CVSP 208M

Crossroads of Modernity

Prepared by: Nadia Bou Ali

Courtney D. Fugate Eric Goodfield

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Table of Contents 0. Introduction 5

Nicholas Copernicus On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 10

Giordano Bruno A. From Ash Wednesday Supper 40B. Selected Poems 45

Alexander Pope An Essay On Man 50

1. The Scientific Revolution 77Francis Bacon

A. From The Great Renewal 82B. From the New Organon 97C. The New Atlantis (abridged) 115

Rene Descartes From Principles of Philosophy 134

2. State and Social Contract 169Thomas Hobbes

From Leviathan 174 John Locke

From Two Treatises of Government 204 Jean-Jacques Rousseau

From Discourse on the Origin of Inequality 239 3. Enlightenment and its Critics 269

Immanuel Kant A. What is Enlightenment? 272B. From What is orientation in thinking? 278C. From The Critique of the Power of Judgment 281D. From The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals 283

Marquis de Condorcet From Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind 296

Johann Gottfried Herder A. From This Too a Philosophy of History 348B. From Letters for the Advancement of Humanity 370

4. Modernity Beyond Enlightenment 379William Shakespeare

Hamlet 384 David Hume

From The History of England 443 Voltaire

From Philosophical Letters 446

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August Wilhelm Schlegel From Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature 450

Hegel, Schelling and Hölderlin The Oldest System Program of German Idealism 487

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel A. From the Phenomenology of Spirit 492B. From the Encyclopedia Logic 499C. Who thinks Abstractly? 507

Johann Wolfgang Goethe Faust 512

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Introduction to Crossroads of Modernity

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Questions to Consider

General: • What role does the idea of system (e.g. the system of the

cosmos) play in these texts?• How does the modern conception of system differ from that of

previous ages?• How does this new vision of system relate to the human being’s

own self-conception?• What role does science play in this system?• Does this role elevate science or rather reduce its ultimate

significance?

Nicholas Copernicus: • Was Copernicus’ idea (Helocentrism) new?• What evidence does he present for his idea?• How does Osiander’s Preface portray the role of the

astronomer and his or her use of mathematics differently fromthe way it is used in Copernicus’ work?

• Which is closer to the way we understand science today?• What simile does Copernicus use to criticize the Ptolemaic

system?• Which parts of Copernicus’ worldview are really “modern,”

which not?• How does Christianity inform Copernicus’ view of the

universe?• What criterion or criteria does Copernicus offer for judging the

truth of a cosmological model?

Giordano Bruno: • What does Copernicus and his revolution symbolize for Bruno?• What, in Bruno’s view, are Copernicus’ shortcomings?• How does Bruno contrast his own vision of freedom and

exploration with that of the previous century (i.e. of Columbusand others)?

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• How does Bruno view the ancients and their relation to histimes?

• How does Bruno’s view of the cosmos relate to his vision ofGod?

• How does Bruno regard the human being within the cosmos?Its relation to other inhabitants of other planets? Its relation tothe Earth?

Alexander Pope:

• How does Pope motivate a turn to the study of man?• How does this perhaps contrast with the focus of earlier ages?• How does Pope view the achievements of science?• What is the meaning of Pope’s famous claim that whatever is,

is right?• What is the role of reason according to Pope?• How does reason relate to passion?• How does Pope’s conception of system relate to his

understanding of the nature of the human being?• How does it underpin his view of civil society?

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Introduction Reading One

Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)

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NICHOLAS COPERNICUS OF TORUÑ

SIX BOOKS ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE HEAVENLY

SPHERES1

Diligent reader, in this work, which has just been created and published, you have the motions of the fixed stars and planets, as these motions have been

reconstituted on the basis of ancient as well as recent observations, and have moreover been embellished by new and marvelous hypotheses. You also have most convenient tables, from which you will be able to compute those motions

with the utmost case for any time whatever. Therefore buy, read, and enjoy (this work).

Let no one untrained in geometry enter here.2

NUREMBERG JOHANNES PETREIUS

1543

1 (This text has been adapted from translation and commentary of Edward Rosen (The John’s Hopkins University Press: Baltimore and London) as available at the Dartmouth College website: https://math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/1.1.Revol.html)

2 This was said to have been written above the entrance to Plato’s Academy.

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FOREWORD BY ANDREAS OSIANDER3

To the Reader

Concerning the Hypotheses of this Work

There have already been widespread reports about the novel hypotheses of this work, which declares that the earth moves whereas the sun is at rest in the center of the universe. Hence certain scholars, I have no doubt, are deeply offended and 5believe that the liberal arts, which were established long ago on a sound basis, should not be thrown into confusion. But if these men are willing to examine the matter closely, they will find that the author of this work has done nothing blameworthy. For it is the duty of an astronomer to compose the history of the celestial motions through careful and expert study. Then he must conceive and 10devise the causes of these motions or hypotheses about them. Since he cannot in any way attain to the true causes, he will adopt whatever suppositions enable the motions to be computed correctly from the principles of geometry for the future as well as for the past. The present author has performed both these duties excellently. For these hypotheses need not be true nor even probable. On the 15contrary, if they provide a calculus consistent with the observations, that alone is enough. Perhaps there is someone who is so ignorant of geometry and optics that he regards the epicyclc of Venus as probable, or thinks that it is the reason why Venus sometimes precedes and sometimes follows the sun by forty degrees and even more. Is there anyone who is not aware that from this assumption it 20necessarily follows that the diameter of the planet at perigee should appear more than four times, and the body of the planet more than sixteen times, as great as at apogee? Yet this variation is refuted by the experience of every age. In this science there are some other no less important absurdities, which need not be set forth at the moment. For this art, it is quite clear, is completely and absolutely 25ignorant of the causes of the apparent non-uniform motions. And if any causes are devised by the imagination, as indeed very many are, they are not put forward to convince anyone that are true, but merely to provide a reliable basis for computation. However, since different hypotheses are sometimes offered for one and the same motion (for example, eccentricity and an epicycle for the sun’s 30motion), the astronomer will take as his first choice that hypothesis which is the easiest to grasp. The philosopher will perhaps rather seek the semblance of the truth. But neither of them will understand or state anything certain, unless it has been divinely revealed to him.

Therefore, alongside the ancient hypotheses, which are no more probable, 35let us permit these new hypotheses also to become known, especially since they

3 This preface was not signed by Osiander, nor was it seen by Copernicus who was on his deathbed when the work went to press. This caused great confusion about the true intention of Copernicus’ work, which was not settled until Galileo confirmed for the Catholic Church that the views in this preface were not those of Copernicus. They instead reflect the Aristotelian view of the role of mathematics in relation to physics.

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are admirable as well as simple and bring with them a huge treasure of very skillful observations. So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it. Farewell. 5 TO HIS HOLINESS, POPE PAUL III, NICHOLAS COPERNICUS’ PREFACE TO HIS BOOKS ON THE REVOLUTIONS 10 I can readily imagine, Holy Father, that as soon as some people hear that in this volume, which I have written about the revolutions of the spheres of the universe, I ascribe certain motions to the terrestrial globe, they will shout that I must be immediately repudiated together with this belief. For I am not so enamored of my 15own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them. I am aware that a philosopher’s ideas are not subject to the judgement of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavor to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God. Yet I hold that completely erroneous views should be shunned. Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the 20conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heaven as its center would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves. Therefore I debated with myself for a long time whether to publish the volume which I wrote to prove the earth’s motion or rather to follow the example of the Pythagoreans and certain others, who used to 25transmit philosophy’s secrets only to kinsmen and friends, not in writing but by word of mouth, as is shown by Lysis’ letter to Hipparchus. And they did so, it seems to me, not, as some suppose, because they were in some way jealous about their teachings, which would be spread around; on the contrary, they wanted the very beautiful thoughts attained by great men of deep devotion not to be ridiculed 30by those who are reluctant to exert themselves vigorously in any literary pursuit unless it is lucrative; or if they are stimulated to the nonacquisitive study of philosophy by the exhortation and example of others, yet because of their dullness of mind they play the same part among philosophers as drones among bees. When I weighed these considerations, the scorn which I had reason to fear on 35account of the novelty and unconventionality of my opinion almost induced me to abandon completely the work which I had undertaken.

But while I hesitated for a long time and even resisted, my friends drew me back. Foremost among them was the cardinal of Capua, Nicholas Schönberg, renowned in every field of learning. Next to him was a man who loves me dearly, 40Tiedemann Giese, bishop of Chelmno, a close student of sacred letters as well as of all good literature. For he repeatedly encouraged me and, sometimes adding reproaches, urgently requested me to publish this volume and finally permit it to appear after being buried among my papers and lying concealed not merely until the ninth year but by now the fourth period of nine years. The same conduct was 45recommended to me by not a few other very eminent scholars. They exhorted me

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no longer to refuse, on account of the fear which I felt, to make my work available for the general use of students of astronomy. Ile crazier my doctrine of the earth’s motion now appeared to most people, the argument ran, so much the more admiration and thanks would it gain after they saw the publication of my writings dispel the fog of absurdity by most luminous proofs. Influenced therefore by these 5persuasive men and by this hope, in the end I allowed my friends to bring out an edition of the volume, as they had long besought me to do.

However, Your Holiness will perhaps not be greatly surprised that I have dared to publish my studies after devoting so much effort to working them out that I did not hesitate to put down my thoughts about the earth’s motion in 10written form too. But you are rather waiting to hear from me how it occurred to me to venture to conceive any motion of the earth, against the traditional opinion of astronomers and almost against common sense. I have accordingly no desire to hide from Your Holiness that I was impelled to consider a different system of deducing the motions of the universe’s spheres for no other reason than the 15realization that astronomers do not agree among themselves in their investigations of this subject. For, in the first place, they are so uncertain about the motion of the sun and moon that they cannot establish and observe a constant length even for the tropical year. Secondly, in determining the motions not only of these bodies but also of the other five planets, they do not use the same 20principles, assumptions, and explanations of the apparent revolutions and motions. For while some employ only homocentrics, others utilize eccentrics and epicycles, and yet they do not quite reach their goal. For although those who put their faith in homocentrics showed that some nonuniform motions could be compounded in this way, nevertheless by this means they were unable to obtain 25any incontrovertible result in absolute agreement with the phenomena. On the other hand, those who devised the eccentrics seem thereby in large measure to have solved the problem of the apparent motions with appropriate calculations. But meanwhile they introduced a good many ideas which apparently contradict the first principles of uniform motion. Nor could they elicit or deduce from the 30eccentrics the principal consideration, that is, the structure of the universe and the true symmetry of its parts. On the contrary, their experience was just like someone taking from various places hands, feet, a head, and other pieces, very well depicted, it may be, but not for the representation of a single person; since these fragments would not belong to one another at all, a monster rather than a 35man would be put together from them. Hence in the process of demonstration or “method,” as it is called, those who employed eccentrics are found either to have omitted something essential or to have admitted something extraneous and wholly irrelevant. This would not have happened to them, had they followed sound principles. For if the hypotheses assumed by them were not false, 40everything which follows from their hypotheses would be confirmed beyond any doubt. Even though what I am now saying may be obscure, it will nevertheless become clearer in the proper place.

For a long time, then, I reflected on this confusion in the astronomical traditions concerning the derivation of the motions of the universe’s spheres. I 45began to be annoyed that the movements of the world machine, created for our

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sake by the best and most systematic Artisan of all, were not understood with greater certainty by the philosophers, who otherwise examined so precisely the most insignificant trifles of this world. For this reason I undertook the task of rereading the works of all the philosophers which I could obtain to learn whether anyone had ever proposed other motions of the universe’s spheres than those 5expounded by the teachers of astronomy in the schools. And in fact first I found in Cicero that Hicetas supposed the earth to move. Later I also discovered in Plutarch that certain others were of this opinion. I have decided to set his words down here, so that they may be available to everybody:

Some think that the earth remains at rest. But Philolaus the Pythagorean 10believes that, like the sun and moon, it revolves around the fire in an oblique circle. Heraclides of Pontus, and Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the earth move, not in a progressive motion, but like a wheel in a rotation from west to east about its own center.

Therefore, having obtained the opportunity from these sources, I too began 15to consider the mobility of the earth. And even though the idea seemed absurd, nevertheless I knew that others before me had been granted the freedom to imagine any circles whatever for the purpose of explaining the heavenly phenomena. Hence I thought that I too would be readily permitted to ascertain whether explanations sounder than those of my predecessors could be found for 20the revolution of the celestial spheres on the assumption of some motion of the earth.

Having thus assumed the motions which I ascribe to the earth later on in the volume, by long and intense study I finally found that if the motions of the other planets are correlated with the orbiting of the earth, and are computed for 25the revolution of each planet, not only do their phenomena follow therefrom but also the order and size of all the planets and spheres, and heaven itself is so linked together that in no portion of it can anything be shifted without disrupting the remaining parts and the universe as a whole. Accordingly, in the arrangement of the volume too I have adopted the following order. In the first book I set forth 30the entire distribution of the spheres together with the motions which I attribute to the earth, so that this book contains, as it were, the general structure of the universe. Then in the remaining books I correlate the motions of the other planets and of all the spheres with the movement of the earth so that I may thereby determine to what extent the motions and appearances of the other 35planets and spheres can be saved if they are correlated with the earth’s motions. I have no doubt that acute and learned astronomers will agree with me if, as this discipline especially requires, they are willing to examine and consider, not superficially but thoroughly, what I adduce in this volume in proof of these matters. However, in order that the educated and uneducated alike may see that I 40do not run away from the judgement of anybody at all, I have preferred dedicating my studies to Your Holiness rather than to anyone else. For even in this very remote comer of the earth where I live you are considered the highest authority by virtue of the loftiness of your office and your love for all literature and astronomy too. Hence by your prestige and judgement you can easily 45

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suppress calumnious attacks although, as the proverb has it, there is no remedy for a backbite.

Perhaps there will be babblers who claim to be judges of astronomy although completely ignorant of the subject and, badly distorting some passage of Scripture to their purpose, will dare to find fault with my undertaking and 5censure it. I disregard them even to the extent of despising their criticism as unfounded. For it is not unknown that Lactantius, otherwise an illustrious writer but hardly an astronomer, speaks quite childishly about the earth’s shape, when he mocks those who declared that the earth has the form of a globe. Hence scholars need not be surprised if any such persons will likewise ridicule me. 10Astronomy is written for astronomers. To them my work too will seem, unless I am mistaken, to make some contribution also to the Church, at the head of which Your Holiness now stands. For not so long ago under Leo X the Lateran Council considered the problem of reforming the ecclesiastical calendar. The issue remained undecided then only because the lengths of the year and month and the 15motions of the sun and moon were regarded as not yet adequately measured. From that time on, at the suggestion of that most distinguished man, Paul, bishop of Fossombrone, who was then in charge of this matter, I have directed my attention to a more precise study of these topics. But what I have accomplished in this regard, I leave to the judgement of Your Holiness in particular and of all 20other learned astronomers. And lest I appear to Your Holiness to promise more about the usefulness of this volume than I can fulfill, I now turn to the work itself.

NICHOLAS COPERNICUS’ REVOLUTIONS 25

Book One INTRODUCTION 30Among the many various literary and artistic pursuits which invigorate men’s minds, the strongest affection and utmost zeal should, I think, promote the studies concerned with the most beautiful objects, most deserving to be known. This is the nature of the discipline which deals with the universe’s divine revolutions, the asters’ motions, sizes, distances, risings and settings, as well as 35the causes of the other phenomena in the sky, and which, in short, explains its whole appearance. What indeed is more beautiful than heaven, which of course contains all things of beauty? This is proclaimed by its very names (in Latin), caelum and mundus, the latter denoting purity and ornament, the former a carving. On account of heaven’s transcendent perfection most philosophers have called it a 40visible god. If then the value of the arts is judged by the subject matter which they treat, that art will be by far the foremost which is labeled astronomy by some, astrology by others, but by many of the ancients, the consummation of mathematics. Unquestionably the summit of the liberal arts and most worthy of a

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free man, it is supported by almost all the branches of mathematics. Arithmetic, geometry, optics, surveying, mechanics and whatever others there are all contribute to it.

Although all the good arts serve to draw man’s mind away from vices and lead it toward better things, this function can be more fully performed by this art, 5which also provides extraordinary intellectual pleasure. For when a man is occupied with things which he sees established in the finest order and directed by divine management, will not the unremitting contemplation of them and a certain familiarity with them stimulate him to the best and to admiration for the Maker of everything, in whom are all happiness and every good? For would not the 10godly Psalmist (92:4) in vain declare that he was made glad through the work of the Lord and rejoiced in the works of His hands, were we not drawn to the contemplation of the highest good by this means, as though by a chariot?

The great benefit and adornment which this art confers on the commonwealth (not to mention the countless advantages to individuals) are most 15excellently observed by Plato. In the Laws, Book VII, he thinks that it should be cultivated chiefly because by dividing time into groups of days as months and years, it would keep the state alert and attentive to the festivals and sacrifices. Whoever denies its necessity for the teacher of any branch of higher learning is thinking foolishly, according to Plato. In his opinion it is highly unlikely that 20anyone lacking the requisite knowledge of the sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies can become and be called godlike.

However, this divine rather than human science, which investigates the loftiest subjects, is not free from perplexities. The main reason is that its principles and assumptions, called “hypotheses” by the Greeks, have been a source 25of disagreement, as we see, among most of those who undertook to deal with this subject, and so they did not rely on the same ideas. An additional reason is that the motion of the planets and the revolution of the stars could not be measured with numerical precision and completely understood except with the passage of time and the aid of many earlier observations, through which this knowledge was 30transmitted to posterity from hand to hand, so to say. To be sure, Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria, who far excels the rest by his wonderful skill and industry, brought this entire art almost to perfection with the help of observations extending over a period of more than four hundred years, so that there no longer seemed to be any gap which he had not closed. Nevertheless, very 35many things, as we perceive, do not agree with the conclusions which ought to follow from his system, and besides certain other motions have been discovered which were not yet known to him. Hence Plutarch too, in discussing the sun’s tropical year, says that so far the motion of the heavenly bodies has eluded the skill of the astronomers. For, to use the year itself as an example, it is well known, 40I think, how different the opinions concerning it have always been, so that many have abandoned all hope that an exact determination of it could be found. The situation is the same with regard to other heavenly bodies.

Nevertheless, to avoid giving the impression that this difficulty is an excuse for indolence, by the grace of God, without whom we can accomplish 45nothing, I shall attempt a broader inquiry into these matters. For, the number of

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aids we have to assist our enterprise grows with the interval of time extending from the originators of this art to us. Their discoveries may be compared with what I have newly found. I acknowledge, moreover, that I shall treat many topics differently from my predecessors, and yet I shall do so thanks to them, for it was they who first opened the road to the investigation of these very questions. 5

Chapter 1

THE UNIVERSE IS SPHERICAL 10

First of all, we must note that the universe is spherical. The reason is either that, of all forms, the sphere is the most perfect, needing no joint and being a complete whole, which can be neither increased nor diminished; or that it is the most capacious of figures, best suited to enclose and retain all things; or even that all the separate parts of the universe, I mean the sun, moon, planets and stars, are 15seen to be of this shape; or that wholes strive to be circumscribed by this boundary, as is apparent in drops of water and other fluid bodies when they seek to be self-contained. Hence no one will question the attribution of this form to the divine bodies.

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Chapter 2

THE EARTH TOO IS SPHERICAL

The earth also is spherical, since it presses upon its center from every direction. 25Yet it is not immediately recognized as a perfect sphere on account of the great height of the mountains and depth of the valleys. They scarcely alter the general sphericity of the earth, however, as is clear from the following considerations. For a traveler going from any place toward the north, that pole of the daily rotation gradually climbs higher, while the opposite pole drops down an equal amount. 30More stars in the north are seen not to set, while in the south certain stars are no longer seen to rise. Thus Italy does not see Canopus, which is visible in Egypt; and Italy does see the River’s last star, which is unfamiliar to our area in the colder region. Such stars, conversely, move higher in the heavens for a traveler heading southward, while those which are high in our sky sink down. Meanwhile, 35moreover, the elevations of the poles have the same ratio everywhere to the portions of the earth that have been traversed. This happens on no other figure than the sphere. Hence the earth too is evidently enclosed between poles and is therefore spherical. Furthermore, evening eclipses of the sun and moon are not seen by easterners, nor morning eclipses by westerners, while those occurring in 40between are seen later by easterners but earlier by westerners.

The waters press down into the same figure also, as sailors are aware, since land which is not seen from a ship is visible from the top of its mast. On the other hand, if a light is attached to the top of the mast, as the ship draws away from 45

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land, those who remain ashore see the light drop down gradually until it finally disappears, as though setting. Water, furthermore, being fluid by nature, manifestly always seeks the same lower levels as earth and pushes up from the shore no higher than its rise permits. Hence whatever land emerges out of the ocean is admittedly that much higher. 5

Chapter 3 HOW EARTH FORMS A SINGLE SPHERE WITH WATER 10Pouring forth its seas everywhere, then, the ocean envelops the earth and fills its deeper chasms. Both tend toward the same center because of their heaviness. Accordingly, there had to be less water than land, to avoid having the water engulf the entire earth and to have the water recede from some portions of the land and from the many islands lying here and there, for the preservation of 15living creatures. For what are the inhabited countries and the mainland itself but an island larger than, the others?

We should not heed certain peripatetics who declared that the entire body of water is ten times greater than all the land. For, according to the conjecture which they accepted, in the transmutation of the elements as one unit of earth 20dissolves, it becomes ten units of water. They also assert that the earth bulges out to some extent as it does because it is not of equal weight everywhere on account of its cavities, its center of gravity being different from its center of magnitude. But they err through ignorance of the art of geometry. For they do not realize that the water cannot be even seven times greater and still leave any part of the 25land dry, unless earth as a whole vacated the center of gravity and yielded that position to water, as if the latter were heavier than itself For, spheres are to each other as the cubes of their diameters. Therefore, if earth were the eighth part to seven parts of water, earth’s diameter could not be greater than the distance from (their joint) center to the circumference of the waters. So far are they from being 30as much as ten times greater (than the land).

Moreover, there is no difference between the earth’s centers of gravity and magnitude. This can be established by the fact that from the ocean inward the curvature of the land does not mount steadily in a continuous rise. If it did, it would keep the sea water out completely and in no way permit the inland seas 35and such vast gulfs to intrude. Furthermore, the depth of the abyss would never stop increasing from the shore of the ocean outward, so that no island or reef or any form of land would be encountered by sailors on the longer voyages. But it is well known that almost in the middle of the inhabited lands barely fifteen furlongs remain between the eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea. On the 40other hand, in his Geography Ptolemy extended the habitable area halfway around the world. Beyond that meridian, where he left unknown land, the modem have added Cathay and territory as vast as sixty degrees of longitude, so that now the earth is inhabited over a greater stretch of longitude than is left for the ocean. To these regions, moreover, should be added the islands discovered in our time 45under the rulers of Spain and Portugal, and especially America, named after the

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ship’s captain who found it. On account of its still undisclosed size it is thought to be a second group of inhabited countries. There are also many other islands, heretofore unknown. So little reason have we to marvel at the existence of antipodes or antichthones. Indeed, geometrical reasoning about the location of America compels us to believe that it is diametrically opposite the Ganges district 5of India.

From all these facts, finally, I think it is clear that land and water together press upon a single center of gravity; that the earth has no other center of magnitude; that, since earth is heavier, its gaps are filled with water; and that consequently there is little water in comparison with land, even though more 10water perhaps appears on the surface.

The earth together with its surrounding waters must in fact have such a shape as its shadow reveals, for it eclipses the moon with the arc of a perfect circle. Therefore, the earth is not flat, as Empedocles and Anaximenes thought; nor drum-shaped, as Leucippus; nor bowl-shaped, as Heraclitus; nor hollow in 15another way, as Democritus; nor again cylindrical, as Anaximander; nor does its lower side extend infinitely downward, the thickness diminishing toward the bottom, as Xenophanes taught; but it is perfectly round, as the philosophers hold.

Chapter 4 20 THE MOTION OF THE BEAVENLY BODIES IS UNIFORM, ETERNAL, AND CIRCULAR OR COMPOUNDED OF CIRCULAR MOTIONS I shall now recall to mind that the motion of the heavenly bodies is circular, since 25the motion appropriate to a sphere is rotation in a circle. By this very act the sphere expresses its form as the simplest body, wherein neither beginning nor end can be found, nor can the one be distinguished from the other, while the sphere itself traverses the same points to return upon itself.

In connection with the numerous (celestial) spheres, however, there are 30many Motions. The most conspicuous of all is the daily rotation, which the Greeks call nuchthemeron, that is, the interval of a day and a night. The entire universe, with the exception of the earth, is conceived as whirling from cast to west in this rotation. It is recognized as the common measure of all motions, since we even compute time itself chiefly by the number of days. 35

Secondly, we see other revolutions as advancing in the opposite direction, that is, from west to east; I refer to those of the sun, moon, and five planets. The sun thus regulates the year for us, and the moon the month, which are also very familiar Periods of time. In like manner each of the other five planets completes its own orbit. 40

Yet (these motions) differ in many ways (from the daily rotation or first motion). In the first place, they do not swing around the same poles as the first motion, but run obliquely through the zodiac. Secondly, these bodies are not seen moving uniformly in their orbits, since the sun and moon are observed to be sometimes slow, at other times faster in their course. Moreover, we see the other 45five planets also retrograde at times, and stationary at either end (of the

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regression). And whereas the sun always advances along its own direct path, they wander in various ways, straying sometimes to the south and sometimes to the north; that is why they are called "planets" (wanderers). Furthermore, they are at times nearer to the earth, when they are said to be in perigee; at other times they are farther away, when they are said to be in apogee. 5

We must acknowledge, nevertheless, that their motions are circular or compounded of several circles, because these non-uniformities recur regularly according to a constant law. This could not happen unless the motions were circular, since only the circle can bring back the past. Thus, for example, by a composite motion of circles the sun restores to us the inequality of days and 10nights as well as the is four seasons of the year. Several motions are discerned herein, because a simple heavenly body cannot be moved by a single sphere non-uniformly. For this non-uniformity would have to be caused either by an inconstancy, whether imposed from without or generated from within, in the moving force or by an alteration in the revolving body. From either alternative, 15however, the intellect shrinks. It is improper to conceive any such defect in objects constituted in the best order.

It stands to reason, therefore, that their uniform motions appear non-uniform to us. The cause may be either that their circles have poles different (from the earth’s) or that the earth is not at the center of the circles on which they 20revolve. To us who watch the course of these planets from the earth, it happens that our eye does not keep the same distance from every part of their orbits, but on account of their varying distances these bodies seem larger when nearer than when farther away (as has been proved in optics). Likewise, in equal arcs of their orbits their motions will appear unequal in equal times on account of the 25observer’s varying distance. Hence I deem it above all necessary that we should carefully scrutinize the relation of the earth to the heavens lest, in our desire to examine the loftiest objects, we remain ignorant of things nearest to us, and by the same error attribute to the celestial bodies what belongs to the earth. 30

Chapter 5 DOES CIRCULAR MOTION SUIT THE EARTH? WHAT IS ITS POSITION? 35Now that the earth too has been shown to have the form of a sphere, we must in my opinion see whether also in this case the form entails the motion, and what place in the universe is occupied by the earth. Without the answers to these questions it is impossible to find the correct explanation of what is seen in the heavens. To be sure, there is general agreement among the authorities that the 40earth is at rest in the middle of the universe. They hold the contrary view to be inconceivable or downright silly. Nevertheless, if we examine the matter more carefully, we shall see that this problem has not yet been solved, and is therefore by no means to be disregarded.

Every observed change of place is caused by a motion of either the 45observed object or the observer or, of course, by an unequal displacement of each.

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For when things move with equal speed in the same direction, the motion is not perceived, as between the observed object and the observer, I mean It is the earth, however, from which the celestial ballet is beheld in its repeated performances before our eyes. Therefore, if any motion is ascribed to the earth, in all things outside it the same motion will appear, but in the opposite direction, as though 5they were moving past it. Such in particular is the daily rotation, since it seems to involve the entire universe except the earth and what is around it. However, if you grant that the heavens have no part in this motion but that the earth rotates from west to east, upon earnest consideration you will find that this is the actual situation concerning the apparent rising and setting of the sun, moon, stars and 10planets. Moreover, since the heavens, which enclose and provide the setting for everything, constitute the space common to all things, it is not at first blush clear why motion should not be attributed rather to the enclosed than to the enclosing, to the thing located in space rather than to the framework of space. This opinion was indeed maintained by Heraclides and Ecphantus, the Pythagoreans, and by 15Eficetas of Syracuse, according to Cicero. They rotated the earth in the middle of the universe, for they ascribed the setting of the stars to the earth’s interposition, and their rising to its withdrawal.

If we assume its daily rotation, another and no less important question follows concerning the earth’s position. To be sure, heretofore there has been 20virtually unanimous acceptance of the belief that the middle of the universe is the earth. Anyone who denies that the earth occupies the middle or center of the universe may nevertheless assert that its distance (therefrom) is insignificant in comparison with (the distance of) the sphere of the fixed stars, but perceptible and noteworthy in relation to the spheres of the sun and the other planets. He may 25deem this to be the reason why their motions appear non-uniform, as conforming to a center other than the center of the earth. Perhaps he can (thereby) produce a not inept explanation of the apparent non-uniform motion. For the fact that the same planets are observed nearer to the earth and farther away necessarily proves that the center of the earth is not the center of their circles. It is less clear 30whether the approach and withdrawal are executed by the earth or the planets.

It will occasion no surprise if, in addition to the daily rotation, some other motion is assigned to the earth. That the earth rotates, that it also travels with several motions, and that it is one of the heavenly bodies are said to have been the opinions of Philolaus the Pythagorean. He was no ordinary astronomer, inasmuch 35as Plato did not delay going to Italy for the sake of visiting him, as Plato’s biographers report.

But many have thought it possible to prove by geometrical reasoning that the earth is in the middle of the universe; that being like a point in relation to the immense heavens, it serves as their center; and that it is motionless because, when 40the universe moves, the center remains unmoved, and the things nearest to the center are carried most slowly.

Chapter 6 45

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THE IMMENSITY OF THE HEAVENS COMPARED TO THE SIZE OF THE EARTH The massive bulk of the earth does indeed shrink to insignificance in comparison 5with the size of the heavens. This can be ascertained from the fact that the boundary circles (for that is the translation of the Greek term horizons) bisect the entire sphere of the heavens. This could not happen if the earth’s size or distance from the universe’s center were noteworthy in comparison with the heavens. For, a circle that bisects a sphere passes through its center, and is the greatest circle 10that can be described on it. Thus, let circle ABCD be a horizon, and let the earth, from which we do our observing, be E, the center of the horizon, which separates what is seen from what is not seen. Now, through a dioptra or horoscopic instrument or water level placed at E, let the first point of the Crab be sighted rising at point C, and at that 15instant the first point of the Goat is perceived to be setting at A. Then A, E, and C are on a straight line through the dioptra. This line is evidently a diameter of the ecliptic, since six visible signs form a semicircle, and E, the (line’s) center, is identical with the horizon’s center. Again, let the signs shift their position until the first point of the Goat rises at B. At that time the Crab win also be observed 20setting at D. BED will be a straight line and a diameter of the ecliptic. But, as we have already seen, ABC also is a diameter of the same circle. Its center, obviously, is the intersection (of the diameters). A horizon, then, in this way always bisects the ecliptic, which is a great circle of the sphere. But on a sphere, if a circle bisects any great circle, the bisecting circle is itself a great circle. Consequently, a 25horizon is one of the great circles, and its center is clearly identical with the center of the ecliptic.

Yet a line drawn from the earth’s surface (to a point in the firmament) must be distinct from the line drawn from the earth’s center (to the same point). Nevertheless, because these lines are immense in relation to the earth, they 30become like parallel lines (III, 15). Because their terminus is enormously remote they appear to be a single line. For in comparison with their length the space enclosed by them becomes imperceptible, as is demonstrated in optics. This reasoning certainly makes it quite clear that the heavens are immense by comparison with the earth and present the aspect of an infinite magnitude, while 35on the testimony of the senses the earth is related to the heavens as a point to a body, and a finite to an infinite magnitude.

But no other conclusion seems to have been established. For it does not follow that the earth must be at rest in the middle of the universe. Indeed, a rotation in twenty-four hours of the enormously vast universe should astonish us 40even more than a rotation of its least part, which is the earth. For, the argument that the center is motionless, and what is nearest the center moves the least, does not prove that the earth is at rest in the middle of the universe.

To take a similar case, suppose you say that the heavens rotate but the poles are stationary, and what is closest to the poles-moves the least. The Little 45Bear, for example, being very close to the pole, is observed to move much more

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slowly than the Eagle or the Little Dog because it describes a smaller circle. Yet all these constellations belong to a single sphere. A sphere’s movement, vanishing at its axis, does not permit an equal motion of all its parts. Nevertheless, these are brought round in equal times, though not over equal spaces, by the rotation of the whole sphere. The upshot of the argument, then, is the claim that the earth as a 5part of the celestial sphere shares in the same nature and movement so that, being close to the center, it has a slight motion. Therefore, being a body and not the center, it too will describe arcs like those of a celestial circle, though smaller, in the same time. The falsity of this contention is clearer than daylight. For it would always have to be noon in one place, and always midnight in another, so that the 10daily risings and settings could not take place, since the motion of the whole and the part would be one and inseparable.

But things separated by the diversity of their situations are subject to a very different relation: those enclosed in a smaller orbit revolve faster than those traversing a bigger circle. Thus Saturn, the highest of the planets, revolves in 15thirty years; the moon, undoubtedly the nearest to the earth, completes its course in a month; and to close the series, it will be thought, the earth rotates in the period of a day and a night. Accordingly, the same question about the daily rotation emerges again. On the other hand, likewise still undetermined is the earth’s position, which has been made even less certain by what was said above. 20For that proof establishes no conclusion other than the heavens’ unlimited size in relation to the earth. Yet how far this immensity extends is not at all clear. At the opposite extreme are the very tiny indivisible bodies called "atoms". Being imperceptible, they do not immediately constitute a visible body when they are taken two or a few at a time. But they can be multiplied to such an extent that in 25the end there are enough of them to combine in a perceptible magnitude. The same may be said also about the position of the earth. Although it is not in the center of the universe, nevertheless its distance therefrom is still insignificant, especially in relation to the sphere of the fixed stars.

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Chapter 7

WHY THE ANCIENTS THOUGHT THAT THE EARTH REMAINED AT REST IN THE MIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE AS ITS CENTER

35Accordingly, the ancient philosophers sought to establish that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the universe by certain other arguments. As their main reason, however, they adduce heaviness and lightness. Earth is in fact the heaviest element, and everything that has weight is borne toward it in an effort to reach its inmost center. The earth being spherical, by their own nature heavy objects 40are carried to it from all directions at right angles to its surface. Hence, if they were not checked at its surface, they would collide at its center, since a straight line perpendicular to a horizontal plane at its point of tangency with a sphere leads to the (sphere’s) center. But things brought to the middle, it seem to follow, come to rest at the middle. All the more, then, will the entire earth be at rest in 45the middle, and as the recipient of every falling body it will remain motionless

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thanks to its weight. In like manner, the ancient philosophers analyze motion and its nature in a

further attempt to confirm their conclusion. Thus, according to Aristotle, the motion of a single simple body is simple; of the simple motions, one is straight and the other is circular; of the straight motions, one is upward and the other is 5downward. Hence every simple motion is either toward the middle, that is, downward; or away from the middle, that is, upward; or around the middle, that is, circular. To be carried downward, that is, to seek the middle, is a property only of earth and water, which are considered heavy; on the other hand, air and fire, which are endowed with lightness, move upward and away from the middle. To 10these four elements it seems reasonable to assign rectilinear motion, but to the heavenly bodies, circular motion around the middle. This is what Aristotle says (Heavens, I, 2; II, 14).

Therefore, remarks Ptolemy of Alexandria (Syntaxis, 1, 7), if the earth were to move, merely in a daily rotation, the opposite of what was said above would 15have to occur, since a motion would have to be exceedingly violent and its speed unsurpassable to carry the entire circumference of the earth around in twenty-four hours. But things which undergo an abrupt rotation seem utterly unsuited to gather (bodies to themselves), and seem more likely, if they have been produced by combination, to fly apart unless they are held together by some bond. The 20earth would long ago have burst asunder, he says, and dropped out of the skies (a quite preposterous notion); and, what is more, living creatures and any other loose weights would by no means remain unshaken. Nor would objects falling in a straight line descend perpendicularly to their appointed place, which would meantime have been withdrawn by so rapid a movement. Moreover, clouds and 25anything else floating in the air would be seen drifting always westward.

Chapter 8 THE INADEQUACY OF THE PREVIOUS ARGUMENTS AND A 30REFUTATION OF THEM For these and similar reasons forsooth the ancients insist that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the universe, and that this is its status beyond any doubt. Yet if anyone believes that the earth rotates, surely he will hold that its motion is 35natural, not violent. But what is in accordance with nature produces effects contrary to those resulting from violence, since things to which force or violence is applied must disintegrate and cannot long endure. On the other hand, that which is brought into existence by nature is well-ordered and preserved in its best state. Ptolemy has no cause, then, to fear that the earth and everything 40earthly will be disrupted by a rotation created through natures handiwork, which is quite different from what art or human intelligence can accomplish.

But why does he not feel this apprehension even more for the universe, whose motion must be the swifter, the bigger the heavens are than the earth? Or have the heavens become immense because the indescribable violence of their 45motion drives them away from the center? Would they also fall apart if they came

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to a halt? Were this reasoning sound, surely the size of the heavens would likewise grow to infinity. For the higher they are driven by the power of their motion, the faster that motion will be, since the circumference of which it must make the circuit in the period of twenty-four hours is constantly expanding; and, in turn, as the velocity of the motion mounts, the vastness of the heavens is 5enlarged. In this way the speed will increase the size, and the size the speed, to infinity. Yet according to the familiar axiom of physics that the infinite cannot be traversed or moved in any way, the heavens will therefore necessarily remain stationary.

But beyond the heavens there is said to be no body, no space, no void, 10absolutely nothing, so that there is nowhere the heavens can go. In that case it is really astonishing if something can be held in check by nothing. If the heavens are infinite, however, and finite at their inner concavity only, there will perhaps be more reason to believe that beyond the heavens there is nothing. For, every single thing, no matter what size it attains, will be inside them, but the heavens 15will abide motionless. For, the chief contention by which it is sought to prove that the universe is finite is its motion. Let us therefore leave the question whether the universe is finite or infinite to be discussed by the natural philosophers.

We regard it as a certainty that the earth, enclosed between poles, is bounded by a spherical surface. Why then do we still hesitate to grant it the 20motion appropriate by nature to its form rather than attribute a movement to the entire universe, whose limit is unknown and unknowable? Why should we not admit, with regard to the daily rotation, that the appearance is in the heavens and the reality in the earth? This situation closely resembles what Vergil’s Aeneas says: 25

Forth from the harbor we sail, and the land and the cities slip backward (Aeneid, III, 72).

For when a ship is floating calmly along, the sailors see its motion mirrored in 30everything outside, while on the other hand they suppose that they are stationary, together with everything on board. In the same way, the motion of the earth can unquestionably produce the impression that the entire universe is rotating.

Then what about the clouds and the other things that hang in the air in any manner whatsoever, or the bodies that fall down, and conversely those that 35rise aloft? We would only say that not merely the earth and the watery element joined with it have this motion, but also no small part of the air and whatever is linked in the same way to the earth. The reason may be either that the nearby air, mingling with earthy or watery matter, conforms to the same nature as the earth, or that the air’s motion, acquired from the earth by proximity, shares without 40resistance in its unceasing rotation. No less astonishingly, on the other hand, is the celestial movement declared to be accompanied by the uppermost belt of air. This is indicated by those bodies that appear suddenly, I mean, those that the Greeks called “comets” and “bearded stars.” Like the other heavenly bodies, they rise and set. They are thought to be generated in that region. That part of the air, 45we can maintain, is unaffected by the earth’s motion on account of its great

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distance from the earth. The air closest to the earth will accordingly seem to be still. And so will the things suspended in it, unless they are tossed to and fro, as indeed they are, by the wind or some other disturbance. For what else is the wind in the air but the wave in the sea?

We must in fact avow that the motion of falling and rising bodies in the 5framework of the universe is twofold, being in every case a compound of straight and circular. For, things that sink of their own weight, being predominantly earthy, undoubtedly retain the same nature as the whole of which they are parts. Nor is the explanation different in the case of those things, which, being fiery, are driven forcibly upward. For also fire here on the earth feeds mainly on earthy 10matter, and flame is defined as nothing but blazing smoke. Now it is a property of fire to expand what it enters. It does this with such great force that it cannot be prevented in any way by any device from bursting through restraints and completing its work. But the motion of expansion is directed from the center to the circumference. Therefore, if any part of the earth is set afire, it is carried from 15the middle upwards. Hence the statement that the motion of a simple body is simple holds true in particular for circular motion, as long as the simple body abides in its natural place and with its whole. For when it is in place, it has none but circular motion, which remains wholly within itself like a body at rest. Rectilinear motion, however, affects things which leave their natural place or are 20thrust out of it or quit it in any manner whatsoever. Yet nothing is so incompatible with the orderly arrangement of the universe and the design of the totality as something out of place. Therefore, rectilinear motion occurs only to things that are not in proper condition and are not in complete accord with their nature, when they are separated from their whole and forsake its unity. 25

Furthermore, bodies that are carried upward and downward, even when deprived of circular motion, do not execute a simple, constant, and uniform motion. For they cannot be governed by their lightness or by the impetus of their weight. Whatever falls moves slowly at first but increases its speed as it drops. On the other hand, we see this earthly fire (for we behold no other), after it has 30been lifted up high, slacken all at once, thereby revealing the reason to be the violence applied to the earthy matter. Circular motion, however, always rolls along uniformly, since it has an unfailing cause. But rectilinear motion has a cause that quickly stops functioning. For when rectilinear motion brings bodies to their own place, they cease to be heavy or light, and their motion ends. Hence, since 35circular motion belongs to wholes, but parts have rectilinear motion in addition, we can say that “circular” stands to “rectilinear” as “being alive” to “being sick. Surely Aristotle’s division of simple motion into three types, away from the middle, toward the middle, and around the middle, will be construed merely as a logical exercise. In like manner we distinguish line, point, and surface, even 40though one cannot exist without another, and none of them without body.

As a quality, moreover, immobility is deemed nobler and more divine than change and instability, which are therefore better suited to the earth than to the universe. Besides, it would seem quite absurd to attribute motion to the framework of space or that which encloses the whole of space, and not, more 45appropriately, to that which is enclosed and occupies some space, namely, the

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earth. Last of all, the planets obviously approach closer to the earth and recede farther from it. Then the motion of a single body around the middle, which is thought to be the center of the earth, will be both away from the middle and also toward it. Motion around the middle, consequently, must be interpreted in a more general way, the sufficient condition being that each such motion encircle its own 5center. You see, then, that all these arguments make it more likely that the earth moves than that it is at rest. This is especially true of the daily rotation, as particularly appropriate to the earth. This is enough, in my opinion, about the first part of the question. 10

Chapter 9 CAN SEVERAL MOTIONS BE ATTRIBUTED TO THE EARTH? THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE 15Accordingly, since nothing prevents the earth from moving, I suggest that we should now consider also whether several motions suit it, so that it can be regarded as one of the planets. For, it is not the center of all the revolutions. This is indicated by the planets, apparent non-uniform motion and their varying distances from the earth. These phenomena cannot be explained by circles 20concentric with the earth. Therefore, since there are many centers, it will not be by accident that the further question arises whether the center of the universe is identical with the center of terrestrial gravity or with some other point. For my part I believe that gravity is nothing but a certain natural desire, which the divine providence of the Creator of all things has implanted in parts, to gather as a unity 25and a whole by combining in the form of a globe. This impulse is present, we may suppose, also in the sun, the moon, and the other brilliant planets, so that through its operation they remain in that spherical shape which they display. Nevertheless, they swing round their circuits in diverse ways. If, then, the earth too moves in other ways, for example, about a center, its additional motions must 30likewise be reflected in many bodies outside it. Among these motions we find the yearly revolution. For if this is transformed from a solar to a terrestrial movement, with the sun acknowledged to be at rest, the risings and settings which bring the zodiacal signs and fixed stars into view morning and evening will appear in the same way. The stations of the planets, moreover, as well as their 35retrogradations and (resumptions of) forward motion will be recognized as being, not movements of the planets, but a motion of the earth, which the planets borrow for their own appearances. Lastly, it will be realized that the sun occupies the middle of the universe. All these facts are disclosed to us by the principle governing the order in which the planets follow one another, and by the harmony 40of the entire universe, if only we look at the matter, as the saying goes, with both eyes.

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THE ORDER OF THE HEAVENLY SPHERES Of all things visible, the highest is the heaven of the fixed stars. This, I see, is doubted by nobody. But the ancient philosophers wanted to arrange the planets in 5accordance with the duration of the revolutions. Their principle assumes that of objects moving equally fast, those farther away seem to travel more slowly, as is proved in Euclid’s Optics. The moon revolves in the shortest period of time because, in their opinion, it runs on the smallest circle as the nearest to the earth. The highest planet, on the other hand, is Saturn, which completes the biggest 10circuit in the longest time. Below it is Jupiter, followed by Mars.

With regard to Venus and Mercury, however, differences of opinion are found. For, these planets do not pass through every elongation from the sun, as the other planets do. Hence Venus and Mercury are located above the sun by some authorities, like Plato’s Timaeus (38 D), but below the sun by others, like 15Ptolemy (Syntaxis, IX, 1) and many of the modems. Al-Bitruji places Venus above the sun, and Mercury below it.

According to Plato’s followers, all the planets, being dark bodies otherwise, shine because they receive sunlight. If they were below the sun, therefore, they would undergo no great elongation from it, and hence they would be seen halved 20or at any rate less than fully round. For, the light which they receive would be reflected mostly upward, that is, toward the sun, as we see in the new or dying moon. In addition, they argue, the sun must sometimes be eclipsed by the interposition of these planets, and its light cut off in proportion to their size. Since this is never observed, these planets do not pass beneath the sun at all, according 25to those who follow Plato.

On the other hand, those who locate Venus and Mercury below the sun base their reasoning on the wide space which they notice between the sun and the moon. For the moon’s greatest distance from the earth is 64 1/6 earth-radii. This is contained, according to them, about 18 times in the sun’s least distance from 30the earth, which is 1160 earth-radii. Therefore, between the sun and the moon there are 1096 earth-radii (~ 1160-641/6). Consequently, to avoid having so vast a space remain empty, they announce that the same numbers almost exactly fill up the apsidal distances, by which they compute the thickness of those spheres. Thus the moon’s apogee is followed by Mercury’s perigee. Mercury’s apogee is 35succeeded by the perigee of Venus, whose apogee, finally, almost reaches the sun’s perigee. For between the apsides of Mercury they calculate about 177 1/2 earth radii. Then the remaining space is very nearly filled by Venus’ interval of 910 earth-radii.

Therefore they do not admit that these heavenly bodies have any opacity 40like the moon’s. On the contrary, these shine either with their own light or with the sunlight absorbed throughout their bodies. Moreover, they do not eclipse the sun, because it rarely happens that they interfere with our view of the sun, since they generally deviate in latitude. Besides, they are tiny bodies in comparison with the sun. Venus, although bigger than Mercury, can occult barely a 45hundredth of the sun. So says Al-Battani of Raqqa, who thinks that the sun’s

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diameter is ten times larger (than Venus’), and therefore so minute a speck is not easily descried in the most brilliant light. Yet in his Paraphrase of Ptolemy, Ibn Rushd reports having seen something blackish when he found a conjunction of the sun and Mercury indicated in the tables. And thus these two planets are judged to be moving below the sun’s sphere. 5

But this reasoning also is weak and unreliable. This is obvious from the fact that there are 38 earth-radii to the moon’s perigee, according to Ptolemy (Syntaxis, V, 13), but more than 49 according to a more accurate determination, as will be made clear below. Yet so great a space contains, as we know, nothing but air and, if you please, also what is called "the element of fire". Moreover, the 10diameter of Venus’ epicycle which carries it 45° more or less to either side of the sun, must be six times longer than the line drawn from the earth’s center to Venus’ perigee, as will be demonstrated in the proper place (V, 21). In this entire space which would be taken up by that huge epicycle of Venus and which, moreover, is so much bigger than what would accommodate the earth, air, aether, 15moon, and Mercury, what will they say is contained if Venus revolved around a motionless earth?

Ptolemy (Syntaxis, IX, 1) argues also that the sun must move in the middle between the planets which show every elongation from it and those which do not. This argument carries no conviction because its error is revealed by the fact that 20the moon too shows every elongation from the sun.

Now there are those who locate Venus and then Mercury below the sun, or Separate these planets (from the sun) in some other sequence. What reason will they adduce to explain why Venus and Mercury do not likewise traverse separate orbits divergent from the sun, like the other planets, without violating the 25arrangement (of the planets) in accordance with their (relative) swiftness and slowness? Then one of two alternatives will have to be true. Either the earth is not the center to which the order of the planets and spheres is referred, or there really is no principle of arrangement nor any apparent reason why the highest place belongs to Saturn rather than to Jupiter or any other planet. 30

In my judgement, therefore, we should not in the least disregard what was familiar to Martianus Capella, the author of an encyclopedia, and to certain other Latin writers. For according to them, Venus and Mercury revolve around the sun as their center. This is the reason, in their opinion, why these planets diverge no farther from the sun than is permitted by the curvature of their revolutions. For 35they do not encircle the earth, like the other planets, but "have opposite circles". Then what else do these authors mean but that the center of their spheres is near the sun? Thus Mercury’s sphere will surely be enclosed within Venus’, which by common consent is more than twice as big, and inside that wide region it will occupy a space adequate for itself. If anyone seizes this opportunity to link Saturn, 40Jupiter, and Mars also to that center, provided he understands their spheres to be so large that together with Venus and Mercury the earth too is enclosed inside and encircled, he will not be mistaken, as is shown by the regular pattern of their motions.

For (these outer planets) are always closest to the earth, as is well known, 45about the time of their evening rising, that is, when they are in opposition to the

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sun, with the earth between them and the sun. On the other hand, they are at their farthest from the earth at the time of their evening setting, when they become invisible in the vicinity of the sun, namely, when we have the sun between them and the earth. These facts are enough to show that their center belongs more to the sun, and is identical with the center around which Venus and 5Mercury likewise execute their revolutions.

But since all these planets are related to a single center, the space between Venus’ convex sphere and Mars’ concave sphere must be set apart as also a sphere or spherical shell, both of whose surfaces are concentric with those spheres. This (intercalated sphere) receives the earth together with its attendant, the moon, and 10whatever is contained within the moon’s sphere. Mainly for the reason that in this space we find quite an appropriate and adequate place for the moon, we can by no means detach it from the earth, since it is incontrovertibly nearest to the earth.

Hence I feel no shame in asserting that this whole region engirdled by the moon, and the center of the earth, traverse this grand circle amid the rest of the 15planets in an annual revolution around the sun. Near the sun is the center of the universe. Moreover, since the sun remains stationary, whatever appears as a motion of the sun is really due rather to the motion of the earth. In comparison with any other spheres of the planets, the distance from the earth to the sun has a magnitude which is quite appreciable in proportion to those dimensions. But the 20size of the universe is so great that the distance earth-sun is imperceptible in relation to the sphere of the fixed stars. This should be admitted, I believe, in preference to perplexing the mind with an almost infinite multitude of spheres, as must be done by those who kept the earth in the middle of the universe. On the contrary, we should rather heed the wisdom of nature. Just as it especially avoids 25producing anything superfluous or useless, so it frequently prefers to endow a single thing with many effects.

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All these statements are difficult and almost inconceivable, being of course opposed to the beliefs of many people. Yet, as we proceed, with God’s help I shall 5make them clearer than sunlight, at any rate to those who are not unacquainted with the science of astronomy. Consequently, with the first principle remaining intact, for nobody will propound a more suitable principle than that the size of the spheres is measured by the length of the time, the order of the spheres is the following, beginning with the highest. 10

The first and the highest of all is the sphere of the fixed stars, which contains itself and everything, and is therefore immovable. It is unquestionably the place of the universe, to which the motion and position of all the other heavenly bodies are compared. Some people think that it also shifts in some way. A different explanation of why this appears to be so will be adduced in my 15discussion of the earth’s motion (I, 11).

(The sphere of the fixed stars) is followed by the first of the planets, Saturn, which completes its circuit in 30 years. After Saturn, Jupiter accomplishes its revolution in 12 years. Then Mars revolves in 2 years. The annual revolution takes the series’ fourth place, which contains the earth, as I said (earlier in I, 10), 20

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together with the lunar sphere as an epicycle. In the fifth place Venus returns in 9 months. Lastly, the sixth place is held by Mercury, which revolves in a period of 80 days.

At rest, however, in the middle of everything is the sun. For in this most beautiful temple, who would place this lamp in another or better position than 5that from which it can light up the whole thing at the same time? For, the sun is not inappropriately called by some people the lantern of the universe, its mind by others, and its ruler by still others. (Hermes) the Thrice Greatest labels it a visible god, and Sophocles’ Electra, the all-seeing. Thus indeed, as though seated on a royal throne, the sun governs the family of planets revolving around it. 10Moreover, the earth is not deprived of the moon’s attendance. On the contrary, as Aristotle says in a work on animal, the moon has the closest kinship with the earth. Meanwhile the earth has intercourse with the sun, and is impregnated for its yearly parturition.

In this arrangement, therefore, we discover a marvelous symmetry of the 15universe, and an established harmonious linkage between the motion of the spheres and their size, such as can be found in no other way. For this permits a not inattentive student to perceive why the forward and backward arcs appear greater in Jupiter than in Saturn and smaller than in Mars, and on the other hand greater in Venus than in Mercury. This reversal in direction appears more 20frequently in Saturn than in Jupiter, and also more rarely in Mars and Venus than in Mercury. Moreover, when Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars rise at sunset, they are nearer to the earth than when they set in the evening or appear at a later hour. But Mars in particular, when it shines all night, seems to equal Jupiter in size, being distinguished only by its reddish color. Yet in the other configurations it is 25found barely among the stars of the second magnitude, being recognized by those who track it with assiduous observations. All these phenomena proceed from the same cause, which is in the earth’s motion.

Yet none of these phenomena appears in the fixed stars. This proves their immense height, which makes even the sphere of the annual motion, or its 30reflection, vanish from before our eyes. For, every visible object has some measure of distance beyond which it is no longer seen, as is demonstrated in optics. From Saturn, the highest of the planets, to the sphere of the fixed stars there is an additional gap of the largest size. This is shown by the twinkling lights of the stars. By this token in particular they are distinguished from the 35planets, for there had to be a very great difference between what moves and what does not move. So vast, without any question, is the divine handiwork of the most excellent Almighty.

Chapter 11 40

PROOF OF THE EARTH’S TRIPLE MOTION

In so many and such important ways, then, do the planets bear witness to the earth’s mobility. I shall now give a summary of this motion, insofar as the 45phenomena are explained by it as a principle. As a whole, it must be admitted to

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be a threefold motion. The first motion, named nuchthemeron by the Greeks, as I said (I, 4), is the

rotation which is the characteristic of a day plus a night. This turns around the earth’s aids from west to east, just as the universe is deemed to be carried in the opposite direction. It describes the equator, which some people call the "circle of 5equal days", in imitation of the designation used by the Greeks, whose term for it is isemerinos.

The second is the yearly motion of the center, which traces the ecliptic around the sun. Its direction is likewise from west to east, that is, in the order of the zodiacal signs. It travels between Venus and Mars, as I mentioned (I, 10), 10together with its associates. Because of it, the sun seems to move through the zodiac in a similar motion. Thus, for example, when the earth’s center is passing through the Goat, the sun appears to be traversing the Crab; with the earth in the Water Bearer, the sun seems to be in the Lion, and so on, as I remarked.

To this circle, which goes through the middle of the signs, and to its plane, 15the equator and the earth’s axis must be understood to have a variable inclination. For if they stayed at a constant angle, and were affected exclusively by the motion of the center, no inequality of days and nights would be observed. On the contrary, it would always be either the longest or shortest day or the day of equal daylight and darkness, or summer or winter, or whatever the character of the 20season, it would remain identical and unchanged.

The third motion in inclination is consequently required. This also is a yearly revolution, but it occurs in the reverse order of the signs, that is, in the direction opposite to that of the motion of the center. These two motions are opposite in direction and nearly equal in period. The result is that the earth’s axis 25and equator, the largest of the parallels of latitude on it, face almost the same portion of the heavens, just as if they remained motionless. Meanwhile the sun seems to move through the obliquity of the ecliptic with the motion of the earth’s center, as though this were the center of the universe. Only remember that, in relation to the sphere of the fixed stars, the distance between the sun and the 30earth vanishes from our sight forthwith.

Since these are matters which crave to be set before our eyes rather than spoken of, let us describe a circle ABCD, which the annual revolution of the earth’s center has traced in the plane of the ecliptic. Near its center let the sun be E. I shall divide this circle into four parts by drawing the diameters AEC and 35BED. Let A represent the first point of the Crab, B of the Balance, C of the Goat, and D of the Ram. Now let us assume that the earth’s center is originally at A. About A I shall draw the terrestrial equator FGHI. This is not in the same plane (as the ecliptic), except that the diameter GAI is the intersection of the circles, I mean, of the equator and the ecliptic. Draw also the diameter FAH perpendicular 40to GAI, F being the limit of the (equator’s) greatest inclination to the south, and H to the north. Under the conditions thus set forth, the earth’s inhabitants will see the sun near the center E undergo the winter solstice in the Goat. This occurs because the greatest northward inclination, H, is turned toward the sun. For, the inclination of the equator to the line AE, through the agency of the daily rotation, 45traces the winter solstice parallel to the equator at an interval subtended by EAH,

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the angle of the obliquity. Now let the earth’s center start out in the order of the signs, and let F, the

limit of maximum inclination, travel along an equal arc in the reverse order of the signs, until at B both have traversed a quadrant of their circles. In the interim the angle EAI always remain equal to AEB, on account of the equality of their 5revolutions; and the diameters always stay parallel to each other, FAH to FBH, and GAI to GBI, and the equator to the equator. In the immensity of the heavens, for the reason already frequently mentioned, the same phenomena appear. Therefore from B, the first point of the Balance, E will seem to be in the Ram. The intersection of the circles will coincide with the single line GBIE, from which 10(the plane of the axis) win not be permitted by the daily rotation to deviate. On the contrary, the (axis’) inclination will lie entirely in the lateral plane. Accordingly the sun will be seen in the spring equinox. Let the earth’s center proceed under the assumed conditions, and when it has completed a semicircle at C, the sun will appear to enter the Crab. But F, the southernmost inclination of 15the equator, will be turned toward the sun. This will be made to appear in the north, undergoing the summer solstice as measured by the angle of the obliquity, ECR Again, when F turns away in the third quadrant of the circle, the intersection GI will once more fall on the line ED. From here the sun will be seen in the Balance undergoing the autumn equinox. Then as H by the same process 20gradually faces the sun, it will bring about a repetition of the initial situation, with which I began my survey.

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Alternatively, let AEC be in the same way a diameter of the plane under discussion (the ecliptic) as well as the intersection of that plane with a circle perpendicular thereto. On AEC, around A and C, that is, in the Crab and the Goat, draw a circle of the earth in each case through the poles. Let this (meridian) be 5DGFI, the earth’s axis DF, the north pole D, the south pole F, and GI the diameter of the equator. Now when F is turned toward the sun, which is near E, the equator’s northward inclination being measured by the angle IAE, then the axial rotation will describe, parallel to the equator and to the south of it, at a distance LI and with diameter KL, the tropic of Capricorn as seen in the sun. Or, 10to speak more accurately, the axial rotation, as viewed from AE, generates a conic surface, having its vertex in the center of the earth, and its base in a circle parallel to the equator. Also at the opposite point, C, everything works out in like manner, but is reversed. It is clear therefore how the two motions, I mean, the motion of the center and the motion in inclination, by their combined effect make the earth’s 15axis remain in the same direction and in very much the same position, and make

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all these phenomena appear as though they were motions of the sun.

I said, however, that the annual revolutions of the center and of inclination are nearly equal. For if they were exactly equal, the equinoctial and solstitial points 5as well as the entire obliquity of the ecliptic would have to show no shift at all with reference to the sphere of the fixed stars. But since there is a slight variation, it was discovered only as it grew larger with the passage of time. From Ptolemy to us the precession of the equinoxes amounts to almost 21°. For this reason some people believed that the sphere of the fixed stars also moves, and accordingly they 10adopted a surmounting ninth sphere. This having proved inadequate, more recent writers now add on a tenth sphere. Yet they do not in the least attain their goal, which I hope to reach by the earth’s motion. This I shall use as a principle and hypothesis in the demonstration of the other (motions). 15

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Introduction Reading Two

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)

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A. From Ash Wednesday Supper, First Dialogue, pp. 86-92 (ed. and trans. by Edward A. Gosselin and Lawrence S. Lerner, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995).

“The crowd of philosophers,” Auriferae artis … sive Turba philosophorum, Basle 1572

[…]

Smith: Please tell me, what opinion you have of Copernicus?

Teofilo4, the Philosopher: He was a man of deep, developed, diligent and mature genius; a man not second to any astronomer before him except in order of succession and time; a man who, in regard to innate intellect, was greatly superior 5to Ptolemy, Hipparchus, Eudoxus5 and all others who followed in their footsteps. This estate he attained by freeing himself from a number of false presuppositions of the common and vulgar philosophy, which I do not go so far as to term blindness. Yet, Copernicus did not go much further [away from the common and vulgar philosophy] because, being more a student of mathematics than of nature, 10he could not plumb and probe into matters to the extent that he could completely uproot unsuitable and empty principles and, by resolving perfectly all the difficulties in the way, free both himself and others from numerous and empty enquiries and fix their attention on constant and sure things.

In spite of this, who will ever be able to praise sufficiently the greatness of 15this German who, having little regard to the stupid mob, stood so firmly against the torrent of beliefs and, although almost destitute of vital reasons, took up again

4 “Loved by God” 5 All three espoused a geocentric theory of the universe.

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those despised and rusty fragments that he was able to get from the hands of antiquity, refurbished them, and assembled and fastened them together again with his mathematical more than natural reasoning. In this way, he brought the cause, which had been ridiculed, despised and vilified, to be honored, praised, [to be] more credible than its opposite and most certainly more serviceable and 5expeditious for theoretical and calculative purposes. So this German, even though he did not have sufficient means to be able to defeat completely, conquer, and suppress falsehood beyond all resistance, nevertheless stood firm in determining in his mind and avowing openly that it must in the end be necessarily concluded that this globe moves with respect to the universe, rather than that it be possible 10for the totality of innumerable bodies, of which many are known [to be] more splendid and greater [than the earth], to look to the earth as the center and basis of their circles and influences (in spite of nature and reason which suggest the contrary, with most perceptible motions). Who, then, will be so rude and discourteous toward the labors of this man as to forget how much he 15accomplished, and not to consider that he was ordained by the gods to be the dawn which must precede the rising of the sun of the ancient and true philosophy, for so many centuries entombed in the dark caverns of blind, spiteful, arrogant, and envious ignorance? Who, marking what he could not do, would place him among the common herd who are moved and guided by, and throw themselves 20headlong after, the lice of a brutish and ignoble fancy sounding at their ears? Who would not rather count him among those who, with happy genius, have been able to raise themselves and stand erect, most faithfully guided by the eye of Divine Intelligence?

And now, what shall I say of the Nolan? Perhaps it is not appropriate for 25me to praise him, since he is as close to me as I am to myself. [But] certainly, no reasonable man will blame me for praising him, since it is not only fitting but sometimes also necessary, as the lucid and learned Tansillo said so well:

Even though, for a man who longs for regard and honor, Speaking much of himself is not seemly, 30Since the tongue of one whose heart fears and loves Does not merit faith in its words, Sometimes, nevertheless, it seems fitting That another person preach his fame And speak in his favor: so that 35He gets the profit without the blame.

Besides, if there be one so fastidious that he would not under any circumstances suffer praise of his own merits, or the like, he should know that sometimes [praise] cannot be separated from those merits and their fruits. Who will blame 40Apelles for saying to those who ask him, that the work he displays is his own? Who will reprove Phidias for responding to those who ask, “Who is the creator of

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this magnificent sculpture?” that it is he himself?6 Now, then, in order to make you understand the present argument and its importance, I propose to you a conclusion which soon will appear very plain and simple. If the ancient Tiphys7 is praised for having invented the first ship and crossed the sea with the Argonauts:

Too audacious was the man who first violated the treacherous 5waves with fragile raft and, seeing his native shores recede behind him, committed his life to the capricious winds. (Seneca, Medea)

if, in our own times, Columbus is glorified as the one of whom it was foretold long ago:

Time will come when the Ocean will open the barriers of the world 10and a new land will appear and another Tiphys will discover new worlds and Thule will not be the end of the world any more. (Seneca, Medea)

[if these men are so praised,] how shall we honor this man [the Nolan] who has found the way to ascend to the sky, compass the circumference of the stars, and 15leave at his back the convex surface of the firmament? The helmsmen of explorations have discovered how to disturb everybody else’s peace, [how to] violate the native spirits of the [diverse] regions, [how to] mingle together that which provident nature had kept separate; [how] by intercourse to redouble defects and to add to old vices the new vices of other peoples, with violence to 20propagate new follies and to plant unheard-of insanities where they did not before exist, so that he who is strongest comes to conclude that he is wisest. They showed new ways, instruments and arts for tyrannizing and murdering each other. The time will come when, in consequence of all this, those men, having learned at their own expense (through the way things turn out), will know how to 25and will be able to return to us similar and even worse fruits of such pernicious inventions.

Our fathers lived in an age of innocence, devoid of falsehood. Each of them, quietly enjoying his own shore, getting old in his father’s field, rich in his poverty, knew no other riches than those produced 30by the land. The Thessalian wood [the Argo] destroyed the wise laws of the world and the judicious separation of its shores; the sea suffered the scourge of oars and it, formerly separated from us, became frightful to us. (Seneca, Medea)

The Nolan, in order to cause completely opposite effects, has freed the human 35mind and the knowledge which were shut up in the strait prison of the turbulent

6 Apelles was a famous Greek painter during the reign of Alexander the Great. Phidias was a sculptor of the time of Pericles. 7 Thiphys was the pilot of the Argo, the ship that carried Jason and the Argonauts in search of the golden fleece.

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air. Hardly could the mind gaze at the most distant stars as if through some few peepholes, and its wings were clipped so that it could not soar and pierce the veil of the clouds to see what was actually there. It could not free itself from the chimeras of those who, coming forth with manifold imposture from the mire and pits of the earth (as if they were Mercuries and Apollos descended from the skies), 5have filled the whole world with infinite folly, nonsense and vice, disguised as so much virtue, divinity and discipline. By approving and confirming the misty darkness of the sophists and blockheads, they extinguished the light which made the minds of our ancient fathers divine and heroic. Therefore human reason, so long oppressed, now and again in a lucid interval laments her base condition to 10the divine and provident Mind that ever whispers in her inner ear, responding in suchlike measures:

Who will mount for me, Ο Madonna, to the sky, And bring back thence my lost wisdom? 15

Now behold, the man [the Nolan] who has surmounted the air, penetrated the sky, wandered among the stars, passed beyond the borders of the world, [who has] effaced the imaginary walls of the first, eighth, ninth, tenth spheres, and the many more you could add according to the tattlings of empty mathematicians and the blind vision of vulgar philosophers. Thus, by the light of his senses and 20reason, he opened those cloisters of truth which it is possible for us to open with the key of most diligent inquiry; he laid bare covered and veiled nature, gave eyes to the moles and light to the blind, who could not fix their gaze and see their image reflected in the many mirrors which surround them on every side; he loosed the tongues of the dumb who could not and dared not express their 25entangled opinions, [and] he strengthened the lame who could not make that progress of the spirit which base and dissoluble matter cannot make. He makes them no less present [on them] than if they were actual inhabitants of the sun, of the moon, and of the other known stars; he shows how similar or different, greater or lesser are those bodies which we see far away, in relation to the earth 30which is so close to us and to which we are joined; and he opens our eyes to see [truly] this deity, this our mother [the earth] who feeds and nourishes us on her back after having conceived us in her womb to which she always receives us again, and he [leads us] not to think that beyond her there is a material universe without souls, and life and even excrement among its corporeal substances. 35

In this way, we know that if we were on the moon or on other stars, we would not be in a place very different from this—and maybe in a worse place, just as there may be other bodies quite as good and even better in themselves and in the greater happiness of their inhabitants. Thus we will know so many stars, heavenly bodies, deities numbering many hundreds of thousands, who take part in 40the ministry and the contemplation of the first, universal, infinite, and eternal Mover. Our reason is no longer imprisoned by the fetters of the eight, nine, or ten imaginary mobiles or movers. We know that there is naught but one sky, one immense ethereal region where those magnificent lights keep their proper

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distances in order to participate in perpetual life. These blazing bodies are the ambassadors who announce the excellent glory and majesty of God. So we are led to discover the infinite effect of the infinite cause, the true and living sign of infinite vigor; and we have the knowledge not to search for divinity removed from us if we have it near; it is within us more than we ourselves are. In the same way, 5the inhabitants of other worlds must not search for divinity in our world, for they have it close to and within themselves, since the moon is no more heaven for us than we for the moon. We can thus put to a much better purpose what Tansillo almost certainly said jokingly:

If you do not seize the good that is near you, 10How can you find the good which is far away? It seems to me a great mistake to despise yours, And to long for what is in others’ hands. You are like him who abandoned himself Desiring in vain his own image: 15You are like the hound who fell into the river, Seeing what his own shadow held in his mouth. Forget the shadows and embrace the truth; Do not exchange the present for the future. I do not despair of having something better; 20But, by living more happily and calmly, I rejoice in the present and hope of the future And so I get double satisfaction.

With this, one man, even alone, can and shall triumph and, in the end, will have 25the victory and will triumph over the general ignorance. There is no doubt that the matter will thus be determined: not through the multitude of blind and deaf witnesses, of insults and empty words, but by the force of well-regulated sense, which must needs succeed in the end; because, in fact, all the blind are not worth one who sees, and all the fools cannot replace one wise man. 30

Prudenzio, the Pedant:

[in Latin] If affairs and possessions are altered, Live contentedly with what the present offers you. Never alone despise the judgment of the people, Lest you please no one, while you would despise the mob. 35

Teofilo, the Philosopher: This is most prudently said with respect to the conventions and the common rules and practice of polite conversation, but not with respect to the apprehension of truth and the rules of contemplation, of which the same wise man said: Learn, but from the learned man; as for the unlearned, teach 40them. And again, what you say concerns a doctrine suitable for the many; thus it is advice regarding the multitude: For this burden is not for the shoulders of everyone, but for those, like the Nolan, who can bear it, or at least can move it

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toward his ends without experiencing perilous difficulty, as Copernicus was able to do. Moreover, those who possess this truth should not communicate it to every sort of person unless they want to wash the ass’s head, as the saying goes, or see what swine can do with pearls, or gather from their study and labor such fruits as rash and stupid ignorance, along with conceit and incivility (its eternal and 5faithful companions) are wont to produce. Thus we are apt to become teachers of the ignorant and illuminators of those blind men who are not bereft of sight through natural impotence or lack of intelligence and discipline; rather, they are called blind only because they do not observe and reflect, being devoid only of action and not of ability as well. Of these there are some so malicious and 10perfidious that out of a certain slothful envy they become angry and puff themselves up with pride against him who seems willing to teach them. For they are believed to be—and, what is worse, they believe themselves to be—learned doctors, [and] he dares to show that he knows what they do not know. Consequently, you will see them inflamed and enraged. 15

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B. Miscellaneous Poems

I

Passing alone to those realms The object erst of thine exalted thought, I would rise to infinity: then I would compass the skill Of industries and arts equal to the objects. There would I be reborn: there on high I would foster for thee 5Thy fair offspring, now that at length cruel Destiny hath run her whole course Against the enterprise whereby I was wont to withdraw to thee. Fly not from me, for I yearn for a nobler refuge That I may rejoice in thee. And I shall have as guide 10A god called blind by the unseeing. May Heaven deliver thee, and every emanation Of the great Architect be ever gracious unto thee: But turn thou not to me unless thou art mine.

II 15

Escaped from the narrow murky prison Where for so many years error held me straightly, Here I leave the chain that bound me And the shadow of my fiercely malicious foe Who can force me no longer to the gloomy dusk of night. 20For he who hath overcome the great Python, With whose blood he hath dyed the waters of the sea Hath put to flight the Fury that pursued me. To thee I turn, I soar, O my sustaining Voice; I render thanks to thee, my Sun, my divine Light, 25For thou hast summoned me from that horrible torture, Thou hast led me to a goodlier tabernacle; Thou hast brought healing to my bruised heart.

III

Thou art my delight and the warmth of my heart; 30Thou makest me without fear of Fate or of Death; Thou breakest the chains and bars Whence few come forth free. Seasons, years, months, days and hours -- The children and weapons of Time -- and that Court 35Where neither steel nor treasure avail Have secured me from the fury [of the foe]. Henceforth I spread confident wings to space;

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I fear no barrier of crystal or of glass; I cleave the heavens and soar to the infinite. And while I rise from my own globe to others And penetrate ever further through the eternal field, That which others saw from afar, I leave far behind me. 5

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Introduction Reading Three

Alexander Pope (1688-17044)

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AN ESSAY ON MAN (1733-4)

TO H. ST. JOHN LORD BOLINGBROKE.

THE DESIGN.

Having proposed to write some pieces of Human Life and Manners, such as (to use my Lord Bacon’s expression) come home to Men’s Business and Bosoms, I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering Man in the abstract, his Nature and his State; since, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being.

The science of Human Nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points: there are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the anatomy of the Mind as in that of the Body; more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation. The disputes are all upon these last, and, I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice more than advanced the theory of Morality. If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short yet not imperfect system of Ethics.

This I might have done in prose, but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards: the other may seem odd, but is true, I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning: if any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them I freely confess he will compass a thing above my capacity.

What is now published is only to be considered as a general Map of Man, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connection, and leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the

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charts which are to follow. Consequently, these Epistles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any progress) will be less dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the fountains, and clearing the passage. To deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable. P.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE I.

Of the Nature and State of Man, with respect to the Universe.

Of Man in the abstract. I. That we can judge only with regard to our own system, being ignorant of the relations of systems and things, v.17, etc. II. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being suited to his place and rank in the Creation, agreeable to the general Order of Things, and conformable to Ends and Relations to him unknown, v.35, etc. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of future state, that all his happiness in the present depends, v.77, etc. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more Perfection, the cause of Man’s error and misery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice of His dispensations, v.109, etc. V. The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the Creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, v.131, etc. VI. The unreasonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on the one hand he demands the Perfections of the Angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the Brutes; though to possess any of the sensitive faculties in a higher degree would render him miserable, v.173, etc. VII. That throughout the whole visible world, an universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed, which cause is a subordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man. The gradations of sense, instinct, thought, reflection, reason; that Reason alone countervails all the other faculties, v.207. VIII. How much further this order and subordination of living creatures may extend, above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation, must be destroyed, v.233. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire, v.250. X. The consequence of all, the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state, v.281, etc., to the end.

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EPISTEL I.

Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just to look about us and to die) Expatiate free o’er all this scene of man; 5A mighty maze! but not without a plan; A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot; Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit. Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield; 10The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar; Eye Nature’s walks, shoot Folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; 15But vindicate the ways of God to man.

I. Say first, of God above, or man below What can we reason, but from what we know? Of man, what see we but his station here, From which to reason, or to which refer? 20Through worlds unnumbered though the God be known, ’Tis ours to trace Him only in our own. He, who through vast immensity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Observe how system into system runs, 25What other planets circle other suns, What varied being peoples every star, May tell why Heaven has made us as we are. But of this frame, the bearings, and the ties, The strong connections, nice dependencies, 30Gradations just, has thy pervading soul Looked through? or can a part contain the whole? Is the great chain, that draws all to agree, And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?

II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, 35Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind? First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, Why formed no weaker, blinder, and no less; Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade? 40Or ask of yonder argent fields above, Why Jove’s satellites are less than Jove?

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Of systems possible, if ’tis confest That wisdom infinite must form the best, Where all must full or not coherent be, 45And all that rises, rise in due degree; Then in the scale of reasoning life, ’tis plain, There must be, somewhere, such a rank as man: And all the question (wrangle e’er so long) Is only this, if God has placed him wrong? 50 Respecting man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all. In human works, though laboured on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; In God’s one single can its end produce; 55Yet serves to second too some other use. So man, who here seems principal alone, Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown, Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal; ’Tis but a part we see, and not a whole. 60 When the proud steed shall know why man restrains His fiery course, or drives him o’er the plains: When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod, Is now a victim, and now Egypt’s god: Then shall man’s pride and dulness comprehend 65His actions’, passions’, being’s, use and end; Why doing, suffering, checked, impelled; and why This hour a slave, the next a deity. Then say not man’s imperfect, Heaven in fault; Say rather man’s as perfect as he ought: 70His knowledge measured to his state and place; His time a moment, and a point his space. If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matter, soon or late, or here or there? The blest to-day is as completely so, 75As who began a thousand years ago.

