and Eve span
Renaissance and
shepherd led in the pastorals of the
Who was then the gentleman?
in the rococo period to a fantastic glorification of a
became popular. Though the Middle Ages, as appears kind of life and a class of men so far from realit)' that
in the feudal system of ranks (dignitates) and special one wonders how it could ever have been treated
privileges, was a period in which social position seriously. At the same time it is possible that out of
countedfor everything in theory, there was also in the this glorification came a growing sympathy for rural
background the notion that God was not a respecter life in general and a certain admiration for the peasant.
of persons. In the eighteenth century the songs of the peasants
In fact it was during the early Middle .Ages (eighth began to be collected, first as charming and delightful,
century) that the proverb. Vox popidi vox Dei was first and second as specimens of the voice of the people
recorded. It occurs in a letter of .\lcuin to Charle- uncorrupted by sophistication. Bishop Thomas Percy
magne. In this letter Alcuin says that the proverb is published his famous ReUques of Ancient English Po-
a customary saving and that the Emperor ought to pay etry in 1765 and stimulated a vogue for ballads and
498 no attention to it, since the popidus ought to be led, songs which has not seen its end today. Percy's ballads
vox POPULI
were and revised that none could be taken

so edited In spite of the progress of culture and political
as authentic in theform he gave it. But that fault was power, the People became too numerous to meet as
remedied by other editors as time went on. Percy Even some of the
a unit. England towns
larger New
himself believed that these poems were written and abandoned the old form of the town meeting and
sung by "bards" at the courts of nobles, but his con- substituted representation. In a large industrial and
temporary in Germany, Johann Gottfried von Herder, hence urban country the actual political power is
thought of them as literallv the people's voice, Volks- bound to be in the hands of an oligarchy, a very large
lieder. e.\pressive of the collective soul of the folk. He one to be sure, and the People as a whole are in the
collected and translated such verses from various position of voting for officers who have been nominated
countries, including some of the legendary Ossian, and behind the scenes and of being represented, rather than
was in all probability the source of the idea that the present even in municipal affairs. From the county
folk had a voice and that its voice expressed emotions through the cities up to the federal congress,
and states
that were more "authentic" than that of trained and the People's voice has grown weaker and weaker, and
sophisticated poets. It was in this vein that Wordsworth though this may be deprecated, there seems to be no
in the Preface to the Lijrical Ballads (1798) spoke of feasible alternative. On the social scene all forms of
the speech of the riu-al folk as better than that of the snobber\- still obtain and an upper upper class, to use
urban dwellers. To him poetic diction w as rural diction. Professor Lloyd Warner's term, is still recognized. But
Country people were supposed to be closer to nature as far as general culture is concerned, the United States
in one of the many senses of that word, and to praise has seen an miinteraipted spread of educational facili-
them was to elevate nature above art. ties, of concerts and exhibitions of fine arts open to
Meanwhile the social levels below that of the barons the public and often crowded, of recreational possi-
were gaining power in England and by 18.32 the fran- bilities that would have been undreamt of at the open-
chise was extended beyond the limits of the large ing of the twentieth century. This movement has
property owners. The system of rotten boroughs was av\akened the public to pleasures that it assimied be-
done away with or at least seriously threatened. This long to it b\' right, along with means of insuring public
meant that the People, as opposed to the nobilitv and health and proper housing. The welfare state has raised
the gentry, were beginning to be represented in Par- the extension of the word "People to include almost
"
liament. In France the Revolution of 1789, though it everyone. But the expression of its voice is bound to
gained the sympathy of some members of the nobility be more and more restricted except in extralegal ways.
at the start — the Due d'Orleans voting for the execu- The distinction between patrician and plebeian has
tion of his cousin, the king — gradually became the almost disappeared in the United States, though of
instrument of the urban mob; and the political gains course it still exists in social discrimination and in
made b\' the menu peuple were lost again under conversation. But the adjective "popular would prob- "
Napoleon and the Restoration. It has been said bv ably be replaced bv "folk "
as a term of praise, though
Marxists that the French Revolution was a revolution no one seems to be sure of just who the folk are.
of the bourgeoisie, and as far as permanent gains are Thehistory of the idea of the People is thus one
concerned, that opinion is correct. The spread of the in which the descriptive and normative connotations
franchise to the total adult population, female as well are closely intertwined. Whereas in the past the People
as male, did not come about in France imtil after the were in general thought of either with pity or con-
second World War. In Western Europe and the United tempt, now the pitv may be retained but the contempt
States, imiversal enfranchisement was gained only after is certainly abandoned.Moreover whereas the denota-
the industrial workers and miners saw the advantage tion of the People, even in the Preamble to the Consti-
of organization, and then only very gradually. The tution of the United States, applied to males and prop-
Chartist movement in England, so eloquently described erty owners only, represented by a small group of men
in Mrs. Gaskell's Mary Barton, was a failure, but nev- from only twelve of the thirteen states, it is now ap-
ertheless the strength of organized labor grew imtil in plied to almost everyone. It is impossible to point to
the twentieth centiu-v almost everyone had become a any one cause of this, but the predominant cause would
working man. Property qualifications for the franchise, appear to be economic. Though Mrs. Gaskell, Charles
which were universal in the early nineteenth century, Kingsley, at times Dickens, always Zola and sometimes
were gradually abandoned and the slogan, attributed the Brothers Goncourt expressed warm sympathy with
to John Jay, that he who owns the country should the lot of the working class, they had no power to
govern it, was dropped. This was perhaps because the change it. It was undoubtedly through the power of
public began to realize that the country was not only organized labor that increased wages, shorter hours,
land but also stocks and bonds and muscles. and all the fringe benefits that are now customary were 499
WAR AND MILITARISM
obtained. This accomplishment has raised the working Chilton Williamson. .American Suffrage, from Properly to
class in the United States out of the proletariat into Democracy. 1760-lHfiO tPrmceton, 1960).
the bourgeoisie.
GEORGE BO.\S
In England class consciousness is still strong, if one
may judge from [See also Class; Democracy; Equality; State; Vo/fcsgeis(.]
novels and plays; in France the peasant
class is clearly defined, as it is in Germany. Social
democracy is still unrealized in the United States, but
economic democracy is close to being realized. Politi-
cal democracy is us close to being actualized as is WAR AND MILITARISM
possible in an urban society. One always finds in study-
ing the history of an idea that old ideas hang on as General Images. The history of ideas about war and
residues of the past, and that is as true in the United militarism is largely one of combinations of prevailing
States as in Spain, to take an example of an extremely ideas in political, social, and moral philosophy. Modern
conservative country. It is always the emotional coeffi- war is an armed conflict among states. But war predates
cient of ideas that retains its potency after an idea has states and remains an expression of so pervasive and
lost its descriptive meaning. Itwould be easv to make traumatic a feature of mankind's evolution that ideas
a selection of .\mericans who would believe in all the about the origins of man's warlike tendencies are dis-
medieval baron, both the noble ideas and
ideals of a cussed in many philosophical systems. Classical and
the merely snobbish. But it is doubtful that such a neo-classical military literature thus includes philo-
selection would be a fair sample of the population as sophical discourses which mention war along with
a whole. military histories and practical soldiers' handbooks and
manuals.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Ideas about war are peculiarly, though not imiquely,
affected by historical events and social problems. The
.Mcuin, Letter 132, in Epistolue Kumlini Aeii. Monumentii
Germaniac
need numbers of men to engage in po-
to train large
Ilistorica. Vol. 4 (Berlin, 1895). .\ristophanes. The
tentially self-destructive acts, for example, grew
Knights, trans. Benjamin Bickley Rogers (London and
Cambridge, Mass., 1924: 1960). .\rislotle. Politics, trans. greater after the French Revolution had shown the
Benjamin Jowett (Oxford, 1885; 1923). Augustine, The City military value of more popular armies and after the
of God. Corpus Scriptonim Ecclesiasticorum Lalinorum, Vol. Industrial and .\gricultural Revolutions had increased
40. f;eorge Boas. Vox Popiili (Baltimore, 1969). Paul Brandt. the material resources and manpower which could be
Schaffemle .\rbeit iiml Bihlcnde Kmut, 2 vols. (Leipzig, devoted to warfare. In what Herbert Spencer later saw
1927-28). R. \V. and A. J.
Carlyle, A History of Medieval as a resulting metamorphosis of institutions, the tiine
Political Theory in the West, 6 vols. (London, 1903-36; New rerjuired to train a soldier was cut from two \'ears to
York, reprint n. d.). Vol. I. Francis James Child, The English
two months, while compulsory education for a peaceful
and Scottish Poptdar Ballads. 5 vols. (Boston, 1883-98).
life in an industrialized society increased the citizen's
G. William Domhoff, UViofiiJes Am<?rica.''(EnglewoodCliffs,
preparation for and his personal resentment of military
Max Farrand, ed.. The Records of the Federal
N.J., 1967).
training.
Contention (New Haven, 1911). .Morris D. Forkosch, "Who
are the 'People' in the Preamble to the Constitution?" Case ,\ positivistic philosophy of war was developed dur-
Western Reserve Law Review. 19, 3 (1968). S. A. Gallacher, ing the nineteenth century. This combined Carl von
"Vox Popnli, Vox Dei," Philological Quarterlt/. 24, 1 (1945). Clausewitz' view of its nature, more explicit assump-
Otto Gierke. Political Theories of the Middle Ages, trans. tions about its origins in hmnan nature, society, or the
F. W. .Maitland (Camliridge, 1900). Arnold Hauser, The state system, and a set of ideas for its management.
Social History of Art (New York, 1951). J. G. von Herder, These gave military "scientists" positive goals during
Auszug alls einem Briefwechsel iiber Ossian und die Lieder a century of peace in which the major European
alter Volker, in Samtliche Werke, ed. B. Suphan, 33 vols.
military events were Prussia's scientifically managed
(Berlin,1877-1913), Vol. 5. A. L. Lloyd, Folk Song in
victories over both Austria and France in 1886 and
England (London, 1967). Jules Michelet, Le Peuple, ed.
1870-71. The result was a clarification of what Waltz
Lucien Refort (Paris, 1946). Kirk Harold Porter, A History
(1959) sees as three images of the relations of man,
of Suffrage in the I'nited States (Chicago, 1918). Lily Ross
Taylor. Roman Voting Assemblies {.\nn .\rbor, 1966). Gerard the state, and war, and of war's origins in himian
Walter, Histoire des paysans de France (Paris, 1963). W. L. nature, in social "containers," in which, like water in
Warner and P. S.Lunt, The Social Life of a Modern Com- a boiler, men are "made to 'behave' in different ways,"
munity (New Haven, 1941). Michael Wilks, The Problem This latter view is inherent in Montesquieu's remark
500 of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1963). that ".\s soon as man enters into societ\ he loses the
—
WAR AND MILITARISM
sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then com- political and social institutions were partly based on
mences the state of war" (Esprit des his. Book I. Ch. kinship groups, but "civilized" men saw few analogies
III). between themselves and barbarians, perhaps because
"Mihtarism" is a nineteenth-century hberal pejora- they had so largely overcome the restrictions which
tive label for systems which overvalue the military tribalism places on political and military efficiency,
virtues, glorify war, or give inordinate power or re- perhaps because the technological gap between civi-
wards to soldiers. These evils became clearer as more lized and barbarian peoples, even in metallurgy, re-
uniform states replaced the feudal orders and as na- mained relatively small. Barbarian incursions might
tional and democratic armies (in which noble officers also spark slave or social insurrections, and their few
were still favored) replaced bands of mercenary mili- laws of war applied only to other civilized peoples.
tary artisans. But books on their art were still collec- War began with plunder. "Both Hellenes and Bar-
tions of maxims (from Sun Tsu's Art of War, 500 B.C., barians were commanded by powerful chiefs, who
. . .
to Burnod's Militarti Maxims of Napoleon, 1827), hand- took this means of increasing their wealth and pro-
books (Vegetius' Military Institutions of the Romans, viding for their poorer followers" (Thucydides, Pelopon-
390, or Frederick the Great's Instructions for His Gen- nesian War, trans. Benjamin Jowett, Book I. Chs. v-vi).
erals, 1747), or formal treatises of advice to princes This fitted the facts of legend and history. The Spartans
(Machiavelli's Art of War expands a paragraph in The "were virtually the first of the Greeks to feel . . . greed
Prince). for the territory of their neighbors" (Polybius, Histories,
Clausewitz' work On War (published posthumously, trans. Mortimer Chambers, Book VI, Ch. xlix). To keep
1832 -.36) became the writ of a positivistic philosophy her gains Sparta made every citizen a professional
of war after Prussia's victories in the mid-nineteenth soldier and mercenaries her main export. But Aristotle
century. Like the Marxist, Social Darwinist, and other saw her constitution as a true union of aristocracy and
social positivists of this era. Clausewitzians often used democracy, though Polybius found Rome's less demo-
On War for incantational purposes, but all of their cratic one better for expansion. The Romans managed
works reflected the events which had again freed "the the most efficient city-smashing, land-grabbing, slave-
primitive violence of war . . . from all conventional catching machine of antiquity. As Montesquieu was to
restrictions. . . . The cause was the participation of the note of this "city without commerce, and almost with-
people in this great affair of state, . . . [arising] partly out arts, pillage was the only means individuals had
from the effects of the French Revolution, . . . partly of enriching themselves" {Grandeur et decadence des
from the threatening attitude of the French toward Romains, Ch. I).
all nations." The acceptance of his view that war is Aristotle related constitutions to military systems.
"not merely a political act but a political instrument" Cavalry's replacement by infantry had been democ-
shifted debate to the right means of managing a ratizing. But modern ideas of militarism came after
"chameleon, . . . [which] in each concrete case . . . the technology which ended the dangers of barbarian
changes somewhat its character ... of the original incursions had threatened to make civilized wars self-
violence of its essence, ... of the play of probabilities destructive. Disciplined and efficient soldiers were
and chance, . . and of the subordinate character of
. necessary for a state's survival in fighting barbarians
a political tool, through which it belongs to pure . . . with very similar hand weapons. The Romans benefited
intelligence "
(Book VIII, Ch. iii; Book I, Chs. xxiv, from "the abundance and convenient accessibility of
xxviii; trans. Jollis). their military supplies," but they also glorified war.
Two world wars then shook this post-Napoleonic "Their customs" provided "many incitements to de-
War
"
science of war. Failures in the C^reat of 1914-18 velop bodily strength and
. . . personal bravery . . .
came from miscientific evaluation of weapons. The (Polybius, Book'vi, Chs. 1, Iii).
more than Napoleonic victories in the Second World Soldiers often fought each other for political power,
War confirmed a new faith in scientific mechanization. but the social costs of ancient and medieval —
But "absolute nuclear and biochemical weapons and
"
armaments and warfare are difficult to estimate. Forti-
"assured delivery systems revived doubts about war
"
fications which protected capital, surplus food, and
as a political instrument, though analogies from ritu- occasionally a transportation network may have taken
alized intraspecific and primitive conflict revived the most of the social surpluses which went to armaments.
Garden of Eden for some observers. Such public works usually used the seasonally un-
Classical Warfare. Classical observers of primitive employed labor of a "backward agricultural system. "
warriors had stressed not their play acting but their Population pressures were relieved by more distant
courage, treachery, and indiscipline. Greco-Roman ventures which might add to a state's land and labor 501
—
WAR AND MILITARISM
capital. And the disasters which overtook Rome were whom they [its subjects] can make common cause"
too insidious {soil erosion, malnutrition, endemic dis- (Cotnmonwecihh. Book V, Ch. v). The Romans, Mach-
ease, anomie) or too traumatic (plagues, barbarian iavelli noted, had made "their wars, as the French
invasions, civil and foreign wars against equal enemies) say, short and big. . . . [They led] large armies . . .
to be regarded God.
as other than acts of against the enemy and at once fought a battle." Cannon
Images of pacifism mirror a society's images of vio- favor the offensive: infantry aremore valuable than
lence. Most of the ancients whom the moderns were cavalry. "Fortresses generally aremore harmful than
to regard as rational saw internal and external political useful." And "Roman generals were never excessively
violence in terms which were not too incongruent with punished for any misdeeds; nor . . . ever pmiished . . .
Clausewitz' view of "physical force (for no moral force [for] incapacity or bad planning" (Discourses, trans.
exists apart from the state and law)" (Book I, Ch. i) Allan Gilbert, Books I-II).
as normal. Early Christians rejected as evil a society Machiavelli's ma.xims sound Napoleonic today but,
founded on coercion rather than on love. .An estab- except in the field of international law, the con-
lishedChurch regarded those who felt tliat it should and internationalist sciences
servative, liberal, socialist,
not defend itself as naive and sinful. Greco-Roman of the management of social violence did not appear
feelings of shock at Carthaginian child immolation until four centuries later. The events of those centuries
which modem Timisian historians try to explain were to simplify the problems of both politics and war.
awav — or at Christian pacifists are analogous to those Gunpowder gradually made all men tall, the infantry-
later feelings of hatred which the Faithful directed at man again dominated war. Better transportation and
Peoples of the Book who were not True Believers. And siege weapons forced soldiers to think of grand tactics
as long as the military and technological balance be- involving whole countries. More food, forage, and
tween civilized and barbarian remained relatively metals were available to support masses of men and
even, both needed an enemy to be envied, feared, horses. The French Revolution had involved many
hated, enslaved, and plundered. middle-class citizens. For the first time, perhaps, since
Medieval and Early Modern Warfare. Medieval antiquity, enough literate and politically conscious
society's hieratic military, political, and other orders citizens knew enough about war to "ask the right
defy historical generalization. .Armored horsemen and questions about battle" (Pohbius, Book XII, Ch.
. . .
fortifications dominated war and an unarmed peas- .xxviii a). .And Clausewitz was not to be the only veteran
antry. But medieval societies were not easily seen as of the Napoleonic wars to write about an art which
militaristic, and medieval Christians and Muslims had was no longer the sport of kings or the secret of cabi-
good reasons for "just" wars. Citizens of city-states saw nets and great captains.
their political and military problems as analogous to Modem and Contemporary Warfare. Every ancient
those of city-states in antiquity. The result was that soldier after him might try to be an Alexander. Every
there were few new generalizations about the relations modern one may try to be a Napoleon. The failure
of man, the state, and war before the eighteenth and of all the European armies' war plans in 1914 led
early nineteenth centuries. By that time centralized B. H. Liddel Hart to exorcise The Ghost of Xapoleon
sovereign states had taken away the right of declaring (London, 1934) by claiming that "the influence of
justwars from a broken Universal Church. And Fichte thought vipon thought is the most influential factor in
and Hegel had reconciled the individual moral imper- history, " and that Clausewitz had not been "the
atives which Kant had foimd in the natural right doc- prophet ... of Napoleon," but "the Mahdi of mass
trines of Rousseau
—
"the Newton of the moral world" and mutual massacre" (pp. II, 120). Liddell Hart ad-
with the historical imperatives of social ethics. mitted that Clausewitz was easy to misimderstand, but
Long before Clausewitz, Machiavelli mixed ancient Clausewitz' contemporary, A. H. Jomini — who had
and modern examples with a philosophy, implicit in reduced Frederick's and Napoleon's grand tactics to
his case, which saw political violence and raison d'etat geometrical figiues which are still used in military
as normal. "A wise prince . . . takes as his profession science — did not think that he was obscure, but that
nothing else than war. ... In peace he trains himself he was much too skeptical about military science. This
... to find the enemy, to choose encampments, to plan was true, though many later mathematical military
battles, and His view of Ferdinand
to besiege towns.
"
scientists failed to note in their Clausewitzian incanta-
of Aragon's actions which grew "one from another" tions his remark that while an enemy's "power of
can be "expressed as a product of two
"
so that people had "no leisure for working against him resistance "
{Prince, trans. Allan Gilbert, Chs. XIV, XXI) was to be inseparable factors: the extent of the means at his
Bodin's idea that "the best way of preserving a state disposal and the strength of his will," only the first
502 . . . against sedition . . . is to . . . find an enemy against can be estimated in "figures," and that the second
WAR AND MILITARISM
is "only approximately to be measured by the strength Tocqueville felt that "no protracted war can fail to
of the motiye behind it" (On War. Book 1, Ch. ii, 6). endanger the freedom of a democratic country," if only
The people had to be armed, although Clausewitz because "it must increase the powers of civil govern-
saw "a people's war in civilized Eurore [as] a . . . ment." Democracy's defenses against militarism and
phenomenon of the nineteenth century" which might Bonapartism lay in "characteristics of officers, non-
be "as dangerous to the social order at home as to the commissioned officers and men" which were not uni-
enemy." Prussia's conservative military reformers, es- form "at all times and among all democratic nations.
pecially after the Revolution of 1848, had to manage In every democratic army the noncommissioned offi-
national and popular "passions," while carefully train- cers will be the worst representatives of the pacific
ing and indoctrinating a mass conscript army which and orderly spirit, . . . and the private soldiers the
might again have to "advance against Paris, and engage best." If the "community is ignorant and weak," its
the French army in a great battle." Prussia was still soldiers may "be drawn by their leaders into disturb-
the weakest of the great powers. Hence Prussia and ances; ... if it is enlightened and energetic, the com-
her allies should "act with as much concentration . . . mimitv will itself keep" its leaders "within the bounds
[and] as swifthj as possible. "Clausewitz could not have of order" (ibid., IV, 231-32).
been expected to see that a new Napoleon would be Tocqueville died in 1859, the year in which Prussia's
more afraid of arming the people than Prussia's con- conservatives began to strengthen her army against
servatives would be. But he did fear that since 'bounds Napoleon Ill's designs on the Rhine. The next decade
once thrown down, are not easily built up again, . . . ended with their founding of a German Empire at
at least whenever great interests are in question, mu- minimal costs in "blood and iron." This left them in
tual hostility will discharge itself in the same manner a good position to combat the industrial classes' grow-
as it has done in our time" (ibid., Book VI, Ch. xxvii- ing egalitarianism by the deliberate promotion of a
Book VIII, Chs. ix, iii b). popular militarism which promised still more "vivid
.although "militarism" is a nineteenth-century term, and sudden luster."
its meaning received little attention from nine- During the next long peace the English liberal
teenth-century philosophers. There is no index entry Hegelian, T. H. Green, argued that more democratic
for it in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia states saw the general good less militaristically, were
Britannica (1911). John H. Muirhead's article on Hegel less prone to resort to war, and were more likely to
ignores Hegel's idea that modern war fosters unselfish- "arrive at a passionless impartiality in dealing with
ness and does not lead individuals to hate individuals, each other" (PriiKiples of Political Obligation. London
and stresses "the overpowering sense of the value of [1890], para. 175). His Social Darwinist contemporary,
organization" which had led Hegel to feel that "a vital Herbert Spencer, held that the incfividualism sparked
interconnexion between all parts of the body politic by the profit motive was the main source of modern
is the source of all good" (Encijcl. Brit., XIII, 203). social progress and that the progress of democracy and
Later, democratic saw Nietzsche's
propagandists industrialism had already resulted in "a growing per-
supermen and Treitschke's history as characteristically sonal independence, ... a smaller faith in govern-
militaristic, conservative, German, Clausewitzian, and ments, and a more qualified patriotism." These would
Hegelian. Tocqueville, on the other hand, feared that eventually lead democratic industrial societies to return
the inevitable growth of democracy would also lead to the norms of "certain uncultured peoples whose lives
to despotism and militarism. While "peace is peculiarly are pa.ssed in peaceful occupations, . . . honesty, tnith-
hurtful to democratic armies, war" and its popular fulness, forgivingness, kindness." The general "decrea.se
passions give "them advantages which cannot fail . . . of warfare" in the nineteenth century had already
in the end to give them the victory." His "secret con- brought considerable relaxation of governmental con-
nection between the military character and [that] . . . trols and popular militancy, although Germany's upper
of democracies" was the profit motive. "Men of democ- classes had successfully combined feudal controls and
racies are passionately eager to acquire what they
. . . popular nationalism to spark those "increases of arma-
covet and to enjoy it on easy conditions, . . . worship ments and of aggressive activities" which had forced
chance, and are much less afraid of death than of a temporary regression "toward the militant social
difficulty. . . . No kind of greatness is more pleasing type; alike in the development of the civil organization
to the imagination of a democratic people than military with its accompanying sentiments and ideas, and in
greatness —a greatness of vivid and sudden luster ob- the spread of socialistic theories" (Principles of Sociol-
tained without toil by nothing but the risk of life" ogy.New York [1897], Vol. II, Ch. XXIII) in Europe.
{Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeves, London Hegel and Tocqueville were closer to the realities
[1840], IV, 239-40). of people's wars and revolutions than Green and 5Uo
WAR AND MILITARISM
Spencer were. But none of this was very new, and there branch was hampered and general
specialists. Testing
were no major philosophical treatises on or major industrial progress aided by the longest general peace
histories of militarism. Each philosopher put his exam- in modern times. And "physical force was being used "
ples of Spencerian "social metamorphosis" into his to uphold the "moral force" of international law. De-
general social philosophy. On War remains the only spite the fact that Bloch's work on the future of war
major philosophical treatise on that subject. By 1914 influenced Nicholas Us call for the International Peace
Clausewitzian ideas on the scientific management of Congress of 1899, international arbitration among the
war dominated military thought, and Napoleonic mili- great powers was seen in the article on "Arbitration,
tary ideas were as miiformly widespread as Frederician International" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)
ones had been in 1789. But, as in the other social as offering only faint hope amidst "the springs of
sciences, the scientific method had been onlv partly warlike enterprise still found in commercial jealousies,
applied to the resulting mi.\ture of ancient and modern in imperialistic ambitions and in the doctrine of the
lore which bolstered the discipline and morale of the survival of the which lends scientific support to
fittest
industrial nations in arms. both "