III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below? 80The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given, 85That each may fill the circle, marked by Heaven:

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Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 90 Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore. What future bliss, He gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: 95Man never is, but always to be blest: The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come. Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind; 100His soul, proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk, or milky way; Yet simple Nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler heaven; Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, 105Some happier island in the watery waste, Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. To be, contents his natural desire, He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire; 110But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.

IV. Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy opinion against providence; Call imperfection what thou fanciest such, 115Say, here He gives too little, there too much; Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if man’s unhappy, God’s unjust; If man alone engross not Heaven’s high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there: 120Snatch from His hand the balance and the rod, Re-judge His justice, be the God of God. In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, 125Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel: And who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins against the Eternal Cause. 130

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V. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, “’Tis for mine: For me kind Nature wakes her genial power, Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower; Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew 135The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; For me, health gushes from a thousand springs; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.” 140 But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? “No, (’tis replied) the first Almighty Cause 145Acts not by partial, but by general laws; The exceptions few; some change since all began; And what created perfect?”—Why then man? If the great end be human happiness, Then Nature deviates; and can man do less? 150As much that end a constant course requires Of showers and sunshine, as of man’s desires; As much eternal springs and cloudless skies, As men for ever temperate, calm, and wise. If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven’s design, 155Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline? Who knows but He, whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms; Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar’s mind, Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? 160From pride, from pride, our very reasoning springs; Account for moral, as for natural things: Why charge we heaven in those, in these acquit? In both, to reason right is to submit. Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, 165Were there all harmony, all virtue here; That never air or ocean felt the wind; That never passion discomposed the mind. But all subsists by elemental strife; And passions are the elements of life. 170The general order, since the whole began, Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.

VI. What would this man? Now upward will he soar, And little less than angel, would be more;

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Now looking downwards, just as grieved appears 175To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears Made for his use all creatures if he call, Say what their use, had he the powers of all? Nature to these, without profusion, kind, The proper organs, proper powers assigned; 180Each seeming want compensated of course, Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force; All in exact proportion to the state; Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. Each beast, each insect, happy in its own: 185Is Heaven unkind to man, and man alone? Shall he alone, whom rational we call, Be pleased with nothing, if not blessed with all? The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind; 190No powers of body or of soul to share, But what his nature and his state can bear. Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, man is not a fly. Say what the use, were finer optics given, 195To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven? Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o’er, To smart and agonize at every pore? Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain? 200If Nature thundered in his opening ears, And stunned him with the music of the spheres, How would he wish that Heaven had left him still The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill? Who finds not Providence all good and wise, 205Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

VII. Far as Creation’s ample range extends, The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends: Mark how it mounts, to man’s imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grass: 210What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole’s dim curtain, and the lynx’s beam: Of smell, the headlong lioness between, And hound sagacious on the tainted green: Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, 215To that which warbles through the vernal wood: The spider’s touch, how exquisitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:

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In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew? 220How instinct varies in the grovelling swine, Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine! ’Twixt that, and reason, what a nice barrier, For ever separate, yet for ever near! Remembrance and reflection how allayed; 225What thin partitions sense from thought divide: And middle natures, how they long to join, Yet never passed the insuperable line! Without this just gradation, could they be Subjected, these to those, or all to thee? 230The powers of all subdued by thee alone, Is not thy reason all these powers in one?

VIII. See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth,All matter quick, and bursting into birth.Above, how high, progressive life may go! 235Around, how wide! how deep extend below? Vast chain of being! which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee, 240From thee to nothing. On superior powers Were we to press, inferior might on ours: Or in the full creation leave a void, Where, one step broken, the great scale’s destroyed: From Nature’s chain whatever link you strike, 245Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

And, if each system in gradation roll Alike essential to the amazing whole, The least confusion but in one, not all That system only, but the whole must fall. 250Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly, Planets and suns run lawless through the sky; Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurled, Being on being wrecked, and world on world; Heaven’s whole foundations to their centre nod, 255And nature tremble to the throne of God. All this dread order break—for whom? for thee? Vile worm!—Oh, madness! pride! impiety!

IX. What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread,Or hand, to toil, aspired to be the head? 260What if the head, the eye, or ear repined

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To serve mere engines to the ruling mind? Just as absurd for any part to claim To be another, in this general frame: Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains, 265The great directing Mind of All ordains.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul; That, changed through all, and yet in all the same; Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame; 270Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 275As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart: As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns: To him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. 280

X. Cease, then, nor order imperfection name:Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.Know thy own point: this kind, this due degreeOf blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.Submit. In this, or any other sphere, 285Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear: Safe in the hand of one disposing Power, Or in the natal, or the mortal hour. All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; 290All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good: And, spite of pride in erring reason’s spite, One truth is clear, whatever is, is right

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ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE II.

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to Himself, as an Individual.

I. The business of Man not to pry into God, but to study himself. His Middle Nature; his Powers and Frailties, v.1 to 19. The Limits of his Capacity, v.19, etc. II. The two Principles of Man, Self-love and Reason, both necessary, v.53, etc. Self-love the stronger, and why, v.67, etc. Their end the same, v.81, etc. III. The Passions, and their use, v.93 to 130. The predominant Passion, and its force, v.132 to 160. Its Necessity, in directing Men to different purposes, v.165, etc. Its providential Use, in fixing our Principle, and ascertaining our Virtue, v.177. IV. Virtue and Vice joined in our mixed Nature; the limits near, yet the things separate and evident: What is the Office of Reason, v.202 to 216. V. How odious Vice in itself, and how we deceive ourselves into it, v.217. VI. That, however, the Ends of Providence and general Good are answered in our Passions and Imperfections, v.238, etc. How usefully these are distributed to all Orders of Men, v.241. How useful they are to Society, v.251. And to the Individuals, v.263. In every state, and every age of life, v.273, etc.

EPISTEL II.

I. Know, then, thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, 5With too much weakness for the stoic’s pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reasoning but to err; 10Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much: Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused, or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; 15Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled: The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides, Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; 20Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old time, and regulate the sun;

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Go, soar with Plato to th’ empyreal sphere, To the first good, first perfect, and first fair; Or tread the mazy round his followers trod, 25And quitting sense call imitating God; As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun. Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule— Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! 30 Superior beings, when of late they saw A mortal man unfold all Nature’s law, Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape And showed a Newton as we show an ape. Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind, 35Describe or fix one movement of his mind? Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend, Explain his own beginning, or his end? Alas, what wonder! man’s superior part Unchecked may rise, and climb from art to art; 40But when his own great work is but begun, What reason weaves, by passion is undone. Trace Science, then, with Modesty thy guide; First strip off all her equipage of pride; Deduct what is but vanity or dress, 45Or learning’s luxury, or idleness; Or tricks to show the stretch of human brain, Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain; Expunge the whole, or lop th’ excrescent parts Of all our vices have created arts; 50Then see how little the remaining sum, Which served the past, and must the times to come!

II. Two principles in human nature reign; Self-love to urge, and reason, to restrain; Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call, 55Each works its end, to move or govern all And to their proper operation still, Ascribe all good; to their improper, ill. Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; Reason’s comparing balance rules the whole. 60Man, but for that, no action could attend, And but for this, were active to no end: Fixed like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot; Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void, 65Destroying others, by himself destroyed.

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Most strength the moving principle requires; Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires. Sedate and quiet the comparing lies, Formed but to check, deliberate, and advise. 70Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh; Reason’s at distance, and in prospect lie: That sees immediate good by present sense; Reason, the future and the consequence. Thicker than arguments, temptations throng. 75At best more watchful this, but that more strong. The action of the stronger to suspend, Reason still use, to reason still attend. Attention, habit and experience gains; Each strengthens reason, and self-love restrains. 80Let subtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight, More studious to divide than to unite; And grace and virtue, sense and reason split, With all the rash dexterity of wit. Wits, just like fools, at war about a name, 85Have full as oft no meaning, or the same. Self-love and reason to one end aspire, Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire; But greedy that, its object would devour, This taste the honey, and not wound the flower: 90Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

III. Modes of self-love the passions we may call; ’Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all: But since not every good we can divide, 95And reason bids us for our own provide; Passions, though selfish, if their means be fair, List under Reason, and deserve her care; Those, that imparted, court a nobler aim, Exalt their kind, and take some virtue’s name. 100 In lazy apathy let stoics boast Their virtue fixed; ’tis fixed as in a frost; Contracted all, retiring to the breast; But strength of mind is exercise, not rest: The rising tempest puts in act the soul, 105Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole. On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale; Nor God alone in the still calm we find, He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind. 110

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Passions, like elements, though born to fight, Yet, mixed and softened, in his work unite: These, ’tis enough to temper and employ; But what composes man, can man destroy? Suffice that Reason keep to Nature’s road, 115Subject, compound them, follow her and God. Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure’s smiling train, Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain, These mixed with art, and to due bounds confined, Make and maintain the balance of the mind; 120The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife Gives all the strength and colour of our life. Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes; And when in act they cease, in prospect rise: Present to grasp, and future still to find, 125The whole employ of body and of mind. All spread their charms, but charm not all alike; On different senses different objects strike; Hence different passions more or less inflame, As strong or weak, the organs of the frame; 130And hence once master passion in the breast, Like Aaron’s serpent, swallows up the rest. As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath Receives the lurking principle of death; The young disease that must subdue at length, 135Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength: So, cast and mingled with his very frame, The mind’s disease, its ruling passion came; Each vital humour which should feed the whole, Soon flows to this, in body and in soul: 140Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head, As the mind opens, and its functions spread, Imagination plies her dangerous art, And pours it all upon the peccant part. Nature its mother, habit is its nurse; 145Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse; Reason itself but gives it edge and power; As Heaven’s blest beam turns vinegar more sour. We, wretched subjects, though to lawful sway, In this weak queen some favourite still obey: 150Ah! if she lend not arms, as well as rules, What can she more than tell us we are fools? Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend, A sharp accuser, but a helpless friend!

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Or from a judge turn pleader, to persuade 155The choice we make, or justify it made; Proud of an easy conquest all along, She but removes weak passions for the strong; So, when small humours gather to a gout, The doctor fancies he has driven them out. 160 Yes, Nature’s road must ever be preferred; Reason is here no guide, but still a guard: ’Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow, And treat this passion more as friend than foe: A mightier power the strong direction sends, 165And several men impels to several ends: Like varying winds, by other passions tossed, This drives them constant to a certain coast. Let power or knowledge, gold or glory, please, Or (oft more strong than all) the love of ease; 170Through life ’tis followed, even at life’s expense; The merchant’s toil, the sage’s indolence, The monk’s humility, the hero’s pride, All, all alike, find reason on their side. The eternal art, educing good from ill, 175Grafts on this passion our best principle: ’Tis thus the mercury of man is fixed, Strong grows the virtue with his nature mixed; The dross cements what else were too refined, And in one interest body acts with mind. 180 As fruits, ungrateful to the planter’s care, On savage stocks inserted, learn to bear; The surest virtues thus from passions shoot, Wild nature’s vigour working at the root. What crops of wit and honesty appear 185From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear! See anger, zeal and fortitude supply; Even avarice, prudence; sloth, philosophy; Lust, through some certain strainers well refined, Is gentle love, and charms all womankind; 190Envy, to which th’ ignoble mind’s a slave, Is emulation in the learned or brave; Nor virtue, male or female, can we name, But what will grow on pride, or grow on shame. Thus Nature gives us (let it check our pride) 195The virtue nearest to our vice allied: Reason the bias turns to good from ill And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will.

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The fiery soul abhorred in Catiline, In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine: 200The same ambition can destroy or save, And makes a patriot as it makes a knave. This light and darkness in our chaos joined, What shall divide? The God within the mind. Extremes in nature equal ends produce, 205In man they join to some mysterious use; Though each by turns the other’s bound invade, As, in some well-wrought picture, light and shade, And oft so mix, the difference is too nice Where ends the virtue or begins the vice. 210 Fools! who from hence into the notion fall, That vice or virtue there is none at all. If white and black blend, soften, and unite A thousand ways, is there no black or white? Ask your own heart, and nothing is so plain; 215’Tis to mistake them, costs the time and pain. Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 220But where th’ extreme of vice, was ne’er agreed: Ask where’s the north? at York, ’tis on the Tweed; In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there, At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where. No creature owns it in the first degree, 225But thinks his neighbour farther gone than he; Even those who dwell beneath its very zone, Or never feel the rage, or never own; What happier nations shrink at with affright, The hard inhabitant contends is right. 230 Virtuous and vicious every man must be, Few in th’ extreme, but all in the degree, The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise; And even the best, by fits, what they despise. ’Tis but by parts we follow good or ill; 235For, vice or virtue, self directs it still; Each individual seeks a several goal; But Heaven’s great view is one, and that the whole. That counter-works each folly and caprice; That disappoints th’ effect of every vice; 240That, happy frailties to all ranks applied, Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride,

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Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief, To kings presumption, and to crowds belief: That, virtue’s ends from vanity can raise, 245Which seeks no interest, no reward but praise; And build on wants, and on defects of mind, The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind. Heaven forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or a friend, 250Bids each on other for assistance call, Till one man’s weakness grows the strength of all. Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally The common interest, or endear the tie. To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, 255Each home-felt joy that life inherits here; Yet from the same we learn, in its decline, Those joys, those loves, those interests to resign; Taught half by reason, half by mere decay, To welcome death, and calmly pass away. 260 Whate’er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbour with himself. The learned is happy nature to explore, The fool is happy that he knows no more; The rich is happy in the plenty given, 265The poor contents him with the care of Heaven. See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing, The sot a hero, lunatic a king; The starving chemist in his golden views Supremely blest, the poet in his muse. 270 See some strange comfort every state attend, And pride bestowed on all, a common friend; See some fit passion every age supply, Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die. Behold the child, by Nature’s kindly law, 275Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite: Scarves, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age: 280Pleased with this bauble still, as that before; Till tired he sleeps, and life’s poor play is o’er. Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays Those painted clouds that beautify our days; Each want of happiness by hope supplied, 285And each vacuity of sense by pride:

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These build as fast as knowledge can destroy; In folly’s cup still laughs the bubble, joy; One prospect lost, another still we gain; And not a vanity is given in vain; 290Even mean self-love becomes, by force divine, The scale to measure others’ wants by thine. See! and confess, one comfort still must rise, ’Tis this, though man’s a fool, yet God is wise.

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ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE III.

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to Society.

I. The whole Universe one system of Society, v.7, etc. Nothing made wholly for itself, nor yet wholly for another, v.27. The happiness of Animals mutual, v.49. II. Reason or Instinct operate alike to the good of each Individual, v.79. Reason or Instinct operate also to Society, in all Animals, v.109. III. How far Society carried by Instinct, v.115. How much farther by Reason, v.128. IV. Of that which is called the State of Nature, v.144. Reason instructed by Instinct in the invention of Arts, v.166, and in the Forms of Society, v.176. V. Origin of Political Societies, v.196. Origin of Monarchy, v.207. Patriarchal Government, v.212. VI. Origin of true Religion and Government, from the same principle, of Love, v.231, etc. Origin of Superstition and Tyranny, from the same principle, of Fear, v.237, etc. The Influence of Self-love operating to the social and public Good, v.266. Restoration of true Religion and Government on their first principle, v.285. Mixed Government, v.288. Various forms of each, and the true end of all, v.300, etc.

EPISTLE III.

Here, then, we rest: “The Universal Cause Acts to one end, but acts by various laws.” In all the madness of superfluous health, The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth, Let this great truth be present night and day; 5But most be present, if we preach or pray. Look round our world; behold the chain of love Combining all below and all above. See plastic Nature working to this end, The single atoms each to other tend, 10Attract, attracted to, the next in place Formed and impelled its neighbour to embrace. See matter next, with various life endued, Press to one centre still, the general good. See dying vegetables life sustain, 15See life dissolving vegetate again: All forms that perish other forms supply (By turns we catch the vital breath, and die), Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne, They rise, they break, and to that sea return. 20Nothing is foreign: parts relate to whole; One all-extending, all-preserving soul Connects each being, greatest with the least;

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Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast; All served, all serving: nothing stands alone; The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown. Has God, thou fool! worked solely for thy Thy good, Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? 5Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him as kindly spread the flowery lawn: Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings? Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat? 10Loves of his own and raptures swell the note. The bounding steed you pompously bestride, Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride. Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain? The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain. 15Thine the full harvest of the golden year? Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer: The hog, that ploughs not nor obeys thy call, Lives on the labours of this lord of all. Know, Nature’s children all divide her care; 20The fur that warms a monarch, warmed a bear. While man exclaims, “See all things for my use!” “See man for mine!” replies a pampered goose: And just as short of reason he must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all. 25 Grant that the powerful still the weak control; Be man the wit and tyrant of the whole: Nature that tyrant checks; he only knows, And helps, another creature’s wants and woes. Say, will the falcon, stooping from above, 30Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove? Admires the jay the insect’s gilded wings? Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings? Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods, To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods; 35For some his interest prompts him to provide, For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride: All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy The extensive blessing of his luxury. That very life his learned hunger craves, 40He saves from famine, from the savage saves; Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast, And, till he ends the being, makes it blest; Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain,

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Than favoured man by touch ethereal slain. The creature had his feast of life before; Thou too must perish when thy feast is o’er! To each unthinking being, Heaven, a friend, Gives not the useless knowledge of its end: 5To man imparts it; but with such a view As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too; The hour concealed, and so remote the fear, Death still draws nearer, never seeming near. Great standing miracle! that Heaven assigned 10Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

II. Whether with reason, or with instinct blest, Know, all enjoy that power which suits them best; To bliss alike by that direction tend, And find the means proportioned to their end. 15Say, where full instinct is the unerring guide, What pope or council can they need beside? Reason, however able, cool at best, Cares not for service, or but serves when pressed, Stays till we call, and then not often near; 20But honest instinct comes a volunteer, Sure never to o’er-shoot, but just to hit; While still too wide or short is human wit; Sure by quick nature happiness to gain, Which heavier reason labours at in vain, 25This too serves always, reason never long; One must go right, the other may go wrong. See then the acting and comparing powers One in their nature, which are two in ours; And reason raise o’er instinct as you can, 30In this ’tis God directs, in that ’tis man. Who taught the nations of the field and wood To shun their poison, and to choose their food? Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand, Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand? 35Who made the spider parallels design, Sure as Demoivre, without rule or line? Who did the stork, Columbus-like, explore Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before? Who calls the council, states the certain day, 40Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?

III. God in the nature of each being founds Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds:

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But as He framed a whole, the whole to bless, On mutual wants built mutual happiness: So from the first, eternal order ran, And creature linked to creature, man to man. Whate’er of life all-quickening ether keeps, 5Or breathes through air, or shoots beneath the deeps, Or pours profuse on earth, one nature feeds The vital flame, and swells the genial seeds. Not man alone, but all that roam the wood, Or wing the sky, or roll along the flood, 10Each loves itself, but not itself alone, Each sex desires alike, till two are one. Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace; They love themselves, a third time, in their race. Thus beast and bird their common charge attend, 15The mothers nurse it, and the sires defend; The young dismissed to wander earth or air, There stops the instinct, and there ends the care; The link dissolves, each seeks a fresh embrace, Another love succeeds, another race. 20A longer care man’s helpless kind demands; That longer care contracts more lasting bands: Reflection, reason, still the ties improve, At once extend the interest and the love; With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn; 25Each virtue in each passion takes its turn; And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise. That graft benevolence on charities. Still as one brood, and as another rose, These natural love maintained, habitual those. 30The last, scarce ripened into perfect man, Saw helpless him from whom their life began: Memory and forecast just returns engage, That pointed back to youth, this on to age; While pleasure, gratitude, and hope combined, 35Still spread the interest, and preserved the kind.

IV. Nor think, in Nature’s state they blindly trod; The state of nature was the reign of God: Self-love and social at her birth began, Union the bond of all things, and of man. 40Pride then was not; nor arts, that pride to aid; Man walked with beast, joint tenant of the shade; The same his table, and the same his bed; No murder clothed him, and no murder fed.

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In the same temple, the resounding wood, All vocal beings hymned their equal God: The shrine with gore unstained, with gold undressed, Unbribed, unbloody, stood the blameless priest: Heaven’s attribute was universal care, 5And man’s prerogative to rule, but spare. Ah! how unlike the man of times to come! Of half that live the butcher and the tomb; Who, foe to nature, hears the general groan, Murders their species, and betrays his own. 10But just disease to luxury succeeds, And every death its own avenger breeds; The fury-passions from that blood began, And turned on man a fiercer savage, man. See him from Nature rising slow to art! 15To copy instinct then was reason’s part; Thus then to man the voice of Nature spake— “Go, from the creatures thy instructions take: Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; Learn from the beasts the physic of the field; 20Thy arts of building from the bee receive; Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave; Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. Here too all forms of social union find, 25And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind: Here subterranean works and cities see; There towns aërial on the waving tree. Learn each small people’s genius, policies, The ant’s republic, and the realm of bees; 30How those in common all their wealth bestow, And anarchy without confusion know; And these for ever, though a monarch reign, Their separate cells and properties maintain. Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state, 35Laws wise as nature, and as fixed as fate. In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw, Entangle justice in her net of law, And right, too rigid, harden into wrong; Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong. 40Yet go! and thus o’er all the creatures sway, Thus let the wiser make the rest obey; And, for those arts mere instinct could afford, Be crowned as monarchs, or as gods adored.”

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V. Great Nature spoke; observant men obeyed; Cities were built, societies were made: Here rose one little state: another near Grew by like means, and joined, through love or fear. Did here the trees with ruddier burdens bend, 5And there the streams in purer rills descend? What war could ravish, commerce could bestow, And he returned a friend, who came a foe. Converse and love mankind might strongly draw, When love was liberty, and Nature law. 10Thus States were formed; the name of king unknown, ’Till common interest placed the sway in one. ’Twas virtue only (or in arts or arms, Diffusing blessings, or averting harms) The same which in a sire the sons obeyed, 15A prince the father of a people made.

VI. Till then, by Nature crowned, each patriarch sate, King, priest, and parent of his growing state; On him, their second providence, they hung, Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue. 20He from the wondering furrow called the food, Taught to command the fire, control the flood, Draw forth the monsters of the abyss profound, Or fetch the aërial eagle to the ground. Till drooping, sickening, dying they began 25Whom they revered as God to mourn as man: Then, looking up, from sire to sire, explored One great first Father, and that first adored. Or plain tradition that this all begun, Conveyed unbroken faith from sire to son; 30The worker from the work distinct was known, And simple reason never sought but one: Ere wit oblique had broke that steady light, Man, like his Maker, saw that all was right; To virtue, in the paths of pleasure, trod, 35And owned a Father when he owned a God. Love all the faith, and all the allegiance then; For Nature knew no right divine in men, No ill could fear in God; and understood A sovereign being but a sovereign good. 40True faith, true policy, united ran, This was but love of God, and this of man. Who first taught souls enslaved, and realms undone, The enormous faith of many made for one;

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That proud exception to all Nature’s laws, To invert the world, and counter-work its cause? Force first made conquest, and that conquest, law; Till superstition taught the tyrant awe, Then shared the tyranny, then lent it aid, 5And gods of conquerors, slaves of subjects made: She, ’midst the lightning’s blaze, and thunder’s sound, When rocked the mountains, and when groaned the ground, She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray, To power unseen, and mightier far than they: 10She, from the rending earth and bursting skies, Saw gods descend, and fiends infernal rise: Here fixed the dreadful, there the blest abodes; Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods; Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust, 15Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust; Such as the souls of cowards might conceive, And, formed like tyrants, tyrants would believe. Zeal then, not charity, became the guide; And hell was built on spite, and heaven on pride, 20Then sacred seemed the ethereal vault no more; Altars grew marble then, and reeked with gore; Then first the flamen tasted living food; Next his grim idol smeared with human blood; With heaven’s own thunders shook the world below, 25And played the god an engine on his foe. So drives self-love, through just and through unjust, To one man’s power, ambition, lucre, lust: The same self-love, in all, becomes the cause Of what restrains him, government and laws. 30For, what one likes if others like as well, What serves one will when many wills rebel? How shall he keep, what, sleeping or awake, A weaker may surprise, a stronger take? His safety must his liberty restrain: 35All join to guard what each desires to gain. Forced into virtue thus by self-defence, Even kings learned justice and benevolence: Self-love forsook the path it first pursued, And found the private in the public good. 40 ’Twas then, the studious head or generous mind, Follower of God, or friend of human-kind, Poet or patriot, rose but to restore The faith and moral Nature gave before;

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Re-lumed her ancient light, not kindled new; If not God’s image, yet His shadow drew: Taught power’s due use to people and to kings, Taught nor to slack, nor strain its tender strings, The less, or greater, set so justly true, 5That touching one must strike the other too; Till jarring interests, of themselves create The according music of a well-mixed state. Such is the world’s great harmony, that springs From order, union, full consent of things: 10Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made To serve, not suffer, strengthen, not invade; More powerful each as needful to the rest, And, in proportion as it blesses, blest; Draw to one point, and to one centre bring 15Beast, man, or angel, servant, lord, or king. For forms of government let fools contest; Whate’er is best administered is best: For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right: 20In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind’s concern is charity: All must be false that thwart this one great end; And all of God, that bless mankind or mend. Man, like the generous vine, supported lives; 25The strength he gains is from the embrace he gives. On their own axis as the planets run, Yet make at once their circle round the sun; So two consistent motions act the soul; And one regards itself, and one the whole. 30 Thus God and Nature linked the general frame, And bade self-love and social be the same.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE IV.

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to Happiness.

I. False Notions of Happiness, Philosophical and Popular, answered from v.19 to 77. II. It is the End of all Men, and attainable by all, v.30. God intends Happiness to be equal; and to be so, it must be social, since all particular Happiness depends on general, and since He governs by general, not particular Laws, v.37. As it is necessary for Order, and the peace and welfare of Society, that external goods should be unequal, Happiness is not made to consist in these, v.51. But, notwithstanding that inequality, the balance of Happiness among Mankind is kept even by Providence, by the two Passions of Hope and

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Fear, v.70. III. What the Happiness of Individuals is, as far as is consistent with the constitution of this world; and that the good Man has here the advantage, V.77. The error of imputing to Virtue what are only the calamities of Nature or of Fortune, v.94. IV. The folly of expecting that God should alter His general Laws in favour of particulars, v.121. V. That we are not judges who are good; but that, whoever they are, they must be happiest, v.133, etc. VI. That external goods are not the proper rewards, but often inconsistent with, or destructive of Virtue, v.165. That even these can make no Man happy without Virtue: Instanced in Riches, v.183. Honours, v.191. Nobility, v.203. Greatness, v.215. Fame, v.235. Superior Talents, v.257, etc. With pictures of human Infelicity in Men possessed of them all, v.267, etc. VII. That Virtue only constitutes a Happiness, whose object is universal, and whose prospect eternal, v.307, etc. That the perfection of Virtue and Happiness consists in a conformity to the Order of Providence here, and a Resignation to it here and hereafter, v.326, etc.

[The Fourth Epistle has been omitted]

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The Scientific Revolution

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Questions to Consider General:

• What do these authors mean by “science”? Is it the same as what we mean by the term today?

• What role do the authors see science playing generally in human life? In society?

• What do the authors contrast science with? • How do Bacon and Descartes differ in their approaches to science? • In what ways do the authors’ views of science fit into or conflict with

their more general view of the world? • Do the authors agree or disagree on the purpose of science? • How do Bacon and Descartes differ in their views of the role

mathematics ought to play in science?

Francis Bacon:

• Does Bacon in some way found his approach to science on an investigation into human nature, as advised later by Pope?

• What is the significance of the Frontispiece of the Great Renewal? • What do you think Bacon intends by calling his project a “Great

Renewal”? • Is Bacon’s way of pleading for the importance of science for society in

some way related to his view of science itself? • Why are the Idols so important to Bacon’s project? • What is the main criterion of truth according to Bacon? • What was wrong with earlier attempts at science? • What does Bacon mean by “induction”? • Does science and indeed truth itself in some way relate to freedom for

Bacon? (see, among others, Aphorism LXXVII) • What relation is there, if any, between Bacon’s depiction of the

social/family structure of his mythical Atlantis and his view of science? • In what ways is the New Atlantis prophetic for the future of science and

in what ways is it profoundly mistaken?

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Rene Descartes: • Does Descartes in some way found his approach to science on an

investigation of human nature, as advised by Pope? Does he differ in this way from Bacon at all?

• By what arguments does Descartes call into question the evidence of the senses?

• Do science and truth relate in some deep way to freedom in Descartes view?

• Why do we err, in Descartes’ view? • What is Descartes’ ultimate criterion of truth and how does it agree or

disagree with his view of science? • What is the ultimate purpose of Descartes’ cogito (i.e. I think, I am.)

argument? • What is important about Descartes claim that the essence of bodies is

nothing but their extension? • What is the real purpose of science, in Descartes’ view? • By what argument does Descartes presume to prove that thinking is a

substance independent from body? • Why does Descartes attempt to prove God’s existence? • How does Descartes relate his search for certainty to faith and the

authority of the church? Is his position consistent?

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The Scientific Revolution Reading One

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

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Frontispiece of Bacon’s The Great Renewal (1620)

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(The following selections from the Great Renewal and the New Organon are adapted and emended versions of those found in the translation of Michael Silverthorne, ed. By Lisa Jardine (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000)).

A. The Great Renewal (1620)

These are the thoughts of

Francis Verulam, and this is the 5

method which he designed for himself: he believed

that present and future generations would be better off

if he made it known to them. 10

He became aware that the human intellect is the source of its own problems, and makes no sensible and appropriate use of the very real aids which are within man’s power; the consequence is a deeply layered ignorance of nature, and as a result of this ignorance, innumerable deprivations. He therefore 15judged that he must make every effort to find a way by which the relation between the mind and nature could be wholly restored or at least considerably improved. But there was simply no hope that errors which have grown powerful with age and which are likely to remain powerful for ever would (if the mind were left to itself) correct themselves of their own accord one by one, 20either from the native force of the understanding or with the help and assistance of logic. The reason is that the first notions of things which the mind accepts, keeps and accumulates (and which are the source of everything else), are faulty and confused and abstracted from things without care; and in its secondary and other notions there is no less passion and inconsistency. The 25consequence is that the general human reason which we bring to bear on the inquiry into nature is not well founded and properly constructed; it is like a magnificent palace without a foundation. Men admire and celebrate the false powers of the mind, but miss and lose the real powers they could have (if the proper assistance were used and if the mind itself were more compliant 30towards nature and did not recklessly insult it). The only course remaining was to try the thing again from the start with better means, and make a general Renewal of the sciences and arts and of all human learning, beginning from correct foundations. This might seem, on approach, to be something illimitably vast and beyond mortal strength, and yet in the treatment, will be 35

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found to be sane and sensible, more so than what has been done in the past. For one can see an end to it. Whereas in what is currently done in the sciences, there is a kind of giddiness, a perpetual agitation and going in a circle. He is also very aware of the solitude in which this experiment moves, and how hard, how unbelievably difficult, it is to get people to believe in it. Nevertheless he 5felt that he should not fail himself or abandon his subject without attempting to travel the only road open to the human mind. For it is better to make a beginning of a thing which has a chance of an end, than to get caught up in things which have no end, in perpetual struggle and exertion. These ways of thought are analogous in some way to the two legendary paths of action: the 10one is steep and difficult at the beginning but ends in the open; the other, at first glance easy and downhill, leads to impassable, precipitous places. He could not be sure when such things would occur to anyone again in the future; he was particularly moved by the argument that he had not so far found anyone who had applied his mind to similar thoughts; and therefore he decided to give 15to the public the first parts that he had been able to complete. His haste was not due to ambition but to anxiety; if in the human way of things, anything should happen to him, there would still be extant an outline and plan of the thing which he had conceived in his mind; there would still exist also some indication of his genuine concern for the good of the human race. Certainly he 20regarded every other ambition as lower than the work that he had in hand. For either the matter in question is nothing, or it is so important that it should rightly be content with itself and not seek any external reward.

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Preface

On the state of the sciences, that it is neither prosperous nor far advanced; and that a quite different way must be opened up for the human intellect than men have known in the past, and new aids devised, so that the mind may exercise 5

its right over nature.

Men seem to me to have no good sense of either their resources or their power; but to exaggerate the former and underrate the latter. Hence, either they put an insane value on the arts which they already have and look no further or, 10undervaluing themselves, they waste their power on trifles and fail to try it out on things which go to the heart of the matter. And so they are like fatal pillars of Hercules to the sciences; for they are not stirred by the desire or the hope of going further. Belief in abundance is among the greatest causes of poverty; because of confidence in the present, real aids for the future are neglected. It is 15therefore not merely useful but quite essential that at the very outset of our work (without hesitation or pretence) we rid ourselves of this excess of veneration and regard, with a useful warning that men should not exaggerate or celebrate their abundance and its usefulness. For if you look closely at the wide range of books which are the boast of the arts and sciences, you will 20frequently find innumerable repetitions of the same thing, different in manner of treatment but anticipated in content, so that things which at first glance seem to be numerous are found on examination to be few. One must also speak plainly about usefulness, and say that the wisdom which we have drawn in particular from the Greeks seems to be a kind of childish stage of science, and 25to have the child’s characteristic of being all too ready to talk, but too weak and immature to produce anything. For it is fertile in controversies, and feeble in results. The story of Scylla seems to fit the current state of letters exactly: she showed the face and visage of a virgin, but barking monsters clothed and clung to her loins. Similarly, the sciences to which we are accustomed have 30certain bland and specious generalities, but when we get to particulars (which are like the generative parts), so that they may bring forth fruit and works from themselves, disputes and scrappy controversies start up, and that is where it ends and that is all the fruit they have to show. Besides, if such sciences were not a completely dead thing, it seems very unlikely that we 35would have the situation we have had for many centuries, that the sciences are almost stopped in their tracks, and show no developments worthy of the human race. Very often indeed not only does an assertion remain a mere assertion but a question remains a mere question, not resolved by discussion, but fixed and augmented; and the whole tradition of the disciplines presents us 40with a series of masters and pupils, not a succession of discoverers and disciples who make notable improvements to the discoveries. In the mechanical arts we see the opposite situation. They grow and improve every day as if they breathed some vital breeze. In their first authors they usually appear crude,

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clumsy almost, and ungainly, but later they acquire new powers and a kind of elegance, to the point that men’s desires and ambitions change and fail more swiftly than these arts reach their peak of perfection. By contrast, philosophy and the intellectual sciences are, like statues, admired and venerated but not improved. Moreover they are sometimes at their best in their earliest author 5and then decline. For after men have joined a sect and committed themselves (like obsequious courtiers) to one man’s opinion, they add no distinction to the sciences themselves, but act like servants in courting and adorning their authors. Let no one maintain that the sciences have grown little by little and now have reached a certain condition, and now at last (like runners who have 10finished the race) have found their final homes in the works of a few authors, and now that nothing better can be discovered, it remains only to adorn and cultivate what has already been discovered. We could wish that it were so. But a more correct and truthful account of the matter is that these appropriations of the sciences are simply a result of the confidence of a few men and the 15idleness and inertia of the rest. For after the sciences had been perhaps carefully cultivated and developed in some areas, by chance there arose a person, daring in character, who was accepted and followed because he had a summary kind of method; in appearance he gave the art a form, but in reality he corrupted the labours of the older investigators. Yet it is a delight to 20posterity, because of the handy usefulness of his work and their disgust and impatience with new inquiry. And if anyone is attracted by ancient consensus and the judgement of time (so to speak), he should realise that he is relying on a very deceptive and feeble method. For we are mostly ignorant of what has become known and been published in the sciences and arts in different 25centuries and other places, and much more ignorant of what has been tried by individuals and discussed in private. So neither the births nor the abortions of time are extant in the public record. Nor should we attach much value to consensus itself and its longevity. There may be many kinds of political state, but there is only one state of the sciences, and it is a popular state and always 30will be. And among the people the kinds of learning which are most popular are those which are either controversial and combative or attractive and empty, that is, those which ensnare and those which seduce assent. This is surely why the greatest geniuses in every age have suffered violence; while men of uncommon intellect and understanding, simply to preserve their 35reputation, have submitted themselves to the judgement of time and the multitude. For this reason, if profound thoughts have occasionally flared up, they have soon been blown on by the winds of common opinion and put out. The result is that Time like a river has brought down to us the light things that float on the surface, and has sunk what is weighty and solid. Even those 40authors who have assumed a kind of dictatorship in the sciences and make pronouncements about things with so much confidence, take to complaining when they recover their senses from time to time about the subtlety of nature, the depths of truth, the obscurity of things, the complexity of causes, and the

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weakness of human understanding; yet they are no more modest in this, since they prefer to blame the common condition of man and nature rather than admit their own incapacity. In fact their usual habit, when some art fails to deliver something, is to declare the thing impossible on the basis of the same art. An art cannot be condemned when it is itself both the advocate and the 5judge; and so the issue is to save ignorance from disgrace. This then, more or less, is the condition of the traditional and received kinds of learning: barren of results, full of questions; slow and feeble in improvement; claiming perfection in the whole, but very imperfect in the parts; popular in choice and suspect to the authors themselves, and therefore wrapped up and presented with a variety 10of devices. Even those who have set out to learn for themselves and to commit themselves to the sciences and extend their limits, have not dared to abandon the received sciences completely or to seek the sources of things. They think they have achieved something important if they insert and add something of their own, prudently reflecting that in assenting they preserve their modesty 15and in adding they keep their freedom. But in being respectful of opinions and habits, these middle ways that people praise result in great losses for the sciences. For you can hardly admire an author and at the same time go beyond him. It is like water; it ascends no higher than its starting point. And so such men make some emendations but little progress; they improve existing 20learning but do not progress to anything new. There have also been men who with greater daring have thought that everything was new with them, and have relied on the strength of their genius to flatten and destroy everything that went before, and so made room for themselves and their opinions. They have not achieved much for all their noise; for what they tried to do was not to 25augment philosophy and the arts in fact and effect, but only to cause a change in belief and transfer the leadership of opinion to themselves; with very little profit, since among opposite errors, the causes of erring are almost the same. Those who have had sufficient spirit to want other men to join their inquiries, because they were not enslaved to their own or to other people’s dogmas but 30favoured freedom, have doubtless been honest in intention, but they have been ineffective in practice. For they seem to have followed only probable reasoning, and are carried round and round in a whirlpool of arguments, and take all the power out of their investigation by their undisciplined licence in raising questions. There has been no one who has spent an adequate amount of time 35on things themselves and on experience. And some again who have committed themselves to the waves of experience, making themselves almost mechanics, still practise a kind of aimless investigation in experience itself, since even they do not work by fixed rules. In fact most of them have set themselves some petty tasks, thinking it a great achievement to make a single discovery; a 40design as inept as it is modest. It is impossible to make a thorough and successful inquiry into the nature of a thing in the thing itself; after a tedious variety of experiments he finds no end but only further lines of investigation. Then again, one should particularly notice that every effort expended on

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experience right from the beginning has sought to obtain certain specific results and to get them fast and directly; it has sought (I repeat) profitable, not illuminating, experiments; failing to imitate God’s order, who on the first day created only light, and devoted a whole day to it; and produced on that day no material effects, moving on to these only on subsequent days. But those who 5have assigned the highest functions to logic and have thought to fashion the most powerful assistants to the sciences out of logic, have well and truly seen that the unaided human understanding really has to be distrusted. However, the medicine is much worse than the disease; and not without its own problems. For the logic now in use, though very properly applied to civil 10questions and the arts which consist of discussion and opinion, still falls a long way short of the subtlety of nature; and in grasping at what it cannot hold, has succeeded in establishing and fixing errors rather than in opening up the way to truth.

[…] 15The requests we make are as follows. Nothing for ourselves personally,

but about what we are doing, we ask that men think of it not as an opinion but as a work, and hold it for certain that we are laying the foundations not of a sect or of a dogma, but of human progress and empowerment. And then that they would give their own real interests a chance, and put off the zeal and 20prejudice of beliefs and think of the common good; then, freed from obstacles and mistaken notions of the way, and equipped with our helps and assistance, we would ask them to undertake their share of the labours that remain. And we ask them to be of good hope; and not imagine or conceive of our Renewal as something infinite and superhuman, when in fact it is the end of unending 25error, and the right goal, and accepts the limitations of mortality and humanity, since it does not expect that the thing can be completely finished in the course of one lifetime, but provides for successors; and finally that it seeks knowledge not (arrogantly) in the tiny cells of human intelligence but humbly in the wider world. For the most part empty things are very big, solid things 30are very dense and take up little space. Finally, it seems, we must also request (just in case anyone means to be unfair to us, which would imperil the project itself) that men determine how far, on the basis of what we are compelled to say (if we are to be consistent), they may believe they have the right to have an opinion or to express a view about our teachings; for we reject (in an inquiry 35into nature) all that hasty human reasoning, based on preconceptions, which abstracts from things carelessly and more quickly than it should, as a vague, unstable procedure, badly devised. And I cannot be arraigned to stand trial under a procedure which is itself on trial. 40

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The plan of the work

It consists of six Parts: 5First, The Divisions of the Sciences. Second, The New Organon, or Directions for the Interpretation of Nature. Third, Phenomena of the Universe, or A Natural and Experimental History

towards the foundation of Philosophy. Fourth, The Ladder of the Intellect. 10Fifth, Forerunners, or Anticipations of Second Philosophy. Sixth, Second Philosophy, or Practical Science.

The outlines of each Part 15It is a part of our plan to set everything out as openly and clearly as possible. For a naked mind is the companion of innocence and simplicity, as once upon a time the naked body was. And therefore we must first lay out the order and plan of our work. It consists of six parts.

The first part gives a Summary or general description of the science or 20learning which the human race currently possesses. It seemed good to us to spend some time on what is presently accepted, thinking that this would help the perfection of the old and the approach to the new. We are almost equally eager to develop the old and to acquire the new. This also gives us credibility, according to the saying that ‘an ignorant man will not believe words of 25knowledge until you have told him what he has in his heart’. Hence we shall not neglect to sail along the shores of the accepted sciences and arts, importing some useful items into them, in our passage.

However the divisions of the sciences which we employ include not only things which have been noticed and discovered but also things that until now 30have been missed but should be there. For in the intellectual as in the physical world, there are deserts as well as cultivated places. And so it is not surprising if we sometimes depart from the customary divisions. An addition not only changes the whole, but necessarily also alters the parts and sections; and the accepted divisions merely reflect the currently accepted outline of the sciences. 35

In matters which we shall note as missing, we shall be sure to do more than simply suggest a bare title and an outline account of what is needed. For if we report among things missing anything (of some value) whose method seems so obscure that we are justified in suspecting that men will not easily understand what we mean, or what is the task which we imagine and conceive 40in our mind, we will always take the trouble either to add instructions for carrying out the task or a report of our own performance of a part of it, as an example of the whole; so that we may give some help in each case either by advice or in practice. We feel that our own reputation, as well as the interest of

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others, requires that no one should suppose that some superficial notions on these matters have simply entered in our heads, and that the things we desiderate and try to grasp are mere wishes. They are such that they are clearly within men’s power (unless men fail themselves), and I do have a firm and explicit conception of them. I have undertaken not merely to survey these 5regions in my mind, like an augur taking the auspices, but to enter them like a general, with a strong will to claim possession. And this is the first part of the work.

After coasting by the ancient arts, we will next equip the human 10understanding to set out on the ocean. We plan therefore, for our second part, an account of a better and more perfect use of reason in the investigation of things and of the true aids of the intellect, so that (despite our humanity and subjection to death) the understanding may be raised and enlarged in its ability to overcome the difficult and dark things of nature. And the art which 15we apply (which we have chosen to call Interpretation of Nature) is an art of logic, though with a great difference, indeed a vast difference. It is true that ordinary logic also claims to devise and prepare assistants and supports for the intellect; in this they are the same. But it differs altogether from ordinary logic in three particular ways: viz., in its end, in its order of demonstration, and in 20the starting points of its inquiry.

For the end we propose for our science is the discovery of arts, not of arguments, of principles and not of inferences from principles, of signs and indications of works and not probable reasonings. Different results follow from our different design. They defeat and conquer their adversary by disputation; 25we conquer nature by work.

The nature and order of our demonstrations agree with such an end. For in ordinary logic almost all effort is concentrated on the syllogism. The logicians seem scarcely to have thought about induction. They pass it by with barely a mention, and hurry on to their formulae for disputation. But we reject 30proof by syllogism, because it operates in confusion and lets nature slip out of our hands. For although no one could doubt that things which agree in a middle term, agree also with each other (which has a kind of mathematical certainty), nevertheless there is a kind of underlying fraud here, in that a syllogism consists of propositions, and propositions consist of words, and 35words are counters and signs of notions. And therefore if the very notions of the mind (which are like the soul of words, and the basis of every such structure and fabric) are badly or carelessly abstracted from things, and are vague and not defined with sufficiently clear outlines, and thus deficient in many ways, everything falls to pieces. And therefore we reject the syllogism; 40and not only so far as principles are concerned (they do not use it for that either) but also for intermediate propositions, which the syllogism admittedly deduces and generates in a certain fashion, but without effects, quite divorced from practice and completely irrelevant to the active part of the sciences. For

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even if we leave to the syllogism and similar celebrated but notorious kinds of demonstration jurisdiction over the popular arts which are based on opinion (for we have no ambitions in this area), still for the nature of things we use induction throughout, and as much for the minor propositions as for the major ones. For we regard induction as the form of demonstration which respects the 5senses, stays close to nature, fosters results and is almost involved in them itself.

And so the order of demonstration also is completely reversed. For the way the thing has normally been done until now is to leap immediately from sense and particulars to the most general propositions, as to fixed poles around 10which disputations may revolve; then to derive everything else from them by means of intermediate propositions; which is certainly a short route, but dangerously steep, inaccessible to nature and inherently prone to disputations. By contrast, by our method, axioms are gradually elicited step by step, so that we reach the most general axioms only at the very end; and the most general 15axioms come out not as notional, but as well defined, and such as nature acknowledges as truly known to her, and which live in the heart of things.

By far the biggest question we raise is as to the actual form of induction, and of the judgement made on the basis of induction. For the form of induction which the logicians speak of, which proceeds by simple enumeration, is a 20childish thing, which jumps to conclusions, is exposed to the danger of instant contradiction, observes only familiar things and reaches no result.

What the sciences need is a form of induction which takes experience apart and analyses it, and forms necessary conclusions on the basis of appropriate exclusions and rejections. And if the logicians’ usual form of 25judgement has been so difficult and required so much intellectual exertion, how much more effort should we expend on this other judgement, which is drawn not only from the depths of the mind but from the bowels of nature.

And this is not all. For we place the foundations of the sciences deeper and lay them lower, and set our starting points further back than men have 30ever done before, subjecting them to examination, while ordinary logic accepts them on the basis of others’ belief. For logicians borrow (if I may put it this way) the principles of the sciences from the particular sciences themselves; then they pay respect to the first notions of the mind; finally they are happy with the immediate perceptions of healthy senses. But our position is that true 35logic should enter the provinces of the individual sciences with greater authority than is in their own principles, and compel those supposed principles themselves to give an account as to what extent they are firmly established. As for the first notions of the intellect: not one of the things which the intellect has accumulated by itself escapes our suspicion, and we do not confirm them 40without submitting them to a new trial and a verdict given in accordance with it. Furthermore, we have many ways of scrutinising the information of the senses themselves. For the senses often deceive, but they also give evidence of their own errors; however the errors are to hand, the evidence is far to seek.

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The senses are defective in two ways: they may fail us altogether or they may deceive. First, there are many things which escape the senses even when they are healthy and quite unimpeded; either because of the rarity of the whole body or by the extremely small size of its parts, or by distance, or by its slowness or speed, or because the object is too familiar, or for other reasons. 5And even when the senses do grasp an object, their apprehensions of it are not always reliable. For the evidence and information given by the senses is always based on the analogy of man not of the universe; it is a very great error to assert that the senses are the measure of things.

So to meet these defects, we have sought and gathered from every side, 10with great and faithful devotion, assistants to the senses, so as to provide substitutes in the case of total failure and correction in the case of distortion. We do this not so much with instruments as with experiments. For the subtlety of experiments is far greater than that of the senses themselves even when assisted by carefully designed instruments; we speak of experiments 15which have been devised and applied specifically for the question under investigation with skill and good technique. And therefore we do not rely very much on the immediate and proper perception of the senses, but we bring the matter to the point that the senses judge only of the experiment, the experiment judges of the thing. Hence we believe that we have made the 20senses (from which, if we prefer not to be insane we must derive everything in natural things) sacred high priests of nature and skilled interpreters of its oracles; while others merely seem to respect and honour the senses, we do so in actual fact. Such are the preparations which we make for the light of nature and its kindling and application; and they would be sufficient in themselves if 25men’s understandings were unbiased, a blank slate. But as men’s minds have been occupied in so many strange ways that they have no even, polished surface available to receive the true rays of things, it is essential for us to realise that we need to find a remedy for this too.

The Idols by which the mind is occupied are either artificial or innate. 30The artificial idols have entered men’s minds either from the doctrines and sects of philosophers or from perverse rules of proof. The innate idols are inherent in the nature of the intellect itself, which is found to be much more prone to error than the senses. For however much men may flatter themselves and run into admiration and almost veneration of the human mind, it is quite 35certain that, just as an uneven mirror alters the rays of things from their proper shape and figure, so also the mind, when it is affected by things through the senses, does not faithfully preserve them, but inserts and mingles its own nature with the nature of things as it forms and devises its own notions.

The first two kinds of idols can be eliminated, with some difficulty, but 40the last in no way. The only strategy remaining is, on the one hand, to indict them, and to expose and condemn the mind’s insidious force, in case after the destruction of the old, new shoots of error should grow and multiply from the poor structure of the mind itself, and the result would be that errors would not

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be quashed but simply altered; and on the other hand, to fix and establish for ever the truth that the intellect can make no judgement except by induction in its legitimate form. Hence the teaching which cleanses the mind to make it receptive to truth consists of three refutations: a refutation of philosophies; a refutation of proofs; and a refutation of natural human reason. When we have 5dealt with these, and clarified the part played by the nature of things and the part played by the nature of the mind, we believe that, with the help of God’s goodness, we will have furnished and adorned the bedchamber for the marriage of the mind and the universe. In the wedding hymn we should pray that men may see born from this union the assistants that they need and a 10lineage of discoveries which may in some part conquer and subdue the misery and poverty of man. And this is the second part of the work. But we plan not only to show the way and build the roads, but also to enter upon them. And therefore the third part of our work deals with the Phenomena 15of the Universe, that is, every kind of experience, and the sort of natural history which can establish the foundations of philosophy. A superior method of proof or form of interpreting nature may defend and protect the mind from error and mistake, but it cannot supply or provide material for knowledge. But those who are determined not to guess and take omens but to discover and know, 20and not to make up fairytales and stories about worlds, but to inspect and analyse the nature of this real world, must seek everything from things themselves. No substitute or alternative in the way of intelligence, thought or argument can take the place of hard work and investigation and the visitation of the world, not even if all the genius of all the world worked together. This 25then we must unfailingly do or abandon the business for ever. But to this very day men have acted so foolishly that it is no wonder that nature does not give them access to her.

For in the first place, the information of the senses themselves is defective and deceiving; observation is lazy, uneven and casual; teaching is 30empty and based on hearsay; practice is slavishly bent on results; experimental initiative is blind, unintelligent, hasty and erratic; and natural history is shallow and superficial. Between them they have accumulated very poor material for the intellect to construct philosophy and the sciences.

And the tendency to introduce subtle and intricate disputation 35prematurely comes too late to remedy a situation which is utterly desperate, and does nothing to move on the enterprise or remove error. Thus there is no hope of major development or progress except in a renewal of the sciences.

Its beginnings must come from a natural history, and a natural history of a new kind with a new organisation. It would be pointless to polish the 40mirror if there were no images; and clearly we must get suitable material for the intellect, as well as making reliable instruments. And our history (like our logic) differs from that now in use in many ways: in its purpose or task, in its

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actual extent and composition, in its subtlety, and also in the selection and arrangement of it in relation to the next stage.

First we propose a natural history which does not so much amuse by the variety of its contents or give immediate profit from its experiments, as shed light on the discovery of causes and provide a first breast to feed philosophy. 5For although our ultimate aim is works and the active part of science, still we wait for harvest time and do not try to reap moss and the crop while it is still green. We know very well that axioms properly discovered bring whole companies of works with them, revealing them not singly but in quantity. But we utterly condemn and reject the childish desire to take some pledges 10prematurely, in the form of new works, like an apple of Atalanta which slows the race. Such is the task of our Natural History.

And as for its composition, we are making a history not only of nature free and unconstrained (when nature goes its own way and does its own work), such as a history of the bodies of heaven and the sky, of land and sea, of 15minerals, plants and animals; but much more of nature confined and harassed, when it is forced from its own condition by art and human agency, and pressured and moulded. And therefore we give a full description of all the experiments of the mechanical arts, all the experiments of the applied part of the liberal arts, and all the experiments of several practical arts which have not 20yet formed a specific art of their own (so far as we have had an opportunity to investigate and they are relevant to our purpose). Moreover (to be plain) we put much more effort and many more resources into this part than into the other, and pay no attention to men’s disgust or what they find attractive, since nature reveals herself more through the harassment of art than in her own 25proper freedom.

And we do not give a history of bodies only; we felt that we should also take the trouble to make a separate history of the powers themselves (we mean those which could be considered as central powers in nature, and which plainly constitute the originals of nature, since they are the material for the first 30passions and desires, viz., Dense, Rare, Hot, Cold, Solid, Liquid, Heavy, Light and many others).

As for subtlety, we are certainly looking for a kind of experience which is far more subtle and simple than those which simply happen. For we bring and draw many things out of obscurity which no one would ever have thought 35to investigate if he were not following the sure and steady path to the discovery of causes. For in themselves they are of no great use, so that it is quite clear that they have not been sought for themselves. Rather they are to things and works exactly like the letters of the alphabet to speech and words: though useless in themselves, they are still the elements of all discourse. 40

And in the choice of narratives and experiences we think that we have served men better than those who have dealt with natural history in the past. For we use the evidence of our own eyes, or at least of our own perception, in everything, and apply the strictest criteria in accepting things; so that we

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exaggerate nothing in our reports for the sake of sensation, and our narrations are free and untouched by fable and foolishness. We also specifically proscribe and condemn many widely accepted falsehoods (which have prevailed for many centuries by a kind of neglect and are deeply ingrained), so that they may not trouble the sciences any more. For as someone wisely remarked that the 5stories and superstitions and trifles which nurses instill into children also seriously deprave their minds, by the same reasoning we feel we must be careful, and even anxious, that philosophy should not at the start get into the habit of any kind of foolishness as we foster and nurture its infancy in the form of natural history. In every experiment which is new and even the least bit 10subtle, even if (as it seems to us) it is sure and proven, we give a frank account of the method of the experiment we used; so that after we have revealed every move we made, men may see any hidden error attached to it, and may be prompted to find more reliable, more meticulous proofs (if any exist); and finally we sprinkle warnings, reservations and cautions in all directions, with 15the religious scruple of an exorcist casting out and banishing every kind of fantasy.

Finally, since we have seen how much experience and history distort the sight of the human mind, and how difficult it is (especially for tender or prejudiced minds) at first to get used to nature, we often add our own 20observations, which are like the first turn or move of history towards philosophy (perhaps one might say, the first glance). They are intended to be like a pledge to men that they will not be forever floundering in the waves of history, and that when we come to the work of the understanding, everything will be more ready for action. By such a Natural History (as we have outlined) 25we believe that men may make a safe, convenient approach to nature and supply good, prepared material to the understanding.

After we have surrounded the intellect with the most trustworthy aides and bodyguards, and have used the most stringent selection to build a fine army of 30divine works, it may seem that nothing remains to be done but to approach philosophy itself. But in such a difficult and doubtful task there are certain points which it seems necessary to introduce first, partly for instruction and partly for their immediate usefulness. The first point is to give examples of investigation and discovery by our way and method, as exhibited in certain 35subjects. We particularly choose subjects which are both the most notable of things under investigation and the most different from each other; so that in every genus we may have an example. We are not speaking of examples added to individual precepts and rules for illustration (these we have given in abundance in our second part); we simply mean types and variations, which 40may bring before our eyes the whole procedure of the mind and the seamless fabric and order of its discovery of things, in certain subjects, which will be diverse and striking. The analogy that suggests itself is that in mathematics demonstration is easy and clear when the machine is used, whereas without

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this convenience everything seems complicated and more subtle than it really is. And so we devote the fourth part of our work to such examples, and thus it is truly and simply a particular and detailed application of the second part. The fifth part is useful only for a time until the rest is completed; and is given as a kind of interest until we can get the capital. We are not driving blindly 5towards our goal and ignoring the useful things that come up on the way. For this reason the fifth part of our work consists of things which we have either discovered, demonstrated or added, not on the basis of our methods and instructions for interpretation, but from the same intellectual habits as other people generally employ in investigation and discovery. For while we expect, 10from our constant converse with nature, greater things from our reflections than our intellectual capacity might suggest, these temporary results may in the meantime serve as shelters built along the road for the mind to rest in for a while as it presses on towards more certain things. However, we insist in the meantime that we do not wish to be held to these results themselves, because 15they have not been discovered or demonstrated by the true form of interpretation. One should not be frightened of such a suspension of judgement in a doctrine which does not assert simply that nothing can be known, but that nothing can be known except in a certain order and by a certain method; and meanwhile it has set up some degrees of certitude for use and comfort until the 20mind reaches its goal of explanation of causes. Nor were the schools of philosophers who simply maintained lack of conviction inferior to those who claimed a freedom to make pronouncements. Yet the former did not provide assistance to the sense and understanding, as we have done, but totally undermined belief and authority; which is a very different thing and almost the 25opposite.

Finally the sixth part of our work (which the rest supports and serves) at last reveals and expounds the philosophy which is derived and formed from the kind of correct, pure, strict inquiry which we have already framed and explained. It is beyond our ability and beyond our expectation to achieve this 30final part and bring it to completion. We have made a start on the task, a start which we hope is not despicable; the end will come from the fortune of mankind, such an end perhaps as in the present condition of things and the present state of thought men cannot easily grasp or guess. It is not merely success in speculation which is in question, but the human situation, human 35fortune and the whole potential of works. For man is nature’s agent and interpreter; he does and understands only as much as he has observed of the order of Nature in work or by inference; he does not know and cannot do more. No strength exists that can interrupt or break the chain of causes; and nature is conquered only by obedience. Therefore those two goals of man, 40knowledge and power, a pair of twins, are really come to the same thing, and works are chiefly frustrated by ignorance of causes.

The whole secret is never to let the mind’s eyes stray from things themselves, and to take in images exactly as they are. May God never allow us

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to publish a dream of our imagination as a model of the world, but rather graciously grant us the power to describe the true appearance and revelation of the prints and traces of the Creator in his creatures.

[…] 5

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B. Selections from Book I of the New Organon Aphorism I Man is Nature’s agent and interpreter; he does and understands only as much as he has observed of the order of nature in fact or by inference; he does not 5know and cannot do more. II Neither the bare hand nor the unaided intellect has much power; the work is done by tools and assistance, and the intellect needs them as much as the hand. 10As the hand’s tools either prompt or guide its motions, so the mind’s tools either prompt or warn the intellect. III Human knowledge and human power come to the same thing, because 15ignorance of cause frustrates effect. For Nature is conquered only by obedience; and that which in thought is a cause, is like a rule in practice. IV All man can do to achieve results is to bring natural bodies together and take 20them apart; Nature does the rest internally. VIII Even the results which have been discovered already are due more to chance and experience than to sciences; for the sciences we now have are no more than 25elegant arrangements of things previously discovered, not methods of discovery or pointers to new results. IX The cause and root of nearly all the deficiencies of the sciences is just this: that 30while we mistakenly admire and praise the powers of the human mind, we do not seek its true supports. X The subtlety of nature far surpasses the subtlety of sense and intellect, so that 35men’s fine meditations, speculations and endless discussions are quite insane, except that there is no one who notices. XI As the sciences in their present state are useless for the discovery of works, so 40logic in its present state is useless for the discovery of sciences. XII

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Current logic is good for establishing and making permanent errors (which are themselves based on common notions) rather than for inquiring into truth; hence it is not useful, it is positively harmful. XIII 5The syllogism is not applied to the principles of the sciences, and is applied in vain to the middle axioms, since it is by no means equal to the subtlety of nature. It therefore compels assent without reference to things. XIV 10The syllogism consists of propositions, propositions consist of words, and words are counters for notions. Hence if the notions themselves (this is the basis of the matter) are confused and abstracted from things without care, there is nothing sound in what is built on them. The only hope is true induction. 15 XVII Passion and aberration occur no less in forming axioms than in abstracting notions, even in the principles that depend on ordinary induction. But this is much more the case with the lower axioms and propositions which the 20syllogism generates. XVIII The things that have hitherto been discovered in the sciences all fit nicely into common notions; in order to penetrate to the more inward and remote parts of 25nature, both notions and axioms must be abstracted from things in a more certain, better-grounded way; and a more certain and altogether better intellectual procedure must come into use. XIX 30There are, and can be, only two ways to investigate and discover truth. The one leaps from sense and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles and their settled truth, determines and discovers intermediate axioms; this is the current way. The other elicits axioms from sense and particulars, rising in a gradual and unbroken ascent to arrive at last at the 35most general axioms; this is the true way, but it has not been tried. XX Left to itself the intellect goes the same way as it does when it follows the order of dialectic (i.e. the first of the two ways above). The mind loves to leap 40to generalities, so that it can rest; it only takes it a little while to get tired of experience. These faults have simply been magnified by dialectic, for ostentatious disputes.

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XXI In a sober, grave and patient character the intellect left to itself (especially if unimpeded by received doctrines) makes some attempt on that other way, which is the right way, but with little success; since without guidance and assistance it is a thing inadequate and altogether incompetent to overcome the 5obscurity of things. XXII Both ways start from sense and particulars, and come to rest in the most general; but they are vastly different. For one merely brushes experience and 10particulars in passing, the other deals fully and properly with them; one forms certain abstract and useless generalities from the beginning, the other rises step by step to what is truly better known by nature. XXIII 15There is a great distance between the idols of the human mind and the ideas of the divine mind; that is, between what are no more than empty opinions and what we discover are the true prints and signatures made on the creation. XXIV 20 Axioms formed by argumentation cannot be good at all for the discovery of new results, because the subtlety of nature far surpasses the subtlety of argumentation. But arguments duly and properly abstracted from particulars readily indicate and suggest new particulars; this is what makes the sciences 25practical. XXVI For the purposes of teaching, we have chosen to call the reasoning which men 30usually apply to nature anticipations of nature (because it is a risky, hasty business), and to call the reasoning which is elicited from things in proper ways interpretation of nature. XXVII 35Anticipations are quite strong enough to induce agreement, since even if men were mad in one common way together, they could agree among themselves well enough. XXVIII 40In fact anticipations are much more powerful in winning assent than interpretations; they are gathered from just a few instances, especially those which are common and familiar, which merely brush past the intellect and fill the imagination. Interpretations by contrast are gathered piece by piece from

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things which are quite various and widely scattered, and cannot suddenly strike the intellect. So that, to common opinion, they cannot help seeming hard and incongruous, almost like mysteries of faith. XXX 5Even if all the minds of all the ages should come together and pool their labours and communicate their thoughts, there will be no great progress made in sciences by means of anticipations, because errors which are radical and lie in the fundamental organisation of the mind are not put right by subsequent efforts and remedies, however brilliant. 10 XXXI It is futile to expect a great advancement in the sciences from overlaying and implanting new things on the old; a new beginning has to be made from the lowest foundations, unless one is content to go round in circles for ever, with 15meagre, almost negligible, progress. XXXIV There is no easy way of teaching or explaining what we are introducing; because anything new will still be understood by analogy with the old. 20 XXXVI There remains one simple way of getting our teaching across, namely to introduce men to actual particulars and their sequences and orders, and for men in their turn to pledge to abstain for a while from notions, and begin to 25get used to actual things. XXXVIII The idols and false notions which have got a hold on men’s intellects in the past and are now profoundly rooted in them, not only block their minds so that 30it is difficult for truth to gain access, but even when access has been granted and allowed, they will once again, in the very renewal of the sciences, offer resistance and do mischief unless men are forewarned and arm themselves against them as much as possible. 35XXXIX There are four kinds of illusions which block men’s minds. For instruction’s sake, we have given them the following names: the first kind are called idols of the tribe; the second idols of the cave; the third idols of the marketplace; the fourth idols of the theatre. 40 XL Formation of notions and axioms by means of true induction is certainly an appropriate way to banish idols and get rid of them; but it is also very useful to

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identify the idols. Instruction about idols has the same relation to the interpretation of nature as teaching the sophistic refutations has to ordinary logic. XLI 5The idols of the tribe are founded in human nature itself and in the very tribe or race of mankind. The assertion that the human senses are the measure of things is false; to the contrary, all perceptions, both of sense and mind, are relative to man, not to the universe. The human understanding is like an uneven mirror receiving rays from things and merging its own nature with the 10nature of things, which thus distorts and corrupts it. XLII The idols of the cave are the illusions of the individual man. For (apart from the aberrations of human nature in general) each man has a kind of individual cave 15or cavern which fragments and distorts the light of nature. This may happen either because of the unique and particular nature of each man; or because of his upbringing and the company he keeps; or because of his reading of books and the authority of those whom he respects and admires; or because of the different impressions things make on different minds, preoccupied and 20prejudiced perhaps, or calm and detached, and so on. The evident consequence is that the human spirit (in its different dispositions in different men) is a variable thing, quite irregular, almost haphazard. Heraclitus well said that men seek knowledge in lesser, private worlds, not in the great or common world. 25XLIII There are also illusions which seem to arise by agreement and from men’s association with each other, which we call idols of the marketplace; we take the name from human exchange and community. Men associate through talk; and words are chosen to suit the understanding of the common people. And thus a 30poor and unskilful code of words incredibly obstructs the understanding. The definitions and explanations with which learned men have been accustomed to protect and in some way liberate themselves, do not restore the situation at all. Plainly words do violence to the understanding, and confuse everything; and betray men into countless empty disputes and fictions. 35 XLIV Finally there are the illusions which have made their homes in men’s minds from the various dogmas of different philosophies, and even from mistaken rules of demonstration. These I call idols of the theatre, for all the philosophies 40that men have learned or devised are, in our opinion, so many plays produced and performed which have created false and fictitious worlds. We are not speaking only of the philosophies and sects now in vogue or even of the ancient ones; many other such plays could be composed and concocted, seeing

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that the causes of their very different errors have a great deal in common. And we do not mean this only of the universal philosophies, but also of many principles and axioms of the sciences which have grown strong from tradition, belief and inertia. But we must speak at greater length and separately of each different kind of idol, to give warning to the human understanding. 5 XLV The human understanding from its own peculiar nature willingly supposes a greater order and regularity in things than it finds, and though there are many things in nature which are unique and full of disparities, it invents parallels 10and correspondences and non-existent connections. Hence those false notions that in the heavens all things move in perfect circles and the total rejection of spiral lines and dragons (except in name). Hence the element of fire and its orbit have been introduced to make a quaternion with the other three elements, which are accessible to the senses. Also a ratio of ten to one is 15arbitrarily imposed on the elements (as they call them), which is the ratio of their respective rarities; and other such nonsense. This vanity prevails not only in dogmas but also in simple notions. XLVI 20Once a man’s understanding has settled on something (either because it is an accepted belief or because it pleases him), it draws everything else also to support and agree with it. And if it encounters a larger number of more powerful countervailing examples, it either fails to notice them, or disregards them, or makes fine distinctions to dismiss and reject them, and all this with 25much dangerous prejudice, to preserve the authority of its first conceptions. […] The same method is found perhaps in every superstition, like astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgements and so on: people who take pleasure in such vanities notice the results when they are fulfilled, but ignore and overlook them when they fail, though they do fail more often than not. This failing finds 30its way into the sciences and philosophies in a much more subtle way, in that once something has been settled, it infects everything else (even things that are much more certain and powerful), and brings them under its control. And even apart from the pleasure and vanity we mentioned, it is an innate and constant mistake in the human understanding to be much more moved and 35excited by affirmatives than by negatives, when rightly and properly it should make itself equally open to both; and in fact, to the contrary, in the formation of any true axiom, there is superior force in a negative instance. XLVII 40The human understanding is most affected by things which have the ability to strike and enter the mind all at once and suddenly, and to fill and expand the imagination. It pretends and supposes that in some admittedly imperceptible way, everything else is just like the few things that took the mind by storm.

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The understanding is very slow and ill adapted to make the long journey to those remote and heterogeneous instances which test axioms as in a fire, unless it is made to do so by harsh rules and the force of authority. XLVIII 5The human understanding is ceaselessly active, and cannot stop or rest, and seeks to go further; but in vain. […] This indiscipline of the mind works with greater damage on the discovery of causes: for though the most universal things in nature must be brute facts, which are just as they are found, and are not themselves truly causable, the human understanding, not knowing how to 10rest, still seeks things better known. And then as it strives to go further, it falls back on things that are more familiar, namely final causes, which are plainly derived from the nature of man rather than of the universe, and from this origin have wonderfully corrupted philosophy. It is as much a mark of an inept and superficial thinker to look for a cause in the most universal cases as not to 15feel the need of a cause in subordinate and derivative cases. XLIX The human understanding is not composed of dry light, but is subject to influence from the will and the emotions, a fact that creates fanciful knowledge; 20man prefers to believe what he wants to be true. He rejects what is difficult because he is too impatient to make the investigation; he rejects sensible ideas, because they limit his hopes; he rejects the deeper truths of nature because of superstition; he rejects the light of experience, because he is arrogant and fastidious, believing that the mind should not be seen to be spending its time 25on mean, unstable things; and he rejects anything unorthodox because of common opinion. In short, emotion marks and stains the understanding in countless ways which are sometimes impossible to perceive. L 30But much the greatest obstacle and distortion of human understanding comes from the dullness, limitations and deceptions of the senses; so that things that strike the senses have greater influence than even powerful things which do not directly strike the senses. And therefore thought virtually stops at sight; so that there is little or no notice taken of things that cannot be seen. And so all 35operation of spirits enclosed in tangible bodies remains hidden and escapes men’s notice. And all the more subtle structural change in the parts of dense objects (which is commonly called alteration, although in truth it is movement of particles) is similarly hidden. Yet unless the two things mentioned are investigated and brought to the light, nothing important can be done in nature 40as far as results are concerned. Again, the very nature of the common air and of all the bodies which surpass air in rarity (of which there are many) is virtually unknown. For by itself sense is weak and prone to error, nor do instruments for amplifying and sharpening the senses do very much. And yet

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every interpretation of nature which has a chance to be true is achieved by instances, and suitable and relevant experiments, in which sense only gives a judgement on the experiment, while the experiment gives a judgement on nature and the thing itself. 5LI The human understanding is carried away to abstractions by its own nature, and pretends that things which are in flux are unchanging. But it is better to dissect nature than to abstract; as the school of Democritus did, which penetrated more deeply into nature than the others. We should study matter, 10and its structure (schematismus), and structural change (meta-schematismus), and pure act, and the law of act or motion; for forms are figments of the human mind, unless one chooses to give the name of forms to these laws of act. LII 15Such then are the illusions that we call idols of the tribe, which have their origin either in the regularity of the substance of the human spirit; or in its prejudices; or in its limitations; or in its restless movement; or in the influence of the emotions; or in the limited powers of the senses; or in the mode of impression. 20 LIV Men fall in love with particular pieces of knowledge and thoughts: either because they believe themselves to be their authors and inventors; or because they have put a great deal of labour into them, and have got very used to them. 25If such men betake themselves to philosophy and universal speculation, they distort and corrupt them to suit their prior fancies. This is seen most conspicuously in Aristotle, who utterly enslaved his natural philosophy to his logic, and made it a matter of disputation and almost useless. Chemists as a group have built up a fantastic philosophy out of a few experiments at the 30furnace, which has a very limited range; and Gilbert too, after his strenuous researches on the magnet, immediately concocted a philosophy in conformity with the thing that had the dominating influence over him. LVI 35There are some minds which are devoted to admiration for antiquity, others to the love and embrace of novelty, and few have the temperament to keep to the mean without criticising the true achievements of the ancients or despising the real contributions of the moderns. This is a great loss to the sciences and to philosophy, since these are not judgements but enthusiasm for antiquity or 40modernity; and truth is not to be sought from the felicity of a particular time, which is a variable thing, but from the light of nature, which is eternal. We must reject these enthusiasms, and ensure that the understanding is not diverted into compliance with them.

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LVIII Let such be the care in observation which will banish and get rid of idols of the cave, which mostly have their origin in a dominance or excess of composition and division, or in partiality for historical periods, or in the large and minute 5objects. And in general every student of nature must hold in suspicion whatever most captures and holds his understanding; and this warning needs to be all the more applied in issues of this kind, to keep the understanding clear and balanced. 10LIX But the idols of the marketplace are the biggest nuisance of all, because they have stolen into the understanding from the covenant21 on words and names. For men believe that their reason controls words. But it is also true that words retort and turn their force back upon the understanding; and this has rendered 15philosophy and the sciences sophistic and unproductive. And words are mostly bestowed to suit the capacity of the common man, and they dissect things along the lines most obvious to the common understanding. And when a sharper understanding, or more careful observation, attempts to draw those lines more in accordance with nature, words resist. Hence it happens that the 20great and solemn controversies of learned men often end in disputes about words and names. But it would be wiser (in the prudent manner of the mathematicians) to begin with them, and to reduce them to order by means of definitions. However, in the things of nature and matter, these definitions cannot cure this fault. For the definitions themselves consist of words, and 25words beget words, so that it is necessary to have recourse to particular instances and their sequences and orders; as we shall explain soon when we deal with the method and manner of forming notions and axioms. LXI 30Idols of the theatre are not innate or stealthily slipped into the understanding; they are openly introduced and accepted on the basis of fairytale theories and mistaken rules of proof. It is not at all consistent with our argument to attempt or undertake to refute them.

There is no possibility of argument, since we do not agree either about 35the principles or about the proofs. It is a happy consequence that the ancients may keep their reputation. I take nothing from them, since the question is simply about the way. As the saying goes, a lame man on the right road beats the runner who misses his way. It is absolutely clear that if you run the wrong way, the better and faster you are, the more you go astray. 40

Our method of discovery in the sciences is designed not to leave much to the sharpness and strength of the individual talent; it more or less equalises talents and intellects. In drawing a straight line or a perfect circle, a good deal depends on the steadiness and practice of the hand, but little or nothing if a

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ruler or a compass is used. Our method is exactly the same. But though there is no point in specific refutations, something must be said about the sects and kinds of such theories; and then of the external signs that the situation is bad; and lastly of the reasons for so much failure, and such persistent and general agreement in error; so that there may be easier access to true things, and the 5human understanding may be more willing to cleanse itself and dismiss its idols. LXII

[…] 10In general, for the content of philosophy, either much is made of little or

little is made of much, so that in both cases philosophy is built upon an excessively narrow basis of experience and natural history, and bases its statements on fewer instances than is proper. Philosophers of the rational type are diverted from experience by the variety of common phenomena, which 15have not been certainly understood or carefully examined and considered; they depend for the rest on reflection and intellectual exercise.

There are also philosophers of another type who have laboured carefully and faithfully over a few experiments, and have had the temerity to tease out their philosophies from them and build them up; the rest they twist to fit that 20pattern in wonderful ways.

There is also a third type, who from faith and respect mingle theology and traditions; some of them have been unfortunately misled by vanity to try to derive sciences from Spirits and Genii. And so the root of errors and false philosophy is of three kinds: Sophistic, Empirical and Superstitious. 25 LXIV The empirical brand of philosophy generates more deformed and freakish dogmas than the sophistic or rational kind, because it is not founded on the light of common notions (which though weak and superficial, is somehow 30universal and relevant to many things) but on the narrow and unilluminating basis of a handful of experiments. Such a philosophy seems probable and almost certain to those who are engaged every day in experiments of this kind and have corrupted their imagination with them; to others it seems unbelievable and empty. There is a notable example of this among the 35chemists and their dogmas; otherwise it scarcely exists at this time, except perhaps in the philosophy of Gilbert. However, we should not fail to give a warning about such philosophies. We already conceive and foresee that, if ever men take heed of our advice and seriously devote themselves to experience (having said goodbye to the sophistic doctrines), then this philosophy will at 40last be genuinely dangerous, because of the mind’s premature and precipitate haste, and its leaping or flying to general statements and the principles of things; even now we should be facing this problem.