(II, 331). The author, M. H. Crackanthorpe, was
Clausewitz did not see how the nascent Industrial the President of the Eugenics Education Society.
Revolution would change war. British arms and money Two generations of violence produced many new
had played only supporting roles in defeating Napoleon combinations of old ideas. Technology was the deu,^
in Russia and Germany. Better plamiing, rather than ex inachina in most victory, peace, and prosperity of
better weapons, had built the German Empire, though Western nations. Science, for example, is the basis for
everyone saw the importance of national industrial Kenneth E. Boulding's "great transition out of the "
potential. War's "accelerating self-transformation" was war, development, population, and entropy "traps" of
to be partly due to the "institutionalization of . . . The Meaning of the Twentieth Century (New York,
innovation in . . . research laboratories, universities, 1964). But this prolonged military intellectual crisis
. . . [and] general staffs" (William H. McNeill, The Rise produced no new ideas about the origins of war, and
of the West, Chicago [1963], p. 567), but what White- even the definition of militarism was greatly affected
head later called the "invention of the method of by national experience and by more general con-
invention" had been only partly applied in the peace- servative, liberal, and socialist ideas of conflict resolu-
time armies which took the field in 1914. tion or management.
Ardant du Picq's Battle Studies (1880) and Colmar Definitions of Militarism. Vagts's massive History
von der Goltz's The Nation in Arms (London, 1883) of Militarism: Romance and Realities of a Profession
had argued that men could only be moved against (1937, p. 11) reflected a liberal exile's view of recent
modern firepower by the "internal power" of "national German history in its distinction between a scientific
egotism." More important, France's outnumbered army "military way and an unscientific militarism. "The
"
thought that it could win a Napoleonic battle with military way is marked by concentration ... on
. . .
Germany. General Ferdinand Foch cited Frederick the winning specific objectives of power . . . with the least
Great, de Maistre, Napoleon, G. D. von Scharnhorst, expenditure of blood and treasure. It is limited in scope,
J.
Marshal de Saxe, Xenophon, and Clausewitz to show confined to one function, and scientific. . . . Militarism
that, "A battle lOon, is a battle in which one does not is so constituted that it may hamper . . . the military
confess oneself beaten, " and that the "old theory" of way. ... It may permeate all society and become
"superior numbers, . . . guns, . . . positions" was as dominant over all industry and arts. Rejecting the
"radically wrong" (Foch, Principles of War [1903], scientific character of the military way, militarism
London [1921], pp. 286, 3) as the Russian banker
and displays the qualities of caste and cult, authority and
economist Ivpn S. Bloch's statistical projections of The belief. "
But military authority rests partly on belief.
Future of War in Its TechtUcal, Economic, and Political The French army which had lost the Battle of the
Relations (1898). Bloch saw the future of war as one Frontiers defeated the Germans at the Mame, and faith
of technical military deadlock, economic collapse, and kept both armies attacking until they were finally
political and social revolution. exhausted.
Fifty years after the deadlock began, just before a Middle-class Prussian liberals were the first to define
new test of military thinking, a United States Air Force militarism. With the economic fortunes of the landed
Basic Doctrine (1964) declared that "technological and aristocracy still in decline, the officer corps sheltered
tactical improvements must be continuous. Many "
many refugees. The now traditional values of loyalty
nineteenth-century officers came from a class which to amonarch as a personal feudal lord, of nobles whose
knew as little science as many of its classically educated ancestors had sold out to or been ennobled by him,
504 critics. Weaponry was left to private contractors or were in even sharper contrast with the middle-class
a —"
WAR AND MILITARISM
values of equal opportunit) for hard work for private armies alike appeal to honor in secular language," that
profit. The first Prussian debates had turned on the "the old Christian international idea of honor" had
status of middle-class Landwehr officers whose units survived "better in newer countries with less of a feudal
were to prove untrustworthy during the Revolution of heritage, as in the United States," and that much
1848. While the same events made the middle class military history was "a phase of militarism" (pp.
as were the conservatives, its
as afraid of socialism 484-83, 21). He could not have been expected to see
growing wealth was not matched bv more openings that none of the totalitarian powers, except Japan, was
for its sons in the officer corps. militaristic in the sense that military scientists deter-
As the social effects of victory wore off, the German mined policy.
Empire's liberals returned to the attack. Prussia's con- The totalitarian powers' evaluations of air power
management
servatives did not invent "scientific "
— the most important new weapon of the interwar
late nineteenth-century term made popular by an era — were no more scientific than the evaluation of
American. Henry O. Tavlor but the\' had greath' — sea power by W'ilhelmine Germany, and rather less
extended the scope of military, educational, and politi- so than those made by the "Anglo-Americans." Their
cal management in a system which won the loyalties politicians "interfered "
in military operations more
of large segments of the middle and lower classes. often than was the case with democracies which had
Many of the most extreme Social Darwinist glorifica- improved their decision making cope
institutions to
tions of war came from such late nineteenth-century with matters which the Great War had shown be to
military publicists as Friedrich von Bernhardi. Von der "too important to be left to the generals." The postwar
Goltz felt that The Xation in Anns demanded an "in- Clausewitzians managed the populist version of con-
crease of our moral forces, . . . for ... [in Scharnhorst's servative militarism as poorly as the nobles had man-
words] 'never are moral forces at rest; they fall as soon aged France to support Tocqueville's view that "an
as they no longer increase' " (trans. Philip A. .\shworth, aristocratic nation . . . [which] does not succeed in
p. 290). These effusions did not halt the decline of the ruining" a democratic one "at the outset of the war
conservative parliamentarv parties; they did warn . . . runs a great risk of being conquered by it" (De-
Germany's neighbors of the dangers of German mili- mocracy in America, IV, 240).
tarism. And Bismarck's constitution could not cope Social Darwinism is not necessarily evidence of
with a supreme warlord who sounded like the ghost democratic militarism. Carohm E. Playne's The Neu-
of Napoleon, but could not act like the ghost of roses of tlie Natiot^ (London, 1925), Edward Glover's
Frederick the Great. War, Sadism, and Pacifism (London, 1947), and ."Mix
The German Empire was militaristic in tone, but Strachey's The Unconscious Motives of War (London,
military men did not determine its policies. The Ger- 1957) are typical popularizations of many efforts to
man army could not check massive expenditures on appiv social psychiatry to militarism. One can accept
a navy which helped to bring Great Britain into an Playne's idea of a mass mind which "first in Germany,
anti-German coalition. No staffs for scientific weapons then in France, [showed] signs of nervous breakdown,
evaluation or research and development, for arniv-navv but not that "parliamentarv government in France
cooperation, or for coordinating foreign and militarv abdicated to the War Office "
and "military authority
were up A Germany
"
policy set to advise the Emperor. popularly ruled the land, the Court and the Kaiser in
elected Reiclistag could check spending, but not mili- (pp. 461, 464) before 1914. She saw "time" and "hope"
tary or foreign policy action. Chancellor Bethmann- but German, Japanese, and Italian mili-
as curatives,
Hollweg later boasted that he had not interfered in tarism were to be cured by outside powers, while
a military policy which led to the invasion of neutral militarism remains a plausible restorative for both
Belgium. Germany became a military dictatorship in conservative and radical nationalists in many comitries.
1916. Its war aims made the destrviction of militarism The idea that militarism chiefly affects great powers
and the democratization of Germany popular goals which have accomplished something by war is sup-
among her enemies. To link their weak attempts to ported by those who see contemporary American
secure those goals with their greater efforts to weaken militarism as an outgrowth of her crusades against war,
Germany needed no Hitler. fascism, and communism. In 1890 there were less than
Postwar fascism also influenced Vagts's views of 4000 American officers on active duty in a population
militarism. Its rhetoric became
more flamboyant still of nearly 63,000,000. In spite of the demands of im-
in imposing new orders on masses which had been perialism and navalism, there were fewer than 27,000
deliberately led to hope for more revolutionary results such officers —a quarter of the number of physi-
from their sacrifices. Vagts was not sure of communist cians — in a population of nearly 130,000,000 in 1938.
militarism. He did note that "Fascist and Communist By 1965 there were 350,000 officers for "normal" 505
WAR AND MILITARISM
armed forces of 2,500,000 in a population of agreed with Spencer that industrialized democracies
195,000,000. Until the second half of this century, the were less likely to become militaristic; he wanted to
American soldiers' guild had to see war, S. P. Hunting- begin military training at ten and to cut peacetime
ton noted in 1957, "as an independent science, . . . active service to six months (L'Amiee nouvelle, Paris
the practice ... [of which] was the only purpose of [1910]; trans, as Democracy and Military Power, Lon-
military forces" (p. 255). The soundness of its profes- don [1916]). But no democratic socialist general strikes
sional advice was partly responsible for militarism's erupted in 1914. That nations in arms have fought so
growth in a liberal society in which Huntington fur- well when "great interests" are involved underlines the
thermore sees "the power of the military as "the " populistand nationalist demands for military power
greatest threat to their professionalism" (p. 464). His which may result in what Janowitz (1964b, p. 16) calls
"militarism" is Vagts's "military way." Its American "reactive militarism."
strands are "technism, popularism, and profes- Contemporary research on militarism takes in de-
sionalism" (p. 19.3), its main "historical fact . . . the veloping societies in which militarism is mainly inter-
e.xtent to which liberal ideology and conservative Con- nal, as well as developed ones, and tries to fix the
stitution . . . dictate an inverse relation between polit- degrees of political and social power held by soldiers.
ical power and military professionalism" (p. 143). Some advanced democracies now need only an internal
This first major American treatise on civil-military or international "constabulary" for peacekeeping pur-
relations found .\merican and Soviet patterns histori- poses (Janowitz [1964a], p. 12). The soldiers of some
cally "similar: . . . the dominance of a single anti- totalitarian popular democracies may well be quite
military ideologv . . . put obstacles in the way of realistic conservatives, but they are still subject to
military professionalism." Better relations between the political interference in their professional aflâirs. In
U.S. and Russia, he felt, would depend on both adopt- Huntington's view of professionalism in a liberal soci-
ing a more "conservative outlook, divorced from uni- ety, political involvement hampers professional sol-
versalistic pretensions." He defined the "military ethic" diers, who seldom get the expertise to compete with
as one which combined a conservative view of "the its political, profit-making, and technological profes-
permanence [of] evil in human nature" with the
. . . sionals. In its industrial-political-military complexes,
Hegelian "supremacy of society over the individual," soldiers mav become the scapegoats of "reactive mili-
medieval ideas of "order, hierarchy, and division of tarism." Liberals who are already suspicious of military
function," and modem ones of "the nation state as the men credit the guild's successes to its liberal indoc-
highest form of political organization, . . . the con- trination, and blame it for any political failures. Sol-
tinuing likelihood of wars among nation states, . . . and diers mavthen blame their failures on a "stab in the
the importance of power in international relations" back" by the liberal politicians who ordered the war
(ibid., pp. 463, 79). If the United States and the Soviet or the profit-makers who sold them a particular weap-
Union have become militaristic by a "realisticand ons system in the first place.
conservative" acceptance of the results of their vic- Finer (1962) sees the descent into covert or overt
tories, the process was rather like that by which defeat military rule beginning with threats of mass resignation
forced both democracy and militarism on France after or noncooperation. Then come vetoes of particular
1870. policies or politicians, manipulating or delaying elec-

Realistic conservative nineteenth-century Marxists, tions in the interest of public order, or the preventive
such as Karl Liebknecht, saw the social evil of private detention or murder of opposition politicians, and
ownership of the means of production as the source covert or overt rule by soldiers. While they can take
of all social conflict. Militarism "exhibits . . . the na- advantage of the communications and intelligence
tional, cultural, and class instinct of self-preservation, networks needed by all modem armies, their heavy
that most powerful of all instincts." Its history is that weapons may not produce for military politicians the
"of human development, . . . strained relations and force they were once supposed to have even against
between nations and states, arising from their
jealousies urban dissidents. .And as Clausewitz once remarked
desires forpolitical and social power or economic about a romantic view of people's war; "Even if we
advantage, [and] class-struggles within nations and
. . . do not consider it as an unconquerable element,
. . .
states for the same objects '

(Militarism [1907], Eng. over which the mere force of an army has as little
trans. New York [1917], p. 2). The Marxist contribution control as over the wind,
. . . we cannot drive . . .
to military thought was practical rather than theoret- armed peasants before us like a body of soldiers who
ical. Engels" ideas for training workers for the coming keep together like a herd of cattle, and usually follow
revolution did not allay conservative fears of mass their noses" {On War, Book VI, Ch. .xxvi).
506 armies' unreliability. The French socialist, Jean Jaur^s, The "reactive" theory of militarism best fits great
WAR AND MILITARISM
powers — siich as Prussia — under constant foreign mili- Nations to their Economic and Social Advantage (Lon-
tary pressure. The demand for weapons and profes- don, 1911). "Modem war," James held, "is so expensive
sional military leadership was a popular national con- that we feel trade to be a better avenue for plunder.
cern, though professional politicians with mass parties . . . Competitive preparation ... is the real war. . . .
behind them can generally get military efficiency battles are only a sort of public verification of the
without sharing real political power. Existing demo- mastery gained during the 'peace' interval. . . . When
cratic polities survived total wars in Great Britain and whole nations are the armies and the science of de-
the United States, wars which led to more effective struction vies in intellectual refinement with the sci-
civilian governments in Russia and China. Postwar ences of production, . . . war becomes absurd and
great power military aid programs increased soldiers' impossible."
power in other states, but did so by increasing their Freud took years to admit an "aggressive instinct
managerial skills as much as by giving them better alongside of the familiar instincts of self-preservation
weapons. And realistic liberals, conservatives, nation- and sex, and on an equal footing with them." But by
alists, and have tapped so many popular
socialists 1930 he felt that "men are not gentle creatures who
forces to strengthen their external and internal power want to be loved, and who at the most can defend
positions that the resulting spectrum of attitudes to- themselves if attacked." Checks on aggression are
. . .
ward the just uses of social violence can be made to one source of civilized man's discontents. It had "very
fit almost any a priori definition of militarism. probably" taken "the bees, the ants, the termites . . .
Andreski's look at "war, its alleged evil or beneficial thousands of years" to arrive "at the State institutions
effects, its causes, and the possibilities of its abolition
"
... for which we admire them." The "question for

(1954, p. 1) goes with his belief that only Weber and the human species ... [is whether] their cultural de-
Mosca among sociology's founders had examined the velopment will . . . [master] the disturbance of their
role of "military factors in shaping societies." This communal by the human instinct of aggression
life . . .
reflects "the insidious utopianism which pervades socio- [now that] they have gained control over the forces
logical thinking" and soldiers' fears that a "critical of nature to such an extent that they would have . . .
examination of the exercise of violence . . . might no difficulty in exterminating one another to the last
besmirch . . . [their] idols." But his theoretical classifi- man" (Civilization and Its Discontents [1930], New
cation of societies by military population ratios and York [1961], pp. 8, 58, 92).
levels of subordination and cohesion is only another Some Freudians' views of militarism have been noted
sign of the interests which turned Chicago scholars elsewhere. In "Personal Aggressiveness and War"
from the historical and legal studies of Wright (1942) (1938;Bramson [1964], pp. 81-103), E. F. M. Durbin
to Janowitz' "elite analysis" of Tlie Professional Soldier and John Bowlby saw the projection of aggression to
(1960) based on "empirical data on social background, internal or external scapegoats as relieving social ten-
career lines, professional ideology, and decision- sions.The work of John Dollard and others on Human
making" (1964a, p. 15) without greatly illuminating Frustrationand Aggression (New Haven, 1939) was
war's fundamental causes. followed by his practical Fear in Battle (New Haven,
Origins of War. Buchan's War in Modem Society 1943) and official Studies of Social Psychology in World
shows that if "strategic studies, the analysis of the role War II (4 vols., Princeton, 1949), but L. L. Bernard
of force in international relations, have yet to find their felt that War and Its Causes (New York [1944], p. 23)
Keynes" (1966, p. xii), social psychologists are no better still eluded "all-purpose "
definitions. And in the con-
managers of what their predecessors called the instinct temporary social explosion — from overpopulation,
of aggression. McDougall's "instinct of pugnacity" was poverty, etc. — theory of war goes little beyond
a secondary one, activated by inhibiting another. Machiavelli's or Bodin's maxims.
"Emulation" would replace it in advanced societies, Konrad Lorenz' and other ethologists' works On
to"end what has been probably the most impor-
. . . Aggression (New York, 1966) enliven the 1960's. Lorenz
tant factor of progressive evolution . . . [in] individuals sees aggression as a general instinct which is highly
and societies" (Social Psychology, London [1908], Ch. adaptive to ecological conditions. In territorial species
XI). William James felt that "our ancestors have bred it divides the habitat for their survival. In social ones
pugnacity into our bone and marrow," and that "mili- it may create hierarchical structures in which authority
tary instincts and ideals are as strong as ever." His and experience are predominant. Baboons' controlled
argument for a "Moral Equivalent of War" (1910; group aggressiveness fits their feeding habits; related
Bramson [1964], pp. 21-31) was similar to those of species act as if dominance were less important. But
Bloch or of Norman Angell's widely read The Creat ethologists study species with highly stereotyped re-
Illusion: a Study of the Relation of Miliary Power in sponses, and most of the argument is by analogy. Ag- 507
WAR AND MILITARISM
gressive human responses to many situations are far hope in the social sciences is James's hope that "the
from stereotyped even in individuals, and the social ordinary prides and shames of social man . . . are
anthropologist Ashley Montagu {On Being Human, capable of organizing such a moral equivalent ... [of
New York, 1966) sees all this as a new myth of original war]. It is but a question of time, of skillful propa-
and displace the learned
sin to project social evils of gandism, and of opinion-making men seizing historic
war and aggression to nature. opportunities" ("Moral Equivalent of War," p. 29).
Our ideas of progress and states make it hard to take Conclusion. Social science has contributed to some
Polybius' view of history as "education ... for political imderstanding of the political, technological, and mili-
action" with "the memory of other people's calamities" tary causes of particular wars. It provides psychological
as "the only source from which we can learn to bear props for the hope that it may help to kill that one
the vicissitudes of Fortime with courage" {Histories, of the four horsemen which did the most social damage
Book I, Ch. i). Wright (1964, p. 154) found so many in the first half of the twentieth century, or at least
war that studying "the engineering
historical causes of that one which is most clearly social in origin. But
of peace" was more profitable, .^fter showing war as military science is so rooted in the particular actions
"the proximate cause of the breakdown of every civili- of individuals and groups in so wide a variety of par-
zation . . . known for certain to haye broken down" ticular circumstances that the history of ideas about
and the failure of all universal empires, Toynbee (1951, the cau.ses of war and militarism remains one of new
pp. vii-xii) still hoped for "a voluntary association of combinations of old philosophical insights and ideas.
peace-loving peoples" strong and wise enough 'to
avoid any serious wish to challenge its authority." And