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LXVIII So much for the individual kinds of idols and their trappings; all of which must be rejected and renounced and the mind totally liberated and cleansed of them, so that there will be only one entrance into the kingdom of man, which is based upon the sciences, as there is into the kingdom of heaven, ‘into which, 5except as an infant, there is no way to enter’. LXXIII None of the signs is more certain or more worth noticing than that from products. For the discovery of products and results is like a warranty or 10guarantee of the truth of a philosophy. […] LXXVII A view exists that there is at least a great consensus around the philosophy of Aristotle, since after its publication the philosophies of the older philosophers 15allegedly fell into disuse and were forgotten, and in the later period nothing better was discovered; so that it seems to have been so well founded and so well established that it monopolised both periods. But first, the common view of the neglect of ancient philosophy after the publication of the works of Aristotle is not true; long afterwards right down to the time of Cicero and the 20following centuries the works of the older philosophers survived. It was only in subsequent centuries, when human learning suffered shipwreck, so to speak, from the flood of barbarians that poured into the Roman empire, that the philosophies of Aristotle and Plato were saved by floating on the waves of the times like planks of rather lighter, less solid material. The matter of consensus 25also is deceptive if one takes a closer look at it. A true consensus is one which (after examination of the matter) consists in liberty of judgement converging on the same point. But the great majority of those who have accepted the philosophy of Aristotle have enslaved themselves to it from prejudice and the authority of others; so that it is rather discipleship and party unity than a 30consensus. Even if it had been a true, widespread consensus, so mistaken is it that a consensus should be taken for true and sound authority that it implies a strong presumption to the contrary. Worst of all is to take an indication from consensus in intellectual matters, except in divine matters and political matters, where there is a right to vote. For nothing pleases a large number of 35people unless it strikes the imagination, or confines the mind in the coils of common notions, as was said above. So it is very appropriate to apply Phocion’s remark about morals to intellectual matters: men should immediately ask themselves seriously what errors or mistakes they have made if the crowd agrees and applauds. This sign therefore is among the most 40dangerous. And now we have completed our explanation that the signs of truth and soundness in the philosophies and sciences, as they are now, are poor, whether we gather them from their origins, from their products, from their progress, from their authors’ own admissions or from consensus.

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LXXXIV Again, men have been hindered from making progress in the sciences by the spell (I may say) of reverence for antiquity, and by the authority of men who have a great reputation in philosophy and by the consensus which derives from 5them. I have spoken above of consensus.

[…] We should also take into account that many things in nature have come

to light and been discovered as a result of long voyages and travels (which have been more frequent in our time), and they are capable of shedding new 10light in philosophy. Indeed it would be a disgrace to mankind if wide areas of the physical globe, of land, sea and stars, have been opened up and explored in our time while the boundaries of the intellectual globe were confined to the discoveries and narrow limits of the ancients.

With regard to authors, it is a mark of supreme cowardice to give 15unlimited credit to authors and to deny its rights to Time, the author of authors and thus of all authority. For truth is rightly called the daughter of time and not of authority. Therefore it is no wonder if the spell of antiquity, of authors and of consent has so shackled men’s courage that (as if bewitched) they have been unable to get close to things themselves. 20 XCII But much the greatest obstacle to the progress of the sciences and to opening up new tasks and provinces within them lies in men’s lack of hope and in the assumption that it is impossible. For grave and prudent men tend to be quite 25without confidence in such things, reflecting in themselves on the obscurity of nature, the shortness of life, the defects of the senses, the weakness of judgement, the difficulties of experiments, and so on. And so they suppose that there is a kind of ebb and flow of knowledge, through the turnings of time and the ages of the world; since in some periods they grow and flourish, in others 30decline and fall: and always under this law, that when they have reached a certain level and condition, they can go no further.

Therefore, if anyone believes or promises more, they think it is a sign of an immoderate and immature mind; and believe that in such efforts the beginning is happy, the middle is difficult and the end confusion. And since 35such thoughts are those which readily occur to serious men of superior judgement, we must truly be careful not to be captivated by our love for the best and most beautiful thing, and relax or lessen the severity of our judgement. We must carefully consider what hope appears and from what direction it comes; we must reject the lighter breezes of hope, and thoroughly 40analyse and weigh those which seem most sound. We also need to call in political prudence to give advice, and we must make use of it; it is distrustful by its nature, and takes a dim view of human affairs. And so we must now speak of hope; especially as we do not make rash promises nor do violence to

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men’s judgments, nor lay snares for them, but lead them by the hand and with their own consent. By far the most powerful remedy for impressing hope would be to lead men to particulars, especially as digested and arranged in our tables of discovery (these belong partly to the Second but mostly to the Fourth Part of our Renewal), since this is not mere hope but the thing itself. Yet to do 5all gently, we must proceed in our plan of preparing men’s minds; and the display of hope is no small part of that preparation. For without hope, the rest of it tends to make men sad (i.e. it gives men a worse and lower opinion than they had of things as they are now, and sharpens their perceptions and feelings about the poverty of their condition) rather than lend them any eagerness or 10sharpen their keenness to experiment. And therefore we should reveal and publish our conjectures, which make it reasonable to have hope: just as Columbus did, before his wonderful voyage across the Atlantic Sea, when he gave reasons why he was confident that new lands and continents, beyond those previously known, could be found; reasons which were at first rejected 15but were afterwards proven by experience, and have been the causes and beginnings of great things. XCV Those who have treated of the sciences have been either empiricists or 20dogmatists. Empiricists, like ants, simply accumulate and use; Rationalists, like spiders, spin webs from themselves; the way of the bee is in between: it takes material from the flowers of the garden and the field; but it has the ability to convert and digest them. This is not unlike the true working of philosophy; which does not rely solely or mainly on mental power, and does not store the 25material provided by natural history and mechanical experiments in its memory untouched but altered and adapted in the intellect. Therefore much is to be hoped from a closer and more binding alliance (which has never yet been made) between these faculties (i.e. the experimental and the rational). 30C Thus we must seek to acquire a greater stock of experiments, and experiments of a different kind than we have yet done; and we must also introduce a quite different method, order and process of connecting and advancing experience. For casual experience which follows only itself (as we said above) is merely 35groping in the dark, and rather bemuses men than informs them. But when experience shall proceed by sure rules, serially and continuously, something better may be expected from the sciences. CI 40But even when you have available and ready the stock and material of natural history and experience that is necessary to the work of the intellect, or philosophic work, the intellect is still quite unable to work on the material on its own and by memory; as if one expected to be able to memorise and master

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the calculations of an account book. Yet up to now the role of thought has been more prominent than that of writing in the work of discovery; no written experience has yet been developed, though we should not approve any discovery unless it is in writing. When it shall come into use, we may expect more from experience finally made literate. 5 CII Moreover, since there are so vastly many particulars (a whole host of particulars), and since they are so scattered and diffuse that they distract and confound the understanding, we should not expect much from its casual and 10undirected motions and cursory movements unless we introduce arrangement and coordination by appropriate, well-organised and living (so to speak) tables of discovery of things relevant to the subject of the investigation, and apply our minds to the organised summaries of facts which these tables provide. 15CV In forming an axiom we need to work out a different form of induction from the one now in use; not only to demonstrate and prove so-called principles, but also lesser and intermediate axioms, in fact all axioms. For the induction which proceeds by simple enumeration is a childish thing, its conclusions are 20precarious, and it is exposed to the danger of the contrary instance; it normally bases its judgement on fewer instances than is appropriate, and merely on available instances. But the induction which will be useful for the discovery and proof of sciences and arts should separate out a nature, by appropriate rejections and exclusions; and then, after as many negatives as are required, 25conclude on the affirmatives. This has not yet been done, nor even certainly tried except only by Plato, who certainly makes use of this form of induction to some extent in settling on definitions and ideas. But any number of things need to be included in a true, legitimate account of this kind of induction or demonstration, which have never occurred to anyone to think about, so that 30more effort needs to be put into this than has ever been spent on the syllogism. It is this kind of induction whose help we must have not only to discover axioms but also to define concepts. And we may certainly have the greatest hopes for this kind of induction. 35CXXIV Here is another objection that will certainly come up: that (despite our criticisms of others) we ourselves have not first declared the true and best goal or purpose of the sciences. For the contemplation of truth is worthier and higher than any utility or power in effects; but the long and anxious time spent 40in experience and matter and in the ebb and flow of particular things keeps the mind fixed on the ground, or rather sinks it in a Tartarus of confusion and turmoil, and bars and obstructs its way to the serenity and tranquillity of detached wisdom (a much more godlike condition). We willingly assent to this

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argument; it is precisely this thing which they hint and find preferable which we are chiefly and above all engaged on. For we are laying the foundations in the human understanding of a true model of the world, as it is and not as any man’s own reason tells him it is. But this can be done only by performing a most careful dissection and anatomy of the world. We declare that the inept 5models of the world (like imitations by apes), which men’s fancies have constructed in philosophies, have to be smashed. And so men should be aware (as we said above) how great is the distance between the illusions of men’s minds and the ideas of God’s mind. The former are simply fanciful abstractions; the latter are the true marks of the Creator on his creatures as 10they are impressed and printed on matter in true and meticulous lines. Therefore truth and usefulness are (in this kind) the very same things, and the works themselves are of greater value as pledges of truth than for the benefits they bring to human life. 15CXXIX It remains to say a few things about the excellence of the Purpose. […]

First therefore, the introduction of remarkable discoveries holds by far the first place among human actions; as the ancients judged. For they ascribed divine honours to discoverers of things; but to those who had made great 20achievements in political matters (such as founders of cities and empires, legislators, liberators of their countries from long-standing evils, conquerors of tyrants and so on) they decreed only the honours of heroes. And anyone who duly compares them will find this judgement of antiquity correct. For the benefits of discoveries may extend to the whole human race, political benefits 25only to specific areas; and political benefits last no more than a few years, the benefits of discoveries for virtually all time. The improvement of a political condition usually entails violence and disturbance; but discoveries make men happy, and bring benefit without hurt or sorrow to anyone.

Again, discoveries are like new creations, and imitations of divine works. 30[…] Again, it helps to notice the force, power and consequences of

discoveries, which appear at their clearest in three things that were unknown to antiquity, and whose origins, though recent, are obscure and unsung: namely the art of printing, gunpowder and the nautical compass. In fact these 35three things have changed the face and condition of things all over the globe: the first in literature; the second in the art of war; the third in navigation; and innumerable changes have followed; so that no empire or sect or star seems to have exercised a greater power and influence on human affairs than those mechanical things. 40

And it would not be irrelevant to distinguish three kinds and degrees of human ambition. The first is the ambition of those who are greedy to increase their personal power in their own country; which is common and base. The second is the ambition of those who strive to extend the power and empire of

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their country among the human race; this surely has more dignity, but no less greed. But if anyone attempts to renew and extend the power and empire of the human race itself over the universe of things, his ambition (if it should so be called) is without a doubt both more sensible and more majestic than the others’. And the empire of man over things lies solely in the arts and sciences. 5For one does not have empire over nature except by obeying her.

Besides, if the usefulness of any one particular discovery has moved men to regard anyone who could confer such a benefit on the whole human race as more than a man, how much nobler will it appear to make a discovery which may speedily lead to the discovery of all other things? And yet (simply to tell 10the truth) just as we owe much gratitude to light, because we in turn can see by it to find our way, practise the arts, read and recognise each other, and yet the actual seeing of light is a more excellent and finer thing than its many uses, so surely the very contemplation of things as they are, without superstition or deceit, error or confusion, is more valuable in itself than all the 15fruits of discoveries.

Finally, if anyone objects that the sciences and arts have been perverted to evil and luxury and such like, the objection should convince no one. The same may be said of all earthly goods, intelligence, courage, strength, beauty, wealth, the light itself and all the rest. Just let man recover the right over 20nature which belongs to him by God’s gift, and give it scope; right reason and sound religion will govern its use.

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C. The New Atlantis (1627)

We sailed from Peru, (where we had continued for the space of one whole year) for China and Japan, by the South Sea; taking with us victuals [i.e. food stuffs] for twelve months; and had good winds from the east, though soft and weak, for five months’ space, and more. But the wind came about, and settled in the west for many days, so as we could make little or no way, and were sometime in 5purpose to turn back. But then again there arose strong and great winds from the south, with a point east, which carried us up (for all that we could do) towards the north; by which time our victuals failed us, though we had made good spare of them. So that finding ourselves, in the midst of the greatest wilderness of waters in the world, without victuals, we gave ourselves for lost 10men and prepared for death. Yet we did lift up our hearts and voices to God above, who showeth his wonders in the deep, beseeching him of his mercy, that as in the beginning he discovered the face of the deep, and brought forth dry land, so he would now discover land to us, that we might not perish.

And it came to pass that the next day about evening we saw within a 15kenning before us [i.e., within view], towards the north, as it were thick clouds, which did put us in some hope of land; knowing how that part of the South Sea was utterly unknown; and might have islands, or continents, that hitherto were not come to light. Wherefore we bent our course thither, where we saw the appearance of land, all that night; and in the dawning of the next day, we might 20plainly discern that it was a land; flat to our sight, and full of boscage [i.e. trees and shrubs]; which made it show the more dark. And after an hour and a half's sailing, we entered into a good haven, being the port of a fair city; not great indeed, but well built, and that gave a pleasant view from the sea: and we thinking every minute long, till we were on land, came close to the shore, and 25offered to land. But straightways we saw divers of the people, with bastons [i.e. sticks] in their hands (as it were) forbidding us to land; yet without any cries of fierceness, but only as warning us off, by signs that they made. Whereupon being not a little discomforted, we were advising with ourselves, what we should do. 30

During which time, there made forth to us a small boat, with about eight persons in it; whereof one of them had in his hand a tipstaff of a yellow cane, tipped at both ends with blue, who came aboard our ship, without any show of distrust at all. And when he saw one of our number, present himself somewhat before the rest, he drew forth a little scroll of parchment (somewhat yellower 35than our parchment, and shining like the leaves of writing tables, but otherwise soft and flexible,) and delivered it to our foremost man. In which scroll were written in ancient Hebrew, and in ancient Greek, and in good Latin of the school, and in Spanish, these words: Land ye not, none of you; and provide to be gone from

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this coast, within sixteen days, except you have further time given you. Meanwhile, if you want fresh water or victuals, or help for your sick, or that your ship needeth repairs, write down your wants, and you shall have that, which belongeth to mercy. This scroll was signed with a stamp of cherubim: wings, not spread, but hanging downwards; and by them a cross. This being delivered, the officer returned, and left only a 5servant with us to receive our answer.

Consulting hereupon amongst ourselves, we were much perplexed. The denial of landing and hasty warning us away troubled us much; on the other side, to find that the people had languages, and were so full of humanity, did comfort us not a little. And above all, the sign of the cross to that instrument 10[i.e. on the scroll] was to us a great rejoicing, and as it were a certain presage of good. Our answer was in the Spanish tongue; that for our ship, it was well; for we had rather met with calms and contrary winds than any tempests. For our sick, they were many, and in very ill case; so that if they were not permitted to land, they ran danger of their lives. Our other wants we set down in 15particular; adding, that we had some little store of merchandise, which if it pleased them to deal for, it might supply our wants, without being chargeable unto them. We offered some reward in pistolets unto the servant, and a piece of crimson velvet to be presented to the officer; but the servant took them not, nor would scarce look upon them; and so left us, and went back in another little boat, 20which was sent for him.

About three hours after we had dispatched our answer, there came towards us a person (as it seemed) of place. He had on him a gown with wide sleeves, of a kind of water chamolet, of an excellent azure colour, fair more glossy than ours; his under apparel was green; and so was his hat, being in the form of a 25turban, daintily made, and not so huge as the Turkish turbans; and the locks of his hair came down below the brims of it. A reverend man was he to behold. He came in a boat, gilt in some part of it, with four persons more only in that boat; and was followed by another boat, wherein were some twenty. When he was come within a flightshot of our ship, signs were made to us, that we should send 30forth some to meet him upon the water; which we presently did in our ship-boat, sending the principal man amongst us save one, and four of our number with him.

When we were come within six yards of their boat, they called to us to stay, and not to approach farther; which we did. And thereupon the man, whom I 35before described, stood up, and with a loud voice, in Spanish, asked, “Are ye Christians?” We answered, “We were;” fearing the less, because of the cross we had seen in the subscription. At which answer the said person lifted up his right hand towards Heaven, and drew it softly to his mouth (which is the gesture they use, when they thank God;) and then said: “If ye will swear (all of you) by the 40merits of the Saviour, that ye are no pirates, nor have shed blood, lawfully, nor unlawfully within forty days past, you may have license to come on land.” We

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said, “We were all ready to take that oath.” Whereupon one of those that were with him, being (as it seemed) a notary, made an entry of this act. Which done, another of the attendants of the great person which was with him in the same boat, after his Lord had spoken a little to him, said aloud: “My Lord would have you know, that it is not of pride, or greatness, that he cometh not aboard your 5ship; but for that in your answer you declare that you have many sick amongst you, he was warned by the Conservator of Health of the city that he should keep a distance.” We bowed ourselves towards him, and answered, “We were his humble servants; and accounted for great honour, and singular humanity towards us, that which was already done; but hoped well, that the nature of the 10sickness of our men was not infectious.” So he returned; and a while after came the Notary to us aboard our ship; holding in his hand a fruit of that country, like an orange, but of color between orange-tawney and scarlet; which cast a most excellent odour. He used it (as it seemeth) for a preservative against infection. He gave us our oath; “By the name of Jesus, and his merits:” and after told us, 15that the next day, by six of the Clock, in the Morning, we should be sent to, and brought to the Strangers’ House, (so he called it,) where we should be accommodated of things, both for our whole, and for our sick. So he left us; and when we offered him some pistolets, he smiling said, “He must not be twice paid for one labour:” meaning (as I take it) that he had salary sufficient of the State 20for his service. For (as I after learned) they call an officer that taketh rewards, “twice paid.”

The next morning early, there came to us the same officer that came to us at first with his cane, and told us, He came to conduct us to the Strangers’ House; and that he had prevented the hour, because we might have the whole day before 25us, for our business. “For,” said he, “if you will follow my advice, there shall first go with me some few of you, and see the place, and how it may be made convenient for you; and then you may send for your sick, and the rest of your number, which ye will bring on land.” We thanked him, and said, “That this care, which he took of desolate strangers, God would reward.” And so six of us went 30on land with him: and when we were on land, he went before us, and turned to us, and said, “He was but our servant, and our guide.” He led us through three fair streets; and all the way we went, there were gathered some people on both sides, standing in a row; but in so civil a fashion, as if it had been, not to wonder at us, but to welcome us: and divers of them, as we passed by them, put their 35arms a little abroad; which is their gesture, when they did bid any welcome.

[…]

The morrow after our three days were past, there came to us a new man, that we had not seen before, clothed in blue as the former was, save that his turban was white, with a small red cross on the top. He had also a tippet of fine 40linen. At his coming in, he did bend to us a little, and put his arms abroad. We of our parts saluted him in a very lowly and submissive manner; as looking that

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from him, we should receive sentence of life, or death: he desired to speak with some few of us: whereupon six of us only staid, and the rest avoided the room. He said, “I am by office governor of this House of Strangers, and by vocation I am a Christian priest: and therefore am come to you to offer you my service, both as strangers and chiefly as Christians. Some things I may tell you, which I 5think you will not be unwilling to hear. The State hath given you license to stay on land, for the space of six weeks; and let it not trouble you, if your occasions ask further time, for the law in this point is not precise; and I do not doubt, but my self shall be able, to obtain for you such further time, as may be convenient. Ye shall also understand, that the Strangers’ House is at this time rich, and much 10aforehand; for it hath laid up revenue these thirty-seven years; for so long it is since any stranger arrived in this part: and therefore take ye no care; the State will defray you all the time you stay; neither shall you stay one day the less for that. As for any merchandise ye have brought, ye shall be well used, and have your return, either in merchandise, or in gold and silver: for to us it is all one. 15And if you have any other request to make, hide it not. For ye shall find we will not make your countenance to fall by the answer ye shall receive. Only this I must tell you, that none of you must go above a karan,” (that is with them a mile and an half) “from the walls of the city, without especial leave.”

We answered, after we had looked awhile one upon another, admiring this 20gracious and parent-like usage; “That we could not tell what to say: for we wanted words to express our thanks; and his noble free offers left us nothing to ask. It seemed to us, that we had before us a picture of our salvation in Heaven; for we that were a while since in the jaws of death, were now brought into a place, where we found nothing but consolations. For the commandment laid 25upon us, we would not fail to obey it, though it was impossible but our hearts should be enflamed to tread further upon this happy and holy ground.” We added, “That our tongues should first cleave to the roofs of our mouths, ere we should forget, either his reverend person, or this whole nation, in our prayers.” We also most humbly besought him, to accept of us as his true servants; by as 30just a right as ever men on earth were bounden; laying and presenting, both our persons, and all we had, at his feet. He said; “He was a priest, and looked for a priest’s reward; which was our brotherly love, and the good of our souls and bodies.” So he went from us, not without tears of tenderness in his eyes; and left us also confused with joy and kindness, saying amongst ourselves; “That we 35were come into a land of angels, which did appear to us daily, and prevent us with comforts, which we thought not of, much less expected.”

The next day about ten of the clock, the Governor came to us again, and after salutations, said familiarly; “That he was come to visit us;” and called for a chair, and sat him down: and we, being some ten of us, (the rest were of the 40meaner sort, or else gone abroad,) sat down with him, And when we were set, he began thus: “We of this island of Bensalem,” (for so they call it in their language,) “have this; that by means of our solitary situation; and of the laws of

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secrecy, which we have for our travellers, and our rare admission of strangers; we know well most part of the habitable world, and are ourselves unknown. Therefore because he that knoweth least is fittest to ask questions, it is more reason, for the entertainment of the time, that ye ask me questions, than that I ask you.” 5

We answered; “That we humbly thanked him that he would give us leave so to do: and that we conceived by the taste we had already, that there was no worldly thing on earth, more worthy to be known than the state of that happy land. But above all,” (we said,) “since that we were met from the several ends of the world, and hoped assuredly that we should meet one day in the kingdom of 10Heaven, (for that we were both parts Christians,) we desired to know, (in respect that land was so remote, and so divided by vast and unknown seas, from the land where our Saviour walked on earth,) who was the apostle of that nation, and how it was converted to the faith?” It appeared in his face that he took great contentment in this our question: he said; “Ye knit my heart to you, by asking 15this question in the first place; for it sheweth that you first seek the kingdom of heaven; and I shall gladly, and briefly, satisfy your demand.

“About twenty years after the ascension of our Saviour, it came to pass, that there was seen by the people of Renfusa, (a city upon the eastern coast of our island,) within night, (the night was cloudy, and calm,) as it might be some mile 20into the sea, a great pillar of light; not sharp, but in form of a column, or cylinder, rising from the sea a great way up towards heaven; and on the top of it was seen a large cross of light, more bright and resplendent than the body of the pillar. Upon which so strange a spectacle, the people of the city gathered apace together upon the sands, to wonder; and so after put themselves into a number 25of small boats, to go nearer to this marvellous sight. But when the boats were come within (about) sixty yards of the pillar, they found themselves all bound, and could go no further; yet so as they might move to go about, but might not approach nearer: so as the boats stood all as in a theatre, beholding this light as an heavenly sign. It so fell out, that there was in one of the boats one of the wise 30men, of the society of Salomon’s House; which house, or college (my good brethren) is the very eye of this kingdom; who having awhile attentively and devoutly viewed and contemplated this pillar and cross, fell down upon his face; and then raised himself upon his knees, and lifting up his hands to heaven, made his prayers in this manner. 35

“‘LORD God of heaven and earth, thou hast vouchsafed of thy grace to those of our order, to know thy works of Creation, and the secrets of them: and to discern (as far as appertaineth to the generations of men) between divine miracles, works of nature, works of art, and impostures and illusions of all sorts. I do here acknowledge and testify before this people, that the thing which we 40now see before our eyes is thy Finger and a true Miracle. And forasmuch as we learn in our books that thou never workest miracles, but to divine and excellent

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end, (for the laws of nature are thine own laws, and thou exceedest them not but upon great cause,) we most humbly beseech thee to prosper this great sign, and to give us the interpretation and use of it in mercy; which thou dost in some part secretly promise by sending it unto us.’

“When he had made his prayer, he presently found the boat he was in, 5moveable and unbound; whereas all the rest remained still fast; and taking that for an assurance of leave to approach, he caused the boat to be softly and with silence rowed towards the pillar. But ere he came near it, the pillar and cross of light brake up, and cast itself abroad, as it were, into a firmament of many stars; which also vanished soon after, and there was nothing left to be seen, but a small 10ark, or chest of cedar, dry, and not wet at all with water, though it swam. And in the fore-end of it, which was towards him, grew a small green branch of palm; and when the wise man had taken it, with all reverence, into his boat, it opened of itself, and there were found in it a Book and a Letter; both written in fine parchment, and wrapped in sindons of linen. The Book contained all the 15canonical books of the Old and New Testament, according as you have them; (for we know well what the churches with you receive); and the Apocalypse itself, and some other books of the New Testament, which were not at that time written, were nevertheless in the Book. And for the Letter, it was in these words:

“‘I, Bartholomew, a servant of the Highest, and Apostle of Jesus Christ, was 20warned by an angel that appeareth to me, in a vision of glory, that I should commit this ark to the floods of the sea. Therefore I do testify and declare unto that people where God shall ordain this ark to come to land, that in the same day is come unto them salvation and peace and good-will, from the Father, and from the Lord Jesus.’ 25

[…]

One day there were two of our company bidden to a Feast of the Family, as they call it. A most natural, pious, and reverend custom it is, shewing that nation to be compounded of all goodness. This is the manner of it. It is granted to any man that shall live to see thirty persons descended of his body alive together, 30and all above three years old, to make this feast which is done at the cost of the state. The Father of the Family, whom they call the Tirsan, two days before the feast, taketh to him three of such friends as he liketh to choose; and is assisted also by the governor of the city or place where the feast is celebrated; and all the persons of the family, of both sexes, are summoned to attend him. These two 35days the Tirsan sitteth in consultation concerning the good estate of the family. There, if there be any discord or suits between any of the family, they are compounded and appeased. There, if any of the family be distressed or decayed, order is taken for their relief and competent means to live. There, if any be subject to vice, or take ill courses, they are reproved and censured. So likewise 40direction is given touching marriages, and the courses of life, which any of them

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should take, with divers other the like orders and advices. The governor assisteth, to the end to put in execution by his public authority the decrees and orders of the Tirsan, if they should be disobeyed; though that seldom needeth; such reverence and obedience they give to the order of nature. The Tirsan doth also then ever choose one man from among his sons, to live in house with him; 5who is called ever after the Son of the Vine. The reason will hereafter appear.

On the feast day, the father or Tirsan cometh forth after divine service into a large room where the feast is celebrated; which room hath an half-pace at the upper end. Against the wall, in the middle of the half-pace, is a chair placed for him, with a table and carpet before it. Over the chair is a state, made round or 10oval, and it is of ivy; an ivy somewhat whiter than ours, like the leaf of a silver asp; but more shining; for it is green all winter. And the state is curiously wrought with silver and silk of divers colors, broiding or binding in the ivy; and is ever of the work of some of the daughters of the family; and veiled over at the top with a fine net of silk and silver. But the substance of it is true ivy; whereof, 15after it is taken down, the friends of the family are desirous to have some leaf or sprig to keep.

The Tirsan cometh forth with all his generation or linage, the males before him, and the females following him; and if there be a mother from whose body the whole linage is descended, there is a traverse placed in a loft above on the 20right hand of the chair, with a privy door, and a carved window of glass, leaded with gold and blue; where she sitteth, but is not seen. When the Tirsan is come forth, he sitteth down in the chair; and all the linage place themselves against the wall, both at his back and upon the return of the half-pace, in order of their years without difference of sex; and stand upon their feet. When he is set; the 25room being always full of company, but well kept and without disorder; after some pause, there cometh in from the lower end of the room, a taratan (which is as much as an herald) and on either side of him two young lads; whereof one carrieth a scroll of their shining yellow parchment; and the other a cluster of grapes of gold, with a long foot or stalk. The herald and children are clothed 30with mantles of sea-water green satin; but the herald’s mantle is streamed with gold, and hath a train.

Then the herald with three curtesies, or rather inclinations, cometh up as far as the half-pace; and there first taketh into his hand the scroll. This scroll is the king’s charter, containing gifts of revenue, and many privileges, exemptions, 35and points of honour, granted to the Father of the Family; and is ever styled and directed, to such do one our well beloved friend and creditor: which is a title proper only to this case. For they say the king is debtor to no man, but for propagation of his subjects. The seal set to the king’s charter is the king’s image, embossed or molded in gold; and though such charters be expedited of course, 40and as of right, yet they are varied by discretion, according to the number and dignity of the family. This charter the herald readeth aloud; and while it is read,

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the father or Tirsan standeth up supported by two of his sons, such as he chooseth. Then the herald mounteth the half-pace and delivereth the charter into his hand: and with that there is an acclamation by all that are present in their language, which is thus much: Happy are the people of Bensalem.

Then the herald taketh into his hand from the other child the cluster of 5grapes, which is of gold, both the stalk and the grapes. But the grapes are daintily enamelled; and if the males of the family be the greater number, the grapes are enamelled purple, with a little sun set on the top; if the females, then they are enamelled into a greenish yellow, with a crescent on the top. The grapes are in number as many as there are descendants of the family. This golden 10cluster the herald delivereth also to the Tirsan; who presently delivereth it over to that son that he had formerly chosen to be in house with him: who beareth it before his father as an ensign of honour when he goeth in public, ever after; and is thereupon called the Son of the Vine.

After the ceremony endeth the father or Tirsan retireth; and after some time 15cometh forth again to dinner, where he sitteth alone under the state, as before; and none of his descendants sit with him, of what degree or dignity soever, except he hap to be of Salomon’s House. He is served only by his own children, such as are male; who perform unto him all service of the table upon the knee; and the women only stand about him, leaning against the wall. The room below 20the half-pace hath tables on the sides for the guests that are bidden; who are served with great and comely order; and towards the end of dinner (which in the greatest feasts with them lasteth never above an hour and an half) there is an hymn sung, varied according to the invention of him that composeth it (for they have excellent posy) but the subject of it is (always) the praises of Adam and 25Noah and Abraham; whereof the former two peopled the world, and the last was the Father of the Faithful: concluding ever with a thanksgiving for the nativity of our Saviour, in whose birth the births of all are only blessed.

Dinner being done, the Tirsan retireth again; and having withdrawn himself alone into a place, where he makes some private prayers, he cometh forth the 30third time, to give the blessing with all his descendants, who stand about him as at the first. Then he calleth them forth by one and by one, by name, as he pleaseth, though seldom the order of age be inverted. The person that is called (the table being before removed) kneeleth down before the chair, and the father layeth his hand upon his head, or her head, and giveth the blessing in these 35words: Son of Bensalem, (or daughter of Bensalem,) thy father with it: the man by whom thou hast breath and life speaketh the word: the blessing of the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, and the Holy Dove, be upon thee, and make the days of thy pilgrimage good and many. This he saith to every of them; and that done, if there be any of his sons of eminent merit and virtue, (so they 40be not above two,) he calleth for them again; and saith, laying his arm over their shoulders, they standing; Sons, it is well ye are born, give God the praise, and

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persevere to the end. And withall delivereth to either of them a jewel, made in the figure of an ear of wheat, which they ever after wear in the front of their turban or hat. This done, they fall to music and dances, and other recreations, after their manner, for the rest of the day. This is the full order of that feast.

By that time six or seven days were spent, I was fallen into straight 5acquaintance with a merchant of that city, whose name was Joabin. […]

Amongst other discourses, one day I told him I was much affected with the relation I had, from some of the company, of their custom, in holding the Feast of the Family; for that (methought) I had never heard of a solemnity wherein nature did so much preside. And because propagation of families proceedeth 10from the nuptial copulation, I desired to know of him what laws and customs they had concerning marriage; and whether they kept marriage well and whether they were tied to one wife; for that where population is so much affected, and such as with them it seemed to be, there is commonly permission of plurality of wives. 15

[…]

And when he had said this, the good Jew paused a little; whereupon I, far more willing to hear him speak on than to speak myself, yet thinking it decent that upon his pause of speech I should not be altogether silent, said only this; “That I would say to him, as the widow of Sarepta said to Elias; that he was 20come to bring to memory our sins; and that I confess the righteousness of Bensalem was greater than the righteousness of Europe.” At which speech he bowed his head, and went on in this manner:

“They have also many wise and excellent laws touching marriage. They allow no polygamy. They have ordained that none do intermarry or contract, 25until a month be past from their first interview. Marriage without consent of parents they do not make void, but they mulct it in the inheritors: for the children of such marriages are not admitted to inherit above a third part of their parents’ inheritance. I have read in a book of one of your men, of a Feigned Commonwealth, where the married couple are permitted, before they contract, 30to see one another naked. This they dislike; for they think it a scorn to give a refusal after so familiar knowledge: but because of many hidden defects in men and women’s bodies, they have a more civil way; for they have near every town a couple of pools, (which they call Adam and Eve’s pools,) where it is permitted to one of the friends of the men, and another of the friends of the woman, to see 35them severally bathe naked.”

And as we were thus in conference, there came one that seemed to be a messenger, in a rich huke, that spake with the Jew: whereupon he turned to me and said; “You will pardon me, for I am commanded away in haste.” The next

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morning he came to me again, joyful as it seemed, and said; “There is word come to the Governor of the city, that one of the Fathers of Salomon’s House will be here this day seven-night: we have seen none of them this dozen years. His coming is in state; but the cause of his coming is secret. I will provide you and your fellows of a good standing to see his entry.” I thanked him, and told him, I 5was most glad of the news.

The day being come, he made his entry. He was a man of middle stature and age, comely of person, and had an aspect as if he pitied men. He was clothed in a robe of fine black cloth, with wide sleeves and a cape. His under garment was of excellent white linen down to the foot, girt with a girdle of the same; and a 10sindon or tippet of the same about his neck. He had gloves, that were curious, and set with stone; and shoes of peach-coloured velvet. His neck was bare to the shoulders. His hat was like a helmet, or Spanish montera; and his locks curled below it decently: they were of colour brown. His beard was cut round, and of the same colour with his hair, somewhat lighter. He was carried in a rich chariot 15without wheels, litter-wise; with two horses at either end, richly trapped in blue velvet embroidered; and two footmen on each side in the like attire. The chariot was all of cedar, gilt, and adorned with crystal; save that the fore-end had panels of sapphires, set in borders of gold; and the hinder-end the like of emeralds of the Peru colour. There was also a sun of gold, radiant, upon the top, in the midst; 20and on the top before, a small cherub of gold, with wings displayed. The chariot was covered with cloth of gold tissued upon blue. He had before him fifty attendants, young men all, in white satin loose coats to the mid leg; and stockings of white silk; and shoes of blue velvet; and hats of blue velvet; with fine plumes of diverse colours, set round like hat-bands. Next before the chariot, 25went two men, bare-headed, in linen garments down the foot, girt, and shoes of blue velvet; who carried, the one a crosier, the other a pastoral staff like a sheep-hook; neither of them of metal, but the crosier of balm-wood, the pastoral staff of cedar. Horsemen he had none, neither before nor behind his chariot: as it seemeth, to avoid all tumult and trouble. Behind his chariot went all the officers 30and principals of the companies of the city. He sat alone, upon cushions of a kind of excellent plush, blue; and under his foot curious carpets of silk of diverse colours, like the Persian, but far finer. He held up his bare hand as he went, as blessing the people, but in silence. The street was wonderfully well kept: so that there was never any army had their men stand in better battle-array than the 35people stood. The windows likewise were not crowded, but every one stood in them as if they had been placed.

When the shew was past, the Jew said to me; “I shall not be able to attend you as I would, in regard of some charge the city hath laid upon me, for the entertaining of this great person.” Three days after the Jew came to me again, 40and said; “Ye are happy men; for the Father of Salomon’s House taketh knowledge of your being here, and commanded me to tell you that he will admit all your company to his presence, and have private conference with one of you,

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that ye shall choose: and for this hath appointed the next day after to-morrow. And because he meaneth to give you his blessing, he hath appointed it in the forenoon.”

We came at our day and hour, and I was chosen by my fellows for the private access. We found him in a fair chamber, richly hanged, and carpeted under foot 5without any degrees to the state. He was set upon a low Throne richly adorned, and a rich cloth of state over his head, of blue satin embroidered. He was alone, save that he had two pages of honour, on either hand one, finely attired in white. His under garments were the like that we saw him wear in the chariot; but instead of his gown, he had on him a mantle with a cape, of the same fine black, 10fastened about him. When we came in, as we were taught, we bowed low at our first entrance; and when we were come near his chair, he stood up, holding forth his hand ungloved, and in posture of blessing; and we every one of us stooped down, and kissed the hem of his tippet. That done, the rest departed, and I remained. Then he warned the pages forth of the room, and caused me to sit 15down beside him, and spake to me thus in the Spanish tongue.

“God bless thee, my son; I will give thee the greatest jewel I have. For I will impart unto thee, for the love of God and men, a relation of the true state of Salomon’s House. Son, to make you know the true state of Salomon’s House, I will keep this order. First, I will set forth unto you the end of our foundation. 20Secondly, the preparations and instruments we have for our works. Thirdly, the several employments and functions whereto our fellows are assigned. And fourthly, the ordinances and rites which we observe.

“The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of 25all things possible.

“The Preparations and Instruments are these. We have large and deep caves of several depths: the deepest are sunk six hundred fathom: and some of them are digged and made under great hills and mountains: so that if you reckon together the depth of the hill and the depth of the cave, they are (some of them) 30above three miles deep. For we find, that the depth of a hill, and the depth of a cave from the flat, is the same thing; both remote alike, from the sun and heaven’s beams, and from the open air. These caves we call the Lower Region; and we use them for all coagulations, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations of bodies. We use them likewise for the imitation of natural mines; 35and the producing also of new artificial metals, by compositions and materials which we use, and lay there for many years. We use them also sometimes, (which may seem strange,) for curing of some diseases, and for prolongation of life in some hermits that choose to live there, well accommodated of all things necessary, and indeed live very long; by whom also we learn many things. 40

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“We have burials in several earths, where we put diverse cements, as the Chineses do their porcellain. But we have them in greater variety, and some of them more fine. We have also great variety of composts and soils, for the making of the earth fruitful.

“We have high towers; the highest about half a mile in height; and some of 5them likewise set upon high mountains; so that the vantage of the hill with the tower is in the highest of them three miles at least. And these places we call the Upper Region; accounting the air between the high places and the low, as a Middle Region. We use these towers, according to their several heights, and situations, for insolation, refrigeration, conservation; and for the view of divers 10meteors; as winds, rain, snow, hail; and some of the fiery meteors also. And upon them, in some places, are dwellings of hermits, whom we visit sometimes, and instruct what to observe.

“We have great lakes, both salt, and fresh; whereof we have use for the fish and fowl. We use them also for burials of some natural bodies: for we find a 15difference in things buried in earth or in air below the earth, and things buried in water. We have also pools, of which some do strain fresh water out of salt; and others by art do turn fresh water into salt. We have also some rocks in the midst of the sea, and some bays upon the shore for some works, wherein is required the air and vapor of the sea. We have likewise violent streams and 20cataracts, which serve us for many motions: and likewise engines for multiplying and enforcing of winds, to set also on going diverse motions.

“We have also a number of artificial wells and fountains, made in imitation of the natural sources and baths; as tincted upon vitriol, sulphur, steel, brass, lead, nitre, and other minerals. And again we have little wells for infusions of 25many things, where the waters take the virtue quicker and better, than in vessels or basins. And amongst them we have a water which we call Water of Paradise, being, by that we do to it made very sovereign for health, and prolongation of life.

“We have also great and spacious houses where we imitate and demonstrate 30meteors; as snow, hail, rain, some artificial rains of bodies and not of water, thunders, lightnings; also generations of bodies in air; as frogs, flies, and divers others.

“We have also certain chambers, which we call Chambers of Health, where we qualify the air as we think good and proper for the cure of divers diseases, 35and preservation of health.

“We have also fair and large baths, of several mixtures, for the cure of diseases, and the restoring of man's body from arefaction: and others for the

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confirming of it in strength of sinewes, vital parts, and the very juice and substance of the body.

“We have also large and various orchards and gardens; wherein we do not so much respect beauty, as variety of ground and soil, proper for divers trees and herbs: and some very spacious, where trees and berries are set whereof we 5make divers kinds of drinks, besides the vineyards. In these we practise likewise all conclusions of grafting, and inoculating as well of wild-trees as fruit-trees, which produceth many effects. And we make (by art) in the same orchards and gardens, trees and flowers to come earlier or later than their seasons; and to come up and bear more speedily than by their natural course they do. We make 10them also by art greater much than their nature; and their fruit greater and sweeter and of differing taste, smell, colour, and figure, from their nature. And many of them we so order, as they become of medicinal use.

“We have also means to make divers plants rise by mixtures of earths without seeds; and likewise to make divers new plants, differing from the vulgar; 15and to make one tree or plant turn into another.

“We have also parks and enclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds which we use not only for view or rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials; that thereby we may take light what may be wrought upon the body of man. Wherein we find many strange effects; as continuing life in them, though divers parts, 20which you account vital, be perished and taken forth; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appearance; and the like. We try also all poisons and other medicines upon them, as well of chirurgery, as physic. By art likewise, we make them greater or taller than their kind is; and contrariwise dwarf them, and stay their growth: we make them more fruitful and bearing than their kind is; and 25contrariwise barren and not generative. Also we make them differ in colour, shape, activity, many ways. We find means to make commixtures and copulations of different kinds; which have produced many new kinds, and them not barren, as the general opinion is. We make a number of kinds of serpents, worms, flies, fishes, of putrefaction; whereof some are advanced (in effect) to be 30perfect creatures, like bests or birds; and have sexes, and do propagate. Neither do we this by chance, but we know beforehand, of what matter and commixture what kind of those creatures will arise.

“We have also particular pools, where we make trials upon fishes, as we have said before of beasts and birds. 35

“We have also places for breed and generation of those kinds of worms and flies which are of special use; such as are with you your silk-worms and bees.

“I will not hold you long with recounting of our brewhouses, bake-houses, and kitchens, where are made divers drinks, breads, and meats, rare and of

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special effects. Wines we have of grapes; and drinks of other juice of fruits, of grains, and of roots; and of mixtures with honey, sugar, manna, and fruits dried, and decocted; Also of the tears or woundings of trees; and of the pulp of canes. And these drinks are of several ages, some to the age or last of forty years. We have drinks also brewed with several herbs, and roots, and spices; yea with 5several fleshes, and white-meats; whereof some of the drinks are such, as they are in effect meat and drink both: so that divers, especially in age, do desire to live with them, with little or no meat or bread. And above all, we strive to have drink of extreme thin parts, to insinuate into the body, and yet without all biting, sharpness, or fretting; insomuch as some of them put upon the back of your hand 10will, with a little stay, pass through to the palm, and yet taste mild to the mouth. We have also waters which we ripen in that fashion, as they become nourishing; so that they are indeed excellent drink; and many will use no other. Breads we have of several grains, roots, and kernels; yea and some of flesh and fish dried; with divers kinds of leavenings and seasonings: so that some do extremely move 15appetites; some do nourish so, as divers do live of them, without any other meat; who live very long. So for meats, we have some of them so beaten and made tender and mortified, yet without all corrupting, as a weak heat of the stomach will turn them into good chylus; as well as a strong heat would meat otherwise prepared. We have some meats also and breads and drinks, which taken by men 20enable them to fast long after; and some other, that used make the very flesh of men’s bodies sensibly more hard and tough and their strength far greater than otherwise it would be.

“We have dispensatories, or shops of medicines. Wherein you may easily think, if we have such variety of plants and living creatures more than you have 25in Europe, (for we know what you have,) the simples, drugs, and ingredients of medicines, must likewise be in so much the greater variety. We have them likewise of divers ages, and long fermentations. And for their preparations, we have not only all manner of exquisite distillations and separations, and especially by gentle heats and percolations through divers strainers, yea and substances; 30but also exact forms of composition, whereby they incorporate almost, as they were natural simples.

“We have also divers mechanical arts, which you have not; and stuffs made by them; as papers, linen, silks, tissues; dainty works of feathers of wonderful lustre; excellent dies, and, many others; and shops likewise, as well for such as 35are not brought into vulgar use amongst us as for those that are. For you must know that of the things before recited, many of them are grown into use throughout the kingdom; but yet, if they did flow from our invention, we have of them also for patterns and principals.

“We have also furnaces of great diversities, and that keep great diversity of 40heats; fierce and quick; strong and constant; soft and mild; blown, quiet; dry, moist; and the like. But above all, we have heats, in imitation of the Sun”s and

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heavenly bodies’ heats, that pass divers inequalities, and (as it were) orbs, progresses, and returns, whereby we produce admirable effects. Besides, we have heats of dungs; and of bellies and maws of living creatures, and of their bloods and bodies; and of hays and herbs laid up moist; of lime unquenched; and such like. Instruments also which generate heat only by motion. And farther, places 5for strong insulations; and again, places under the earth, which by nature, or art, yield heat. These divers heats we use, as the nature of the operation, which we intend, requireth.

“We have also perspective-houses, where we make demonstrations of all lights and radiations; and of all colours: and out of things uncoloured and 10transparent, we can represent unto you all several colours; not in rain-bows, (as it is in gems, and prisms,) but of themselves single. We represent also all multiplications of light, which we carry to great distance, and make so sharp as to discern small points and lines. Also all colourations of light; all delusions and deceits of the sight, in figures, magnitudes, motions, colours all demonstrations 15of shadows. We find also divers means, yet unknown to you, of producing of light originally from divers bodies. We procure means of seeing objects afar off; as in the heaven and remote places; and represent things near as afar off; and things afar off as near; making feigned distances. We have also helps for the sight, far above spectacles and glasses in use. We have also glasses and means 20to see small and minute bodies perfectly and distinctly; as the shapes and colours of small flies and worms, grains and flaws in gems, which cannot otherwise be seen, observations in urine and blood not otherwise to be seen. We make artificial rain-bows, halos, and circles about light. We represent also all manner of reflexions, refractions, and multiplications of visual beams of objects. 25

“We have also precious stones of all kinds, many of them of great beauty, and to you unknown; crystals likewise; and glasses of divers kinds; and amongst them some of metals vitrificated, and other materials besides those of which you make glass. Also a number of fossils, and imperfect minerals, which you have not. Likewise loadstones of prodigious virtue; and other rare stones, both 30natural and artificial.

“We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have, together with bells and rings that 35are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as great and deep; likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp; we make divers tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We have certain helps which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly. We have also divers 40strange and artificial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it: and some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller,

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and some deeper; yea, some rendering the voice differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances.

“We have also perfume-houses; wherewith we join also practices of taste. We multiply smells, which may seem strange. We imitate smells, making all 5smells to breathe outs of other mixtures than those that give them. We make divers imitations of taste likewise, so that they will deceive any man’s taste. And in this house we contain also a confiture-house; where we make all sweet-meats, dry and moist; and divers pleasant wines, milks, broths, and sallets; in far greater variety than you have. 10

“We have also engine-houses, where are prepared engines and instruments for all sorts of motions. There we imitate and practise to make swifter motions than any you have, either out of your muskets or any engine that you have: and to make them and multiply them more easily, and with small force, by wheels and other means: and to make them stronger and more violent than yours are; 15exceeding your greatest cannons and basilisks. We represent also ordnance and instruments of war, and engines of all kinds: and likewise new mixtures and compositions of gun-powder, wild-fires burning in water, and unquenchable. Also fireworks of all variety both for pleasure and use. We imitate also flights of birds; we have some degrees of flying in the air. We have ships and boats for 20going under water, and brooking of seas; also swimming-girdles and supporters. We have divers curious clocks, and other like motions of return: and some perpetual motions. We imitate also motions of living creatures, by images, of men, beasts, birds, fishes, and serpents. We have also a great number of other various motions, strange for equality, fineness, and subtilty. 25

“We have also a mathematical house, where are represented all instruments, as well of geometry as astronomy, exquisitely made.

“We have also houses of deceits of the senses; where we represent all manner of feats of juggling, false apparitions, impostures, and illusions; and their fallacies. And surely you will easily believe that we that have so many things 30truly natural which induce admiration, could in a world of particulars deceive the senses, if we would disguise those things and labour to make them seem more miraculous. But we do hate all impostures, and lies; insomuch as we have severely forbidden it to all our fellows, under pain of ignominy and fines, that they do not show any natural work or thing, adorned or swelling; but only pure 35as it is, and without all affectation of strangeness.

“These are (my son) the riches of Salomon’s House.

“For the several employments and offices of our fellows; we have twelve that sail into foreign countries, under the names of other nations, (for our own

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we conceal); who bring us the books, and abstracts, and patterns of experiments of all other parts. These we call Merchants of Light.

“We have three that collect the experiments which are in all books. These we call Depredators.

“We have three that collect the experiments of all mechanical arts; and also 5of liberal sciences; and also of practices which are not brought into arts. These we call Mystery-men.

“We have three that try new experiments, such as themselves think good. These we call Pioneers or Miners.

“We have three that draw the experiments of the former four into titles and 10tables, to give the better light for the drawing of observations and axioms out of them. These we call Compilers.

“We have three that bend themselves, looking into the experiments of their fellows, and cast about how to draw out of them things of use and practise for man’s life, and knowledge, as well for works as for plain demonstration of causes, 15means of natural divinations, and the easy and clear discovery of the virtues and parts of bodies. These we call Dowry-men or Benefactors.

“Then after divers meetings and consults of our whole number, to consider of the former labours and collections, we have three that take care, out of them, to direct new experiments, of a higher light, more penetrating into nature than 20the former. These we call Lamps.

“We have three others that do execute the experiments so directed, and report them. These we call Inoculators.

“Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries by experiments into greater observations, axioms, and aphorisms. These we call Interpreters of 25Nature.

“We have also, as you must think, novices and apprentices, that the succession of the former employed men do not fail; besides, a great number of servants and attendants, men and women. And this we do also: we have consultations, which of the inventions and experiences which we have 30discovered shall be published, and which not: and take all an oath of secrecy, for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret: though some of those we do reveal sometimes to the state and some not.

“For our ordinances and rites: we have two very long and fair galleries: in one of these we place patterns and samples of all manner of the more rare and 35

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excellent inventions in the other we place the statues of all principal inventors. There we have the statue of your Columbus, that discovered the West Indies: also the inventor of ships: your monk that was the inventor of ordnance and of gunpowder: the inventor of music: the inventor of letters: the inventor of printing: the inventor of observations of astronomy: the inventor of works in 5metal: the inventor of glass: the inventor of silk of the worm: the inventor of wine: the inventor of corn and bread: the inventor of sugars: and all these, by more certain tradition than you have. Then have we divers inventors of our own, of excellent works; which since you have not seen, it were too long to make descriptions of them; and besides, in the right understanding of those 10descriptions you might easily err. For upon every invention of value, we erect a statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honourable reward. These statues are some of brass; some of marble and touch-stone; some of cedar and other special woods gilt and adorned; some of iron; some of silver; some of gold.

“We have certain hymns and services, which we say daily, of Lord and 15thanks to God for his marvellous works: and forms of prayers, imploring his aid and blessing for the illumination of our labours, and the turning of them into good and holy uses.

“Lastly, we have circuits or visits of divers principal cities of the kingdom; where, as it cometh to pass, we do publish such new profitable inventions as we 20think good. And we do also declare natural divinations of diseases, plagues, swarms-of hurtful creatures, scarcity, tempests, earthquakes, great inundations, comets, temperature of the year, and divers other things; and we give counsel thereupon, what the people shall do for the prevention and remedy of them.”

And when he had said this, he stood up; and I, as I had been taught, kneeled 25down, and he laid his right hand upon my head, and said; “God bless thee, my son; and God bless this relation, which I have made. I give thee leave to publish it for the good of other nations; for we here are in God’s bosom, a land unknown.” And so he left me; having assigned a value of about two thousand ducats, for a bounty to me and my fellows. For they give great largesses where 30they come upon all occasions.

[The rest was not perfected.]

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The Scientific Revolution Reading Two

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

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SELECTIONS FROM THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY

OF RENE DESCARTES

TRANSLATED BY JOHN VEITCH, LL. D. LATE PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND RHETORIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN AND COLLATED WITH THE

FRENCH

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LETTER OF THE AUTHOR TO THE FRENCH TRANSLATOR OF THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY SERVING FOR A PREFACE. Sir,—The version of my principles which you have been at pains to make, is so elegant and finished as to lead me to expect that the work will be more generally read in French than in Latin, and better understood. The only apprehension I entertain is lest the title should deter some who have not been brought up to letters, or with whom philosophy is in bad repute, because the 5kind they were taught has proved unsatisfactory; and this makes me think that it will be useful to add a preface to it for the purpose of showing what the MATTER of the work is, what END I had in view in writing it, and what UTILITY may be derived from it. But although it might be my part to write a preface of this nature, seeing I ought to know those particulars better than any 10other person, I cannot nevertheless prevail upon myself to do anything more than merely to give a summary of the chief points that fall, as I think, to be discussed in it: and I leave it to your discretion to present to the public such part of them as you shall judge proper.

I should have desired, in the first place, to explain in it what philosophy 15is, by commencing with the most common matters, as, for example, that the word PHILOSOPHY signifies the study of wisdom, and that by wisdom is to be understood not merely prudence in the management of affairs, but a perfect knowledge of all that man can know, as well for the conduct of his life as for the preservation of his health and the discovery of all the arts, and that 20knowledge to subserve these ends must necessarily be deduced from first causes; so that in order to study the acquisition of it (which is properly called philosophizing), we must commence with the investigation of those first causes which are called PRINCIPLES. Now these principles must possess TWO CONDITIONS: in the first place, they must be so clear and evident that the 25human mind, when it attentively considers them, cannot doubt of their truth; in the second place, the knowledge of other things must be so dependent on them as that though the principles themselves may indeed be known apart from what depends on them, the latter cannot nevertheless be known apart from the former. It will accordingly be necessary thereafter to endeavour so to 30deduce from those principles the knowledge of the things that depend on them, as that there may be nothing in the whole series of deductions which is not perfectly manifest. God is in truth the only being who is absolutely wise, that is, who possesses a perfect knowledge of all things; but we may say that men are more or less wise as their knowledge of the most important truths is 35greater or less. And I am confident that there is nothing, in what I have now said, in which all the learned do not concur.

I should, in the next place, have proposed to consider the utility of philosophy, and at the same time have shown that, since it embraces all that

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the human mind can know, we ought to believe that it is by it we are distinguished from savages and barbarians, and that the civilisation and culture of a nation is regulated by the degree in which true philosophy nourishes in it, and, accordingly, that to contain true philosophers is the highest privilege a state can enjoy. Besides this, I should have shown that, as 5regards individuals, it is not only useful for each man to have intercourse with those who apply themselves to this study, but that it is incomparably better he should himself direct his attention to it; just as it is doubtless to be preferred that a man should make use of his own eyes to direct his steps, and enjoy by means of the same the beauties of colour and light, than that he should blindly 10follow the guidance of another; though the latter course is certainly better than to have the eyes closed with no guide except one's self. But to live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them; and the pleasure of seeing all that sight discloses is not to be compared with the satisfaction afforded by the discoveries of 15philosophy. And, finally, this study is more imperatively requisite for the regulation of our manners, and for conducting us through life, than is the use of our eyes for directing our steps. The brutes, which have only their bodies to conserve, are continually occupied in seeking sources of nourishment; but men, of whom the chief part is the mind, ought to make the search after wisdom 20their principal care, for wisdom is the true nourishment of the mind; and I feel assured, moreover, that there are very many who would not fail in the search, if they would but hope for success in it, and knew the degree of their capabilities for it. There is no mind, how ignoble soever it be, which remains so firmly bound up in the objects of the senses, as not sometime or other to turn 25itself away from them in the aspiration after some higher good, although not knowing frequently wherein that good consists. The greatest favourites of fortune—those who have health, honours, and riches in abundance— are not more exempt from aspirations of this nature than others; nay, I am persuaded that these are the persons who sigh the most deeply after another good greater 30and more perfect still than any they already possess. But the supreme good, considered by natural reason without the light of faith, is nothing more than the knowledge of truth through its first causes, in other words, the wisdom of which philosophy is the study. And, as all these particulars are indisputably true, all that is required to gain assent to their truth is that they be well stated. 35

But as one is restrained from assenting to these doctrines by experience, which shows that they who make pretensions to philosophy are often less wise and reasonable than others who never applied themselves to the study, I should have here shortly explained wherein consists all the science we now possess, and what are the degrees of wisdom at which we have arrived. The 40first degree contains only notions so clear of themselves that they can be acquired without meditation; the second comprehends all that the experience of the senses dictates; the third, that which the conversation of other men teaches us; to which may be added as the fourth, the reading, not of all books,

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but especially of such as have been written by persons capable of conveying proper instruction, for it is a species of conversation we hold with their authors. And it seems to me that all the wisdom we in ordinary possess is acquired only in these four ways; for I do not class divine revelation among them, because it does not conduct us by degrees, but elevates us at once to an 5infallible faith.

There have been, indeed, in all ages great minds who endeavoured to find a fifth road to wisdom, incomparably more sure and elevated than the other four. The path they essayed was the search of first causes and true principles, from which might be deduced the reasons of all that can be known 10by man; and it is to them the appellation of philosophers has been more especially accorded. I am not aware that there is any one of them up to the present who has succeeded in this enterprise. The first and chief whose writings we possess are Plato and Aristotle, between whom there was no difference, except that the former, following in the footsteps of his master, 15Socrates, ingenuously confessed that he had never yet been able to find anything certain, and that he was contented to write what seemed to him probable, imagining, for this end, certain principles by which he endeavoured to account for the other things. Aristotle, on the other hand, characterised by less candour, although for twenty years the disciple of Plato, and with no 20principles beyond those of his master, completely reversed his mode of putting them, and proposed as true and certain what it is probable he himself never esteemed as such. But these two men had acquired much judgment and wisdom by the four preceding means, qualities which raised their authority very high, so much so that those who succeeded them were willing rather to 25acquiesce in their opinions, than to seek better for themselves. The chief question among their disciples, however, was as to whether we ought to doubt of all things or hold some as certain,—a dispute which led them on both sides into extravagant errors; for a part of those who were for doubt, extended it even to the actions of life, to the neglect of the most ordinary rules required for 30its conduct; those, on the other hand, who maintained the doctrine of certainty, supposing that it must depend upon the senses, trusted entirely to them. To such an extent was this carried by Epicurus, that it is said he ventured to affirm, contrary to all the reasonings of the astronomers, that the sun is no larger than it appears. 35

It is a fault we may remark in most disputes, that, as truth is the mean between the two opinions that are upheld, each disputant departs from it in proportion to the degree in which he possesses the spirit of contradiction. But the error of those who leant too much to the side of doubt, was not followed for any length of time, and that of the opposite party has been to some extent 40corrected by the doctrine that the senses are deceitful in many instances. Nevertheless, I do not know that this error was wholly removed by showing that certitude is not in the senses, but in the understanding alone when it has clear perceptions; and that while we only possess the knowledge which is

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acquired in the first four grades of wisdom, we ought not to doubt of the things that appear to be true in what regards the conduct of life, nor esteem them as so certain that we cannot change our opinions regarding them, even though constrained by the evidence of reason.

From ignorance of this truth, or, if there was any one to whom it was 5known, from neglect of it, the majority of those who in these later ages aspired to be philosophers, blindly followed Aristotle, so that they frequently corrupted the sense of his writings, and attributed to him various opinions which he would not recognise as his own were he now to return to the world; and those who did not follow him, among whom are to be found many of the 10greatest minds, did yet not escape being imbued with his opinions in their youth, as these form the staple of instruction in the schools; and thus their minds were so preoccupied that they could not rise to the knowledge of true principles. And though I hold all the philosophers in esteem, and am unwilling to incur odium by my censure, I can adduce a proof of my assertion, which I do 15not think any of them will gainsay, which is, that they all laid down as a principle what they did not perfectly know. For example, I know none of them who did not suppose that there was gravity in terrestrial bodies; but although experience shows us very clearly that bodies we call heavy descend towards the center of the earth, we do not, therefore, know the nature of gravity, that 20is, the cause or principle in virtue of which bodies descend, and we must derive our knowledge of it from some other source. The same may be said of a vacuum and atoms, of heat and cold, of dryness and humidity, and of salt, sulphur, and mercury, and the other things of this sort which some have adopted as their principles. But no conclusion deduced from a principle which 25is not clear can be evident, even although the deduction be formally valid; and hence it follows that no reasonings based on such principles could lead them to the certain knowledge of any one thing, nor consequently advance them one step in the search after wisdom. And if they did discover any truth, this was due to one or other of the four means above mentioned. Notwithstanding this, 30I am in no degree desirous to lessen the honour which each of them can justly claim; I am only constrained to say, for the consolation of those who have not given their attention to study, that just as in travelling, when we turn our back upon the place to which we were going, we recede the farther from it in proportion as we proceed in the new direction for a greater length of time and 35with greater speed, so that, though we may be afterwards brought back to the right way, we cannot nevertheless arrive at the destined place as soon as if we had not moved backwards at all; so in philosophy, when we make use of false principles, we depart the farther from the knowledge of truth and wisdom exactly in proportion to the care with which we cultivate them, and apply 40ourselves to the deduction of diverse consequences from them, thinking that we are philosophizing well, while we are only departing the farther from the truth; from which it must be inferred that they who have learned the least of all that has been hitherto distinguished by the name of philosophy are the most

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fitted for the apprehension of truth. After making those matters clear, I should, in the next place, have

desired to set forth the grounds for holding that the true principles by which we may reach that highest degree of wisdom wherein consists the sovereign good of human life, are those I have proposed in this work; and two 5considerations alone are sufficient to establish this—the first of which is, that these principles are very clear, and the second, that we can deduce all other truths from them; for it is only these two conditions that are required in true principles. But I easily prove that they are very clear; firstly, by a reference to the manner in which I found them, namely, by rejecting all propositions that 10were in the least doubtful, for it is certain that such as could not be rejected by this test when they were attentively considered, are the most evident and clear which the human mind can know. Thus by considering that he who strives to doubt of all is unable nevertheless to doubt that he is while he doubts, and that what reasons thus, in not being able to doubt of itself and doubting 15nevertheless of everything else, is not that which we call our body, but what we name our mind or thought, I have taken the existence of this thought for the first principle, from which I very clearly deduced the following truths, namely, that there is a God who is the author of all that is in the world, and who, being the source of all truth, cannot have created our understanding of 20such a nature as to be deceived in the judgments it forms of the things of which it possesses a very clear and distinct perception. Those are all the principles of which I avail myself touching immaterial or metaphysical objects, from which I most clearly deduce these other principles of physical or corporeal things, namely, that there are bodies extended in length, breadth, and depth, which are 25of diverse figures and are moved in a variety of ways. Such are in sum the principles from which I deduce all other truths. The second circumstance that proves the clearness of these principles is, that they have been known in all ages, and even received as true and indubitable by all men, with the exception only of the existence of God, which has been doubted by some, because they 30attributed too much to the perceptions of the senses, and God can neither be seen nor touched.

But, though all the truths which I class among my principles were known at all times, and by all men, nevertheless, there has been no one up to the present, who, so far as I know, has adopted them as principles of 35philosophy: in other words, as such that we can deduce from them the knowledge of whatever else is in the world. It accordingly now remains for me to prove that they are such; and it appears to me that I cannot better establish this than by the test of experience: in other words, by inviting readers to peruse the following work. For, though I have not treated in it of all matters- -40that being impossible—I think I have so explained all of which I had occasion to treat, that they who read it attentively will have ground for the persuasion that it is unnecessary to seek for any other principles than those I have given, in order to arrive at the most exalted knowledge of which the mind of man is

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capable; especially if, after the perusal of my writings, they take the trouble to consider how many diverse questions are therein discussed and explained, and, referring to the writings of others, they see how little probability there is in the reasons that are adduced in explanation of the same questions by principles different from mine. And that they may the more easily undertake this, I might 5have said that those imbued with my doctrines have much less difficulty in comprehending the writings of others, and estimating their true value, than those who have not been so imbued; and this is precisely the opposite of what I before said of such as commenced with the ancient philosophy, namely, that the more they have studied it the less fit are they for rightly apprehending the 10truth.

[…] I have observed, on examining the natural constitutions of different

minds, that there are hardly any so dull or slow of understanding as to be incapable of apprehending good opinions, or even of acquiring all the highest 15sciences, if they be but conducted along the right road. And this can also be proved by reason; for, as the principles are clear, and as nothing ought to be deduced from them, unless most manifest inferences, no one is so devoid of intelligence as to be unable to comprehend the conclusions that flow from them. But, besides the entanglement of prejudices, from which no one is 20entirely exempt, although it is they who have been the most ardent students of the false sciences that receive the greatest detriment from them, it happens very generally that people of ordinary capacity neglect to study from a conviction that they want ability, and that others, who are more ardent, press on too rapidly: whence it comes to pass that they frequently admit principles 25far from evident, and draw doubtful inferences from them. For this reason, I should wish to assure those who are too distrustful of their own ability that there is nothing in my writings which they may not entirely understand, if they only take the trouble to examine them; and I should wish, at the same time, to warn those of an opposite tendency that even the most superior minds 30will have need of much time and attention to remark all I designed to embrace therein.

After this, that I might lead men to understand the real design I had in publishing them, I should have wished here to explain the order which it seems to me one ought to follow with the view of instructing himself. In the first 35place, a man who has merely the vulgar and imperfect knowledge which can be acquired by the four means above explained, ought, before all else, to endeavour to form for himself a code of morals, sufficient to regulate the actions of his life, as well for the reason that this does not admit of delay as because it ought to be our first care to live well. In the next place, he ought to 40study Logic, not that of the schools, for it is only, properly speaking, a dialectic which teaches the mode of expounding to others what we already know, or even of speaking much, without judgment, of what we do not know, by which means it corrupts rather than increases good sense—but the logic which

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teaches the right conduct of the reason with the view of discovering the truths of which we are ignorant; and, because it greatly depends on usage, it is desirable he should exercise himself for a length of time in practising its rules on easy and simple questions, as those of the mathematics. Then, when he has acquired some skill in discovering the truth in these questions, he should 5commence to apply himself in earnest to true philosophy, of which the first part is Metaphysics, containing the principles of knowledge, among which is the explication of the principal attributes of God, of the immateriality of the soul, and of all the clear and simple notions that are in us; the second is Physics, in which, after finding the true principles of material things, we 10examine, in general, how the whole universe has been framed; in the next place, we consider, in particular, the nature of the earth, and of all the bodies that are most generally found upon it, as air, water, fire, the loadstone and other minerals. In the next place it is necessary also to examine singly the nature of plants, of animals, and above all of man, in order that we may 15thereafter be able to discover the other sciences that are useful to us. Thus, all Philosophy is like a tree, of which Metaphysics is the root, Physics the trunk, and all the other sciences the branches that grow out of this trunk, which are reduced to three principal, namely, Medicine, Mechanics, and Ethics. By the science of Morals, I understand the highest and most perfect which, 20presupposing an entire knowledge of the other sciences, is the last degree of wisdom.

But as it is not from the roots or the trunks of trees that we gather the fruit, but only from the extremities of their branches, so the principal utility of philosophy depends on the separate uses of its parts, which we can only learn 25last of all. But, though I am ignorant of almost all these, the zeal I have always felt in endeavouring to be of service to the public, was the reason why I published, some ten or twelve years ago, certain Essays on the doctrines I thought I had acquired. [Descartes briefly recounts his pervious publications and acheivements in the sciences.] At length, after it appeared to me that those 30preceding treatises had sufficiently prepared the minds of my readers for the Principles of Philosophy, I also published it; and I have divided this work into four parts, the first of which contains the principles of human knowledge, and which may be called the First Philosophy, or Metaphysics. That this part, accordingly, may be properly understood, it will be necessary to read 35beforehand the book of Meditations I wrote on the same subject. The other three parts contain all that is most general in Physics, namely, the explication of the first laws or principles of nature, and the way in which the heavens, the fixed stars, the planets, comets, and generally the whole universe, were composed; in the next place, the explication, in particular, of the nature of this 40earth, the air, water, fire, the magnet, which are the bodies we most commonly find everywhere around it, and of all the qualities we observe in these bodies, as light, heat, gravity, and the like. In this way, it seems to me, I have commenced the orderly explanation of the whole of philosophy, without

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omitting any of the matters that ought to precede the last which I discussed. But to bring this undertaking to its conclusion, I ought hereafter to explain, in the same manner, the nature of the other more particular bodies that are on the earth, namely, minerals, plants, animals, and especially man; finally, to treat thereafter with accuracy of Medicine, Ethics, and Mechanics. […] 5

Meanwhile, that it may be seen wherein I think I have already promoted the general good, I will here mention the fruits that may be gathered from my Principles. The first is the satisfaction which the mind will experience on finding in the work many truths before unknown; for although frequently truth does not so greatly affect our imagination as falsity and fiction, because it 10seems less wonderful and is more simple, yet the gratification it affords is always more durable and solid. The second fruit is, that in studying these principles we will become accustomed by degrees to judge better of all the things we come in contact with, and thus be made wiser, in which respect the effect will be quite the opposite of the common philosophy, for we may easily 15remark in those we call pedants that it renders them less capable of rightly exercising their reason than they would have been if they had never known it. The third is, that the truths which they contain, being highly clear and certain, will take away all ground of dispute, and thus dispose men's minds to gentleness and concord; whereas the contrary is the effect of the controversies 20of the schools, which, as they insensibly render those who are exercised in them more wrangling and opinionative, are perhaps the prime cause of the heresies and dissensions that now harass the world. The last and chief fruit of these Principles is, that one will be able, by cultivating them, to discover many truths I myself have not unfolded, and thus passing by degrees from one to 25another, to acquire in course of time a perfect knowledge of the whole of philosophy, and to rise to the highest degree of wisdom. For just as all the arts, though in their beginnings they are rude and imperfect, are yet gradually perfected by practice, from their containing at first something true, and whose effect experience evinces; so in philosophy, when we have true principles, we 30cannot fail by following them to meet sometimes with other truths; and we could not better prove the falsity of those of Aristotle, than by saying that men made no progress in knowledge by their means during the many ages they prosecuted them.

I well know that there are some men so precipitate and accustomed to 35use so little circumspection in what they do, that, even with the most solid foundations, they could not rear a firm superstructure; and as it is usually those who are the readiest to make books, they would in a short time mar all that I have done, and introduce uncertainty and doubt into my manner of philosophizing, from which I have carefully endeavoured to banish them, if 40people were to receive their writings as mine, or as representing my opinions. I had, not long ago, some experience of this in one of those who were believed desirous of following me the most closely, and one too of whom I had somewhere said that I had such confidence in his genius as to believe that he

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adhered to no opinions which I should not be ready to avow as mine; for he last year published a book entitled "Fundamental Physics," in which, although he seems to have written nothing on the subject of Physics and Medicine which he did not take from my writings, as well from those I have published as from another still imperfect on the nature of animals, which fell into his hands; 5nevertheless, because he has copied them badly, and changed the order, and denied certain metaphysical truths upon which all Physics ought to be based, I am obliged wholly to disavow his work, and here to request readers not to attribute to me any opinion unless they find it expressly stated in my own writings, and to receive no opinion as true, whether in my writings or 10elsewhere, unless they see that it is very clearly deduced from true principles. I well know, likewise, that many ages may elapse ere all the truths deducible from these principles are evolved out of them, as well because the greater number of such as remain to be discovered depend on certain particular experiments that never occur by chance, but which require to be investigated 15with care and expense by men of the highest intelligence, as because it will hardly happen that the same persons who have the sagacity to make a right use of them, will possess also the means of making them, and also because the majority of the best minds have formed so low an estimate of philosophy in general, from the imperfections they have remarked in the kind in vogue up to 20the present time, that they cannot apply themselves to the search after truth.

But, in conclusion, if the difference discernible between the principles in question and those of every other system, and the great array of truths deducible from them, lead them to discern the importance of continuing the search after these truths, and to observe the degree of wisdom, the perfection 25and felicity of life, to which they are fitted to conduct us, I venture to believe that there will not be found one who is not ready to labour hard in so profitable a study, or at least to favour and aid with all his might those who shall devote themselves to it with success.

The height of my wishes is, that posterity may sometime behold the 30happy issue of it, etc.

OF THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. I. THAT in order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as 35far as possible, of all things. As we were at one time children, and as we formed various judgments regarding the objects presented to our senses, when as yet we had not the entire use of our reason, numerous prejudices stand in the way of our arriving at the knowledge of truth; and of these it seems impossible for us to rid 40ourselves, unless we undertake, once in our lifetime, to doubt of all those things in which we may discover even the smallest suspicion of uncertainty. II. That we ought also to consider as false all that is doubtful.

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Moreover, it will be useful likewise to esteem as false the things of which we shall be able to doubt, that we may with greater clearness discover what possesses most certainty and is the easiest to know. III. That we ought not meanwhile to make use of doubt in the conduct of life. 5In the meantime, it is to be observed that we are to avail ourselves of this general doubt only while engaged in the contemplation of truth. For, as far as concerns the conduct of life, we are very frequently obliged to follow opinions merely probable, or even sometimes, though of two courses of action we may not perceive more probability in the one than in the other, to choose one or 10other, seeing the opportunity of acting would not unfrequently pass away before we could free ourselves from our doubts. IV. Why we may doubt of sensible things. Accordingly, since we now only design to apply ourselves to the investigation 15of truth, we will doubt, first, whether of all the things that have ever fallen under our senses, or which we have ever imagined, any one really exist; in the first place, because we know by experience that the senses sometimes err, and it would be imprudent to trust too much to what has even once deceived us; secondly, because in dreams we perpetually seem to perceive or imagine 20innumerable objects which have no existence. And to one who has thus resolved upon a general doubt, there appear no marks by which he can with certainty distinguish sleep from the waking state. V. Why we may also doubt of mathematical demonstrations. 25We will also doubt of the other things we have before held as most certain, even of the demonstrations of mathematics, and of their principles which we have hitherto deemed self-evident; in the first place, because we have sometimes seen men fall into error in such matters, and admit as absolutely certain and self-evident what to us appeared false, but chiefly because we have 30learnt that God who created us is all-powerful; for we do not yet know whether perhaps it was his will to create us so that we are always deceived, even in the things we think we know best: since this does not appear more impossible than our being occasionally deceived, which, however, as observation teaches us, is the case. And if we suppose that an all- powerful God 35is not the author of our being, and that we exist of ourselves or by some other means, still, the less powerful we suppose our author to be, the greater reason will we have for believing that we are not so perfect as that we may not be continually deceived. 40VI. That we possess a free-will, by which we can withhold our assent from what is doubtful, and thus avoid error. But meanwhile, whoever in the end may be the author of our being, and however powerful and deceitful he may be, we are nevertheless conscious of a

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freedom, by which we can refrain from admitting to a place in our belief aught that is not manifestly certain and undoubted, and thus guard against ever being deceived. VII. That we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt, and that this is the first 5knowledge we acquire when we philosophize in order. While we thus reject all of which we can entertain the smallest doubt, and even imagine that it is false, we easily indeed suppose that there is neither God, nor sky, nor bodies, and that we ourselves even have neither hands nor feet, nor, finally, a body; but we cannot in the same way suppose that we are 10not while we doubt of the truth of these things; for there is a repugnance in conceiving that what thinks does not exist at the very time when it thinks. Accordingly, the knowledge, I THINK, THEREFORE I AM, is the first and most certain that occurs to one who philosophizes orderly. 15VIII. That we hence discover the distinction between the mind and the body, or between a thinking and corporeal thing. And this is the best mode of discovering the nature of the mind, and its distinctness from the body: for examining what we are, while supposing, as we now do, that there is nothing really existing apart from our thought, we 20clearly perceive that neither extension, nor figure, nor local motion,[Footnote: Instead of "local motion," the French has "existence in any place."] nor anything similar that can be attributed to body, pertains to our nature, and nothing save thought alone; and, consequently, that the notion we have of our mind precedes that of any corporeal thing, and is more certain, seeing we still 25doubt whether there is any body in existence, while we already perceive that we think. IX. What thought (COGITATIO) is. By the word thought, I understand all that which so takes place in us that we 30of ourselves are immediately conscious of it; and, accordingly, not only to understand (INTELLIGERE, ENTENDRE), to will (VELLE), to imagine (IMAGINARI), but even to perceive (SENTIRE, SENTIR), are here the same as to think (COGITARE, PENSER). For if I say, I see, or, I walk, therefore I am; and if I understand by vision or walking the act of my eyes or of my limbs, 35which is the work of the body, the conclusion is not absolutely certain, because, as is often the case in dreams, I may think that I see or walk, although I do not open my eyes or move from my place, and even, perhaps, although I have no body: but, if I mean the sensation itself, or consciousness of seeing or walking, the knowledge is manifestly certain, because it is then referred to the mind, 40which alone perceives or is conscious that it sees or walks. X. That the notions which are simplest and self-evident, are obscured by logical definitions; and that such are not to be reckoned among the cognitions acquired by

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study, [but as born with us]. I do not here explain several other terms which I have used, or design to use in the sequel, because their meaning seems to me sufficiently self-evident. And I frequently remarked that philosophers erred in attempting to explain, by logical definitions, such truths as are most simple and self-evident; for they 5thus only rendered them more obscure. And when I said that the proposition, I THINK, THEREFORE I AM, is of all others the first and most certain which occurs to one philosophizing orderly, I did not therefore deny that it was necessary to know what thought, existence, and certitude are, and the truth that, in order to think it is necessary to be, and the like; but, because these are 10the most simple notions, and such as of themselves afford the knowledge of nothing existing, I did not judge it proper there to enumerate them. XI. How we can know our mind more clearly than our body. But now that it may be discerned how the knowledge we have of the mind not 15only precedes, and has greater certainty, but is even clearer, than that we have of the body, it must be remarked, as a matter that is highly manifest by the natural light, that to nothing no affections or qualities belong; and, accordingly, that where we observe certain affections, there a thing or substance to which these pertain, is necessarily found. The same light also 20shows us that we know a thing or substance more clearly in proportion as we discover in it a greater number of qualities. Now, it is manifest that we remark a greater number of qualities in our mind than in any other thing; for there is no occasion on which we know anything whatever when we are not at the same time led with much greater certainty to the knowledge of our own mind. 25For example, if I judge that there is an earth because I touch or see it, on the same ground, and with still greater reason, I must be persuaded that my mind exists; for it may be, perhaps, that I think I touch the earth while there is one in existence; but it is not possible that I should so judge, and my mind which thus judges not exist; and the same holds good of whatever object is presented 30to our mind. XIII. In what sense the knowledge of other things depends upon the knowledge of God. But when the mind, which thus knows itself but is still in doubt as to all other things, looks around on all sides, with a view to the farther extension of its 35knowledge, it first of all discovers within itself the ideas of many things; and while it simply contemplates them, and neither affirms nor denies that there is anything beyond itself corresponding to them, it is in no danger of erring. The mind also discovers certain common notions out of which it frames various demonstrations that carry conviction to such a degree as to render doubt of 40their truth impossible, so long as we give attention to them. For example, the mind has within itself ideas of numbers and figures, and it has likewise among its common notions the principle THAT IF EQUALS BE ADDED TO EQUALS THE WHOLES WILL BE EQUAL and the like; from which it is

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easy to demonstrate that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, etc. Now, so long as we attend to the premises from which this conclusion and others similar to it were deduced, we feel assured of their truth; but, as the mind cannot always think of these with attention, when it has the remembrance of a conclusion without recollecting the order of its deduction, 5and is uncertain whether the author of its being has created it of a nature that is liable to be deceived, even in what appears most evident, it perceives that there is just ground to distrust the truth of such conclusions, and that it cannot possess any certain knowledge until it has discovered its author. 10XIV. That we may validly infer the existence of God from necessary existence being comprised in the concept we have of him. When the mind afterwards reviews the different ideas that are in it, it discovers what is by far the chief among them—that of a Being omniscient, all-powerful, and absolutely perfect; and it observes that in this idea there is 15contained not only possible and contingent existence, as in the ideas of all other things which it clearly perceives, but existence absolutely necessary and eternal. And just as because, for example, the equality of its three angles to two right angles is necessarily comprised in the idea of a triangle, the mind is firmly persuaded that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right 20angles; so, from its perceiving necessary and eternal existence to be comprised in the idea which it has of an all-perfect Being, it ought manifestly to conclude that this all-perfect Being exists. XV. That necessary existence is not in the same way comprised in the notions which we 25have of other things, but merely contingent existence. The mind will be still more certain of the truth of this conclusion, if it consider that it has no idea of any other thing in which it can discover that necessary existence is contained; for, from this circumstance alone, it will discern that the idea of an all-perfect Being has not been framed by itself, and that it does not 30represent a chimera, but a true and immutable nature, which must exist since it can only be conceived as necessarily existing. XVII. That the greater objective (representative) perfection there is in our idea of a thing, the greater also must be the perfection of its cause. 35When we further reflect on the various ideas that are in us, it is easy to perceive that there is not much difference among them, when we consider them simply as certain modes of thinking, but that they are widely different, considered in reference to the objects they represent; and that their causes must be so much the more perfect according to the degree of objective 40perfection contained in them. For there is no difference between this and the case of a person who has the idea of a machine, in the construction of which great skill is displayed, in which circumstances we have a right to inquire how he came by this idea, whether, for example, he somewhere saw such a machine

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constructed by another, or whether he was so accurately taught the mechanical sciences, or is endowed with such force of genius, that he was able of himself to invent it, without having elsewhere seen anything like it; for all the ingenuity which is contained in the idea objectively only, or as it were in a picture, must exist at least in its first and chief cause, whatever that may be, not only 5objectively or representatively, but in truth formally or eminently. XVIII. That the existence of God may be again inferred from the above. Thus, because we discover in our minds the idea of God, or of an all-perfect Being, we have a right to inquire into the source whence we derive it; and we 10will discover that the perfections it represents are so immense as to render it quite certain that we could only derive it from an all-perfect Being; that is, from a God really existing. For it is not only manifest by the natural light that nothing cannot be the cause of anything whatever, and that the more perfect cannot arise from the less perfect, so as to be thereby produced as by its 15efficient and total cause, but also that it is impossible we can have the idea or representation of anything whatever, unless there be somewhere, either in us or out of us, an original which comprises, in reality, all the perfections that are thus represented to us; but, as we do not in any way find in ourselves those absolute perfections of which we have the idea, we must conclude that they 20exist in some nature different from ours, that is, in God, or at least that they were once in him; and it most manifestly follows [from their infinity] that they are still there. XIX. That, although we may not comprehend the nature of God, there is yet nothing 25which we know so clearly as his perfections. This will appear sufficiently certain and manifest to those who have been accustomed to contemplate the idea of God, and to turn their thoughts to his infinite perfections; for, although we may not comprehend them, because it is of the nature of the infinite not to be comprehended by what is finite, we 30nevertheless conceive them more clearly and distinctly than material objects, for this reason, that, being simple, and unobscured by limits,[Footnote: After LIMITS, "what of them we do conceive is much less confused. There is, besides, no speculation more calculated to aid in perfecting our understanding, and which is more important than this, inasmuch as the consideration of an 35object that has no limits to its perfections fills us with satisfaction and assurance."-FRENCH.] they occupy our mind more fully. XX. That we are not the cause of ourselves, but that this is God, and consequently that there is a God. 40But, because everyone has not observed this, and because, when we have an idea of any machine in which great skill is displayed, we usually know with sufficient accuracy the manner in which we obtained it, and as we cannot even recollect when the idea we have of a God was communicated to us by him,

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seeing it was always in our minds, it is still necessary that we should continue our review, and make inquiry after our author, possessing, as we do, the idea of the infinite perfections of a God: for it is in the highest degree evident by the natural light, that that which knows something more perfect than itself, is not the source of its own being, since it would thus have given to itself all the 5perfections which it knows; and that, consequently, it could draw its origin from no other being than from him who possesses in himself all those perfections, that is, from God. XXII. That in knowing the existence of God, in the manner here explained, we 10likewise know all his attributes, as far as they can be known by the natural light alone. There is the great advantage in proving the existence of God in this way, viz., by his idea, that we at the same time know what he is, as far as the weakness of our nature allows; for, reflecting on the idea we have of him which is born with us, we perceive that he is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, the source of all 15goodness and truth, creator of all things, and that, in fine, he has in himself all that in which we can clearly discover any infinite perfection or good that is not limited by any imperfection. XXIV. That in passing from the knowledge of God to the knowledge of the creatures, 20it is necessary to remember that our understanding is finite, and the power of God infinite. But as we know that God alone is the true cause of all that is or can be, we will doubtless follow the best way of philosophizing, if, from the knowledge we have of God himself, we pass to the explication of the things which he has 25created, and essay to deduce it from the notions that are naturally in our minds, for we will thus obtain the most perfect science, that is, the knowledge of effects through their causes. But that we may be able to make this attempt with sufficient security from error, we must use the precaution to bear in mind as much as possible that God, who is the author of things, is infinite, while we 30are wholly finite. XXV. That we must believe all that God has revealed, although it may surpass the reach of our faculties. Thus, if perhaps God reveal to us or others, matters concerning himself which 35surpass the natural powers of our mind, such as the mysteries of the incarnation and of the trinity, we will not refuse to believe them, although we may not clearly understand them; nor will we be in any way surprised to find in the immensity of his nature, or even in what he has created, many things that exceed our comprehension. 40 XXVIII. That we must examine, not the final, but the efficient, causes of created things. Likewise, finally, we will not seek reasons of natural things from the end which

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God or nature proposed to himself in their creation (i. e., final causes), [Footnote: "We will not stop to consider the ends which God proposed to himself in the creation of the world, and we will entirely reject from our philosophy the search of final causes!"—French.] for we ought not to presume so far as to think that we are sharers in the counsels of Deity, but, considering 5him as the efficient cause of all things, let us endeavour to discover by the natural light [Footnote: "Faculty of reasoning."—FRENCH.] which he has planted in us, applied to those of his attributes of which he has been willing we should have some knowledge, what must be concluded regarding those effects we perceive by our senses; bearing in mind, however, what has been already 10said, that we must only confide in this natural light so long as nothing contrary to its dictates is revealed by God himself. [Footnote: The last clause, beginning "bearing in mind." is omitted in the French.] XXIX. That God is not the cause of our errors. 15The first attribute of God which here falls to be considered, is that he is absolutely veracious and the source of all light, so that it is plainly repugnant for him to deceive us, or to be properly and positively the cause of the errors to which we are consciously subject; for although the address to deceive seems to be some mark of subtlety of mind among men, yet without doubt the will to 20deceive only proceeds from malice or from fear and weakness, and consequently cannot be attributed to God. XXX. That consequently all which we clearly perceive is true, and that we are thus delivered from the doubts above proposed. 25Whence it follows, that the light of nature, or faculty of knowledge given us by God, can never compass any object which is not true, in as far as it attains to a knowledge of it, that is, in as far as the object is clearly and distinctly apprehended. For God would have merited the appellation of a deceiver if he had given us this faculty perverted, and such as might lead us to take falsity for 30truth [when we used it aright]. Thus the highest doubt is removed, which arose from our ignorance on the point as to whether perhaps our nature was such that we might be deceived even in those things that appear to us the most evident. The same principle ought also to be of avail against all the other grounds of doubting that have been already enumerated. For mathematical 35truths ought now to be above suspicion, since these are of the clearest. And if we perceive anything by our senses, whether while awake or asleep, we will easily discover the truth provided we separate what there is of clear and distinct in the knowledge from what is obscure and confused. There is no need that I should here say more on this subject, since it has already received ample 40treatment in the metaphysical Meditations; and what follows will serve to explain it still more accurately. XXXI. That our errors are, in respect of God, merely negations, but, in respect of

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ourselves, privations. But as it happens that we frequently fall into error, although God is no deceiver, if we desire to inquire into the origin and cause of our errors, with a view to guard against them, it is necessary to observe that they depend less on our understanding than on our will, and that they have no need of the actual 5concourse of God, in order to their production; so that, when considered in reference to God, they are merely negations, but in reference to ourselves, privations. XXXII. That there are only two modes of thinking in us, viz., the perception of the 10understanding and the action of the will. For all the modes of thinking of which we are conscious may be referred to two general classes, the one of which is the perception or operation of the understanding, and the other the volition or operation of the will. Thus, to perceive by the senses (SENTIRE), to imagine, and to conceive things purely 15intelligible, are only different modes of perceiving (PERCIPIENDI); but to desire, to be averse from, to affirm, to deny, to doubt, are different modes of willing. XXXIII. That we never err unless when we judge of something which we do not 20sufficiently apprehend. When we apprehend anything we are in no danger of error, if we refrain from judging of it in any way; and even when we have formed a judgment regarding it, we would never fall into error, provided we gave our assent only to what we clearly and distinctly perceived; but the reason why we are usually deceived, is 25that we judge without possessing an exact knowledge of that of which we judge. XXXIV. That the will as well as the understanding is required for judging. 30I admit that the understanding is necessary for judging, there being no room to suppose that we can judge of that which we in no way apprehend; but the will also is required in order to our assenting to what we have in any degree perceived. It is not necessary, however, at least to form any judgment whatever, that we have an entire and perfect apprehension of a thing; for we 35may assent to many things of which we have only a very obscure and confused knowledge. XXXV. That the will is of greater extension than the understanding, and is thus the source of our errors. 40Further, the perception of the intellect extends only to the few things that are presented to it, and is always very limited: the will, on the other hand, may, in a certain sense, be said to be infinite, because we observe nothing that can be the object of the will of any other, even of the unlimited will of God, to which

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ours cannot also extend, so that we easily carry it beyond the objects we clearly perceive; and when we do this, it is not wonderful that we happen to be deceived. XXXVI. That our errors cannot be imputed to God. 5But although God has not given us an omniscient understanding, he is not on this account to be considered in any wise the author of our errors, for it is of the nature of created intellect to be finite, and of finite intellect not to embrace all things. 10XXXVII. That the chief perfection of man is his being able to act freely or by will, and that it is this which renders him worthy of praise or blame. That the will should be the more extensive is in harmony with its nature: and it is a high perfection in man to be able to act by means of it, that is, freely; and thus in a peculiar way to be the master of his own actions, and merit praise or 15blame. For self- acting machines are not commended because they perform with exactness all the movements for which they were adapted, seeing their motions are carried on necessarily; but the maker of them is praised on account of the exactness with which they were framed, because he did not act of necessity, but freely; and, on the same principle, we must attribute to ourselves 20something more on this account, that when we embrace truth, we do so not of necessity, but freely. XXXVIII. That error is a defect in our mode of acting, not in our nature; and that the faults of their subjects may be frequently attributed to other masters, but never to God. 25It is true, that as often as we err, there is some defect in our mode of action or in the use of our liberty, but not in our nature, because this is always the same, whether our judgments be true or false. And although God could have given to us such perspicacity of intellect that we should never have erred, we have, notwithstanding, no right to demand this of him; for, although with us he who 30was able to prevent evil and did not is held guilty of it, God is not in the same way to be reckoned responsible for our errors because he had the power to prevent them, inasmuch as the dominion which some men possess over others has been instituted for the purpose of enabling them to hinder those under them from doing evil, whereas the dominion which God exercises over the 35universe is perfectly absolute and free. For this reason we ought to thank him for the goods he has given us, and not complain that he has not blessed us with all which we know it was in his power to impart. XLIII. That we shall never err if we give our assent only to what we clearly and 40distinctly perceive. But it is certain we will never admit falsity for truth, so long as we judge only of that which we clearly and distinctly perceive; because, as God is no deceiver, the faculty of knowledge which he has given us cannot be fallacious, nor, for

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the same reason, the faculty of will, when we do not extend it beyond the objects we clearly know. And even although this truth could not be established by reasoning, the minds of all have been so impressed by nature as spontaneously to assent to whatever is clearly perceived, and to experience an impossibility to doubt of its truth. 5 XLIV. That we uniformly judge improperly when we assent to what we do not clearly perceive, although our judgment may chance to be true; and that it is frequently our memory which deceives us by leading us to believe that certain things were formerly sufficiently understood by us. 10It is likewise certain that, when we approve of any reason which we do not apprehend, we are either deceived, or, if we stumble on the truth, it is only by chance, and thus we can never possess the assurance that we are not in error. I confess it seldom happens that we judge of a thing when we have observed we do not apprehend it, because it is a dictate of the natural light never to judge of 15what we do not know. But we most frequently err in this, that we presume upon a past knowledge of much to which we give our assent, as to something treasured up in the memory, and perfectly known to us; whereas, in truth, we have no such knowledge. 20XLV. What constitutes clear and distinct perception. There are indeed a great many persons who, through their whole lifetime, never perceive anything in a way necessary for judging of it properly; for the knowledge upon which we can establish a certain and indubitable judgment must be not only clear, but also, distinct. I call that clear which is present and 25manifest to the mind giving attention to it, just as we are said clearly to see objects when, being present to the eye looking on, they stimulate it with sufficient force. and it is disposed to regard them; but the distinct is that which is so precise and different from all other objects as to comprehend in itself only what is clear. [Footnote: "what appears manifestly to him who considers it as 30he ought."— FRENCH.] XLVI. It is shown, from the example of pain, that a perception may be clear without being distinct, but that it cannot be distinct unless it is clear. For example, when any one feels intense pain, the knowledge which he has of 35this pain is very clear, but it is not always distinct; for men usually confound it with the obscure judgment they form regarding its nature, and think that there is in the suffering part something similar to the sensation of pain of which they are alone conscious. And thus perception may be clear without being distinct, but it can never be distinct without likewise being clear. 40 XLVII. That, to correct the prejudices of our early years, we must consider what is clear in each of our simple [Footnote: "first."— FRENCH.] notions. And, indeed, in our early years, the mind was so immersed in the body, that,

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although it perceived many things with sufficient clearness, it yet knew nothing distinctly; and since even at that time we exercised our judgment in many matters, numerous prejudices were thus contracted, which, by the majority, are never afterwards laid aside. But that we may now be in a position to get rid of these, I will here briefly enumerate all the simple notions of which 5our thoughts are composed, and distinguish in each what is clear from what is obscure, or fitted to lead into error. LV. How duration, order, and number may be also distinctly conceived. We will also have most distinct conceptions of duration, order, and number, if, 10in place of mixing up with our notions of them that which properly belongs to the concept of substance, we merely think that the duration of a thing is a mode under which we conceive this thing, in so far as it continues to exist; and, in like manner, that order and number are not in reality different from things disposed in order and numbered, but only modes under which we diversely 15consider these things. LXIII. How thought and extension may be distinctly known, as constituting, the one the nature of mind, the other that of body. Thought and extension may be regarded as constituting the natures of 20intelligent and corporeal substance; and then they must not be otherwise conceived than as the thinking and extended substances themselves, that is, as mind and body, which in this way are conceived with the greatest clearness and distinctness. Moreover, we more easily conceive extended or thinking substance than substance by itself, or with the omission of its thinking or 25extension. For there is some difficulty in abstracting the notion of substance from the notions of thinking and extension, which, in truth, are only diverse in thought itself (i.e., logically different); and a concept is not more distinct because it comprehends fewer properties, but because we accurately distinguish what is comprehended in it from all other notions. 30 LXVI. How our sensations, affections, and appetites may be clearly known, although we are frequently wrong in our judgments regarding them. There remain our sensations, affections, and appetites, of which we may also have a clear knowledge, if we take care to comprehend in the judgments we 35form of them only that which is precisely contained in our perception of them, and of which we are immediately conscious. There is, however, great difficulty in observing this, at least in respect of sensations; because we have all, without exception, from our youth judged that all the things we perceived by our senses had an existence beyond our thought, and that they were entirely 40similar to the sensations, that is, perceptions, we ad of them. Thus when, for example, we saw a certain colour, we thought we saw something occupying a place out of us, and which was entirely similar to that idea of colour we were then conscious of; and from the habit of judging in this way, we seemed to see

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this so clearly and distinctly that we esteemed it (i.e., the externality of the colour) certain and indubitable. LXVII. That we are frequently deceived in our judgments regarding pain itself. The same prejudice has place in all our other sensations, even in those of 5titillation and pain. For though we are not in the habit of believing that there exist out of us objects that resemble titillation and pain, we do not nevertheless consider these sensations as in the mind alone, or in our perception, but as in the hand, or foot, or some other part of our body. There is no reason, however, to constrain us to believe that the pain, for example, which we feel, as it were, 10in the foot is something out of the mind existing in the foot, or that the light which we see, as it were, in the sun exists in the sun as it is in us. Both these beliefs are prejudices of our early years, as will clearly appear in the sequel. LXVIII. How in these things what we clearly conceive is to be distinguished from that 15in which we may be deceived. But that we may distinguish what is clear in our sensations from what is obscure, we ought most carefully to observe that we possess a clear and distinct knowledge of pain, colour, and other things of this sort, when we consider them simply as sensations or thoughts; but that, when they are 20judged to be certain things subsisting beyond our mind, we are wholly unable to form any conception of them. Indeed, when any one tells us that he sees colour in a body or feels pain in one of his limbs, this is exactly the same as if he said that he there saw or felt something of the nature of which he was entirely ignorant, or that he did not know what he saw or felt. For although, 25when less attentively examining his thoughts, a person may easily persuade himself that he has some knowledge of it, since he supposes that there is something resembling that sensation of colour or of pain of which he is conscious; yet, if he reflects on what the sensation of colour or pain represents to him as existing in a coloured body or in a wounded member, he will find 30that of such he has absolutely no knowledge. LXIX. That magnitude, figure, etc., are known far differently from colour, pain, etc. What we have said above will be more manifest; especially if we consider that size in the body perceived, figure, motion (at least local, for philosophers by 35fancying other kinds of motion have rendered its nature less intelligible to themselves), the situation of parts, duration, number, and those other properties which, as we have already said, we clearly perceive in all bodies, are known by us in a way altogether different from that in which we know what colour is in the same body, or pain, smell, taste, or any other of those 40properties which I have said above must be referred to the senses. For although when we see a body we are not less assured of its existence from its appearing figured than from its appearing coloured,[Footnote: "by the colour we perceive on occasion of it."— FRENCH.] we yet know with far greater

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clearness its property of figure than its colour. LXX. That we may judge of sensible things in two ways, by the one of which we avoid error, by the other fall into it. It is thus manifest that to say we perceive colours in objects is in reality 5equivalent to saying we perceive something in objects and are yet ignorant of what it is, except as that which determines in us a certain highly vivid and clear sensation, which we call the sensation of colours. There is, however, very great diversity in the manner of judging: for so long as we simply judge that there is an unknown something in objects (that is, in things such as they are, 10from which the sensation reached us), so far are we from falling into error that, on the contrary, we thus rather provide against it, for we are less apt to judge rashly of a thing which we observe we do not know. But when we think we perceive colours in objects, although we are in reality ignorant of what we then denominate colour, and are unable to conceive any resemblance between 15the colour we suppose to be in objects, and that of which we are conscious in sensation, yet because we do not observe this, or because there are in objects several properties, as size, figure, number, etc., which, as we clearly know, exist, or may exist in them as they are perceived by our senses or conceived by our understanding, we easily glide into the error of holding that what is called 20colour in objects is something entirely resembling the colour we perceive, and thereafter of supposing that we have a clear perception of what is in no way perceived by us. LXXI. That the chief cause of our errors is to be found in the prejudices of our 25childhood. And here we may notice the first and chief cause of our errors. In early life the mind was so closely bound to the body that it attended to nothing beyond the thoughts by which it perceived the objects that made impression on the body; nor as yet did it refer these thoughts to anything existing beyond itself, but 30simply felt pain when the body was hurt, or pleasure when anything beneficial to the body occurred, or if the body was so highly affected that it was neither greatly benefited nor hurt, the mind experienced the sensations we call tastes, smells, sounds, heat, cold, light, colours, and the like, which in truth are representative of nothing existing out of our mind, and which vary according 35to the diversities of the parts and modes in which the body is affected. [Footnote: "which vary according to the diversities of the movements that pass from all parts of our body to the part of the brain to which it (the mind) is closely joined and united."—FRENCH.] The mind at the same time also perceived magnitudes, figures, motions, and the like, which were not presented 40to it as sensations but as things or the modes of things existing, or at least capable of existing out of thought, although it did not yet observe this difference between these two kinds of perceptions. And afterwards when the machine of the body, which has been so fabricated by nature that it can of its

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own inherent power move itself in various ways, by turning itself at random on every side, followed after what was useful and avoided what was detrimental; the mind, which was closely connected with it, reflecting on the objects it pursued or avoided, remarked, for the first time, that they existed out of itself, and not only attributed to them magnitudes, figures, motions, and the 5like, which it apprehended either as things or as the modes of things, but, in addition, attributed to them tastes, odours, and the other ideas of that sort, the sensations of which were caused by itself; [Footnote: "which it perceived on occasion of them" (i.e., of external objects).—FRENCH.] and as it only considered other objects in so far as they were useful to the body, in which it 10was immersed, it judged that there was greater or less reality in each object, according as the impressions it caused on the body were more or less powerful. Hence arose the belief that there was more substance or body in rocks and metals than in air or water, because the mind perceived in them more hardness and weight. Moreover, the air was thought to be merely nothing so long as we 15experienced no agitation of it by the wind, or did not feel it hot or cold. And because the stars gave hardly more light than the slender flames of candles, we supposed that each star was but of this size. Again, since the mind did not observe that the earth moved on its axis, or that its superficies was curved like that of a globe, it was on that account more ready to judge the earth 20immovable and its surface flat. And our mind has been imbued from our infancy with a thousand other prejudices of the same sort which afterwards in our youth we forgot we had accepted without sufficient examination, and admitted as possessed of the highest truth and clearness, as if they had been known by means of our senses, or implanted in us by nature. 25 LXXII. That the second cause of our errors is that we cannot forget these prejudices. And although now in our mature years, when the mind, being no longer wholly subject to the body, is not in the habit of referring all things to it, but also seeks to discover the truth of things considered in themselves, we observe 30the falsehood of a great many of the judgments we had before formed; yet we experience a difficulty in expunging them from our memory, and, so long as they remain there, they give rise to various errors. Thus, for example, since from our earliest years we imagined the stars to be of very small size, we find it highly difficult to rid ourselves of this imagination, although assured by 35plain astronomical reasons that they are of the greatest,—so prevailing is the power of preconceived opinion. LXXIII. The third cause is, that we become fatigued by attending to those objects which are not present to the senses; and that we are thus accustomed to judge of these 40not from present perception but from pre-conceived opinion. Besides, our mind cannot attend to any object without at length experiencing some pain and fatigue; and of all objects it has the greatest difficulty in attending to those which are present neither to the senses nor to the

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imagination: whether for the reason that this is natural to it from its union with the body, or because in our early years, being occupied merely with perceptions and imaginations, it has become more familiar with, and acquired greater facility in thinking in those modes than in any other. Hence it also happens that many are unable to conceive any substance except what is 5imaginable and corporeal, and even sensible. For they are ignorant of the circumstance, that those objects alone are imaginable which consist in extension, motion, and figure, while there are many others besides these that are intelligible; and they persuade themselves that nothing can subsist but body, and, finally, that there is no body which is not sensible. And since in 10truth we perceive no object such as it is by sense alone [but only by our reason exercised upon sensible objects], as will hereafter be clearly shown, it thus happens that the majority during life perceive nothing unless in a confused way. 15LXXIV. The fourth source of our errors is, that we attach our thoughts to words which do not express them with accuracy. Finally, since for the use of speech we attach all our conceptions to words by which to express them, and commit to memory our thoughts in connection with these terms, and as we afterwards find it more easy to recall the words 20than the things signified by them, we can scarcely conceive anything with such distinctness as to separate entirely what we conceive from the words that were selected to express it. On this account the majority attend to words rather than to things; and thus very frequently assent to terms without attaching to them any meaning, either because they think they once understood them, or imagine 25they received them from others by whom they were correctly understood. This, however, is not the place to treat of this matter in detail, seeing the nature of the human body has not yet been expounded, nor the existence even of body established; enough, nevertheless, appears to have been said to enable one to distinguish such of our conceptions as are clear and distinct from those 30that are obscure and confused. LXXV. Summary of what must be observed in order to philosophize correctly. Wherefore if we would philosophize in earnest, and give ourselves to the search after all the truths we are capable of knowing, we must, in the first 35place, lay aside our prejudices; in other words, we must take care scrupulously to withhold our assent from the opinions we have formerly admitted, until upon new examination we discover that they are true. We must, in the next place, make an orderly review of the notions we have in our minds, and hold as true all and only those which we will clearly and distinctly apprehend. In this 40way we will observe, first of all, that we exist in so far as it is our nature to think, and at the same time that there is a God upon whom we depend; and after considering his attributes we will be able to investigate the truth of all other things, since God is the cause of them. Besides the notions we have of

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God and of our mind, we will likewise find that we possess the knowledge of many propositions which are eternally true, as, for example, that nothing cannot be the cause of anything, etc. We will farther discover in our minds the knowledge of a corporeal or extended nature that may be moved, divided, etc., and also of certain sensations that affect us, as of pain, colours, tastes, etc., 5although we do not yet know the cause of our being so affected; and, comparing what we have now learne'd, by examining those things in their order, with our former confused knowledge of them, we will acquire the habit of forming clear and distinct conceptions of all the objects we are capable of knowing. In these few precepts seem to me to be comprised the most general 10and important principles of human knowledge. LXXVI. That we ought to prefer the Divine authority to our perception; [Footnote: “reasonings.”—FRENCH]. but that, apart from things revealed, we ought to assent to nothing that we do not clearly apprehend. 15Above all, we must impress on our memory the infallible rule, that what God has revealed is incomparably more certain than anything else; and that, we ought to submit our belief to the Divine authority rather than to our own judgment, even although perhaps the light of reason should, with the greatest clearness and evidence, appear to suggest to us something contrary to what is 20revealed. But in things regarding which there is no revelation, it is by no means consistent with the character of a philosopher to accept as true what he has not ascertained to be such, and to trust more to the senses, in other words, to the inconsiderate judgments of childhood than to the dictates of mature reason. 25 PART II. OF THE PRINCIPLES OF MATERIAL THINGS. 30I. The grounds on which the existence of material things may be known with certainty. Although we are all sufficiently persuaded of the existence of material things, yet, since this was before called in question by us, and since we reckoned the persuasion of their existence as among the prejudices of our childhood, it is now necessary for us to investigate the grounds on which this truth may be 35known with certainty. In the first place, then, it cannot be doubted that every perception we have comes to us from some object different from our mind; for it is not in our power to cause ourselves to experience one perception rather than another, the perception being entirely dependent on the object which affects our senses. It may, indeed, be matter of inquiry whether that object be 40God, or something different from God; but because we perceive, or rather, stimulated by sense, clearly and distinctly apprehend, certain matter extended in length, breadth, and thickness, the various parts of which have different figures and motions, and give rise to the sensation we have of colours, smells,

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pain, etc., God would, without question, deserve to be regarded as a deceiver, if he directly and of himself presented to our mind the idea of this extended matter, or merely caused it to be presented to us by some object which possessed neither extension, figure, nor motion. For we clearly conceive this matter as entirely distinct from God, and from ourselves, or our mind; and 5appear even clearly to discern that the idea of it is formed in us on occasion of objects existing out of our minds, to which it is in every respect similar. But since God cannot deceive us, for this is repugnant to his nature, as has been already remarked, we must unhesitatingly conclude that there exists a certain object extended in length, breadth, and thickness, and possessing all those 10properties which we clearly apprehend to belong to what is extended. And this extended substance is what we call body or matter. III. That the perceptions of the senses do not teach us what is in reality in things, but what is beneficial or hurtful to the composite whole of mind and body. 15It will be sufficient to remark that the perceptions of the senses are merely to be referred to this intimate union of the human body and mind, and that they usually make us aware of what, in external objects, may be useful or adverse to this union, but do not present to us these objects as they are in themselves, unless occasionally and by accident. For, after this observation, we will 20without difficulty lay aside the prejudices of the senses, and will have recourse to our understanding alone on this question by reflecting carefully on the ideas implanted in it by nature. IV. That the nature of body consists not in weight hardness, colour and the like, but in 25extension alone. In this way we will discern that the nature of matter or body, considered in general, does not consist in its being hard, or ponderous, or coloured, or that which affects our senses in any other way, but simply in its being a substance extended in length, breadth, and depth. For with respect to hardness, we know 30nothing of it by sense farther than that the parts of hard bodies resist the motion of our hands on coming into contact with them; but if every time our hands moved towards any part, all the bodies in that place receded as quickly as our hands approached, we should never feel hardness; and yet we have no reason to believe that bodies which might thus recede would on this account 35lose that which makes them bodies. The nature of body does not, therefore, consist in hardness. In the same way, it may be shown that weight, colour, and all the other qualities of this sort, which are perceived in corporeal matter, may be taken from it, itself meanwhile remaining entire: it thus follows that the nature of body depends on none of these. 40 V. That the truth regarding the nature of body is obscured by the opinions respecting rarefaction and a vacuum with which we are pre- occupied. […]

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VI. In what way rarefaction takes place. But with regard to rarefaction and condensation, whoever gives his attention to his own thoughts, and admits nothing of which he is not clearly conscious, will not suppose that there is anything in those processes further than a 5change of figure in the body rarefied or condensed: so that, in other words, rare bodies are those between the parts of which there are numerous distances filled with other bodies; and dense bodies, on the other hand, those whose parts approaching each other, either diminish these distances or take them wholly away, in the latter of which cases the body is rendered absolutely dense. The 10body, however, when condensed, has not, therefore, less extension than when the parts embrace a greater space, owing to their removal from each other, and their dispersion into branches. For we ought not to attribute to it the extension of the pores or distances which its parts do not occupy when it is rarefied, but to the other bodies that fill these interstices; just as when we see a 15sponge full of water or any other liquid, we do not suppose that each part of the sponge has on this account greater extension than when compressed and dry, but only that its pores are wider, and therefore that the body is diffused over a larger space. 20VII. That rarefaction cannot be intelligibly explained unless in the way here proposed. […] And we see that it is very easy to explain rarefaction in this manner, but impossible in any other; for, in fine, there would be, as appears to me, a manifest contradiction in supposing that any body was increased by a quantity or extension which it had not before, without the addition to it of a new 25extended substance, in other words, of another body, because it is impossible to conceive any addition of extension or quantity to a thing without supposing the addition of a substance having quantity or extension, as will more clearly appear from what follows. 30VIII. That quantity and number differ only in thought (RATIONE) from that which has quantity and is numbered. For quantity differs from extended substance, and number from what is numbered, not in reality but merely in our thought; so that, for example, we may consider the whole nature of a corporeal substance which is comprised in 35a space of ten feet, although we do not attend to this measure of ten feet, for the obvious reason that the thing conceived is of the same nature in any part of that space as in the whole; and, on the other hand, we can conceive the number ten, as also a continuous quantity of ten feet, without thinking of this determinate substance, because the concept of the number ten is manifestly the 40same whether we consider a number of ten feet or ten of anything else; and we can conceive a continuous quantity of ten feet without thinking of this or that determinate substance, although we cannot conceive it without some extended substance of which it is the quantity. It is in reality, however, impossible that

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any, even the least part, of such quantity or extension, can be taken away, without the retrenchment at the same time of as much of the substance, nor, on the other hand, can we lessen the substance, without at the same time taking as much from the quantity or extension. 5XI. How space is not in reality different from corporeal substance. And indeed it will be easy to discern that it is the same extension which constitutes the nature of body as of space, and that these two things are mutually diverse only as the nature of the genus and species differs from that of the individual, provided we reflect on the idea we have of any body, taking a 10stone for example, and reject all that is not essential to the nature of body. In the first place, then, hardness may be rejected, because if the stone were liquefied or reduced to powder, it would no longer possess hardness, and yet would not cease to be a body; colour also may be thrown out of account, because we have frequently seen stones so transparent as to have no colour; 15again, we may reject weight, because we have the case of fire, which, though very light, is still a body; and, finally, we may reject cold, heat, and all the other qualities of this sort, either because they are not considered as in the stone, or because, with the change of these qualities, the stone is not supposed to have lost the nature of body. After this examination we will find that 20nothing remains in the idea of body, except that it is something extended in length, breadth, and depth; and this something is comprised in our idea of space, not only of that which is full of body, but even of what is called void space. 25XII. How space differs from body in our mode of conceiving it. […] XIII. What external place is. The reason of which is, that the words place and space signify nothing really 30different from body which is said to be in place, but merely designate its magnitude, figure, and situation among other bodies. For it is necessary, in order to determine this situation, to regard certain other bodies which we consider as immovable; and, according as we look to different bodies, we may see that the same thing at the same time does and does not change place. For 35example, when a vessel is being carried out to sea, a person sitting at the stern may be said to remain always in one place, if we look to the parts of the vessel, since with respect to these he preserves the same situation; and on the other hand, if regard be had to the neighbouring shores, the same person will seem to be perpetually changing place, seeing he is constantly receding from one 40shore and approaching another. And besides, if we suppose that the earth moves, and that it makes precisely as much way from west to east as the vessel from east to west, we will again say that the person at the stern does not change his place, because this place will be determined by certain immovable

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points which we imagine to be in the heavens. But if at length we are persuaded that there are no points really immovable in the universe, as will hereafter be shown to be probable, we will thence conclude that nothing has a permanent place unless in so far as it is fixed by our thought. 5XIV. Wherein place and space differ. The terms place and space, however, differ in signification, because place more expressly designates situation than magnitude or figure, while, on the other hand, we think of the latter when we speak of space. For we frequently say that a thing succeeds to the place of another, although it be not exactly of the same 10magnitude or figure; but we do not therefore admit that it occupies the same space as the other; and when the situation is changed we say that the place also is changed, although there are the same magnitude and figure as before: so that when we say that a thing is in a particular place, we mean merely that it is situated in a determinate way in respect of certain other objects; and when we 15add that it occupies such a space or place, we understand besides that it is of such determinate magnitude and figure as exactly to fill this space. XVI. That a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely no body is repugnant to reason. 20With regard to a vacuum, in the philosophical sense of the term, that is, a space in which there is no substance, it is evident that such does not exist, seeing the extension of space or internal place is not different from that of body. For since from this alone, that a body has extension in length, breadth, and depth, we have reason to conclude that it is a substance, it being absolutely 25contradictory that nothing should possess extension, we ought to form a similar inference regarding the space which is supposed void, viz., that since there is extension in it there is necessarily also substance. XVII. That a vacuum in the ordinary use of the term does not exclude all body. 30And, in truth, by the term vacuum in its common use, we do not mean a place or space in which there is absolutely nothing, but only a place in which there is none of those things we presume ought to be there. Thus, because a pitcher is made to hold water, it is said to be empty when it is merely filled with air; or if there are no fish in a fish-pond, we say there is nothing in it, although it be full 35of water; thus a vessel is said to be empty, when, in place of the merchandise which it was designed to carry, it is loaded with sand only, to enable it to resist the violence of the wind; and, finally, it is in the same sense that we say space is void when it contains nothing sensible, although it contain created and self-subsisting matter; for we are not in the habit of considering the bodies near us, 40unless in so far as they cause in our organs of sense, impressions strong enough to enable us to perceive them. And if, in place of keeping in mind what ought to be understood by these terms a vacuum and nothing, we afterwards suppose that in the space we called a vacuum, there is not only no sensible

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object, but no object at all, we will fall into the same error as if, because a pitcher in which there is nothing but air, is, in common speech, said to be empty, we were therefore to judge that the air contained in it is not a substance (RES SUBSISTENS). 5XIX. That this confirms what was said of rarefaction. […] XX. That from this the non-existence of atoms may likewise be demonstrated. We likewise discover that there cannot exist any atoms or parts of matter that 10are of their own nature indivisible. For however small we suppose these parts to be, yet because they are necessarily extended, we are always able in thought to divide any one of them into two or more smaller parts, and may accordingly admit their divisibility. For there is nothing we can divide in thought which we do not thereby recognize to be divisible; and, therefore, were we to judge it 15indivisible our judgment would not be in harmony with the knowledge we have of the thing; and although we should even suppose that God had reduced any particle of matter to a smallness so extreme that it did not admit of being further divided, it would nevertheless be improperly styled indivisible, for though God had rendered the particle so small that it was not in the power of 20any creature to divide it, he could not however deprive himself of the ability to do so, since it is absolutely impossible for him to lessen his own omnipotence, as was before observed. Wherefore, absolutely speaking, the smallest extended particle is always divisible, since it is such of its very nature. 25XXI. It is thus also demonstrated that the extension of the world is indefinite. We further discover that this world or the whole (universitas) of corporeal substance, is extended without limit, for wherever we fix a limit, we still not only imagine beyond it spaces indefinitely extended, but perceive these to be truly imaginable, in other words, to be in reality such as we imagine them; so 30that they contain in them corporeal substance indefinitely extended, for, as has been already shown at length, the idea of extension which we conceive in any space whatever is plainly identical with the idea of corporeal substance. XXII. It also follows that the matter of the heavens and earth is the same, and that 35there cannot be a plurality of worlds. And it may also be easily inferred from all this that the earth and heavens are made of the same matter; and that even although there were an infinity of worlds, they would all be composed of this matter; from which it follows that a plurality of worlds is impossible, because we clearly conceive that the matter 40whose nature consists only in its being an extended substance, already wholly occupies all the imaginable spaces where these other worlds could alone be, and we cannot find in ourselves the idea of any other matter.

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XXIII. That all the variety of matter, or the diversity of its forms, depends on motion. […] PART III. 5OF THE VISIBLE WORLD. II. That we ought to beware lest, in our presumption, we imagine that the ends which God proposed to himself in the creation of the world are understood by us. The second is, that we should beware of presuming too highly of ourselves, as 10it seems we should do if we supposed certain limits to the world, without being assured of their existence either by natural reasons or by divine revelation, as if the power of our thought extended beyond what God has in reality made; but likewise still more if we persuaded ourselves that all things were created by God for us only, or if we merely supposed that we could comprehend by the 15power of our intellect the ends which God proposed to himself in creating the universe. III. In what sense it may be said that all things were created for the sake of man. For although, as far as regards morals, it may be a pious thought to believe 20that God made all things for us, seeing we may thus be incited to greater gratitude and love toward him; and although it is even in some sense true, because there is no created thing of which we cannot make some use, if it be only that of exercising our mind in considering it, and honouring God on account of it, it is yet by no means probable that all things were created for us 25in this way that God had no other end in their creation; and this supposition would be plainly ridiculous and inept in physical reasoning, for we do not doubt but that many things exist, or formerly existed and have now ceased to be, which were never seen or known by man, and were never of use to him. 30PART IV. OF THE EARTH. CXCIX. That there is no phenomenon of nature whose explanation has been omitted in 35this treatise. And thus it may be gathered, from an enumeration that is easily made, that there is no phenomenon of nature whose explanation has been omitted in this treatise; for beyond what is perceived by the senses, there is nothing that can be considered a phenomenon of nature. But leaving out of account motion, 40magnitude, figure, [and the situation of the parts of each body], which I have explained as they exist in body, we perceive nothing out of us by our senses except light, colours, smells, tastes, sounds, and the tactile qualities; and these I have recently shown to be nothing more, at least so far as they are known to

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us, than certain dispositions of the objects, consisting in magnitude, figure, and motion. CCI. That sensible bodies are composed of insensible particles. […] 5 CCIII. How we may arrive at the knowledge of the figures, [magnitudes], and motions of the insensible particles of bodies. But, since I assign determinate figures, magnitudes, and motions to the insensible particles of bodies, as if I had seen them, whereas I admit that they 10do not fall under the senses, someone will perhaps demand how I have come by my knowledge of them. [To this I reply, that I first considered in general all the clear and distinct notions of material things that are to be found in our understanding, and that, finding no others except those of figures, magnitudes, and motions, and of the rules according to which these three things can be 15diversified by each other, which rules are the principles of geometry and mechanics, I judged that all the knowledge man can have of nature must of necessity be drawn from this source; because all the other notions we have of sensible things, as confused and obscure, can be of no avail in affording us the knowledge of anything out of ourselves, but must serve rather to impede it]. 20Thereupon, taking as my ground of inference the simplest and best known of the principles that have been implanted in our minds by nature, I considered the chief differences that could possibly subsist between the magnitudes, and figures, and situations of bodies insensible on account of their smallness alone, and what sensible effects could be produced by their various modes of coming 25into contact; and afterwards, when I found like effects in the bodies that we perceive by our senses, I judged that they could have been thus produced, especially since no other mode of explaining them could be devised. And in this matter the example of several bodies made by art was of great service to me: for I recognize no difference between these and natural bodies beyond this, 30that the effects of machines depend for the most part on the agency of certain instruments, which, as they must bear some proportion to the hands of those who make them, are always so large that their figures and motions can be seen; in place of which, the effects of natural bodies almost always depend upon certain organs so minute as to escape our senses. And it is certain that all the 35rules of mechanics belong also to physics, of which it is a part or species, [so that all that is artificial is withal natural]: for it is not less natural for a clock, made of the requisite number of wheels, to mark the hours, than for a tree, which has sprung from this or that seed, to produce the fruit peculiar to it. Accordingly, just as those who are familiar with automata, when they are 40informed of the use of a machine, and see some of its parts, easily infer from these the way in which the others, that are not seen by them, are made; so from considering the sensible effects and parts of natural bodies, I have essayed to determine the character of their causes and insensible parts.

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CCIV. That, touching the things which our senses do not perceive, it is sufficient to explain how they can be, [and that this is all that Aristotle has essayed]. But here someone will perhaps reply, that although I have supposed causes which could produce all natural objects, we ought not on this account to 5conclude that they were produced by these causes; for, just as the same artisan can make two clocks, which, though they both equally well indicate the time, and are not different in outward appearance, have nevertheless nothing resembling in the composition of their wheels; so doubtless the Supreme Maker of things has an infinity of diverse means at his disposal, by each of 10which he could have made all the things of this world to appear as we see them, without it being possible for the human mind to know which of all these means he chose to employ. I most freely concede this; and I believe that I have done all that was required, if the causes I have assigned are such that their effects accurately correspond to all the phenomena of nature, without 15determining whether it is by these or by others that they are actually produced. And it will be sufficient for the use of life to know the causes thus imagined, for medicine, mechanics, and in general all the arts to which the knowledge of physics is of service, have for their end only those effects that are sensible, and that are accordingly to be reckoned among the phenomena of 20nature. [Footnote: "have for their end only to apply certain sensible bodies to each other in such a way that, in the course of natural causes, certain sensible effects may be produced; and we will be able to accomplish this quite as well by considering the series of certain causes thus imagined, although false, as if they were the true, since this series is supposed similar as far as regards sensible 25effects."-French.]

And lest it should be supposed that Aristotle did, or professed to do, anything more than this, it ought to be remembered that he himself expressly says, at the commencement of the seventh chapter of the first book of the Meteorologies, that, with regard to things which are not manifest to the 30senses, he thinks to adduce sufficient reasons and demonstrations of them, if he only shows that they may be such as he explains them.

CCV. That nevertheless there is a moral certainty that all the things of this world are such as has been here shown they may be. 35But nevertheless, that I may not wrong the truth by supposing it less certain than it is, I will here distinguish two kinds of certitude. The first is called moral, that is, a certainty sufficient for the conduct of life, though, if we look to the absolute power of God, what is morally certain may be false. [Thus, those who never visited Rome do not doubt that it is a city of Italy, though it might 40be that all from whom they got their information were deceived]. Again, if any one, wishing to decipher a letter written in Latin characters that are not placed in regular order, bethinks himself of reading a B wherever an A is found, and a C wherever there is a B, and thus of substituting in place of each letter the one

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which follows it in the order of the alphabet, and if by this means he finds that there are certain Latin words composed of these, he will not doubt that the true meaning of the writing is contained in these words, although he may discover this only by conjecture, and although it is possible that the writer of it did not arrange the letters on this principle of alphabetical order, but on some 5other, and thus concealed another meaning in it: for this is so improbable [especially when the cipher contains a number of words] as to seem incredible. But they who observe how many things regarding the magnet, fire, and the fabric of the whole world, are here deduced from a very small number of principles, though they deemed that I had taken them up at random and 10without grounds, will yet perhaps acknowledge that it could hardly happen that so many things should cohere if these principles were false. CCVI. That we possess even more than a moral certainty of it. Besides, there are some, even among natural, things which we judge to be 15absolutely certain. [Absolute certainty arises when we judge that it is impossible a thing can be otherwise than as we think it]. This certainty is founded on the metaphysical ground, that, as God is supremely good and the source of all truth, the faculty of distinguishing truth from error which he gave us, cannot be fallacious so long as we use it aright, and distinctly perceive 20anything by it. Of this character are the demonstrations of mathematics, the knowledge that material things exist, and the clear reasonings that are formed regarding them. The results I have given in this treatise will perhaps be admitted to a place in the class of truths that are absolutely certain, if it be considered that they are deduced in a continuous series from the first and most 25elementary principles of human knowledge; especially if it be sufficiently understood that we can perceive no external objects unless some local motion be caused by them in our nerves, and that such motion cannot be caused by the fixed stars, owing to their great distance from us, unless a motion be also produced in them and in the whole heavens lying between them and us: for 30these points being admitted, all the others, at least the more general doctrines which I have advanced regarding the world or earth [e. g., the fluidity of the heavens, Part III., Section XLVI.], will appear to be almost the only possible explanations of the phenomena they present. 35CCVII. That, however, I submit all my opinions to the authority of the church. Nevertheless, lest I should presume too far, I affirm nothing, but submit all these my opinions to the authority of the church and the judgment of the more sage; and I desire no one to believe anything I may have said, unless he is constrained to admit it by the force and evidence of reason. 40

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State and Social Contract

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Questions to Consider General:

• What is a social contract? Do societies, even modern ones, really seek out the consent of their members in their process of their creation?

• Is the state of nature a thought experiment or a realistic depiction of original society and human nature? Can these be useful paradigms for thinking about political life?

• What role does reason play in our authors’ varying views of the social contract? Is there a general basis of consensus or do they diverge in substantial ways?

• What is the relationship between reason and domination for Rousseau? Does his critique undermine the views of Hobbes and Locke or fall short of doing so?

• How have contemporary politics and society moved beyond the social contract and the notion of reciprocity between state and citizen? Which of our authors’ views are best preserved in contemporary democratic or authoritarian models of power?

Thomas Hobbes:

• What is Hobbes’ view on the nature of equality between humans in the state of nature? How does he justify this?

• What is Hobbes’ view on group action in the state of nature? What motivates it?

• What is required of those who exist in the state of nature in the awareness that others are bent on their conquest and domination? How does Hobbes justify this?

• What are the three principles that promote conflict in the state of nature? What general state does this create amongst individuals and groups?

• What does Hobbes conceive of as the “right of nature”? What sort of liberty or freedom does this provide?

• What are the laws of nature and where do they lead? • What is required to enforce the social contract and secure it in the real

world? • Why must the social contract apply to all equally for Hobbes?

John Locke:

• What is the primary function of political power for Locke? • Under what exceptional circumstances and with what limits do we have

power over others in the state of nature?

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• What is the primary problem for human beings in the state of nature for Locke?

• What does Locke mean by saying that all princes and rulers of independent governments are in a state of nature in relation to one another?

• What are Locke’s views on absolute power? • How are the state of nature and the state of war different for Locke?

Why? • How does Locke describe freedom under the conditions of government,

that is in political society? • What are Locke’s views on slavery and how does he justify them? • How do humans come to hold property for Locke? • Do we need common consent to appropriate what was once held in

common? • Does Locke place any limits on what we may extract and appropriate

from nature? • Why is the appropriation of land no insult to others even where and

when it is scarce for Locke? • Should we be satisfied with Locke’s association of the majority with the

will and power of the whole? What problems arise with such a view? • Are we as free as we were in the state of nature when we obey the will of

the majority in political society for Locke? Is his position persuasive? • How do Locke and Hobbes compare and contrast on the state of nature? • What is the primary reason for people to opt into the social contract on

Locke’s account? Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

• What does Rousseau say of “the philosophers”? To whom might he be referring and what is his issue with them?

• What becomes of human moral and physical well-being under the conditions of modern life and society for Rousseau?

• Has historical progress been a curse or a blessing for Rousseau? • What differentiates humans from animals for Rousseau? Where does

this lead to in terms of society and politics? • For Rousseau, why do humans leave the state of nature given their

relative peace and comfort there? • Is reason the basis of our progression beyond the state of nature and

into the social contract for Rousseau in the way it is for Hobbes and Locke?

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• Where reason and philosophy are alien to savage humans in the state of nature for Rousseau, what does he see as their real source in the state of nature depicted by Locke and Hobbes?

• What is the paradox for the transition from the state of nature to the state of society for Rousseau? What role does language play here?

• Why do humans in the state of nature suffer less than those in the state of society? How and why does he differ from Hobbes here?

• How does Rousseau compare the philosopher and the poor, uneducated member of the working class?

• Why does the law of the strongest, and thereby the survival of the fittest, not apply in the state of nature for Rousseau?

• How does Rousseau distinguish between the egotism of civil society and the self-love of the state of nature? Why and how is this a crucial distinction for his analysis of contemporary society?

• How do the origins of inequality and society coalesce for Rousseau? How does this oppose him to Locke?

• Where does Rousseau find the roots of barbarism and how does this distinguish his thought from Hobbes?

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State and Social Contract Reading Two

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

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Selections from Leviathan (1651)

THE INTRODUCTION

Nature (the art whereby God hath made and governs the world) is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an Artificial Animal. For seeing life is but a motion of Limbs, the 5beginning whereof is in some principal part within; why may we not say, that all Automata (Engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what is the Heart, but a Spring; and the Nerves, but so many Strings; and the Joints, but so many Wheels, giving motion to the whole Body, such as was intended by the Artificer? Art goes yet 10further, imitating that Rational and most excellent work of Nature, Man. For by Art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE, (in Latin CIVITAS) which is but an Artificial Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Natural, for whose protection and defense it was intended; and in which, the Soveraignty is an Artificial Soul, as giving life and 15motion to the whole body; The Magistrates, and other Officers of Judicature and Execution, artificial Joints; Reward and Punishment (by which fastened to the seat of the Sovereignty, every joint and member is moved to perform his duty) are the Nerves, that do the same in the Body Natural; The Wealth and Riches of all the particular members, are the Strength; Salus Populi (the 20Peoples Safety) its Businesse; Counsellors, by whom all things needful for it to know, are suggested unto it, are the Memory; Equity and Lawes, an artificial Reason and Will; Concord, Health; Sedition, Sickness; and Civil War, Death. Lastly, the Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politic were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let Us Make 25Man, pronounced by God in the Creation.

To describe the Nature of this Artificial man, I will consider

§ First the Matter thereof, and the Artificer; both which is Man. 30

§ Secondly, How, and by what Covenants it is made; what are the Rights and just Power or Authority of a Soveraigne; and what it is that Preserveth and Dissolveth it.

§ Thirdly, what is a Christian Common-Wealth. § Lastly, what is the Kingdome of Darkness. 35

Concerning the first, there is a saying much usurped of late, That

Wisdom is acquired, not by reading of Books, but of Men. Consequently, whereunto, those persons, that for the most part can give no other proof of being wise, take great delight to shew what they think they have read in men, 40by uncharitable censures of one another behind their backs. But there is

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another saying not of late understood, by which they might learn truly to read one another, if they would take the pains; and that is, Nosce Teipsum, Read Thy Self: which was not meant, as it is now used, to countenance, either the barbarous state of men in power, towards their inferiors; or to encourage men of low degree, to a saucy behaviour towards their betters; But to teach us, that 5for the similitude of the thoughts, and Passions of one man, to the thoughts, and Passions of another, whosoever looketh into himself, and considereth what he doth, when he does Think, Opine, Reason, Hope, Fear, &c, and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know, what are the thoughts, and Passions of all other men, upon the like occasions. I say the similitude of Passions, 10which are the same in all men, Desire, Fear, Hope, &c; not the similitude or The Objects of the Passions, which are the things Desired, Feared, Hoped, &c: for these the constitution individual, and particular education do so vary, and they are so easy to be kept from our knowledge, that the characters of man’s heart, blotted and confounded as they are, with dissembling, lying, 15counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible only to him that searcheth hearts. And though by men’s actions we do discover their designee sometimes; yet to do it without comparing them with our own, and distinguishing all circumstances, by which the case may come to be altered, is to decypher without a key, and be for the most part deceived, by too much trust, or by too 20much diffidence; as he that reads, is himself a good or evil man.

But let one man read another by his actions never so perfectly, it serves him only with his acquaintance, which are but few. He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind; which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any Language, or 25Science; yet, when I shall have set down my own reading orderly, and perspicuously, the pains left another, will be only to consider, if he also find not the same in himself. For this kind of Doctrine, admitteth no other Demonstration.

30[…] CHAPTER XIII OF THE NATURAL CONDITION OF MANKIND AS CONCERNING THEIR FELICITY AND MISERY 35 NATURE hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon 40claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself.

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And as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon general and infallible rules, called science, which very few have and but in few things, as being not a native faculty born with us, nor attained, as prudence, while we look after somewhat 5else, I find yet a greater equality amongst men than that of strength. For prudence is but experience, which equal time equally bestows on all men in those things they equally apply themselves unto. That which may perhaps make such equality incredible is but a vain conceit of one's own wisdom, which almost all men think they have in a greater degree than the vulgar; that is, 10than all men but themselves, and a few others, whom by fame, or for concurring with themselves, they approve. For such is the nature of men that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent or more learned, yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves; for they see their own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance. 15But this proveth rather that men are in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of anything than that every man is contented with his share. From this equality of ability ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our 20ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end (which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their delectation only) endeavour to destroy or subdue one another. And from hence it comes to pass that where an invader hath no more to fear than another man's single 25power, if one plant, sow, build, or possess a convenient seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with forces united to dispossess and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labour, but also of his life or liberty. And the invader again is in the like danger of another. 30And from this diffidence of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himself so reasonable as anticipation; that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can so long till he see no other power great enough to endanger him: and this is no more than his own conservation requireth, and is generally allowed. Also, because there be some that, taking pleasure in 35contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue farther than their security requires, if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at ease within modest bounds, should not by invasion increase their power, they would not be able, long time, by standing only on their defence, to subsist. And by consequence, such augmentation of dominion over men being 40necessary to a man's conservation, it ought to be allowed him. Again, men have no pleasure (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company where there is no power able to overawe them all. For every

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man looketh that his companion should value him at the same rate he sets upon himself, and upon all signs of contempt or undervaluing naturally endeavours, as far as he dares (which amongst them that have no common power to keep them in quiet is far enough to make them destroy each other), to extort a greater value from his contemners, by damage; and from others, by 5the example. So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. 10The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, 15their nation, their profession, or their name. Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. For war consisteth not in 20battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of war consisteth not in actual 25fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is peace. Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live 30without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as 35require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. 40It may seem strange to some man that has not well weighed these things that Nature should thus dissociate and render men apt to invade and destroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to this inference, made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by experience. Let him

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therefore consider with himself: when taking a journey, he arms himself and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his doors; when even in his house he locks his chests; and this when he knows there be laws and public officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him; what opinion he has of his fellow subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow 5citizens, when he locks his doors; and of his children, and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse man's nature in it. The desires, and other passions of man, are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from those passions till they know a law that forbids them; which till 10laws be made they cannot know, nor can any law be made till they have agreed upon the person that shall make it. It may peradventure be thought there was never such a time nor condition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally so, over all the world: but 15there are many places where they live so now. For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no government at all, and live at this day in that brutish manner, as I said before. Howsoever, it may be perceived what manner of life there would be, where there were no common power to 20fear, by the manner of life which men that have formerly lived under a peaceful government use to degenerate into a civil war. But though there had never been any time wherein particular men were in a condition of war one against another, yet in all times kings and persons of 25sovereign authority, because of their independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiators, having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms, and continual spies upon their neighbours, which is a posture of war. But because they uphold thereby the industry of 30their subjects, there does not follow from it that misery which accompanies the liberty of particular men. To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, 35have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice and injustice are none of the faculties neither of the body nor mind. If they were, they might be in a man that were alone in the world, as well as his senses and passions. They are qualities that relate to men in society, not in 40solitude. It is consequent also to the same condition that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thine distinct; but only that to be every man's that he can get, and for so long as he can keep it. And thus much for the ill condition which man by mere nature is actually placed in; though with a

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possibility to come out of it, consisting partly in the passions, partly in his reason. The passions that incline men to peace are: fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain 5them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace upon which men may be drawn to agreement. These articles are they which otherwise are called the laws of nature, whereof I shall speak more particularly in the two following chapters. 10CHAPTER XIV OF THE FIRST AND SECOND NATURAL LAWS, AND OF CONTRACTS THE right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty 15each man hath to use his own power as he will himself for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing anything which, in his own judgement and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto. 20By liberty is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external impediments; which impediments may oft take away part of a man's power to do what he would, but cannot hinder him from using the power left him according as his judgement and reason shall dictate to him. 25A law of nature, lex naturalis, is a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best preserved. For though they that speak of this subject use to confound jus and lex, right and law, yet they ought to be distinguished, 30because right consisteth in liberty to do, or to forbear; whereas law determineth and bindeth to one of them: so that law and right differ as much as obligation and liberty, which in one and the same matter are inconsistent. And because the condition of man (as hath been declared in the precedent 35chapter) is a condition of war of every one against every one, in which case every one is governed by his own reason, and there is nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him in preserving his life against his enemies; it followeth that in such a condition every man has a right to every thing, even to one another's body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to 40every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man, how strong or wise soever he be, of living out the time which nature ordinarily alloweth men to live. And consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason: that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he

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cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war. The first branch of which rule containeth the first and fundamental law of nature, which is: to seek peace and follow it. The second, the sum of the right of nature, which is: by all means we can to defend ourselves. 5From this fundamental law of nature, by which men are commanded to endeavour peace, is derived this second law: that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself. For as 10long as every man holdeth this right, of doing anything he liketh; so long are all men in the condition of war. But if other men will not lay down their right, as well as he, then there is no reason for anyone to divest himself of his: for that were to expose himself to prey, which no man is bound to, rather than to dispose himself to peace. This is that law of the gospel: Whatsoever you 15require that others should do to you, that do ye to them. And that law of all men, quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris. To lay down a man's right to anything is to divest himself of the liberty of hindering another of the benefit of his own right to the same. For he that 20renounceth or passeth away his right giveth not to any other man a right which he had not before, because there is nothing to which every man had not right by nature, but only standeth out of his way that he may enjoy his own original right without hindrance from him, not without hindrance from another. So that the effect which redoundeth to one man by another man's 25defect of right is but so much diminution of impediments to the use of his own right original. Right is laid aside, either by simply renouncing it, or by transferring it to another. By simply renouncing, when he cares not to whom the benefit thereof 30redoundeth. By transferring, when he intendeth the benefit thereof to some certain person or persons. And when a man hath in either manner abandoned or granted away his right, then is he said to be obliged, or bound, not to hinder those to whom such right is granted, or abandoned, from the benefit of it: and that he ought, and it is duty, not to make void that voluntary act of his own: 35and that such hindrance is injustice, and injury, as being sine jure; the right being before renounced or transferred. So that injury or injustice, in the controversies of the world, is somewhat like to that which in the disputations of scholars is called absurdity. For as it is there called an absurdity to contradict what one maintained in the beginning; so in the world it is called 40injustice, and injury voluntarily to undo that which from the beginning he had voluntarily done. The way by which a man either simply renounceth or transferreth his right is a declaration, or signification, by some voluntary and sufficient sign, or signs, that he doth so renounce or transfer, or hath so

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renounced or transferred the same, to him that accepteth it. And these signs are either words only, or actions only; or, as it happeneth most often, both words and actions. And the same are the bonds, by which men are bound and obliged: bonds that have their strength, not from their own nature (for nothing is more easily broken than a man's word), but from fear of some evil 5consequence upon the rupture. Whensoever a man transferreth his right, or renounceth it, it is either in consideration of some right reciprocally transferred to himself, or for some other good he hopeth for thereby. For it is a voluntary act: and of the 10voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good to himself. And therefore there be some rights which no man can be understood by any words, or other signs, to have abandoned or transferred. As first a man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force to take away his life, because he cannot be understood to aim thereby at any good to himself. The same may 15be said of wounds, and chains, and imprisonment, both because there is no benefit consequent to such patience, as there is to the patience of suffering another to be wounded or imprisoned, as also because a man cannot tell when he seeth men proceed against him by violence whether they intend his death or not. And lastly the motive and end for which this renouncing and transferring 20of right is introduced is nothing else but the security of a man's person, in his life, and in the means of so preserving life as not to be weary of it. And therefore if a man by words, or other signs, seem to despoil himself of the end for which those signs were intended, he is not to be understood as if he meant it, or that it was his will, but that he was ignorant of how such words and 25actions were to be interpreted. The mutual transferring of right is that which men call contract. There is difference between transferring of right to the thing, the thing, and 30transferring or tradition, that is, delivery of the thing itself. For the thing may be delivered together with the translation of the right, as in buying and selling with ready money, or exchange of goods or lands, and it may be delivered some time after. 35Again, one of the contractors may deliver the thing contracted for on his part, and leave the other to perform his part at some determinate time after, and in the meantime be trusted; and then the contract on his part is called pact, or covenant: or both parts may contract now to perform hereafter, in which cases he that is to perform in time to come, being trusted, his performance is called 40keeping of promise, or faith, and the failing of performance, if it be voluntary, violation of faith.

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When the transferring of right is not mutual, but one of the parties transferreth in hope to gain thereby friendship or service from another, or from his friends; or in hope to gain the reputation of charity, or magnanimity; or to deliver his mind from the pain of compassion; or in hope of reward in heaven; this is not contract, but gift, free gift, grace: which words signify one 5and the same thing. Signs of contract are either express or by inference. Express are words spoken with understanding of what they signify: and such words are either of the time present or past; as, I give, I grant, I have given, I have granted, I will that this 10be yours: or of the future; as, I will give, I will grant, which words of the future are called promise. Signs by inference are sometimes the consequence of words; sometimes the consequence of silence; sometimes the consequence of actions; sometimes the 15consequence of forbearing an action: and generally a sign by inference, of any contract, is whatsoever sufficiently argues the will of the contractor. Words alone, if they be of the time to come, and contain a bare promise, are an insufficient sign of a free gift and therefore not obligatory. For if they be of the 20time to come, as, tomorrow I will give, they are a sign I have not given yet, and consequently that my right is not transferred, but remaineth till I transfer it by some other act. But if the words be of the time present, or past, as, I have given, or do give to be delivered tomorrow, then is my tomorrow's right given away today; and that by the virtue of the words, though there were no other 25argument of my will. And there is a great difference in the signification of these words, volo hoc tuum esse cras, and cras dabo; that is, between I will that this be thine tomorrow, and, I will give it thee tomorrow: for the word I will, in the former manner of speech, signifies an act of the will present; but in the latter, it signifies a promise of an act of the will to come: and therefore the 30former words, being of the present, transfer a future right; the latter, that be of the future, transfer nothing. But if there be other signs of the will to transfer a right besides words; then, though the gift be free, yet may the right be understood to pass by words of the future: as if a man propound a prize to him that comes first to the end of a race, the gift is free; and though the words be of 35the future, yet the right passeth: for if he would not have his words so be understood, he should not have let them run. In contracts the right passeth, not only where the words are of the time present or past, but also where they are of the future, because all contract is 40mutual translation, or change of right; and therefore he that promiseth only, because he hath already received the benefit for which he promiseth, is to be understood as if he intended the right should pass: for unless he had been content to have his words so understood, the other would not have performed

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his part first. And for that cause, in buying, and selling, and other acts of contract, a promise is equivalent to a covenant, and therefore obligatory. He that performeth first in the case of a contract is said to merit that which he is to receive by the performance of the other, and he hath it as due. Also when 5a prize is propounded to many, which is to be given to him only that winneth, or money is thrown amongst many to be enjoyed by them that catch it; though this be a free gift, yet so to win, or so to catch, is to merit, and to have it as due. For the right is transferred in the propounding of the prize, and in throwing down the money, though it be not determined to whom, but by the event of the 10contention. But there is between these two sorts of merit this difference, that in contract I merit by virtue of my own power and the contractor's need, but in this case of free gift I am enabled to merit only by the benignity of the giver: in contract I merit at the contractor's hand that he should depart with his right; in this case of gift, I merit not that the giver should part with his right, but 15that when he has parted with it, it should be mine rather than another's. And this I think to be the meaning of that distinction of the Schools between meritum congrui and meritum condigni. For God Almighty, having promised paradise to those men, hoodwinked with carnal desires, that can walk through this world according to the precepts and limits prescribed by him, they say he 20that shall so walk shall merit paradise ex congruo. But because no man can demand a right to it by his own righteousness, or any other power in himself, but by the free grace of God only, they say no man can merit paradise ex condigno. This, I say, I think is the meaning of that distinction; but because disputers do not agree upon the signification of their own terms of art longer 25than it serves their turn, I will not affirm anything of their meaning: only this I say; when a gift is given indefinitely, as a prize to be contended for, he that winneth meriteth, and may claim the prize as due. If a covenant be made wherein neither of the parties perform presently, but 30trust one another, in the condition of mere nature (which is a condition of war of every man against every man) upon any reasonable suspicion, it is void: but if there be a common power set over them both, with right and force sufficient to compel performance, it is not void. For he that performeth first has no assurance the other will perform after, because the bonds of words are too 35weak to bridle men's ambition, avarice, anger, and other passions, without the fear of some coercive power; which in the condition of mere nature, where all men are equal, and judges of the justness of their own fears, cannot possibly be supposed. And therefore he which performeth first does but betray himself to his enemy, contrary to the right he can never abandon of defending his life and 40means of living.

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But in a civil estate, where there a power set up to constrain those that would otherwise violate their faith, that fear is no more reasonable; and for that cause, he which by the covenant is to perform first is obliged so to do. The cause of fear, which maketh such a covenant invalid, must be always 5something arising after the covenant made, as some new fact or other sign of the will not to perform, else it cannot make the covenant void. For that which could not hinder a man from promising ought not to be admitted as a hindrance of performing. 10He that transferreth any right transferreth the means of enjoying it, as far as lieth in his power. As he that selleth land is understood to transfer the herbage and whatsoever grows upon it; nor can he that sells a mill turn away the stream that drives it. And they that give to a man the right of government in sovereignty are understood to give him the right of levying money to maintain 15soldiers, and of appointing magistrates for the administration of justice. To make covenants with brute beasts is impossible, because not understanding our speech, they understand not, nor accept of any translation of right, nor can translate any right to another: and without mutual acceptation, there is no 20covenant. To make covenant with God is impossible but by mediation of such as God speaketh to, either by revelation supernatural or by His lieutenants that govern under Him and in His name: for otherwise we know not whether our 25covenants be accepted or not. And therefore they that vow anything contrary to any law of nature, vow in vain, as being a thing unjust to pay such vow. And if it be a thing commanded by the law of nature, it is not the vow, but the law that binds them. 30The matter or subject of a covenant is always something that falleth under deliberation, for to covenant is an act of the will; that is to say, an act, and the last act, of deliberation; and is therefore always understood to be something to come, and which judged possible for him that covenanteth to perform. 35And therefore, to promise that which is known to be impossible is no covenant. But if that prove impossible afterwards, which before was thought possible, the covenant is valid and bindeth, though not to the thing itself, yet to the value; or, if that also be impossible, to the unfeigned endeavour of performing as much as is possible, for to more no man can be obliged. 40 Men are freed of their covenants two ways; by performing, or by being forgiven. For performance is the natural end of obligation, and forgiveness the

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restitution of liberty, as being a retransferring of that right in which the obligation consisted. Covenants entered into by fear, in the condition of mere nature, are obligatory. For example, if I covenant to pay a ransom, or service for my life, to an enemy, 5I am bound by it. For it is a contract, wherein one receiveth the benefit of life; the other is to receive money, or service for it, and consequently, where no other law (as in the condition of mere nature) forbiddeth the performance, the covenant is valid. Therefore prisoners of war, if trusted with the payment of their ransom, are obliged to pay it: and if a weaker prince make a 10disadvantageous peace with a stronger, for fear, he is bound to keep it; unless (as hath been said before) there ariseth some new and just cause of fear to renew the war. And even in Commonwealths, if I be forced to redeem myself from a thief by promising him money, I am bound to pay it, till the civil law discharge me. For whatsoever I may lawfully do without obligation, the same I 15may lawfully covenant to do through fear: and what I lawfully covenant, I cannot lawfully break. A former covenant makes void a later. For a man that hath passed away his right to one man today hath it not to pass tomorrow to another: and therefore 20the later promise passeth no right, but is null. A covenant not to defend myself from force, by force, is always void. For (as I have shown before) no man can transfer or lay down his right to save himself from death, wounds, and imprisonment, the avoiding whereof is the only end 25of laying down any right; and therefore the promise of not resisting force, in no covenant transferreth any right, nor is obliging. For though a man may covenant thus, unless I do so, or so, kill me; he cannot covenant thus, unless I do so, or so, I will not resist you when you come to kill me. For man by nature chooseth the lesser evil, which is danger of death in resisting, rather than the 30greater, which is certain and present death in not resisting. And this is granted to be true by all men, in that they lead criminals to execution, and prison, with armed men, notwithstanding that such criminals have consented to the law by which they are condemned. 35A covenant to accuse oneself, without assurance of pardon, is likewise invalid. For in the condition of nature where every man is judge, there is no place for accusation: and in the civil state the accusation is followed with punishment, which, being force, a man is not obliged not to resist. The same is also true of the accusation of those by whose condemnation a man falls into misery; as of a 40father, wife, or benefactor. For the testimony of such an accuser, if it be not willingly given, is presumed to be corrupted by nature, and therefore not to be received: and where a man's testimony is not to be credited, he is not bound to give it. Also accusations upon torture are not to be reputed as testimonies. For

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torture is to be used but as means of conjecture, and light, in the further examination and search of truth: and what is in that case confessed tendeth to the ease of him that is tortured, not to the informing of the torturers, and therefore ought not to have the credit of a sufficient testimony: for whether he deliver himself by true or false accusation, he does it by the right of preserving 5his own life. The force of words being (as I have formerly noted) too weak to hold men to the performance of their covenants, there are in man's nature but two imaginable helps to strengthen it. And those are either a fear of the 10consequence of breaking their word, or a glory or pride in appearing not to need to break it. This latter is a generosity too rarely found to be presumed on, especially in the pursuers of wealth, command, or sensual pleasure, which are the greatest part of mankind. The passion to be reckoned upon is fear; whereof there be two very general objects: one, the power of spirits invisible; the other, 15the power of those men they shall therein offend. Of these two, though the former be the greater power, yet the fear of the latter is commonly the greater fear. The fear of the former is in every man his own religion, which hath place in the nature of man before civil society. The latter hath not so; at least not place enough to keep men to their promises, because in the condition of mere 20nature, the inequality of power is not discerned, but by the event of battle. So that before the time of civil society, or in the interruption thereof by war, there is nothing can strengthen a covenant of peace agreed on against the temptations of avarice, ambition, lust, or other strong desire, but the fear of that invisible power which they every one worship as God, and fear as a 25revenger of their perfidy. All therefore that can be done between two men not subject to civil power is to put one another to swear by the God he feareth: which swearing, or oath, is a form of speech, added to a promise, by which he that promiseth signifieth that unless he perform he renounceth the mercy of hisGod, or calleth to him for vengeance on himself. Such was the heathen form, 30Let Jupiter kill me else, as I kill this beast. So is our form, I shall do thus, and thus, so help me God. And this, with the rites and ceremonies which every one useth in his own religion, that the fear of breaking faith might be the greater. By this it appears that an oath taken according to any other form, or rite, than 35his that sweareth is in vain and no oath, and that there is no swearing by anything which the swearer thinks not God. For though men have sometimes used to swear by their kings, for fear, or flattery; yet they would have it thereby understood they attributed to them divine honour. And that swearing unnecessarily by God is but profaning of his name: and swearing by other 40things, as men do in common discourse, is not swearing, but an impious custom, gotten by too much vehemence of talking.