BIBLIOGRAPHY
McNeill {Rise .... p. 806) hopes that power "which
has dominated the whole history of mankind will "
S. .'Vndreski, Military Organization and Society (1954; 2d
"coalesce under an overarching world sovereignty ed., Berkeley, 1968). R. Aron, De la Guerre (1957), trans.
[until] the impetus now impelling men to develop new Terence Kilmartin as On War (Garden City, N.Y., 1959).
L. Bramson, and G. VV. Goethals, eds.. War: Studies from
sources of power will largely cease."
Psychology, Sociology. Anthropology (New York, 1964) is a
The voluminous works of contemporary military
fine anthology. A. Buchan, War
Modern Society: .\n
in
intellectuals contain no new ideas on the origins of war.
Introduction {London, 1966). C. von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege
They deal with tlie scientific management of war in
(1832-34), trans. O. M. J. Jollis as On War (New York, 1943).
an atmosphere of popular fears of absolute weapons B. \V. C. Cook et al., eds., The Garland Library of War
and revolutionary passions. While great powers are and Peace (New Y'ork) is a reprint series. E. M. Earle, ed..
deterred from direct attacks on each other, this may Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machta-
produce nonevents which seem like victories, and old velli to Hitler (1942; New York. 1966). S. E. Finer, The Man
ideas of influence spark wars in which "irresponsible" on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics ( New York,
small powers may manage their sponsors. Some result- 1962). S. P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The
ing problems are familiar. Guerrillas may counter su- Theory and of Civil-Military Relations (1957; New
Politics
York, 1964). .M. Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: .4 Social

perior machines hiding among the people; Americans
and Political Portrait (Glencoe, 111., 1960); idem, ed.. The
saved their men by using machines so indiscriminately
Changing Patterns of Organization New York,
New Military: (
that popular passions overturned their managers and

1964a); idem. The Military in the Political Development of
imperiled the "great interests" allegedly in question. New Nations: An Essay in Comparative Analysis (Chicago,
In this situation a "satisfactory" scientific view of 1964b). T. R. Phillips, ed.. Roots of Strategy: A Collection
war is as remote as ever. The sociologist Raymond .\ron of Military Classics (Harrisburg, Pa., 1940). Polybius, Histo-
(1959, pp. 114, 119) finds the "twentieth century an ries, trans. .Mortimer Chambers, abridged, intro. by E.
aggregate of past centuries, . . . [without] even the Badian (New York, 1966). D. B. Ralston, ed.. Soldiers and
rudiments of an advance over them," or any hopes for States: Civil-Military Relations in Modem Europe (Boston,
the further neutralization of areas threatened by nu- 1966) is a good anthology. L. F. Richardson, Statistics of
clear war,and notes that these "cannot be indefinitely Deadly Quarrels, ed. Q. Wright and C. C. Lienau (Pitts-
burgh, 1960), and Arms and Insecurity: A Mathematical
extended." The economist Boulding (Meaning. pp. . .
,
Study of the Causes and Origins of War, ed. N. Rashevsky

90-91) uses Bloch's argument. "In the age of civili-
and E. Trucco (Pittsburgh, 1960) are attempts at mathe-
zation war was a stable social institution, and for man-
und Kriegshandwerk:
matical analysis. G. Ritter, Staatskurist
kind as a whole, a tolerable one. In the twentieth
Das Problem des "Militarismus" in Deutschland (1954-64),
century the system of international relations based . . .
trans. Heinz Norden as The Sword and the Scepter: The
on unilateral national defense has broken down because Problem of Militarism in Germany, 3 vols. (Miami, Fla.,
of the change in the fundamental parameters of the 1969-). T. Ropp, War in the Modern World, 2d ed. (New
508 system, and war has therefore become intolerable." His York, 1962), history since the Hundred Years War. U.
WELFARE STATE
Schwarz, American Strategy: A New Perspective, the Grouth Thev both recognized that it was no longer possible
of Politico- Militartj Viinking in the United States (Garden to provide adequate welfare services to support indi-
City. N.Y., 1966) is view of contemporary
a favorable Swiss viduals through the family, the Church, the guild or
American militarv intellectuals. A. Storr. Human Agression private "charity." They were both aware of the fact
(New York, 1968) covers the ethological debate. A. J. Toyn- that the rise of factory industry had posed new prob-
bee, War and Western Civilization (New York, 1951). .\.
lems which demanded urgent solutions. In particular,
Vagts, A
History of Militarism: Civilian and Military (19.37;
thev identified, though in contrasting styles, social
London, 1960) contains a mass of information. K. M. Waltz,
contingencies associated with industrialization, partic-
Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York,
1959) is the most important single work. R. F. Weigley, ed..
ularly unemployment.
The American Military: Readings in the History of the and death entail hardships in any
Sickness, old age,
Military in American Society (Reading, Mass., 1969). The society: poverty was in no sense a postindustrial
West Point Military Library (VVestport, Conn.) is a second phenomenon. Yet the massing of large numbers of
important reprint series in this field. Q. Wright, A Study people in cities changed the language
in factories and
of War. 2 vols. (1942, abridged ed. Chicago, 1964). and content of and political analysis. As the
social
Unless noted otherwise, translations are by the author nineteenth century went by and, after struggles, new
of the article.
groups of the population had secured the right to vote,
THEODORE ROPP politics became more directly concerned with what to
do with newly acquired political power. The demand
[See also Nationalism; Peace; State.]
for the provision bv the state of particular social
services —a piecemeal process explicable in terms of
cimiulative administrative processes and political
pressures — was
accompanied by the articulation of
comprehensive theories of the state which rested on
WELFARE STATE argimients for positive state intervention. Thus, John
Ruskin, defying the fashionable economic orthodoxy
The term "welfare state" in English is of recent origin. of the day, urged that the state should ensure that all
First used during the Second World War, it passed into its citizens received a living wage and were guaranteed
general currency only after 1945. There had been full employment in the name of social justice. Thus,
intermittent discussion, however, some of it sophis- T. H. Green, arguing tliat "citizenship makes the moral
ticated, about the contribution the state should make man," urged the case for "positive liberalism," and
to the social welfare of all its citizens from the eight- Arnold Toynbee (1852-83), historian of early indus-
eenth century onwards. "It is the duty of a government trialization, demanded in a popular lecture of 1882 that
to do whatever is conducive to the welfare of the "where the people are unable to provide a thing for
governed," the political economist Nassau Senior, one themselves, and that thing of primary social impor-
is
of the main architects of the new English Poor Law tance, then . . . the state should interfere and provide
of 1834, argued in his Oxford lectures of 1847-48. In it for them."
the meantime, Richard Oastler, a tory-radical critic These were minority views, even then not always
both of early factory industrialism and of political free from ambiguity. Throughout the nineteenth cen-
economy, had advocated in his journal. The Fleet tury there were four curbs on effective state action
Papers, in 1842 the creation of what he called the in Britain, for long the most industrialized society.
"social state." This state would seek 'to secure the First, political economists, even when they refused to
prosperity and happiness of every class of society": it talk in slogan terms of laissez-faire, were skeptical
would be particularly concerned, also, with "the pro- about the interference of the state with the operations
tection of the poor and needy, because they require of the market: at most, they pressed for an abandon-
the shelter of the constitution and the laws more than ment of social laissez-faire while accepting the need
any other classes." for economic laissez-faire and international free trade.
Oastler was a traditionalist, and his conception of Second, belief in the importance of individual self-help
the "social state" was different from that of Senior, or mutual self-help through voluntary organizations
who believed in a market economy and in the substi- (including the friendly society and the trade union) held
tution of contract for status in the pattern of social back any effective talk of "reliance" on the state:
relations. Yet both men rejected the idea of the people were expected to fend for themselves through
property-protecting "night-watchman state" cari- savings and insurance. Action on the part of the state
catured by Ferdinand Lassalle m Germany (where the was deemed be both expensive and debilitating.
to
authority of the state was far greater than in Britain), Third, the receipt of help from the state or from local 509
WELFARE STATE
authorities carried with it a stigma. People who Other continental countries introduced insurance
accepted "reUef " were not thought of as full citizens. schemes without necessarily accepting Bismarck's cal-
The Poor Law of 1834 was based on this assumption: culations, and in .\ustralia and New Zealand there were
if was never abandoned even when the operations of politicians who believed in what the French called
the 1834 .'^ct were refined and mollified. Fourth, the "socialism without doctrines" and went much further
apparatus of the state was viewed with suspicion not than any Europeans did in urging in the name of equal
only by businessmen but by workingmen: they identi- citizenship that "the more the state does for the citizen,
fied it with unpopular social institutions and coercive the more it fulfills its purpose . . . the fimctions of the
action, and judged it not in terms of purposes which state shall be extended as much as possible. . . . True
it might fulfil but in terms of restraints which it democracy consists in the extension of state activity"
imposed. Instead of looking to the state, they looked (from a speech by New Zealand politician, W. Pember
rather to the trade union and instead of seeking direct Reeves, 1895). The New Zealand Old Age Pensions Act
political action (or, except when deemed absolutely of 1898 was the first to be passed in a British dominion.
necessary, resort to the law), they preferred to work Though it has been described as a "social palliative,"
voluntarily through collective bargaining. There was, it marked the all-important beginning of a noncontrib-
indeed, surprisingly little political talk of the state as utory pensions system.
such. As Matthew Arnold put it in 1861, "we have When in the early twentieth century the British
not the notion, so familiar on the Continent and to Liberal party carried a series of social service measures
antiquity, of the state —
the nation in its collective and which have been noted in retrospect as landmarks on
corporate character, entrusted with stringent powers the way to the welfare state, it had both German and
for the general advantage and controlling individual "colonial" experience in mind, .^t the same time, the
wills in the name of an interest wider than that of driving force behind three new welfare measures — the
individuals." feeding of school children, the school medical service,
In Germany the position was different. The word and old age pensions —
had indigenous motivation. By
"state" was generally used, and was endowed with a contrast, imemployment and health insurance, in par-
sense of authority. Moreover, the extension of the ticular, were strongly influenced by Germany, with
administrative apparatus of the state long preceded the Winston Churchill, then President of the Board of
advent of industrialism. At the same time, belief in the Trade, writing to H. Asquith in 1908 that "the Minister
autonomous market economy was far less strong, and who will apply to this country the successful experi-
an influential group of historically minded political ences of Germany in Social Organisation may or may
economists argued fervently that national economy not be supported at the polls, but he will at least have
{Volkswirtschaft) had to be converted into state econ- left a memorial which time will not deface of his
omy (Staatswirtschaft) with "welfare" as the objective. administration." The self-helping activities of working-
Bismarck did not go anywhere near as far as many classmovements were no longer thought to be ade-
of the "sociahsts of the Chair," academic protagonists quate either by a growing number of socialists anxious
of a state dedicated to welfare, but through laws passed to e.xert political influence to eliminate "povertv in the
in 1882, 1884, and 1889 he introduced compulsory midst of plenty" or by trade-union groups like the
national insurance against sickness, accidents, old age, miners and the agricultural laborers who, for various
and invalidity. "The state," it was laid down in his first reasons, could not secure their union objectives (for
unsuccessful bill of 1881, "is not merely a necessary example, a shortening of the length of the working day
but a beneficent institution." In the last years of his or a minimum wage) simply through the machinery
lifeBismarck also contemplated insurance against of collective bargaining. The charitable efforts of
unemployment and talked with assurance about "the philanthropists, it was increasingly recognized even by
right to work." His objectives were, of course, mixed. philanthropists themselves, could not alleviate all the
He wished to provide an alternative to laissez-faire social problems of an increasingly complex industrial
liberalism, but he also wished to sap the strength of society. In this recognition the publication of social
the rising socialist movement. The national state was statistics played a big part: well-documented poverty
to become an instrument of welfare within the limits surveys by Charles Booth, Seebohm Rowntree, and
set by the capitalist system and the traditional frame- others revealed the continuing extent of poverty in
work of the social order: in return the masses, he British cities after a centvu-y of economic growth and
would be attached through greater patriotism
believed, relative affluence. Once their statistics had been pub-
to the state. He conceived of social insurance, indeed, lished, wrote the Fabian socialist Beatrice Webb, "the
as a form of political insiu-ance, and the kind of society net effect was to give an entirely fresh impetus to the
in which he put his trust was as hierarchical as that general adoption of the policy of securing to every
510 extolled by Oastler. individual, as the basis of his life and work, a prescribed
WELFARE STATE
national miniimim of the requisites for efficient par- deal with conditions andwages in sweated industries,
enthood and citizenship" (My Apprenticeship [1926], where collective bargaining was ineffective, and in
p. 239). 1911, in face of Fabian as well as Conservative criti-
Beatrice Webb was prominent in the campaign cism, national insiu-ance was introduced. The term
which accompanied and followed the meetings of the "welfare state" was not used, but much of the language
Royal Commission on the Poor Laws (1905-09) to of parliamentary and public debate centered on the
substitute new welfare policies for the Poor Law of issue of state provision of welfare. "A new spirit was
1834, policies which would remove the stigma attach- disclosing itself," wrote R. B. Haldane, a Liberal min-
ing to the receipt of public money. She claimed that ister of the vear 1906. "It is not about details that the
the introduction of these policies would not onl\' mark people care or are What
the\ seem to desire
stirred.
a new stage in the history of citizenship but would is seem to have something approach-
that they should
constitute a return to older theories of the relationship ing to equality of chance of life with those among
between the individual and the community. "The whom they live. There was earnestness about state
. . .
whole theory of the mutual obligation between the intervention to be seen everywhere" (R. B. Haldane,
individual and the state, which I find myself working Autobiography [1929], p. 213).
out in my poor law scheme, is taken straight out of The measures initiated largely by Lloyd George and
the nobler aspect of the mediaeval manor. It will come Churchill after 1908, culminating in the insurance acts,
as a new idea to the present generation — it is really represented a major achievement. They were explicitly
a very old one that has been thrust out of sight in order nonsocialist — they left the profit system intact — but
to attainsome measure of equality in political rights. they introduced a greater note of responsibility into
There are some who wish to attain to a socialist state social politics and a firmer basis of collective orga-
by the assertion of economic equality — they desire to nization. They were pushed even further as a result
force the property-owners to yield to the non-property of the First World War when Lloyd George, in a
owners. I prefer to have the forward movement based different capacity, talked of creating "a land fit for
on the oliligation of each individual to serve" {Our heroes." and a Ministry of Reconstruction turned to
Partnership, London [1948], p. 385). Political affinities new proposals for change. "The public," a committee
have often been traced between the Fabian socialists of 1918 reported, "not only has its conscience aroused
and the Benthamites who played such a big part in and its heart stirred, but also has its mind open . . .
initiating and implementing the Poor Law of 1834: to anunprecedented degree." Immediate postwar re-
it is interesting to note that in this statement Beatrice forms did not go far to meet the high hopes of the
Webb was echoing rather the kind of arguments used war years, but the Unemployment Insurance Act of
by Oastler, though in a very different kind of language. 1920, passed with little criticism, greatly increased the
Yet the socialists, Fabian or otherwise, were less numbers of people insured under national schemes, and
important in the introduction of new welfare measures the Housing .Act of 1919 not only required local
than the Liberals, some of whom called themselves authorities to survey housing needs but offered govern-
"new liberals " and rejected all arguments in favor of ment subsidies to help them to provide houses. Refer-
laissez-faire. Their theories, well set out, for example, ring to this act, the National Housing and Town Plan-
by J.
A. Hobson, were reinforced by other sets of ning Council commented that "it has needed the
statistics besides those collected by Booth and earthquake shock of war to bring the nation to the
Rowntree. Statistics released in the aftermath of the recognition of the truth that it is the duty of the
. . .
Boer War concerning ill health and malnutrition raised community ... to take the necessary action, however
fundamental questions about "national efficiency." So, drastic."
too, did later figures concerning rural distress. It was The process of extending the social services con-
for reasons embedded in British historv, therefore, that tinued in Britain between 1919 and 1939 with public
after 1906 a Liberal government with a large majority provision of housing constituting the major postwar
introduced legislation, much of it controversial, to innovation. Yet there was little doubt in Britain, as in
extend welfare services. The Education (Provision of other European countries and in the United States, that
Meals) Act, 1906, permitting the provision of free large-scale involimtary mass unemployment following
meals at school for needy children, was the first of a the world depression of 1929 constituted a major
number of measures which entailed direct intervention watershed. Heavy unemployment strained poor law,
on the part of the state in an activity previously falling social service, and above all insurance systems beyond
entirely within a sphere of family responsibility. Old the limit. Insurance benefits, limited to contributions,
Age Pensions followed in 1908, though the Act was were stringently restricted, and while there were fierce
hedged round with qualifications limiting the right to arguments between socialists and nonsocialists about
receive pensions. In 1900 trade boards were set up to the imposition of a "means test" on those in receipt 511
WELFARE STATE
of uneiiiploynient relief, an I'nemployment Board, of 1938), to offer aid to tlie disabled (through the
founded in 1934, was providing a second-line income important Social Seciu-ity and to reduce
.\ct of 1935),
maintenance service, centrally administered. Keynesian unemployment. Roosevelt's policies, eclectic in char-
economic policies to eliminate unemployment were acter, have been hailed as landmarks in the history of
rejected by the government in power, but the social the welfare idea and in the evolution of empirical
consequences of unemployment were studied carefully collectivism. They certainly generated enough bitter
by advocates of a more active social service policy. opposition to account for the fact that when the term
The main theorists of large-scale intervention were "welfare state" began to be used after 1945 it was
to be found not in Britain but in Sweden and in \'ew almost alwavs used in the L'nited States in a pejorative
Zealand, with spokesmen of the New Deal in the sense,even after a number of new welfare provisions
United States urging if not the creation of a "welfare had been introduced both in individual states and by
state" the extension of "welfare capitalism." In the federal government. Yet it is certainly difficult to
Sweden, where a social democratic government came call the United States of the 1930's a "welfare state."
into power in the wake of the world depression (in ."Vt was a society where a series of improvisations
best it
Britain the Labour government went out of power) reduced the extent to which the market dictated the
a series of welfare measures was introduced based on living conditions of individuals and families and where
the assumption, as Gunnar Myrdal put it, that the state social and political gospels were publicly expressed.
must achieve certain social goals: a high standard of What was true of the United States was true, indeed,
nutrition, full employment, and social welfare for all of most coimtries in 1939, with the possible exception
its citizens. In New Zealand a Labour government, of New Zealand and of the Soviet Union where there
which took office in 1935, placed in the center of its was no problem of relating a network of state social
program proposals which had been set out since services to a market-based and privately owned indus-
1919: sustenance payments instead of relief work (the trial svstem. Russian social services were regulated
right to work was proclaimed); a national health rather in terms of the a,ssessed exigencies of "socialist
service as free as education; state housing and a statu- development," and there was no theory of welfare
tory minimum wage. The 1938 Social Security .'Vet outside the framework of Marxist-Leninist analysis. In
marked "a radical and far-reaching effort to place the Britain, too,it was clear in 1939 that the network of
claims of welfare before those of wealth." social services which had been created during the
In the United States the position was more complex. nineteenth and twentieth centuries did not constitute
There had alwavs been Americans who had urged the a system. The services were financed separately,
need for state action in welfare matters. Thus, the covered onlv limited sections of the population, and
institutional economist Richard T. Ely had argued in were restricted in duration and scope. The\' had cer-
the late nineteenth century that the state was "an tainU' not proved adequate to deal with the brute facts
educational and ethical agency whose positive aim is of poverty and malnutrition, social insecurit)' and mass
an indispensable condition of human progress and that '
unemployment.
"the doctrine of laissez faire is unsafe in politics and The great turning point came during the Second
unsoimd in morals and suggests an inadequate
. . . World W'ai which was sutficientiv protracted in length
explanation of the relations between the state and the and extensive in its influence on the lives of the masses
citizens." More than 1500 labor laws were passed bv of the population evervwhere to promote talk of a
decade after 1887. Yet
different .'\merican states in the "better world" when the war ended. There was no
American society had been shaped more by market shortage of such talk in the occupied countries and
forces than any other societ)' in the world, and there even in Nazi Germany itself, and in Britain, where the
were far more critics of state interference than there powers of the state were greatly extended after 1939,
were supporters, both in periods of affluence and in the belief was widely held that, in the words of an
periods of recession. There were over thirteen million official paper on social security policy published in
imemployed when F. D. Roosevelt became President 1944, "in a matter so fundamental, it is right for all
in 1933 and one of the objects of his .New Deal was citizens to stand in together, without exclusion based
to widen the concept of social justice in the course on differences of status, function or wealth." The argu-
of dealing with economic emergency. The policies of ment was not just that administrative processes affect-
the New Deal were derived from many different ing the operation of the social services would be
sources, but they all entailed increasing state interven- simplified if structures were "comprehensive" or "uni-
tion. No comprehensive national structure of social versal," but that through universal services, "concrete
security was introduced, but were taken to raise
steps expression would be given to the solidarity and unity
512 low incomes (through the Fair Labor Standards Act of the nation." What had been achieved in war could
WELFARE STATE
be achieved in peace "in the fight against individual Soon after the Employment Act was passed, the term
"
want and mischance. "welfare state" began to be used on both sides of the
In such statements, as in the writings of Sir William Atlantic. It was the program of the British Labour
Beveridge who did much to propound and to publicize government, brought into power at the general election
this philosophy, there was a significant shift from the of 1945, which, in particular, focussed international
idea of a social service state, improvising and extending attention on welfare policies and stimulated both its
welfare networks for people in misfortune, to that of critics and its supporters to sum up its objective as
a "welfare state" providing a basic minimmn for the creation of a "welfare state." In this connection,
everybody. There were other shifts too. As Richard the National Health Act of 1947 was of central impor-
Titmuss, the historian of British social policy during tance. "Homes, health, education and social security,
the war has remarked, "it was increasingly regarded these are your birthright," exclaimed Aneurin Bevan,
as a proper fimction or even obligation of government its architect. The act provided a universal and com-
to ward off distress and strain not only among the poor prehensive health service "without any insurance
but among all classes of society. And because the area qualifications of any sort": "it is available," Bevan
of responsibility had so perceptibly widened, it was pointed out, "to the whole population, and not only
no longer thought sufficient to provide through various is it available to the whole population freely, but it
branches of social assistance a standard of service hith- is intended, through the health service to generalise
erto considered appropriate for those in receipt of poor the best health advice and treatment." The Act was
assistance" (Problems of Social Policy [1950], p. 506). more strongly attacked in the L'nited States, where
In other words, the standards of provision on the part there was no state-provided "medicare," than in
of the state were expected to rise. "The deep desire Britain, and it did much to stimulate debate on the
of men to free themselves from the fear of want," a merits and pitfalls of a "welfare state."
desire identified in the deliberations of the Interna- Meanwhile, historians and sociologists as well as
tional Labour Organisation Conference at Philadelphia socialistsand anti-socialists were connecting the poli-
in 1944, was a foundation of policy, but welfare policy cies of the British Labour government between 1945
would be expected to fulfill further aspirations also. and 1950 with earlier landmarks in the history of the
It was perhaps in relation to unemployment, how- social services and looking for "origins" and strands
ever, the social scourge of the 1930's, that the war of continuity and "development." Different metaphors
produced the greatest transformation of attitudes. The were employed. Hitherto, T. H. Marshall wrote in
virtual disappearance of unemployment in war condi- —
1949 concerning himself less with the increased
tions suggested that it could be kept to a very low powers of the state than with the changing fabric of
figure in peacetime. Sir William Beveridge, who had citizenship — socialpolicy had always been
service
written his first study of imemployment as early as thought of as a remedial policy dealing with the base-
1909, argued in his influential Full Emploiiment in a ment of society upper floors. Now the
and ignoring its
Free Society (1945), which was strongly influenced by purpose was being extended. begun to re-model
"It has
Keynes, that "it must be a function of the state . . . the whole building," and it might even end by
to protect its citizens against mass unemployment, as "converting a skyscraper into a bungalow" or at least
definitely as it is now the function of the state to defend into a "bungalow surmounted by an architecturally
the citizens against attack from abroad and against insignificant turret." The "welfare state," to use a
robbery and violence at home" (p. 25). The doctrine different metaphor, was seeking to provide a fence to
received less general assent in the United States, al- ensure that people do not fall over a cliff, whereas the
though it was strongly supported by a number of older social-service state provided an ambulance at the
economists, including Alvin H. Hansen, and in 1946 bottom of the cliff to carry away for treatment all those
an important Employment Act laid down that it was who fell.
"the continuing policy and responsibility of the Federal Between 1947 and 1960 the term "welfare state"
Government to use all practicable means ... to pro- reached its peak currency. Two new developments took
mote maximum emplovment, production and purchas- place. First, the term began to be used everywhere,
ing power [and] to co-ordinate and utilize all its plans, even in relation to the policies of nonindustrialized
functions and resources for the purpose of creating and societies like India. It was very fashionable in newly
maintaining, manner calculated to foster and pro-
in a independent countries which were formerly part of the
mote free competitive enterprise and the general wel- British Commonwealth, and where the British Colonial
fare, conditions under which there will be afforded Office after 1945 had emphasized the need for framing
useful employment opportunities, including self-em- comprehensive welfare programs. The International
ployment, for those able, willing and seeking to work." Labour Organisation spotlighted its universal implica- 513
WELFARE STATE
tions. In an ILO report of 1950, for example, it was organized power is deliberately used (through politics
stated that "the transformation of social insurance is and administration) in an effort to modify the play of
accompanied by the absorption of co-ordination of market forces in at least three directions: first, by
social assistance,and there begins to emerge a new guaranteeing individuals and families a minimum in-
organisation for social security, which we can only come irrespective of their work or their property;
describe as a service for the citizenry at large. This second, by narrowing the extent of insecurit\- by
new organisation now concerns society as a whole, enabling individuals and families to meet certain "so-
though it is primarily directed to the welfare of the cial contingencies" (for example, sickness, old age, and
workers and their families. It tends, therefore, to be- unemploN'ment) which could lead otherwise to indi-
come a part of national government, and social security vidual or family crises; and third, by ensuring that all
policy according!)' becomes co-ordinated closely with individuals as citizens without distinction of status or
national policy for raising the standard of welfare and, class are offered the best services available in relation
in particular, for promoting the vitality of the popula- to a certain agreed, if never finally fixed, range of social
tion." services.
Second, most "advanced" countries introduced sub- Such a definition points to some of the historical
stantial welfare legislation. Scandinavia led the wav considerations which must always be emphasized. First,
both in ideas and in scope of provision, but countries the concept of "market forces" sets the problems of
Uke France and Germany, which had inherited very the "welfare state" within the context of the age of
different patterns of provision, developed new systems, modern political economy. In societies without market
particularly of social security, which by 1960 provided economics, the problem of "welfare" raises quite sepa-
more generous benefits in real terms than those offered rate issues. Second, the concept of "social contin-
in Britain. The British "welfare state" survived the fall gencies, is strongly influenced by the experience of
of the Labour government in 1951, but it was before industrialism. Third, the idea of using organized power
that fall that the costs of providing certain services (through politics and administration) to determine par-
under the national health scheme forced the govern- ticular patterns of welfare services rather than reiving
—
ment with Bevan resigning in protest to impose new — on other agencies must be set within particular
direct charges. Britain ceased to lead the way in wel- chronological frameworks. was only with the advent
It
fare legislation after 1951, although nothingwas done of or the threat of democratic politics and with the
to dismantle existing structures, and in a period of introduction of administrations which included or
increasing prosperitv there was no danger of the prob- employed experts that power could be deployed in this
lems of the 1930's repeating themselves in a new ver- manner. Fourth, the range of agreed social services
sion of economic and social crisis. In all countries must be a shifting range, with both economic and
unemployment, the main catalvst of prewar discontent, political factors influencing the scope and scale of
was kept well below its prewar figures. constituent items. Fifth, the idea of offering not
The term "welfare state" itself lost its initial force "minima" but "optima," at least in relation to some
during the 1960's, when "welfare" issues were rede- specified services, represented the major historical shift,
fined, particularly in the United States. The Economic from "the social service state" to the "welfare state."
Opportunity ."^ct of 1964 launched a "war on poverty," Sixth, the definition leaves out motives and values. For
but the difficulties of dealing adequately (locally or some advocates of a "welfare state," like Archbishop
federally) with povert\', in a societs' where the problem ^\'illiam Temple, one of the first people to use the
was inextricably entangled with ethnic questions, phrase in 1941, the "welfare state" rested on a moral
explicitly directed attention to the "values" underlying ideal.For others it crystallized as a set of expedients.
the approach to all welfare issues. They also led to For others it emerged as the product of inexorable
a more searching examination of the basic economic political pressures over a long period of time.
and social structures which most, though not all, of It follows from this historical account that the term
the sociologists and historians of the "welfare state" "welfare state" even in its heyday has usually been used
had disposed of far too easily. New slogans emerged, vaguely rather than precisely, and that it has been
and it became plain that the circumstances which had employed more frequently in political debate, often
led to the coinage of a lively new term after the end as a slogan, than in social and economic analysis. Most
of the Second World War had radically altered. usually, it has been identified through contrast rather
Given the difficulties of carrying over into historical than through explicit definition — through contrast with
analysis a term used in recent if not in current poUtics, a "laissez-faire" state or more recently with a "power
it is possible nonetheless to identify descriptively what state" or a "warfare state," and little attention has been
514 a "welfare state" seeks to do. It is a state in which devoted to the different social and political structures
WISDOM OF THE FOOL
or institutions in the different societies to which the in S. W. Higginbotham, ed., Man, Science, Learning and
label has been attached. Socialist critics of the concept, Education (Houston, 1962); M. L. Zald, ed.. Social Welfare
like Richard M. Titmuss, have talked of going "be- Institutions (New York, 1965).
yond" the welfare state, drawing attention not only ASA BRIGGS
to its limits (in terms of redistribution of incomes and
[See also Economic Histon.-; Economic Theory of Natural
the implementation of economic planning) but also to
Liberty; Social Welfare; Socialism; State; Utilitarianism.]
the uneven efforts of its operations (for example, in
satisfying the middle-class demand for health and edu-
cation more completely than the working-class need
for health and education). They have agreed, indeed,
that the term hinders rather than assists an under- WISDOM OF THE FOOL
standing of "what is actually being done in different
societies." From a nonsocialist vantage point, Jacob The paradoxical idea that the fool may possess wis-
Viner claimed in 1962 that "the welfare state is at best dom, though it was not to achieve its fullest articulation
a hastily improvised system having characteristics until the Renaissance, doubtless had its beginnings very
stretching all the way through the range from near- early in the civilizing process. As soon as it was possible
statism to near-anarchy. It is an unplanned response for man to feel nostalgia for a simpler way of life, he
to a host of historical forcesand of political pressures must also have wondered about the .superiority of a
which has not yet acquired and may never acquire, simpler kind of wisdom, whether innate or inspired,
an internally coherent and logically formulated philos- over whatever knowledge of the world he had acquired
ophy. It is undergoing constant change, and its move- through his own empirical deduction or from the in-
ments forward, backwards and sideways, are not guided struction of others. Whenever reason has been able to
by any clear and widely accepted consensus as it knows question itself and acknowledge that the heart has its
where it is going or where it should go from here" reasons that reason does not know, a kind of wisdom
(p. 226). Since 1962 the most interesting studies of the has been attributed to the fool. Men have often noticed
term have concentrated on persisting patterns of that the untutored or simpleminded, in their purity of
stratification, and on differences of values within the heart, could penetrate to profoimder truths than those
same society. The "consensus" of the wartime vears encumbered with learning and convention, in the same
helped to generate the dream, and the reality of the way that we sometimes sense a more resonant verity
"welfare state" has itself passed into history. in homely sayings or popular proverbs than in rational
exposition. It is, in fact, no accident that the fools of
literature characteristically resort to proverbial ex-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
pressions; for proverbs draw their strength, .\ntaeus-
There is a useful collection of articles and papers in like,from the humble earth and the simple heart.
S. P. Aiyer, ed.. Perspectives oti the Welfare State (Bombay,
Moreover, developing rationality, like developing civ-
1966). Thereno adequate history of the term or of the
is
ilization, has seemed to bring burdens along with
institutions associated with it, but M. Bruce, The Coming
benefits; and the more advanced the development of
of the Welfare State (London, 1961) deals with British expe-
either, the more some men, longing for an earlier,
rience as a whole, and B. S. Gilbert, The Evolution of
National Insurance in Great Britain: the Origins of the simpler, more natural state, have experienced the
Welfare State (London, 1966) and idem, British Social Policy. beguilements of the uncivilized and the irrational. The
1916-1939 (London, 1970) examine fully some of the critical concept of the wise fool, in opposing a wisdom that
chapters. T H. Marshall, Citizenship at^d Social Class is natural or god-given to one that is self-acquired, is
(Cambridge, 1949) is a basic analysis. See also B. Kirkman the most sophisticated and far-reaching of those primi-
Gray, Philanthropy and the State (London, 1908); G. Myrdal, tivistic ideas with which man has questioned his own
Beyond the Welfare State (New Haven, 1958); R. M. Titmuss, potentialities and achievements.
Essays on "The Welfare State" (London, 1958) and idem.
Income Distribution and Social Change (London, 1962);
W. G. Runciman, Relative Deprivation and Social Justice
The implications inherent in the figure of the wise
(Berkeley, 1966); J. B. Condliffe, The Welfare State in S'ew
Zealand (New York, 1959); S. B. Fry, "Bismarck's Welfare
foolgrow out of the attitudes most societies have held
State," Current History, 18 (1950); C. W. Pitkin, Social
about real fools. The names he has been given suggest,
Politics and Modern Democracies. 2 vols. (New York, 1931); in their etymological imdertones, the various charac-
H. L. Wilenski and C. N. Lebeaux, Industrial Society and teristics that have been attributed to the fool: that he
Social Welfare Services in the United States (New York, is empty-headed (/idrnios, inanis, fool), dull-witted
1958); J.
Viner, "The United States as a Welfare State," (/iiljpos, stultiis, dolt, clown), feebleminded (irnbicile. 515
WISDOM OF THE FOOL
dotard), and lacks understanding {avoo^. a<ppui', in- ety which he finds both incomprehensible and intoler-
sipiens); that he is different from normal men (idiot); ably repressive. However we may choose to express
that he is either inarticulate (Tor) or babbles incoher- the antithesis — id vs. superego, heart vs. head, chaos
ently ifattius) and is given to boisterous merrymaking vs. order, anarchy vs. culture, nature vs. art, passion
[bitffonci}: that he does not recognize the codes of vs. reason, pleasure vs. virtue. Carnival vs. Lent — his
propriety (imptti.s) and loves to mock others (A'arr); allegiance is always unmistakably clear and one-sided.
that he acts like a child (niwtos); and that he has a Bv at least the end of the twelfth century (and
natiual simplicity and innocence of heart (cvt)0t)<:, nat- probably earlier), the fool had achieved the eminence
lu-al, simpleton). Though violent madmen have, of of having his own feast day. The famous, sometimes
necessity, usually had to be restrained or incarcerated infamous. Fete des Fous gave the lower clergy, if only
by society, harmless fools have often enjoyed special ephemeralK', the traditional freedom accorded the fool.
privileges. Their helplessness has earned them the Related to the Roman Saturnalia and embodying the
pitying protection of the more fortunate, just as their spirit of carnival misrule, the Feast of Fools found its
childishness has won them the license granted children Scriptural authority in a verse from the Magnificat:
for their irresponsible — and often irreverent — words or Depostdt potentes de sede. et exaltavit Jiumile.s. Almost
actions. Since thev are guided by nothing but their three centuries later, when these blasphemous celebra-
natural instincts, the fool and the child are not held tions had been driven out of the church, they were
accountable to the rules of civilized society. For while taken over and expanded by the secular Societes
mature adults are enjoined from breaking society's Joyeuses in the towns and universities. Emulating the
accepted codes of conduct and belief on the assumption sub-deacons of the cathedrals, students and urban citi-
that they ought to "know better," the fool, like the zens took the opportunity to lord it over their betters
child, is not expected to "know" anything. Because of and mock authority, both temporal and religious, with
this, he has often been granted considerable freedom. assumed amnesty. But the original Scriptural sugges-
Perhaps more than anything else, it is this privilege tion of The World Turned Upside-Down continued to
of speaking with impunity that was to make the "all- be closely associated with the fool. For by his very
licensed fool" so attractive to the literary imagination. nature, the fool is iconoclastic, not simply irreverent
Moreover, though the fact that fools stand apart from but potentially svibversive in his inability to compre-
normal humanity sometimes caused them to be treated hend the assumptions on which authority is founded.
as objects of derision, it also sometimes caused them He is too simpleminded to see the emperor's new
to be venerated. In the Middle .'Vges, as in certain clothes and too imsophisticated to refrain from point-
primitive societies, thev were thought to be under the ing out the nakedness of the truth.
special protection ofGod, and the possibility always M the same time, the fools of the Fete des Fous
existed that what sounded like inane chatter was, in and the Societe Joveuse were not, of course, genuinely
actual fact, theopneustic glossolalia. simpleminded, and the distinction must be made be-
The modem psychologist has, retrospectively, taken tween the authentic or natural fool and the artificial
special interest in the personality of the fool; for in or professional fool. Though we do not know when
Freudian terms he embodies the untrammeled expres- it first appeared advantageous for a normal man to
sion of the Lacking any vestige of a superego, the