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It appears also that the oath adds nothing to the obligation. For a covenant, if lawful, binds in the sight of God, without the oath, as much as with it; if unlawful, bindeth not at all, though it be confirmed with an oath. CHAPTER XV 5OF OTHER LAWS OF NATURE FROM that law of nature by which we are obliged to transfer to another such rights as, being retained, hinder the peace of mankind, there followeth a third; which is this: that men perform their covenants made; without which 10covenants are in vain, and but empty words; and the right of all men to all things remaining, we are still in the condition of war. And in this law of nature consisteth the fountain and original of justice. For where no covenant hath preceded, there hath no right been transferred, and 15every man has right to everything and consequently, no action can be unjust. But when a covenant is made, then to break it is unjust and the definition of injustice is no other than the not performance of covenant. And whatsoever is not unjust is just. 20But because covenants of mutual trust, where there is a fear of not performance on either part (as hath been said in the former chapter), are invalid, though the original of justice be the making of covenants, yet injustice actually there can be none till the cause of such fear be taken away; which, while men are in the natural condition of war, cannot be done. Therefore before the names of just 25and unjust can have place, there must be some coercive power to compel men equally to the performance of their covenants, by the terror of some punishment greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their covenant, and to make good that propriety which by mutual contract men acquire in recompense of the universal right they abandon: and such power 30there is none before the erection of a Commonwealth. And this is also to be gathered out of the ordinary definition of justice in the Schools, for they say that justice is the constant will of giving to every man his own. And therefore where there is no own, that is, no propriety, there is no injustice; and where there is no coercive power erected, that is, where there is no Commonwealth, 35there is no propriety, all men having right to all things: therefore where there is no Commonwealth, there nothing is unjust. So that the nature of justice consisteth in keeping of valid covenants, but the validity of covenants begins not but with the constitution of a civil power sufficient to compel men to keep them: and then it is also that propriety begins. 40 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no such thing as justice, and sometimes also with his tongue, seriously alleging that every man's conservation and contentment being committed to his own care, there could be no reason why

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every man might not do what he thought conduced thereunto: and therefore also to make, or not make; keep, or not keep, covenants was not against reason when it conduced to one's benefit. He does not therein deny that there be covenants; and that they are sometimes broken, sometimes kept; and that such breach of them may be called injustice, and the observance of them justice: but 5he questioneth whether injustice, taking away the fear of God (for the same fool hath said in his heart there is no God), not sometimes stand with that reason which dictateth to every man his own good; and particularly then, when it conduceth to such a benefit as shall put a man in a condition to neglect not only the dispraise and revilings, but also the power of other men. The kingdom 10of God is gotten by violence: but what if it could be gotten by unjust violence? Were it against reason so to get it, when it is impossible to receive hurt by it? And if it be not against reason, it is not against justice: or else justice is not to be approved for good. From such reasoning as this, successful wickedness hath obtained the name of virtue: and some that in all other things have disallowed 15the violation of faith, yet have allowed it when it is for the getting of a kingdom. And the heathen that believed that Saturn was deposed by his son Jupiter believed nevertheless the same Jupiter to be the avenger of injustice, somewhat like to a piece of law in Coke's Commentaries on Littleton; where he says if the right heir of the crown be attainted of treason, yet the crown shall 20descend to him, and eo instante the attainder be void: from which instances a man will be very prone to infer that when the heir apparent of a kingdom shall kill him that is in possession, though his father, you may call it injustice, or by what other name you will; yet it can never be against reason, seeing all the voluntary actions of men tend to the benefit of themselves; and those actions 25are most reasonable that conduce most to their ends. This specious reasoning is nevertheless false. For the question is not of promises mutual, where there is no security of performance on either side, as when there is no civil power erected over the 30parties promising; for such promises are no covenants: but either where one of the parties has performed already, or where there is a power to make him perform, there is the question whether it be against reason; that is, against the benefit of the other to perform, or not. And I say it is not against reason. For the manifestation whereof we are to consider; first, that when a man doth a 35thing, which notwithstanding anything can be foreseen and reckoned on tendeth to his own destruction, howsoever some accident, which he could not expect, arriving may turn it to his benefit; yet such events do not make it reasonably or wisely done. Secondly, that in a condition of war, wherein every man to every man, for want of a common power to keep them all in awe, is an 40enemy, there is no man can hope by his own strength, or wit, to himself from destruction without the help of confederates; where every one expects the same defence by the confederation that any one else does: and therefore he which declares he thinks it reason to deceive those that help him can in reason

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expect no other means of safety than what can be had from his own single power. He, therefore, that breaketh his covenant, and consequently declareth that he thinks he may with reason do so, cannot be received into any society that unite themselves for peace and defence but by the error of them that receive him; nor when he is received be retained in it without seeing the 5danger of their error; which errors a man cannot reasonably reckon upon as the means of his security: and therefore if he be left, or cast out of society, he perisheth; and if he live in society, it is by the errors of other men, which he could not foresee nor reckon upon, and consequently against the reason of his preservation; and so, as all men that contribute not to his destruction forbear 10him only out of ignorance of what is good for themselves. As for the instance of gaining the secure and perpetual felicity of heaven by any way, it is frivolous; there being but one way imaginable, and that is not breaking, but keeping of covenant. 15 And for the other instance of attaining sovereignty by rebellion; it is manifest that, though the event follow, yet because it cannot reasonably be expected, but rather the contrary, and because by gaining it so, others are taught to gain the same in like manner, the attempt thereof is against reason. Justice 20therefore, that is to say, keeping of covenant, is a rule of reason by which we are forbidden to do anything destructive to our life, and consequently a law of nature. There be some that proceed further and will not have the law of nature to be 25those rules which conduce to the preservation of man's life on earth, but to the attaining of an eternal felicity after death; to which they think the breach of covenant may conduce, and consequently be just and reasonable; such are they that think it a work of merit to kill, or depose, or rebel against the sovereign power constituted over them by their own consent. But because there is no 30natural knowledge of man's estate after death, much less of the reward that is then to be given to breach of faith, but only a belief grounded upon other men's saying that they know it supernaturally or that they know those that knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally, breach of faith cannot be called a precept of reason or nature. 35 Others, that allow for a law of nature the keeping of faith, do nevertheless make exception of certain persons; as heretics, and such as use not to perform their covenant to others; and this also is against reason. For if any fault of a man be sufficient to discharge our covenant made, the same ought in reason to 40have been sufficient to have hindered the making of it. The names of just and unjust when they are attributed to men, signify one thing, and when they are attributed to actions, another. When they are

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attributed to men, they signify conformity, or inconformity of manners, to reason. But when they are attributed to action they signify the conformity, or inconformity to reason, not of manners, or manner of life, but of particular actions. A just man therefore is he that taketh all the care he can that his actions may be all just; and an unjust man is he that neglecteth it. And such 5men are more often in our language styled by the names of righteous and unrighteous than just and unjust though the meaning be the same. Therefore a righteous man does not lose that title by one or a few unjust actions that proceed from sudden passion, or mistake of things or persons, nor does an unrighteous man lose his character for such actions as he does, or forbears to 10do, for fear: because his will is not framed by the justice, but by the apparent benefit of what he is to do. That which gives to human actions the relish of justice is a certain nobleness or gallantness of courage, rarely found, by which a man scorns to be beholding for the contentment of his life to fraud, or breach of promise. This justice of the manners is that which is meant where justice is 15called a virtue; and injustice, a vice. But the justice of actions denominates men, not just, but guiltless: and the injustice of the same (which is also called injury) gives them but the name of guilty. 20 Again, the injustice of manners is the disposition or aptitude to do injury, and is injustice before it proceed to act, and without supposing any individual person injured. But the injustice of an action (that is to say, injury) supposeth an individual person injured; namely him to whom the covenant was made: and 25therefore many times the injury is received by one man when the damage redoundeth to another. As when the master commandeth his servant to give money to stranger; if it be not done, the injury is done to the master, whom he had before covenanted to obey; but the damage redoundeth to the stranger, to whom he had no obligation, and therefore could not injure him. And so also in 30Commonwealths private men may remit to one another their debts, but not robberies or other violences, whereby they are endamaged; because the detaining of debt is an injury to themselves, but robbery and violence are injuries to the person of the Commonwealth. 35Whatsoever is done to a man, conformable to his own will signified to the doer, is not injury to him. For if he that doeth it hath not passed away his original right to do what he please by some antecedent covenant, there is no breach of covenant, and therefore no injury done him. And if he have, then his will to have it done, being signified, is a release of that covenant, and so again 40there is no injury done him. Justice of actions is by writers divided into commutative and distributive: and the former they say consisteth in proportion arithmetical; the latter in

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proportion geometrical. Commutative, therefore, they place in the equality of value of the things contracted for; and distributive, in the distribution of equal benefit to men of equal merit. As if it were injustice to sell dearer than we buy, or to give more to a man than he merits. The value of all things contracted for is measured by the appetite of the contractors, and therefore the just value is 5that which they be contented to give. And merit (besides that which is by covenant, where the performance on one part meriteth the performance of the other part, and falls under justice commutative, not distributive) is not due by justice, but is rewarded of grace only. And therefore this distinction, in the sense wherein it useth to be expounded, is not right. To speak properly, 10commutative justice is the justice of a contractor; that is, a performance of covenant in buying and selling, hiring and letting to hire, lending and borrowing, exchanging, bartering, and other acts of contract. And distributive justice, the justice of an arbitrator; that is to say, the act of 15defining what is just. Wherein, being trusted by them that make him arbitrator, if he perform his trust, he is said to distribute to every man his own: and this is indeed just distribution, and may be called, though improperly, distributive justice, but more properly equity, which also is a law of nature, as shall be shown in due place. 20 As justice dependeth on antecedent covenant; so does gratitude depend on antecedent grace; that is to say, antecedent free gift; and is the fourth law of nature, which may be conceived in this form: that a man which receiveth benefit from another of mere grace endeavour that he which giveth it have no 25reasonable cause to repent him of his good will. For no man giveth but with intention of good to himself, because gift is voluntary; and of all voluntary acts, the object is to every man his own good; of which if men see they shall be frustrated, there will be no beginning of benevolence or trust, nor consequently of mutual help, nor of reconciliation of one man to another; and 30therefore they are to remain still in the condition of war, which is contrary to the first and fundamental law of nature which commandeth men to seek peace. The breach of this law is called ingratitude, and hath the same relation to grace that injustice hath to obligation by covenant. 35A fifth law of nature is complaisance; that is to say, that every man strive to accommodate himself to the rest. For the understanding whereof we may consider that there is in men's aptness to society a diversity of nature, rising from their diversity of affections, not unlike to that we see in stones brought together for building of an edifice. For as that stone which by the asperity and 40irregularity of figure takes more room from others than itself fills, and for hardness cannot be easily made plain, and thereby hindereth the building, is by the builders cast away as unprofitable and troublesome: so also, a man that by asperity of nature will strive to retain those things which to himself are

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superfluous, and to others necessary, and for the stubbornness of his passions cannot be corrected, is to be left or cast out of society as cumbersome thereunto. For seeing every man, not only by right, but also by necessity of nature, is supposed to endeavour all he can to obtain that which is necessary for his conservation, he that shall oppose himself against it for things 5superfluous is guilty of the war that thereupon is to follow, and therefore doth that which is contrary to the fundamental law of nature, which commandeth to seek peace. The observers of this law may be called sociable, (the Latins call them commodi); the contrary, stubborn, insociable, forward, intractable. 10A sixth law of nature is this: that upon caution of the future time, a man ought to pardon the offences past of them that, repenting, desire it. For pardon is nothing but granting of peace; which though granted to them that persevere in their hostility, be not peace, but fear; yet not granted to them that give caution of the future time is sign of an aversion to peace, and therefore contrary to the 15law of nature. A seventh is: that in revenges (that is, retribution of evil for evil), men look not at the greatness of the evil past, but the greatness of the good to follow. Whereby we are forbidden to inflict punishment with any other design than 20for correction of the offender, or direction of others. For this law is consequent to the next before it, that commandeth pardon upon security of the future time. Besides, revenge without respect to the example and profit to come is a triumph, or glorying in the hurt of another, tending to no end (for the end is always somewhat to come); and glorying to no end is vain-glory, and contrary 25to reason; and to hurt without reason tendeth to the introduction of war, which is against the law of nature, and is commonly styled by the name of cruelty. And because all signs of hatred, or contempt, provoke to fight; insomuch as 30most men choose rather to hazard their life than not to be revenged, we may in the eighth place, for a law of nature, set down this precept: that no man by deed, word, countenance, or gesture, declare hatred or contempt of another. The breach of which law is commonly called contumely. 35The question who is the better man has no place in the condition of mere nature, where (as has been shown before) all men are equal. The inequality that now is has been introduced by the laws civil. I know that Aristotle in the first book of his Politics, for a foundation of his doctrine, maketh men by nature, some more worthy to command, meaning the wiser sort, such as he 40thought himself to be for his philosophy; others to serve, meaning those that had strong bodies, but were not philosophers as he; as master and servant were not introduced by consent of men, but by difference of wit: which is not only against reason, but also against experience. For there are very few so foolish

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that had not rather govern themselves than be governed by others: nor when the wise, in their own conceit, contend by force with them who distrust their own wisdom, do they always, or often, or almost at any time, get the victory. If nature therefore have made men equal, that equality is to be acknowledged: or if nature have made men unequal, yet because men that think themselves equal 5will not enter into conditions of peace, but upon equal terms, such equality must be admitted. And therefore for the ninth law of nature, I put this: that every man acknowledge another for his equal by nature. The breach of this precept is pride. 10On this law dependeth another: that at the entrance into conditions of peace, no man require to reserve to himself any right which he is not content should he reserved to every one of the rest. As it is necessary for all men that seek peace to lay down certain rights of nature; that is to say, not to have liberty to do all they list, so is it necessary for man's life to retain some: as right to 15govern their own bodies; enjoy air, water, motion, ways to go from place to place; and all things else without which a man cannot live, or not live well. If in this case, at the making of peace, men require for themselves that which they would not have to be granted to others, they do contrary to the precedent law that commandeth the acknowledgement of natural equality, and therefore 20also against the law of nature. The observers of this law are those we call modest, and the breakers arrogant men. The Greeks call the violation of this law pleonexia; that is, a desire of more than their share. Also, if a man he trusted to judge between man and man, it is a precept of the 25law of nature that he deal equally between them. For without that, the controversies of men cannot be determined but by war. He therefore that is partial in judgement, doth what in him lies to deter men from the use of judges and arbitrators, and consequently, against the fundamental law of nature, is the cause of war. 30 The observance of this law, from the equal distribution to each man of that which in reason belonged to him, is called equity, and (as I have said before) distributive justice: the violation, acception of persons, prosopolepsia. 35And from this followeth another law: that such things as cannot be divided be enjoyed in common, if it can be; and if the quantity of the thing permit, without stint; otherwise proportionably to the number of them that have right. For otherwise the distribution is unequal, and contrary to equity. 40But some things there be that can neither be divided nor enjoyed in common. Then, the law of nature which prescribeth equity requireth: that the entire right, or else (making the use alternate) the first possession, be determined by

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lot. For equal distribution is of the law of nature; and other means of equal distribution cannot be imagined. Of lots there be two sorts, arbitrary and natural. Arbitrary is that which is agreed on by the competitors; natural is either primogeniture (which the 5Greek calls kleronomia, which signifies, given by lot), or first seizure. And therefore those things which cannot be enjoyed in common, nor divided, ought to be adjudged to the first possessor; and in some cases to the first born, as acquired by lot. 10 It is also a law of nature: that all men that mediate peace he allowed safe conduct. For the law that commandeth peace, as the end, commandeth intercession, as the means; and to intercession the means is safe conduct. 15And because, though men be never so willing to observe these laws, there may nevertheless arise questions concerning a man's action; first, whether it were done, or not done; secondly, if done, whether against the law, or not against the law; the former whereof is called a question of fact, the latter a question of right; therefore unless the parties to the question covenant mutually to stand 20to the sentence of another, they are as far from peace as ever. This other, to whose sentence they submit, is called an arbitrator. And therefore it is of the law of nature that they that are at controversy submit their right to the judgement of an arbitrator. 25And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit arbitrator in his own cause: and if he were never so fit, yet equity allowing to each party equal benefit, if one be admitted to be judge, the other is to be admitted also; and so the controversy, that is, the cause of war, remains, against the law of nature. 30 For the same reason no man in any cause ought to be received for arbitrator to whom greater profit, or honour, or pleasure apparently ariseth out of the victory of one party than of the other: for he hath taken, though an unavoidable bribe, yet a bribe; and no man can be obliged to trust him. And 35thus also the controversy and the condition of war remaineth, contrary to the law of nature. And in a controversy of fact, the judge being to give no more credit to one than to the other, if there be no other arguments, must give credit to a third; 40or to a third and fourth; or more: for else the question is undecided, and left to force, contrary to the law of nature.

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These are the laws of nature, dictating peace, for a means of the conservation of men in multitudes; and which only concern the doctrine of civil society. There be other things tending to the destruction of particular men; as drunkenness, and all other parts of intemperance, which may therefore also be reckoned amongst those things which the law of nature hath forbidden, but are 5not necessary to be mentioned, nor are pertinent enough to this place. And though this may seem too subtle a deduction of the laws of nature to be taken notice of by all men, whereof the most part are too busy in getting food, and the rest too negligent to understand; yet to leave all men inexcusable, they 10have been contracted into one easy sum, intelligible even to the meanest capacity; and that is: Do not that to another which thou wouldest not have done to thyself, which showeth him that he has no more to do in learning the laws of nature but, when weighing the actions of other men with his own they seem too heavy, to put them into the other part of the balance, and his own 15into their place, that his own passions and self-love may add nothing to the weight; and then there is none of these laws of nature that will not appear unto him very reasonable. The laws of nature oblige in foro interno; that is to say, they bind to a desire 20they should take place: but in foro externo; that is, to the putting them in act, not always. For he that should be modest and tractable, and perform all he promises in such time and place where no man else should do so, should but make himself a prey to others, and procure his own certain ruin, contrary to the ground of all laws of nature which tend to nature's preservation. And 25again, he that having sufficient security that others shall observe the same laws towards him, observes them not himself, seeketh not peace, but war, and consequently the destruction of his nature by violence. And whatsoever laws bind in foro interno may be broken, not only by a fact 30contrary to the law, but also by a fact according to it, in case a man think it contrary. For though his action in this case be according to the law, yet his purpose was against the law; which, where the obligation is in foro interno, is a breach. 35The laws of nature are immutable and eternal; for injustice, ingratitude, arrogance, pride, iniquity, acception of persons, and the rest can never be made lawful. For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it. The same laws, because they oblige only to a desire and endeavour, mean an 40unfeigned and constant endeavour, are easy to be observed. For in that they require nothing but endeavour, he that endeavoureth their performance fulfilleth them; and he that fulfilleth the law is just.

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And the science of them is the true and only moral philosophy. For moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good and evil in the conversation and society of mankind. Good and evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions, which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men are different: and diverse men differ not only in their judgement on the 5senses of what is pleasant and unpleasant to the taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight; but also of what is conformable or disagreeable to reason in the actions of common life. Nay, the same man, in diverse times, differs from himself; and one time praiseth, that is, calleth good, what another time he dispraiseth, and calleth evil: from whence arise disputes, controversies, and at 10last war. And therefore so long as a man is in the condition of mere nature, which is a condition of war, private appetite is the measure of good and evil: and consequently all men agree on this, that peace is good, and therefore also the way or means of peace, which (as I have shown before) are justice, gratitude, modesty, equity, mercy, and the rest of the laws of nature, are good; 15that is to say, moral virtues; and their contrary vices, evil. Now the science of virtue and vice is moral philosophy; and therefore the true doctrine of the laws of nature is the true moral philosophy. But the writers of moral philosophy, though they acknowledge the same virtues and vices; yet, not seeing wherein consisted their goodness, nor that they come to be praised as the means of 20peaceable, sociable, and comfortable living, place them in a mediocrity of passions: as if not the cause, but the degree of daring, made fortitude; or not the cause, but the quantity of a gift, made liberality. These dictates of reason men used to call by the name of laws, but improperly: 25for they are but conclusions or theorems concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defence of themselves; whereas law, properly, is the word of him that by right hath command over others. But yet if we consider the same theorems as delivered in the word of God that by right commandeth all things, then are they properly called laws. 30

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CHAPTER XVI OF PERSONS, AUTHORS, AND THINGS PERSONATED A PERSON is he whose words or actions are considered, either as his own, or as representing the words or actions of another man, or of any other thing to 5whom they are attributed, whether truly or by fiction. When they are considered as his own, then is he called a natural person: and when they are considered as representing the words and actions of another, then is he a feigned or artificial person. 10 The word person is Latin, instead whereof the Greeks have prosopon, which signifies the face, as persona in Latin signifies the disguise, or outward appearance of a man, counterfeited on the stage; and sometimes more particularly that part of it which disguiseth the face, as a mask or vizard: and 15from the stage hath been translated to any representer of speech and action, as well in tribunals as theatres. So that a person is the same that an actor is, both on the stage and in common conversation; and to personate is to act or represent himself or another; and he that acteth another is said to bear his person, or act in his name (in which sense Cicero useth it where he says, Unus 20sustineo tres personas; mei, adversarii, et judicis- I bear three persons; my own, my adversary's, and the judge's), and is called in diverse occasions, diversely; as a representer, or representative, a lieutenant, a vicar, an attorney, a deputy, a procurator, an actor, and the like. 25Of persons artificial, some have their words and actions owned by those whom they represent. And then the person is the actor, and he that owneth his words and actions is the author, in which case the actor acteth by authority. For that which in speaking of goods and possessions is called an owner, and in Latin dominus in Greek kurios; speaking of actions, is called author. And as the right 30of possession is called dominion so the right of doing any action is called authority. So that by authority is always understood a right of doing any act; and done by authority, done by commission or license from him whose right it is. 35From hence it followeth that when the actor maketh a covenant by authority, he bindeth thereby the author no less than if he had made it himself; and no less subjecteth him to all the consequences of the same. And therefore all that hath been said formerly (Chapter XIV) of the nature of covenants between man and man in their natural capacity is true also when they are made by their 40actors, representers, or procurators, that have authority from them, so far forth as is in their commission, but no further.

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And therefore he that maketh a covenant with the actor, or representer, not knowing the authority he hath, doth it at his own peril. For no man is obliged by a covenant whereof he is not author, nor consequently by a covenant made against or beside the authority he gave. 5When the actor doth anything against the law of nature by command of the author, if he be obliged by former covenant to obey him, not he, but the author breaketh the law of nature: for though the action be against the law of nature, yet it is not his; but, contrarily, to refuse to do it is against the law of nature that forbiddeth breach of covenant. 10 And he that maketh a covenant with the author, by mediation of the actor, not knowing what authority he hath, but only takes his word; in case such authority be not made manifest unto him upon demand, is no longer obliged: for the covenant made with the author is not valid without his counter-15assurance. But if he that so covenanteth knew beforehand he was to expect no other assurance than the actor's word, then is the covenant valid, because the actor in this case maketh himself the author. And therefore, as when the authority is evident, the covenant obligeth the author, not the actor; so when the authority is feigned, it obligeth the actor only, there being no author but 20himself. There are few things that are incapable of being represented by fiction. Inanimate things, as a church, a hospital, a bridge, may be personated by a rector, master, or overseer. But things inanimate cannot be authors, nor 25therefore give authority to their actors: yet the actors may have authority to procure their maintenance, given them by those that are owners or governors of those things. And therefore such things cannot be personated before there be some state of civil government. 30Likewise children, fools, and madmen that have no use of reason may be personated by guardians, or curators, but can be no authors during that time of any action done by them, longer than (when they shall recover the use of reason) they shall judge the same reasonable. Yet during the folly he that hath right of governing them may give authority to the guardian. But this again has 35no place but in a state civil, because before such estate there is no dominion of persons. An idol, or mere figment of the brain, may be personated, as were the gods of the heathen, which, by such officers as the state appointed, were personated, 40and held possessions, and other goods, and rights, which men from time to time dedicated and consecrated unto them. But idols cannot be authors: for an idol is nothing. The authority proceeded from the state, and therefore before

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introduction of civil government the gods of the heathen could not be personated. The true God may be personated. As He was: first, Moses, who governed the Israelites, that were that were not his, but God's people; not in his own name, 5with hoc dicit Moses, but in God's name, with hoc dicit Dominus. Secondly, by the Son of Man, His own Son, our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, that came to reduce the Jews and induce all nations into the kingdom of his Father; not as of himself, but as sent from his Father. And thirdly, by the Holy Ghost, or Comforter, speaking and working in the Apostles; which Holy Ghost was a 10Comforter that came not of himself, but was sent and proceeded from them both. A multitude of men are made one person when they are by one man, or one person, represented; so that it be done with the consent of every one of that 15multitude in particular. For it is the unity of the representer, not the unity of the represented, that maketh the person one. And it is the representer that beareth the person, and but one person: and unity cannot otherwise be understood in multitude. 20And because the multitude naturally is not one, but many, they cannot be understood for one, but in any authors, of everything their representative saith or doth in their name; every man giving their common representer authority from himself in particular, and owning all the actions the representer doth, in case they give him authority without stint: otherwise, when they limit him in 25what and how far he shall represent them, none of them owneth more than they gave him commission to act. And if the representative consist of many men, the voice of the greater number must be considered as the voice of them all. For if the lesser number 30pronounce, for example, in the affirmative, and the greater in the negative, there will be negatives more than enough to destroy the affirmatives, and thereby the excess of negatives, standing uncontradicted, are the only voice the representative hath. 35And a representative of even number, especially when the number is not great, whereby the contradictory voices are oftentimes equal, is therefore oftentimes mute and incapable of action. Yet in some cases contradictory voices equal in number may determine a question; as in condemning, or absolving, equality of votes, even in that they condemn not, do absolve; but not on the contrary 40condemn, in that they absolve not. For when a cause is heard, not to condemn is to absolve; but on the contrary to say that not absolving is condemning is not true. The like it is in deliberation of executing presently, or deferring till

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another time: for when the voices are equal, the not decreeing execution is a decree of dilation. Or if the number be odd, as three, or more, men or assemblies, whereof every one has, by a negative voice, authority to take away the effect of all the 5affirmative voices of the rest, this number is no representative; by the diversity of opinions and interests of men, it becomes oftentimes, and in cases of the greatest consequence, a mute person and unapt, as for many things else, so for the government of a multitude, especially in time of war. 10Of authors there be two sorts. The first simply so called, which I have before defined to be him that owneth the action of another simply. The second is he that owneth an action or covenant of another conditionally; that is to say, he undertaketh to do it, if the other doth it not, at or before a certain time. And these authors conditional are generally called sureties, in Latin, fidejussores 15and sponsores; and particularly for debt, praedes and for appearance before a judge or magistrate, vades. 20

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State and Social Contract Reading Two

John Locke (1632-1704)

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Two Treatises of Government (1689) [first published anonymously]

OF CIVIL-GOVERNMENT BOOK II Chap. I. §. 1. It having been shewn in the foregoing discourse, 1. That Adam had not, either by natural right of fatherhood, or by positive donation from God, any such authority over his children, or dominion over the 5world, as is pretended: 2. That if he had, his heirs, yet, had no right to it: 3. That if his heirs had, there being no law of nature nor positive law of God 10that determines which is the right heir in all cases that may arise, the right of succession, and consequently of bearing rule, could not have been certainly determined: 4. That if even that had been determined, yet the knowledge of which is the 15eldest line of Adam’s posterity, being so long since utterly lost, that in the races of mankind and families of the world, there remains not to one above another, the least pretence to be the eldest house, and to have the right of inheritance: 20All these premises having, as I think, been clearly made out, it is impossible that the rulers now on earth should make any benefit, or derive any the least shadow of authority from that, which is held to be the fountain of all power, Adam’s private dominion and paternal jurisdiction; so that he that will not give just occasion to think that all government in the world is the product only of 25force and violence, and that men live together by no other rules but that of beasts, where the strongest carries it, and so lay a foundation for perpetual disorder and mischief, tumult, sedition and rebellion, (things that the followers of that hypothesis so loudly cry out against) must of necessity find out another rise of governwent, another original of political power, and another way of 30designing and knowing the persons that have it, than what Sir Robert Filmer hath taught us. §. 2. [omitted]

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§. 3. Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the common-wealth from foreign injury; and 5all this only for the public good. CHAP. II. Of the State of Nature. 10§. 4. TO understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man. 15 A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal 20one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty. 25§. 5. This equality of men by nature, the judicious Hooker looks upon as so evident in itself, and beyond all question, that he makes it the foundation of that obligation to mutual love amongst men, on which he builds the duties they owe one another, and from whence he derives the great maxims of justice and charity. His words are, 30 The like natural inducement hath brought men to know that it is no less their duty, to love others than themselves; for seeing those things which are equal, must needs all have one measure; if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man’s hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my 35desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire, which is undoubtedly in other men, being of one and the same nature? To have any thing offered them repugnant to this desire, must needs in all respects grieve them as much as me; so that if I do harm, I must look to suffer, there being no reason that others should shew greater measure of love to me, than they have by me shewed unto them: my desire 40therefore to be loved of my equals in nature, as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to them-ward fully the like affection; from which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and

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canons natural reason hath drawn, for direction of life, no man is ignorant. Eccl. Pol. Lib. 1. §. 6. But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though man in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of his person or 5possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to 10harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another’s pleasure: and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all 15in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another’s uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for our’s. Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought 20he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another. §. 7. And that all men may be restrained from invading others rights, and from 25doing hurt to one another, and the law of nature be observed, which willeth the peace and preservation of all mankind, the execution of the law of nature is, in that state, put into every man’s hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree, as may hinder its violation: for the law of nature would, as all other laws that concern men in 30this world, be in vain, if there were no body that in the state of nature had a power to execute that law, and thereby preserve the innocent and restrain offenders. And if any one in the state of nature may punish another for any evil he has done, every one may do so: for in that state of perfect equality, where naturally there is no superiority or jurisdiction of one over another, what any 35may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a right to do. §. 8. And thus, in the state of nature, one man comes by a power over another; but yet no absolute or arbitrary power, to use a criminal, when he has got him in his hands, according to the passionate heats, or boundless extravagancy of 40his own will; but only to retribute to him, so far as calm reason and conscience dictate, what is proportionate to his transgression, which is so much as may serve for reparation and restraint: for these two are the only reasons, why one man may lawfully do harm to another, which is that we call punishment. In

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transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity, which is that measure God has set to the actions of men, for their mutual security; and so he becomes dangerous to mankind, the tye, which is to secure them from injury and violence, being slighted and broken by him. Which being a trespass against the 5whole species, and the peace and safety of it, provided for by the law of nature, every man upon this score, by the right he hath to preserve mankind in general, may restrain, or where it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them, and so may bring such evil on any one, who hath transgressed that law, as may make him repent the doing of it, and thereby deter him, and by his example 10others, from doing the like mischief. And in this case, and upon this ground, every man hath a right to punish the offender, and be executioner of the law of nature. §. 9. I doubt not but this will seem a very strange doctrine to some men: but 15before they condemn it, I desire them to resolve me, by what right any prince or state can put to death, or punish an alien, for any crime he commits in their country. It is certain their laws, by virtue of any sanction they receive from the promulgated will of the legislative, reach not a stranger: they speak not to him, nor, if they did, is he bound to hearken to them. The legislative authority, by 20which they are in force over the subjects of that common-wealth, hath no power over him. Those who have the supreme power of making laws in England, France or Holland, are to an Indian, but like the rest of the world, men without authority: and therefore, if by the law of nature every man hath not a power to punish offences against it, as he soberly judges the case to 25require, I see not how the magistrates of any community can punish an alien of another country; since, in reference to him, they can have no more power than what every man naturally may have over another. §. 10. Besides the crime which consists in violating the law, and varying from 30the right rule of reason, whereby a man so far becomes degenerate, and declares himself to quit the principles of human nature, and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done to some person or other, and some other man receives damage by his transgression: in which case he who hath received any damage, has, besides the right of punishment common to him 35with other men, a particular right to seek reparation from him that has done it: and any other person, who finds it just, may also join with him that is injured, and assist him in recovering from the offender so much as may make satisfaction for the harm he has suffered. 40§. 11. From these two distinct rights, the one of punishing the crime for restraint, and preventing the like offence, which right of punishing is in every body; the other of taking reparation, which belongs only to the injured party, comes it to pass that the magistrate, who by being magistrate hath the

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common right of punishing put into his hands, can often, where the public good demands not the execution of the law, remit the punishment of criminal offences by his own authority, but yet cannot remit the satisfaction due to any private man for the damage he has received. That, he who has suffered the damage has a right to demand in his own name, and he alone can remit: the 5damnified person has this power of appropriating to himself the goods or service of the offender, by right of self-preservation, as every man has a power to punish the crime, to prevent its being committed again, by the right he has of preserving all mankind, and doing all reasonable things he can in order to that end: and thus it is, that every man, in the state of nature, has a power to 10kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing the like injury, which no reparation can compensate, by the example of the punishment that attends it from every body, and also to secure men from the attempts of a criminal, who having renounced reason, the common rule and measure God hath given to mankind, hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon 15one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or a tyger, one of those wild savage beasts, with whom men can have no society nor security: and upon this is grounded that great law of nature, Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed. And Cain was so fully convinced, that every one had a right to destroy such a criminal, that 20after the murder of his brother, he cries out, Every one that findeth me, shall slay me; so plain was it writ in the hearts of all mankind. §. 12. By the same reason may a man in the state of nature punish the lesser breaches of that law. It will perhaps be demanded, with death? I answer, each 25transgression may be punished to that degree, and with so much severity, as will suffice to make it an ill bargain to the offender, give him cause to repent, and terrify others from doing the like. Every offence, that can be committed in the state of nature, may in the state of nature be also punished equally, and as far forth as it may, in a common-wealth: for though it would be besides my 30present purpose, to enter here into the particulars of the law of nature, or its measures of punishment; yet, it is certain there is such a law, and that too, as intelligible and plain to a rational creature, and a studier of that law, as the positive laws of common-wealths; nay, possibly plainer; as much as reason is easier to be understood, than the fancies and intricate contrivances of men, 35following contrary and hidden interests put into words; for so truly are a great part of the municipal laws of countries, which are only so far right, as they are founded on the law of nature, by which they are to be regulated and interpreted. 40§. 13. To this strange doctrine, viz. That in the state of nature every one has the executive power of the law of nature, I doubt not but it will be objected, that it is unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases, that self-love will make men partial to themselves and their friends: and on the other side,

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that ill nature, passion and revenge will carry them too far in punishing others; and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow, and that therefore God hath certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of men. I easily grant, that civil government is the proper remedy for the inconveniencies of the state of nature, which must certainly be great, where 5men may be judges in their own case, since it is easy to be imagined, that he who was so unjust as to do his brother an injury, will scarce be so just as to condemn himself for it: but I shall desire those who make this objection, to remember, that absolute monarchs are but men; and if government is to be the remedy of those evils, which necessarily follow from men’s being judges in 10their own cases, and the state of nature is therefore not to be endured, I desire to know what kind of government that is, and how much better it is than the state of nature, where one man, commanding a multitude, has the liberty to be judge in his own case, and may do to all his subjects whatever he pleases, without the least liberty to any one to question or controul those who execute 15his pleasure? and in whatsoever he doth, whether led by reason, mistake or passion, must be submitted to? much better it is in the state of nature, wherein men are not bound to submit to the unjust will of another: and if he that judges, judges amiss in his own, or any other case, he is answerable for it to the rest of mankind. 20 §. 14. It is often asked as a mighty objection, where are, or ever were there any men in such a state of nature? To which it may suffice as an answer at present, that since all princes and rulers of independent governments all through the world, are in a state of nature, it is plain the world never was, nor ever will be, 25without numbers of men in that state. I have named all governors of independent communities, whether they are, or are not, in league with others: for it is not every compact that puts an end to the state of nature between men, but only this one of agreeing together mutually to enter into one community, and make one body politic; other promises, and compacts, men may make one 30with another, and yet still be in the state of nature. The promises and bargains for truck, &c. between the two men in the desert island, mentioned by Garcilasso de la Vega, in his history of Peru; or between a Swiss and an Indian, in the woods of America, are binding to them, though they are perfectly in a state of nature, in reference to one another: for truth and keeping of faith 35belongs to men, as men, and not as members of society. §. 15. To those that say, there were never any men in the state of nature, I will not only oppose the authority of the judicious Hooker, Eccl. Pol. lib. i. sect. 10. where he says, The laws which have been hitherto mentioned, i. e. the laws of 40nature, do bind men absolutely, even as they are men, although they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn agreement amongst themselves what to do, or not to do: but forasmuch as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store of things, needful for such a life as our

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nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man; therefore to supply those defects and imperfections which are in us, as living single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with others: this was the cause of men’s uniting themselves at first in politic societies. But I moreover affirm, that all men are naturally in that state, and 5remain so, till by their own consents they make themselves members of some politic society; and I doubt not in the sequel of this discourse, to make it very clear. 10CHAP. III. Of the State of War. §. 16. THE state of war is a state of enmity and destruction: and therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but a sedate settled design upon another man’s life, puts him in a state of war with him against 15whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other’s power to be taken away by him, or any one that joins with him in his defence, and espouses his quarrel; it being reasonable and just, I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, 20when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the common-law of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those 25dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power. §. 17. And hence it is, that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power, does thereby put himself into a state of war with him; it being 30to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life: for I have reason to conclude, that he who would get me into his power without my consent, would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for no body can desire to have me in his absolute power, unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my 35freedom, i. e. make me a slave. To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation; and reason bids me look on him, as an enemy to my preservation, who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it; so that he who makes an attempt to enslave me, thereby puts himself into a state of war with me. He that, in the state of nature, would take away the freedom 40that belongs to any one in that state, must necessarily be supposed to have a design to take away every thing else, that freedom being the foundation of all the rest; as he that, in the state of society, would take away the freedom belonging to those of that society or common-wealth, must be supposed to

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design to take away from them every thing else, and so be looked on as in a state of war. §. 18. This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief, who has not in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life, any farther than, by the use of 5force, so to get him in his power, as to take away his money, or what he pleases, from him; because using force, where he has no right, to get me into his power, let his pretence be what it will, I have no reason to suppose, that he, who would take away my liberty, would not, when he had me in his power, take away every thing else. And therefore it is lawful for me to treat him as one 10who has put himself into a state of war with me, i. e. kill him if I can; for to that hazard does he justly expose himself, whoever introduces a state of war, and is aggressor in it. §. 19. And here we have the plain difference between the state of nature and 15the state of war, which however some men have confounded, are as far distant, as a state of peace, good will, mutual assistance and preservation, and a state of enmity, malice, violence and mutual destruction, are one from another. Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature. But force, or a 20declared design of force, upon the person of another, where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war: and it is the want of such an appeal gives a man the right of war even against an aggressor, tho’ he be in society and a fellow subject. Thus a thief, whom I cannot harm, but by appeal to the law, for having stolen all that I am worth, I 25may kill, when he sets on me to rob me but of my horse or coat; because the law, which was made for my preservation, where it cannot interpose to secure my life from present force, which, if lost, is capable of no reparation, permits me my own defence, and the right of war, a liberty to kill the aggressor, because the aggressor allows not time to appeal to our common judge, nor the 30decision of the law, for remedy in a case where the mischief may be irreparable. Want of a common judge with authority, puts all men in a state of nature: force without right, upon a man’s person, makes a state of war, both where there is, and is not, a common judge. 35§. 20. But when the actual force is over, the state of war ceases between those that are in society, and are equally on both sides subjected to the fair determination of the law; because then there lies open the remedy of appeal for the past injury, and to prevent future harm: but where no such appeal is, as in the state of nature, for want of positive laws, and judges with authority to 40appeal to, the state of war once begun, continues, with a right to the innocent party to destroy the other whenever he can, until the aggressor offers peace, and desires reconciliation on such terms as may repair any wrongs he has already done, and secure the innocent for the future; nay, where an appeal to

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the law, and constituted judges, lies open, but the remedy is denied by a manifest perverting of justice, and a barefaced wresting of the laws to protect or indemnify the violence or injuries of some men, or party of men, there it is hard to imagine any thing but a state of war: for where-ever violence is used, and injury done, though by hands appointed to administer justice, it is still 5violence and injury, however coloured with the name, pretences, or forms of law, the end whereof being to protect and redress the innocent, by an unbiassed application of it, to all who are under it; where-ever that is not bona fide done, war is made upon the sufferers, who having no appeal on earth to right them, they are left to the only remedy in such cases, an appeal to heaven. 10 §. 21. To avoid this state of war (wherein there is no appeal but to heaven, and wherein every the least difference is apt to end, where there is no authority to decide between the contenders) is one great reason of men’s putting themselves into society, and quitting the state of nature: for where there is an 15authority, a power on earth, from which relief can be had by appeal, there the continuance of the state of war is excluded, and the controversy is decided by that power. Had there been any such court, any superior jurisdiction on earth, to determine the right between Jephtha and the Ammonites, they had never come to a state of war: but we see he was forced to appeal to heaven. The Lord 20the Judge (says he) be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon, Judg. xi. 27. and then prosecuting, and relying on his appeal, he leads out his army to battle: and therefore in such controversies, where the question is put, who shall be judge? It cannot be meant, who shall decide the controversy; every one knows what Jephtha here tells us, that the 25Lord the Judge shall judge. Where there is no judge on earth, the appeal lies to God in heaven. That question then cannot mean, who shall judge, whether another hath put himself in a state of war with me, and whether I may, as Jephtha did, appeal to heaven in it? of that I myself can only be judge in my own conscience, as I will answer it, at the great day, to the supreme judge of 30all men. CHAP. IV. Of SLAVERY. 35§. 22. THE natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule. The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the common-wealth; nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what 40that legislative shall enact, according to the trust put in it. Freedom then is not what Sir Robert Filmer tells us, Observations, A. 55. a liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws: but freedom of men under government is, to have a standing rule to live by,

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common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man: as freedom of nature is, to be under no other restraint but the law of nature. 5 §. 23. This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation, that he cannot part with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together: for a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself 10to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another, to take away his life, when he pleases. No body can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it. Indeed, having by his fault forfeited his own life, by some act that deserves death; he, to whom he has forfeited it, may (when he has him in his 15power) delay to take it, and make use of him to his own service, and he does him no injury by it: for, whenever he finds the hardship of his slavery outweigh the value of his life, it is in his power, by resisting the will of his master, to draw on himself the death he desires. 20§. 24. This is the perfect condition of slavery, which is nothing else, but the state of war continued, between a lawful conqueror and a captive: for, if once compact enter between them, and make an agreement for a limited power on the one side, and obedience on the other, the state of war and slavery ceases, as long as the compact endures: for, as has been said, no man can, by agreement, 25pass over to another that which he hath not in himself, a power over his own life. […] CHAP. V. Of PROPERTY. 30 §. 25. WHETHER we consider natural reason, which tells us, that men, being once born, have a right to their preservation, and consequently to meat and drink, and such other things as nature affords for their subsistence: or revelation, which gives us an account of those grants God made of the world to 35Adam, and to Noah, and his sons, it is very clear, that God, as king David says, Psal. CXV. 16. has given the earth to the children of men; given it to mankind in common. But this being supposed, it seems to some a very great difficulty, how any one should ever come to have a property in any thing: I will not content myself to answer, that if it be difficult to make out property, upon a 40supposition that God gave the world to Adam, and his posterity in common, it is impossible that any man, but one universal monarch, should have any property upon a supposition, that God gave the world to Adam, and his heirs in succession, exclusive of all the rest of his posterity. But I shall endeavour to

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shew, how men might come to have a property in several parts of that which God gave to mankind in common, and that without any express compact of all the commoners. §. 26. God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them 5reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience. The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being. And tho’ all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of nature; and no body has originally a private dominion, exclusive of the rest 10of mankind, in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state: yet being given for the use of men, there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other, before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular man. The fruit, or venison, which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows no inclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be his, and so 15his, i. e. a part of him, that another can no longer have any right to it, before it can do him any good for the support of his life. §. 27. Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but 20himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour 25something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others. 30§. 28. He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. No body can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask then, when did they begin to be his? when he digested? or when he eat? or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up? and it is plain, if the 35first gathering made them not his, nothing else could. That labour put a distinction between them and common: that added something to them more than nature, the common mother of all, had done; and so they became his private right. And will any one say, he had no right to those acorns or apples, he thus appropriated, because he had not the consent of all mankind to make 40them his? Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common? If such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him. We see in commons, which remain so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what is common, and

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removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which begins the property; without which the common is of no use. And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the commoners. Thus the grass my horse has bit; the turfs my servant has cut; and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in common with others, become my 5property, without the assignation or consent of any body. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them. §. 29. By making an explicit consent of every commoner, necessary to any 10one’s appropriating to himself any part of what is given in common, children or servants could not cut the meat, which their father or master had provided for them in common, without assigning to every one his peculiar part. Though the water running in the fountain be every one’s, yet who can doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath taken it out of the 15hands of nature, where it was common, and belonged equally to all her children, and hath thereby appropriated it to himself. §. 30. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian’s who hath killed it; it is allowed to be his goods, who hath bestowed his labour upon it, though 20before it was the common right of every one. And amongst those who are counted the civilized part of mankind, who have made and multiplied positive laws to determine property, this original law of nature, for the beginning of property, in what was before common, still takes place; and by virtue thereof, what fish any one catches in the ocean, that great and still remaining common 25of mankind; or what ambergrise any one takes up here, is by the labour that removes it out of that common state nature left it in, made his property, who takes that pains about it. And even amongst us, the hare that any one is hunting, is thought his who pursues her during the chase: for being a beast that is still looked upon as common, and no man’s private possession; whoever 30has employed so much labour about any of that kind, as to find and pursue her, has thereby removed her from the state of nature, wherein she was common, and hath begun a property. §. 31. It will perhaps be objected to this, that if gathering the acorns, or other 35fruits of the earth, &c. makes a right to them, then any one may ingross as much as he will. To which I answer, Not so. The same law of nature, that does by this means give us property, does also bound that property too. God has given us all things richly, 1 Tim. vi. 12. is the voice of reason confirmed by inspiration. But how far has he given it us? To enjoy. As much as any one can 40make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a property in: whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy. And thus, considering the plenty of natural provisions there was a long time in the

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world, and the few spenders; and to how small a part of that provision the industry of one man could extend itself, and ingross it to the prejudice of others; especially keeping within the bounds, set by reason, of what might serve for his use; there could be then little room for quarrels or contentions about property so established. 5 §. 32. But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of the earth, and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself; as that which takes in and carries with it all the rest; I think it is plain, that property in that too is acquired as the former. As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, 10cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does, as it were, inclose it from the common. Nor will it invalidate his right, to say every body else has an equal title to it; and therefore he cannot appropriate, he cannot inclose, without the consent of all his fellow-commoners, all mankind. God, when he gave the world in common to all 15mankind, commanded man also to labour, and the penury of his condition required it of him. God and his reason commanded him to subdue the earth, i. e. improve it for the benefit of life, and therein lay out something upon it that was his own, his labour. He that in obedience to this command of God, subdued, tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby annexed to it something that 20was his property, which another had no title to, nor could without injury take from him. §. 33. Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough, and as good left; and 25more than the yet unprovided could use. So that, in effect, there was never the less left for others because of his inclosure for himself: for he that leaves as much as another can make use of, does as good as take nothing at all. No body could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his 30thirst: and the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is perfectly the same. §. 34. God gave the world to men in common; but since he gave it them for their benefit, and the greatest conveniencies of life they were capable to draw 35from it, it cannot be supposed he meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational, (and labour was to be his title to it;) not to the fancy or covetousness of the quarrelsome and contentious. He that had as good left for his improvement, as was already taken up, needed not complain, ought not to meddle with what was already 40improved by another’s labour: if he did, it is plain he desired the benefit of another’s pains, which he had no right to, and not the ground which God had given him in common with others to labour on, and whereof there was as good

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left, as that already possessed, and more than he knew what to do with, or his industry could reach to. §. 35. It is true, in land that is common in England, or any other country, where there is plenty of people under government, who have money and 5commerce, no one can inclose or appropriate any part, without the consent of all his fellow-commoners; because this is left common by compact, i. e. by the law of the land, which is not to be violated. And though it be common, in respect of some men, it is not so to all mankind; but is the joint property of this country, or this parish. Besides, the remainder, after such inclosure, would not 10be as good to the rest of the commoners, as the whole was when they could all make use of the whole; whereas in the beginning and first peopling of the great common of the world, it was quite otherwise. The law man was under, was rather for appropriating. God commanded, and his wants forced him to labour. That was his property which could not be taken from him where-ever he had 15fixed it. And hence subduing or cultivating the earth, and having dominion, we see are joined together. The one gave title to the other. So that God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority so far to appropriate: and the condition of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions. 20 §. 36. The measure of property nature has well set by the extent of men’s labour and the conveniencies of life: no man’s labour could subdue, or appropriate all; nor could his enjoyment consume more than a small part; so that it was impossible for any man, this way, to intrench upon the right of 25another, or acquire to himself a property, to the prejudice of his neighbour, who would still have room for as good, and as large a possession (after the other had taken out his) as before it was appropriated. This measure did confine every man’s possession to a very moderate proportion, and such as he might appropriate to himself, without injury to any body, in the first ages of 30the world, when men were more in danger to be lost, by wandering from their company, in the then vast wilderness of the earth, than to be straitened for want of room to plant in. And the same measure may be allowed still without prejudice to any body, as full as the world seems: for supposing a man, or family, in the state they were at first peopling of the world by the children of 35Adam, or Noah; let him plant in some in-land, vacant places of America, we shall find that the possessions he could make himself, upon the measures we have given, would not be very large, nor, even to this day, prejudice the rest of mankind, or give them reason to complain, or think themselves injured by this man’s incroachment, though the race of men have now spread themselves to all 40the corners of the world, and do infinitely exceed the small number was at the beginning. […]

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§. 37. This is certain, that in the beginning, before the desire of having more than man needed had altered the intrinsic value of things, which depends only on their usefulness to the life of man; or had agreed, that a little piece of yellow metal, which would keep without wasting or decay, should be worth a great piece of flesh, or a whole heap of corn; though men had a right to appropriate, 5by their labour, each one to himself, as much of the things of nature, as he could use: yet this could not be much, nor to the prejudice of others, where the same plenty was still left to those who would use the same industry. To which let me add, that he who appropriates land to himself by his labour, does not lessen, but increase the common stock of mankind: for the provisions serving 10to the support of human life, produced by one acre of inclosed and cultivated land, are (to speak much within compass) ten times more than those which are yielded by an acre of land of an equal richness lying waste in common. And therefore he that incloses land, and has a greater plenty of the conveniencies of life from ten acres, than he could have from an hundred left to nature, may 15truly be said to give ninety acres to mankind: for his labour now supplies him with provisions out of ten acres, which were but the product of an hundred lying in common. I have here rated the improved land very low, in making its product but as ten to one, when it is much nearer an hundred to one: for I ask, whether in the wild woods and uncultivated waste of America, left to nature, 20without any improvement, tillage or husbandry, a thousand acres yield the needy and wretched inhabitants as many conveniencies of life, as ten acres of equally fertile land do in Devonshire, where they are well cultivated? Before the appropriation of land, he who gathered as much of the wild fruit, 25killed, caught, or tamed, as many of the beasts, as he could; he that so imployed his pains about any of the spontaneous products of nature, as any way to alter them from the state which nature put them in, by placing any of his labour on them, did thereby acquire a propriety in them: but if they perished, in his possession, without their due use; if the fruits rotted, or the venison putrified, 30before he could spend it, he offended against the common law of nature, and was liable to be punished; he invaded his neighbour’s share, for he had no right, farther than his use called for any of them, and they might serve to afford him conveniencies of life. 35§. 38. The same measures governed the possession of land too: whatsoever he tilled and reaped, laid up and made use of, before it spoiled, that was his peculiar right; whatsoever he enclosed, and could feed, and make use of, the cattle and product was also his. But if either the grass of his inclosure rotted on the ground, or the fruit of his planting perished without gathering, and 40laying up, this part of the earth, notwithstanding his inclosure, was still to be looked on as waste, and might be the possession of any other. […]

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§. 39. And thus, without supposing any private dominion, and property in Adam, over all the world, exclusive of all other men, which can no way be proved, nor any one’s property be made out from it; but supposing the world given, as it was, to the children of men in common, we see how labour could make men distinct titles to several parcels of it, for their private uses; wherein 5there could be no doubt of right, no room for quarrel. §. 40. Nor is it so strange, as perhaps before consideration it may appear, that the property of labour should be able to over-balance the community of land: for it is labour indeed that puts the difference of value on every thing; and let 10any one consider what the difference is between an acre of land planted with tobacco or sugar, sown with wheat or barley, and an acre of the same land lying in common, without any husbandry upon it, and he will find, that the improvement of labour makes the far greater part of the value. I think it will be but a very modest computation to say, that of the products of the earth useful 15to the life of man nine tenths are the effects of labour: nay, if we will rightly estimate things as they come to our use, and cast up the several expences about them, what in them is purely owing to nature, and what to labour, we shall find, that in most of them ninety-nine hundredths are wholly to be put on the account of labour. 20 §. 41. There cannot be a clearer demonstration of any thing, than several nations of the Americans are of this, who are rich in land, and poor in all the comforts of life; whom nature having furnished as liberally as any other people, with the materials of plenty, i. e. a fruitful soil, apt to produce in abundance, 25what might serve for food, raiment, and delight; yet for want of improving it by labour, have not one hundredth part of the conveniencies we enjoy: and a king of a large and fruitful territory there, feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day-labourer in England. 30§. 42. [Locke gives examples of how labour increases the value of things and remarks that the art of government lies in part not in gathering lands, but in assuring their cultivation.] §. 43. An acre of land, that bears here twenty bushels of wheat, and another in 35America, which, with the same husbandry, would do the like, are, without doubt, of the same natural intrinsic value: but yet the benefit mankind receives from the one in a year, is worth 5 l. and from the other possibly not worth a penny, if all the profit an Indian received from it were to be valued, and sold here; at least, I may truly say, not one thousandth. It is labour then which puts 40the greatest part of value upon land, without which it would scarcely be worth any thing: […]

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§. 44. From all which it is evident, that though the things of nature are given in common, yet man, by being master of himself, and proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it, had still in himself the great foundation of property; and that, which made up the great part of what he applied to the support or comfort of his being, when invention and arts had improved the 5conveniencies of life, was perfectly his own, and did not belong in common to others. §. 45. Thus labour, in the beginning, gave a right of property, wherever any one was pleased to employ it upon what was common, which remained a long 10while the far greater part, and is yet more than mankind makes use of. Men, at first, for the most part, contented themselves with what unassisted nature offered to their necessities: and though afterwards, in some parts of the world, (where the increase of people and stock, with the use of money, had made land scarce, and so of some value) the several communities settled the bounds of 15their distinct territories, and by laws within themselves regulated the properties of the private men of their society, and so, by compact and agreement, settled the property which labour and industry began; and the leagues that have been made between several states and kingdoms, either expresly or tacitly disowning all claim and right to the land in the others 20possession, have, by common consent, given up their pretences to their natural common right, which originally they had to those countries, and so have, by positive agreement, settled a property amongst themselves, in distinct parts and parcels of the earth; yet there are still great tracts of ground to be found, which (the inhabitants thereof not having joined with the rest of mankind, in 25the consent of the use of their common money) lie waste, and are more than the people who dwell on it do, or can make use of, and so still lie in common; tho’ this can scarce happen amongst that part of mankind that have consented to the use of money. 30§. 46. The greatest part of things really useful to the life of man, and such as the necessity of subsisting made the first commoners of the world look after, as it doth the Americans now, are generally things of short duration; such as, if they are not consumed by use, will decay and perish of themselves: gold, silver and diamonds, are things that fancy or agreement hath put the value on, more 35than real use, and the necessary support of life. Now of those good things which nature hath provided in common, every one had a right (as hath been said) to as much as he could use, and property in all that he could effect with his labour; all that his industry could extend to, to alter from the state nature had put it in, was his. He that gathered a hundred bushels of acorns or apples, 40had thereby a property in them, they were his goods as soon as gathered. He was only to look, that he used them before they spoiled, else he took more than his share, and robbed others. And indeed it was a foolish thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than he could make use of. If he gave away a part

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to any body else, so that it perished not uselesly in his possession, these he also made use of. And if he also bartered away plums, that would have rotted in a week, for nuts that would last good for his eating a whole year, he did no injury; he wasted not the common stock; destroyed no part of the portion of goods that belonged to others, so long as nothing perished uselesly in his 5hands. Again, if he would give his nuts for a piece of metal, pleased with its colour; or exchange his sheep for shells, or wool for a sparkling pebble or a diamond, and keep those by him all his life, he invaded not the right of others, he might heap up as much of these durable things as he pleased; the exceeding of the bounds of his just property not lying in the largeness of his possession, 10but the perishing of any thing uselesly in it. §. 47. And thus came in the use of money, some lasting thing that men might keep without spoiling, and that by mutual consent men would take in exchange for the truly useful, but perishable supports of life. 15 §. 48. And as different degrees of industry were apt to give men possessions in different proportions, so this invention of money gave them the opportunity to continue and enlarge them: for supposing an island, separate from all possible commerce with the rest of the world, wherein there were but an hundred 20families, but there were sheep, horses and cows, with other useful animals, wholsome fruits, and land enough for corn for a hundred thousand times as many, but nothing in the island, either because of its commonness, or perishableness, fit to supply the place of money; what reason could any one have there to enlarge his possessions beyond the use of his family, and a 25plentiful supply to its consumption, either in what their own industry produced, or they could barter for like perishable, useful commodities, with others? Where there is not some thing, both lasting and scarce, and so valuable to be hoarded up, there men will be apt to enlarge their possessions of land, were it never so rich, never so free for them to take: for I ask, what would 30a man value ten thousand, or an hundred thousand acres of excellent land, ready cultivated, and well stocked too with cattle, in the middle of the inland parts of America, where he had no hopes of commerce with other parts of the world, to draw money to him by the sale of the product? It would not be worth the inclosing, and we should see him give up again to the wild common of 35nature, whatever was more than would supply the conveniencies of life to be had there for him and his family. §. 49. Thus in the beginning all the world was America, and more so than that is now; for no such thing as money was any where known. Find out something 40that hath the use and value of money amongst his neighbours, you shall see the same man will begin presently to enlarge his possessions.

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§. 50. But since gold and silver, being little useful to the life of man in proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, has its value only from the consent of men, whereof labour yet makes, in great part, the measure, it is plain, that men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth, they having, by a tacit and voluntary consent, found out a way how a man may 5fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of, by receiving in exchange for the overplus gold and silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one; these metals not spoiling or decaying in the hands of the possessor. This partage of things in an inequality of private possessions, men have made practicable out of the bounds of society, and without compact, only 10by putting a value on gold and silver, and tacitly agreeing in the use of money: for in governments, the laws regulate the right of property, and the possession of land is determined by positive constitutions. §. 51. And thus, I think, it is very easy to conceive, without any difficulty, how 15labour could at first begin a title of property in the common things of nature, and how the spending it upon our uses bounded it. So that there could then be no reason of quarrelling about title, nor any doubt about the largeness of possession it gave. Right and conveniency went together; for as a man had a right to all he could employ his labour upon, so he had no temptation to labour 20for more than he could make use of. This left no room for controversy about the title, nor for incroachment on the right of others; what portion a man carved to himself, was easily seen; and it was useless, as well as dishonest, to carve himself too much, or take more than he needed. 25 CHAP. VI. Of Paternal Power. §. 52-59. [Omitted: Locke speaks of various issues including the right a father over his children.] 30 §. 60. But if, through defects that may happen out of the ordinary course of nature, any one comes not to such a degree of reason, wherein he might be supposed capable of knowing the law, and so living within the rules of it, he is never capable of being a free man, he is never let loose to the disposure of his 35own will (because he knows no bounds to it, has not understanding, its proper guide) but is continued under the tuition and government of others, all the time his own understanding is uncapable of that charge. And so lunatics and idiots are never set free from the government of their parents; children, who are not as yet come unto those years whereat they may have; and innocents 40which are excluded by a natural defect from ever having; thirdly, madmen, which for the present cannot possibly have the use of right reason to guide themselves, have for their guide, the reason that guideth other men which are tutors over them, to seek and procure their good for them, says Hooker, Eccl.

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Pol. lib. i. sect. 7. All which seems no more than that duty, which God and nature has laid on man, as well as other creatures, to preserve their offspring, till they can be able to shift for themselves, [246] and will scarce amount to an instance or proof of parents regal authority. 5§. 61. Thus we are born free, as we are born rational; not that we have actually the exercise of either: age, that brings one, brings with it the other too. And thus we see how natural freedom and subjection to parents may consist together, and are both founded on the same principle. A child is free by his father’s title, by his father’s understanding, which is to govern him till he hath 10it of his own. The freedom of a man at years of discretion, and the subjection of a child to his parents, whilst yet short of that age, are so consistent, and so distinguishable, that the most blinded contenders for monarchy, by right of fatherhood, cannot miss this difference; the most obstinate cannot but allow their consistency: for were their doctrine all true, were the right heir of Adam 15now known, and by that title settled a monarch in his throne, invested with all the absolute unlimited power Sir Robert Filmer talks of; if he should die as soon as his heir were born, must not the child, notwithstanding he were never so free, never so much sovereign, be in subjection to his mother and nurse, to tutors and governors, till age and education brought him reason and ability to 20govern himself and others? The necessities of his life, the health of his body, and the information of his mind, would require him to be [247] directed by the will of others, and not his own; and yet will any one think, that this restraint and subjection were inconsistent with, or spoiled him of that liberty or sovereignty he had a right to, or gave away his empire to those who had the 25government of his nonage? This government over him only prepared him the better and sooner for it. If any body should ask me, when my son is of age to be free? I shall answer, just when his monarch is of age to govern. But at what time, says the judicious Hooker, Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. 6. a man may be said to have attained so far forth the use of reason, as sufficeth to make him capable of 30those laws whereby he is then bound to guide his actions: this is a great deal more easy for sense to discern, than for any one by skill and learning to determine. §. 62. Common-wealths themselves take notice of, and allow, that there is a 35time when men are to begin to act like free men, and therefore till that time require not oaths of fealty, or allegiance, or other public owning of, or submission to the government of their countries. §. 63. The freedom then of man, and liberty of acting according to his own will, 40is grounded on his having reason, which is able to instruct him in that law he is to govern himself by, and make him know how far he is left to the freedom of his own will. To turn him loose to an unrestrained liberty, before he has reason to guide him, is not the allowing him the privilege of his nature to be free; but

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to thrust him out amongst brutes, and abandon him to a state as wretched, and as much beneath that of a man, as theirs. This is that which puts the authority into the parents hands to govern the minority of their children. God hath made it their business to employ this care on their off-spring, and hath placed in them suitable inclinations of tenderness and concern to temper this power, to 5apply it, as his wisdom designed it, to the children’s good, as long as they should need to be under it. §. 64-76. [Omitted: Locke discusses the nature and limits of paternal authority.] 10 CHAP. VII. Of Political or Civil Society. §. 77. GOD having made man such a creature, that in his own judgment, it was 15not good for him to be alone, put him under strong obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination to drive him into society, as well as fitted him with understanding and language to continue and enjoy it. The first society was between man and wife, which gave beginning to that between parents and children; to which, in time, that between master and servant came to be added: 20and though all these might, and commonly did meet together, and make up but one family, wherein the master or mistress of it had some sort of rule proper to a family; each of these, or all together, came short of political society, as we shall see, if we consider the different ends, ties, and bounds of each of these. 25§. 78. Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman; and tho’ it consist chiefly in such a communion and right in one another’s bodies as is necessary to its chief end, procreation; yet it draws with it mutual support and assistance, and a communion of interests too, as necessary not only to unite their care and affection, but also necessary to their 30common off-spring, who have a right to be nourished, and maintained by them, till they are able to provide for themselves. §. 79-81. [Omitted] 35§. 82. But the husband and wife, though they have but one common concern, yet having different understandings, will unavoidably sometimes have different wills too; it therefore being necessary that the last determination, i. e. the rule, should be placed somewhere; it naturally falls to the man’s share, as the abler and the stronger. But this reaching but to the things of their common interest 40and property, leaves the wife in the full and free possession of what by contract is her peculiar right, and gives the husband no more power over her life than she has over his; the power of the husband being so far from that of an absolute monarch, that the wife has in many cases a liberty to separate from him, where

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natural right, or their contract allows it; whether that contract be made by themselves in the state of nature, or by the customs or laws of the country they live in; and the children upon such separation fall to the father or mother’s lot, as such contract does determine. 5§. 83-84. [Omitted] §. 85. Master and servant are names as old as history, but given to those of far different condition; for a freeman makes himself a servant to another, by selling him, for a certain time, the service he undertakes to do, in exchange for 10wages he is to receive: and though this commonly puts him into the family of his master, and under the ordinary discipline thereof; yet it gives the master but a temporary power over him, and no greater than what is contained in the contract between them. But there is another sort of servants, which by a peculiar name we call slaves, who being captives taken in a just war, are by the 15right of nature subjected to the absolute dominion and arbitrary power of their masters. These men having, as I say, forfeited their lives, and with it their liberties, and lost their estates; and being in the state of slavery, not capable of any property, cannot in that state be considered as any part of civil society; the chief end whereof is the preservation of property. 20 §. 86. [Omitted] §. 87. Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrouled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, 25equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men; but to judge of, and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, 30requires it. But because no political society can be, nor subsist, without having in itself the power to preserve the property, and in order thereunto, punish the offences of all those of that society; there, and there only is political society, where every one of the members hath quitted this natural power, resigned it up into the hands of the community in all cases that exclude him not from 35appealing for protection to the law established by it. And thus all private judgment of every particular member being excluded, the community comes to be umpire, by settled standing rules, indifferent, and the same to all parties; and by men having authority from the community, for the execution of those rules, decides all the differences that may happen between any members of that 40society concerning any matter of right; and punishes those offences which any member hath committed against the society, with such penalties as the law has established: whereby it is easy to discern, who are, and who are not, in political society together. Those who are united into one body, and have a common

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established law and judicature to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them, and punish offenders, are in civil society one with another: but those who have no such common people, I mean on earth, are still in the state of nature, each being, where there is no other, judge for himself, and executioner; which is, as I have before shewed it, the perfect state of 5nature. §. 88. And thus the common-wealth comes by a power to set down what punishment shall belong to the several transgressions which they think worthy of it, committed amongst the members of that society, (which is the 10power of making laws) as well as it has the power to punish any injury done unto any of its members, by any one that is not of it, (which is the power of war and peace;) and all this for the preservation of the property of all the members of that society, as far as is possible. But though every man who has entered into civil society, and is become a member of any common-wealth, has 15thereby quitted his power to punish offences, against the law of nature, in prosecution of his own private judgment, yet with the judgment of offences, which he has given up to the legislative in all cases, where he can appeal to the magistrate, he has given a right to the common-wealth to employ his force, for the execution of the judgments of the common-wealth, whenever he shall be 20called to it; which indeed are his own judgments, they being made by himself, or his representative. And herein we have the original of the legislative and executive power of civil society, which is to judge by standing laws, how far offences are to be punished, when committed within the common-wealth; and also to determine, by occasional judgments founded on the present 25circumstances of the fact, how far injuries from without are to be vindicated; and in both these to employ all the force of all the members, when there shall be need. §. 89. Where-ever therefore any number of men are so united into one society, 30as to quit every one his executive power of the law of nature, and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a political, or civil society. And this is done, where-ever any number of men, in the state of nature, enter into society to make one people, one body politic, under one supreme government; or else when any one joins himself to, and incorporates with any government already 35made: for hereby he authorizes the society, or which is all one, the legislative thereof, to make laws for him, as the public good of the society shall require; to the execution whereof, his own assistance (as to his own decrees) is due. And this puts men out of a state of nature into that of a common-wealth, by setting up a judge on earth, with authority to determine all the controversies, and 40redress the injuries that may happen to any member of the common-wealth; which judge is the legislative, or magistrates appointed by it. And where-ever there are any number of men, however associated, that have no such decisive power to appeal to, there they are still in the state of nature.

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§. 90. Hence it is evident, that absolute monarchy, which by some men is counted the only government in the world, is indeed inconsistent with civil society, and so can be no form of civil-government at all: for the end of civil society, being to avoid, and remedy those inconveniencies of the state of 5nature, which necessarily follow from every man’s being judge in his own case, by setting up a known authority, to which every one of that society may appeal upon any injury received, or controversy that may arise, and which every one of the* society ought to obey; where-ever any persons are, who have not such an authority to appeal to, for the decision of any difference between them, 10there those persons are still in the state of nature; and so is every absolute prince, in respect of those who are under his dominion. §. 91. For he being supposed to have all, both legislative and executive power in himself alone, there is no judge to be found, no appeal lies open to any one, 15who may fairly, and indifferently, and with authority decide, and from whose decision relief and redress may be expected of any injury or inconviency, that may be suffered from the prince, or by his order: so that such a man, however intitled, Czar, or Grand Seignior, or how you please, is as much in the state of nature, with all under his dominion, as he is with the rest of mankind: for 20where-ever any two men are, who have no standing rule, and common judge to appeal to on earth, for the determination of controversies of right betwixt them, there they are still in the state of nature, and under all the inconveniencies of it, with only this woful difference to the subject, or rather slave of an absolute prince: that whereas, in the ordinary state of nature, he has 25a liberty to judge of his right, and according to the best of his power, to maintain it; now, whenever his property is invaded by the will and order of his monarch, he has not only no appeal, as those in society ought to have, but as if he were degraded from the common state of rational creatures, is denied a liberty to judge of, or to defend his right; and so is exposed to all the misery 30and inconveniencies, that a man can fear from one, who being in the unrestrained state of nature, is yet corrupted with flattery, and armed with power. §. 92. For he that thinks absolute power purifies men’s blood, and corrects the 35baseness of human nature, need read but the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced of the contrary. He that would have been insolent and injurious in the woods of America, would not probably be much better in a throne; where perhaps learning and religion shall be found out to justify all that he shall do to his subjects, and the sword presently silence all those that 40dare question it: for what the protection of absolute monarchy is, what kind of fathers of their countries it makes princes to be, and to what a degree of happiness and security it carries civil society, where this sort of government is

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grown to perfection, he that will look into the late relation of Ceylon, may easily see. §. 93. In absolute monarchies indeed, as well as other governments of the world, the subjects have an appeal to the law, and judges to decide any 5controversies, and restrain any violence that may happen betwixt the subjects themselves, one amongst another. This every one thinks necessary, and believes he deserves to be thought a declared enemy to society and mankind, who should go about to take it away. But whether this be from a true love of mankind and society, and such a charity as we owe all one to another, there is 10reason to doubt: for this is no more than what every man, who loves his own power, profit, or greatness, may and naturally must do, keep those animals from hurting, or destroying one another, who labour and drudge only for his pleasure and advantage; and so are taken care of, not out of any love the master has for them, but love of himself, and the profit they bring him: for if it 15be asked, what security, what fence is there, in such a state, against the violence and oppression of this absolute ruler? the very question can scarce be borne. They are ready to tell you, that it deserves death only to ask after safety. Betwixt subject and subject, they will grant, there must be measures, laws and judges, for their mutual peace and security: but as for the ruler, he 20ought to be absolute, and is above all such circumstances; because he has power to do more hurt and wrong, it is right when he does it. To ask how you may be guarded from harm, or injury, on that side where the strongest hand is to do it, is presently the voice of faction and rebellion: as if when men quitting the state of nature entered into society, they agreed that all of them but one, 25should be under the restraint of laws, but that he should still retain all the liberty of the state of nature, increased with power, and made licentious by impunity. This is to think, that men are so foolish, that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by pole-cats, or foxes; but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions. 30 §. 94. But whatever flatterers may talk to amuse people’s understandings, it hinders not men from feeling; and when they perceive, that any man, in what station soever, is out of the bounds of the civil society which they are of, and that they have no appeal on earth against any harm, they may receive from 35him, they are apt to think themselves in the state of nature, in respect of him whom they find to be so; and to take care, as soon as they can, to have that safety and security in civil society, for which it was first instituted, and for which only they entered into it. And therefore, though perhaps at first, (as shall be shewed more at large hereafter in the following part of this discourse) 40some one good and excellent man having got a pre-eminency amongst the rest, had this deference paid to his goodness and virtue, as to a kind of natural authority, that the chief rule, with arbitration of their differences, by a tacit consent devolved into his hands, without any other caution, but the assurance

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they had of his uprightness and wisdom; yet when time, giving authority, and (as some men would persuade us) sacredness of customs, which the negligent, and unforeseeing innocence of the first ages began, had brought in successors of another stamp, the people finding their properties not secure under the government, as then it was, (whereas government has no other end but the 5preservation of property) could never be safe nor at rest, nor think themselves in civil society, till the legislature was placed in collective bodies of men, call them senate, parliament, or what you please. By which means every single person became subject, equally with other the meanest men, to those laws, which he himself, as part of the legislative, had established; nor could any one, 10by his own authority, avoid the force of the law, when once made; nor by any pretence of superiority plead exemption, thereby to license his own, or the miscarriages of any of his dependents. No man in civil society can be exempted from the laws of it: for if any man may do what he thinks fit, and there be no appeal on earth, for redress or security against any harm he shall do; I ask, 15whether he be not perfectly still in the state of nature, and so can be no part or member of that civil society; unless any one will say, the state of nature and civil society are one and the same thing, which I have never yet found any one so great a patron of anarchy as to affirm. 20 CHAP. VIII. Of the Beginning of Political Societies. §. 95. MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of 25another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community, for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not 30of it. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number of men have so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest. 35 §. 96. For when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority: for that which acts any community, being only the consent of the 40individuals of it, and it being necessary to that which is one body to move one way; it is necessary the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority: or else it is impossible it should act or continue one body, one community, which the consent of every

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individual that united into it, agreed that it should; and so every one is bound by that consent to be concluded by the majority. And therefore we see, that in assemblies, impowered to act by positive laws, where no number is set by that positive law which impowers them, the act of the majority passes for the act of the whole, and of course determines, as having, by the law of nature and 5reason, the power of the whole. §. 97. And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation, to every one of that society, to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by 10it; or else this original compact, whereby he with others incorporates into one society, would signify nothing, and be no compact, if he be left free, and under no other ties than he was in before in the state of nature. For what appearance would there be of any compact? what new engagement if he were no farther tied by any decrees of the society, than he himself thought fit, and did actually 15consent to? This would be still as great a liberty, as he himself had before his compact, or any one else in the state of nature hath, who may submit himself, and consent to any acts of it if he thinks fit. §. 98. For if the consent of the majority shall not, in reason, be received as the 20act of the whole, and conclude every individual; nothing but the consent of every individual can make any thing to be the act of the whole: but such a consent is next to impossible ever to be had, if we consider the infirmities of health, and avocations of business, which in a number, though much less than that of a common-wealth, will necessarily keep many away from the public 25assembly. To which if we add the variety of opinions, and contrariety of interests, which unavoidably happen in all collections of men, the coming into society upon such terms would be only like Cato’s coming into the theatre, only to go out again. Such a constitution as this would make the mighty Leviathan of a shorter duration, than the feeblest creatures, and not let it 30outlast the day it was born in: which cannot be supposed, till we can think, that rational creatures should desire and constitute societies only to be dissolved: for where the majority cannot conclude the rest, there they cannot act as one body, and consequently will be immediately dissolved again. 35§. 99. Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature unite into a community, must be understood to give up all the power, necessary to the ends for which they unite into society, to the majority of the community, unless they expresly agreed in any number greater than the majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one political society, which is all the compact that is, or 40needs be, between the individuals, that enter into, or make up a common-wealth. And thus that, which begins and actually constitutes any political society, is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that

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only, which did, or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world. §. 100. To this I find two objections made. 5First, That there are no instances to be found in history, of a company of men independent, and equal one amongst another, that met together, and in this way began and set up a government. Secondly, It is impossible of right, that men should do so, because all men 10being born under government, they are to submit to that, and are not at liberty to begin a new one. §. 101. To the first there is this to answer, That it is not at all to be wondered, that history gives us but a very little account of men, that lived together in the 15state of nature. The inconveniences of that condition, and the love and want of society, no sooner brought any number of them together, but they presently united and incorporated, if they designed to continue together. And if we may not suppose men ever to have been in the state of nature, because we hear not much of them in such a state, we may as well suppose the armies of 20Salmanasser or Xerxes were never children, because we hear little of them, till they were men, and imbodied in armies. Government is every where antecedent to records, and letters seldom come in amongst a people till a long continuation of civil society has, by other more necessary arts, provided for their safety, ease, and plenty: and then they begin to look after the history of 25their founders, and search into their original, when they have outlived the memory of it: for it is with common-wealths as with particular persons, they are commonly ignorant of their own births and infancies: and if they know any thing of their original, they are beholden for it, to the accidental records that others have kept of it. And those that we have, of the beginning of any polities 30in the world, excepting that of the Jews, where God himself immediately interposed, and which favours not at all paternal dominion, are all either plain instances of such a beginning as I have mentioned, or at least have manifest footsteps of it. 35§. 102-109. [Omitted: Locke discusses and dismisses the objection that historically civil societies developed in very different ways, often starting with kings. This he explains to be an extension of the family.] 40§. 110. Thus, whether a family by degrees grew up into a common-wealth, and the fatherly authority being continued on to the elder son, every one in his turn growing up under it, tacitly submitted to it, and the easiness and equality of it not offending any one, every one acquiesced, till time seemed to have

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confirmed it, and settled a right of succession by prescription: or whether several families, or the descendants of several families, whom chance, neighbourhood, or business brought together, uniting into society, the need of a general, whose conduct might defend them against their enemies in war, and the great confidence the innocence and sincerity of that poor but virtuous age, 5(such as are almost all those which begin governments, that ever come to last in the world) gave men one of another, made the first beginners of common-wealths generally put the rule into one man’s hand, without any other express limitation or restraint, but what the nature of the thing, and the end of government required: which ever of those it was that at first put the rule into 10the hands of a single person, certain it is no body was intrusted with it but for the public good and safety, and to those ends, in the infancies of common-wealths, those who had it commonly used it. And unless they had done so, young societies could not have subsisted; without such nursing fathers tender and careful of the public weal, all governments would have sunk under the 15weakness and infirmities of their infancy, and the prince and the people had soon perished together. §. 111. But though the golden age (before vain ambition, and amor sceleratus habendi, evil concupiscence, had corrupted men’s minds into a mistake of true 20power and honour) had more virtue, and consequently better governors, as well as less vicious subjects; and there was then no stretching prerogative on the one side, to oppress the people; nor consequently on the other, any dispute about privilege, to lessen or restrain the power of the magistrate, and so no contest betwixt rulers and people about governors or government: yet, when 25ambition and luxury in future ages would retain and increase the power, without doing the business for which it was given; and aided by slattery, taught princes to have distinct and separate interests from their people, men found it necessary to examine more carefully the original and rights of government; and to find out ways to restrain the exorbitances, and prevent the 30abuses of that power, which they having intrusted in another’s hands only for their own good, they found was made use of to hurt them. §. 112. […] The other objection I find urged against the beginning of polities, in the way I have mentioned, is this, viz. 35 §. 113. That all men being born under government, some or other, it is impossible any of them should ever be free, and at liberty to unite together, and begin a new one, or ever be able to erect a lawful government. 40If this argument be good; I ask, how came so many lawful monarchies into the world? for if any body, upon this supposition, can shew me any one man in any age of the world free to begin a lawful monarchy, I will be bound to shew him ten other free men at liberty, at the same time to unite and begin a new

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government under a regal, or any other form; it being demonstration, that if any one, born under the dominion of another, may be so free as to have a right to command others in a new and distinct empire, every one that is born under the dominion of another may be so free too, and may become a ruler, or subject, of a distinct separate government. And so by this their own principle, 5either all men, however born, are free, or else there is but one lawful prince, one lawful government in the world. And then they have nothing to do, but barely to shew us which that is; which when they have done, I doubt not but all mankind will easily agree to pay obedience to him. 10§. 114. Though it be a sufficient answer to their objection, to shew that it involves them in the same difficulties that it doth those they use it against; yet I shall endeavour to discover the weakness of this argument a little farther. All men, say they, are born under government, and therefore they cannot be at 15liberty to begin a new one. Every one is born a subject to his father, or his prince, and is therefore under the perpetual tie of subjection and allegiance. It is plain mankind never owned nor considered any such natural subjection that they were born in, to one or to the other that tied them, without their own consents, to a subjection to them and their heirs. 20 §. 115. For there are no examples so frequent in history, both sacred and profane, as those of men withdrawing themselves, and their obedience, from the jurisdiction they were born under, and the family or community they were bred up in, and setting up new governments in other places; from whence 25sprang all that number of petty commonwealths in the beginning of ages, and which always multiplied, as long as there was room enough, till the stronger, or more fortunate, swallowed the weaker; and those great ones again breaking to pieces, dissolved into lesser dominions. […] 30§. 116. This has been the practice of the world from its first beginning to this day; nor is it now any more hindrance to the freedom of mankind, that they are born under constituted and ancient polities, that have established laws, and set forms of government, than if they were born in the woods, amongst the unconfined inhabitants, that run loose in them: for those, who would persuade 35us, that by being born under any government, we are naturally subjects to it, and have no more any title or pretence to the freedom of the state of nature, have no other reason (bating that of paternal power, which we have already answered) to produce for it, but only, because our fathers or progenitors passed away their natural liberty, and thereby bound up themselves and their 40posterity to a perpetual subjection to the government, which they themselves submitted to. It is true, that whatever engagements or promises any one has made for himself, he is under the obligation of them, but cannot, by any compact whatsoever, bind his children or posterity: for his son, when a man,

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being altogether as free as the father, any act of the father can no more give away the liberty of the son, than it can of any body else: he may indeed annex such conditions to the land, he enjoyed as a subject of any common-wealth, as may oblige his son to be of that community, if he will enjoy those possessions which were his father’s; because that estate being his father’s property, he may 5dispose, or settle it, as he pleases. §. 117-119. [Omittted] §. 120. To understand this the better, it is fit to consider, that every man, when 10he at first incorporates himself into any common-wealth, he, by his uniting himself thereunto, annexed also, and submits to the community, those possessions, which he has, or shall acquire, that do not already belong to any other government: for it would be a direct contradiction, for any one to enter into society with others for the securing and regulating of property; and yet to 15suppose his land, whose property is to be regulated by the laws of the society, should be exempt from the jurisdiction of that government, to which he himself, the proprietor of the land, is a subject. By the same act therefore, whereby any one unites his person, which was before free, to any common-wealth; by the same he unites his possessions, which were before free, to it also; 20and they become, both of them, person and possession, subject to the government and dominion of that common-wealth, as long as it hath a being. Whoever therefore, from thenceforth, by inheritance, purchase, permission, or otherways, enjoys any part of the land, so annexed to, and under the government of that common-wealth, must take it with the condition it is 25under; that is, of submitting to the government of the common-wealth, under whose jurisdiction it is, as far forth as any subject of it. §. 121-122. [Omitted] 30 CHAP. IX. Of the Ends of Political Society and Government. §. 123. IF man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and 35subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom? why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and controul of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others: for all being kings as much as he, every man his 40equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him willing to quit a condition, which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers: and it is not without reason, that he seeks out, and is

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willing to join in society with others, who are already united, or have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property. §. 124. The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into common-5wealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property. To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting. First, There wants an established, settled, known law, received and allowed by common consent to be the standard of right and wrong, and the common 10measure to decide all controversies between them: for though the law of nature be plain and intelligible to all rational creatures; yet men being biassed by their interest, as well as ignorant for want of study of it, are not apt to allow of it as a law binding to them in the application of it to their particular cases. 15§. 125. Secondly, In the state of nature there wants a known and indifferent judge, with authority to determine all differences according to the established law: for every one in that state being both judge and executioner of the law of nature, men being partial to themselves, passion and revenge is very apt to carry them too far, and with too much heat, in their own cases; as well as 20negligence, and unconcernedness, to make them too remiss in other men’s. §. 126. Thirdly, In the state of nature there often wants power to back and support the sentence when right, and to give it due execution. They who by any injustice offended, will seldom fail, where they are able, by force to make 25good their injustice; such resistance many times makes the punishment dangerous, and frequently destructive, to those who attempt it. §. 127. Thus mankind, notwithstanding all the privileges of the state of nature, being but in an ill condition, while they remain in it, are quickly driven into 30society. Hence it comes to pass, that we seldom find any number of men live any time together in this state. The inconveniencies that they are therein exposed to, by the irregular and uncertain exercise of the power every man has of punishing the transgressions of others, make them take sanctuary under the established laws of government, and therein seek the preservation of their 35property. It is this makes them so willingly give up every one his single power of punishing, to be exercised by such alone, as shall be appointed to it amongst them; and by such rules as the community, or those authorized by them to that purpose, shall agree on. And in this we have the original right and rise of both the legislative and executive power, as well as of the governments and 40societies themselves. §. 128. For in the state of nature, to omit the liberty he has of innocent delights, a man has two powers.

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The first is to do whatsoever he thinks fit for the preservation of himself, and others within the permission of the law of nature: by which law, common to them all, he and all the rest of mankind are one community, make up one society, distinct from all other creatures. And were it not for the corruption 5and vitiousness of degenerate men, there would be no need of any other; no necessity that men should separate from this great and natural community, and by positive agreements combine into smaller and divided associations. The other power a man has in the state of nature, is the power to punish the 10crimes committed against that law. Both these he gives up, when he joins in a private, if I may so call it, or particular politic society, and incorporates into any common-wealth, separate from the rest of mankind. §. 129. The first power, viz. of doing whatsoever be thought for the 15preservation of himself, and the rest of mankind, he gives up to be regulated by laws made by the society, so far forth as the preservation of himself, and the rest of that society shall require; which laws of the society in many things confine the liberty he had by the law of nature. 20§. 130. Secondly, The power of punishing he wholly gives up, and engages his natural force, (which he might before employ in the execution of the law of nature, by his own single authority, as he thought fit) to assist the executive power of the society, as the law thereof shall require: for being now in a new state, wherein he is to enjoy many conveniencies, from the labour, assistance, 25and society of others in the same community, as well as protection from its whole strength; he is to part also with as much of his natural liberty, in providing for himself, as the good, prosperity, and safety of the society shall require; which is not only necessary, but just, since the other members of the society do the like. 30 §. 131. But though men, when they enter into society, give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of nature, into the hands of the society, to be so far disposed of by the legislative, as the good of the society shall require; yet it being only with an intention in every one the better to 35preserve himself, his liberty and property; (for no rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be worse) the power of the society, or legislative constituted by them, can never be supposed to extend farther, than the common good; but is obliged to secure every one’s property, by providing against those three defects above mentioned, that made the state 40of nature so unsafe and uneasy. And so whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any common-wealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees; by indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those

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laws; and to employ the force of the community at home, only in the execution of such laws, or abroad to prevent or redress foreign injuries, and secure the community from inroads and invasion. And all this to be directed to no other end, but the peace, safety, and public good of the people.

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State and Social Contract Reading Three

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

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Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755)

[…] It is of man that I have to speak, and the question I am examining indicates to me that I am going to be speaking to men, for such questions are not proposed by those who are afraid to honor the truth. I will therefore confidently defend the cause of humanity before the wise men who invite me to do so, and I will 5not be displeased with myself if I make myself worthy of my subject and my judges.

I conceive of two kinds of inequality in the human species: one which I call natural or physical, because it is established by nature and consists in the difference of age, health, bodily strength, and qualities of mind or soul. The 10other may be called moral or political inequality, because it depends on a kind of convention and is established, or at least authorized, by the consent of men. This latter type of inequality consists in the different privileges enjoyed by some at the expense of others, such as being richer, more honored, more powerful than they, or even causing themselves to be obeyed by them. 15There is no point in asking what the source of natural inequality is, because the answer would be found enunciated in the simple definition of the word. There is still less of a point in asking whether there would not be some essential connection between the two inequalities, for that would amount to asking whether those who command are necessarily better than those who 20obey, and whether strength of body or mind, wisdom or virtue are always found in the same individuals in proportion to power or wealth. Perhaps this is a good question for slaves to discuss within earshot of their masters, but it is not suitable for reasonable and free men who seek the truth.

Precisely what, then, is the subject of this discourse? To mark, in the 25progress of things, the moment when, right taking the place of violence, nature was subjected to the law. To explain the sequence of wonders by which the strong could resolve to serve the weak, and the people to buy imaginary repose at the price of real felicity.

The philosophers who have examined the foundations of society have all 30felt the necessity of returning to the state of nature, but none of them has reached it. Some have not hesitated to ascribe to man in that state the notion of just and unjust, without bothering to show that he had to have that notion, or even that it was useful to him. Others have spoken of the natural right that everyone has to preserve what belongs to him, without explaining what they 35mean by "belonging." Others started out by giving authority to the stronger over the weaker, and immediately brought about government, without giving any thought to the time that had to pass before the meaning of the words "authority" and "government" could exist among men. Finally, all of them, speaking continually of need, avarice, oppression, desires, and pride, have 40transferred to the state of nature the ideas they acquired in society. They spoke

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about savage man, and it was civil man they depicted. It did not even occur to most of our philosophers to doubt that the state of nature had existed, even though it is evident from reading the Holy Scriptures that the first man, having received enlightenment and precepts immediately from God, was not himself in that state; and if we give the writings of Moses the credence that 5every Christian owes them, we must deny that, even before the flood, men were ever in the pure state of nature, unless they had fallen back into it because of some extraordinary event: a paradox that is quite awkward to defend and utterly impossible to prove.

Let us therefore begin by putting aside all the facts, for they have no 10bearing on the question. The investigations that may be undertaken concerning this subject should not be taken for historical truths, but only for hypothetical and conditional reasonings, better suited to shedding light on the nature of things than on pointing out their true origin, like those our physicists make everyday with regard to the formation of the world. Religion 15commands us to believe that since God himself drew men out of the state of nature, they are unequal because he wanted them to be so; but it does not forbid us to form conjectures, drawn solely from the nature of man and the beings that surround him, concerning what the human race could have become, if it had been left to itself. That is what I am asked, and what I 20propose to examine in this discourse. Since my subject concerns man in general, I will attempt to speak in terms that suit all nations, or rather, forgetting times and places in order to think only of the men to whom I am speaking, I will imagine I am in the Lyceum in Athens, reciting the lessons of my masters, having men like Plato and Xenocrates for my judges, and the 25human race for my audience.

O man, whatever country you may be from, whatever your opinions may be, listen: here is your history, as I have thought to read it, not in the books of your fellowmen, who are liars, but in nature, who never lies. Everything that comes from nature will be true; there will be nothing false except what I have 30unintentionally added. The times about which I am going to speak are quite remote: how much you have changed from what you were! It is, as it were, the life of your species that I am about to describe to you according to the qualities you have received, which your education and your habits have been able to corrupt but have been unable to destroy. There is, I feel, an age at which an 35individual man would want to stop. You will seek the age at which you would want your species to have stopped. Dissatisfied with your present state for reasons that portend even greater grounds for dissatisfaction for your unhappy posterity, perhaps you would like to be able to go backwards in time. This feeling should be a hymn in praise of your first ancestors, the criticism of your 40contemporaries, and the dread of those who have the unhappiness of living after you.

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THE FIRST PART IMPORTANT as it may be, in order to judge rightly of the natural state of man, to consider him from his origin, and to examine him, as it were, in the embryo of his species; I shall not follow his organisation through its successive 5developments, nor shall I stay to inquire what his animal system must have been at the beginning, in order to become at length what it actually is. I shall not ask whether his long nails were at first, as Aristotle supposes, only crooked talons; whether his whole body, like that of a bear, was not covered with hair; or whether the fact that he walked upon all fours, with his looks directed 10toward the earth, confined to a horizon of a few paces, did not at once point out the nature and limits of his ideas. On this subject I could form none but vague and almost imaginary conjectures. Comparative anatomy has as yet made too little progress, and the observations of naturalists are too uncertain to afford an adequate basis for any solid reasoning. So that, without having recourse to 15the supernatural information given us on this head, or paying any regard to the changes which must have taken place in the internal, as well as the external, conformation of man, as he applied his limbs to new uses, and fed himself on new kinds of food, I shall suppose his conformation to have been at all times what it appears to us at this day; that he always walked on two legs, 20made use of his hands as we do, directed his looks over all nature, and measured with his eyes the vast expanse of Heaven.

If we strip this being, thus constituted, of all the supernatural gifts he may have received, and all the artificial faculties he can have acquired only by a long process; if we consider him, in a word, just as he must have come from the 25hands of nature, we behold in him an animal weaker than some, and less agile than others; but, taking him all round, the most advantageously organised of any. I see him satisfying his hunger at the first oak, and slaking his thirst at the first brook; finding his bed at the foot of the tree which afforded him a repast; and, with that, all his wants supplied. 30

While the earth was left to its natural fertility and covered with immense forests, whose trees were never mutilated by the axe, it would present on every side both sustenance and shelter for every species of animal. Men, dispersed up and down among the rest, would observe and imitate their industry, and thus attain even to the instinct of the beasts, with the advantage 35that, whereas every species of brutes was confined to one particular instinct, man, who perhaps has not any one peculiar to himself, would appropriate them all, and live upon most of those different foods which other animals shared among themselves; and thus would find his subsistence much more easily than any of the rest. 40

Accustomed from their infancy to the inclemencies of the weather and the rigour of the seasons, inured to fatigue, and forced, naked and unarmed, to defend themselves and their prey from other ferocious animals, or to escape them by flight, men would acquire a robust and almost unalterable

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constitution. The children, bringing with them into the world the excellent constitution of their parents, and fortifying it by the very exercises which first produced it, would thus acquire all the vigour of which the human frame is capable. Nature in this case treats them exactly as Sparta treated the children of her citizens: those who come well formed into the world she renders strong 5and robust, and all the rest she destroys; differing in this respect from our modern communities, in which the State, by making children a burden to their parents, kills them indiscriminately before they are born.

The body of a savage man being the only instrument he understands, he uses it for various purposes, of which ours, for want of practice, are incapable: 10for our industry deprives us of that force and agility, which necessity obliges him to acquire. If he had had an axe, would he have been able with his naked arm to break so large a branch from a tree? If he had had a sling, would he have been able to throw a stone with so great velocity? If he had had a ladder, would he have been so nimble in climbing a tree? If he had had a horse, would 15he have been himself so swift of foot? Give civilised man time to gather all his machines about him, and he will no doubt easily beat the savage; but if you would see a still more unequal contest, set them together naked and unarmed, and you will soon see the advantage of having all our forces constantly at our disposal, of being always prepared for every event, and of carrying one's self, as 20it were, perpetually whole and entire about one.

Hobbes contends that man is naturally intrepid, and is intent only upon attacking and fighting. Another illustrious philosopher holds the opposite, and Cumberland and Puffendorf also affirm that nothing is more timid and fearful than man in the state of nature; that he is always in a tremble, and ready to fly 25at the least noise or the slightest movement. This may be true of things he does not know; and I do not doubt his being terrified by every novelty that presents itself, when he neither knows the physical good or evil he may expect from it, nor can make a comparison between his own strength and the dangers he is about to encounter. Such circumstances, however, rarely occur in a state 30of nature, in which all things proceed in a uniform manner, and the face of the earth is not subject to those sudden and continual changes which arise from the passions and caprices of bodies of men living together. But savage man, living dispersed among other animals, and finding himself betimes in a situation to measure his strength with theirs, soon comes to compare himself 35with them; and, perceiving that he surpasses them more in adroitness than they surpass him in strength, learns to be no longer afraid of them. Set a bear, or a wolf, against a robust, agile, and resolute savage, as they all are, armed with stones and a good cudgel, and you will see that the danger will be at least on both sides, and that, after a few trials of this kind, wild beasts, which are not 40fond of attacking each other, will not be at all ready to attack man, whom they will have found to be as wild and ferocious as themselves. With regard to such animals as have really more strength than man has adroitness, he is in the same situation as all weaker animals, which notwithstanding are still able to

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subsist; except indeed that he has the advantage that, being equally swift of foot, and finding an almost certain place of refuge in every tree, he is at liberty to take or leave it at every encounter, and thus to fight or fly, as he chooses. Add to this that it does not appear that any animal naturally makes war on man, except in case of self-defence or excessive hunger, or betrays any of those 5violent antipathies, which seem to indicate that one species is intended by nature for the food of another.

This is doubtless why negroes and savages are so little afraid of the wild beasts they may meet in the woods. The Caraibs of Venezuela among others live in this respect in absolute security and without the smallest inconvenience. 10Though they are almost naked, Francis Corréal tells us, they expose themselves freely in the woods, armed only with bows and arrows; but no one has ever heard of one of them being devoured by wild beasts. But man has other enemies more formidable, against which is not provided with such means of defence: these are the natural infirmities of infancy, old age, 15and illness of every kind, melancholy proofs of our weakness, of which the two first are common to all animals, and the last belongs chiefly to man in a state of society. With regard to infancy, it is observable that the mother, carrying her child always with her, can nurse it with much greater ease than the females of many other animals, which are forced to be perpetually going and coming, 20with great fatigue, one way to find subsistence, and another to suckle or feed their young. It is true that if the woman happens to perish, the infant is in great danger of perishing with her; but this risk is common to many other species of animals, whose young take a long time before they are able to provide for themselves. And if our infancy is longer than theirs, our lives are 25longer in proportion; so that all things are in this respect fairly equal; though there are other rules to be considered regarding the duration of the first period of life, and the number of young, which do not affect the present subject. In old age, when men are less active and perspire little, the need for food diminishes with the ability to provide it. As the savage state also protects them from gout 30and rheumatism, and old age is, of all ills, that which human aid can least alleviate, they cease to be, without others perceiving that they are no more, and almost without perceiving it themselves.

With respect to sickness, I shall not repeat the vain and false declamations which most healthy people pronounce against medicine; but I 35shall ask if any solid observations have been made from which it may be justly concluded that, in the countries where the art of medicine is most neglected, the mean duration of man's life is less than in those where it is most cultivated. How indeed can this be the case, if we bring on ourselves more diseases than medicine can furnish remedies? The great inequality in manner of living, the 40extreme idleness of some, and the excessive labour of others, the easiness of exciting and gratifying our sensual appetites, the too exquisite foods of the wealthy which overheat and fill them with indigestion, and, on the other hand, the unwholesome food of the poor, often, bad as it is, insufficient for their

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needs, which induces them, when opportunity offers, to eat voraciously and overcharge their stomachs; all these, together with sitting up late, and excesses of every kind, immoderate transports of every passion, fatigue, mental exhaustion, the innumerable pains and anxieties inseparable from every condition of life, by which the mind of man is incessantly tormented; these are 5too fatal proofs that the greater part of our ills are of our own making, and that we might have avoided them nearly all by adhering to that simple, uniform and solitary manner of life which nature prescribed. If she destined man to be healthy, I venture to declare that a state of reflection is a state contrary to nature, and that a thinking man is a depraved animal. When we think of the 10good constitution of the savages, at least of those whom we have not ruined with our spirituous liquors, and reflect that they are troubled with hardly any disorders, save wounds and old age, we are tempted to believe that, in following the history of civil society, we shall be telling also that of human sickness. Such, at least, was the opinion of Plato, who inferred from certain 15remedies prescribed, or approved, by Podalirius and Machaon at the siege of Troy, that several sicknesses which these remedies gave rise to in his time, were not then known to mankind: and Celsus tells us that diet, which is now so necessary, was first invented by Hippocrates.

Being subject therefore to so few causes of sickness, man, in the state of 20nature, can have no need of remedies, and still less of physicians: nor is the human race in this respect worse off than other animals, and it is easy to learn from hunters whether they meet with many infirm animals in the course of the chase. It is certain they frequently meet with such as carry the marks of having been considerably wounded, with many that have had bones or even limbs 25broken, yet have been healed without any other surgical assistance than that of time, or any other regimen than that of their ordinary life. At the same time their cures seem not to have been less perfect, for their not having been tortured by incisions, poisoned with drugs, or wasted by fasting. In short, however useful medicine, properly administered, may be among us, it is certain 30that, if the savage, when he is sick and left to himself, has nothing to hope but from nature, he has, on the other hand, nothing to fear but from his disease; which renders his situation often preferable to our own.

We should beware, therefore, of confounding the savage man with the men we have daily before our eyes. Nature treats all the animals left to her care 35with a predilection that seems to show how jealous she is of that right. The horse, the cat, the bull, and even the ass are generally of greater stature, and always more robust, and have more vigour, strength and courage, when they run wild in the forests than when bred in the stall. By becoming domesticated, they lose half these advantages; and it seems as if all our care to feed and treat 40them well serves only to deprave them. It is thus with man also: as he becomes sociable and a slave, he grows weak, timid and servile; his effeminate way of life totally enervates his strength and courage. To this it may be added that there is still a greater difference between savage and civilised man, than

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between wild and tame beasts: for men and brutes having been treated alike by nature, the several conveniences in which men indulge themselves still more than they do their beasts, are so many additional causes of their deeper degeneracy.

It is not therefore so great a misfortune to these primitive men, nor so 5great an obstacle to their preservation, that they go naked, have no dwellings and lack all the superfluities which we think so necessary. If their skins are not covered with hair, they have no need of such covering in warm climates; and, in cold countries, they soon learn to appropriate the skins of the beasts they have overcome. If they have but two legs to run with, they have two arms to 10defend themselves with, and provide for their wants. Their children are slowly and with difficulty taught to walk; but their mothers are able to carry them with ease; an advantage which other animals lack, as the mother, if pursued, is forced either to abandon her young, or to regulate her pace by theirs. Unless, in short, we suppose a singular and fortuitous concurrence of circumstances of 15which I shall speak later, and which would be unlikely to exist, it is plain in every state of the case, that the man who first made himself clothes or a dwelling was furnishing himself with things not at all necessary; for he had till then done without them, and there is no reason why he should not have been able to put up in manhood with the same kind of life as had been his in infancy. 20Solitary, indolent, and perpetually accompanied by danger, the savage cannot but be fond of sleep; his sleep too must be light, like that of the animals, which think but little and may be said to slumber all the time they do not think. Self-preservation being his chief and almost sole concern, he must exercise most those faculties which are most concerned with attack or defence, either for 25overcoming his prey, or for preventing him from becoming the prey of other animals. On the other hand, those organs which are perfected only by softness and sensuality will remain in a gross and imperfect state, incompatible with any sort of delicacy; so that, his senses being divided on his head, his touch and taste will be extremely coarse, his sight, hearing and smell exceedingly fine 30and subtle. Such in general is the animal condition, and such, according to the narratives of travellers, is that of most savage nations. It is therefore no matter for surprise that the Hottentots of the Cape of Good Hope distinguish ships at sea, with the naked eye, at as great a distance as the Dutch can do with their telescopes; or that the savages of America should trace the Spaniards, by their 35smell, as well as the best dogs could have done; or that these barbarous peoples feel no pain in going naked, or that they use large quantities of piemento with their food, and drink the strongest European liquors like water.

Hitherto I have considered merely the physical man; let us now take a view of him on his metaphysical and moral side. 40

I see nothing in any animal but an ingenious machine, to which nature hath given senses to wind itself up, and to guard itself, to a certain degree, against anything that might tend to disorder or destroy it. I perceive exactly the same things in the human machine, with this difference, that in the

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operations of the brute, nature is the sole agent, whereas man has some share in his own operations, in his character as a free agent. The one chooses and refuses by instinct, the other from an act of free-will: hence the brute cannot deviate from the rule prescribed to it, even when it would be advantageous for it to do so; and, on the contrary, man frequently deviates from such rules to his 5own prejudice. Thus a pigeon would be starved to death by the side of a dish of the choicest meats, and a cat on a heap of fruit or grain; though it is certain that either might find nourishment in the foods which it thus rejects with disdain, did it think of trying them. Hence it is that dissolute men run into excesses which bring on fevers and death; because the mind depraves the 10senses, and the will continues to speak when nature is silent.

Every animal has ideas, since it has senses; it even combines those ideas in a certain degree; and it is only in degree that man differs, in this respect, from the brute. Some philosophers have even maintained that there is a greater difference between one man and another than between some men and some 15beasts. It is not, therefore, so much the understanding that constitutes the specific difference between the man and the brute, as the human quality of free-agency. Nature lays her commands on every animal, and the brute obeys her voice. Man receives the same impulsion, but at the same time knows himself at liberty to acquiesce or resist: and it is particularly in his consciousness of this 20liberty that the spirituality of his soul is displayed. For physics may explain, in some measure, the mechanism of the senses and the formation of ideas; but in the power of willing or rather of choosing, and in the feeling of this power, nothing is to be found but acts which are purely spiritual and wholly inexplicable by the laws of mechanism. 25

However, even if the difficulties attending all these questions should still leave room for difference in this respect between men and brutes, there is another very specific quality which distinguishes them, and which will admit of no dispute. This is the faculty of self-improvement, which, by the help of circumstances, gradually develops all the rest of our faculties, and is inherent 30in the species as in the individual: whereas a brute is, at the end of a few months, all he will ever be during his whole life, and his species, at the end of a thousand years, exactly what it was the first year of that thousand. Why is man alone liable to grow into a dotard -senile? Is it not because he returns, in this, to his primitive state; and that, while the brute, which has acquired 35nothing and has therefore nothing to lose, still retains the force of instinct, man, who loses, by age or accident, all that his perfectibility had enabled him to gain, falls by this means lower than the brutes themselves? It would be melancholy, were we forced to admit that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the source of all human misfortunes; that it is this which, in time, 40draws man out of his original state, in which he would have spent his days insensibly in peace and innocence; that it is this faculty, which, successively producing in different ages his discoveries and his errors, his vices and his virtues, makes him at length a tyrant both over himself and over nature.1 It

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would be shocking to be obliged to regard as a benefactor the man who first suggested to the Oroonoko Indians the use of the boards they apply to the temples of their children, which secure to them some part at least of their imbecility and original happiness.

Savage man, left by nature solely to the direction of instinct, or rather 5indemnified for what he may lack by faculties capable at first of supplying its place, and afterwards of raising him much above it, must accordingly begin with purely animal functions: thus seeing and feeling must be his first condition, which would be common to him and all other animals. To will, and not to will, to desire and to fear, must be the first, and almost the only 10operations of his soul, till new circumstances occasion new developments of his faculties.

Whatever moralists may hold, the human understanding is greatly indebted to the passions, which, it is universally allowed, are also much indebted to the understanding. It is by the activity of the passions that our 15reason is improved; for we desire knowledge only because we wish to enjoy; and it is impossible to conceive any reason why a person who has neither fears nor desires should give himself the trouble of reasoning. The passions, again, originate in our wants, and their progress depends on that of our knowledge; for we cannot desire or fear anything, except from the idea we have of it, or 20from the simple impulse of nature. Now savage man, being destitute of every species of intelligence, can have no passions save those of the latter kind: his desires never go beyond his physical wants. The only goods he recognises in the universe are food, a female, and sleep: the only evils he fears are pain and hunger. I say pain, and not death: for no animal can know what it is to die; the 25knowledge of death and its terrors being one of the first acquisitions made by man in departing from an animal state.

It would be easy, were it necessary, to support this opinion by facts, and to show that, in all the nations of the world, the progress of the understanding has been exactly proportionate to the wants which the peoples had received 30from nature, or been subjected to by circumstances, and in consequence to the passions that induced them to provide for those necessities. I might instance the arts, rising up in Egypt and expanding with the inundation of the Nile. I might follow their progress into Greece, where they took root afresh, grew up and lowered to the skies, among the rocks and sands of Attica, without being 35able to germinate on the fertile banks of the Eurotas: I might observe that in general, the people of the North are more industrious than those of the South, because they cannot get on so well without being so: as if nature wanted to equalise matters by giving their understandings the fertility she had refused to their soil. 40

But who does not see, without recurring to the uncertain testimony of history, that everything seems to remove from savage man both the temptation and the means of changing his condition? His imagination paints no pictures; his heart makes no demands on him. His few wants are so readily

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supplied, and he is so far from having the knowledge which is needful to make him want more, that he can have neither foresight nor curiosity. The face of nature becomes indifferent to him as it grows familiar. He sees in it always the same order, the same successions: he has not understanding enough to wonder at the greatest miracles; nor is it in his mind that we can expect to find that 5philosophy man needs, if he is to know how to notice for once what he sees every day. His soul, which nothing disturbs, is wholly wrapped up in the feeling of its present existence, without any idea of the future, however near at hand; while his projects, as limited as his views, hardly extend to the close of day. Such, even at present, is the extent of the native Caribbean's foresight: he 10will improvidently sell you his cotton-bed in the morning, and come crying in the evening to buy it again, not having foreseen he would want it again the next night.

The more we reflect on this subject, the greater appears the distance between pure sensation and the most simple knowledge: it is impossible indeed 15to conceive how a man, by his own powers alone, without the aid of communication and the spur of necessity, could have bridged so great a gap. How many ages may have elapsed before mankind were in a position to behold any other fire than that of the heavens. What a multiplicity of chances must have happened to teach them the commonest uses of that element! How often 20must they have let it out before they acquired the art of reproducing it? and how often may not such a secret have died with him who had discovered it? What shall we say of agriculture, an art which requires so much labour and foresight, which is so dependent on others that it is plain it could only be practised in a society which had at least begun, and which does not serve so 25much to draw the means of subsistence from the earth — for these it would produce of itself — but to compel it to produce what is most to our taste? But let us suppose that men had so multiplied that the natural produce of the earth was no longer sufficient for their support; a supposition, by the way, which would prove such a life to be very advantageous for the human race; let us 30suppose that, without forges or workshops, the instruments of husbandry had dropped from the sky into the hands of savages; that they had overcome their natural aversion to continual labour; that they had learnt so much foresight for their needs; that they had divined how to cultivate the earth, to sow grain and plant trees; that they had discovered the arts of grinding corn, and of setting 35the grape to ferment — all being things that must have been taught them by the gods, since it is not to be conceived how they could discover them for themselves — yet after all this, what man among them would be so absurd as to take the trouble of cultivating a field, which might be stripped of its crop by the first comer, man or beast, that might take a liking to it; and how should 40each of them resolve to pass his life in wearisome labour, when, the more necessary to him the reward of his labour might be, the surer he would be of not getting it? In a word, how could such a situation induce men to cultivate

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the earth, till it was regularly parcelled out among them; that is to say, till the state of nature had been abolished?

Were we to suppose savage man as trained in the art of thinking as philosophers make him; were we, like them, to suppose him a very philosopher capable of investigating the sublimest truths, and of forming, by highly 5abstract chains of reasoning, maxims of reason and justice, deduced from the love of order in general, or the known will of his Creator; in a word, were we to suppose him as intelligent and enlightened, as he must have been, and is in fact found to have been, dull and stupid, what advantage would accrue to the species, from all such metaphysics, which could not be communicated by one to 10another, but must end with him who made them? What progress could be made by mankind, while dispersed in the woods among other animals? and how far could men improve or mutually enlighten one another, when, having no fixed habitation, and no need of one another's assistance, the same persons hardly met twice in their lives, and perhaps then, without knowing one 15another or speaking together?

Let it be considered how many ideas we owe to the use of speech; how far grammar exercises the understanding and facilitates its operations. Let us reflect on the inconceivable pains and the infinite space of time that the first invention of languages must have cost. To these reflections add what preceded, 20and then judge how many thousand ages must have elapsed in the successive development in the human mind of those operations of which it is capable. […]

But I stop at this point, and ask my judges to suspend their reading a while, to consider, after the invention of physical substantives -nouns, which is 25the easiest part of language to invent, that there is still a great way to go, before the thoughts of men will have found perfect expression and constant form, such as would answer the purposes of public speaking, and produce their effect on society. I beg of them to consider how much time must have been spent, and how much knowledge needed, to find out numbers, abstract terms, 30aorists and all the tenses of verbs, particles, syntax, the method of connecting propositions, the forms of reasoning, and all the logic of speech. For myself, I am so aghast at the increasing difficulties which present themselves, and so well convinced of the almost demonstrable impossibility that languages should owe their original institution to merely human means, that I leave, to anyone 35who will undertake it, the discussion of the difficult problem, which was most necessary, the existence of society to the invention of language, or the invention of language to the establishment of society. But be the origin of language and society what they may, it may be at least inferred, from the little care which nature has taken to unite mankind by mutual wants, and to 40facilitate the use of speech, that she has contributed little to make them sociable, and has put little of her own into all they have done to create such bonds of union. It is in fact impossible to conceive why, in a state of nature, one man should stand more in need of the assistance of another, than a monkey or

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a wolf of the assistance of another of its kind: or, granting that he did, what motives could induce that other to assist him; or, even then, by what means they could agree about the conditions. I know it is incessantly repeated that man would in such a state have been the most miserable of creatures; and indeed, if it be true, as I think I have proved, that he must have lived many 5ages, before he could have either desire or an opportunity of emerging from it, this would only be an accusation against nature, and not against the being which she had thus unhappily constituted. But as I understand the word miserable, it either has no meaning at all, or else signifies only a painful privation of something, or a state of suffering either in body or soul. I should 10be glad to have explained to me, what kind of misery a free being, whose heart is at ease and whose body is in health, can possibly suffer. I would ask also, whether a social or a natural life is most likely to become insupportable to those who enjoy it. We see around us hardly a creature in civil society, who does not lament his existence: we even see many deprive themselves of as 15much of it as they can, and laws human and divine together can hardly put a stop to the disorder. I ask, if it was ever known that a savage took it into his head, when at liberty, to complain of life or to make away with himself. Let us therefore judge, with less vanity, on which side the real misery is found. On the other hand, nothing could be more unhappy than savage man, dazzled by 20science, tormented by his passions, and reasoning about a state different from his own. It appears that Providence most wisely determined that the faculties, which he potentially possessed, should develop themselves only as occasion offered to exercise them, in order that they might not be superfluous or perplexing to him, by appearing before their time, nor slow and useless when 25the need for them arose. In instinct alone, he had all he required for living in the state of nature; and with a developed understanding he has only just enough to support life in society.

It appears, at first view, that men in a state of nature, having no moral relations or determinate obligations one with another, could not be either good 30or bad, virtuous or vicious; unless we take these terms in a physical sense, and call, in an individual, those qualities vices which may be injurious to his preservation, and those virtues which contribute to it; in which case, he would have to be accounted most virtuous, who put least check on the pure impulses of nature. But without deviating from the ordinary sense of the words, it will 35be proper to suspend the judgment we might be led to form on such a state, and be on our guard against our prejudices, till we have weighed the matter in the scales of impartiality, and seen whether virtues or vices preponderate among civilised men; and whether their virtues do them more good than their vices do harm; till we have discovered, whether the progress of the sciences 40sufficiently indemnifies them for the mischiefs they do one another, in proportion as they are better informed of the good they ought to do; or whether they would not be, on the whole, in a much happier condition if they had nothing to fear or to hope from any one, than as they are, subjected to

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universal dependence, and obliged to take everything from those who engage to give them nothing in return.

Above all, let us not conclude, with Hobbes, that because man has no idea of goodness, he must be naturally wicked; that he is vicious because he does not know virtue; that he always refuses to do his fellow-creatures services 5which he does not think they have a right to demand; or that by virtue of the right he truly claims to everything he needs, he foolishly imagines himself the sole proprietor of the whole universe. Hobbes had seen clearly the defects of all the modern definitions of natural right: but the consequences which he deduces from his own show that he understands it in an equally false sense. In 10reasoning on the principles he lays down, he ought to have said that the state of nature, being that in which the care for our own preservation is the least prejudicial to that of others, was consequently the best calculated to promote peace, and the most suitable for mankind. He does say the exact opposite, in consequence of having improperly admitted, as a part of savage man's care for 15self-preservation, the gratification of a multitude of passions which are the work of society, and have made laws necessary. A bad man, he says, is a robust child. But it remains to be proved whether man in a state of nature is this robust child: and, should we grant that he is, what would he infer? Why truly, that if this man, when robust and strong, were dependent on others as he is 20when feeble, there is no extravagance he would not be guilty of; that he would beat his mother when she was too slow in giving him her breast; that he would strangle one of his younger brothers, if he should be troublesome to him, or bite the arm of another, if he put him to any inconvenience. But that man in the state of nature is both strong and dependent involves two contrary 25suppositions. Man is weak when he is dependent, and is his own master before he comes to be strong. Hobbes did not reflect that the same cause, which prevents a savage from making use of his reason, as our jurists hold, prevents him also from abusing his faculties, as Hobbes himself allows: so that it may be justly said that savages are not bad merely because they do not know what it is 30to be good: for it is neither the development of the understanding nor the restraint of law that hinders them from doing ill; but the peacefulness of their passions, and their ignorance of vice: tanto plus in illis proficit vitiorum ignoratio, quam in his cognitio virtutis.8

There is another principle which has escaped Hobbes; which, having 35been bestowed on mankind, to moderate, on certain occasions, the impetuosity of egoism, or, before its birth, the desire of self-preservation, tempers the ardour with which he pursues his own welfare, by an innate repugnance at seeing a fellow-creature suffer.9 I think I need not fear contradiction in holding

8 Justin, Hist. ii. 2. So much more does the ignorance of vice profit the one sort than the knowledge of virtue the other. 9 amour proper vs. amour de soi: Egoism must not be confused with self-respect: for they differ both in themselves and in their effects. Self-respect is a natural feeling which leads every animal to look to its own preservation, and which, guided in man by reason and modified by

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man to be possessed of the only natural virtue, which could not be denied him by the most violent detractor of human virtue. I am speaking of compassion, which is a disposition suitable to creatures so weak and subject to so many evils as we certainly are: by so much the more universal and useful to mankind, as it comes before any kind of reflection; and at the same time so natural, that 5the very brutes themselves sometimes give evident proofs of it. Not to mention the tenderness of mothers for their offspring and the perils they encounter to save them from danger, it is well known that horses show a reluctance to trample on living bodies. One animal never passes by the dead body of another of its species: there are even some which give their fellows a sort of burial; 10while the mournful lowings of the cattle when they enter the slaughter-house show the impressions made on them by the horrible spectacle which meets them. We find, with pleasure, the author of the Fable of the Bees obliged to own that man is a compassionate and sensible being, and laying aside his cold subtlety of style, in the example he gives, to present us with the pathetic 15description of a man who, from a place of confinement, is compelled to behold a wild beast tear a child from the arms of its mother, grinding its tender limbs with its murderous teeth, and tearing its palpitating entrails with its claws. What horrid agitation must not the eyewitness of such a scene experience, although he would not be personally concerned! What anxiety would he not 20suffer at not being able to give any assistance to the fainting mother and the dying infant!

Such is the pure emotion of nature, prior to all kinds of reflection! Such is the force of natural compassion, which the greatest depravity of morals has as yet hardly been able to destroy! for we daily find at our theatres men 25affected, nay shedding tears at the sufferings of a wretch who, were he in the tyrant's place, would probably even add to the torments of his enemies; like the bloodthirsty Sulla, who was so sensitive to ills he had not caused, or that Alexander of Pheros who did not dare to go and see any tragedy acted, for fear of being seen weeping with Andromache and Priam, though he could listen 30compassion, creates humanity and virtue. Egoism is a purely relative and factitious feeling, which arises in the state of society, leads each individual to make more of himself than of any other, causes all the mutual damage men inflict one on another, and is the real source of the “sense of honour.” This being understood, I maintain that, in our primitive condition, in the true state of nature, egoism did not exist; for as each man regarded himself as the only observer of his actions, the only being in the universe who took any interest in him, and the sole judge of his deserts, no feeling arising from comparisons he could not be led to make could take root in his soul; and for the same reason, he could know neither hatred nor the desire for revenge, since these passions can spring only from a sense of injury: and as it is the contempt or the intention to hurt, and not the harm done, which constitutes the injury, men who neither valued nor compared themselves could do one another much violence, when it suited them, without feeling any sense of injury. In a word, each man, regarding his fellows almost as he regarded animals of different species, might seize the prey of a weaker or yield up his own to a stronger, and yet consider these acts of violence as mere natural occurrences, without the slightest emotion of insolence or despite, or any other feeling than the joy or grief of success or failure.

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without emotion to the cries of all the citizens who were daily strangled at his command.

Mollissima corda Humano generi dare se natura fatetur, 5

Quœ lacrimas dedit.10 Juvenal, Satires, xv. 151

Mandeville well knew that, in spite of all their morality, men would have never 10been better than monsters, had not nature bestowed on them a sense of compassion, to aid their reason: but he did not see that from this quality alone flow all those social virtues, of which he denied man the possession. But what is generosity, clemency – mercy – or humanity but compassion applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to mankind in general? Even benevolence and 15friendship are, if we judge rightly, only the effects of compassion, constantly set upon a particular object: for how is it different to wish that another person may not suffer pain and uneasiness and to wish him happy? Were it even true that pity is no more than a feeling, which puts us in the place of the sufferer, a feeling, obscure yet lively in a savage, developed yet feeble in civilised man; 20this truth would have no other consequence than to confirm my argument. Compassion must, in fact, be the stronger, the more the animal beholding any kind of distress identifies himself with the animal that suffers. Now, it is plain that such identification must have been much more perfect in a state of nature than it is in a state of reason. It is reason that engenders self-respect, and 25reflection that confirms it: it is reason which turns man's mind back upon itself, and divides him from everything that could disturb or afflict him. It is philosophy that isolates him, and bids him say, at sight of the misfortunes of others: “Perish if you will, I am secure.” Nothing but such general evils as threaten the whole community can disturb the tranquil sleep of the 30philosopher, or tear him from his bed. A murder may with impunity be committed under his window; he has only to put his hands to his ears and argue a little with himself, to prevent nature, which is shocked within him, from identifying itself with the unfortunate sufferer. Uncivilised man has not this admirable talent; and for want of reason and wisdom, is always foolishly 35ready to obey the first promptings of humanity. It is the populace that flocks together at riots and street-brawls, while the wise man prudently makes off. It is the mob and the market-women, who part the combatants, and hinder gentle-folks from cutting one another's throats.

It is then certain that compassion is a natural feeling, which, by 40moderating the violence of love of self in each individual, contributes to the preservation of the whole species. It is this compassion that hurries us without reflection to the relief of those who are in distress: it is this which in a state of 10 Nature avows she gave the human race the softest hearts, who gave them tears.

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nature supplies the place of laws, morals and virtues, with the advantage that none are tempted to disobey its gentle voice: it is this which will always prevent a sturdy savage from robbing a weak child or a feeble old man of the sustenance they may have with pain and difficulty acquired, if he sees a possibility of providing for himself by other means: it is this which, instead of 5inculcating that sublime maxim of rational justice. Do to others as you would have them do unto you, inspires all men with that other maxim of natural goodness, much less perfect indeed, but perhaps more useful; Do good to yourself with as little evil as possible to others. In a word, it is rather in this natural feeling than in any subtle arguments that we must look for the cause of 10that repugnance, which every man would experience in doing evil, even independently of the maxims of education. Although it might belong to Socrates and other minds of the like craft to acquire virtue by reason, the human race would long since have ceased to be, had its preservation depended only on the reasonings of the individuals composing it. 15

With passions so little active, and so good a curb, men, being rather wild than wicked, and more intent to guard themselves against the mischief that might be done them, than to do mischief to others, were by no means subject to very perilous dissensions. They maintained no kind of intercourse with one another, and were consequently strangers to vanity, deference, esteem and 20contempt; they had not the least idea of meum and tuum (mine and thine), and no true conception of justice; they looked upon every violence to which they were subjected, rather as an injury that might easily be repaired than as a crime that ought to be punished; and they never thought of taking revenge, unless perhaps mechanically and on the spot, as a dog will sometimes bite the 25stone which is thrown at him. Their quarrels therefore would seldom have very bloody consequences; for the subject of them would be merely the question of subsistence. But I am aware of one greater danger, which remains to be noticed.

Of the passions that stir the heart of man, there is one which makes the 30sexes necessary to each other, and is extremely ardent and impetuous; a terrible passion that braves danger, surmounts all obstacles, and in its transports seems calculated to bring destruction on the human race which it is really destined to preserve. What must become of men who are left to this brutal and boundless rage, without modesty, without shame, and daily 35upholding their amours at the price of their blood?

It must, in the first place, be allowed that, the more violent the passions are, the more are laws necessary to keep them under restraint. But, setting aside the inadequacy of laws to effect this purpose, which is evident from the crimes and disorders to which these passions daily give rise among us, we 40should do well to inquire if these evils did not spring up with the laws themselves; for in this case, even if the laws were capable of repressing such evils, it is the least that could be expected from them, that they should check a mischief which would not have arisen without them.

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[…] Let us conclude then that man in a state of nature, wandering up and

down the forests, without industry, without speech, and without home, an equal stranger to war and to all ties, neither standing in need of his fellow-creatures nor having any desire to hurt them, and perhaps even not 5distinguishing them one from another; let us conclude that, being self-sufficient and subject to so few passions, he could have no feelings or knowledge but such as befitted his situation; that he felt only his actual necessities, and disregarded everything he did not think himself immediately concerned to notice, and that his understanding made no greater progress than 10his vanity. If by accident he made any discovery, he was the less able to communicate it to others, as he did not know even his own children. Every art would necessarily perish with its inventor, where there was no kind of education among men, and generations succeeded generations without the least advance; when, all setting out from the same point, centuries must have 15elapsed in the barbarism of the first ages; when the race was already old, and man remained a child.

If I have expatiated –wandered- at such length on this supposed primitive state, it is because I had so many ancient errors and inveterate prejudices to eradicate, and therefore thought it incumbent on me to dig down 20to their very root, and show, by means of a true picture of the state of nature, how far even the natural inequalities of mankind are from having that reality and influence which modern writers suppose.

It is in fact easy to see that many of the differences which distinguish men are merely the effect of habit and the different methods of life men adopt 25in society. Thus a robust or delicate constitution, and the strength or weakness attaching to it, are more frequently the effects of a hardy or effeminate method of education than of the original endowment of the body. It is the same with the powers of the mind; for education not only makes a difference between such as are cultured and such as are not, but even increases the differences 30which exist among the former, in proportion to their respective degrees of culture: as the distance between a giant and a dwarf on the same road increases with every step they take. If we compare the prodigious diversity, which obtains in the education and manner of life of the various orders of men in the state of society, with the uniformity and simplicity of animal and savage life, in 35which everyone lives on the same kind of food and in exactly the same manner, and does exactly the same things, it is easy to conceive how much less the difference between man and man must be in a state of nature than in a state of society, and how greatly the natural inequality of mankind must be increased by the inequalities of social institutions. 40

But even if nature really affected, in the distribution of her gifts, that partiality which is imputed to her, what advantage would the greatest of her favourites derive from it, to the detriment of others, in a state that admits of hardly any kind of relation between them? Where there is no love, of what

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advantage is beauty? Of what use is wit to those who do not converse, or cunning to those who have no business with others? I hear it constantly repeated that, in such a state, the strong would oppress the weak; but what is here meant by oppression? Some, it is said, would violently domineer over others, who would groan under a servile submission to their caprices. This 5indeed is exactly what I observe to be the case among us; but I do not see how it can be inferred of men in a state of nature, who could not easily be brought to conceive what we mean by dominion and servitude. One man, it is true, might seize the fruits which another had gathered, the game he had killed, or the cave he had chosen for shelter; but how would he ever be able to exact 10obedience, and what ties of dependence could there be among men without possessions? If, for instance, I am driven from one tree, I can go to the next; if I am disturbed in one place, what hinders me from going to another? Again, should I happen to meet with a man so much stronger than myself, and at the same time so depraved, so indolent, and so barbarous, as to compel me to 15provide for his sustenance while he himself remains idle; he must take care not to have his eyes off me for a single moment; he must bind me fast before he goes to sleep, or I shall certainly either knock him on the head or make my escape. That is to say, he must in such a case voluntarily expose himself to much greater trouble than he seeks to avoid, or can give me. After all this, let 20him be off his guard ever so little; let him but turn his head aside at any sudden noise, and I shall be instantly twenty paces off, lost in the forest, and, my fetters burst asunder, he would never see me again.

Without my expatiating thus uselessly on these details, everyone must see that as the bonds of servitude are formed merely by the mutual dependence 25of men on one another and the reciprocal needs that unite them, it is impossible to make any man a slave, unless he be first reduced to a situation in which he cannot do without the help of others: and, since such a situation does not exist in a state of nature, everyone is there his own master, and the law of the strongest is of no effect. 30

Having proved that the inequality of mankind is hardly felt, and that its influence is next to nothing in a state of nature, I must next show its origin and trace its progress in the successive developments of the human mind. Having shown that human perfectibility, the social virtues, and the other faculties which natural man potentially possessed, could never develop of 35themselves, but must require the fortuitous concurrence of many foreign causes that might never arise, and without which he would have remained forever in his primitive condition, I must now collect and consider the different accidents which may have improved the human understanding while depraving the species, and made man wicked while making him sociable; so as to bring 40him and the world from that distant period to the point at which we now behold them.

I confess that, as the events I am going to describe might have happened in various ways, I have nothing to determine my choice but conjectures: but

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such conjectures become reasons, when they are the most probable that can be drawn from the nature of things, and the only means of discovering the truth. The consequences, however, which I mean to deduce will not be barely conjectural; as, on the principles just laid down, it would be impossible to form any other theory that would not furnish the same results, and from which I 5could not draw the same conclusions.

This will be a sufficient apology for my not dwelling on the manner in which the lapse of time compensates for the little probability in the events; on the surprising power of trivial causes, when their action is constant; on the impossibility, on the one hand, of destroying certain hypotheses, though on the 10other we cannot give them the certainty of known matters of fact; on its being within the province of history, when two facts are given as real, and have to be connected by a series of intermediate facts, which are unknown or supposed to be so, to supply such facts as may connect them; and on its being in the province of philosophy when history is silent, to determine similar facts to 15serve the same end; and lastly, on the influence of similarity, which, in the case of events, reduces the facts to a much smaller number of different classes than is commonly imagined. It is enough for me to offer these hints to the consideration of my judges, and to have so arranged that the general reader has no need to consider them at all. 20

THE SECOND PART THE first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of 25saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits 30of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody." But there is great probability that things had then already come to such a pitch, that they could no longer continue as they were; for the idea of property depends on many prior ideas, which could only be acquired successively, and cannot have been formed all at once in the human mind. Mankind must have made very 35considerable progress, and acquired considerable knowledge and industry which they must also have transmitted and increased from age to age, before they arrived at this last point of the state of nature. Let us then go farther back, and endeavour to unify under a single point of view that slow succession of events and discoveries in the most natural order. 40

Man's first feeling was that of his own existence, and his first care that of self-preservation. The produce of the earth furnished him with all he needed, and instinct told him how to use it. Hunger and other appetites made him at various times experience various modes of existence; and among these was one

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which urged him to propagate his species — a blind propensity that, having nothing to do with the heart, produced a merely animal act. The want once gratified, the two sexes knew each other no more; and even the offspring was nothing to its mother, as soon as it could do without her.

Such was the condition of infant man; the life of an animal limited at first 5to mere sensations, and hardly profiting by the gifts nature bestowed on him, much less capable of entertaining a thought of forcing anything from her. But difficulties soon presented themselves, and it became necessary to learn how to surmount them: the height of the trees, which prevented him from gathering their fruits, the competition of other animals desirous of the same fruits, and 10the ferocity of those who needed them for their own preservation, all obliged him to apply himself to bodily exercises. He had to be active, swift of foot, and vigorous in fight. Natural weapons, stones and sticks, were easily found: he learnt to surmount the obstacles of nature, to contend in case of necessity with other animals, and to dispute for the means of subsistence even with other 15men, or to indemnify himself for what he was forced to give up to a stronger. […]

Taught by experience that the love of well-being is the sole motive of human actions, he found himself in a position to distinguish the few cases, in which mutual interest might justify him in relying upon the assistance of his 20fellows; and also the still fewer cases in which a conflict of interests might give cause to suspect them. In the former case, he joined in the same herd with them, or at most in some kind of loose association, that laid no restraint on its members, and lasted no longer than the transitory occasion that formed it. In the latter case, every one sought his own private advantage, either by open 25force, if he thought himself strong enough, or by address and cunning, if he felt himself the weaker. […]

The simplicity and solitude of man's life in this new condition, the paucity of his wants, and the implements he had invented to satisfy them, left 30him a great deal of leisure, which he employed to furnish himself with many conveniences unknown to his fathers: and this was the first yoke he inadvertently imposed on himself, and the first source of the evils he prepared for his descendants. For, besides continuing thus to enervate both body and mind, these conveniences lost with use almost all their power to please, and 35even degenerated into real needs, till the want of them became far more disagreeable than the possession of them had been pleasant. Men would have been unhappy at the loss of them, though the possession did not make them happy. […] 40

Thus, though men had become less patient, and their natural compassion had already suffered some diminution, this period of expansion of the human faculties, keeping a just mean between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant activity of our egoism, must have been the

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happiest and most stable of epochs. The more we reflect on it, the more we shall find that this state was the least subject to revolutions, and altogether the very best man could experience; so that he can have departed from it only through some fatal accident, which, for the public good, should never have happened. The example of savages, most of whom have been found in this 5state, seems to prove that men were meant to remain in it, that it is the real youth of the world, and that all subsequent advances have been apparently so many steps towards the perfection of the individual, but in reality towards the decrepitude of the species. […] 10

In this state of affairs, equality might have been sustained, had the talents of individuals been equal, and had, for example, the use of iron and the consumption of commodities always exactly balanced each other; but, as there was nothing to preserve this balance, it was soon disturbed; the strongest did most work; the most skilful turned his labour to best account; the most 15ingenious devised methods of diminishing his labour: the husbandman wanted more iron, or the smith more corn, and, while both laboured equally, the one gained a great deal by his work, while the other could hardly support himself. Thus natural inequality unfolds itself insensibly with that of combination, and the difference between men, developed by their different circumstances, 20becomes more sensible and permanent in its effects, and begins to have an influence, in the same proportion, over the lot of individuals.

Matters once at this pitch, it is easy to imagine the rest. I shall not detain the reader with a description of the successive invention of other arts, the development of language, the trial and utilisation of talents, the inequality 25of fortunes, the use and abuse of riches, and all the details connected with them which the reader can easily supply for himself. I shall confine myself to a glance at mankind in this new situation.

Behold then all human faculties developed, memory and imagination in full play, egoism interested, reason active, and the mind almost at the highest 30point of its perfection. Behold all the natural qualities in action, the rank and condition of every man assigned him; not merely his share of property and his power to serve or injure others, but also his wit, beauty, strength or skill, merit or talents: and these being the only qualities capable of commanding respect, it soon became necessary to possess or to affect them. 35

It now became the interest of men to appear what they really were not. To be and to seem became two totally different things; and from this distinction sprang insolent pomp and cheating trickery, with all the numerous vices that go in their train. On the other hand, free and independent as men were before, they were now, in consequence of a multiplicity of new wants, 40brought into subjection, as it were, to all nature, and particularly to one another; and each became in some degree a slave even in becoming the master of other men: if rich, they stood in need of the services of others; if poor, of their assistance; and even a middle condition did not enable them to do without

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one another. Man must now, therefore, have been perpetually employed in getting others to interest themselves in his lot, and in making them, apparently at least, if not really, find their advantage in promoting his own. Thus he must have been sly and artful in his behaviour to some, and imperious and cruel to others; being under a kind of necessity to ill-use all the persons of 5whom he stood in need, when he could not frighten them into compliance, and did not judge it his interest to be useful to them. Insatiable ambition, the thirst of raising their respective fortunes, not so much from real want as from the desire to surpass others, inspired all men with a vile propensity to injure one another, and with a secret jealousy, which is the more dangerous, as it puts on 10the mask of benevolence, to carry its point with greater security. In a word, there arose rivalry and competition on the one hand, and conflicting interests on the other, together with a secret desire on both of profiting at the expense of others. All these evils were the first effects of property, and the inseparable attendants of growing inequality. 15

Before the invention of signs to represent riches, wealth could hardly consist in anything but lands and cattle, the only real possessions men can have. But, when inheritances so increased in number and extent as to occupy the whole of the land, and to border on one another, one man could aggrandise himself only at the expense of another; at the same time the supernumeraries, 20who had been too weak or too indolent to make such acquisitions, and had grown poor without sustaining any loss, because, while they saw everything change around them, they remained still the same, were obliged to receive their subsistence, or steal it, from the rich; and this soon bred, according to their different characters, dominion and slavery, or violence and rapine. The 25wealthy, on their part, had no sooner begun to taste the pleasure of command, than they disdained all others, and, using their old slaves to acquire new, thought of nothing but subduing and enslaving their neighbours; like ravenous wolves, which, having once tasted human flesh, despise every other food and thenceforth seek only men to devour. 30

Thus, as the most powerful or the most miserable considered their might or misery as a kind of right to the possessions of others, equivalent, in their opinion, to that of property, the destruction of equality was attended by the most terrible disorders. Usurpations by the rich, robbery by the poor, and the unbridled passions of both, suppressed the cries of natural compassion and 35the still feeble voice of justice, and filled men with avarice, ambition and vice. Between the title of the strongest and that of the first occupier, there arose perpetual conflicts, which never ended but in battles and bloodshed. The new-born state of society thus gave rise to a horrible state of war; men thus harassed and depraved were no longer capable of retracing their steps or 40renouncing the fatal acquisitions they had made, but, labouring by the abuse of the faculties which do them honour, merely to their own confusion, brought themselves to the brink of ruin.

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Attonitus novitate mali, divesque miserque, Effugere optat opes; et quæ modo voverat odit.11

It is impossible that men should not at length have reflected on so wretched a situation, and on the calamities that overwhelmed them. The rich, 5in particular, must have felt how much they suffered by a constant state of war, of which they bore all the expense; and in which, though all risked their lives, they alone risked their property. Besides, however speciously they might disguise their usurpations, they knew that they were founded on precarious and false titles; so that, if others took from them by force what they themselves 10had gained by force, they would have no reason to complain. Even those who had been enriched by their own industry, could hardly base their proprietorship on better claims. It was in vain to repeat, “I built this well; I gained this spot by my industry.” Who gave you your standing, it might be answered, and what right have you to demand payment of us for doing what 15we never asked you to do? Do you not know that numbers of your fellow-creatures are starving, for want of what you have too much of? You ought to have had the express and universal consent of mankind, before appropriating more of the common subsistence than you needed for your own maintenance. Destitute of valid reasons to justify and sufficient strength to defend himself, 20able to crush individuals with ease, but easily crushed himself by a troop of bandits, one against all, and incapable, on account of mutual jealousy, of joining with his equals against numerous enemies united by the common hope of plunder, the rich man, thus urged by necessity, conceived at length the profoundest plan that ever entered the mind of man: this was to employ in his 25favour the forces of those who attacked him, to make allies of his adversaries, to inspire them with different maxims, and to give them other institutions as favourable to himself as the law of nature was unfavourable.

With this view, after having represented to his neighbours the horror of a situation which armed every man against the rest, and made their 30possessions as burdensome to them as their wants, and in which no safety could be expected either in riches or in poverty, he readily devised plausible arguments to make them close with his design. “Let us join,” said he, “to guard the weak from oppression, to restrain the ambitious, and secure to every man the possession of what belongs to him: let us institute rules of justice and 35peace, to which all without exception may be obliged to conform; rules that may in some measure make amends for the caprices of fortune, by subjecting equally the powerful and the weak to the observance of reciprocal obligations. Let us, in a word, instead of turning our forces against ourselves, collect them in a supreme power which may govern us by wise laws, protect and defend all 40the members of the association, repulse their common enemies, and maintain eternal harmony among us.” 11 Ovid, Metamorphoses, xi. 127. “Both rich and poor, shocked at their new-found ills, Would fly from wealth, and lose what they had sought.”

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Far fewer words to this purpose would have been enough to impose on men so barbarous and easily seduced; especially as they had too many disputes among themselves to do without arbitrators, and too much ambition and avarice to go long without masters. All ran headlong to their chains, in hopes of securing their liberty; for they had just wit enough to perceive the 5advantages of political institutions, without experience enough to enable them to foresee the dangers. The most capable of foreseeing the dangers were the very persons who expected to benefit by them; and even the most prudent judged it not inexpedient to sacrifice one part of their freedom to ensure the rest; as a wounded man has his arm cut off to save the rest of his body. 10

Such was, or may well have been, the origin of society and law, which bound new fetters on the poor, and gave new powers to the rich; which irretrievably destroyed natural liberty, eternally fixed the law of property and inequality, converted clever usurpation into unalterable right, and, for the advantage of a few ambitious individuals, subjected all mankind to perpetual 15labour, slavery and wretchedness. It is easy to see how the establishment of one community made that of all the rest necessary, and how, in order to make head against united forces, the rest of mankind had to unite in turn. Societies soon multiplied and spread over the face of the earth, till hardly a corner of the world was left in which a man could escape the yoke, and withdraw his head 20from beneath the sword which he saw perpetually hanging over him by a thread. Civil right having thus become the common rule among the members of each community, the law of nature maintained its place only between different communities, where, under the name of the right of nations, it was qualified by certain tacit conventions, in order to make commerce practicable, 25and serve as a substitute for natural compassion, which lost, when applied to societies, almost all the influence it had over individuals, and survived no longer except in some great cosmopolitan spirits, who, breaking down the imaginary barriers that separate different peoples, follow the example of our Sovereign Creator, and include the whole human race in their benevolence. 30

But bodies politic, remaining thus in a state of nature among themselves, presently experienced the inconveniences which had obliged individuals to forsake it; for this state became still more fatal to these great bodies than it had been to the individuals of whom they were composed. Hence arose national wars, battles, murders, and reprisals, which shock nature and outrage reason; 35together with all those horrible prejudices which class among the virtues the honour of shedding human blood. The most distinguished men hence learned to consider cutting each other's throats a duty; at length men massacred their fellow-creatures by thousands without so much as knowing why, and committed more murders in a single day's fighting, and more violent outrages 40in the sack of a single town, than were committed in the state of nature during whole ages over the whole earth. Such were the first effects which we can see to have followed the division of mankind into different communities. But let us return to their institutions.

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I know that some writers have given other explanations of the origin of political societies, such as the conquest of the powerful, or the association of the weak. It is, indeed, indifferent to my argument which of these causes we choose. That which I have just laid down, however, appears to me the most natural for the following reasons. First: because, in the first case, the right of 5conquest, being no right in itself, could not serve as a foundation on which to build any other; the victor and the vanquished people still remained with respect to each other in the state of war, unless the vanquished, restored to the full possession of their liberty, voluntarily made choice of the victor for their chief. For till then, whatever capitulation may have been made being founded 10on violence, and therefore ipso facto void, there could not have been on this hypothesis either a real society or body politic, or any law other than that of the strongest. Secondly: because the words strong and weak are, in the second case, ambiguous; for during the interval between the establishment of a right of property, or prior occupancy, and that of political government, the meaning 15of these words is better expressed by the terms rich and poor: because, in fact, before the institution of laws, men had no other way of reducing their equals to submission, than by attacking their goods, or making some of their own over to them. Thirdly: because, as the poor had nothing but their freedom to lose, it would have been in the highest degree absurd for them to resign voluntarily 20the only good they still enjoyed, without getting anything in exchange: whereas the rich having feelings, if I may so express myself, in every part of their possessions, it was much easier to harm them, and therefore more necessary for them to take precautions against it; and, in short, because it is more reasonable to suppose a thing to have been invented by those to whom it 25would be of service, than by those whom it must have harmed. […]

Puffendorf says that we may divest ourselves of our liberty in favour of other men, just as we transfer our property from one to another by contracts and agreements. But this seems a very weak argument. For in the first place, 30the property I alienate becomes quite foreign to me, nor can I suffer from the abuse of it; but it very nearly concerns me that my liberty should not be abused, and I cannot without incurring the guilt of the crimes I may be compelled to commit, expose myself to become an instrument of crime. Besides, the right of property being only a convention of human institution, 35men may dispose of what they possess as they please: but this is not the case with the essential gifts of nature, such as life and liberty, which every man is permitted to enjoy, and of which it is at least doubtful whether any have a right to divest themselves. By giving up the one, we degrade our being; by giving up the other, we do our best to annul it; and, as no temporal good can 40indemnify us for the loss of either, it would be an offence against both reason and nature to renounce them at any price whatsoever. But, even if we could transfer our liberty, as we do our property, there would be a great difference with regard to the children, who enjoy the father's substance only by the

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transmission of his right; whereas, liberty being a gift which they hold from nature as being men, their parents have no right whatever to deprive them of it. As then, to establish slavery, it was necessary to do violence to nature, so, in order to perpetuate such a right, nature would have to be changed. Jurists, who have gravely determined that the child of a slave comes into the world a 5slave, have decided, in other words, that a man shall come into the world not a man.

I regard it then as certain, that government did not begin with arbitrary power, but that this is the depravation, the extreme term, of government, and brings it back, finally, to just the law of the strongest, which it was originally 10designed to remedy. Supposing, however, it had begun in this manner, such power, being in itself illegitimate, could not have served as a basis for the laws of society, nor, consequently, for the inequality they instituted. […]

If this were the place to go into details, I could readily explain how, even 15without the intervention of government, inequality of credit and authority became unavoidable among private persons, as soon as their union in a single society made them compare themselves one with another, and take into account the differences which they found out from the continual intercourse every man had to have with his neighbours.8 These differences are of several 20kinds; but riches, nobility or rank, power and personal merit being the principal distinctions by which men form an estimate of each other in society, I could prove that the harmony or conflict of these different forces is the surest indication of the good or bad constitution of a State. I could show that among these four kinds of inequality, personal qualities being the origin of all the 25others, wealth is the one to which they are all reduced in the end; for, as riches tend most immediately to the prosperity of individuals, and are easiest to communicate, they are used to purchase every other distinction. By this observation we are enabled to judge pretty exactly how far a people has departed from its primitive constitution, and of its progress towards the 30extreme term of corruption. I could explain how much this universal desire for reputation, honours and advancement, which inflames us all, exercises and holds up to comparison our faculties and powers; how it excites and multiplies our passions, and, by creating universal competition and rivalry, or rather enmity, among men, occasions numberless failures, successes and disturbances 35of all kinds by making so many aspirants run the same course. I could show that it is to this desire of being talked about, and this unremitting rage of distinguishing ourselves, that we owe the best and the worst things we possess, both our virtues and our vices, our science and our errors, our conquerors and our philosophers; that is to say, a great many bad things, and a 40very few good ones. In a word, I could prove that, if we have a few rich and powerful men on the pinnacle of fortune and grandeur, while the crowd grovels in want and obscurity, it is because the former prize what they enjoy only in so far as others are destitute of it; and because, without changing their

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condition, they would cease to be happy the moment the people ceased to be wretched.

These details alone, however, would furnish matter for a considerable work, in which the advantages and disadvantages of every kind of government might be weighed, as they are related to man in the state of nature, and at the 5same time all the different aspects, under which inequality has up to the present appeared, or may appear in ages yet to come, according to the nature of the several governments, and the alterations which time must unavoidably occasion in them, might be demonstrated. We should then see the multitude oppressed from within, in consequence of the very precautions it had taken to 10guard against foreign tyranny. We should see oppression continually gain ground without it being possible for the oppressed to know where it would stop, or what legitimate means was left them of checking its progress. We should see the rights of citizens, and the freedom of nations slowly extinguished, and the complaints, protests and appeals of the weak treated as 15seditious murmurings. We should see the honour of defending the common cause confined by statecraft to a mercenary part of the people. We should see taxes made necessary by such means, and the disheartened husbandman deserting his fields even in the midst of peace, and leaving the plough to gird on the sword. We should see fatal and capricious codes of honour established; 20and the champions of their country sooner or later becoming its enemies, and for ever holding their daggers to the breasts of their fellow-citizens. The time would come when they would be heard saying to the oppressor of their country — 25

Pectore si fratris gladium juguloque parentis Condere me jubeas, gravidœque in viscera partu Conjugis, invita peragam tamen omnia dextrâ.12 Lucan, i. 376

30From great inequality of fortunes and conditions, from the vast variety

of passions and of talents, of useless and pernicious arts, of vain sciences, would arise a multitude of prejudices equally contrary to reason, happiness and virtue. We should see the magistrates fomenting everything that might weaken men united in society, by promoting dissension among them; 35everything that might sow in it the seeds of actual division, while it gave society the air of harmony; everything that might inspire the different ranks of people with mutual hatred and distrust, by setting the rights and interests of one against those of another, and so strengthen the power which comprehended them all. 40

It is from the midst of this disorder and these revolutions, that despotism, gradually raising up its hideous head and devouring everything 12 If you order me to plunge my sword into my brother’s breast or my father’s throat, and into my pregnant wife’s entrails, I will do so, even though my right hand is unwilling.

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that remained sound and untainted in any part of the State, would at length trample on both the laws and the people, and establish itself on the ruins of the republic. The times which immediately preceded this last change would be times of trouble and calamity; but at length the monster would swallow up everything, and the people would no longer have either chiefs or laws, but only 5tyrants. From this moment there would be no question of virtue or morality; for despotism cui ex honesto nulla est spes, wherever it prevails, admits no other master; it no sooner speaks than probity and duty lose their weight and blind obedience is the only virtue which slaves can still practise.

This is the last term of inequality, the extreme point that closes the 10circle, and meets that from which we set out. Here all private persons return to their first equality, because they are nothing; and, subjects having no law but the will of their master, and their master no restraint but his passions, all notions of good and all principles of equity again vanish. There is here a complete return to the law of the strongest, and so to a new state of nature, 15differing from that we set out from; for the one was a state of nature in its first purity, while this is the consequence of excessive corruption. There is so little difference between the two states in other respects, and the contract of government is so completely dissolved by despotism, that the despot is master only so long as he remains the strongest; as soon as he can be expelled, he has 20no right to complain of violence. The popular insurrection that ends in the death or deposition of a Sultan is as lawful an act as those by which he disposed, the day before, of the lives and fortunes of his subjects. As he was maintained by force alone, it is force alone that overthrows him. Thus everything takes place according to the natural order; and, whatever may be 25the result of such frequent and precipitate revolutions, no one man has reason to complain of the injustice of another, but only of his own ill-fortune or indiscretion.

If the reader thus discovers and retraces the lost and forgotten road, by which man must have passed from the state of nature to the state of society; if 30he carefully restores, along with the intermediate situations which I have just described, those which want of time has compelled me to suppress, or my imagination has failed to suggest, he cannot fail to be struck by the vast distance which separates the two states. It is in tracing this slow succession that he will find the solution of a number of problems of politics and morals, 35which philosophers cannot settle. He will feel that, men being different in different ages, the reason why Diogenes could not find a man was that he sought among his contemporaries a man of an earlier period. He will see that Cato died with Rome and liberty, because he did not fit the age in which he lived; the greatest of men served only to astonish a world which he would 40certainly have ruled, had he lived five hundred years sooner. In a word, he will explain how the soul and the passions of men insensibly change their very nature; why our wants and pleasures in the end seek new objects; and why, the original man having vanished by degrees, society offers to us only an assembly

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of artificial men and factitious passions, which are the work of all these new relations, and without any real foundation in nature. We are taught nothing on this subject, by reflection, that is not entirely confirmed by observation. The savage and the civilised man differ so much in the bottom of their hearts and in their inclinations, that what constitutes the supreme happiness of one would 5reduce the other to despair. The former breathes only peace and liberty; he desires only to live and be free from labour; even the ataraxia of the Stoic falls far short of his profound indifference to every other object. Civilised man, on the other hand, is always moving, sweating, toiling and racking his brains to find still more laborious occupations: he goes on in drudgery to his last 10moment, and even seeks death to put himself in a position to live, or renounces life to acquire immortality. He pays his court to men in power, whom he hates, and to the wealthy, whom he despises; he stops at nothing to have the honour of serving them; he is not ashamed to value himself on his own meanness and their protection; and, proud of his slavery, he speaks with disdain of those, who 15have not the honour of sharing it. What a sight would the perplexing and envied labours of a European minister of State present to the eyes of a Caribbean! How many cruel deaths would not this indolent savage prefer to the horrors of such a life, which is seldom even sweetened by the pleasure of doing good! But, for him to see into the motives of all this solicitude, the words 20power and reputation, would have to bear some meaning in his mind; he would have to know that there are men who set a value on the opinion of the rest of the world; who can be made happy and satisfied with themselves rather on the testimony of other people than on their own. In reality, the source of all these differences is, that the savage lives within himself, while social man lives 25constantly outside himself, and only knows how to live in the opinion of others, so that he seems to receive the consciousness of his own existence merely from the judgment of others concerning him. It is not to my present purpose to insist on the indifference to good and evil which arises from this disposition, in spite of our many fine works on morality, or to show how, 30everything being reduced to appearances, there is but art and mummery in even honour, friendship, virtue, and often vice itself, of which we at length learn the secret of boasting; to show, in short, how, always asking others what we are, and never daring to ask ourselves, in the midst of so much philosophy, humanity and civilisation, and of such sublime codes of morality, we have 35nothing to show for ourselves but a frivolous and deceitful appearance, honour without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness. It is sufficient that I have proved that this is not by any means the original state of man, but that it is merely the spirit of society, and the inequality which society produces, that thus transform and alter all our natural inclinations. 40

I have endeavoured to trace the origin and progress of inequality, and the institution and abuse of political societies, as far as these are capable of being deduced from the nature of man merely by the light of reason, and independently of those sacred dogmas which give the sanction of divine right

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to sovereign authority. It follows from this survey that, as there is hardly any inequality in the state of nature, all the inequality which now prevails owes its strength and growth to the development of our faculties and the advance of the human mind, and becomes at last permanent and legitimate by the establishment of property and laws. Secondly, it follows that moral inequality, 5authorised by positive right alone, clashes with natural right, whenever it is not proportionate to physical inequality; a distinction which sufficiently determines what we ought to think of that species of inequality which prevails in all civilised, countries; since it is plainly contrary to the law of nature, however defined, that children should command old men, fools wise men, and 10that the privileged few should gorge themselves with superfluities, while the starving multitude are in want of the bare necessities of life.

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Enlightenment and Its Critics

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Questions to Consider

• What are some of the central social and political propositions of Enlightenment that extend from the “scientific revolution”?

• Explain Kant’s defense of the “public use of reason” in What is Enlightenment.

• What does Kant mean by the conditions of “immaturity” and how is it related to the priest, scholar, and doctor?

• What is the difference between an enlightened age and an age of Enlightenment?

• Kant’s universality is at a distance from Herder’s more historicist method, discuss some of the divergences and connections.

• Explain Herder’s concept of bildung. • Is Herder an “enlightenment” thinker? • What developments beyond enlightenment did Herder herald? • How does Condorcet view the role of “revolution” for the progress of

humankind? • What does Condorcet mean by the indefinite perfectibility of human

kind? • What are the defining traits of the tenth epoch for Condorcet and what

view of history are they based on? • What are the similarities and differences between Kant’s and

Condorcet’s conceptions of enlightenment? • How does Kant’s moral principle relate to his conception of

enlightenment? • How would Herder criticize Kant’s view of enlightenment? How would

he critique Condorcet’s? • In what ways does Condorcet believe modern Europe is still deficient?

What actions of the past make this evident to him? • Is Condorcet right that the progress of technology will bring equality

and justice? • How does Herder view the philosophical and scientific advancements in

Europe? • Is Herder right to claim that there really is nothing that can really be

called “modern Europe” or “European culture”? • How does Herder view human agency in the progress of history?

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Enlightenment and Its Critics Reading One

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

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A. An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784)

[Adapted from the translation of Mary Gregor (CUP, 1996)] Enlightenment is the human being’s emergence from his self-incurred minority. Minority is inability to make use of one’s own understanding without direction from another. This minority is self-incurred when its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! [Dare to be wise!] Have courage to make use of your 5own understanding! is thus the motto of enlightenment.