id. assume the guise of a simpleton, there are accounts
fool surrenders shamelesslv to his bodily appetites and in Xenophon, .^thenaeus, Lucian, and Plautus of pro-
natural desires, and he is regularly characterized by fessionally amusing parasites who earned their bread
his hunger, and obsession with obscenities.
thirst, lust, and butter with idiocies, and wealthy Romans kept
It has been pointed out that his very etymology has deformed buffoons in their households whose
a genital suggestion (follis), and the familiar bauble impudence was legendary. Their descendants are the
of the professional fool is undeniably phallic. With no Rigoletto-type fools of late-medieval and Renaissance
social personality to mask his emotions, he is childlike Evu'ope with their traditional costume of motley, cap
in the utter frankness of his responses: when happy, and and marotte. They had their heyday in the
bells,
he laughs; when sad, he cries. Since he is equally short fifteenth and sixteenth centvuies, and a few of them
of memory and unable to follow anything to its logical achieved such fame that their names are still known
conclusion, the past and the future are meaningless to to us. At least one of them, the fool of Francois I, is
him as he happily lives in and for the moment. In- supposed to have been truly witless, and the famous
structed only by his senses and his intuition and seeking fool of Sir Thomas More had suffered brain damage
only self-gratitication, he is the pleasure-principle as the result of a fall from a church-steeple; but most
enemy, the superego, represents all the

personified. His of them were men of normal intelligence who found
516 ordered conventions and civilizing rationality of soci- it profitable to adopt motley for its ability to amuse
WISDOM OF THE FOOL
and the impunity it gave them to speak freely. The let him become a he may be wise (I Corin-
fool, that
"
professional jester, whose wry quips tended not only had exemplified this foolish
thians 3:18). Christ Himself
to amuse but often to correct his master, personifies wisdom, not only when as a child He answered the
the penchant all fools have for commenting on the doctors in the temple, but also later when He con-
morals of others and affairs of state. One of the most founded the scribes and pharisees in their wisdom.
characteristic gestures of le fou glossateur, as one critic Moreover, His teaching was seen to be childlike in its
has called him, is to hold a mirror up for our scrutiny simplicity, "foolish" in its homespun imagery; and, it
and to exclaim, quoque!" It is this aspect of the

"tu was later argued, although we think of sheep as foolish
fool which was to achieve its most moving realization creatures, He was the Lamb of God. This theological
in the nameless court fool who accompanies King Lear paradox of the Wise Fool in Christ, which was to
across the barren heath of the world. provide the rationale for so many subsequent treat-
ments of die wisdom of folly, was kept alive all during

II the Middle Ages by such writers as Gregory the Great,
The idea of the wisdom (sapientia) of the fool always Scotus Erigena, Francis of Assisi, Jacopone da Todi,
stands in contrast to the knowledge (scientia) of the and Raimond Lull.
learned or the "wisdom" of the worldly {sapientia It is, however, in the late Middle Ages and out of
modema
'
mundana). In this respect, the oxymoron, "wise fool, that northern mysticism of the devotio taught
is inherently reversible: for whenever it is acknowl- by the Brethren of the Common Life at Deventer that
edged that the fool is wise, it is also suggested, expressly two of the most important Christian treatments of the
or tacitlv, that the wise are foolish. Perhaps the earliest wisdom of the fool appear, .\lmost simultaneously, near
recorded expression of this paradox is Heraclitus' ob- the middle of the fifteenth century, Thomas a Kempis,
servation that much learning does not teach wisdom in his influential Imitatio Christi, urged a Christian life
(frag. 40), but the theme was recurrent in ancient of "holy simplicity" in emulation of Christ the Fool,
literature from Aeschylus to Horace. The classical and Nicholas of Cusa (or Cusanus), in various writings,
archetype for the figure of the wise fool is Socrates, laid the philosophical gromidwork for a new concept
whom later theorists constantly invoked. Not only was of learned ignorance. Cusanus' docta ignorantia. "the
his educational method based on exposing the folly of coincidence of knowledge and ignorance," in rejecting
the supposedly wise, but he himself claimed that his rational theology and attributing to God a wisdom
own wisdom was derived from an awareness of his imattainable by man, poses serious questions about the
ignorance. In the Apology (20d-23b), he recounts how very possibility of human knowledge but finally derives
the oracle at Delphi had once said there was no man a kind of wisdom from the antithesis between the
wiser than he. Knowing that he was not wise, however, irrational absolute and logical reason. For he argues,
he attempted to disprove the oracle by finding a wiser as Socrates had before him and as Montaigne would
man among the Athenians; but he foimd that all those after him (though both in quite different contexts from
who professed wisdom were in fact ignorant, while he Cusanus'), that knowledge of our ignorance is itself a
Hence he concluded that
alone admitted his ignorance. kind of knowledge.
what the Pythian god had meant was: "The wisest of Throughout the Middle Ages, a less theolog-
vou, O men, is he who, like Socrates, knows that as ical — and, admittedly, often less wise — figure of the
far as wisdom is concerned he is actually worthless." fool capered through the softies, carnival plays, prov-
Socrates' account of human ignorance, in attributing erbs, songs, and jestbooks that appeared all over
true wisdom only to the divine, anticipates Saint Paul s Europe. Tyl Eulenspiegel, Marcolf, Scogin, Bertoldo,
claim that God has made fooli.sh the wisdom of this Robin Goodfellow, and a dozen others, though often
world (I Corinthians 1:20: 3:19). The Pauline concept nothing more than scurrilous buffoons and outrageous
of the Fool in Christ, which is given its fullest exposi- pranksters, sometimes give evidence in their jests that
tion in the Epistles to the Corinthians, affirms the they are also vessels of wisdom. In their roguery, they
worthlessness of wordly wisdom in contrast to the are the direct forebears of the confidence men of later
wisdom of the Christian, which to the world appears literature — the Elizabethan coney-catcher, Arlecchino,
folly. Claiming that we are fools for Christ's sake but Lazarillo, Siniplicius, Scapin, Melville's deaf-mute,
are wise in Christ (I Corinthians 4:10), he argues that Felix Krull; but in their wisdom, they display the char-
"the foolishness of God is wiser than men" (I Corinthi- acteristics of all fools. In particular, the legendary
ans 1:25), and he says of unbelievers that, "professing Marcolf, whose origins are distant and obscure, is one
themselves to be wise, they became fools "
(Romans of the primordial manifestations of the wisdom of folly.
1:22). "Let no man deceive himself, he exhorts; "if " Companion to the very personification of wisdom. King
any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world. Solomon, he regularly bests the sage in their encounters 517
WISDOM OF THE FOOL
by means of his earthy, natural, hteral-niinded aciiitv. Moriae encomium, written in 1509 and first published
At the same time, there were also hterary fools who in 1511, is, for all its joking, the most profoundly serious
were only fools, and the medieval imagination took and penetrating examination of the wise fool in West-
satiric delight in cataloguing them in such works as ern literature. It is no exaggeration to say that all
Wireker's Speculum stuttorwn or Lydgates The Ordre subsequent fools of note are, in one way or another,
of Folys. Their more ominous confrere, the Vice, who indebted to his figure of Stultitia, who delivers her own
replaced the bauble with a dagger of lath, proffered eulogy in The Praise of Folhj. Not onlv does she sum
temptations toEveryman on the medieval stage. up all earlier expressions of the paradox, but she also
Sebastian Brandt, gathering them all together at the manages, through her deep sense of humanity and her
end of the Middle Ages, was to confirm once more the polysemous irony, to give new dimensions to the con-
old observation of the preacher of Ecclesiastes that cept. The foolish creation of the most learned man of
stultonirn ttuinems infinitus est (1:15). .\nd, indeed, the his time, she is the literal embodiment of the word
passengers on the Narrenschiff {1494} are fools in the oxymoron, and in her idiotic wisdom she represents the
somberest sense; for, like all men, they are sinners. finest flowering of that fusion of Italian humanistic
By the end of the fifteenth century, a fairly complex thought and northern piety which has been called
set of ideas and associations had gathered around the Christian Humanism.
figure of the fool. .\t worst, he was considered a sinful Like all fools, Stultitia's basic impulse is satiric, and
instnniient of vice, who was blind to the truth and her widespread notoriety throughout sixteenth-century
had no hope of salvation. It has been suggested that Europe was largely the result of those parts of her
this attitude goes back to Saint Jerome, who translated speech in which she irreverently boasts that all the
the opening of Psalm 53/52 with Dixit insipiens in and intellectual estates of the
chief secular, religious,
corde suo, rendering the Hebrew word "nabal" as Renaissance world are under her dominion. No man,
"fool" rather than as "vile or morally deficient person." not even her own author, is exempted from her
At best, the fool was a simple innocent, devoid of the mordant ridicule as she anatomizes the follies of man-
pretentions of learning and the corruptions of worldly kind. Yet in the last analysis, it is not her satiric cata-
wisdom, into whom the spirit of God could most easilv logue but her ironic self-description which was to have
enter.The most universal characteristics of the fool, the more lasting resonance. For in explaining who she
however, lay somewhere in between the two opposite is — in asking, that is, what it means to be a fool — she
poles represented by the fool of Saint Jerome and the demonstrates that folly is not merely universal but
fool of Saint Paul; for these are his social rather than necessary and even desirable to mankind, that to be
his religious characteristics. On the one hand, he could a man is nothing other than to play the fool, and
be found in any rank of society; on the other, he was that the highest wisdom is to acknowledge this very
the .shameless critic of all ranks. He saw through the fact.
hypocrisy of social status and noble sentiments; he Portraying herself as the personification of all natural
exposed the vanity of beauty and learning. He did not instincts, she claims to be the life-force in the imiverse
believe in honor, order, measure, prudence, justice, and argues that it is only she. Folly, who keeps men
chastity, or any of the stoical restraints society imposes from committing suicide. Those impulses of man which
upon itself. If Hercules at the crossroads between virtue attempt to curb or deny his own nature are objects
and pleasure had traditionally opted for virtue, the fool of her deepest scorn. Behind this foolish naturalism lies
resolutely took the other fork and sought gratification Erasmus' deep belief, inherited from some of his
for the body rather than the spirit, arguing that there humanistic predecessors, in the goodness of nature,
will still be cakes and ale though some are virtuous. especialK' human nature —a philosophical position
It had long since been recognized, however, that he which enabled Luther later to accuse him of Pelagian-
was a formidable adversary, not just because he refused ism. Stultitia, in reflecting this belief, emerges as the
to abide by the accepted niles, but because his jocose champion of <^vai<! (nature) over all forms of v6\io% (law,
antics, like all play, could easily turn into high serious- custom, convention) which attempt to restrict nature.
ness and his unbridled tongue was capable of truth as She is, accordingly, an enemy of the Stoics, as all fools
well as foolishness. inherently are. But this fool has philosophical and
theological reasons to buttress her instinctive love of
///
pleasure. In fact, she is one of the earliest spokesmen
It was out of these antecedents that the wisest, most for the post-medieval revival of Epicunis and suggests,
important, most influential fool of all was created in as Erasmus was to argue in detail elsewhere, that "if
the first decade of the sixteenth century. Erasmus' we take care to understand the words properly "
the
"
WISDOM OF THE FOOL
true Christian is an Epicurean [CoUoquia familiaria Paul and Cusanus, and prescribes a pietistic simplicity
[1516], "Epicureus"). Though she speaks in learned of heart as the true way to divine wisdom. What is
Latin decorated with Greek tags, Stultitia is equally more, she effectively argues that, since to be a man
scornful of the pretensions of learning, whether is to be a fool, when the Son of God accepted the role
pedantic sophistry on the one hand or speculative of human frailty He became the greatest of all fools.
metaphysics on the other. In opposition to both sets
of "foolosophers," as she calls them (fioipoaoôi), she IV