It is because of laziness and cowardice that so great a part of humankind, after nature has long since emancipated them from other people’s direction (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless gladly remains minors for life, and that it becomes so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so 10comfortable to be a minor! If I have a book that understands for me, a spiritual advisor who has a conscience for me, a doctor who decides upon a regimen for me, and so forth, I need not trouble myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay; others will readily undertake the irksome business for me. That by far the greatest part of humankind (including the entire fair sex) should hold the step 15toward majority to be not only troublesome but also highly dangerous will soon be seen to by those guardians who have kindly taken it upon themselves to supervise them; after they have made their domesticated animals dumb and carefully prevented these placid creatures from daring to take a single step without the walking cart in which they have confined them, they then show 20them the danger that threatens them if they try to walk alone. Now this danger is not in fact so great, for by a few falls they would eventually learn to walk; but an example of this kind makes them timid and usually frightens them away from any further attempt.

Thus it is difficult for any single individual to extricate himself from the 25minority that has become almost nature to him. He has even grown fond of it and is really unable for the time being to make use of his own understanding, because he was never allowed to make the attempt. Precepts and formulas, those mechanical instruments of a rational use, or rather misuse, of his natural endowments, are the ball and chain of an everlasting minority. And anyone 30who did throw them off would still make only an uncertain leap over even the narrowest ditch, since he would not be accustomed to free movement of this kind. Hence there are only a few who have succeeded, by their own cultivation of their spirit, in extricating themselves from minority and yet walking confidently. 35

But that a public should enlighten itself is more possible; indeed this is almost inevitable, if only it is left its freedom. For there will always be a few independent thinkers, even among the established guardians of the great

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masses, who, after having themselves cast off the yoke of minority, will disseminate the spirit of a rational valuing of one’s own worth and of the calling of each individual to think for himself. What should be noted here is that the public, which was previously put under this yoke by the guardians, may subsequently itself compel them to remain under it, if the public is 5suitably stirred up by some of its guardians who are themselves incapable of any enlightenment; so harmful is it to implant prejudices, because they finally take their revenge on the very people who, or whose predecessors, were their authors. Thus a public can achieve enlightenment only slowly. A revolution may well bring about a failing off of personal despotism and of avaricious or 10tyrannical oppression, but never a true reform in one’s way of thinking; instead new prejudices will serve just as well as old ones to harness the great unthinking masses.

For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the least harmful of anything that could even be called freedom: 15namely, freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters. But I hear from all sides the cry: Do not argue! The officer says: Do not argue but drill! The tax official: Do not argue but pay! The clergyman: Do not argue but believe! (Only one ruler in the world says: Argue as much as you will and about whatever you will, but obey!) Everywhere there are restrictions on freedom. But 20what sort of restriction hinders enlightenment, and what sort does not hinder but instead promotes it? – I reply: The public use of one’s reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among human beings; the private use of one’s reason may, however, often be very narrowly restricted without this particularly hindering the progress of enlightenment. But by the 25public use of one’s own reason I understand that use which someone makes of it as a scholar before the entire public of the world of readers. What I call the private use of reason is that which one may make of it in a certain civil post or office with which he is entrusted. Now, for many affairs conducted in the interest of a commonwealth a certain mechanism is necessary, by means of 30which some members of the commonwealth must behave merely passively, so as to be directed by the government, through an artful unanimity, to public ends (or at least prevented from destroying such ends). Here it is, certainly, impermissible to argue; instead, one must obey. But insofar as this part of the machine also regards himself as a member of a whole commonwealth, even of 35the society of citizens of the world, and so in his capacity of a scholar who by his writings addresses a public in the proper sense of the word, he can certainly argue without thereby harming the affairs assigned to him in part as a passive member. Thus it would be ruinous if an officer, receiving an order from his superiors, wanted while on duty to engage openly in subtle reasoning 40about its appropriateness or utility; he must obey. But he cannot fairly be prevented, as a scholar, from making remarks about errors in the military service and from putting these before his public for appraisal. A citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes imposed upon him; an impertinent censure of such

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levies when he is to pay them may even be punished as a scandal (which could occasion general insubordination). But the same citizen does not act against the duty of a citizen when, as a scholar, he publicly expresses his thoughts about the inappropriateness or even injustice of such decrees. So too, a clergyman is bound to deliver his discourse to the pupils in his catechism class 5and to his congregation in accordance with the creed of the church he serves, for he was employed by it on that condition. But as a scholar he has complete freedom and is even called upon to communicate to the public all his carefully examined and well-intentioned thoughts about what is erroneous in that creed and his suggestions for a better arrangement of the religious and ecclesiastical 10body. And there is nothing in this that could be laid as a burden on his conscience. For what he teaches in consequence of his office as carrying out the business of the church, he represents as something with respect to which he does not have free power to teach as he thinks best, but which he is appointed to deliver as prescribed and in the name of another. He will say: Our church 15teaches this or that; here are the arguments it uses. He then extracts all practical uses for his congregation from precepts to which he would not himself subscribe with full conviction but which he can nevertheless undertake to deliver because it is still not altogether impossible that truth may lie concealed in them, and in any case there is at least nothing contradictory to 20inner religion present in them. For if he believed he had found the latter in them, he could not in conscience hold his office; he would have to resign from it. Thus the use that an appointed teacher makes of his reason before his congregation is merely a private use; for a congregation, however large a gathering it may be, is still only a domestic gathering; and with respect to it 25he, as a priest, is not and cannot be free, since he is carrying out another’s commission. On the other hand as a scholar, who by his writings speaks to the public in the strict sense, that is, the world – hence a clergyman in the public use of his reason – he enjoys an unrestricted freedom to make use of his own reason and to speak in his own person. For that the guardians of the people (in 30spiritual matters) should themselves be minors is an absurdity that amounts to the perpetuation of absurdities.

But should not a society of clergymen, such as an ecclesiastical synod or a venerable classis (as it calls itself among the Dutch), be authorized to bind itself by oath to a certain unalterable creed, in order to carry on an unceasing 35guardianship over each of its members and by means of them over the people, and even to perpetuate this? I say that this is quite impossible. Such a contract, concluded to keep all further enlightenment away from the human race forever, is absolutely null and void, even if it were ratified by the supreme power, by imperial diets and by the most solemn peace treaties. One age 40cannot bind itself and conspire to put the following one into such a condition that it would be impossible for it to enlarge its cognitions (especially in such urgent matters) and to purify them of errors, and generally to make further progress in enlightenment. This would be a crime against human nature,

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whose original vocation lies precisely in such progress; and succeeding generations are therefore perfectly authorized to reject such decisions as unauthorized and made sacrilegiously. The touchstone of whatever can be decided upon as law for a people lies in the question: whether a people could impose such a law upon itself. Now this might indeed be possible for a 5determinate short time, in expectation as it were of a better one, in order to introduce a certain order; during that time each citizen, particularly a clergyman, would be left free, in his capacity as a scholar, to make his remarks publicly, that is, through writings, about defects in the present institution; meanwhile, the order introduced would last until public insight into the nature 10of these things had become so widespread and confirmed that by the union of their voices (even if not all of them) it could submit a proposal to the crown, to take under its protection those congregations that have, perhaps in accordance w ith their concepts of better insight, agreed to an altered religious institution, but without hindering those that wanted to acquiesce in the old one. But it is 15absolutely impermissible to agree, even for a single lifetime, to a permanent religious constitution not to be doubted publicly by anyone and thereby, as it were, to nullify a period of time in the progress of humanity toward improvement and make it fruitless and hence detrimental to posterity. One can indeed, for his own person and even then only for some time, postpone 20enlightenment in what it is incumbent upon him to know; but to renounce enlightenment, whether for his own person or even more so for posterity, is to violate the sacred right of humanity and trample it underfoot. But what a people may never decide upon for itself, a monarch may still less decide upon for a people;, for his legislative authority rests precisely on this, that he unites 25in his will the collective will of the people. As long as he sees to it that any true or supposed improvement is consistent with civil order, he can for the rest leave it to his subjects to do what they find it necessary to do for the sake of their salvation;2 that is no concern of his, but it is indeed his concern to prevent any one of them from forcibly hindering others from working to the 30best of their ability to determine and promote their salvation. It even infringes upon his majesty if he meddles in these affairs by honoring with governmental inspection the writings in which his subjects attempt to clarify their insight, as well as if he does this from his own supreme insight, in which case he exposes himself to the reproach Caesar non est super grammaticos, [Caesar is not above the 35grammarians] but much more so if he demeans his supreme authority so far as to support the spiritual despotism of a few tyrants within his state against the rest of his subjects.

If it is now asked whether we at present live in an enlightened age, the answer is: No, but we do live in an age of enlightenment. As matters now stand, a 40good deal more is required for people on the whole to be in the position, or even able to be put into the position, of using their own understanding confidently and well in religious matters, without another’s guidance. But we do have distinct intimations that the field is now being opened for them to

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work freely in this direction and that the hindrances to universal enlightenment or to humankind’s emergence from its self-incurred minority are gradually becoming fewer. In this regard this age is the age of enlightenment or the century of Frederick.

A prince who does not find it beneath himself to say that he considers it 5his duty not to prescribe anything to human beings in religious matters but to leave them complete freedom, who thus even declines the arrogant name of tolerance, is himself enlightened and deserves to be praised by a grateful world and by posterity as the one who first released the human race from minority, at least from the side of government, and left each free to make use of his own 10reason in all matters of conscience. Under him, venerable clergymen, notwithstanding their official duties, may in their capacity as scholars freely and publicly lay before the world for examination their judgments and insights deviating here and there from the creed adopted, and still more may any other who is not restricted by any official duties. This spirit of freedom is also 15spreading abroad, even where it has to struggle with external obstacles of a government which misunderstands itself. For it shines as an example to such a government that in freedom there is not the least cause for anxiety about public concord and the unity of the commonwealth. People gradually work their way out of barbarism of their own accord if only one does not 20intentionally contrive to keep them in it.

I have put the main point of enlightenment, of people’s emergence from their self-incurred minority, chiefly in matters of religion because our rulers have no interest in playing guardian over their subjects with respect to the arts and sciences and also because that minority being the most harmful, is 25also the most disgraceful of all. But the frame of mind of a head of state who favors the first goes still further and sees that even with respect to his legislation there is no danger in allowing his subjects to make public use of their own reason and to publish to the world their thoughts about a better way of formulating it, even with candid criticism of that already given; we have a 30shining example of this, in which no monarch has yet surpassed the one whom we honor.

But only one who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of phantoms, but at the same time has a well-disciplined and numerous army ready to guarantee public peace, can say what a free state may not dare to say: Argue as much as you 35will and about what you will; only obey! Here a strange, unexpected course is revealed in human affairs, as happens elsewhere too if it is considered in the large, where almost everything is paradoxical. A greater degree of civil freedom seems advantageous to a people’s freedom of spirit and nevertheless puts up insurmountable barriers to it; a lesser degree of the former, on the 40other hand, provides a space for the latter to expand to its full capacity. Thus when nature has unwrapped, from under this hard shell, the seed for which she cares most tenderly, namely the propensity and calling to think freely, the latter gradually works back upon the mentality of the people (which thereby

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gradually becomes capable of freedom in acting) and eventually even upon the principles of government, which finds it profitable to itself to treat the human being, who is now more than a machine, in keeping with his dignity. Königsberg in Prussia, 30th September, 1784 5

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B. From the essay What is Orientation in Thinking? (1786)

[…] Men of intellectual ability and broadminded disposition! I honor your talents and love your feeling for humanity. But have you thought about what you are doing, and where your attacks on reason will lead? Without doubt you want to preserve inviolate the freedom to think; for without that even your own free flights of genius would soon come to an end. Let us see what would naturally 5become of this freedom of thought if a procedure such as you are adopting should get the upper hand.

The freedom to think is opposed first of all to civil compulsion. Of course it is said that the freedom to speak or to write could be taken from us by a superior power, but the freedom to think cannot be. Yet how much and how 10correctly would we think if we did not think as it were in community with others to whom we communicate our thoughts, and who communicate theirs with us! Thus one can very well say that this external power which wrenches away people's freedom publicly to communicate their thoughts also takes from them the freedom to think — that single gem remaining to us in the midst of 15all the burdens of civil life, through which alone we can devise means of overcoming all the evils of our condition.

Second, freedom to think is also taken in a sense in which it is opposed to compulsion over conscience; even without having external power some citizens set themselves up as having the custody of others in religious 20affairs, and instead of arguing they know how to ban every examination of reason by their early influence on people's minds, through prescribed formulas of belief accompanied by the anxious fear of the dangers of one's own investigation.

Third, freedom in thinking signifies the subjection of reason to no laws 25except those which it gives itself, and its opposite is the maxim of a lawless use of reason (in order, as genius supposes, to see further than one can under the limitation of laws). The natural consequence is that if reason will not subject itself to the laws it gives itself, it has to bow under the yoke of laws given by another; for without any law, nothing — not even nonsense — can play its 30game for long. Thus the unavoidable consequence of declared lawlessness in thinking (of a liberation from the limitations of reason) is that the freedom to think will ultimately be forfeited and — because it is not misfortune but arrogance which is to blame for it – will be trifled away – in the proper sense of the word. 35

The course of things is roughly this. First genius is very pleased with its bold flights, since it has cast off the thread by which reason used to steer it. Soon it enchants others with its triumphant pronouncements and great

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expectations and now seems to have set itself on a throne which was so badly graced by slow and ponderous reason, whose language, however, it always employs. Then its maxim is that reason's superior lawgiving is invalid — we common human beings call this enthusiasm, while those favored by beneficent nature call its illumination. Since reason alone can command validly for 5everyone, a confusion of language must soon arise among them; each one now follows his own inspiration, and so inner inspirations must ultimately be seen to arise from the testimony of preserved facts, traditions which were chosen originally but with time become intrusive documents — in a word, what results is the complete subjection of reason to facts, i.e. superstition, because 10this at least has the form of law and so allows tranquility to be restored.

Because, however, human reason always strives for freedom, when it first breaks its fetters the first use it makes of its long unaccustomed freedom has to degenerate into a misuse and a presumptuous trust in the independence of its faculties from all limitations, leading to a persuasion of the sole authority 15of speculative reason which assumes nothing except what it can justify by objective grounds and dogmatic conviction; everything else it boldly repudiates. Now the maxim of reason's independence of its own need (of doing without rational faith) is unbelief. This is not a historical unbelief, for it is impossible to think of the latter as purposeful, hence it cannot be anything 20imputable (for everyone must believe a fact if it is sufficiently attested, just as he must believe a mathematical demonstration, whether he wants to or not). It is rather an unbelief of reason, a precarious state of the human mind, which first takes from moral laws all their force as incentives to the heart, and over time all their authority, and occasions the way of thinking one calls 25libertinism, i.e. the principle of recognizing no duty at all. At this point the authorities get mixed up in the game, so that even civil arrangements may not fall into the greatest disorder; and since they regard the most efficient and emphatic means as the best, this does away with even the freedom to think, and subjects thinking, like other trades, to the country’s rules and regulations. 30And so freedom in thinking finally destroys itself if it tries to proceed in independence of the laws of reason.

Friends of the human race and of what is holiest to it! Accept what appears to you most worthy of belief after careful and sincere examination, whether of facts or rational grounds; only do not dispute that prerogative of 35reason which makes it the highest good on earth, the prerogative of being the final touchstone of truth.13 Failing here, you will become unworthy of this 13 Thinking for oneself means seeking the supreme touchstone of truth in oneself (i.e. in one’s own reason); and the maxim of always thinking for oneself is enlightenment. Now there is less to this than people imagine when they place enlightenment in the acquisition of information; for it is rather a negative principle in the use of one's faculty of cognition, and often he who is richest in information is the least enlightened in the use he makes of it. To make use of one's own reason means no more than to ask oneself, whenever one is supposed to assume something, whether one could find it feasible to make the ground or the rule on which one assumes it into a universal principle for the use of reason. This test is one that

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freedom, and you will surely forfeit it too; and besides that you will bring the same misfortune down on the heads of other, innocent parties who would otherwise have been well disposed and would have used their freedom lawfully and hence in a way which is conducive to what is best for the world! 5

everyone can apply to himself; and with this examination he will see superstition and enthusiasm disappear, even if he falls far short of having the information to refute them on objective grounds. For he is using merely the maxim of reason’s self-preservation. Thus it is quite easy to ground enlightenment in individual subjects through their education; one must only begin early to accustom young minds to this reflection. But to enlighten an age is very slow and arduous; for there are external obstacles which in part forbid this manner of education and in part make it more difficult.

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C. From the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790) (translated by James Creed Meredith)

§40. Taste as a kind of sensus communis The name of sense is often given to judgement where what attracts attention is not so much its reflective act as merely its result. So we speak of a sense of 5truth, of a sense of propriety, or of justice, etc. And yet, of course, we know, or at least ought well enough to know, that a sense cannot be the true abode of these concepts, not to speak of its being competent, even in the slightest degree, to pronounce universal rules. On the contrary, we recognize that a representation of this kind, be it of truth, propriety, beauty, or justice, could 10never enter our thoughts were we not able to raise ourselves above the level of the senses to that of higher faculties of cognition. Common human understanding which as mere sound (not yet cultivated) understanding, is looked upon as the least we can expect from any one claiming the name of man, has therefore the doubtful honour of having the name of common sense (sensus communis) 15bestowed upon it; and bestowed, too, in an acceptation of the word common (not merely in our own language, where it actually has a double meaning, but also in many others) which makes it amount to what is vulgar—what is everywhere to be met with—a quality which by no means confers credit or distinction upon its possessor. 20

However, by the name sensus communis is to be understood the idea of a public sense, i.e., a critical faculty which in its reflective act takes account (a priori) of the mode of representation of everyone else, in order, as it were, to weigh its judgement with the collective reason of mankind, and thereby avoid the illusion arising from subjective and personal conditions which could 25readily be taken for objective, an illusion that would exert a prejudicial influence upon its judgement. This is accomplished by weighing the judgement, not so much with actual, as rather with the merely possible, judgements of others, and by putting ourselves in the position of everyone else, as the result of a mere abstraction from the limitations which contingently 30affect our own estimate. This, in turn, is effected by so far as possible letting go the element of matter, i.e., sensation, in our general state of representative activity, and confining attention to the formal peculiarities of our representation or general state of representative activity. Now it may seem that this operation of reflection is too artificial to be attributed to the faculty 35which we call common sense. But this is an appearance due only to its expression in abstract formulae. In itself nothing is more natural than to abstract from charm and emotion where one is looking for a judgement intended to serve as a universal rule.

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While the following maxims of common human understanding do not properly come in here as constituent parts of the critique of taste, they may still serve to elucidate its fundamental propositions. They are these: (1) to think for oneself; (2) to think from the standpoint of everyone else; (3) always to think consistently. The first is the maxim of unprejudiced thought, the 5second that of enlarged thought, the third that of consistent thought. The first is the maxim of a never-passive reason. To be given to such passivity, consequently to heteronomy of reason, is called prejudice; and the greatest of all prejudices is that of fancying nature not to be subject to rules which the understanding by virtue of its own essential laws lays at its basis, i. e., 10superstition. Emancipation from superstition is called enlightenment14; for although this term applies also to emancipation from prejudices generally, still superstition deserves pre-eminently (in sensu eminenti) to be called a prejudice. For the condition of blindness into which superstition puts one, which is as much as demands from one as an obligation, makes the need of being led by 15others, and consequently the passive state of the reason, pre-eminently conspicuous. As to the second maxim belonging to our habits of thought, we have quite got into the way of calling a man narrow (narrow, as opposed to being of enlarged mind) whose talents fall short of what is required for employment upon work of any magnitude (especially that involving intensity). 20But the question here is not one of the faculty of cognition, but of the mental habit of making a final use of it. This, however small the range and degree to which man’s natural endowments extend, still indicates a man of enlarged mind: if he detaches himself from the subjective personal conditions of his judgement, which cramp minds of so many others, and reflects upon his own the25judgement from a universal standpoint (which he can only determine by shifting his ground to the standpoint of others). The third maxim—that, namely, of consistent thought—is the hardest of attainment, and is only attainable by the union of both the former, and after constant attention to them has made one at home in their observance. We may say: The first of these is the maxim of 30understanding, the second that of judgement, the third of that reason. […]

14 We readily see that enlightenment, while easy, no doubt, in thesi, in hypothesi is difficult and slow of realization. For not to be passive with one’s reason, but always to be self-legislative, is doubtless quite an easy matter for a man who only desires to be adapted to his essential end, and does not seek to know what is beyond his understanding. But as the tendency in the latter direction is hardly avoidable, and others are always coming and promising with full assurance that they are able to satisfy one’s curiosity, it must be very difficult to preserve or restore in the mind (and particularly in the public mind) that merely negative attitude (which constitutes enlightenment proper).

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D. From the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

[…]

Since my aim here is directed properly to moral philosophy, I limit the question proposed only to this: is it not thought to be of the utmost necessity to work out for once a pure moral philosophy, completely cleansed of everything that may be only empirical and that belongs to anthropology? For, that there must be such a philosophy is clear of itself from the common idea of 5duty and of moral laws. Everyone must grant that a law, if it is to hold morally, that is, as a ground of an obligation, must carry with it absolute necessity; that, for example, the command “thou shalt not lie” does not hold only for human beings, as if other rational beings did not have to heed it, and so with all other moral laws properly so called; that, therefore, the ground of 10obligation here must not be sought in the nature of the human being or in the circumstances of the world in which he is placed, but a priori simply in concepts of pure reason; and that any other precept, which is based on principles of mere experience – even if it is universal in a certain respect – insofar as it rests in the least part on empirical grounds, perhaps only in terms 15of a motive can indeed be called a practical rule but never a moral law.

Thus, among practical cognitions, not only do moral laws, along with their principles, differ essentially from all the rest in which there is something empirical, but all moral philosophy is based entirely on its pure part; and when it is applied to the human being it does not borrow the least thing from 20acquaintance with him (from anthropology) but gives to him, as a rational being, laws a priori, which no doubt still require a judgment sharpened by experience, partly to distinguish in what cases they are applicable and partly to provide them with access to the will of the human being and efficacy for his fulfillment of them; for the human being is affected by so many inclinations 25that, though capable of the idea of a practical pure reason, he is not so easily able to make it effective in concreto in the conduct of his life.

A metaphysics of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not merely because of a motive to speculation – for investigating the source of the practical basic principles that lie a priori in our reason – but also because 30morals themselves remain subject to all sorts of corruption as long as we are without that clue and supreme norm by which to appraise them correctly. For, in the case of what is to be morally good it is not enough that it conform with the moral law but it must also be for the sake of the law; without this, that conformity is only very contingent and precarious, since a ground that is not 35moral will indeed now and then produce actions in conformity with the law, but it will also often produce actions contrary to the law. Now the moral law in its purity and genuineness (and in the practical this is what matters most) is to be sought nowhere else than in a pure philosophy; hence this (metaphysics)

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must come first, and without it there can be no moral philosophy at all. That which mixes these pure principles with empirical ones does not even deserve the name of philosophy (for what distinguishes philosophy from common rational cognition is just that it sets forth in separate sciences what the latter comprehends only mixed together); much less does it deserve the name of a 5moral philosophy, since by this very mixture it even infringes upon the purity of morals themselves and proceeds contrary to its own end.

[Kant briefly distinguishes his theory from an earlier moral theory, which did not recognize differences in kind between empirical and pure moral motivation. He says that only pure moral philosophy, not empirical, can have a 10proper concept of obligation or duty.]

Intending to publish someday a metaphysics of morals, I issue this groundwork in advance. […]

The present groundwork is, however, nothing more than the search for and establishment of the supreme principle of morality, which constitutes by itself 15a business that in its purpose is complete and to be kept apart from every other moral investigation. No doubt my assertions on this important and central question, discussion of which has till now been far from satisfactory, would receive a great deal of light from the application of the same principle to the whole system, and of confirmation through the adequacy that it would 20everywhere show; but I had to forgo this advantage, which would be after all more gratifying to me than commonly useful since the facility with which a principle can be used and its apparent adequacy furnish no quite certain proof of its correctness but, instead, awaken a certain bias against rigorously investigating and weighing it in itself and without any regard for what follows 25from it.

I have adopted in this work the method that is, I believe, most suitable if one wants to proceed analytically from common cognition to the determination of its supreme principle, and in turn synthetically from the examination of this principle and its sources back to the common cognition in 30which we find it used. Accordingly, the division turns out as follows:

1. First section: Transition from common rational to philosophic moral cognition.

2. Second section: Transition from popular moral philosophy to metaphysics of morals. 35

3. Third section: Final step from metaphysics of morals to the critique of pure practical reason.

SECTION I: Transition from common rational to philosophic moral cognition 40

It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will. Understanding, wit, judgment and the like, whatever such talents of mind may

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be called, or courage, resolution, and perseverance in one’s plans, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable for many purposes but they can also be extremely evil and harmful if the will which is to make use of these gifts of nature, and whose distinctive constitution is therefore called character, is not good. It is the same with gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honor, even 5health and that complete wellbeing and satisfaction with one’s condition called happiness, produce boldness and thereby often arrogance as well unless a good will is present which corrects the influence of these on the mind and, in so doing, also corrects the whole principle of action and brings it into conformity with universal ends – not to mention that an impartial rational spectator can 10take no delight in seeing the uninterrupted prosperity of a being graced with no feature of a pure and good will, so that a good will seems to constitute the indispensable condition even of worthiness to be happy.

Some qualities are even conducive to this good will itself and can make its work much easier; despite this, however, they have no inner unconditional 15worth but always presuppose a good will, which limits the esteem one otherwise rightly has for them and does not permit their being taken as absolutely good. Moderation in affects and passions, self-control, and calm reflection are not only good for all sorts of purposes but even seem to constitute a part of the inner worth of a person; but they lack much that would 20be required to declare them good without limitation (however unconditionally they were praised by the ancients); for, without the basic principles of a good will they can become extremely evil, and the coolness of a scoundrel makes him not only far more dangerous but also immediately more abominable in our eyes than we would have taken him to be without it. 25

A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes, because of its fitness to attain some proposed end, but only because of its volition, that is, it is good in itself and, regarded for itself, is to be valued incomparably higher than all that could merely be brought about by it in favor of some inclination and indeed, if you will, of the sum of all inclinations. Even 30if, by a special disfavor of fortune or by the niggardly provision of a stepmotherly nature, this will should wholly lack the capacity to carry out its purpose – if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve nothing and only the good will were left (not, of course, as a mere wish but as the summoning of all means insofar as they are in our control) – then, like a jewel, it would still 35shine by itself, as something that has its full worth in itself. Usefulness or fruitlessness can neither add anything to this worth nor take anything away from it. Its usefulness would be, as it were, only the setting to enable us to handle it more conveniently in ordinary commerce or to attract to it the attention of those who are not yet expert enough, but not to recommend it to 40experts or to determine its worth.

There is, however, something so strange in this idea of the absolute worth of a mere will, in the estimation of which no allowance is made for any usefulness, that, despite all the agreement even of common understanding with

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this idea, a suspicion must yet arise that its covert basis is perhaps mere high-flown fantasy and that we may have misunderstood the purpose of nature in assigning reason to our will as its governor. Hence we shall put this idea to the test from this point of view.

In the natural constitution of an organized being, that is, one constituted 5purposively for life, we assume as a principle that there will be found in it no instrument for some end other than what is also most appropriate to that end and best adapted to it. Now in a being that has reason and a will, if the proper end of nature were its preservation, its welfare, in a word its happiness, then nature would have hit upon a very bad arrangement in selecting the reason of 10the creature to carry out this purpose. For all the actions that the creature has to perform for this purpose, and the whole rule of its conduct, would be marked out for it far more accurately by instinct, and that end would have thereby been attained much more surely than it ever can be by reason; and if reason should have been given, over and above, to this favored creature, it 15must have served it only to contemplate the fortunate constitution of its nature, to admire this, to delight in it, and to be grateful for it to the beneficent cause, but not to submit its faculty of desire to that weak and deceptive guidance and meddle with nature’s purpose. In a word, nature would have taken care that reason should not break forth into practical use and have the 20presumption, with its weak insight, to think out for itself a plan for happiness and for the means of attaining it. Nature would have taken upon itself the choice not only of ends but also of means and, with wise foresight, would have entrusted them both simply to instinct.

And, in fact, we find that the more a cultivated reason purposely 25occupies itself with the enjoyment of life and with happiness, so much the further does one get away from true satisfaction; and from this there arises in many, and indeed in those who have experimented most with this use of reason, if only they are candid enough to admit it, a certain degree of misology, that is, hatred of reason; for, after calculating all the advantages they draw – I 30do not say from the invention of all the arts of common luxury, but even from the sciences (which seem to them to be, at bottom, only a luxury of the understanding) – they find that they have in fact only brought more trouble upon themselves instead of gaining in happiness; and because of this they finally envy rather than despise the more common run of people, who are 35closer to the guidance of mere natural instinct and do not allow their reason much influence on their behavior. And to this extent we must admit that the judgment of those who greatly moderate, and even reduce below zero, eulogies extolling the advantages that reason is supposed to procure for us with regard to the happiness and satisfaction of life is by no means surly or ungrateful to 40the goodness of the government of the world; we must admit, instead, that these judgments have as their covert basis the idea of another and far worthier purpose of one’s existence, to which therefore, and not to happiness, reason is

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properly destined and to which, as supreme condition, the private purpose of the human being must for the most part defer.

Since reason is not sufficiently competent to guide the will surely with regard to its objects and the satisfaction of all our needs (which it to some extent even multiplies) – an end to which an implanted natural instinct would 5have led much more certainly; and since reason is nevertheless given to us as a practical faculty, that is, as one that is to influence the mill; then, where nature has everywhere else gone to work purposively in distributing its capacities the true vocation of reason must be to produce a will that is good, not perhaps as a means to other purposes, but good in itself for which reason was absolutely 10necessary. This will need not, because of this, be the sole and complete good, but it must still be the highest good and the condition of every other, even of all demands for happiness. In this case it is entirely consistent with the wisdom of nature if we perceive that the cultivation of reason, which is requisite to the first and unconditional purpose, limits in many ways – at least in this life – the 15attainment of the second, namely happiness, which is always conditional; indeed it may reduce it below zero without nature proceeding unpurposively in the matter, because reason, which cognizes its highest practical vocation in the establishment of a good will, in attaining this purpose is capable only of its own kind of satisfaction, namely from fulfilling an end which in turn only 20reason determines, even if this should be combined with many infringements upon the ends of inclination.

We have, then, to explicate the concept of a will that is to be esteemed in itself and that is good apart from any further purpose, as it already dwells in natural sound understanding and needs not so much to be taught as only to be 25clarified – this concept that always takes first place in estimating the total worth of our actions and constitutes the condition of all the rest. In order to do so, we shall set before ourselves the concept of duty, which contains that of a good will though under certain subjective limitations and hindrances, which, however, far from concealing it and making it unrecognizable, rather bring it 30out by contrast and make it shine forth all the more brightly.

I here pass over all actions that are already recognized as contrary to duty, even though they may be useful for this or that purpose; for in their case the question whether they might have been done from duty never arises, since they even conflict with it. I also set aside actions that are really in conformity 35with duty but to which human beings have no inclination immediately and which they still perform because they are impelled to do so through another inclination. For in this case it is easy to distinguish whether an action in conformity with duty is done from duty or from a self-seeking purpose. It is much more difficult to note this distinction when an action conforms with duty 40and the subject has, besides, an immediate inclination to it. For example, it certainly conforms with duty that a shopkeeper not overcharge an inexperienced customer, and where there is a good deal of trade a prudent merchant does not overcharge but keeps a fixed general price for everyone, so

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that a child can buy from him as well as everyone else. People are thus served honestly; but this is not nearly enough for us to believe that the merchant acted in this way from duty and basic principles of honesty; his advantage required it; it cannot be assumed here that he had, besides, an immediate inclination toward his customers, so as from love, as it were, to give no one preference 5over another in the matter of price. Thus the action was done neither from duty nor from immediate inclination but merely for purposes of self-interest.

On the other hand, to preserve one’s life is a duty, and besides everyone has an immediate inclination to do so. But on this account the often anxious care that most people take of it still has no inner worth and their maxim has no 10moral content. They look after their lives in conformity with duty but not from duty. On the other hand, if adversity and hopeless grief have quite taken away the taste for life; if an unfortunate man, strong of soul and more indignant about his fate than despondent or dejected, wishes for death and yet preserves his life without loving it, not from inclination or fear but from duty, then his 15maxim has moral content.

To be beneficent where one can is a duty, and besides there are many souls so sympathetically attuned that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest they find an inner satisfaction in spreading joy around them and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I 20assert that in such a case an action of this kind, however it may conform with duty and however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth but is on the same footing with other inclinations, for example, the inclination to honor, which, if it fortunately lights upon what is in fact in the common interest and in conformity with duty and hence honorable, deserves praise and 25encouragement but not esteem; for the maxim lacks moral content, namely that of doing such actions not from inclination but from duty. Suppose, then, that the mind of this philanthropist were overclouded by his own grief, which extinguished all sympathy with the fate of others, and that while he still had the means to benefit others in distress their troubles did not move him 30because he had enough to do with his own; and suppose that now, when no longer incited to it by any inclination, he nevertheless tears himself out of this deadly insensibility and does the action without any inclination, simply from duty; then the action first has its genuine moral worth. Still further: if nature had put little sympathy in the heart of this or that man; if (in other respects an 35honest man) he is by temperament cold and indifferent to the sufferings of others, perhaps because he himself is provided with the special gift of patience and endurance toward his own sufferings and presupposes the same in every other or even requires it; if nature had not properly fashioned such a man (who would in truth not be its worst product) for a philanthropist, would he not still 40find within himself a source from which to give himself a far higher worth than what a mere good-natured temperament might have? By all means! It is just then that the worth of character comes out, which is moral and incomparably the highest, namely that he is beneficent not from inclination but from duty.

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To assure one’s own happiness is a duty (at least indirectly); for, want of satisfaction with one's condition, under pressure from many anxieties and amid unsatisfied needs, could easily become a great temptation to transgression of duty. But in addition, without looking to duty here, all people have already, of themselves, the strongest and deepest inclination to happiness because it is just 5in this idea that all inclinations unite in one sum. However, the precept of happiness is often so constituted that it greatly infringes upon some inclinations, and yet one can form no determinate and sure concept of the sum of satisfaction of all inclinations under the name of happiness. Hence it is not to be wondered at that a single inclination, determinate both as to what it 10promises and as to the time within which it can be satisfied, can often outweigh a fluctuating idea, and that a man – for example, one suffering from gout – can choose to enjoy what he likes and put up with what he can since, according to his calculations, on this occasion at least he has not sacrificed the enjoyment of the present moment to the perhaps groundless expectation of a happiness that 15is supposed to lie in health. But even in this case, when the general inclination to happiness did not determine his will; when health, at least for him, did not enter as so necessary into this calculation, there is still left over here, as in all other cases, a law, namely to promote his happiness not from inclination but from duty; and it is then that his conduct first has properly moral worth. 20

It is undoubtedly in this way, again, that we are to understand the passages from scripture in which we are commanded to love our neighbor, even our enemy. For, love as an inclination cannot be commanded, but beneficence from duty – even though no inclination impels us to it and, indeed, natural and unconquerable aversion opposes it – is practical and not pathological 25love, which lies in the will and not in the propensity of feeling in principles of action and not in melting sympathy; and it alone can be commanded.

The second proposition is this: an action from duty has its moral worth not in the purpose to be attained by it but in the maxim in accordance with which it is decided upon, and therefore does not depend upon the realization of 30the object of the action but merely upon the principle of volition in accordance with which the action is done without regard for any object of the faculty of desire. That the purposes we may have for our actions, and their effects as ends and incentives of the will, can give actions no unconditional and moral worth is clear from what has gone before. In what, then, can this worth lie, if it is not 35to be in the will in relation to the hoped for effect of the action? It can lie nowhere else than in the principle of the will without regard for the ends that can be brought about by such an action. For, the will stands between its a priori principle, which is formal, and its a posteriori incentive, which is material, as at a crossroads; and since it must still be determined by something, it must be 40determined by the formal principle of volition as such when an action is done from duty, where every material principle has been withdrawn from it.

The third proposition, which is a consequence of the two preceding, I would express as follows: duty is the necessity of an action from respect for law. For

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an object as the effect of my proposed action I can indeed have inclination but never respect, just because it is merely an effect and not an activity of a will. In the same way I cannot have respect for inclination as such, whether it is mine or that of another; I can at most in the first case approve it and in the second sometimes even love it, that is, regard it as favorable to my own advantage. 5Only what is connected with my will merely as ground and never as effect, what does not serve my inclination but outweighs it or at least excludes it altogether from calculations in making a choice – hence the mere law for itself – can be an object of respect and so a command. Now, an action from duty is to put aside entirely the influence of inclination and with it every object of the 10will; hence there is left for the will nothing that could determine it except objectively the law and subjectively pure respect for this practical law, and so the maxim15 of complying with such a law even if it infringes upon all my inclinations.

Thus the moral worth of an action does not lie in the effect expected 15from it and so too does not lie in any principle of action that needs to borrow its motive from this expected effect. For, all these effects (agreeableness of one’s condition, indeed even promotion of others’ happiness) could have been also brought about by other causes, so that there would have been no need, for this, of the will of a rational being, in which, however, the highest and 20unconditional good alone can be found. Hence nothing other than the representation of the law in itself, which can of course occur only in a rational being, insofar as it and not the hoped-for effect is the determining ground of the will, can constitute the preeminent good we call moral, which is already present in the person himself who acts in accordance with this representation and need 25not wait upon the effect of his action.16

15 A maxim is the subjective principle of volition; the objective principle (i.e., that which would also serve subjectively as the practical principle for all rational beings if reason had complete control over the faculty of desire) is the practical law. 16 It could be objected that I only seek refuge, behind the word respect, in an obscure feeling, instead of distinctly resolving the question by means of a concept of reason. But though respect is a feeling, it is not one received by means of influence; it is, instead, a feeling self-wrought by means of a rational concept and therefore specifically different from all feelings of the first kind, which can be reduced to inclination or fear. What I cognize immediately as a law for me I cognize with respect, which signifies merely consciousness of the subordination of my will to a law without the mediation of other influences on my sense. Immediate determination of the will by means of the law and consciousness of this is called respect, so that this is regarded as the effect of the law on the subject, and not as the cause of the law. Respect is properly the representation of a worth that infringes upon my self-love. Hence there is something that is regarded as an object neither of inclination nor of fear, though it has something analogous to both. The object of respect is therefore simply the law, and indeed the law that we impose upon ourselves and yet as necessary in itself. As a law we are subject to it without consulting self-love; as imposed upon us by ourselves it is nevertheless a result of our will; and in the first respect it has an analogy with fear, in the second with inclination. Any respect for a person is properly only respect for the law (of integrity and so forth) of which he gives us an example. Because we also regard enlarging

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But what kind of law can that be, the representation of which must determine the will, even without regard for the effect expected from it, in order for the will to be called good absolutely and without limitation? Since I have deprived the will of every impulse that could arise for it from obeying some law, nothing is left but the conformity of actions as such with universal law, 5which alone is to serve the will as its principle, that is, I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law. Here mere conformity to law as such, without having as its basis some law determined for certain actions, is what serves the will as its principle, and must so serve it, if duty is not to be everywhere an empty delusion and a chimerical 10concept. Common human reason also agrees completely with this in its practical appraisals and always has this principle before its eyes. Let the question be, for example: may I, when hard pressed, make a promise with the intention not to keep it? Here I easily distinguish two significations the question can have: whether it is prudent or whether it is in conformity with 15duty to make a false promise. The first can undoubtedly often be the case. I see very well that it is not enough to get out of a present difficulty by means of this subterfuge but that I must reflect carefully whether this lie may later give rise to much greater inconvenience for me than that from which I now extricate myself; and since, with all my supposed cunning, the results cannot be 20so easily foreseen but that once confidence in me is lost this could be far more prejudicial to me than all the troubles I now think to avoid, I must reflect whether the matter might be handled more prudently by proceeding on a general maxim and making it a habit to promise nothing except with the intention of keeping it. But it is soon clear to me that such a maxim will still be 25based only on results feared. To be truthful from duty, however, is something entirely different from being truthful from anxiety about detrimental results, since in the first case the concept of the action in itself already contains a law for me while in the second I must first look about elsewhere to see what effects on me might be combined with it. For, if I deviate from the principle of duty 30this is quite certainly evil; but if I am unfaithful to my maxim of prudence this can sometimes be very advantageous to me, although it is certainly safer to abide by it. However, to inform myself in the shortest and yet infallible way about the answer to this problem, whether a lying promise is in conformity with duty, I ask myself: would I indeed be content that my maxim (to get 35myself out of difficulties by a false promise) should hold as a universal law (for myself as well as for others)? and could I indeed say to myself that every one may make a false promise when he finds himself in a difficulty he can get out of in no other way? Then I soon become aware that I could indeed will the lie, but by no means a universal law to lie; for in accordance with such a law there 40would properly be no promises at all, since it would be futile to avow my will

our talents as a duty, we represent a person of talents also as, so to speak, an example of the law (to become like him in this by practice), and this is what constitutes our respect. All so-called moral interest consists simply in respect for the law.

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with regard to my future actions to others who would not believe this avowal or, if they rashly did so, would pay me back in like coin; and thus my maxim, as soon as it were made a universal law, would have to destroy itself.

I do not, therefore, need any penetrating acuteness to see what I have to do in order that my volition be morally good. Inexperienced in the course of 5the world, incapable of being prepared for whatever might come to pass in it, I ask myself only: can you also will that your maxim become a universal law? If not, then it is to be repudiated, and that not because of a disadvantage to you or even to others forthcoming from it but because it cannot fit as a principle into a possible giving of universal law, for which lawgiving reason, however, 10forces from me immediate respect. Although I do not yet see what this respect is based upon (this the philosopher may investigate), I at least understand this much: that it is an estimation of a worth that far outweighs any worth of what is recommended by inclination, and that the necessity of my action from pure respect for the practical law is what constitutes duty, to which every other 15motive must give way because it is the condition of a will good in itself, the worth of which surpasses all else.

Thus, then, we have arrived, within the moral cognition of common human reason, at its principle, which it admittedly does not think so abstractly in a universal form but which it actually has always before its eyes and uses as 20the norm for its appraisals. Here it would be easy to show how common human reason, with this compass in hand, knows very well how to distinguish in every case that comes up what is good and what is evil, what is in conformity with duty or contrary to duty, if, without in the least teaching it anything new, we only, as did Socrates, make it attentive to its own principle; and that there 25is, accordingly, no need of science and philosophy to know what one has to do in order to be honest and good, and even wise and virtuous. We might even have assumed in advance that cognizance of what it is incumbent upon everyone to do, and so also to know, would be the affair of every human being, even the most common. Yet we cannot consider without admiration how great 30an advantage the practical faculty of appraising has over the theoretical in common human understanding. In the latter, if common reason ventures to depart from laws of experience and perceptions of the senses it falls into sheer incomprehensibilities and self-contradictions, at least into a chaos of uncertainty, obscurity, and instability. But in practical matters, it is just when 35common understanding excludes all sensible incentives from practical laws that its faculty of appraising first begins to show itself to advantage. It then becomes even subtle, whether in quibbling tricks with its own conscience or with other claims regarding what is to be called right, or in sincerely wanting to determine the worth of actions for its own instruction; and, what is most 40admirable, in the latter case it can even have as good a hope of hitting the mark as any philosopher can promise himself; indeed, it is almost more sure in this matter, because a philosopher, though he cannot have any other principle than that of common understanding, can easily confuse his judgment by a mass

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of considerations foreign and irrelevant to the matter and deflect it from the straight course. Would it not therefore be more advisable in moral matters to leave the judgment of common reason as it is and, at most, call in philosophy only to present the system of morals all the more completely and apprehensibly and to present its rules in a form more convenient for use (still 5more for disputation), but not to lead common human understanding, even in practical matters,1 away from its fortunate simplicity and to put it, by means of philosophy, on a new path of investigation and instruction?

There is something splendid about innocence; but what is bad about it, in turn, is that it cannot protect itself very well and is easily seduced. Because 10of this, even wisdom - which otherwise consists more in conduct than in knowledge – still needs science, not in order to learn from it but in order to provide access and durability for its precepts. The human being feels within himself a powerful counterweight to all the commands of duty, which reason represents to him as so deserving of the highest respect – the counterweight of 15his needs and inclinations, the entire satisfaction of which he sums up under the name happiness. Now reason issues its precepts unremittingly, without thereby promising anything to the inclinations, and so, as it were, with disregard and contempt for those claims, which are so impetuous and besides so apparently equitable (and refuse to be neutralized by any command). But 20from this there arises a natural dialectic, that is, a propensity to rationalize against those strict laws. […]

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Enlightenment and Its Critics Reading Two

Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1795)

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[Adapted from the reader friendly version prepared by Johnathan Bennett: http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/. Text enclosed in dots or in square brackets (this includes the titles of all subsections), as well as numbers or letters used to separate points made by Condorcet, have been inserted by the editor for ease of reading and is not found in the original text.]

Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the

Human Mind (1795)

Eighth era

From the invention of printing to the period when the sciences and philosophy threw off the yoke of authority

Those who haven’t reflected on the human mind’s progress in the discovery of the truths of science or the processes of the arts must be astonished that after 5men discovered how to make impressions of drawings it took them so long to discover how to print characters.

No doubt some engravers of plates had had the idea of this application of their art; but they had been more impressed with the difficulty of doing it than with the benefits of success. It is indeed fortunate that they didn’t—couldn’t—10suspect how vast that success would be; for if they had, the priests and kings would have combined to stifle at birth this enemy that was going to unmask the priests and dethrone the kings.

[WHAT PRINTING ACHIEVED] 15 With printing, indefinitely many copies of a work can be made at a small expense. This gives to those who can read access to books that meet their tastes and their needs; and this ease in reading has intensified and propagated the desire to learn to read. These printed copies of works spread facts and 20discoveries further and faster ·than ever before·. There comes to be an active world-wide commerce in items of knowledge. ·Before printing·, individual manuscripts had to be searched for, in the way we now search for rare books. ·But once printing had been discovered·, things that had previously been read by only a few individuals could now be read by a whole people and have an 25impact at almost the same time on everyone who understood the relevant language.

They knew how to address widely scattered nations. They saw how to establish a new kind of platform (tribune) from which to communicate things that are less showy but deeper; from which the passions aren’t pushed around 30so tyrannically and reason gets a more certain and durable power; where all

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the advantage is on the side of truth, because any loss of means to seduce is matched by a gain in means to clarify. A public opinion is formed; it is powerful because so many people share in it, and energetic because the factors that drive it act on all minds at once, even if not always at close range. In short, we now have a tribunal in favour of reason and justice, independent of 5all human power, from which it is hard to conceal anything and impossible to escape.

New methods, the record of the first steps along the road to a discovery, the labours that prepare the way for it, the views that could suggest the idea of such a discovery or create a desire to search for it—these are quickly 10communicated, and give each individual a conspectus of all the means that the efforts of everyone have been able to create; and high intelligence seems by this mutual help to have more than doubled its powers. Every new error is resisted from its birth; often attacked before it has even been propagated, it doesn’t have time to take root in the mind. The errors accepted from infancy 15that each person identifies, in a way, with his own reason; and those that fear or hope have made dear to weak souls—these have been shaken by the fact that it’s now impossible to prevent their being discussed, to hide the fact that they can be rejected or opposed, to set oneself up against the advances of truths which will eventually display their absurdity. It is to printing that we 20owe the possibility of spreading works that are called for by current events or passing waves of opinion, thus bringing to bear on some single topic of discussion the views of all the men who speak the relevant language.

Without the help of the art of printing, could we have multiplied books aimed at each class of readers, at each educational level? To printing we owe 25the prolonged discussions that are needed to throw light on doubtful questions and provide an unshakable basis for truths that are so abstract, so subtle, so remote from the prejudices of the people and from the common opinion of the scientists, that they would otherwise soon be forgotten; wholly elementary books, dictionaries, works in which a multitude of facts, observations and 30experiments are reported in detail, with all the evidence developed and all the difficulties investigated; valuable anthologies, some containing everything that has been discovered, written, thought, in a particular part of the sciences, some reporting the results of the year’s work of all the scientists of a single country; lists, charts and diagrams of every kind: some enable one to simply see results 35that the mind would have needed hard labour to work out; others make a perfect job of presenting the fact, the discovery, the number, the method, the object that one needs to know; yet others provide in a convenient form, a methodical order, materials from which high intelligence can infer new truths. All these means of making the human mind’s journey faster, surer and easier 40are benefits of printing.

I’ll show other benefits brought by printing when I analyse the effects of the move from writing about the sciences almost exclusively in one language shared by all the world’s scientists to using in the sciences the vernacular

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languages of the individual nations. [In this long paragraph, (a) and (b) are inserted to help make clear the two kinds of despotism that are in question throughout.] Isn’t printing what freed the education of peoples from all (a) religious and (b) political shackles? It would be useless to either kind of despotism to invade all our schools; to try by rigid rules fix what errors minds 5are to be protected from and what truths they are to retain; to require that professorships dedicated to the moral education of the people or to teaching the young philosophy and the sciences shall teach only doctrines that are favourable to this double tyranny. ·Even if these attempts were made·, printing could still diffuse a pure and independent light. The education that an 10individual man can get from books in silence and solitude can’t be corrupted for everyone; all that is needed is one corner of the free earth where the pages can be loaded into a printing-press. Amid that multitude of different books, of copies of each book, of reprints that can multiply a book overnight, how can all the doors through which the truth might enter be shut tightly enough? It was 15hard enough back when a work could be annihilated merely by destroying a few copies of a manuscript, and when a truth or opinion could be driven into eternal oblivion merely by being outlawed for a few years; hasn’t it now become impossible, given that it would require continuous vigilance, unresting activity? Also there is this point: in addition to the all-too-obvious truths that 20directly harm the interests of inquisitors, there are also others that surreptitiously include the former, prepare the way the way for them and are bound some day to lead men to them. Now, even if the inquisitors could drive away the former, how could they prevent the latter from creeping in and spreading? Could they do it without having to do something that would be as 25fatal to the power of error as the truth itself would—namely, dropping their mask of hypocrisy? So we’ll see reason triumphing over these vain efforts. We shall see in this war—a war constantly renewed and often cruel—reason succeeding against (a) violence and against (b) cunning; (a) braving the flames and (b) resisting seduction; crushing under its omnipotent hand both (a) 30fanatical ·religious· hypocrisy demanding that its dogmas be sincerely worshipped and (b) political hypocrisy going on its knees and begging to be allowed to enjoy in peace the profit of errors which—according to these hypocrites—are equally profitable for the people to be sunk in forever.

The invention of printing [in 1440] nearly coincides with two other 35events, of which one had an immediate influence on the advances of the human mind, while the other will influence the destiny of mankind for as long as it exists.

I refer to (i) the taking of Constantinople by the Turks [1453] and (ii) the discovery of the route that gave Europe direct communication with the 40eastern parts of Africa and Asia. [Vasco da Gama’s long sea-voyage in 1497–9 from Portugal to India provided for trade that was ‘direct’, i.e. didn’t involve trading with middle-eastern intermediaries who then traded further eastwards.]

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[THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE]

[text omitted] 5[WHAT EXPLORATIONS ACHIEVED] Intrepid men, led by a love of glory and a passion for discoveries, had rolled back for Europe the boundaries of the universe, had shown it new skies and opened unknown territories to it. Vasco da Gama had reached as far as India, 10after following with tireless patience the immense extent of the African coasts; while Christopher Columbus, trusting himself to the waves of the Atlantic ocean, had reached the hitherto unknown country that stretches out to the west of Europe and to the east of Asia.

This passion, whose restless activity was from then onwards addressed 15to everything, pointed to the ·coming· great advances of the human species; and the heroes of navigation had been animated by a noble curiosity; but the kings and robbers who were to profit from their labour were governed by mean and cruel greed, stupid and fierce fanaticism. The unfortunate inhabitants of these new territories, because they weren’t christians, were not 20treated as men. This prejudice, more degrading to the tyrants than to the victims, stifled all sense of remorse and left the greedy and barbarous men that Europe spewed from her bosom free to satisfy their insatiable thirst for gold and for blood. The skeletons of five million men have covered the wretched countries to which the Spaniards and Portuguese took their greed, their 25superstition and their ferocity. These bones will forever be evidence against the doctrine of the political utility of religions, which has its defenders even today.

It’s only in this ·eighth· era that man has been able to know the globe that he inhabits, to study the human species in all countries, varied by the 30long-term influence of natural causes or social institutions, to observe the productions of land and sea in all temperatures and all climates. And the happy consequences of these discoveries have been: the resources of every kind that those productions provide to mankind, still so far from being exhausted that we don’t even suspect their extent; what the knowledge of those objects has 35been able to do in the way of adding truths to the sciences and destroying accredited errors; the commercial activity that has spurred industry and navigation and—inevitably—all the sciences and all the arts; and lastly what this activity has done to give free nations the power to resist tyrants and to empower subject nations to break their chains or at least to loosen the feudal 40ones. But these benefits won’t compensate for what they have cost humanity until the moment when Europe, renouncing the oppressive and sordid system of commercial monopoly, recognises that men all over the world—equals and brothers, nature says—weren’t formed by nature to nourish the pride and

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greed of a few privileged nations; and, with a better understanding of its own real interests, invites all peoples to share in its independence, its liberty and its enlightenment. Unfortunately, we have yet to learn whether this revolution will be the honourable fruit of advances in philosophy or—as it has been so far—merely the shameful consequence of national jealousies and the excesses 5of tyranny. [THE REFORMATION] Until this ·eighth· era the crimes of the priesthood had not been punished. The 10pleas of oppressed humanity, of violated reason, had been smothered in blood and in flames. The spirit that had dictated those pleas was not extinct; but this terrified silence emboldened ·the priesthood· to commit further outrages. At last, a new explosion was caused by the outrage of farming out to the monks the right to sell forgiveness of sins in taverns and public places. Luther, with 15the sacred books in one hand, pointed with the other to the pope’s claiming the right to forgive crimes and sell pardons; the insolent despotism that he exercised over the bishops who had for so long been his equals; the way in which the fraternal supper of the first christians had become (under the name ‘mass’) a kind of magical operation that could be bought and sold; priests 20condemned to the corruption of irrevocable celibacy; that cruel and scandalous law ·requiring celibacy· extended to the monks and nuns with which papal ambition had inundated and polluted the church; all the secrets of the laity handed over—through confession—to the intrigues and the passions of priests; and finally God himself scarcely retaining a feeble share in the worship 25lavished on bread, men, bones and statues.

Luther announced to the astonished multitude, that these disgusting institutions were not christianity but rather the corruption and shame of christianity; and that to be faithful to the religion of Jesus-Christ one had to start by rejecting the religion of his priests. He used equally the weapons of 30logic and scholarship and the no less powerful devices of ridicule. He wrote at once in German and in Latin. It was no longer as in the days of the Albigenses or of Jan Hus, whose doctrines were unknown beyond the walls of their churches and were so easy to libel. The German books of the new apostles worked their way into every town of the empire at the same time, while their 35Latin books jolted all of Europe out of the shameful sleep that superstition had plunged it into. Those whose reason had already taken them to where the reformers were going but who had been kept silent by fear; those who were troubled with secret doubts but trembled to admit them even to their consciences; those simpler folk who knew nothing of all the theological 40absurdities and who, having never reflected on the questions at issue here, were astonished to learn that it was up to them to choose from among different opinions;—all entered eagerly into these discussions which, they saw, affected their interests in this world and their happiness in the next.

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The whole of christian Europe, from Sweden to Italy and from Hungary to Spain, was instantly covered with supporters of the new doctrines; and the Reformation would have delivered all the European peoples from the yoke of Rome if the mistaken policy of certain princes hadn’t ·unintentionally· raised again the same priestly sceptre that had so often weighed down the heads of 5kings.

This policy, which unfortunately their successors still haven’t rejected, was to ruin their States by trying to add to them and to measure their power by the extent of their territory rather than by the number of their subjects.

Thus, Charles V ·of the Holy Roman Empire· and Francis I ·of France·, 10battling one another for control of Italy, sacrificed to the pursuit of good relations with the pope the much greater benefits the Reformation offered to any country that had the wit to adopt it.

Seeing that the princes within the Empire sided with opinions that would increase their power and wealth, the emperor ·Charles· became the 15protector of the old abuses, hoping that a religious war would give him an opportunity to invade their States and destroy their independence. Francis imagined that by having protestants burned at the stake ·in France· while protecting their leaders in Germany he would preserve the friendship of the pope without losing valuable allies. 20

But that wasn’t their only motive. Despotism has also its instinct, and that instinct told these kings that men, after subjecting religious prejudices to the examination of reason, would soon extend the examination to political prejudices; that after being enlightened on the usurpations of popes they would eventually want to be enlightened on the usurpations of kings; and that 25reforming the ecclesiastical abuses that were so useful to royal power might lead to reform of the more oppressive abuses on which that power was based. So no king of a large nation voluntarily favoured the party of the reformers. Henry VIII, slapped down by the pope’s anathema, went on persecuting them. Edward VI and Elizabeth, unable to espouse papism without pronouncing 30themselves usurpers, established in England the faith and manner of worship that came closest to it. The protestant monarchs of Great Britain have always favoured catholicism except when there was the threat of a catholic claimant to their crown.

The kings in Sweden and Denmark saw the establishment of 35lutheranism as merely a precaution to secure the expulsion of the catholic tyrant from whom they were taking over; and in the Prussian monarchy, founded by a philosophical prince, we already see his successor unable to disguise his secret hankering for the religion—·catholicism·—that kings loved so much. 40

Religious intolerance was common to all the sects, which passed it on to all the governments. The papists persecuted all the reformed communions; and the latter, while pronouncing anathemas against each other, joined together against the unitarians who—in a more rational frame of mind—had tested

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every doctrine if not by the touchstone of reason at least by that of rational criticism, and who had not concluded that the only way to free themselves from some absurdities was to retain others equally disgusting. This intolerance ·among the reformed communions· served the cause of papism.

For a long time there existed in Europe—especially in Italy—a class of 5men who rejected all superstitions, were indifferent to all modes of worship, were governed only by reason, and accordingly regarded religions as human inventions; one might laugh at them in secret, but prudence and policy required an appearance of respect for them.

Later on, boldness went further. While the schools used the 10misunderstood philosophy of Aristotle to perfect the art of theological hair-splitting and to make ingenious things that would naturally have been merely absurd, some scientists used his actual doctrines as the basis for a system that was destructive of every religious idea. According to this system the human soul was only a faculty, which vanished when life ended, and the only ruler of 15the world—the only providence—consisted in the necessary laws of nature. These thinkers were opposed by the platonists, whose views (resembling what has since been called ‘deism’) were even more terrifying for priestly orthodoxy.

The terror of punishment soon put a stop to this imprudent frankness. Italy and France were stained with the blood of those martyrs to the freedom 20of thought. All sects, all governments, all authorities of any kind agreed in just one thing, hostility to reason. Reason had to be covered with a veil that would hide it from tyrants’ eyes but let it be seen by philosophy’s.

So it was necessary to take refuge in the timid unforthcomingness of that secret doctrine ·that religions are fit to be laughed at, though only in 25private·, which always had many adherents. It had been propagated especially among the heads of governments, as well as among those of the Church; and around the time of the Reformation the only things that princes, ministers and pontiffs believed were the principles of religious machiavellianism. These opinions had even corrupted philosophy. Indeed, what morality could be 30expected from a system one of whose principles is that the morality of the people should be supported by false opinions, that it is all right for enlightened men to deceive the populace as long as the errors they impose are useful, keeping people in the shackles that they themselves have escaped from?

If the foundation of all true morality is men’s natural equality—the 35ultimate principal basis of their rights—then what could be expected from a philosophy one of whose maxims is open contempt for that equality and for those rights? No doubt this same philosophy could have contributed to the advances of reason, whose reign it was silently preparing the way for; but while it existed alone, all it did was to replace fanaticism by hypocrisy and to 40corrupt those who presided over the destiny of States, while freeing them from their prejudices.

Truly enlightened philosophers, untouched by ambition and extremely cautious in how they went about undeceiving men while not allowing

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themselves to confirm them in their errors, would have been naturally inclined to embrace the Reformation; but ·that is not what actually happened, for at least three reasons·. (i) Most of them, deterred by finding just as much intolerance everywhere, didn’t think they should expose themselves to the drawbacks of a change that would then lead on to the same oppressive 5restraints as before. (ii) Given that they had to go on seeming to believe absurdities that they really rejected, they saw no great benefit in reducing the number of those absurdities a little. (iii) They were afraid that by coming out in favour of protestantism they would seem to have been outright hypocrites. So they stayed attached to the old religion, strengthening it with the authority 10of their reputation.

The spirit that animated the reformers didn’t lead to real freedom of thought. Each religion forbade most opinions in the country in which it prevailed. But since the different creeds were opposed to each other, there were few opinions that weren’t attacked in some parts of Europe and supported in 15others. Also, the new communions had been forced to relax dogmatic rigour a little. They couldn’t without gross contradiction put unduly tight limits on the right of free enquiry, because they had recently invoked this right to justify their separation from the established religion. They refused to restore to reason its full liberty, but they consented to its prison’s being less confined: the 20chain wasn’t broken but it was made lighter and longer. Eventually, in the countries where no religion had been able to suppress all the others, there came to be established something that the ruling sect had the nerve to describe, insolently, as their ‘tolerance’, namely a system in which some men permit other men to believe what their reason opts for, to do what their 25conscience dictates, to pay to their common God the homage they think best pleases him. In these countries the ‘tolerated’ doctrines could be upheld with more or less complete freedom.

We thus see arising in Europe a sort of freedom of thought, not for men but for christians; and even today it exists only for christians, except in France. 30

But this intolerance—·or, strictly speaking, this very limited ‘tolerance’—forced human reason to explore the rights that had been too long forgotten, or rather had never been properly known or properly explained.

Indignant at seeing the people oppressed in the very sanctuary of their conscience by kings—the superstitious or political slaves of the priesthood—35some good-hearted men eventually dared to inquire into the foundations of kingly power; and they revealed to the world this great truth: liberty is a blessing that can’t be taken away; there is no prescription in favour of tyranny, no contract that could irrevocably bind a nation to one family; magistrates, whatever their titles or functions or power, are the agents of the people and 40not their masters; the people have the right to withdraw any authority that they gave in the first place, if that authority is misused or even if the people merely think that it no longer serves their interests; and lastly, the people have the right not only to cancel their agents’ authority but also to punish them.

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Such are the opinions that Althusius and Languet—and later on Needham and Harrington—boldly professed and energetically expounded. Out of deference to the age in which they lived, they too often relied on texts, authorities and examples; and their opinions obviously owed much more to the quality of their minds and the force of their characters than to an accurate analysis of the true 5principles of social order.

However, other more timid philosophers settled for maintaining that there were equal rights and duties in both directions between the peoples and the kings, an equal obligation to keep the contracts that had created those rights and duties. An hereditary magistrate might indeed be deposed or 10punished, but only if he had infringed this sacred contract, which still held between the people and his descendants. This doctrine, which pushed natural law aside and made everything a matter of positive law, was supported by legal scholars and theologians: it was more favourable to the interests of powerful men and to the projects of the ambitious, because it struck at the individual 15who had power rather than at the power itself. So it was embraced by almost all political writers and adopted as the starting-point in revolutions and political dissensions.

History will show us during this era few real advances towards liberty, but more order and force in governments and among the people a stronger and 20especially a more just sense of their rights. Laws are better combined; they appear less often to be the shapeless result of circumstances and of whims; if they are not yet made by philosophers, they are ·at least· made by learned men.

The popular movements and the revolutions that agitated England, France and the republics of Italy inevitably led philosophers to attend to the 25part of political theory that consists in observing and predicting the effects that constitutions, laws and public institutions can have on peoples’ liberty, on prosperity, on the strength of States and on the preservation of their independence and form of government. Some, such as More and Hobbes, followed Plato in deriving from a few general principles the plan of an entire 30system of social order and presented the model which (·they said·) men should continually approach. Others, like Machiavelli, sought in a profound investigation of historical facts the rules that would justify optimism about mastering the future.

Economics as a science still didn’t exist; princes didn’t count how many 35men they had, but how many soldiers; finance was merely the art of plundering the people without driving them to revolt; and the only attention governments paid to commerce was in extorting taxes from it, using privileges to interfere with its workings, or quarrelling with one another over monopolising it.

The nations of Europe, occupied by the common interests that united 40them and the opposed interests that they thought had to divide them, felt the need to have certain rules of conduct to govern their peacetime relations independently of treaties; while other rules, to be respected even in the midst

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of war, would soften its ferocity, lessen its ravages and at least prevent its pointless calamities.

So there was a science of the law of nations; but unfortunately these laws were sought not in reason and nature—the only authorities that independent peoples could acknowledge—but in established usages or the opinions of 5antiquity. Less weight was given to the rights of humanity and justice towards individuals than to the ambition, pride and greed of governments.

That is why in this era we don’t see moralists inquiring into man’s heart, analysing his faculties and his feelings, so as to discover his nature, and the origin and law of his duties and the penalty for failing in them. They did know 10how to employ every kind of scholastic hair-splitting to discover, regarding actions whose lawfulness seems uncertain, the precise line where innocence ends and sin begins; to settle what authority has enough weight to justify performing of any of these dubious actions; to produce methodical classifications of sins, some by genus and species, others in terms of their 15seriousness; and above all to identify the kinds of sins such that performing just one of them would deserve eternal damnation.

Clearly the science of morality couldn’t exist yet, because priests had the privilege of being the sole interpreters and judges of morality. But these same hair-splittings—as ridiculous as they were scandalous—led to an inquiry into 20(and helped in the discovery of) how good or bad actions or their motives are, the order and limits of our duties and the principles that should guide our choice when these duties appear to be in conflict. It’s like what often happens when a skilful mechanic, by studying a clumsily built machine that happens to have come his way, sees how to turn it into a new one that is less imperfect and 25truly useful.

The Reformation destroyed confession, indulgences, monks and the celibacy of priests, thus purifying the principles of morality and even lessening the corruption of mœurs in the countries that accepted it. It delivered those countries from priestly forgiveness of sins (that dangerous encouragement to 30vice) and from religious celibacy, which destroys all the virtues because it is the enemy of the domestic ones. [indulgence: priestly act supposed to reduce the time the recipient will have to spend in purgatory; these acts were bought.]

This era was more disfigured than any other by terrible atrocities. 35It was the era of religious massacres, holy wars and the depopulation of

the new world. It saw, re-established in the new world, slavery that was on the ancient pattern but now more barbaric, more productive of crimes against nature; and mercantile greed trading the blood of men, selling them like merchandise after first ‘buying’ them by treachery, robbery or murder and 40dragging them from one hemisphere to be condemned in another—amidst humiliation and outrages—to the prolonged torture of a slow and cruel destruction.

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At the same time hypocrisy covers Europe with wood-piles [for burning people at the stake] and assassins. The monster of fanaticism, enraged by its wounds, seems to redouble its fury and to rush to pile up its victims because reason will soon snatch them out of its reach. Yet there can also be seen to re-appear some of those gentle, courageous virtues that do honour to humanity 5and bring it consolation. History gives them names that it can utter without blushing. Strong, pure souls—great talents combined with noble characters—appear at intervals among these scenes of treachery, corruption and carnage. The human race still revolts the philosopher who looks at the picture it presents; but it no longer humiliates him, and now offers him hope for the 10future. [ADVANCES OF THE SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS] The sciences begin to stride rapidly and brilliantly… 15 [Condorcet proceeds to remind the reader of the advances in algebra, the theory of equations, logarithms, astronomy (Copernicus and Kepler), physical mechanics (Galileo), observation (Galileo’s use of the telescope and advances in anatomy), chemistry (particularly of the oxidation of metals). He notes that the 20weight or air and circulation of the blood was demonstrated. But he notes that these brilliant beginnings it is “often sad to see the monstrous prejudices that these sciences still retain.”] [LANGUAGE AND THE FINE ARTS] 25 In Italy the arts of epic poetry, painting and sculpture achieved a perfection unknown to the ancients. In France it could be seen in Corneille that the dramatic art was also about to reach a still greater level. The passion for antiquity leads those who have it to see a higher level of genius in those who 30created its masterpieces, and perhaps they are right; but comparing those works with the productions of Italy and of France, a rational enquirer can hardly fail to see the real advances that the art itself has made in the hands of the moderns.

[…] 35There was a growing sense of the worthwhileness of metaphysics and

grammar and of acquiring the art of analysing— explaining philosophically—both the rules governing the composition of words and sentences and the customary usages that play a part in it.

In this era we see everywhere authority battling reason for mastery, a 40contest that prepared for and heralded the triumph of reason.

So this was the time for the birth of the spirit of criticism without which erudition is hardly worthwhile. They still had to know everything that the ancients had done, and were starting to grasp that if they were obliged to

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admire the ancients they were also entitled to judge them. ·And criticism was needed in other ways too·. Reason, which sometimes got help from authority and was often opposed by it, wanted to estimate the worth of that help and of the reasons for making the sacrifices demanded of it. Those who accepted authority as the basis of their opinions and the guide of their conduct felt how 5important it was for them to be sure of the strength of their weapons and not have them shattered in the first attacks of reason. [DETHRONING LATIN] 10The practice of writing only in Latin on the sciences, philosophy, jurisprudence and (with a few exceptions) even history, gradually gave way to the practice in each country of using the common language of that country. This is the place to look into how the advances of the human mind were affected by this change, which made the sciences more popular, but made it 15harder for scientists to keep up with developments in them; led to a book’s being read by more poorly-educated people in one country and fewer enlightened men in the rest of Europe; removed the burden of having to learn Latin from many men who were anxious to be educated but hadn’t the spare time or the means to read deeply, but forced scientists to consume more time 20learning different languages.

Granted that Latin couldn’t be made the commmon tongue throughout Europe, maintaining it for writing on the sciences would have been only a short-term advantage for scientists. Why? Because the existence of a sort of scientific language for all nations, while the populace of each nation spoke 25something different, would have divided men into two classes, perpetuated the people’s prejudices and errors, posed a permanent obstacle to true equality—to equal use of the same reason, to equal knowledge of essential truths— and by stopping in this way the advances of the mass of mankind, would eventually have put an end, as happened in the East, to any advances by the sciences 30themselves. [EDUCATION] For a long time there had been no education except in churches and cloisters. 35The universities were still dominated by the priests. Forced to hand over to the government a part of their influence, they retained it in full force with regard to primary and general education, the education that covers knowledge that is needed in all the common professions and among all classes of mankind. Getting its grip on the infant and the growing child, this education models at 40its pleasure their flexible minds, their uncertain and obedient souls. All they left to the secular power was the right to direct the study of jurisprudence, medicine, advanced science, literature and learned languages, smaller schools to which no pupils were sent who weren’t already broken to the priestly yoke.

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[…] It’s not only that each man, left to himself, found his path to the truth

blocked by a close-knit and terrible battalion of the errors of his country and his times, but also the most dangerous of those errors were already, in a way, his. Before he could clear away anyone else’s errors, he had to recognise his 5own; before he tackled the difficulties that nature put in the way of his discovering the truth, he needed to (so to speak) rebuild his own understanding. Education was already conveying some knowledge; but for it to be useful it had first to be refined, to be separated from the clouds in which superstition and tyranny had combined to wrap it. 10 [OTHER HINDRANCES TO INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS]

[…] In fact we have reached the point in civilisation where the populace gets 15

benefits from intellectual knowledge, not only through the services it receives from educated men but also through its ability to treat intellectual knowledge as a sort of patrimony—·an inherited fortune from which funds can be drawn·—which the people can themselves use on their own initiative to resist error, to anticipate or satisfy their needs and to deal with the ills of life by 20preventing them or mitigating them by additional pleasures.

The history of the persecutions that the defenders of the truth were exposed to in this era won’t be forgotten. We’ll see these persecutions extend from the truths of philosophy and politics to those of medicine, natural history, physics and astronomy. In the 8th century an ignorant pope had persecuted a 25deacon for contending that the earth was round, contrary to the opinion of that orator Augustine. In the 17th century the much more shameful ignorance of another pope delivered Galileo into the hands of the inquisition, convicted of having argued for the daily rotation of the earth and its annual movement around the sun. The greatest genius that modern Italy has given to the 30sciences, overwhelmed with age and infirmities, was obliged—the alternative being prison or torture—to ask God to pardon him for having taught men to understand his works better and to admire him in the simplicity of the eternal laws by which he governs the universe!

But the absurdity of the theologians was so palpable that they had to 35yield to human understanding and allow men to maintain that the earth moves provided it was only as an hypothesis and didn’t conflict with the faith! But the astronomers did the exact opposite: they believed the motion of the earth to be real and did their calculations on the basis of the hypothesis of its immobility!

The transition from this ·eighth· era to the one that will follow was 40marked by three great men, Bacon, Galileo and Descartes. Bacon revealed the true method of studying nature by employing the three instruments she has given us for the discovery of her secrets—-observation, experiment and calculation. He wanted the philosopher, dumped down in the middle of the

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universe, to start by renouncing every belief he had received and even every notion he had formed, so as to create for himself a new understanding (as it were) that would admit no ideas that weren’t precise, no notions that weren’t sound, no truths whose degree of certainty or probability hadn’t been rigorously weighed. But Bacon, though supremely able in philosophy, was not 5so in the sciences; and these methods for the discovery of truth (he gave no examples) were admired by philosophers but made no difference to the course of the sciences.

Galileo had enriched the sciences with useful and brilliant discoveries; he had taught by his own example how to get more knowledge of the laws of 10nature by a sound and productive method that doesn’t require scientists to sacrifice the hope of success to the fear of going wrong. He founded the first school that pursued the sciences without mixing in anything irrational, whether on behalf of prejudices or of authority; and that ruled out with philosophical severity every means other than experiment and calculation. But 15confining himself exclusively to the mathematical and physical sciences, he couldn’t give to men’s minds the push that they seemed to be waiting for.

This honour was reserved for the steadfast and ingenious Descartes. Endowed with supreme ability in the sciences, he combined examples and precepts in exhibiting the method for finding and recognising the truth. He 20applied this method to the discovery of the laws of dioptrics [= ‘optics of refraction’], of the collision of bodies and finally of a new branch of mathematics that was going to enlarge the scope of mathematics in all directions.

He wanted to extend his method to every object of human intelligence: 25he brought his meditations to bear on God, man, the universe. In the physical sciences he is less sure-footed than Galileo, not having learned enough from his lessons to distrust his imagination, to base his beliefs purely on calculation, and to observe the universe instead of instructing it. And his philosophy is less wary than Bacon’s because he didn’t learn enough from his example to 30interrogate nature only by experiments, and to study man instead of guessing at his nature. But the very boldness of his errors helped the human species to advance. He aroused minds that his ·two great· rivals hadn’t been able to awake from their lethargy. He told men to shake off the yoke of authority and not acknowledge any influence that their reason wouldn’t endorse; and he was 35obeyed, because his daring pushed men along and his enthusiasm pulled them.

The human mind wasn’t yet free, but it knew that it was formed to be free. Those who ventured to hold that it should remain in chains or who tried to give it new ones were forced to prove that the chains ought to be retained or imposed; and its easy to see it wouldn’t be long before they were broken. 40

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Ninth era

From the time of Descartes to the formation of the French Republic

We have seen human reason being formed slowly by the natural advances of 5civilisation; superstition taking it over so as to corrupt it and despotism degrading it and slowing minds down by loading them with fear and suffering.

Only one nation escaped this double influence. In that happy land where liberty had just lit the torch of genius, the human mind—freed from the baby-harness of its infancy— advanced towards the truth with a firm step. But 10conquest soon introduced tyranny, followed by its inseparable companion, superstition, and the whole race of man is plunged back into darkness which is apparently going to last forever. However, daylight returned very gradually; eyes long condemned to darkness blinked open and shut, getting used to the light until they could look straight at it, and high intelligence ventured to re-15appear on the globe from which fanaticism and barbarity had for so long banished it.

We have seen reason lightening its chains by getting rid of some of them, and preparing and hastening its moment of liberty by steadily acquiring new forces. We have now to go through the era in which it finally breaks 20them; in which. . . .it gets rid of them, one by one; in which, free at last to go its way, it can’t be held up except by obstacles such as are inevitable with each new advance—results of the very conformation of our intelligence or obstacles that nature has placed in the way of our discovering the truth.

[…] 25In the countries said to be free it would be useless to look for the

freedom that harms none of the natural rights of man, that doesn’t merely affirm that man has those rights but also lets him exercise them. The ‘liberty’ found in those countries is based on a positive right that is unequally shared; what privileges it grants to a given man depends on what town he lives in, 30what class he was born into, how rich he is, or how he makes his living. The best answer we can give to anyone who still maintains that these bizarre distinctions are useful and necessary will be to present a picture showing them—·and thus showing how different they are·—in different nations.