extolls the humility and the simple
of ignorance Erasmus' Stultitia ushers in that host of wise fools
knowledge drawn from experience and faith. Beyond who were to play such a dominant role in European
this, she is, as always, acutely conscious of the cares thought and literature for the next hundred years, from
of mankind and the pains of existence. She laments Murner's Miirrenbeschwimmg 1512) to Cervantes' Don
(
with Ecclesiastes that "He that increaseth knowledge Quixote (1605, 1615). It has often been observed that
increaseth sorrow" (1:18), and she sadly concedes with the great fools of the sixteenth century are essentially
Sophocles that "to know nothing affords the happiest the creation of Renaissance humanism and their ironic
life" (A/ax .554). wisdom the result of the assimilation of Lucian by such
The fool's traditional penchant for turning things humanists as Alberti, More, and Erasmus himself. At
upside-down is, in Stultitia, reinforced by the profound the same time, it is equally important to recognize the
Erasmian ability to see both sides of a question. Not evidence such fools supply that the hopeful ideals of
surprisingly, she invokes one of her author's most im- humanist philosophy were already being subjected to
portant adages, "The Sileni of .\lcibiades" [Adagiorum increasing doubt. For the concept of folly, however
chiliades III. iii. 1), in which it is argued that the inner "wise, " is ultimately the antithesis of the concept of
essence of any matter is often the opposite of its outer the dignity of man; and if the medieval Feast of Fools
appearance, to explain that the apparently foolish may was religion on a holiday, the Renaissance triumph of
actually be wise, the apparently wise, foolish. This is, the wise fool was humanism on a holiday — or. perhaps
to be sure, the basis of her irony; but it is also the more accurately, humanism in mourning. The optimis-
burden of her message. For she proceeds to apply this tic dream of man and the heaven-storming possibilities
technique of reversal to all aspects of worldly wisdom, of human reason so proudly advanced by the humanists
reexamining those virtues and codes of conduct the of the fifteenth century did not concede much if any
world takes for granted to be wise, and demonstrating wisdom Though the
to folly. first humanist, Petrarch,
both their limitations and the wisdom of their foolish had claimed the wisdom of his own ignorance, the
opposites. For example, she hails Self-love (<l>(Ani,Tio) ignorance he professed was not that of the fool but
as her closest companion, only to ask if the Christian only that of the non-Averroist. It is, significantly, only
can really love his neighbor as himself if he does not, in the sixteentli century, when the shadow of skepti-
in fact, love himself. Similarly, she attacks Prudence, cism fell across hmnanist thought, that the wise fool
traditional enemy of Folly in medieval psychomachies, emerges as the spokesman for his epoch. It is precisely
not simply because fools rush in where angels fear to when he can no longer determine whether man is the
tread, but in order to show that experience can be Godlike paragon of animals or the base quintessence
valuable and that judgments are always difficult. She of dust that Hamlet puts on the antic disposition of
acknowledges that his illusions and self-delusions are the fool and walks in the corridor reading Erasmus'
as important to man as his truths; she accepts the Praiie of Folly.
passions of the heart as well as the reasons of the mind; Down the length of the sixteenth century, the wis-
and she resolves the ancient antinomy between virtue dom of folly is described in all its nuances by such
and pleasure by arguing that pleasure is a virtue. diverse authors as Ariosto, Skelton, Rabelais, Folengo,
These radical reappraisals of common assumptions Nashe, Hans Sachs, Cornelius Agrippa, Francisco
are derived throughout from a humane imderstanding Sanchez, Montaigne, and many others; the portrait of
of man's condition and a belief in the essential goodness the wise foolis drawn again and again by Breughel
of human nature if it is uncorrupted by man-made and Bosch, Massys and Holbein, and countless minor
institutions, false learning, and perversions of the will. illustrators. When Olivia, in Twelfth Night, says of the
Once man has stripped himself of these false claims clown Feste, "This fellow is wise enough to play the
to wisdom, he becomes a proper receptacle to receive fool" (III.i.60) and when Touchstone, in An You Like
the wisdom of Christ, which is the only true wisdom. It, proverbially observes that "The fool doth think he
In the conclusion of her <rreat speech, Stultitia invokes is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool
the figure of the Fool in Christ, derived from Saint (V.i.31), they are uttering what had by then become 519
WISDOM OF THE FOOL
commonplaces. In the age of Elizabeth, foolery did during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (New York,
indeed seem to walk about the orb like the sun and 19.32); Erica Tietze-Conrat, Dwarfs and Jesters in Art (New
shine everywhere; and one of Ben Jonson's last charac- York, 1957); and Enid Welsford, The Fool: His Social and
Literary History (London, 1935).
ters, looking back over the drama of the preceding
Especially valuable studies on more specific aspects of
century, can nostalgically claim that "There was no
late-medieval. Renaissance, and humanist fools, some of
plav [that is, of any merit] without a fool" (Staple of
which contain important general and theoretical discus-
News. 1st Interniean, 35). For in England especially,
sions, are: Walter Gaedik, Der Weise \'arr in der englischen
the wise fool found his true drama of home in the
Literatnr von Erasmits bis Shakespeare [Weimar and Leipzig,
Hevwood, Marston, Middleton, Dekker, Jonson, and, 1928); Hadumoth Hanckel, Xarrendarstellungen im Spdt-
above all, Shakespeare. In both the comedies and the mittelalter (Freiburg, 19.52); Marieluise Held, Das \arren-
tragedies, the Shakespearean wise fool has his splendid thema in der Satire am Vorabetid and in der Frtihzeit der
role to plav, from the bantering wit of Touchstone and Reformation (.Vlarburg. 1945); C. H. Herford, Studies in the
Feste to Vorick's gibeless skull and Cleopatra's death- Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth
bearing clown. If Jaques, in the sun-dappled world of Century (Cambridge, 1886); Walter Kaiser. Praisers of Folly:
Erasinus. Rabelais. Shakespeare (Cambridge, Mass., 1963);
Arden, can learnedlv quote The Praise of Folly to
Robert Klein, "Un aspect de I'hernieneutique a I'age de
demonstrate that all the world's a stage, it remains for
I'hunianisme: le theme fou et I'ironie hunianiste,"
Lear, in the storm-tossed kingdom of tragedy, to ac-
Vmanesimo e Ermeneutica. .\rchivio di Filosofia. 3 (1963).
knowledge that the world is "this great stage of fools."
La Forme et
11-25, reprinted in R. Klein, I' intelligible (Paris,
Lear s own fool is only the greatest of many who, for
1970), pp. 433-50; Barbara Konneker, W'esen und Wandlung
all their motley, bring tears to our eyes because of the der \'arrenidee im Zcitalter des Humanismus: Brant —
profimditv of their wisdom. Nor are those who wear Murner — Erasmus (Wiesbaden. 1966); Irmgaard Meiners,
motley the only wise fools in Shakespeare: we better Schelm und Diimmling in Erzahtungen des deutsehen
understand such otherwise dissimilar characters as Mittelalters (Munich. 1967); Rocco Montano, Follia e sag-
Falstaff and Antony when we recognize that they too gezza nel Furioso e nelV Elogio di Erasmo (Naples, 1942);
manifest many of the traditional traits of the wise fool. and H. de V'ocht. De Invloed can Erasmus op de Engelsche
Significantly, the last of the great Flenaissance fools,

Tooneelliteratuur der XVIe en XVHe Eeuuen (Ghent, 1908).
For court fools, see John Doran, The History of Court Fools
Don Qui.xote, who rides forth as the age of himianism
(London. 1858) and Carl F. Flogel, Geschichte der Hofnarren
is drawing to a close, is known to the world not for
(Leipzig, 1789). Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study
his jesting motlev but for his mournful countenance.
of the Plaij-Element in Culture (Boston, 1950) and William
To be sure, his companion, Sancho Panza, is something Willeford, The Fool and His Scepter: A Study in Clowns
of a court jester without the office —or the court; but and Their .\udiencc (Evanston, 1969) emphasize the socio-
by the beginning of the seventeenth century the pro- logical and psvcliological aspects of folly. The Fool in Christ
fessional fool had almost had his day. Even his parti- is treated by Walter Nigg, Der christlichc Xarr (Zurich and
colored costume only partially survives in the Corn- Stuttgart, 1956); and E. Vansteenberghe has written a useful
media dell'Arte. The concept of folly, however, was far introduction to Cusanus" doctrine in .\utour de la docte
ignorance. la theologie mystique au .We
Une Controverse sur
from dead. For fools, whether specifically identified as
siecle (Munster, Three basic works for the fool in
1914).
such or not, have continued down the centuries to call
drama are E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, 2 vols.
into question the claims of learning, religion, and civi-
(Oxford, 1903); Gustave Cohen, Le Theatre en France au
lization. Whenever himian reason has most proudly
.Moyen Age (Paris, 1928); and AUardyce Nicoll, Masks. Mime,
vaimted its achievements, it has been inevitably chal-
and Miracles (New York, 1931; reprint 1964). Heinz Wyss
lenged by the mocking laughter of the wise fool. Long has written an important monograph on Der Narr iin
had made his exit from the
after the Renaissance fool Schweizerischen Drama des 16. Jahrhunderts (Bern, 1959).
scene, from Grimmelshausen and Moliere and Swift .\mong many stiidies on Elizabethan and Shakespearean
to Dostoevskv's Prince Myshkin and Hauptmann's dramatic fools, the following are particularly useful: C. L.
Emanuel Quint and Yeats's Crazy Jane, the idea of the Barber, Shakespeare's Festive Comedy (Princeton, 1959);
wisdom of follv has persisted. Olive Busby, The Development of the Fool in Elizabethan
Drama (Oxford, 1923); Robert Goldsmith, Wise Fools in
Sliakespeare (East Lansing, 1955); Leslie Hotson, Shake-
1952); and Annemarie Schone,
speare's Motley (London,
BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Die weisen Narren Shakespeares und ihre Vorfahren,"
Important general studies of fools and folly include Carl Jahrbueh fUr Aesthetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft,
F. Flogel, Geschichte des Crotesk-Komischen, ed. Max Bauer 5 (1960), 202ff.
(Munich, 1914); Michel Foucault, Folie et deraison: histoire
WALTER KAISER
de la folic a Vage ctassique (Paris, 1961); Joel Lefebvre, Les
520 Foh et la folie (Paris, 1968); Barbara Swain, Fools and Folly [See also Comic; Irony; Priniitivism; Rationality.]
—
WITCHCRAFT
WITCHCRAFT incorporated into Church law. Issues to be debated for

eight centuries are raised in this ruling. The author
The unifying element in the idea of witchcraft is the distinguishesbetween those who follow the "pernicious
beUef that an evil intent may be carried out by appeal art of sorcery and nialefice invented by the devil"
to an evil incorporeal power. Some part of mankind which he condemns as heretical and those "wicked —
has always believed in a cause and effect relation women" who believe that they or other women can
between an evil intent and a subsequent injury or really "ride upon certain beasts with Diana . . . and
deatli. While most societies (Egvptian. Greek, Roman, . . . traverse great spaces of earth ... to be summoned
Germanic, .\frican) have condemned witches and to her service on certain nights" which he condemns —
sorcerers for crimes associated with the belief, Hebrew as "in every way false" and as "phantasms imposed . . .
and Christian societies have condemned the belief itself on the minds of infidels and not by the divine l)ut by
imputed crimes. In the polytheistic world
as well as the the malignant spirit. He compares night-riding (a
"
where the deities of the underworld

of classical times, nearly universal folklore element) to "dreams and
and death were part of the pantheon and most deities nocturnal visions " similar to those "in spirit" of
had boOi good and evil aspects, the belief was generally Ezekiel, John, and Paul, and concludes that whoever
included as one among many. Monotheistic Hebrew believes that any creature can be changed into another
species except by God is "beyond doubt an infidel
"
thought, however, associated the witch and sorcerer

with the idolater, forbidding an error in religious atti- (trans. Lea, Materials, I, 178-80). Here, tlie heresy
tude as well as any deeds that might result from it. involved in a sorcerer's pact with demons is distin-
It is this association that Christianity developed. guished from the mental delusions of night-riding and
The history of the idea of witchcraft in the Christian of animal transformation. Yet, in the following period,
period is mainly the history of the application by influenced by Scholastic discussions of the powers of
the Church of Judaic-Christian demonology to non- angels and demons, by the rise of dualistic heresies,
Christian — hence idolatrous — religious impulses among and by the establishment of the Inquisition, the idea
the baptized. Wherever a surviving or revived impulse of the first sort of activity came to be applied to the
came Church writers they dealt with
to the attention of second — to such an extent that by the time of the
it in terms derived from biblical statements about Malleus maleficarum (1487?) it was akin to heresy not
witches, sorcerers, the Serpent, Satan, Leviathan, and to believe in the reality of night-riding. When what
evil spirits Old Testament and the Hebrew
in the we must presume were the remnants of pagan observ-
Apocrypha, and from references to Satan and evil ances — whether imaginary or acted out — came under
demons in the New Testament (see Demonology). De- the scrutiny of Inquisitors trained in the demonology
spite the tendency throughout the Christian era to of the Christian tradition and knowledgeable in the
transmute "general supernatural power into the two various dualistic heresies of the thirteenth century, they
schools of divine and anti-divine power," as Charles construed tliem as devil worship involving the pact
Williams suggests {Witchcraft, p. 60), the attitude in with demons or the Devil and the implicit adlierence
the early centuries was
magic and sorcery,
to treat to evil incorporeal power that had been regarded as
frequently associated with the Triple Goddess Hecate heretical since the early period of the Church. In order
or Diana, as a superstition to be overcome by persua- to give a rational account within the Christian frame-
sion. For a long time these arts were not treated by work of ideas of the persistent belief in the night-flying
the Church as heresy but as infidelism. However, the witch, in such primitive ideas as that of the "evil eye,"
common belief that they could result in injiuy or death in the power of a curse, in tlie wise woman's control
was reflected in civil laws under Christian Roman over wind and weather, and in the magical power of
Emperors as well as earlier pagan Emperors, especially charms, the Church referred them to the agency of
when sorcery involved divination with its political the Devil, the tempter of Adam and Christ. But each
threat to the ruler's life. The Church was long in attempt to explain some local belief placed a new,
developing the full implications of its position with comparatively intellectual construction upon it. The
regard to pagan worship and folk customs among the resulting interpretations sifted into sermons and books
baptized despite the early Church Fathers' belief that and thence into people's minds. Worse yet, it informed
Oinnes dei gentitim sunt daemonia (Psalm XCVI, 5 the Inquisitors' leading questions and the replies from
Vulgate) and Saint Augustine's view that sorcery in- prisoners under torture. The Inquisitors and the
volved a pact with demons. Protestant judges interpreted further the extracted
The position of the Church just prior to Scholas- testimony and codified it in Inquisitorial manuals of
ticism is stated in the anonymous Canon (or Capitulum) the fifteenth century such as Kramer and Sprenger,
Episcopi recorded by Regino of Priim (ca. 900) and Malleus maleficarum, and in the judicial guides of the 52J
—
WITCHCRAFT
sixteenth centurv such as Martin Del Rio, Disquisi- conunon attitude with its emphasis upon the question
tiones magicae (1599-1601), Nicholas Remy, Daemon- of fealtv: "Does not witchcraft, then, merit death,
olatreia (1595), Jean Bodin, De magonim daemono- which is a revolt of the creature against the creator,
mania (1581) and Henri Boguet, Discours des sorciers a denial to God of the authority it accords to the
(1590-1601). Almost unwittingly, the very attempt to demon?" (Luther, p. 252).
eliminate one danger to the Church — latent infidelism Long before the theoretical possibility of witchcraft
and its peril to the soul — gave rise to a greater one was generally questioned, the Spanish Inquisitor .\lonso
the elaboration within the Church of a duahstic system de Salazar y Frias and the English Bishop Samuel
of ideas in which an evil incorporeal power assumed Harsnett questioned the evidence for the crimes
almost as much importance in men's lives as God. imputed to witches and checked the spread of accusa-
Two circumstances, one legal and one theological, tions wherever their example penetrated. The abstract
preceded the definition of witchcraft in both civil and belief in the Devil and his power lingered, especially
canon law as a crime and the elaborate systematization in the idea that he was the cause of the delusion con-
of ideas about it. First, there occurred the theocratic cerning the Sabbat — a return essentially to the tenth-
union of Church and State in tlie Christian common- centurv position of the Canon Episcopi. It informs the
wealth, in regard to which any heresv could be called work of the "hag-advocates, "
who called for common
treason. Bv the thirteenth century Emperor Frederick —
and reason writers such as Reginald
sense, ju.stice,
II and Pope Innocent III had made this identification, Scot, John Weyer. Friedrich von Spee, and even
for, as Frederick said, echoing an earlier letter of Balthasar Bekker, who, in De Betoverde Weereld
Innocent, "To offend the Divine majesty is a far greater (1690-93), argued from Scripture and reason that no
crime than to offend the majesty of an Emperor" evil spiritcould be active in the world but did not
(Maycock, Hence, when under the revived
p. 88). deny the Devil's existence. The belief in the system
Roman law, death was applied as the penalty for trea- lingered longest among Calvinists, it has been sug-
son, the way was clear for the legal extirpation of gested, because of the doctrines of the depravity of
heretics through the Inquisition and tlie secular arm. man and of the double election, the literal inter-
The second circumstance, the theological identification pretation of Scripture, Genevan theocracy, and
of all witchcraft with heresy, was more complex. Calvinism's origin in the regions of Switzerland and
Throughout the latter half of the thirteenth century France where the dualistic heresies of the Middle Ages
and during the fourteenth it was debated. Alexander had flourished and lingered undergrovmd (Davies, pp.
IV's bull Qtiod super nonnuIUs (1258) suggested that 4-12).
those sorcerers who paid honor to demons savored of General belief in witchcraft declined with the eight-
heresy, which was not new, and Nicholas Evmeric in eenth century, in part because of the rise of rationalism
his Directorium (1376) distinguished "simple" and and the general skepticism of the marvelous, as out-
"heretical sorcerers in a similar manner and subjected
"
lined bv Leckv, and in part because of the acceptance
the latter to the Inquisition. Lea notes the difficulty during the century of the idea of a fixed natural order
the Inquisition had in subjecting sorcery to itself, be- under a benevolent deity. The triumph of the latter,
cause it was supposed to deal only with beliefs not essentially Christian, idea, combined with the growth
acts. The document that drew all beliefs and practices of the scientific habit of observation of nature put an
associated with witchcraft under the laws applicable end to the belief except among the least educated.
to heresy was an article adopted by the theological With the romantic period literary interest in the idea
faculty of the University of Paris in 1.398 which of witchcraft took two directions which have continued
declared that there was an implied contract with Satan into the twentieth century. There was a strong revival
in every superstitious observance of which the expected of interest in it as historical subject matter, as in Scott's
result was not reasonably to be anticipated from Cod popular Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (1830),
and from nature. The biblical statement, "We have which led to many imitations and culminated in the
entered into a league with death; we have made a great historical works of H. C. Lea and Joseph Hansen.
covenant with hell" (Isaiah 28:15), which had since the As a theme of romantic literature all aspects were
days of Saint Augustine implied the possibility of a exploited, whether comic as in Burns' Tarn O'Shanter
pact with Satan, was taken to be the explanation for (1791) or tragic as in Melville's Moby Dick (1851).
the witch's power over men's bodies and over natural Goya's Caprichos and Pinturas negras reflect the inter-
forces —
a power which was never doubted in popular began to receive scientific study both
est in art. It also
belief. The witch as heretic and as evil-doer was the by proto-anthropologists as a survival of early European
enemy of the state, the individual, and of her own folk religion comparable to contemporary beliefs in
522 salvation. Martin Luther much later summed up the primitive parts of the world, as in Joseph Ennemo.ser,
WOMEN, SOCIAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS
History of Magic (1854) and bv psychologists as a view, her destiny lies in generic fulfillment through
mental disease, as in Samuel Hibbert, Sketches of the motherhood, physical or spiritual, and in being a help-
Philosophy of Apparitions (1825). In the twentieth cen- mate to her husband. Opposition to this position is
tury, studies of the nearly universal black African strong. Radically opposed to the idea that the feminine
acceptance of the reality of witchcraft throw light stereotype is "natural" are the findings of anthropol-
upon the European experience, especially by suggest- ogy, which suggest that "many, if not all, of the per-
ing that the problem for thinkers of the Middle Ages sonality traits that we have called masculine or femi-
was to reconcile in a rational manner the prevalent nine are as lightly linked to sex, as are the clothing,
popular belief with the Christian notion of a good and the manners, and the form of head-dress that a society
omnipotent God. Although they achieved this recon- at a given period assigns to sex" (Mead [1935], p. 279).
ciliation by regarding the evil angel and his agents as Recent research in experimental psychology also tends
operating under God, in so doing some thinkers yielded to refute the idea that the cluster of qualities expressed
to the perennial hazards of dualistic theology. by the "eternal feminine" stereotype are innate and
peculiar to women (Maccoby, 1963 and 1966). A
BIBLIOGRAPHY growing number of authors argue that the charac-
teristics of the "eternal feminine" are opposed to those
R. Trevor Davies, Four Centuries of Witch-Beliefs
(London, 1947). Joseph Hansen. Zauherwahn, Inquisition of a developing, authentic person, who must be unique,
und Heienprozess im Mittelalter (Iêipzig. 1900). Hein-
. . .
self-critical, active, and searching (De Beauvoir, 1949;
rich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, Malleus inalefcarunt, Jeanniere, 1964; Daly, 1968). Modern feminists argue
trans. Montague Summers (London. 1926). Henry Charles that the biological burdens associated with maternity
Lea. Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft, ed. A. C. and the restrictions imposed by cultural conditioning
Howland (Philadelphia, 1939); idem, A History of the In- have held women back from the attainment of full
quisition of the Middle Ages (New York, 1921). \V. E. H. human stature. They note with irony that the com-
Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of
pensation offered by society to women for acceptance
Rationalism in Europe (London, 1946). Martin Luther,
of the restrictions which it has imposed upon them in
Table-Talk ed. William Hazlitt (London, 1902). A. L.
the political, economic, social, educational, and moral
Maycock, The Inquisition from its Establishment to the Great
spheres has been imprisonment upon a pedestal.
Schism (New York and London, 1927). Geoffrey Parrinder,
Witchcraft: European and African (London, 1963). Rossell The oppressive situation of women in ancient times
H. Robbins, Encyclopaedia of Witchcraft and Demonology is The authors of both the Old
reflected in the Bible.
(New York, 1959). Ronald Seth, Witches and Their Craft and the New Testaments were men of their times, and
(London, 1967). Charles Williams, Witchcraft (London, it would be naive to think that they were free of the
1941). prejudices of their epochs. Indeed, the Bible contains
HELEN P. TRIMPl much modern woman, who is accustomed

to jolt the
some extent, as an auton-
to think of herself, at least to
[See also Demonology; Dualism; Heresy; Hermeticism;
omous person. In the writings of the Old Testament,
Romanticism.]
women emerge as subjugated and inferior beings. Al-
though the wife of an Israelite was not on the level
of a slave, and however much better off she was than
wives in other Near-Eastern nations, it is indicative
of her inferior condition that the wife addressed her
SOCIAL ATTITUDES husband as a slave addressed his master, or a subject
TOWARDS WOMEN his king. In the Decalogue a man's wife is listed among
his possessions, along with such items as his ox and
The situation of women in Western society has always his ass (Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21). While her
been fraught with ambiguity. The writings of innu- husband could repudiate her, she could not claim a
merable authors in a varietv of fields attest to the divorce. Misconduct on the part of the wife was se-
is by no means
existence of the problem, although there verely punished among the ancient Hebrews, whereas
agreement concerning the nature of the problem. infidelity on the part of the man was pimished only
Adherents of the "eternal feminine" mystique accept if he violated the rights of another man bv taking a
as normative the feminine stereotypes of our culture, married woman as his accomplice. A man could sell
according to which a "true woman" does not achieve his daughter as well as his slaves. If a couple did not
self-actualization through intellectual creativity and have children, was assumed to be the fault of the
it
participation in political, economic, and social Hfe on wife. In summary, although Hebrew women were
a level equal to that of men. Rather, according to this honored as parents and often treated with kindness, 523
their social and legal status was that of subordinate and .\dam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived
beings. Hebrew males prayed: "I thank thee, Lord, that and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved through
thou has not created me a woman." bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and
Throughout the centuries. Christian authors have holiness, with modesty (I Timothy 2:11-15).
placed great importance upon the account of the crea-

tion of Eve in the second chapter of Genesis. Combined As for women's place in domestic society, the Pauline
with the story of the Fall, this seemed to present irref- teaching was most explicit: "As the Church is subject
utable evidence of woman's essentially inferior intel- to Christ, so let wives be subject in everything to their
lectual and moral stature. Indeed, through the ages the husbands "
(Ephesians 5:24).
anti-feminine tradition in Christian culture has justified Such texts, understood as divinely inspired and with-
itself to a large extent on the story of the origin and out reference to the cultural context in which thev
activities of the "first mother," which imtil recently were written, have served as powerful instruments for
was not understood to be androcentric myth but rather the reinforcement of the subjection of women in West-
was taken as straight historical fact. A psvchoanalyst ern society. They have been used by religious authori-
who is also a student of biblical literature has sum- ties down through the centuries as a guarantee of
marized the situation succinctly: "The biblical story divine approval for the transformation of woman's
of Eve's birth is the hoax of the millennia "
(Reik [1960], subordinate status from a contingent fact into an im-
p. 124). mutable norm of the feminine condition. They have
.\ndrocentric tendencies in Western cultiu'e, rooted been instrumentalin withholding from women equal
also in the profound misogynisin of the Greeks, are education, legal and economic equality, and access to
reflected in the New Testament as well, which in turn the professions.
has served as a basis for their perpetuation throughout The low esteem for women in Western society dur-
Christendom. The most strikinglv anti-feminine pas- ing the early centuries of Christianity is reflected in
sages are in the Pauline texts. Paul was greatly con- the writings of the Church Fathers. The characteristics
cerned with order in society and in Christian assemblies they considered to be typically feminine include fickle-
in particular. It seemed important to him that women ness and shallowness, garrulousness and weakness,
should not have a predominant place in Christian slowness of imderstanding, and instability of mind.
assemblies, that they should not "speak" in pubhc or There were some violent tirades, such as that of Ter-
unveil their heads. This could have caused scandal and tullian: "Do you not know that you are Eve? You . . .
ridicule of the new

which already had to face
sect, are the devil's gateway. . . . How
you destroyed easily
charges of immorality and effeminacy. Thus he repeat- man, the image of God. Because of the death which
edly insisted upon "correct" sexTjal behavior, including vou brought upon us, even the Son of God had to die"
the subjection of wives at meetings. Paul went further {De ciillu ferninamm, libri duo I, 1). On the whole,
and looked for theological justification for the prevail- the attitude was one of puzzlement over the seemingly
ing customs. Thus, for example: "For a man ought not incongruous fact of woman's existence. Augustine
to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of summed up the general idea in saying that he did not
God; but woman is the glory of man. For man was see in what way it could be said that woman was made
not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither to be a help for man, if the work of child-bearing be
was man created for woman, but woman for man" (I excluded.
Corinthians ll:7ff.). Paul was basing his theological The Fathers found in Genesis an "explanation of "
assertion here upon the then commonly held inter- woman's inferioritv which served as a guarantee of
pretation of Genesis. The extent of the effect is in- divine approval for perpetuating the situation which
estimable. For nearly two thousand years sermons and made her inferior. There was uncritical acceptance of
pious literature have been based upon the "glory of the androcentric myth of Eve's creation and refusal,
man" theme, and this has been accepted as God's in varying degrees of inflexibility, to grant that woman
inspired word. is the image of God — an attitude in large measure
Another frequently quoted Pauline text (probably inspired by Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians. Thus
not written by Paul but traditionally attributed to him) Augustine wrote that only man is the image and glory
based on the then current interpretation of Genesis and of God. According to him, since the believing woman
used ever since as authority for the subordination of cannot lay aside her sex, she is restored to the image
women is the following: of God onlv where there is no sex, that is, in the spirit
Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I

(De Trinitate. XII, 7).
permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; Together with the biblical account and the teachings
DZ4 she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; of Church Fathers, those living in the early centuries
"
of the Christian era were confronted with an image of Genesis. Yet Paul and the Fathers had seemed to
of women produced by oppressive conditions which deny this. Thomas resolved the puzzle with a distinc-
were universal. A girlhood of strict seclusion and of tion, affirming that "in a secondary sense the image
minimal education prepared them for the life of mind- of God is found in man and not inwoman: for man
less subordinates. This was followed by an early mar- is the beginning and end of woman; as God is the
riage which effectively cut them off from the possibility beginning and end of every creature" (Sununa Theo-
of autonomous action for the rest of their lives. Their logica. I, 93, 4 ad 1). Since Thomas taught that the
inferiority was a fact; it appeared to be "natural." Thus intellectual soul is natural and es.sential to both men
experience apparently supported the rib storv just as and women and yet shared with the Fathers the feeling
the myth itself helped "explain" the common experi- that women are not quite human, there is a basic
ence of women as incomplete and lesser humans. The disharmony in his thought on this subject. The deep
vicious circle was complete. roots of his philosophical anthropology — his concep-
In the Middle ."^ges the general opinion of women tions concerning body-soul relationship and the per-
was hardly much higher, although some of the fierce- son — would have supported a conception of genuine
ness of tone was mitigated. In the twelfth century Peter equality, but the combined influence of commonly
the Lombard wrote that woman is sensuality itself, accepted biblical exegesLs, .Aristotelian biology, and the
which is well signified by woman, since in woman this prevailing image and status of women resulted in a
naturally prevails {Collectanea in epist. D. Pauli in discordant androcentrism.
epist. ad Cor., cap. XI, 8-10). Itwould be difficult to overestimate the influence
The assimilation of Aristotelianism into theology of Thomism, in which Aristotelian theory was wedded
provided new conceptual tools for fixing woman's place to the standard biblical interpretations, so that the
in the universe. The most influential medieval theo- seeming weight of "science" was added to that of
logian, Thomas .Aquinas, in the thirteenth centxiry re- authority. Thomism came to have a place of unique
asserted ."Vristotle's teaching that women are mis- pre-eminence in the church, a pre-eminence which,
begotten males, whose existence is due to some defect at least in Roman Catholicism, has lasted into modern
in the active force (that of the father) or to some times.
material indisposition, or to some external influence Despite medieval theories, there were some cases
such as the south wind, which is moist {Summa Theo- of powerful women in the Middle ,\ges. There were
logica, I, 92, 1, ad 1). For Thomas, following Aristotle, abbesses who exercised great power. The abbesses of
the role of the woman in reproduction is purely pas- Saint Cecilia in Cologne, for example, had the power
sive; she supplies the "matter" whereas the father some
of jurisdiction and of suspension over clerics. In
disposes this for the "form." From this he drew some areas there were double monasteries in which both
rather startling implications; for example, that one monks and nuns were ruled by an abbess. Although
should love one's father more than one's mother. Yet, restrictive in some ways, nunneries did open for some
of course, woman is needed for generation. Indeed, this women the road to learning and administrative posts.
seemed to Aquinas to be the only reason for the exist- There were of course some great individual women
ence of women man can be more
as such, "since a in the secular world. There were outstanding rulers
efficiently helped by another man in other works such as Clotilde and Blanche of Castille, and learned
(Summa Tlieologica, I, 92, Ic). He taught that although women like Eleanor of Aquitaine and Blanche of
there is proportional equality between man and wife, Navarre. There were great saints: Catherine of Siena
there is not strict equality; neither in regard to the had enormous influence and the story of Joan of Arc
conjugal act, in which that which is nobler is due to has no parallel. However, it would be absurd to judge
the man, nor in regard to the order of the home, in the general situation of women or the general attitude
which the woman is ruled and the man rules (Summa toward them by such examples. The prevailing low
Theologica, Suppl., 64, 3c). Women must be excluded status of women was fixed by law and custom. By canon
from Holy Orders, since "in the female sex no eminence law a husband was entitled to beat his wife. Only the
of degree can be signified" (Summa Tlieologica, Suppl., dowry system was allowed for matrimony, and under
39 Ic). Thomas revealed the same puzzlement over this system women were legally defenseless. In general
woman's existence as did the Fathers. Since he was they were considered as man's property. Since for
a more systematic thinker, he had to face the difficulty feudal lords marriages were a means of accumulating
of assimilating the anomaly of woman into an otherwise property, women were pawns in the game of acquiring
orderly universe. At points the strain is evident. wealth. Complex marriage laws offered ample oppor-
Thomas had to admit, for example, that woman is timity for trickery and abuse. Thus, although there
somehow the image of God, since this was the teaching were glorious feminine personalities in the Middle 525
Ages, there were multitudes of anonymous victims of effective in sparking the struggle for equal rights. So
hypocrisy and oppression. also was John Stuart Mill's famous work. On the Sub-
The early modern period did not bring any startling jection of Women (1869). In the United States the great
changes in the general attitude toward women. It is leaders in the fight for women's rights — Lucy Stone,
significant that Theresa of Avila, one of the most re- Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie
markable women
of all times, complained repeatedly Chapman Catt, and others —
carried on the struggle
of the ignoranceand other obstacles imposed upon her through every available means, writing, lecturing,
sex: "The very thought that I am a woman is enough organizing political support and public demonstrations.
to make my wings droop" (Life, Ch. X). Yet in the Resistance to the liberation of women came from
Renaissance some upper-class women did study Greek all sides. Philosophers as diverse as Comte and Hegel
and Roman classics. In the fifteenth century Christine failed to get the message that a new age was dawning
de Pisan wrote in defense of her sex, thus acting as and that the movement could not be stopped. Queen
one of the first harbingers of the modern feminist Victoria expressed her fury over the "mad wicked folly
movement. In the sixteenth century Erasmus of Rot- of 'Women's Rights' with all its attendant horrors."
terdam was sympathetic toward the education of Grover Cleveland, writing in Ladies Home Journal
women, as were some other Renaissance authors such (October 1905), opposed the franchise on the grounds
as Sir Thomas Elyot and Sir Thomas More. However, that "woman suffrage would give to the wives and
general practice did not keep pace with theory. The daughters of the poor a new opportunity to gratify
vision of the early humanists was not fulfilled until their envy and mistrust of the rich." In support of this
centuries later. he invoked a familiar stereotype: "We all know how

Within the Church a number of courageous women much further women go than men in their social rival-
Among
"
struggled to break the old patterns. the most ries and jealousies.
daring of the religious innovators was Mary Ward Institutional religion was not generally disposed to
(1585-1645), who founded the "English Ladies." Her welcome or encourage feminine emancipation. The
basic insight was that it was time for new possibilities official Catholic reaction in the nineteenth and twen-
for dedicated religious women bevond the confines of tieth centuries manifested the persistence of the con-
the cloister. She intended that her group would work between the Christian concept of women as per-
flict
"in the world," conducting schools for girls. They were sons,made to the image of God, and the notion of
to be like the Jesuits, but would not be subject to them. them as inferior, derivative beings. Since this is the
Rather, they were to be governed directly by women most dramatic and powerful example of institu-
responsible solely to the pope, independently of bish- tionalized religion s resistence to feminism in West-
ops and of men's orders. .\ strong advocate of the em culture, and since it reflects and reinforces
emancipation of women, she planned to teach girls idea patterns in other cultiu'al institutions, it merits
Latin and other secular subjects which heretofore had scnitiny.
been reserved largely for men. For her pains, she was The first pope to confront the emancipation move-
rewarded with persecution by clerical enemies and was ment was Leo XIII. Against the socialists, whom he
arrested as a heretic and a schismatic. Mary Ward and saw as threatening the stability of marriage, he de-
other courageous contemporaries did not live to see fended "paternal authority." As for the husband-wife
the fulfillment of their aspirations, but they broke relationship, he reaffirmed the subjection of the female,
ground for the future. supporting this position by an interpretation of Genesis
Throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nine- no longer acceptable to modern biblical scholarship
teenth centuries consciousness of women s potential (Encychcal Arcanum Diiinae. 1880). Leo XIII viewed
and of their plight continued to grow. In France, divorce as an unqualified evil, claiming that by divorce
writers such as Moliere. Poulain de la Barre, Voltaire, "the dignity of womanhood is lessened and brought
and Mercier wrote in favor of the emancipation of low, and women run the risk of being deserted after
women. Diderot and Helvetius both recognized that having ministered to the pleasures of men "
(Encyclical
woman's inferiority was created by society and by the Arcanum Diiinae, 1880). The other side of the picture,
absurdity of their education. Condorcet strongly advo- the fact that many wives desired to be freed from
cated their political emancipation. Unfortimately for partners who exploited their wives' inabihty to obtain
the feminist movement, however, the Napoleonic Code a divorce under existing laws was tacitly passed over.
blocked the emancipation of Frenchwomen and kept In 1919 Benedict XV
pronounced in favor of votes
them legally and politically powerless throughout the for women, but this did not represent any sweeping
nineteenth century. In England, Mary WoUstonecraft's change in the official outlook. It would be naive to
52o A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) was suppose that official attitudes were not affected by the
consideration that women's votes would probably sup- and the facts of modem life. \ key concept in the
port conservative and religions parties. whole adjustment to modern society was "spiritual
Resistance to the striving for equal education for motherhood," an easily manipulated concept which
women was strongly put forth by Pius XI, who wrote: permitted some degree of expansion of the traditional
role but with serious limitations. Thus he wrote that
False also and harmful to Christian education is the so-

"a true woman cannot see and fidly understand all the
called method of "coeducation "

. . . There is not in nature problems of human life otherwise than under the family
itself, which fashions the two quite different in organism, aspect" (Address to Women of Catholic Action, October
in temperament, in abilities, anything to suggest that there 21, 1945). The expression "tniewoman" is charac-
can he or ought to be promiscuitv, and much less equality, teristic of this kind of ideology, implying that anyone
in the training of the two sexes" iEncvclical Diiini lllius who does not fit the stereotype is not what she should
Magistri. 1929L The ideology
be. that shaped Pius XII's utterances on
women was one in which they are seen as totally
It is noteworthy that Pius XI linked coeducation with "other." It is not surprising, then, that there is little
equality and therefore opposed it. same encycli-

In the sign of sensitivity to their problems and personal aspi-
cal he taught that the differences between the sexes rations. The following statement reveals this lack of
should be "maintained and encouraged, "
thus un- compassion and imagination:
wittingly conceding that these differences may not be
as natural in origin as he insists they are. It is striking .\ cradle consecrates the mother of the family; and more
that Pius XI's language more than once displays this cradles sanctify and glorify her before her husband and
characteristic of unwitting self-refutation. He attacked children, before church and homeland. The mother who
"false teachers" for proclaiming that the married complains because a new child presses against her bosom
woman should, to the neglect of her family, "be able seeking nourishment at her breast is foolish, ignorant of
to follow her own bent and devote herself to business herself, and unhappy. (Address to nbmen of Catholic Action.
and even public affairs '
(Encyclical Casti Connuhii, October 26, 1941).
19.30). It is the admission of such an ambitious "bent"

in women that reveals the shakiness of his views about Moreover, he affirmed that a mother "loves it [her
"the natural disposition and temperament of the female child] the more, the more pain it has cost her" (Address
sex." Closely allied to this phenomenon of self- to Obstetricians, October 29, 1951).
contradictory expressions is the occurrence of ambiv- Pius XII was completely satisfied with his own views
alent language. Thus, Piux XI could write: "True of women, insisting that "these peculiar characteristics
emancipation will not involve false liberty and un- which distinguish the two sexes reveal themselves so
natural equality with the husband ' (Casti Connubii). clearly to the eyes of all" that only obstinate blindness
Anyone interested in the analysis of language would or doctrinairism could disregard them (Address to
be fascinated with the problem what the adjectives of Women of Catholic Action, October 21, 1945). The idea
in that sentence do to the nouns. Again, in the same that the stereotypes which he accepted as immutable
letter, Pius XI refers to equality in dignity between nature might be the effect of social conditioning was
husband and wife and then effectively negates this by not given serious consideration by this pope or his
affirming the necessity of "a certain inequality." It is predecessors.

obvious that he favored the traditional androcentric Catholic ideology on the took a prom-
official level
situation; yet the pressure of social evolution forced ising swing upward with Pope John XXIII, who
him to use expressions which have just enough am- affirmed the equal rights and duties of man and woman
biguity to leave the door open a crack for unavoidable in marriage, without the customary nullifying adjec-
social change. Thus: "This subjection of wife to hus- tives (Encyclical Pacem in Terns, 1963). Vatican II's
band in its degree and manner may vary according Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modem
to the different conditions of persons, place, and time." World also reflected this upward swing, affirming that
Pius XII in his copious utterances manifested the "with respect to the fundamental rights of the person,
same resistance to change, the same ambivalence char- every type of discrimination, whether social or cultural,
acteristic of an ideology in a state of transition. He whether based on sex, race, color, social condition,
saw the gainful employment of married women solely language, or religion, be overcome and eradicated
is to
as an obligation taken on for the family, and not at as contrary to God's law." Although the post- Vatican
all as a means of self-actualization or as a contribution II years have witnessed a regression in official Catholic
to society. There is indecision between a supposedly ideology, this official ideology has become less and less
ideal situation, that of a bygone agricultural society. influential on thought and practice. Theology itself is 527
to a great extent becoming liberated from this official no legal protection against discrimination (Lutz [1968|, p.
influence and turning witli increasing interest to the 298).
data of experience analyzed by the methods of scien-

tific disciplines. Although official Catholicism remains In effect, this absence of guarantee by the Fovir-
the most powerful bastion of conservatism, pressure teenth .\mendment means that at any time a law can
continues to come both from outside its structures and be passed by Congress or by anv state which would
from u ithin its active membership, e.g., from a feminist discriminate against women or bar them from certain
organization of Catholic women, the Saint Joan's In- forms of work or education. Such a law would not be
ternational .\lliance (originally the Catholic Women's unconstitutional. In fact, laws in some states do today
Suffrage Societv. founded in England in 1911). seriously limit the rights of married women. The
AlUiough Protestantism on the whole has tended to Massachusetts Committee for the Equal Rights
be somewhat more advanced, the same basic patterns .\mendment has pointed out that laws in some states
are observable both in ideology and in practice. limit a married woman's right to contract, to engage
Women are admitted to tlie ministry in a number of in business, to separate domicile, to the guardianship
Protestant churches, but even in those churches dis- of children, to dispose of property by will, to serve
crimination persists. A significant proportion of major on juries, to contract for her labor on the same terms
theologians, from Luther to Barth and Bonhoeffer, in as men. The Committee maintains that the Equal
a manner somewhat less blatant than that of their Rights for Women .Amendment would wipe out the
Catholic coimterparts have perpetuated a fimda- English Common Law valuation of women, giving
mentallv infrapersonal view of woman. them full protection under the constitution and making
As already indicated, however, it would be a mistake vmconstitutional all laws discriminating against women
to think that the infrapersonal conceptualizations of as well as making it possible to enforce Title VII of
woman have been conserved and promulgated in the the Civil Rights .\ct in cases of discrimination on the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries only by institutional basis of sex. It also sees this amendment as the best
religion. The majority of philosophers seem to have hope for bringing the United States into compliance
suffered a suspension of their critical powers when it with the United Nations Charter, which upholds the
came to this question, although there have been out- "equal rights of men and women" and the United
standing exceptions such as Marx and John Stuart Mill. Nations Declaration on the elimination of discrim-
Freud, for all his was not able to get beyond
genius, ination against women, adopted bv the General As-
the conventional stereotype, and was convinced that sembly. November 7, 1967.
a woman who wanted to be someone, who was am- The Equal Rights for Women .Amendment was first
bitious and self-actualizing, must be sick with penis introduced in 1923 by the National Women's Party and
envy. Politicians who opposed woman suffrage and has been reintroduced in every session of Congress. It
educators who opposed equal education have been was opposed through the years even by many who
legion. maintained that women need protective labor legisla-
Despite the opposition, the battle for women's tion. However, in new wave of
very recent years a
suffrage was won in most coimtries in the West. In support for it has grown. Senator Eugene McCarthy
Great Britain and Germany it was granted in 1918, sponsored the bill in the senate and a number of prom-
in the USSR in 1917, in the United States in 1920, inent national organizations have endorsed it.
in France in 1944. As far as education is concerned, It is increasingly recognized that women still do not
there is hardly any field in which women today, after participate on an equal basis with men in politics and
many years of denial, cannot obtain higher degrees. the professions. In the 1960's a sense of desperation
Nevertheless, even basic legal equality does not yet over the decline of women's participation in the United
exist for women in the United States. The Federal end of World War II sparked a renewed
States since the
constitution was framed and adopted mider the inflvi- concern over equal rights. It was noted with alarm that
ence of the English Common Law valuation of women, only 7% of doctors in the U.S. were women, less than
which does not regard women as legal persons or 4% of lawyers, and less that 1% of federal judges, and
entities. A historian of American feminism has pointed that there was an increasing tendency for women to
out: be concentrated at the bottom of the job ladder in the
Supreme Court
more menial and routine jobs. In 1966, in Washington
Through the years, repeated decisions, as
late as 1961, have held that women
do not rate the "equal D.C. a group of concerned persons formed the National
protection of the laws" because they were not regarded as Organization for Women (NOW), whose purpose is "to
legal "persons" when the Constitution and the Fourteenth take action to bring women into full participation in
528 .\niendment were adopted. This means that women have the mainstream of American society now, exercising
all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in tnilv intelligent women, granddaughters of the founders of
equal partnership with men." Composed of men and the Republic" (Lutz [1968], pp. 294-9.5). Thus there
women. NOW works to break through the "silken has been an ambivalence in feminism's history; it ob-
curtain" of discrimination against women in American tains the necessary thrust toward action through union
life. NOW has been particularly industrious in pres- with other revolutionary movements and at the same
suring the Equal Employment Opportunity Commis- time it tends to fall short of its goals by reason of its
sion to carry out effectively the mandate against sex lack of autonomy. This has been witnessed again one
discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act hundred years later, when discrimination on the basis
of 1964. In 1968 it endorsed the Equal Rights Amend- of sex became banned in Title VII of the Civil Rights
ment. Its members seek nothing less than complete .\ct as a sort of rider, when was racial
the basic concern
equalitv for women in government, industry, the pro- discrimination.Not too surprisingly, those charged
fessions, the churches, the political parties, the judici- with the implementing of Title VII have focused their
ary, the labor unions, and in all fields of importance attention chiefly on cases of racial discrimination, ten-
in American life. ding to overlook sex discrimination.
It is instructive to note that despite the struggles This lesson of history has not been lost on yoimg
of modem-day feminists in the United States, there is women activists of the New Left. In many cases, the
little evidence that even those legal changes which ability to comprehend the lesson arose from the expe-
already have taken place have in fact been translated rience of participation in meetings at which young
into profound institutional change. The franchise and women across the United States have shared the expe-
other legal victories, as many feminist authors (e.g., rience of gaining political sophistication and awareness
Betty Friedan) and social critics have observed, have of revolutionary tactics. They have also shared the
to a large extent been hollow victories. They will discouraging experience of being cast into the tradi-
remain such until they work their way into the verv tional feminine role precisely within a movement
structures of society. which presents itself as engaged in struggle for the
It has been pointed out that there is no sex equality liberation of the oppressed classes. As a result of this
until women on an equal basis with
actually participate complex experience of social awakening shared by
men in politics, occupations, and the family. That is, many women university students in the late 1960's a
women must want to participate and be able to partic- significantand extraordinary movement has developed.
ipate. This cannot happen "unless ways are devised Commonly known as the Women's Liberation Move-
to ease the combination of home and work respon- ment, it surfaced to public attention in 1968 and has
sibilities. This is precisely what has not occurred" (Rossi been gaining momentum since then. Its most obvious
[1964], p. 610). qualities are the youthfulness and the political and
This observation invites serious reflection upon the social radicalness of its membership. Although they
history of the feministmovement. Historians and soci- express solidarity with the members of NOW, the
ologists observe that has never been a completely
it adherents of the Women's Liberation Movement pro-
autonomous movement. It has been effective when fess a more revolutionary ideology. Their goal is not
joined with other reform movements. Alice Rossi notes equal participation in the American political and eco-
this: "By linking the feminist cause to the antislavery nomic system as it now is — a goal which they consider
or social welfare movement, women were able to work self-contradictory and self-defeating. Rather they see
together with men of similar sympathies and in the hope only in a radical transformation of that system.
process they enlisted the support of these men for the Basically in agreement with Engels' thesis that "the
feminist cause" (Rossi [1964], p. 611). De Beauvoir first class oppression coincides with that of the female
reflects that feminism has been in part an epiphenome- sex by the male" they conclude that female liberation
non reflecting a deeper social drama. The problem has is basic to all other struggles, since it strikes at the
been that feminism's lack of autonomy has held it back foundation of all other forms of oppression.
from complete fulfillment. Thus women in the anti- It is interesting to note that whereas in 1964 sociolo-
slavery movement who petitioned Congress in the gist had written that the decline of political
Rossi
1860's to enfranchise women either before or at the radicalism and the general state of affluence and social
same time as Negroes were confronted with the slogan: conservatism in American society since World War 11
This is the Negro's hour. "This slogan was repeated have contributed in subtle ways to the decline of femi-
so constantly that people in general, and even some nism, by the end of the same decade a profound politi-
women, was more important
actually believed that it cal polarization among the younger generation gave
to enfranchise thousands of illiterate Negroes than to a new feminist movement, the effectiveness of
rise to
confer the inherent right of citizenship upon educated, which cannot yet be judged. oZz)
WORK
BIBLIOGRAPHY actually the more general world view shared by two

major thinkers of antiquitv, Plato and Aristotle.
Jane Addams, Twenty Years of Hull House (New York,
1960). D. S. Bailey,The Man-Woman Relation in Christian In the Gorgias (.512b), Plato, through thewords of
Thought (London, 1959). M. Daly, The Church and the Callicles, asserts that maker
no matter how useful the
Second Sex (New York, 1968). S. De Beauvoir. Le deuxieme of war machines may be, "you denigrate him and his
sexe (Paris, 1949); Irans. as The Second Sex (New York, 1953); art, so that "you would not wish to give your daughter
"
many Century of Struggle (Cambridge,

reprints). E. Flexner, in marriage to his son." Nor should it be thought that
1959). B. Friedan, The Fetninine Mystique (New York, 1963). Aristotle is judging casually when he puts forth his
J.
Hole and E. Levine, Rebirth of Feminism (New York, 1972). theory that making and knowing how to make things
A. Jeanniere, Anthropologic sexuclle (Paris, 1964); see the
is the servile activity of slaves under the dominion of
Foreward by D. Sullivan to the American edition, trans.
their masters, the virtues peculiar to master and slave
]. Kiernan (New York, 1967). A. S. Kraditor, ed.. Up from
being clearly di.stinct (Politics, 1277ff.).
the Pedestal. Selected VVrifings in the History of American
It is consequently natural for Aristotle to regard
Feminism (Chicago, 1968), and idem. The Ideas of the
work as a secondary activity, in the sense that though
Woman Suffrage Movement, i890-i920 (New York, 1965).
A. Lutz, Crusade for Freedom: Women of the Antislavery
work seems to emancipate us from things, it really
Movement (Boston, 1968) and idem. Susan B. Anthony: imprisons us. It is better for man, and more in accord
Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian (Boston, 1959). E. Maccoby, with his essence, to retire within his true self bv think-
ed.. The Development of Sex Differences (Stanford, 1966) ing, and thus to participate in the work of God. It
and "Woman's The Potential of Woman, eds.
Intellect, " follows, for Aristotle, that living is essentially learning
S. M. Farberand Wilson (New York, 1963), pp. 24-39.
R. H. L. and understanding, for knowledge contains the su-
H. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization (Boston, 1955). Marx, preme virtue which actualizes and consummates in
Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, The Woman Qtu'Stion (New York,
man the work of divinity. Man's destiny is to keep
1951). M. Mead. From the South Seas (New York, 1939) and
himself immune from the sensory world and to advance
idem. Sex and Temperament in Tliree Primitive Societies
steadilv to the world of pure thought, not merelv in
(New York, 1935). Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (New York,
work (ei'cpyna) but in theorizing (Ooxipia). In the activ-
1970). R. Morgan, ed.. Sisterhood Is Powerful (New York,
1970). William L. O'Neill, Everyone Was Brave (Chicago.
ity of thinking man attains his highest felicitv or
1969). T. Reik. The Creation of Woman (New York, 1960). blessedness; the which man can attain
happiness
Robert Riegel, American Feminists (Lawrence, Kan., 1963); through practical virtue is secondary and is associated
idem, American Women: A Story of Social Change (Ruther- with the life he is compelled to lead in dealing with
ford, N.J., 1970). A. Rossi, "Equality between the Sexes; An the world's external things (Niconiachean Ethics
Immodest Proposal," Daedalus (Spring, 1964), 607-52. Page 1169-70, 1177-78; Metaphysics 982a).
Smith, Daughters of the Promised Land (Boston, 1970). M. Ancient thought, however, does not lack various
Thompson, ed., V'oicfs of the New Feminism (Boston, 1970).
expressions of a certain appreciation of human labor,
MARY DALY apart from any prejudice that others may have had.
In general such assertions are found among authors
[See also Church as Institution; Conservation; Equality;
belonging to the school of Sophists and other minor
Law, Equal Protection; Protest Movements.]
schools. For example, Antiphon proclaims the harsh
necessity of work insofar as life is accepted for what
it is. This life is certainly not easy or sweet, but it
nevertheless acquires meaning when it is crowned with

WORK success (Stobaeus, IV, 22.2.66; a fragment translated
in / sofisti, ed. M. T. Cardini, Bari [192.3], p. 126; also
The GREEK word hamnisia means mechani-
{/iafavaia) in Minor Attic Orators, Loeb Library, Vol. I). But Prodi-
cal skill, more generally manual work, and has a pejo- cus of Chios, in the circle of the Sophists, states the
rative connotation. The opposing thought was that definitive thesis about work in his apology, Hercules
man's destiny should be linked to thinking, more spe- Xenophon's Memorabilia

at the Crossroad. Referring to
cifically to contemplation. The Gods of Olympus watch (II, I, on the virtue of labor
21-34), Prodicus insists
the world from on high in the light of ideas, and bask which gives dignity to the life of man.
in eternity. An interpreter like R. Mondolfo bases his views on
Among many examples that may be given of this a dualism of ethnic groups by blaming the warlike
attitude, the following two will suffice. Xenophon says aristocracy of the Dorians for imposing on the con-
that the mechanical arts bear the mark of social decay quered .Achaeans the yoke of laboring on the lands
and bring dishonor toGreek cities {Economica, IV, which had become their booty, even though such labor
530 203). His statement is not a haphazard one, but reflects was contrary to the social rank of the conquered.
WORK
Conquering groups prefer a contemplative life to one say that "he became poor, that ye through his poverty
burdened bv work; the conquered consider that keep- might be rich" (11 Corinthians 8:9).
ing their pledge of labor is a duty though far from There are many reasons behind this revaluation of
achieving perfect liberty- Work is the ransom paid for work; only some will be sketched here. Above all,
the sake of keeping alive. work, while it assures one of being independent of
Reference to an eternal life in religious intuition poUtical power (Philippians 4:11), furnishes one with
comes out Greek world, but becomes deter-
of the the means for giving charitably "to him that needeth"
minant and definite in Judaism and finally in Christi- (Ephesians 4:28). It thus comes about that this work
anity. The book of Genesis (3:17-19) says that hard is purified as a means and instrument of love among
work is a result of Adam's sin. Man is condemned to men. These are the reasons that pass from the apostle
labor because he must expiate the original sin. Never- into the oldest Christian literature (Didache, Book IV;
theless it should not be thought that labor suffices to 1 John 3:17).
restore man's lost status or dignity before God. Holy The antitheses sketched above lasted during the
Scripture savs that "All the labor of man is for his entire medieval period, which valued work to the
mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled" (Ecclesiastes extent that it might further the ends of asceticism, but
6:7), which means that the soul needs much
clearly the Middle Ages also subordinated work to the con-
more than work redeem itself; it needs prayer and
to templative life, and to the spiritual adoration of God.
the contemplation of God. Merely economic activi- It suffices to recall the Rule of Saint Benedict, its
ties or goods are not sufficient for salvation if the formula of "pray and work" (ora et labora), in order
recognition of God is absent. On this recognition is to understand the idea of enjoying the liberating spirit
based the alliance or covenant which links God to of work, obviously on the plane of a discipline of the
his people. mind, exactly what the discipline of genuine asceticism
It is important to note that the Jews continue to is said to be. Ecce labora et noli contristari "There he (
cherish a world without drudgery or with little drudg- works and refuses to be gloomy).
ery, a world independent of labor. God's gift is pre- However, there is a larger picture that must include
cisely a collection of temporal goods, the reward of the view outlined; it makes reference to a doctrine that
faith in the one and only God. The intervention of God again refutes any definitely pragmatic attitude and
in the economy assures his people of the reestablish- orders man to concern himself with the spirit in a
ment of the more perfect conditions of existence, the radical dedication to God.
reign on earth of the plenitude of his gifts. The regen- It is a matter of defining the sphere of human
erated earth will no longer require hard work; opulent knowledge, the arts (the "arts" signifying the same as
and fruitful, it will satisfy the needs of the chosen the "sciences") which constitute it, being the very
people. articulations of knowing. These arts proceeded in a
Such motives are taken up again by Christianity, but particular way, starting with Martianus Capella and
in the end, after acomplex elaboration, there emerge, Boethius, going on to Isidore of Seville and Alcuin,
in the supernatural kingdom, values which are ever and finally to Bede and Rabanus Maurus. What
more distinctivelv spiritual and accessible to all people emerged was the classification called the "trivium" and
without discrimination. the "quadrivium," the first embracing grammar, dia-
.\t first the rejection of work seems radical and final, lectic, and rhetoric, the second geometry, arithmetic,
and echoes the most radical denial by the Prophets: astronomy, and music. It was hence possible to con-
"Therefore take no thought, saying, \V'hat shall we eat? ceive a comprehensive doctrinal learning such that, by
or. What shall we drink? or. Wherewithal shall we be its means, man reasons and discusses in the three arts
clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles called discursive (sermocinales), but at the same time
seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have endeavors to learn about things through the other four
need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom arts called real (reales). The totality of the resulting
ofGod, and his righteousness; and all these things shall arts,whether discursive or real, is finally taken over
be added unto you (Matthew 6:31-33). "
and made subordinate and instrumental to philosophy,
However, little by little in place of such ideas, "the knowledge of human and divine things" (rerum
emerge other ideas which begin to dignify the idea humanartim divinarumque cognitio). Philosophy in
of work, and work, though not considered exactly a turn is linked to religion and becomes its handmaid
blessing, ceases on the other hand to be conceived in a true and peculiar relation of dependence.
negatively. Jesus is a worker, bom in a family of It is appropriate to declare the arts mentioned to
workers. "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary be liberal arts, in the sense that they fulfil the educa-
. . .
?" (Mark 6:3). And that is exactly why Paul can tional aims which shape the mind of the free man, in 531
WORK
contrast to the lowlv arts {artes sordidae) of the slave, who comes close to being like God. Is man himself
thus crystalhzing the traditional antithesis, just as it not a God? Everything would lead one to think so
appears in Cassiodorus. It was in fact he who came insofar as work and the process of working makes man
to make a less drastic but more precise distinction. In divine. However, an immediate reservation is neces-
his work on the liberal arts and disciplines, De artibus sary: man may be like God without being a deity. Man
et disdplinis liberalibus (Migne, Patrologiae latinae. makes himself similar to God in his capability and
Vol. LXX, col. 1151), he contrasts the liberal arts, work, but he is not God. "Therefore, man who gener-
which are learned from books through the exercise of ally takes care of living and inanimate things is a kind
the mind, with the mechanical arts. If the two motifs, of God" (Marsilio Ficino, Theologia platonica, XIII, 3).
the mechanical (or more specifically the manual) and A recurrent theme in the Renaissance is ascertaining
the lowlv. are brought together, we have a context the boundaries of man's nature. Man can come close
which can be compared to the modern idea of the to God, can act like a little God in his image, but he
antithesis of praxis and theory. The latter is praised, is not God.
the other remains inferior. What must be added to mark the limits of human
In order to find the way in which thought did break nature is the fatigue which accompanies human work;
through this dualism, which stubbornly and continually hence rest and leisure are necessary to restore man's
and how it
arises, was superseded by the praise of the energy. The thinker who devoted all of his thought
freeman, it is necessary to look to the Renaissance, to the relationship of man to God is surely Giordano
when that dualism was slowly and laboriously attacked. Bruno. He insists, in fact, on the importance of the will,
In investigating the concept of the humanities [hu- and for Bnmo the will implies activity, as well as the
manitas), thinkers define not only what is usually called laborious mastery of things. On the other hand, to the
"humanism," which reflects precisely the first phase extent that work brings on fatigue, leisure is required,
of the Renaissance, but on the contrary judge the for through leisure man's energies are restored, and
Renaissance whollv humanistic in its very essence. Man he is prepared to cope with subsequent fatigue from
is evaluated in everv aspect, his reason as well as his new work.
will. The mind
is in\'estigated not merely through We have noted how work is praised for its infinite
literarvdocuments or literature called "humane," but potentialities, but we also indicate the limitations of
much more through man's involvement in the world, work, and have called on Bruno as a witness. Something
through his masterv of things, and through his definite has to be said of the way in which the depressing aspect
and exact intervention in nature. To the idea of a of work is regarded. Whence the question: Can manual
created nature (natura naturata) the Renaissance adds activitybe eliminated, and above all to what extent?
the idea of a creative nature {natura naturans), a sec- Campanella, in his City of the Sun (Cicitas solis. 1623),
ond nature, as it were, made by man. not onlv advocates the communal sharing of goods and
There follows the exaltation of man by minds like women, but sketches a whole social plan and educa-
Giannozzo Manetti, Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio tional system based on learning and work. He is cogni-
Ficino, Matteo Palniieri, Leon Battista Alberti, Leo- zant, moreover, of the new role of science in both its
nardo da Vinci, Giordano Bnmo, and Tommaso Cam- creative and moral aspects, even while he invokes a
panella, to mention only the greatest and most impor- thorough and effective discipline of work to maintain
tant ones. Their emphasis is on the dignity and the aims of civilization and progress. With everyone
excellence of man, with praise for his open-eyed views working, whether in the intellectual field or in manual
of the world, and for his efficient and effective diligence activity, for Campanella, the result attained in the
as a worker, one who not only commands things and work is complete human equality and a wholesale
events but also enjoys working incessantly. Of course, solution of the great problems of social life without
work is often hard, painful, and exhausting, but how- the privileged states that intellectuals might claim at
can one stop the wheels of progress? Leonardo goes the expense of those condemned to be tied down to
so far as to say that in work "nature is surpassed: the merely manual labor.
raw materials of nature are finite, but the works that The Protestant Reformation contributed new ele-
the eye orders the hands to make are infinite" (Treatise ments to the theory of work. Without giving up the
on Painting, sec. 28). Man is therefore exalted in his medieval idea of work as a remedy for sin [remedium
creative activity. It is not merely a matter of labor, peccati), Luther sketched the new concept of work as
even when accompanied by extreme fatigue, but it a service to God. God accomplishes everything through
requires the whole complex of human conditions, social US; using us as a means, he attends to the most hmnble
and historical, for a new and original work to emerge. tasks, such as milking the cow and the kid, and all such
532 The end product is created spontaneously by man labors are without exception pleasing to the Lord. The
WORK
lowliest housemaid's servile work has its religious quadrivium. Renaissance philosophy is completely at
value generally enhanced through the inspiration with harmony with and becomes the epistemologv
science,
which it is imbued. "For God is present in such matters and methodology of the arts which occupy a prominent
and his Spirit is in the work" (Opera exegetica latino, place in men's minds and demand their attention. It
ed. Elsperger, Erlangen [1831], Vll, 208f., 213f.). is not conceptuall)' abstract knowledge but the quite
Finally, there is no occupation in the home or in the different concrete kind of knowledge which is applied
field which is so himible that it fails to reveal our divine to natureand transforms it for the human ends of utility
calling,and which thus binds us to the Lord. The and enjoyment. The task of philosophy continues in
occupation becomes a religious profession, and the the sense that it secures a methodological framework
German word Benif thus acquired the distinctive for the progress of science guaranteeing more flexible
meaning of both "a calling" and "service to God." principles than were traditional, as well as adequate
However, it is with Calvin that the definitive reli- verification in experience. In anv case, philosophy still
gious implications of Protestantism stand out in high depends on value judgments in aesthetics, ethics, and
relief. In his Instittdio Christiana (1534-36), we find religion, that go beyond the scope of the sciences.
the Augustinian idea of predestination aflSrmed and Work emerges in science and technology as the means
developed. Predestined as man is, he must confront for the advancement of man committed to a toil that
God alone, and then ask himself to verify whether he is ever renewed and yet never sufficient.
isone of the elect or damned, as Max Weber puts it. Francis Bacon is certainly the thinker to whom we
The answer to such a question no other man can give owe much of the new perspective, for he is precisely
him, nor can society provide an answer; only his con- the theorist of science with respect to its pragmatic
science can. Assuming that he is cognizant of being ends. He attempted the constniction of the kingdom
one of the elect rather than one of the condemned, of man (regnum hominis) by man's dominion over
the individual will feel and act like one of the elect. nature, through precise means and instruments which
and show his gratitude by increasing the production the individual arts, opportunely cultivated, could pro-
of goods. Conduct for the greater glory of God will vide. Men ought to know that in the theater of life
be rewarded by success, since success is the conse- only God and the angels can properly be spectators
quence of election and grace. Goods will be multiplied (De dignitate et atigmentis scientiartim, VIII, 1). ,\ true
by the hands of the elect; these goods are not to be son of the Renaissance, Bacon insists on considering
accumulated or to be hoarded but on the contrary tliey the much proclaimed dignity of man to reside in the
are to be channeled into the cycle of production, capi- functional role of science. Inteihgence and will con-
tal aimed at infinite production in praise of God. Capi- verge in pragmatic knowledge.
talism is stimulated by arousing a psychological moti- On this point it is fitting to refer again to Leonardo
vation, which in its turn finds a basis in religious dogma. to testify that for him also philosophy ends in science
We now come to the modem
era, and in particular vmderstood as technology. The result is the confirmed
to the contributions to the theme of work made by role of the machine to which the relief of man's weary
the philosophers concerned with modern civilization. labor is entrusted.
There are two lines which will be pursued here: the
Instnimental or mechanical science is the most noble and
first concerns the relationship between work and sci-
most useful above all the others; it is by
a conscious thing
ence due to technology; the second regards the discus-
means of which living bodies in motion perform their oper-
sion of whether a society based on work as an expres-
ations (Fumagalli, pp. 57-58).
sion of the creative spirit of man truly suffices to satisfy
man's deeper needs, or whether, on the contrary, it On this score Galileo says exactly the same thing,
reveals itself to be spiritually deficient. Obviously in and even on such ideas in the wide context of
insists
such arguments we are confronting a problematic situ- experimental thought. Experiments not only repeat the
ation constituting the most challenging question of operations of nature but, by duly interrogating her, can
contemporary speculative thought; in short, it comes reveal her secrets.
to seeking the very reasons for living. Moreover, to mark the characteristic feature of the
As to the first line of inquiry, there is no doubt that new conception of science there is the manual activity
its source is in the Renaissance investigations of man's that accompanies the role of science as a "hunter,"
powers. Not only do his powers as they have been its "venatorial fimction, to use a term dear to the
"
historically manifested form the subject of Renaissance language of Bacon's day. Things imveil their secrets
thought, but there is much more persistent concern through some means or instrument, that is to say,
with the issues and limits of the new sciences and "arts" technologically. But we are reminded that it is the hand
other than those previously known as the trivium and which controls the instrument, the hand which in its 533
"
WORK
turn is man looking to the mind and will

guided by acquires a dignity which is reflected in the esteem
The "mechanical arts" acquire a new
to direct him. supported by professional and class spirit and in the
meaning and vigor, a new prestige from the positive morality belonging to the profession or class. Conse-
results of the sciences, even directly from the discoverv quently, though one may talk about the physiology of
of a new world through machines or the mechanical labor, it must not be forgotten that there is also a
approach to the world. Seen through the work en- wholly pathological condition which Marx stressed and
trusted to science and technology, the world looks like from which he derived the class struggle, the necessity
an enormous machine [machina mundi) with God the of an ultimate social revolution and to provide a so-
chief engineer and man the artisan who makes the cialistic order, a classless society immune from the
machine and replaces its parts. a.ssumptions of private property and the weight of
Contemplation plays a very small part in such views authoritv.
of natural science, and is not a vocational substitute We have indicated a whole line of speculative
for productive knowledge. With the Baconian and thought devoted to the prestige of labor as a human
Leonardian innovations the legacy of the Renaissance value in civilized society and life itself. Many other
flows into the Enlightenment and later thought. named from Voltaire to David Hume,
thinkers could be
\Ve now understand the importance which the idea from Benjamin Franklin to Adam Smith, from .\uguste
of work has acquired in political thinking with regard Comte to Giuseppe Mazzini. However, we cannot hide
to the very concept of the State as well as to the the fact that there is a very different tendency to deny
purposes of life geared to the idea of progress. "Every- value to work as pictured above, or at least a tendency
one," says J.
G. Fichte, "should make his own living exists to pick on certain internal difficulties. We refer
by work" (Cnmdlage des Naturrechts, sec. 16). It fol- chiefly to J. J.
Rousseau's Discours sur les sciences et
lows that anyone who will not work for his own liveli- les arts (1749), according to which the technological
hood in an orderly civil society will not be boimd to development of civilization in the arts is an absolute
respect the property of others so that in the end civil evil because it removes man from the simplicity of life
society will not even be a stepmother to him. in the state of nature. However, it is in the very theo-
Hegel descends from his general idea of spiritual ries that attribute a human and social value to work
activity to that ofwork, and regards work as coming that the most discouraging antinomies occur. To give
especially under the system of necessity. It is in order a prime example, Hegel maintains that in the process
to meet this necessity that man works and creates of work the very division of labor removes the worker
wealth. Were it not for work no need would ever be from the complex vision of the organic whole, in short,
satisfied; work is the absolute law of life, and accom- from the entire global process, and thus produces
panies lifefrom its primitive forms to its complex alienation. This conception explains the reason for so
structure. Hegel describes this process in great detail many points of view, the theme of alienation bemg
(Enzyklop. der philos. Wissenschaften [1817], para. taken up and developed insistently by the Hegelian
524-28). left, from Marx to L. .\. Feuerbach, D. F. Strauss, B.
From Hegel, Karl Marx derives his view of change Bauer, and A. Ruge. Alienated labor, viewed as the
as historical becoming, but treats all history as pro- oppression of the worker in the immense mechanism
ceeding on an economic basis dependent on the proof industry completely owned and controlled by capi-
ductivity of labor. Moreover, Marx does not treat his- tal, revives the theme of social reform, of the vindica-
tory merely as interpretation, or hermeneutics, but tion of the worker, of subversion, and of revolution
philosophically on viewing history as in need
insists as the direct remedy.
of being redirected through human effort along eco- However, it is from the very center of contemporary
nomic lines. The Hegelian "Idea" is inadequate to speculative thought that we find arising a limited view
perform the tasks of shaping man's life in society, if not the denial of work as a life value. Max Scheler
which has to be understood in economic terms by illustrates this negative view. He deems man in the
class-struggle, according to a law internal to history, modem world to be preoccupied with a frenzied fa-
a law which gives the struggle direction and its neces- naticism for work and earning money. Utility rather
sary development. than the holy has become the supreme value, as Scheler
To the young Marx view appeared to be decisive,
this likes to put it in his criticisms. And every philosophical
but the later system which he worked out is no less system that exalts the sacred in a hierarchy of values
important; it reflected all human values and goods is obviously in accord with Scheler and esteems his
themselves in the economic mode of production. In essay on "Work and Ethics "
("Arbeit imd Ethik,
Marx's Das Kapital (III) labor determines value, and Schriften zur Soziologie und Weltanschauungslehre,
5o4 gives all goods their value. The individual who works Leipzig [1924], III, 2).
ZEITGEIST
W'e must also not forget in this vein some of the Various authors, article "Arbeit," Sowietssystem und demo-
doctrines that come from and adopt
chairs of sociology kratische Geselhchaft (Friburg, Basel, Vienna, 1964), cols.
a critical attitude towards a whole society which for- 246-367.

gets man and gives itself up entirely to the production FELICE BATTAGLIA
and consumption of goods. One-dimensional man is
[See also Alienation; Baconianism; Culture; Pragmatism;
an alienated man, H. Marcuse affirms. .Man continues
Renaissance; Socialism; Technology.]
to be just as alienated as he is when he is subjected
to the hard law of work.
But it is in Martin Heidegger's system that we find
the most radical delineation of the denial that work
is the law of life. By questioning himself inwardly man
will find structures of thought that will refer to the ZEITGEIST
historical world, to the order of time, that is to say,
to man's temporal finitude. So we read in Sein und Along with the concept of Volkgeist we can trace
Zeit {Being and Time, 1927), in the author's best pages, in literature the development of the cognate notion
as he pursues the deepest recesses of the nature of of Zeitgeist (Geist der Zeit, Ceist der Zeiten). Just as
Being. In his Brief iiber den Humanismus
on (Letter the term Volkgeist was conceived as a definition of the
Humanism. 1949), it is Being which dominates, and spirit of a nation taken in its totality across generations,
man can only be on the watch against relinquishing so Zeitgeist came to define the characteristic spirit of
to Being his home and his coimtry. a historical era taken in its totality and bearing the
Thus the rapidly changing diagnosis of work in our mark of a preponderant feature which dominated its
times is measured through the polar views of work as intellectual, political, and social trends. Zeit is taken
the law of life and work scanned against Being. The in the sense of "era," of the French siecle. Philo-
problem remains whether there is a third way aside sophically, the concept is based on the presupposition
from the two lines traced above, a way that would that the time has a material meaning and is imbued
save values in our world and in history, apart from with content. It is in this sense that the Latin tempus f'
rubbish and beyond the labor that exhausts, life. appears in such phrases as tempora rntitantur. The L
expression "it is in the air" is latently related to the
idea of Zeitgeist.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Geist der Zeiten meant originally tlie sum total of
For the ancient world, see: R. Mondolfo, La comprensione the spirit of generations through the ages. Gradually
del soggetto humano nell'antichita classica (Florence, 1958), the meaning of this expression was contracted so as
pp. 574fF. For Leonardo da Vinci, see: G. Fumagalli, ed., to describe the principle of a certain historical period
Leonardo (Florence, 1952). For the Renaissance contributions as it conceives of itself (Karl Lowith). As such this shift
of Bacon and their later history: B. Farrington, Francis
is modern idea of historical self-
representative of the
Bacon: Philosopher of Industrial Science (New York, 1949).
consciousness and to some extent of severing the ties
With respect to the spirit of the Reformation and capitalism,
of continuity between generations.
see: E. Troeltsch, Die sozialen Lehren der christlichen
In Voltaire and Herder the concept appears in their
Kirchen und Gruppen (Tubingen, 1912); trans. O. Wyon as
The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, 2 vols. attempt to answer the question, "What is the spirit of
(London and New York, 19.31). M. Weber, The Protestant the times?" Herder defined it as a powerful genius,
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons a mighty demon to whom we are all subordinated,
(New York, 1930). actively or passively.
General works: H. Arvon, La philosophie du travail (Paris, For Hegel, philosophy is related to the preponderant
1961). Henri Bartoli, Science economique et travail (Paris, spirit of the ages or of a particular age. Philosophy
1957). F. Battaglia, Filosofia del lavoro (Bologna, 1951).
is its own time apprehended in thoughts, time con-
M. D. Chenu, Pour unethMogiedu travail (P&ris, 1955); trans,
noting in this context the intellectual trend of the
as Theology of Work (Chicago, 1966). Georges Friedmann,
epoch. Hence Hegel considered the trend of his own
Oil va le travail humain? (Paris, 1951). R. Kwant, Philosophy
philosophy towards an identification of subject and
of Labor (Pittsburgh, 1960). Jean Lacroix, Personne et amour
(Paris, 1955). Emmanuel Mounier, La petite peur du XXe
object as germane to the tendencies of his time. The
siicle (Paris, 1948). Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civili- conformity with the spirit of time was meant not only
zation (New York, 1934). P.-M. Schuhl, Machinisme etphilos as a descriptive statement of a factual situation, but
ophie (Paris, 1969). J.
Todoli, Filosofia del trabajo (Madrid also as a justification, at least a partial one, for the
1954). H. Weinstock, Arbeit und Bildung (Heidelberg, 1954). systematic vahdity of Hegel's own philosophy and of
S. Wyszinski, Lo spirito del lavoro humano (Brescia, 1964). every philosophy as related to an era. Hegel took the 535
ZEITGEIST
/.eitgeist as a spiritual and intellectual reality which Herren) in whom the times are mirrored. Thus this
is not totally alien to the intellectual exposition present verse questions the reality of a "spirit of an age."
in a philosophical system. A philosophical system is Heidegger put forward the notion that metaphysics
but a conceptual, and as such a self-conscious formula- established anepoch in time (Zeitalter), suggesting a
tion of the substance present in the Zeitgeist. This view certain interpretation of truth. "Modern times" in this
brings philosoph)' close to reality and by the same sense is a period characterized by science, by technol-
token makes reality the guiding substance and standard ogy, by positing the work of art as an object of experi-
for philosophy. The assumption that philosophy can ence; its feature is the disappearance of God orGods
transcend its contemporary world was for Hegel a mere (Entgotterung). The general principle of the modern
fancy just as it is a fancy (to Hegel) to suggest that era is to look at the world as a Bild, not to picture
an individual can overleap his own age. Philosophy the world but to take it as a picture. The whole is
has to be related to a particular reality; it is to this there only when human beings refer to it by way of
relatedness that he refers in quoting the famous phrase. representing it and establishing it. This description
Hie Rhodus, hie salta. The concept of the spirit of the implied a criticism of the modern era as replacing the
time has thus both a guiding and a limiting connota- concern for the totality of Being with specialized re-
tion. The latter connotation implies the historicist un- .search of scientific data.
derstanding of the spirit of the time. The term or the general meaning of Zeitgeist has
Related to this historicist view is the conception that entered various dictionary attempts at historical peri-
the thought and culture of peoples are correlated with odization and has also entered our everyday vocabu-
certain historical periods, that is to say, to certain lary. The very notion that a certain span of time can
trends of the spirit of the time. Transcending a spirit be conceived in terms of a defined content, e.g., the
of the time makes a trend not only impossible but period of constitutional monarchy or of romanticism
sometimes obsolete, as in the case when an individual as a period and not only as a trend — these descriptions
or a group of individuals cling to a trend which has echo tlie concept of Zeitgeht. In this sense we speak
already been overcome. It might be thus congenial for of the technological era or the post-industrial period.
one period of history to be imbued with a religious In the usage of these features we eventually refer to
world outlook, yet this world outlook is superseded by a Zeitgeist as connoting a dominating idea or a domi-
another spirit of the time which is scientific or philo- nating social force or a combination of both. In a
sophic and thus overcomes the limitations and the different context it refers to the prevailing spirit of
validity of the world outlook. Along this
religious a literary period dominated by an outstanding author,
scheme, though without employing the term Zeitgeist, e.g., to Geist der Goethezeit.
Mar.x presents the view that a social and economic In various systems of twentieth-century philosoph-
system like feudalism or capitalism might be appro- ical literature we find a direct or indirect reference
priate historically at a certain period of time but ceases to the concept. Karl Jaspers goes out to analyze spe-
to be so and even becomes reactionary at a later period cifically the spiritual situation of the time, i.e., the
of history. Continuing this line, Sartre (in his later present, and then in his historical-philosophical at-
de la raison dialectique) speaks about
stage, in Critique tempts to refer to the fifth century B.C. as to an "axis
Marxism as "the philosophy of our time." This philoso- time." Whitehead speaks about a "climate of opinion"
phy cannot be transcended since the circumstances as the all-embracing intellectual atmosphere of a cer-
which caused its emergence have not been surpassed. tain period within the development of modern science
Kant considered the temper or import of his critical and its principal ideas. "Climate of opinion" connotes
philosophy as reflecting the characteristic feature of in this context a state of mind, conviction in the exist-
his time which was essentially one of critique. One of ence of an order of things or on an instinctive faith
Kant's critiques [Bescheid) speaks about "genius (spirit) in an Order of Nature. The term "climate of opinion"
of the age" (genius saeculi). Schiller used the term Geist is an investigation of a shift from the view which takes
der Zeit as pointing to the perversion and brutish- time as a totality of circumstances to a view which
ness of nature, of superstition, and the absence of equates circumstances with "climate." Mill used the
moral belief in his time. Fichte analyzed the major —
term "mental climate" and in this sense we speak
trends of the age on tlie assumption that an age can about an atmosphere of freedom, atmosphere of per-
be characterized by a well-defined principle. In his own missiveness, etc. We connect the concept of sur-
age he noticed a trend towards the undermining of roundings with mental or moral activity. This meta-
the power of external authority; and in a polemic vein phor appears in German as Zeitklima. For Colling-
Goethe says, through his mouthpiece Faust, that the wood, metaphysics is a formulation of the presupposi-
536 spirit of the times is at bottom the spirit of those {die tions of science in a certain period of time, and is thus
ZEITGEIST
determined by the Zeitgeist (though the term is not Haven, 1968). K. Lowith, Von Hegel bis S'ietzsche (Zurich,
used bv him). 1941). trans, as From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution
in Nineteenth Century Thought (New York, 1964). J.-P.
Sartre, Critique de la raison dialectique (Paris, 1960). F,

Schiller, Uber die asthetische Erziehung des Menschen
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(1795), trans. R. Snell as The Aesthetic Education of Man
R. G. Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics (Oxford, (New York, 1965). .'V. N. Whitehead. Science and the Modern
1940). M. Heidegger, Holzwege (Frankfurt a. M., 1950). K. World (London and New York, 1925).
Jaspers, Die geistige Situation der Zeit (Berlin, 1932), trans.
Eden and Cedar Paul as Man in the Modern Age (London,

NATHAN ROTENSTREICH
1933); idem, V'om Vrsprung und Ziel der Geschichte (Zurich, [See also Historicism; Marxism; Periodization in History;
1949), trans. M. Bullock as Origin and Goal of History (New Time; Volksgeist.]
537

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DICTIONARY OF

THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

Psychological Ideas in Antiquity

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS . NEW YORK

The Publishers are gratehjl for permission to quote from

from Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, trans.

Maurice Cranston, © 1968, by permission of A. D. Peters &

from The Xotion of the State, by A. P. d'Entr^ves. © 1967,

by permission of The Clarendon Press, Oxford

from The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer, © 1955, by

THIS BOOK PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN

ALL BIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OK AMERICA

Library of Congress Catalog Card Nuniber 72-7943

SBN 684-16422-1 (pbk.) Volume 1

SBN 684-16423-X (pbk.) Volume 11

SBN 684-16424-8 (pbk.) Volume III

SBN 684-16425-6 (pbk.) Volume IV

PSYCHOLOGICAL IDEAS There are other words which overlap or go beyond

Heraclitus it to in ture (frags. 98, 105) of the elements. It is

PSYCHOLOGICAL IDEAS IN ANTIQUITY

and becoming identical with any object of thought, behavior.

minate "swerve "

The Hving body is "illumined" by soul.

and body. By its presence I. M. Crombie, An Examination of Plato's Doctrines, Vol.

IV. This period well surveyed by E. Zeller, Die Philos-

ophic der Griechen, Vol. Ill, 1, 5th. ed. by E. Wellmann

PSYCHOLOGICAL SCHOOLS that lent itself to generalization. This method actually

etymological definition, "science of the soul," hardly century.

Evolutionism; Man-Machine; Positivism; Psychological notwithstanding differences of interpretation and em-

(1) dualisticand Platonic in character, their "psychology

economic, and social thought, in literature, and in Jonathan Edwards.

pendently created by God, are separately infused with and advantage.

liberality, Cotton Mather wrote, "is to make them.

the cheerful "constitution "

American view of human nature. nature in the apprehension of the phrase,

(1859), Descent Man (1871), and

human nature. Before psychologists and such critics as Walter

PYTHAGOREAN DOCTRINES TO 300 B.C.

to divine status. So in Empedocles as in Pythagoras no evidence. It is much more probable that

speculation except for two and

and the dyad or the great-and-sniall gen-

not from equating with the Good. The Pythagoreans

1955). VV. Burkert, Weisheit und Wissenschaft (Niimberg,

(Utrecht, 1966); idem, Philosophia, Part I (Assen, 1970). H.

tolerated. was under a democratic regime that

and pleasing sound "

of Dionysius the Areopagite became accepted), proportions in architecture, perhaps practiced in

by Pythagorean doctrine. The use of "harmonious

von Thimus' Die liannonikale Symbolik des Alterthums 41

(1868-76), in which the presence of esoteric numero- RAMISM

harmony. 1568-70, he returned to the University of Paris, where

"Uber die Bildung der

et rythmes pythagoriciens dans le developpement de la

2. Ramus' Significance. Ramus' significance and

V'errocchio equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni space.

tion in theology, where Johannes Piscator (1546-1625)

attention to matters previously regarded as beneath

it into a kind of thing —

of myth, which rationalit\ is not much to be

to take careful note of the effects of geographical developed in Thucydides.

city-statewas not the only one possible. The fact that

once we have learnt geometry