But in these countries civic and personal liberty are guaranteed by the 35laws. If in them man isn’t all that he ought to be, still the dignity of his nature is not totally degraded; some of his rights are at least recognised; he can’t any longer be called a slave—only someone who doesn’t yet know how to be truly free.

In nations where during this period liberty suffered more or less real 40losses, the political rights enjoyed by the mass of the people were so restricted that that the loss of them seems to have been more than made up for by the annihilation of the almost arbitrary aristocracy under which they had groaned. They have lost the title ‘citizen’, which inequality had made almost illusory;

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but status of man has been more respected, and royal despotism has saved them from feudal oppression, rescuing them from that state of humiliation. . . .

The laws were bound to improve in half-free constitutions, because the interests of those who have the real power there are not always at variance with the general interests of the people; and in despotic states, because the 5public’s prosperity is sometimes mixed up with the despot’s, or because the despot—in trying to destroy the remaining authority of the nobles or the clergy—introduces a spirit of equality into the laws. In the latter case, the motive was to establish an equality of slavery, but the results were often salutary. 10

I shall expound in detail the causes that have produced in Europe a type of despotism that has not appeared at any earlier time or in any other place. It involved an almost arbitrary authority that was restrained by opinion, governed by enlightenment, and tempered by its own interests; and it has often contributed to the advances of wealth, industry, education and sometimes 15even to the advances of civil liberty.

Men’s mœurs were softened by the decay of the prejudices that had kept them fierce, by the influence of commerce and industry (natural enemies of disorder and violence which scare away wealth), by the horror induced by still-fresh mental pictures of the barbarities of the preceding era, by a more general 20diffusion of the philosophical ideas of equality and humanity, and lastly by the slow but sure effect of the general progress of enlightenment.

Religious intolerance survived, but as a prudent human invention—as a homage to the people’s prejudices or as a safeguard against emotional outbreaks from them. It had its ferocity. Burning at the stake, seldom resorted 25to, was replaced by oppression that was often more arbitrary though less barbaric; and in these recent times persecution appeared only here or there, as an upshot of mere habit or of complacency. The behaviour of governments everywhere had reluctantly followed, on all topics, the footsteps of opinion and even of philosophy. 30

In the political and moral sciences the level of insight reached by the philosophers is always far above the intermediate level reached by the general run of thinking men whose shared views constitute what is called ‘opinion’, while those who direct the affairs of a nation. . . ., whatever its form of government, are at a lower level still. They follow opinion, but without 35catching up let alone getting ahead; they are always below it—many years below it, many truths below it.

So now the picture of the philosophical advances and of the spread of knowledge—whose most general and perceptible effects I have expounded—leads us into an era in which the influence of these advances on opinion and of 40opinion on nations or on their leaders, suddenly stopped being gradual and imperceptible and produced a revolution in the entire populace of certain nations, a secure pledge of the revolution that is bound to embrace the whole human species.

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After ages of error, after wandering lost among vague and incomplete theories, writers on law at last came to know the true rights of man, deriving them from this simple truth: Man is a sentient being, capable of reasoning and of acquiring moral ideas. They saw that the sole purpose of men’s coming together in political societies was to maintain these rights and that the art of society 5ought to be the art of preserving them with no inequalities and no exceptions.

They saw that the means of securing the rights of each individual should be governed by general rules laid down in his community, so that the power of choosing these means and determining these rules could belong only to the majority of the members of that community. Why? Because in this choice no 10individual can follow his own reason without imposing it on others, so the only principle that can be followed by all without harming equality is the will of the majority.

Each man can commit himself in advance to comply with the will of the majority and this—·if everyone does it·—turns the will of the majority into 15unanimity; but he can’t commit anyone else, and he can’t even commit himself to the majority except on the condition that it won’t violate his individual rights after having recognised them.

Such are the rights of the majority over the society or its members and the limits of these rights. Such is the origin of the unanimity that makes all the 20majority’s decisions obligatory for everyone, an obligation that ceases to hold when the unanimity ceases to exist because of a change of individuals. No doubt there are issues on which the majority might more often than not decide wrongly, ·i.e.· against the common interest; but what these topics are that oughtn’t to be directly settled by majority decisions is something that only the 25majority can decide. And it alone can determine who the individuals are whose judgment it will prefer to its own and set the rules for how those individuals are to go about this business. And it can’t dodge its responsibility for pronouncing whether those individuals’ decisions have harmed the rights that are common to all. 30

These simple principles were seen to abolish the idea of there being between a people and its magistrates a contract that could be annulled only by mutual consent or by a violation of the conditions by one of the parties; and to abolish the opinion—less servile but equally absurd—that once a constitution has been established the people are chained to it, as if the right of changing it 35were not the primary guarantee of every other right! and as if human institutions, necessarily defective and capable of improvement as men learn more, were condemned to last forever! So it was seen that one had to give up that sneaky and false political theory which—forgetting that the very nature of men gives them equal rights—would in some places (i) apportion rights to 40countries on the basis of the size of territory, the climate, the national character, the wealth of the populace, or the state of commerce and industry, and in other places (ii) grant these rights unequally ·within countries· across the different classes of society, according to birth, fortune, or profession. The

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result of (ii) was to create contrary interests and opposing powers, which then created a need for a ·corrective· equilibrium—which wouldn’t be needed if it weren’t for these inequalities and in any case isn’t adequate to correct their dangerous influences.

So they no longer ventured to divide mankind into two species, one 5destined to govern, the other to obey, one destined to lie, the other to be deceived, and they had to recognise that all men have an equal right to be enlightened—to know all the truths—regarding all their interests, and that no power established by the people for the people can be entitled to hide anything from the people. 10

These principles, for which the generous ·Algernon· Sydney paid with his life and to which Locke gave the authority of his name, were later developed with greater force, precision and extent by Rousseau, who earned the glory of placing them among the truths which it is no longer permissible to forget or dispute. 15

Man has needs, and faculties to provide for them; and the output of these faculties (differently modified and distributed) is a mass of goods that can provide for the community’s needs. ·Three questions arise·. (i) What are the laws governing how these goods are formed or distributed, conserved or consumed, increased or diminished? (ii) What are the laws of the equilibrium 20between needs and resources that continually tends to be established? [In the original, the following sentence is built into (ii).] The equilibrium has the result that it is easier to meet those needs, and thus possible to do more for general happiness, when wealth grows— until it reaches its upper limit, and as wealth diminishes there are greater difficulties and thus more suffering—until 25depopulation and abstinence restore the balance. In this astonishing variety of works and outputs, needs and resources; in this frightening complication of interests that connects a single individual’s survival and well-being to his society’s general system, making him dependent on all the stray events of nature and of politics and extending (in a way) to the whole globe his openness 30to experiencing privations or enjoyments; in this seeming chaos (iii) how can one see by a general law of the moral world that each individual’s efforts on his own behalf serve the good of the whole and that despite the clash of opposing interests the common interest requires that each individual should understand his own interest and be free to pursue it without hindrance? 35

Thus man ought to be able to employ his faculties, dispose of his goods and provide for his needs in complete freedom. The general interest of his society, so far from restraining him in this respect, forbids any attempt to restrain him. In this department of public order, the care of securing to every man the rights he derives from nature is the only sound policy, the only duty 40of society as a whole, and the only law that the general will is entitled to exercise over individuals. [DUTIES OF THE PUBLIC POWER]

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[…] At that time many minds started to attend to this previously neglected subject; and this new science was raised by James Stewart, Adam Smith and above all (at least as regards precision and purity of principles) the French economists to a level that couldn’t have been expected so soon after such a 5long indifference. [The word ‘economist’ (économiste) occurs only twice in this work, each time in the phrase économistes français.] The main cause of these advances in politics and political economy was the advances in general philosophy, i.e. in metaphysics, taking this word in its broadest sense. Descartes had restored metaphysics to the domain of reason; he had seen that 10it should come entirely from the evident and primary truths that should be revealed to us by investigating the operations of our mind. But it didn’t take long for his eager imagination to lead him off the path that he had mapped, and philosophy seemed for a while to be using its newly regained independence only to wander around among new errors! Eventually Locke grasped the 15thread needed to show the way back. […] In short, Locke was the first who ventured to fix the limits of human intelligence, or rather to determine the nature of the truths it can know and the objects it can grasp. This method was soon adopted by all the philosophers; and it was by applying it to morals, politics and public economy that they became able in these sciences to follow a 20path almost as secure as that of the natural sciences, to admit only conclusions that could be proved, separating these from anything that might still be doubtful and uncertain, and to settle for not knowing anything that is and always will be unknowable.

Thus, the analysis of our feelings showed us that the development of our 25capacity for feeling pleasure and pain is the source of our moral ideas, the basis of the general truths which—being derived from those ideas—fix the unchanging necessary laws of right and wrong; and showed us the proper motives of obeying those laws, motives that are drawn from the very nature of our sensibility, i.e. from our moral constitution, so to speak. The same method 30became a kind of all-purpose instrument: they used it to improve the methods of the physical sciences, to clarify principles and to evaluate proofs of them; and they extended it to testing factual claims ·in history·, and to laws of taste. So this metaphysic, being brought to bear on every topic humans can think about, revealed for each branch of knowledge, the process of the human mind 35in it, the nature of the truths that form it into a system, and what kind of certainty can be achieved in it. It’s the third of these that has, in a way, placed an everlasting barrier between the human race and the old mistakes of its infancy. It guarantees the collapse of prejudices that we now have (including ones that we aren’t even aware of), and it ought to prevent us from dragged 40back into our earlier ignorance by new prejudices—ones that might replace the old ones but now can have only a brief feeble influence.

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[Condorcet describes the philosophy of Leibniz and his English followers, and refers to the moral sense theorists. All of these explored new “sciences” of mankind and of morals.]

Up to here I have exhibited the advances of philosophy only among men who have cultivated it, deepened it, improved it; it remains to show what its 5effects on general opinion have been, and how reason, while coming to know the certain means of discovering and recognising the truth, also learned to protect itself from the errors that it had so often been led into by a respect for authority, and by imagination. At the same time it destroyed in the mass of individuals the prejudices that had for so long afflicted and corrupted the 10human species. So eventually it was permissible to declare openly our right—at long last recognised—to subject every opinion to the test of our reason, i.e. to use in our search for truth the only means we have been given for recognising it. Every man learned, with a kind of pride, that nature hadn’t condemned him to basing his beliefs solely on what others told him; and the 15superstition of antiquity—putting reason below the ecstasies of a supernatural faith—disappeared from society as it did from philosophy. [PREACHING THE NEW PHILOSOPHY] 20There soon formed in Europe a class of men who were less concerned with discovering and deepening the truth than with disseminating it. Pursuing prejudices in all the safe-houses where clergy, schools, governments and former corporations had collected and protected them, they made it their glory to eradicate popular errors rather than to push back the boundaries of human 25knowledge—an indirect way of helping knowledge to advance, and not the least dangerous or the least useful way of doing so. In England Collins and Bolingbroke, and in France Bayle, Fontenelle, Voltaire, Montesquieu and the schools formed by these celebrated men, will fight for the truth, using all the weapons that learning, philosophy, intelligence and writing talent can provide; 30adopting every tone and using every ·literary· form, from joking to heart-tugging, from a vast and learned treatise to a novel or mere pamphlet; covering the truth with a veil to accommodate weak eyes, leaving them with the pleasure of guessing at it; gently caressing prejudices so as the better to aim punches at them; almost never threatening prejudices, or attacking more 35than one at a time, or even attacking one in its entirety; sometimes soothing the enemies of reason by pretending to want only half-toleration in religion and only half-freedom in politics; keeping mild relations with despotism when fighting religious absurdities, and with religious sects when battling tyranny; attacking these two scourges at their heart even when seeming to object only 40to disgusting or ridiculous abuses, striking at the roots of these deadly trees while apparently meaning only to prune some untidy branches; sometimes teaching the friends of liberty that superstition, which covers despotism with impenetrable armour, should be first victim to be sacrificed, the first chain to

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be broken; and sometimes on the contrary denouncing superstition to despots as the true enemy of their power, and scaring them with recitals of its hypocritical conspiracies and bloody furies; never tiring of proclaiming the independence of reason and freedom of writing as mankind’s right, as its salvation; rising up with tireless energy against all the crimes of fanaticism and 5of tyranny; pursuing in religion, in administration, in mœurs, and in laws everything that smacked of oppression, of harshness, of barbarity; calling on kings, soldiers, magistrates and local officials, in the name of nature, to respect men’s blood; reproaching them with energetic severity for all the miseries incurred in battles and in punishments because of their policies or indifference; 10and lastly having as their war-cry reason, toleration, humanity. Such was this new philosophy, loathed by all the many classes of men that exist only through prejudices, live only through errors, and have power only because of men’s credulity. It was nearly everywhere accepted but persecuted, having kings, priests, nobles and magistrates as disciples and as enemies. Its leaders had 15almost always the skill to escape vengeance while exposing themselves to hatred, to hide themselves from persecution while revealing themselves sufficiently not to lose their glory. Quite often a government rewarded them with one hand while paying their attackers with the other, condemned them yet boasted over the fact that they had been born in its territory, punished 20them for their opinions but would have been embarrassed to be suspected of not having those opinions itself! These opinions would soon be accepted by all enlightened men, openly by some, by others hypocritically concealed in a manner that was more or less transparent depending on how personally timid they were or on how much they were influenced by the opposing interests of 25their profession or of their vanity. But already ·intellectual· vanity was strong enough for these men to settle—for themselves and often for others—for a merely prudent caution rather than the deep dissimulation of earlier times. I’ll follow the advances of this philosophy in the various parts of Europe into which it spread rapidly—the inquisitions of governments and priests 30notwithstanding—with help from the fact that the French language had become almost universal. I’ll show the subtle skill with which tyranny and superstition deployed against it all the arguments a man could offer for distrusting his own reason, arguments to show it as narrow and weak; thus using pyrrhonism itself in support of credulity! This simple system which 35regarded unrestricted freedom as delivering the surest encouragements to commerce and industry, which freed the people from the destructive scourge, the humiliating yoke, of taxes apportioned with such inequality, levied with such extravagance and often with such barbarity, by replacing them with a system of contribution that was fair, equal, and hardly noticeable; this theory 40which tied the real power and wealth of States to the happiness of individuals and respect for their rights, which united by the bond of common well-being the different classes into which societies naturally divide themselves; this soothing idea of a brotherhood of the whole human race, whose gentle

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harmony is never to be disturbed by any national interest; these principles, so attractive from their generous spirit as well as from their simplicity and scope, were propagated with enthusiasm by the French economists. [THE SPREAD OF THE NEW PHILOSOPHY] 5 Their success was slower and less general than that of the philosophers; the prejudices they had to combat were more refined, the errors more subtle, ·than those that confronted the philosophers·. They had to explain before they could undeceive, and to educate good sense before they could judge anything by its 10standards. But if they couldn’t convert many people to the whole of their doctrine, if they scared off most by the general nature of their maxims and the inflexibility of their principles, if they harmed their cause by adopting an obscure and dogmatic style, by seeming to neglect political freedom so as to focus on the freedom of commerce, and by insisting too absolutely and 15magisterially on certain parts of their system that they hadn’t sufficiently grounded, at least they succeeded in making odious and contemptible the cowardly, crafty and corrupt policy that places a nation’s prosperity in the impoverishment of its neighbours, in the short-sighted views of a protectionist regime, and in the petty calculations of a tyrannical exchequer. But the new 20truths with which genius had enriched philosophy, politics and public economy, adopted more or less by enlightened men, extended still further their salutary influence. The art of printing had been applied to so many subjects, it had so greatly increased the number of books, the makers of books knew how to adapt them so well to every level of knowledge, of studiousness and even of 25fortune, had so skillfully made them suitable for every taste and every cast of mind, and presented instruction that was so easy and often so delightful, and books had opened so many doors to truth that couldn’t ever all be closed again, that there was no longer any class or profession that truth could be kept out of.

Accordingly, although there were still many men condemned to a 30voluntary or forced ignorance, the line between mankind’s thick-headed portion and its enlightened portion was almost entirely erased, leaving only a gradual slope from the height of genius to the depth of stupidity. Thus, these things— a general knowledge of the natural rights of man; the opinion that these rights aren’t given and can’t be taken away; a strongly expressed demand 35for freedom of thinking and writing, freedom of industry and commerce, relief of the people’s distress, repeal of penal laws against religious dissidents, abolition of torture and cruel punishments; the desire for a milder system of criminal legislation, jurisprudence giving complete security to innocence, a civil code that is simpler and more in harmony with reason and nature; lack of 40bias in favour of any religion, with all of them being classified as superstitions or political tricks; hatred of hypocrisy and fanaticism; contempt for prejudices; and lastly, a zeal for the propagation of truth; —passed, a little at a time, from the writings of philosophers into every class of society whose instruction was

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not confined to the catechism and the alphabet, and became the common creed, the badge of everyone who wasn’t a machiavellian or an imbecile. In some countries these views formed a public opinion that was general enough for the mass of the people to seem ready to be directed by it and to obey it. A natural consequence of these principles was the feeling for humanity, i.e. the feeling of 5tender and active compassion for all the afflictions of the human race, and of horror for whatever miseries public institutions, acts of government and private actions add to the miseries inevitably inflicted by nature. This feeling ·for humanity· breathed in every written work and in every conversation, and its benign effects were already visible in the laws and administration even of 10countries subject to despotism. Philosophers of various nations, embracing in their meditations the interests of mankind as a whole without distinction of country, race or religion, formed a strongly united battalion against all errors, all kinds of tyranny; and they did this despite the difference of their speculative opinions. Driven by a feeling of universal philanthropy, they fought against 15injustice when it existed in a foreign country and couldn’t harm them, and fought against it also when it was perpetrated by their own country against another. In Europe they rose up against the crimes with which greed had stained the shores of America, Africa and Asia. The philosophers of England and of France were glad to take the name and fulfill the duties of friends of 20those same Blacks whose stupid oppressors disdained to count them even as men. […][DESPERATE MOVES BY FALSE PHILOSOPHY]25[Condorcet describes briefly some of the conservative ideas that tried to hold back the advance of the true philosophy.] But philosophy, standing on the unbreakable base that science had prepared for it, set up a barrier that they were powerless to break through. By comparing the disposition of ·individuals’· minds, which I have already sketched, with the prevailing 30systems of government, one could easily predict that a big revolution was inevitable, and that it would have to happen in one of two ways: (i) the populace itself would establish the principles of reason and of nature that philosophy had made so dear to them; or (ii) governments would hurry to get ahead of the populace and act in accordance with the way public opinion was 35moving. Of these revolutions (i) would be faster and more radical but more stormy; (ii) would be slower and less complete but more tranquil. In (i) the price of liberty and happiness would be transient evils ·which are inevitable in a sudden popular revolution·; in (ii) the price of avoiding these evils would be a delay in the full enjoyment of liberty and happiness—perhaps a long delay, but 40inevitably those benefits would eventually appear. The corruption and ignorance of governments have led to (i), and the sudden triumph of reason and liberty has avenged the human race.

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[THE AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS][Omitted] [ADVANCES IN THE SCIENCES]5From the time when Descartes’s genius impressed on minds that general impulse that is the primary driver of a revolution in the lives of the human species to the happy era of entire and pure social liberty where man has been able to regain his natural independence only after enduring many centuries of 10misfortune and slavery, the picture of the advances of the mathematical and physical sciences presents us with an immense horizon; we’ll have to sort out and order its various parts, if we are to have a good view of their inter-relations and a good grasp of the whole. 15[Condorcet again provides a summary of the recent advances in the sciences, this time in much greater detail.] The application of algebra to geometry became the fruitful source of discoveries in both those sciences; but, more than that, in showing by this 20great example how the methods for computing magnitudes in general can be extended to all topics involving spatial measurement, Descartes was giving advance notice that they would be employed with equal success on all topics where precise valuation was possible. This great discovery, by showing for the first time the ultimate aim of the sciences—namely, to bring strict calculation 25to bear on all truths—gave hope that this would be achieved and a glimpse of how. This discovery was soon followed by the discovery of a new method of calculating which lets one find the rate of increase or decrease of a variable quantity, or to find the quantity itself when this rate is given; whether the increase is supposed to have a positive magnitude or the rate is to be 30determined for an instant only—i.e. when the increase is nil. This method applies to all the combinations of variable magnitudes and to all the hypotheses concerning their variations; so it enables us to determine, with regard to everything whose changes are precisely measurable, either the relations between the elements when only those between the objects are 35known, or the relations between the objects when only those between the elements are known. [That sentence, from ‘either’ to the end, is copied from a previous translation. It isn’t quite faithful to the original, but the original has clearly suffered a mishap, and this rescue effort isn’t bad.] The discovery of these methods is due to Newton and Leibniz, the way to it having been 40prepared by the work of geometers of the previous generation. The methods in question have been advancing uninterruptedly for more than a century. These advances have been the work of several men of genius, to whom they have brought glory. To the eyes of a philosopher who can observe them even if he

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can’t follow them, they present a striking monument to the powers of the human mind. In expounding the formation and principles of the language of algebra, which is the only truly accurate and truly analytic language that we have so far, the nature of the technical procedures of this science, and the comparison of these procedures with the natural operations of the human 5understanding, I shall show that even if this method is in itself only one particular instrument in the science of quantity, it includes the principles of a universal instrument that can be applied to all combinations of ideas. Rational mechanics soon becomes a vast and deep science. The true laws of the collision of bodies, which Descartes was wrong about, are finally known. Huyghens 10discovers the laws of circular motion; and at the same time he gives a method for determining, for any point on any curve, the circle it belongs to. By uniting these two theories, Newton found the theory of curvilinear motions; he applied that to the laws that Kepler found the planets to obey in their elliptical orbits. A planet launched into space at a given instant with a given velocity and 15direction will follow an ellipse around the sun by virtue of a force directed towards that star, the force ·at any moment· being inversely proportional to the square of the distance ·between the sun and that planet at that moment·. The same force retains the satellites in their orbits around the primary planets: it pervades the whole system of heavenly bodies and acts reciprocally between 20all their component parts. The regularity of the planetary ellipses is disturbed by this force, and calculation precisely explains the very tiniest details of these perturbations. This force acts also on the comets, whose orbits are determined and whose returns are predicted by the same theory. The movements observed in the axes of rotation of the earth and the moon also attest to the existence of 25this universal force. Lastly, it is the cause of the weight of terrestrial bodies. It appears to be constant in them because we don’t get to observe them at sufficiently different distances from the centre of action, ·i.e. from the earth toward which they are being pulled·. So at last man has come to know one of the physical laws of the universe. It is the only one so far, and in this 30uniqueness it matches the glory of him who discovered it. A hundred years of ·scientific· work have confirmed this law, which all the celestial phenomena seem to conform to with a (so to speak) miraculous accuracy. Every time an apparent deviation occurs, this passing uncertainty has soon become the subject of a new ·scientific· triumph. Wanting to know the secret thread that 35guided a man of genius, we have in most cases been forced to search for it in his writings; but in Newton’s case we have precious anecdotes enabling us to follow him step by step, anecdotes that have been discovered and preserved because admiration for him has made him especially interesting. They serve to show us how a great discovery can arise from a fortunate combination of 40chance events and the efforts of genius; and how easily less fortunate combinations could have delayed the discoveries or left them to be discovered by others. But the discovery of this general law of nature may not have been Newton’s only contribution to the advances of the human mind; he ·also·

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taught men to allow in physics only theories that are precise and open to calculation, theories that give an account not only of a phenomenon’s existence but of its quantity and extent. Yet he was accused of reviving the ‘occult qualities’ of the ancients because the general cause he offered for celestial phenomena was a simple fact, which observation had incontestably proved to 5be real. This accusation shows how greatly the methods of the sciences still needed to be enlightened by philosophy. Many problems in statics and dynamics had been successively proposed and resolved when d’Alembert discovered a general principle that can determine, all on its own, the motions of any number of points acted on by any forces and related to each other by 10certain conditions. He soon extended this same principle to finite bodies of a determinate shape; to elastic or flexible bodies which can change shape but only according to certain laws and preserving certain relations among their parts; and lastly to fluids themselves—ones that keep the same density and ones that can expand. A new calculation was needed to resolve these last 15questions, but d’Alembert’s genius was up to that; and mechanics is now nothing but a science of pure calculation. These discoveries belong to the mathematical sciences; but the natures of the law of universal gravitation and of the principles of mechanics—consequences of it—apply to the eternal order of the universe and belong to the province of philosophy. We learn that all 20bodies are subject to necessary laws that tend unaided to produce or maintain equilibrium, cause or preserve the regularity of bodies’ motions. Astronomy’s advances are assured by the combined working of several causes: knowledge of the laws that govern the celestial phenomena, the discoveries in mathematical analysis that lead to the most precise methods of calculating the appearances of 25those phenomena, the hitherto undreamed-of perfection to which optical instruments have been brought, and also instruments whose precise calibration determines the exactness of the observations, the precision of machines for measuring time, the more general liking for the sciences, which—combined with the interest of governments—leads to an increase in the number of 30astronomers and observatories. For man the heavens are enriched with new stars, and he knows how to determine and predict with accuracy their positions and their movements. [ADVANCES IN PHYSICS]35[Omitted][ADVANCES IN CHEMISTRY]40All that physics had to combat were the prejudices of scholasticism and the attraction—so seductive to lazy minds—of general hypotheses. The advances of chemistry were held back by other obstacles. It had been thought that this science ought to provide the secret of making gold, and that of making man

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immortal. The effect of great interests is to make man superstitious. Those prospects arouse the passion for glory and flatter the two strongest passions of vulgar minds—·to make gold and to live forever·—and it wasn’t thought that either could be accomplished by ordinary means. So all the extravagances that delirious credulity had ever invented seemed to come together in the minds of 5chemists! But these fantasies gradually retreated in face of Descartes’s mechanical philosophy; although that itself was rejected, it cleared the way for a truly experimental chemistry. The observation of the events that accompany the composition and decomposition of bodies, research into the laws of these operations, and the analysis of substances into more and more simple elements, 10became ever more precise and strict. But to these advances of chemistry we must add the improvements of the sort that involve the whole system of a science and, by extending its methods rather than increasing the number of it truths, foretell and prepare the way for a very satisfactory revolution. Example: The discovery of new means of capturing and experimenting on the 15elastic fluids which had previously escaped unnoticed; a discovery which, by permitting us to operate on an entire class of new beings and on previously known ones when in a state that had enabled them to escape our researches, and by adding one more element to almost every combination, has switched the whole system of chemistry for a new one, so to speak. Another example: 20The formation of a language in which the names of substances sometimes express the resemblances or differences amongst those that have an element in common and sometimes express the class to which they belong. To these causes of progress we may add the use of a scientific notation in which these substances are represented by analytically combined characters which can 25express the most common operations and the general laws of chemical affinity. [Condorcet provides a detailed description of some of the means by which chemistry has advanced, such as the use of instruments, and the advances of anaotmy.] I shall show how advances in mechanics, astronomy, optics and the art of measuring time have influenced the art of constructing, moving and 30directing vessels at sea. I shall show how an increase in the number of observers, greater skill on the part of navigators, and more rigorous accuracy in the astronomical determinations of positions and in topographical methods, have at last let us know at first hand this globe of which almost nothing was known at the end of the last century; and how greatly the mechanical arts 35(properly so called) have owed their improvements to improvements in the art of making instruments, machines, looms, and how much these improvements have owed to advances in rational mechanics and physics. These arts are also indebted to the science of using already known machines more cheaply and efficiently, and to the invention of new machines. We’ll see architecture draw 40from the science of equilibrium the way to give the most commodious and least expensive form to roofs without fear of altering their solidity; and from the theory of fluids the means to calculate more securely what is needed to hold a given body of water in place, to direct the course of water, and to use it in

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canals with greater skill and success. We’ll see the chemical arts enriched with new processes; the previous methods simplified and cleared of the deposit left by routine—useless or toxic substances, pointless or imperfect practices; while they also found ways to prevent some of the dangers, often terrible ones, to which the workmen were exposed. That’s how they could produce more riches 5and enjoyment without having to pay such a price in ·their· painful sacrifice or ·our· guilt. In the meantime chemistry, botany and natural history spread a productive light on the economic arts, on the growing of plants and trees to meet our various needs; on the art of feeding, propagating and preserving domestic animals, bringing their races to perfection and improving their 10products; on the art of preparing and preserving the productions of the earth or of animals. From the moment when anatomy and chemistry give them clearer and surer guides, surgery and pharmacy become almost new arts. Medicine—which in its practice should be considered as an art—is at least delivered from its false theories, its pedantic jargon, its murderous routines, 15and its servile submission to the authority of men and the doctrines of colleges; it learns to trust nothing but experience. Medicine has increased the means at its disposal, and learned how to make a better job of combining and using them; and though some of its advances are in a way negative, consisting in the abolition of dangerous practices and harmful prejudices, the new methods of 20studying chemical medicine and of combining observations are a promise of more positive and extended advances. […] An account of the advances each science will suffice to show what the usefulness of the direct application of mathematics has been in several of them; how much calculation has done, in almost all of them, to make experiments and observations more precise; what 25the sciences owe to mechanics for providing them with more perfect and more accurate instruments; how greatly the discovery of microscopes and of meteorological instruments has contributed to the perfection of natural history; what this science owes to chemistry, which was needed to lead it to a deeper knowledge of the objects it considers, by displaying their most intimate 30nature and most essential properties—by showing their composition and elements; what natural history does ·in return· for chemistry by providing so many products to analyse and gather, so many operations to perform, so many naturally formed combinations whose true elements must be separated out and whose secrets may sometimes be discovered or even imitated; and lastly what 35helps physics and chemistry are apt to give one another, and how greatly anatomy has already profited from these sciences and from natural history. But ·even after expounding all that· I still would have presented only a small portion of the advantages that have been received or can be expected from the application of mathematics. Several geometers have given us general methods 40of working out from observations the empirical laws of phenomena. These methods extend to all the sciences, because they are equally good in enabling us to know the law of the successive values of the same quantity for a series of instants or positions, and the law governing how different properties, or

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different values of a similar quality, are distributed among a given number of objects. Several applications have already proved that the science of combinations can be successfully used to set out observations in such a way as to see more easily their relations, their results, and them as a whole. 5[MATHEMATICS OF PROBABILITY][Omitted] [BENEFITS FROM SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES]10If I confined myself to exhibiting the advantages that have been drawn from the sciences in their immediate use or in application to the arts, whether for the welfare of individuals or the prosperity of nations, I would have shown only a small part of their benefits. The most important benefit may have been 15to destroy prejudices. The human understanding had been forced into strange postures by absurd beliefs that each generation had drilled into it from its infancy by the terrors of superstition and the dread of tyranny; and the destruction of prejudices enabled it to stand up straight, so to speak. Errors in politics and in morals all arise from philosophical mistakes, which are 20connected with scientific errors. Every single religious system, every supernatural extravagance, is based on ignorance of the laws of nature. The inventors and defenders of these absurdities couldn’t foresee the gradual improvement of the human mind. Convinced that the men of their time knew everything they could ever know and would always believe what they believed 25then, they confidently relied for their fantasies on the current opinions of their country and their time. The advances in physics are all the more fatal to these errors because they often destroy them without seeming to attack them, and they subject those who obstinately defend the errors to the taunting label ‘ignorant’. At the same time the practice of reasoning soundly on the topics of 30these sciences, and what their methods provide in the way of precise ideas and ways for recognising or proving truths, must naturally lead us to contrast the frame of mind that forces us to stick to opinions based on these real sources of credibility with the one that attaches us to our habitual prejudices or forces us to yield to authority. This contrast is all we need to become suspicious of the 35latter opinions, to give us a sense that they aren’t really believed, even when belief in them is proudly proclaimed and declared with the purest sincerity. When this secret is discovered their abolition follows quickly and inevitably. In short, this progress of the physical sciences, which aren’t disturbed by passions or self-interest, and don’t allow that someone who can’t understand a 40given topic is nevertheless entitled by his birth, profession, or government position to make judgments about it, couldn’t have been observed if enlightened men hadn’t kept working to bring the other sciences closer to the physical sciences. The latter’s progress at every step offers these men the

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model they ought to follow, a standard by which they could judge their own efforts, recognise the wrong routes they could have taken, preserve themselves from pyrrhonism as well as from credulity, and from a blind mistrust or a too complete submission to the authority even of men with knowledge and renown. Metaphysical analysis doubtless ·would have· led to the same results, 5but it would have provided only abstract principles. In the physical sciences the same abstract principles, put into action, are clarified by examples and strengthened by success. Until this ·ninth· era the sciences had been the birthright of only a few; now they had become common property, and the moment was approaching in which their elements, their principles and their 10simplest methods would become really popular. That is when their usefulness—to the arts and to the general health of men’s minds—would be truly universal. I’ll trace the advances of European nations in infant and adult education. Up to now the advances haven’t amounted to much, if we attend merely to the philosophical system of this education, which has nearly 15everywhere been given over to scholastic prejudices; but they have been very rapid if we consider the extent and nature of the content, which now includes hardly any knowledge that isn’t real, and takes in the elements of almost all the sciences; while men of all ages find in dictionaries, abstracts and journals the knowledge they need, although it isn’t always of the purest kind. I’ll look 20into what the usefulness is, in the sciences, of adding oral instruction to the instruction that comes straight from books and study; and into whether any benefit has come from the fact that the assembling of anthologies has become a real trade, a way of earning a living, which has multiplied the number of inferior works but has also multiplied uneducated people’s means of acquiring 25common knowledge. I’ll expound the influence that learned scientific societies have exercised on the advances of the human mind, a barrier that will be useful, for a long time yet, to hold off fraud and false scholarship. And, lastly, I’ll present the history of the encouragements given by governments to the advances of the human mind, and of the obstacles they have put up to them, 30often in the same country at the same time. I shall show what prejudices or machiavellian principles have directed governments in this opposition to the journey of minds towards truth; and what views of political interests, even of public good, have been at work when they have seemed rather to want to speed and protect the journey. 35 [ADVANCES IN THE FINE ARTS] The picture of the fine arts offers results that are no less brilliant. […] Literary productions (cultivated in Italy with less success, but without having 40degenerated there) have made advances in the French language, advances which have entitled it to the honour of becoming, in a way, the universal language of Europe. The art of tragedy in the hands of Corneille, Racine and Voltaire has been raised step by step to a previously unknown level of

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perfection. Comedy is indebted to Molière for having more quickly reached a level not previously achieved by any nation.

The English language was perfected from the start of this ·ninth· era, as was the German language more recently. ·In both languages· the art of poetry as well as that of prose writing have been brought—though less completely 5than in France—under the universal rules of reason and nature that ought to direct them. These rules are equally true for all languages and all peoples, though up to now few men have been able to know them and rise to the sound and sure taste that is nothing but a sense of those rules. That sense presided over the compositions of Sophocles and Virgil, as well as those of Pope and 10Voltaire; it taught the Greeks and Romans, as well as the French, to be struck with the same beauties and shocked by the same faults. […]

I’ll try to show that the rules of taste are like the other laws of the moral and physical universe in in their generality and constancy and in the kind of modifications they are open to when they have to be applied in the practice of 15some common art. I’ll show how printing, publishing and disseminating works—even ones intended to be publicly read or recited— enables them to reach incomparably many more readers than they’ll have hearers; how, because nearly all the important decisions by large assemblies were taken after the members had been briefed in writing, the rules for the art of persuasion among 20the moderns were bound to be different from those for the ancients, matching the differences in the effect aimed at and the means employed; and lastly how those rules differ ·between ancients and moderns· even for matters—such as history and philosophy—where the ancients also relied on reading, because the invention of printing made it easy for the moderns to learn about more 25developments and get more details.

The advances in philosophy and the sciences have helped and extended the advances of literary pursuits, and these have served to make the study of the sciences easier and philosophy more popular. There has been mutual help between the sciences and philosophy on one hand and literary pursuits on the 30other, despite the efforts of ignorance and folly to disunite them and make them enemies. Scholarship, with its obedience to human authority and respect for anything ancient, seemed sure to support the cause of harmful prejudices; but in fact scholarship has helped to destroy them, because the sciences and philosophy have lent it the torch of a sounder criticism. It already knew about 35weighing and comparing authorities, but now at last it has submitted them to the tribunal of reason. It had rejected miracles, absurd tales, factual claims contrary to probability; but now in attacking the testimony on which these relied it has learned to reject that testimony, however much of it there is, unless it outweighs the physical or psychological improbability of the 40extraordinary factual claim in question. Thus, all men’s intellectual occupations—however different in topic, method, or mental qualities required—have collaborated in the advances of human reason. In fact the entire system of human ·intellectual· achievement is like a single well-built

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piece of work: its parts, though carefully distinguished from one another, must nevertheless be closely connected so to form one whole and work towards one goal.

Surveying the human species, I’ll show that the discovery of true methods in all the sciences, the scope of the theories they include, their 5applicability to all natural objects and all human needs, the lines of communication established among them, the great number of people who cultivate them, and the spread of printing presses, are sufficient to assure us that no science will ever sink below the level to which it has been carried. I’ll show that the principles of philosophy, the maxims of liberty, and the 10knowledge of the true rights and real interest of man are spread through too many nations, in each of which they direct the opinions of too many enlightened men, for them ever to fall back into oblivion. The two most widely used languages—·French and English·—are those of the two peoples who have the most complete liberty, and have best known the principles of liberty; 15so that no confederacy of tyrants, nor any possible political conspiracy, can prevent the rights of reason and of liberty from being openly defended in both languages.

So what is there to fear now? But if everything assures us that the human race won’t relapse into its former barbarous state; if everything ought 20to guarantee us against that feeble and corrupt system that condemns mankind to eternal oscillations between truth and error, liberty and servitude; still we see enlightenment spreading over only a small part of our globe, and the number of those who are really enlightened vanishing when set alongside the mass of men who are given over to ignorance and prejudice. We see vast 25territories groaning under slavery, containing only nations degraded by the vices of a civilisation that can’t progress because it is so corrupt and nations still vegetating in the infancy of their first eras. We see that the exertions of these last ages have done much for the progress of the human mind but little for the perfection of the human species; much for man’s glory, something for 30his liberty, but hardly anything yet for his happiness. At a few points our eyes are struck with a dazzling light, but thick darkness still covers an immense horizon. The philosopher’s soul can peacefully take satisfaction in a few things, but more often it is afflicted by the spectacle of stupidity, slavery, wildness and barbarism. The only way a friend of humanity can have unmixed pleasure is by 35abandoning himself to hopes of a lovely future. Such are the topics that belong in an historical picture of the advances of the human mind. In presenting them I shall aim to emphasise the influence of these advances on the opinions and the welfare of the general mass of the various nations in the different eras of their political existence; to show on one side what truths they have known, 40what errors they have been cured of, what virtuous habits they have acquired, what new improvements have brought their faculties nearer to satisfying their needs; and on the other side what prejudices have enslaved them, what religious or political superstitions have been introduced, what vices they have

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been dragged down to by ignorance or despotism, what miseries they have suffered through violence or their own degradation. Until now political history, like the histories of philosophy and the sciences, has been merely the history of a few men; the real substance of the human species, the mass of families that live almost entirely on their labour, has been forgotten; and even 5in the class of those who follow public professions—acting not for themselves but for society, their occupation being to instruct, govern, defend and comfort other men—only the chiefs have attracted the attention of historians. THE HISTORY OF MASSES OF MEN10For the history of individuals, all one needs is to collect facts; but the history of a mass of men has to rely on observations; and in order to select these and grasp their essential traits the historian needs to have considerable knowledge already, and to make a proper use of them he needs philosophy. Another point: 15these observations relate to common things that are perfectly visible; anyone who wants to can find out about them for himself. So nearly all that have been collected have come from travellers, because things that are very trivial in the place where they exist have aroused the curiosity of foreigners. Unfortunately these travellers are nearly always inaccurate observers; they see objects too 20quickly, through their own country’s prejudices and often by the eyes of the locals. They consult people they happen to meet, and the answers they get are nearly always dictated by the answerer’s self-interest, party spirit, national pride, or mood. So it’s not only because of historians’ servility (historians of monarchies have rightly been criticised as servile) that we don’t have ·literary· 25monuments from which to trace this most important part of the history of men. The gap can be filled only very imperfectly by knowledge of (i) laws, (ii) practical principles of government, (iii) public economy, (iv) religions and (v) general prejudices. In fact the differences between (i) the written law and the actually applied law, (ii) the principles of those who govern and the way their 30governing is shaped by the frame of mind of the governed, (iii) the institution in the minds of the men who formed it and the actual institution that results, (iv) the religion of the books and the religion of the people, and (v) the apparent universality of a prejudice and the facts about who actually has it can be so great that there comes to be absolutely no match between the effects and 35these public and known ‘causes’.

This part of the history of the human species—the most obscure, the most neglected, and the least supported by records—is what should be emphasised most in the picture I am drawing; whether the topic is a new discovery, an important theory, a new system of laws, or a political revolution, 40the task will be to discover what its effects must have been on the most numerous portion of each society; for that is the true topic of philosophy, since all the intermediate effects of these same causes can only be regarded as means of eventually acting on this portion ·of humanity· that truly constitutes the

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mass of the human race. It is when we reach this last link of the chain that the observation of past events, as well as the knowledge acquired by meditation, become truly useful. It is when we arrive at this stage that men can appreciate their real claim to glory, or get durable pleasure from the advances of their reason; only then can anyone judge regarding the true improvement of the 5human species. This idea of relating everything to this last point—·i.e. to the welfare of the mass of people·—is dictated by justice and by reason. […]

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Tenth era

Future advances of the human mind If man can predict with almost perfect certainty phenomena whose laws he 5knows; and if, even when he doesn’t know those laws, experience of the past enables him to foresee future events with high probability; why would it be thought fanciful to try to draw a plausible picture of what lies in store for mankind, on the strength of its past history? The sole basis for trust in the natural sciences is the thesis that the general laws governing the phenomena 10of the universe are necessary and constant, whether or not we know them; why shouldn’t this principle hold just as well for the development of man’s intellectual and moral faculties as it does for the other operations of nature? Given that the wisest men are guided in their conduct solely by opinions based on past experience of similar situations, why shouldn’t the philosopher be 15allowed that same basis to support his conjectures, as long as he doesn’t claim for them more certainty than is warranted by the number, consistency and precision of the relevant observations? Our hopes for the future state of mankind come down to three points: [A] the destruction of the inequality among nations, [B] advances in equality within individual nations, and [C] 20the real improvement of mankind. Aren’t all nations bound someday to approach the state of civilisation reached by the peoples who are most enlightened, most free, most clear of prejudices, e.g. the French and the Anglo-Americans? The chasm separating these peoples from the slavery of countries subjected to kings, the barbarity of African tribes and the ignorance of 25savages—mustn’t it gradually vanish? [A] Are there territories on the globe whose inhabitants are condemned by nature never to enjoy liberty, never to exercise their reason? [B] The difference in knowledge, means and wealth that has so far been visible in all civilised nations, between the different classes making up each nation—what is the status of this inequality that the earliest 30advances of society have increased (one might almost say ‘have produced’)? Is it integral to civilisation as such, or is it one of the imperfections of the social art? Is it on course to lessen continually, being replaced by the chief goal of the social art, namely the actual equality that lessens even the effects of the natural differences in people’s faculties and leaves standing only such inequality as is 35useful to everyone because it favours civilisation, education and industry, without creating dependence, humiliation or poverty? In short, are men approaching a state in which everyone will know what he needs to know for leading his everyday life on the basis of his own reason, and for keeping that reason uncontaminated by prejudices; for knowing his rights and exercising 40them according to his opinions and his conscience; a state in which everyone will be able by the development of his faculties to earn a secure livelihood; a state in which folly and misery will be only ·occasional· accidents and not the permanent state of a considerable portion of society? [C] Finally, is the human

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race going to become better, either through new discoveries in the sciences and the arts, resulting in improvements in individual well-being and general prosperity; or by making further advances in the principles of conduct and in moral practice; or by real improvement of our moral, intellectual and physical faculties? That last one might result from any of three improvements: in the 5instruments that increase the power of those faculties, in the instruments that direct the faculties’ use, or in the natural organisation of the faculties themselves. In answering these three questions we’ll find the strongest reasons—from past experience, from observation of the advances that the sciences and civilisation have made up to now, and from analysing the journey 10of the human mind and the development of its faculties—to believe that nature has set no limits to what we can look forward to. [A] Inequality among nations If we take a quick look at the present state of the globe, we’ll see right away that in Europe the principles of the French constitution are already those of every enlightened man. We’ll see them too widely disseminated there, and 15too openly professed, for tyrants and priests to block them from gradually penetrating the hovels of their slaves; and there they’ll soon awaken the remnants of ·the slaves’· good sense, and arouse in the soul of the oppressed the silent indignation that a life of humiliation and terror can’t extinguish. Looking then at the different nations we’ll see what particular obstacles each of 20them poses to this revolution and what particular factors favour it. We’ll pick out those where it is on course to come about gently through the (perhaps already overdue!) wisdom of their governments, and those that will be dragged into swift and terrible events because the revolution has been made violent by their governments’ resistance to it. Can it be doubted that either the good 25sense or the senseless rivalries of the European nations, co-operating with the slow but unstoppable effects of the advances of their colonies, will soon produce the independence of the new world? and that then the European population ·of those former colonies·, rapidly spreading across that enormous territory, will either civilise the savage nations still occupying immense tracts 30of it or peacefully cause them to disappear? Survey the history of our enterprises and establishments in Africa or in Asia and you’ll see our trade monopolies, our treachery, our blood-soaked contempt for men of a different colour or creed, and the insolence of our usurpations, the wild proselytising of our priests, or their intrigues destroying the feeling of respect and good-will 35that had initially been won by the superiority of our knowledge and the benefits of trade with us. But no doubt the moment is coming when we’ll stop presenting ourselves to these people only as corruptors or tyrants and will become for them sources of benefit or warm-hearted liberators. The sugar-growing industry that is now being established in Africa will put an end to the 40shameful robbery by which that enormous continent has been corrupted and depopulated through two centuries. Already in Great Britain some friends of humanity have set the example; and if the force of public thinking has restrained that country’s machiavellian government from opposing it, what

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may we not expect from this same source when the reform of a servile and venal constitution leads to a government worthy of a humane and good-hearted people? Won’t France be eager to imitate enterprises dictated equally by Europe’s philanthropy and its true self-interest? Spice-trading has already been introduced into the French islands, Guiana, and some English 5settlements; and we’ll soon see the collapse of the spice monopoly that the Dutch have maintained by so much treachery, oppression and crime. The nations of Europe will eventually learn that trading monopolies are merely a tax imposed on a nation’s people to give their government a new instrument of tyranny. Then the Europeans, settling for free trade and too enlightened about 10their own rights to treat the rights of others lightly, will respect the independence that until now they have so insolently violated. Their settlements, instead of being filled by government hirelings who rush to exploit their position or their privilege in committing robbery and treachery to amass wealth with which to buy honours and titles back in Europe, will be 15staffed with hard-working men who will go to those pleasant climates in search of the comfortable way of life that they couldn’t find in their native country. They will be kept there ·in the colonies· by liberty; ambition will stop calling them back to Europe; and those counting houses of robbers will become colonies of citizens who will disseminate through Africa and Asia the 20principles and the example of Europe’s liberty, enlightenment and reason. Also the monks who bring to these peoples nothing but shameful superstitions, and who antagonise them by threatening them with a new tyranny will be replaced by men who busy themselves spreading among these nations truths that serve their happiness, and enlightening them about their interests as well as their 25rights. Zeal for the truth is one of the passions; and when it stops seeing itself surrounded by gross prejudices to combat and shameful errors to dissipate it will naturally extend its efforts to distant parts of the earth. These immense lands will offer to it—·i.e. to the zeal for the truth·—in some places (i) numerous peoples that seem to need, in order to be civilised, only for us to give 30them the means for this and for the Europeans to treat them as brothers so as to have them as friends and disciples; in others (ii) nations ground down by religious despots or stupid conquerors, having spent centuries calling for liberators; in others again either (iii) nearly savage tribes whose harsh climate has blocked them from having the gentle pleasures of a polished civilisation 35and deterred those who would have liked to help them in this from making the attempt, or (iv) conquering tribes that know no law but force and no profession but piracy. The advances of (iii) and (iv) will be slower and more tempestuous; it may even happen that, reduced in numbers as they see themselves repelled by civilised nations, they will in the long run gradually disappear, or blend in 40with their neighbours. I’ll show how these events will be the inevitable consequence not only of Europe’s advances but of the freedom that the French and North American republics can and in their own interests should give to trade with Africa and Asia—·i.e.· how they must necessarily result from the

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European nations’ new-found wisdom or from their obstinate adherence to mercantile prejudices. I’ll show that the only event that could block this revolution would be a new invasion of Asia by the Tartars [here = roughly ‘Turks and Mongols’], and that this won’t again be possible. Meanwhile everything is working towards the early collapse of the great religions of the 5East. These have been abandoned to the people nearly everywhere, share the low moral level of their ministers, and in many regions are already regarded by those in power as mere political institutions; they no longer threaten to keep human reason in hopeless slavery and endless infancy. The progress of these peoples will be faster and steadier than ours has been, because they will 10get from us what we had to discover for ourselves, and because for them to know the simple truths and reliable methods that we arrived at only through many errors all they’ll need is to grasp their proofs and their developments in what we say and write. If the advances of the Greeks were lost on other nations, the blame for that lies with lack of communication between peoples 15and with the tyrannical domination of the Romans. But when mutual needs bring all men closer together, so that the most powerful nations will count among their political principles equality among societies as well as among individuals, respect for the independence of weak states as well as compassion for ignorance and wretchedness; when maxims that tighten the mainspring of 20the human faculties are replaced by ones that favour releasing it into action and energy; will it still be reasonable to fear that some parts of the globe are inaccessible to enlightenment, or that the pride of despotism will be able to go on for long putting up insurmountable barriers to the truth? So the time will come when the sun shines only on men who are free and acknowledge no 25master except their reason; when tyrants and slaves, priests and their stupid or hypocritical instruments, will exist only in history books and on the stage; when we’ll give no thought to them except for pitying their ·past· victims and dupes, and keeping watch for any new sprouting of the seeds of superstition and tyranny, so that if they dare to re-appear we can recognise them and stamp 30them down by the weight of reason. [B] Inequality within individual nations In surveying the history of societies I’ll have had occasion to remark that there is often a big gap between the rights that the law grants to the citizens and the rights they really enjoy, between the equality that political institutions establish and the equality there is among individuals; and that this gap was a 35leading cause of the destruction of liberty in the ancient republics, the storms they went through, and the weakness that delivered them into the hands of foreign tyrants. These discrepancies have three principal causes: (a) inequality of wealth, (b) inequality of status between someone whose means of subsistence are secure for himself and will be inherited by his family and 40someone whose resources depend on the length of his life or rather of the part of his life in which he can work, and lastly (c) inequality of education. So it will have to be shown that these three kinds of real inequality must continually lessen—but without vanishing, for they have natural and necessary causes that

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it would be absurd and dangerous to try to destroy. Even trying to abolish their effects entirely would let loose more harmful sources of inequality, attacking the rights of man more directly and fatally. [(a) INEQUALITY OF WEALTH] 5 It is easy to prove that fortunes naturally tend to be equal, and that their extreme disproportion couldn’t exist or couldn’t last long if civil laws didn’t introduce artificial means of perpetuating them and combining them; complete freedom of commerce and industry abolished the advantages that every 10restrictive law, every fiscal privilege, gives to those who are already rich; there weren’t taxes on contracts, restrictions on the freedom to make them, tiresome formalities regarding them, uncertainty and expenses in having them enforced—all suppressing the poor man’s activity and swallowing up his pitiful capital; public administration didn’t open to some men abundant sources of 15wealth that are closed to all the other citizens; marriages weren’t presided over by elderly people’s spirit of greed and other prejudices; the simplicity of our mœurs and the wisdom of our institutions stopped wealth from operating as the means of gratifying vanity or ambition, but didn’t favour an ill-judged austerity that would forbid the use of wealth to pay for delicate pleasures and 20thus lead to the hoarding of wealth. [(b) INEQUALITY OF STATUS]Let us compare the present populations of the enlightened nations of Europe 25with the extent of their territories. As we look at their agriculture and industry, let us observe how labour and the means of subsistence are distributed; we’ll see that it would be impossible to maintain these means at the same level (and thus to maintain the same size of population) if many individuals stopped having to depend, for almost the whole upkeep of 30themselves and their families, on their own work and the equipment they have bought to make the work possible or to make it more productive. […]. I’ll expound other means of securing this equality: preventing credit from being a privilege so exclusively attached to large fortunes, yet providing an equally solid basis for it; making the advances in industry and the activity of commerce 35less dependent on the existence of great capitalists. These means also will be due to the application of mathematics. [(c) INEQUALITY OF EDUCATION]40The educational equality that we can hope to attain, and that ought to be sufficient, is that which excludes all dependence, whether forced or voluntary. I’ll show that in the present state of human knowledge this can easily be

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achieved even for those who can devote only a few years of childhood to study and will have only odd hours of leisure during their adult lives. […]

If education is more equal, that gives rise to more equality in work, and from that comes more equality in wealth; equality in wealth must contribute to equality of education; and equality among peoples both helps and is helped by 5equality within a single people. In short, properly directed education corrects the natural inequality of the faculties rather than increasing it, just as good laws remedy the natural inequality of the means of subsistence; and just as, in societies whose institutions bring about this equality, liberty—though regulated by law—will be more extensive, more complete, than in the 10·unregulated· independence of savage life. Then the social art will have achieved its goal, namely securing and extending for everyone the enjoyment of the common rights they are called to by nature.

[C] The perfecting of the human species I have been showing that we can have almost sure hope of certain advances. The real advantages that must 15result from them can’t be limited by anything except whatever limits there are to the perfecting of the human species. Why? Because in proportion as different kinds of equality equip the species with greater means for meeting our needs, with more universal education, and with more complete liberty, the more real this equality will be, and the closer it will come to taking in 20everything truly important to men’s happiness. So the only way we can know how much we can hope for—what limits there are to the benefits we can come to enjoy—is by examining the course of this perfecting ·of the human species· and the laws governing it. No-one has ever thought that the ·human· mind could grasp all the facts of nature, complete precision in the measuring and 25analysing those facts, all the ways in which objects are inter-related, and all the possible combinations of ideas. The mere relations of sizes—the combinations of this one idea of quantity or extent—form a system that is too immense for man’s mind ever to grasp it all; however much of it he comes to penetrate, more than that will always remain unknown to him. But it has been 30found credible that ·we’ll eventually come to a dead-end·: that man, being able ever to know only a part of the topics that the nature of his intelligence permits him to understand, must eventually reach a limit, where the number and complexity of the facts he already knows have absorbed all his powers so that further progress will become absolutely impossible for him. But ·that is 35not clearly right· because as the range of known facts grows, men become correspondingly better at classifying them and reducing them to more general facts; at the same time the instruments and methods for observing and measuring them exactly become more precise; as more and more relations are discovered among more and more objects, men manage to reduce them to 40more general relations and express them in simpler language, presenting them in a way that enables more of them to be grasped without any increase in intellectual power or intellectual effort; as the mind comes to understand more complex constructs of ideas, simpler formulae will soon reduce their

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complexity; and the upshot of all this is that truths the discovery of which required the greatest efforts—truths that at first couldn’t even be understood except by deep thinkers—soon come to be expounded and proved by methods that are within the reach of average intelligences. And if the methods that led to new combinations come to be exhausted, if the use of them to deal with still 5unanswered questions demands from scientists more time or more intellectual power than they have, simpler and more general methods ·come to their aid and· open up a new field to high intelligence. The energy and real scope of the human intellect will stay the same; but the instruments it can use will be multiplied and improved, and the language that fixes and determines ideas will 10be able to acquire more precision and generality. Unlike the situation in mechanics, where you can’t increase the force without reducing the velocity, these methods that will direct high intelligence in the discovery of new truths will increase equally the force and the speed of its operations. In short, because these changes are themselves the inevitable upshot of progress in the 15knowledge of detailed truths, and because the cause that creates a need for new resources produces at the same time the means of supplying them, it follows that the sheer content of the truths forming the system of the sciences of observation, experiment and calculation could increase endlessly, even if man’s faculties retained the same strength, activity and extent. Applying these 20general reflections to the different sciences, I shall present for each science examples of this progressive improvement—examples that will leave no doubt that more improvements lie ahead. I shall make a special point of noting, with regard to sciences that prejudice regards as nearest to the end of their tether, the ·possible· advances that are the most probable and the nearest in time. I 25shall expound all the ways in which a more general and more philosophical application of the mathematical sciences to all branches of human knowledge are bound to increase the scope, precision, and unity of the system of that knowledge. I shall point out how our hopes would be greater if in each country education were more universal, giving to more people the elementary 30knowledge that might inspire them with a taste for a particular kind of study and the ability to make advances in it; how greatly these hopes would be further strengthened if more general affluence enabled more people to devote themselves to such study—because at present, even in the most enlightened countries, of those to whom nature has given the required talents barely one in 35fifty gets the education needed to develop them; and thus that correspondingly more people would be on course to make discoveries that would push back the frontiers of science. I’ll show how much this educational equality, combined with the coming equality among different nations, would speed those sciences whose advances depend on observations repeated more times over larger 40stretches of territory; all the benefit that this would bring to mineralogy, botany, zoology and meteorology; in short, what a vast difference there is between the feeble means now available to these sciences (though they have led to useful and important truths) and the means that man would then have at

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his disposal. I shall reveal how much, even in the sciences where discoveries are the reward of individual meditation, the advantage of being pursued by more people could also contribute to their advances by improvements in the details—things of sorts that can arise from simple thinking and don’t require the strength of intellect needed for discoveries. If we pass now to the arts [see 5Glossary] whose theories depend on these same sciences, we’ll see that their theoretical advances can march with those of the sciences, not having any other limits; that the procedures of the arts are capable of the same improvements and simplifications as the methods of the sciences; that instruments, machines and looms will go on adding to man’s power and skill, 10increasing the excellence and precision of the things he makes while reducing the amount of the time and labour needed to produce them. When all that happens, that will be the end of the obstacles that still stand in the way of those advances, obstacles such as accidents that men will learn to foresee and prevent, and the unsanitariness of certain operations, work-habits and 15climates. Provisions of higher value or greater utility will be extractable from smaller and smaller portions of ground; more goods will be obtainable at less expense; the same manufactured article will require less destruction of raw materials or will be stronger and more durable. Men will be able to choose for each kind of soil the use of it that will do most to satisfy people’s needs; and to 20choose, among different productions that meet the same need, the ones that will provide for the most people at the lowest cost. Thus, advances in the arts of producing and preparing materials and making things from them will bring with them cost-free improvements in the means of conservation and of frugality. Thus, not only will the same ground feed more individuals, but each 25individual’s work will be more productive—because less grinding—and so will satisfy more needs. [GLOBAL OVER-POPULATION]30[Text omitted] [IMPROVEMENTS IN METAPHYSICS, MORALS AND POLITICS]The discovery (or rather the accurate analysis) of the basic principles of 35metaphysics, morals and politics is still recent, and it was preceded by knowledge of very many truths of detail; so it is easy to think that those three disciplines have now reached their destination; the prejudice has arisen that nothing remains to be done in them because there are no longer any gross errors to destroy or basic truths to establish. But it is easy to see how far we 40are from fully understanding the intellectual and moral faculties of man; how greatly knowledge of his duties, which requires knowledge of how his actions will affect the welfare of his fellow creatures and of the society he belongs to, can be increased by a steadier, deeper and more accurate observation of that

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action-to-upshot relation; how many questions still have to be answered, how many social ties have to be examined, before we can have precise knowledge of the individual rights of man and of the rights that the social state confers on the whole community with regard to each member. Have we yet even set with any precision the limits of these rights, whether between different societies, or 5of single societies over their members in times of trouble and division, or of individuals and of free associations at the time of their first formation or of their having to be dissolved? If we pass now to the theory that will have to direct the application of these principles, serving as the basis of the social art, don’t we see the need for a level of precision that these first truths—absolutely 10general as they are—aren’t capable of? Have we reached the point where we can base our laws on either justice or proved and acknowledged utility, rather than on vague, uncertain and arbitrary views of claimed political advantages? Have we settled on precise rules to guide a confident choice, among the almost infinite variety of possible systems that would respect the general principles of 15equality and natural rights, the ones that best secure the preservation of these rights, give the widest scope for their exercise and enjoyment, and best promote the leisure and welfare of individuals and the strength, peace and prosperity of nations? The application of the calculus of combinations and probabilities to these same sciences ·of metaphysics, morals and politics· 20promises advances that will get added importance from the fact that this ·calculus· is the only means of giving their results an almost mathematical precision and of judging how certain or probable they are. The facts that support these results may well lead—at a glance, without calculation—to some general truths, telling us whether the effects produced by such-and-such a 25cause are good or bad; but if these facts can’t be counted or weighed, if these effects can’t be subjected to exact measurement, we shan’t be able to know how much good or bad the cause in question produces; and if the good and bad are nearly equal, the difference between them being small, we won’t even be able to say confidently which way the balance swings. Without the application of 30this calculus it would often be impossible to make a secure choice between two routes to a single goal when there was no obvious difference between their respective advantages. Without this ·mathematical· help these sciences would remain forever crude and limited because of their lack of instruments fine enough to lay hold of the fleeting truth, of machines sound enough to get 35down into the depths of the mine where some of the wealth of these sciences lies hidden. Yet this application, despite the happy efforts of certain geometers, is still in a rudimentary state, so to speak; and to future generations it must open a source of knowledge that is—like the calculating science itself, and like the combinations of relations and facts that it can be applied to—truly 40inexhaustible. Another kind of progress that these ·three· sciences can make is equally important—the perfecting of their language, which is so vague still and so obscure. It’s through this improvement that the sciences can become truly popular [see Glossary] even in their basic elements. Someone who is

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·highly trained and· highly intelligent can triumph over the inexactitude of scientific language, as he can over other obstacles; he recognises the truth despite of the ·linguistic· mask that conceals or disguises it. But what about the man who can spend only a few leisure moments on his education—how can he acquire and retain even the simplest truths if they are disguised by inaccurate 5language? The fewer ideas he is able to collect and combine, the greater his need for them to be sound and precise. He doesn’t have stored in his mind any system of truths to defend him against error; and his understanding, not being strengthened or refined by long exercise, cannot catch the feeble rays of light that escape through the obscurities and ambiguities of an imperfect and 10perverted language. [MORAL SCIENCE AND MORAL PRACTICE]When men become enlightened about the nature and development of their 15moral sentiments, the principles of morality, the natural motives that prompt them to act morally, and their interests as individuals or as members of society, they will inevitably make advances in moral practice that are as real as those they make in the science of morality. Isn’t a mistake about our interests the most frequent cause of actions contrary to the general welfare? Isn’t the 20violence of our passions often the effect of habits that we have acquired only through false calculations or of ignorance of the means by which to resist the passions at their outset so as to tame them, steer them, direct their action? Isn’t the practice of reflecting on one’s own conduct, listening to the deliverances of reason and conscience upon it, and having gentle feelings that 25don’t distinguish one’s own happiness from that of others —isn’t all this an inevitable result of (a) the well-directed study of morality and of (b) greater equality in the conditions of the social compact? Won’t (b) the free man’s sense of his own dignity and (a) an educational system based on a deepened knowledge of our moral constitution have the result that almost everyone has 30those principles of strict and pure justice, those habitual impulses of active and enlightened benevolence, of a delicate and generous sensibility, whose seed nature has planted in our hearts and which will flower there if they get the gentle influence of (a) enlightenment and (b) liberty? Just as the mathematical and physical sciences serve to improve the arts that are employed for our 35simplest needs, isn’t it equally part of nature’s necessary order that advances in the moral and political sciences should serve to improve the motives that direct our feelings and our actions? What is achieved by the improvement of laws and public institutions that comes from the advances of these sciences except to bring the common interest of each individual closer to—to make it 40identical with—the common interest of all? Isn’t the goal of the social art to destroy the seeming opposition between these? And won’t the country whose constitution and laws accord best with the demands of reason and nature also be the one where the practice of virtue will be easiest and the temptations to

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stray will be rarest and weakest? What vicious habit, what practice contrary to good faith, what crime, even, can’t be ultimately traced back to its origin or first cause in the legislation, institutions and prejudices of the country in which the habit, practice, or crime is seen to be committed? In short, aren’t men disposed to humanity, beneficence and justice by the prosperity resulting from 5the advances the useful arts make with the support of a sound theory, or the advances sound legislation makes on the basis of the truths of the political sciences? Don’t all these observations (which I’ll develop at length in the work itself) show that man’s moral goodness, the necessary consequence of his constitution, is like all his other faculties capable of indefinite improvement? 10and that nature binds together truth, happiness and virtue by a chain that can’t be broken? [IMBALANCE BETWEEN THE SEXES]15Among the advances of the human mind that matter most to general happiness we must include the total annihilation of the prejudices that have established an inequality of rights between the sexes, an inequality that is deadly even to the sex that it favours. It would be useless to try to justify it by differences of physical organisation, of intellect, or of moral sensibility. This inequality 20began as a pure abuse of strength, and subsequent attempts to excuse it by bad arguments have all been wasted breath. I shall show how much the abolition of the practices authorised by this prejudice, and of the laws that it has dictated, can do to increase the happiness of families and spread the virtues of domestic life (which are the basis of all the other virtues); and to favour advances in 25education, above all making it truly general—because it would be extended more equally to both sexes and because it can’t become general even for men without the support of the mothers of families. Wouldn’t this long-overdue tribute to equity and good sense dry up a brimming well of injustices, cruelties and crimes by abolishing the dangerous opposition between man’s most 30vigorous and hard-to-control natural propensity and his duties or the interests of society? Wouldn’t it at last produce something that until now has been merely a pipe-dream? I mean: mild and pure national mœurs, not formed by proud asceticism, hypocritical appearances ·of sexual propriety·, or ·sexual· moderation imposed by the fear of shame or religious terrors, but by habits 35freely contracted, inspired by nature and acknowledged by reason? [THE END OF WAR]When people are more enlightened, and have reclaimed the right to dispose of 40their own blood and their own goods, they’ll gradually come to regard war as the deadliest scourge, the worst of all crimes. The first wars to disappear will be the ones that usurpers of national sovereignty drag their subjects into in defence of supposed hereditary rights. Nations will know that they can’t

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become conquerors without losing their freedom; that permanent confederations are the only way to maintaining their independence; that they should aim for security, not power. Commercial prejudices will gradually die away; false ideas about mercantile interest will lose their terrible power of drenching the earth in blood, ruining nations on the pretence of enriching 5them. As the nations come closer to one another in their views on the principles of politics and morality, and as each of them, for its own advantage, invites foreigners to have a more equal share in the benefits that nature or industry have given it, all the causes that produce, intensify and perpetuate national hatreds will gradually disappear; they’ll no longer provide either fuel 10or pretext for the fury of war. The advances of this brotherhood of nations will be accelerated by institutions that are better conceived than the projects of perpetual peace with which certain philosophers have filled their spare time and soothed their souls; and wars between nations will count (like assassinations) as extraordinary atrocities, humiliating and loathsome in the 15eyes of nature and fixing an indelible stain on the country or the age whose history records them. [IMPROVEMENTS IN FINE ARTS AND SCIENCES]20Regarding the fine arts in Greece, Italy and France I said that one should distinguish in their productions what really belongs to the progress of the art from what is due only to the talent of the artist. Now I shall ·turn from the past to the future and· consider what advances ·in the fine arts· may still be expected, whether because of advances in philosophy and the sciences, more 25observations, or deeper ones, concerning the goal, the effects and the means of the fine arts themselves, or the abolition of the prejudices that have narrowed their sphere and still hold them back by the yoke of authority from which the sciences and philosophy have broken free. I’ll look into something that has been believed, namely [to the end of this paragraph]: The means of the fine 30arts are bound to dry up, because the most sublime beauties, or the most touching ones, have been taken, the happiest subjects have been treated, the simplest and most striking ideas have been used, the most prominent and general characters have been portrayed, the liveliest passions and their truest or most natural expressions, the most striking truths, and the most brilliant 35images have been put to work by the artists; so that the ·fine· arts, whatever growth we attribute to their means, are condemned to an eternal and monotonous imitation of their first models. I shall show that this opinion is nothing but a prejudice born of the habit of artists and literary folk of judging the men rather than enjoying their works. The thoughtful pleasure that comes 40from comparing the products of different ages and countries, and from being amazed by the efforts or the success of genius, may be lost; but the pleasure to be derived from the productions themselves because of their own real perfection needn’t be less lively, even in cases where the artist doesn’t deserve

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as much credit for rising to that level of perfection. As there come to be more works that are really worth preserving, and as they become more perfect, each generation will direct its attention and admiration to those that deserve to be singled out, and the rest will gradually be forgotten; and the pleasures to be derived from the simpler and more striking beauties that were first seized on 5will still be had by our posterity even though those beauties are found only in more modern works. The advances of the sciences guarantee advances in the art of education, which then speed up those of the sciences; and this reciprocal influence, whose action is ceaselessly renewed, must count as one of the most active and powerful causes of the perfecting of the human race. A young man 10graduating from one of our universities today knows more in mathematics than Newton learned by profound study or discovered by the force of his genius; he can handle the instrument of calculation with an ease that was unknown back then. The same observation applies, though not quite equally, to all the sciences. The more a given science grows, the better it becomes at 15compressing more proofs of truths within less space, making them easier to understand. Thus, not only will this be the case for each generation: despite the new advances in the sciences, men of equally high intelligence will at the same stage of their individual lives come to be right on top of the present state of ·the· science ·they are working on·, but so also will this: the amount that can 20be learned in a given stretch of time by the same strength of intellect and the same level of attention will inevitably increase; and the elementary part of each science—the part that everyone can master—will grow, coming ever closer to containing all the knowledge that everyone needs if he is to steer himself through everyday life and freely exercise his reason. In the political sciences 25there’s a category of truths which—particularly in free countries, i.e. some generations hence in all countries)—can’t be useful until they are generally known and accepted. So the influence of these sciences on the freedom and prosperity of nations must be somewhat measured by how many of those truths are lodged in everyone’s mind through elementary education; so the 30growing advances in elementary education, tied to the inevitable advances in these sciences, provides us with a guarantee of an improvement in the lot of the human race that can be regarded as indefinite because it could only be limited by limits on those two kinds of advance. 35[TECHNICAL METHODS AND UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE] I have to address two other general means that are bound to influence improvements in both the art of education and the sciences. One is a broader and better use of what may be called technical methods; the other is the setting 40up of a universal language. By ‘technical methods’ I mean the art of bringing many objects into a systematic layout that lets one see at a glance their inter-relations, quickly grasp the complexes that they form, and more easily form new complexes from them. I shall expound the principles of this art and bring

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out how useful it can be. Today it is still in its infancy, but when it is perfected it can offer us the advantage of presenting within the narrow compass of a chart material that it would often be hard to make so quickly or so well understood in a big book; and something even more valuable—a way to present isolated facts in the layout that is best for deriving general results 5from them. It’s easy to learn how to use these charts; and I’ll show how, with the help of a few of them, men who have been stuck at the level of elementary education, and thus haven’t been able to absorb—to make their own—knowledge of details that are useful in everyday life, will come to be able to lay their hand on those details as needed; and how these ·technical· methods can 10make elementary education easier in all the branches of it that are concerned with either a regular system of truths or a series of observations and facts. A language is universal if it expresses by signs either (i) real objects or (ii) well-defined collections of simple and general ideas which are found to be the same, or can be formed equally in the understanding of all men; or (iii) the general 15relations among these ideas—the operations of the human mind, or the operations that specifically belong to each science or to the procedures of the arts. Thus, anyone who knew these signs, the ways to combine them and the rules for forming them would understand what is written in this language and could easily translate it into the vernacular of his own country. Clearly this 20language could be used to expound either the theory of a science or the rules of an art; to report a new experiment or observation, the invention of a procedure, the discovery of a truth or of a method; and, as in algebra, when new signs have to be introduced they will be explainable in terms of the already existing ones. Such a language doesn’t have the drawback of a 25scientific idiom different from the vernacular. I have remarked that the use of such an idiom necessarily divides societies into two unequal classes—one composed of men who understand the language and thus have the key to the sciences, the other of those who have been unable to learn it and so are almost completely unable to acquire knowledge. The universal language that I am 30describing, on the other hand, would be learned (as the language of algebra is) along with learning the science itself; the sign would be known at the same time as the object, idea or operation that it stands for. Anyone who had learned the elements of a science and wanted to go further in it would find in books not only truths he could understand with the aid of the signs whose meanings he 35already knew but the explanation of further signs that were needed for him to go on to other truths. I’ll show that the formation of such a language, if con- fined to the expressing of simple and precise propositions like those that form the system of a science or the practice of an art, is far from being a mere fantasy; that even today it could easily be set up for many topics; and that the 40chief obstacle to its being extending to others would be something that it’s a bit embarrassing to admit, namely the paucity of our stock of precise ideas, accurately defined notions, understood exactly in the same sense by every mind. I’ll show how this language, with daily improvements and enlargements

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of its scope, would bring to every topic that comes within the reach of human intelligence a rigour and precision that would make it easy to know the truth and almost impossible to go wrong. Then each science would go forward as securely as mathematics does, and the propositions constituting its system would have all the certainty of geometry—i.e. all that is permitted by the 5propositions’ subject-matter and method. [IMPROVING MAN’S PHYSIQUE AND NATURAL FACULTIES] All these causes of the improvement of the human species, all these means that 10ensure it, must from their very nature exert an always active influence and continually broaden their scope. I have presented the evidence for this; and when it is developed at length in the work itself it will be even stronger; so we can already conclude that man is indefinitely improvable; and we have reached this point while assuming him to go on having only the same natural faculties 15that he has now, as being internally organised in the same way. Think how sure we could be ·about man’s future improvement·, how much we could hope for on his behalf, if we could believe that these natural faculties themselves—this organisation—could also be improved. This is the last matter that I have to examine. The organic perfectibility or deterioration of the species of plants 20and animals can be regarded as one of the general laws of nature. This law extends to the human race; and surely no-one will doubt that advances in conservative [conservatrice] medicine, healthier food and housing, a life-style that develops physical powers by exercise without ruining them by excess, and lastly eliminating degradation’s two most active causes, extreme poverty and 25extreme wealth, are bound to prolong man’s average life-span and secure for him better health and a sturdier constitution. We can sense that advances in preventive [préservatrice] medicine, which will become more efficacious because of advances in reason and the social order, are bound eventually to put an end to hereditary and contagious illnesses and to general ill-health arising 30from climate, food and working conditions. It wouldn’t be hard to show that this hope should apply to almost every other illness whose remote causes we come to discover. Would it be absurd now to suppose that this improvement is capable of indefinite progress; to suppose that the time must come when death will be due only to extraordinary accidents or to the decay (slower and slower 35·down through the generations·) of the person’s vital forces, and that eventually the amount of time between a person’s birth and this decay will have no assignable value? Certainly man won’t become immortal; but can’t the interval between a man’s birth and ·his death—i.e.· the usual time at which naturally, without illness or accident, he encounters the difficulty of staying in 40existence—become ever longer? Since I am now speaking of a progress that can be precisely represented by numbers or on a graph, this is the place where I should explain the two meanings that the word ‘indefinite’ can have. This average life-span that we are supposing to keep lengthening as men push on

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into the future could be growing in either of two ways: (i) following a law such that the life-span continually approaches some indeterminate length without being able to reach it—·like the series n − 1 2 , n − 1 3 , n − 1 4 . . . ;· (ii) following a law such that as the centuries unroll the life-span becomes longer than any determinate quantity that might have been assigned as its limit—5·like the series 1, 2, 3, 4,. . . ·. In case (ii) its increases are really indefinite in the strictest sense of the word, since there is no length x such that the life-span must be shorter than x. In case (i) the increases are also indefinite in the sense of being indefinite to us, because we can’t say what the length n is that the life-span can go on approaching but can never reach. The fact is that even if we 10know that the increases can never stop, we don’t know whether they are indefinite in sense (i) or in sense (ii). And this is the end-point of our present knowledge of the perfectibility of the human species—the sense in which we can call human perfectibility indefinite. Thus, in the example we are considering, we have to believe that average human life-span will go on 15increasing forever unless physical upheavals prevent that from happening; but we don’t know what the length is that it can’t ever exceed; we don’t even know whether the laws of nature have set any such limit. But ·that doesn’t end the questions about human perfectibility·. Mightn’t it be that individual improvements in the strength, dexterity and acuteness of our senses can be 20transmitted from one generation to the next? Observation of the various breeds of domestic animals should incline us to think so, and we can confirm this by direct observation of the human species. Lastly, can we hope for the same thing for our intellectual and moral faculties? Mightn’t it be that our parents, who transmit to us the benefits or defects of their bodily constitution, 25and from whom we receive our distinctive facial features as well as our tendency to certain physical upsets, also transmit to us that part of the physical organisation that determines intelligence, brain-power, energy of soul, or moral sensibility? Isn’t it likely that education, by improving these qualities, also influences, modifies and improves this physical organisation?. . . . 30These questions that bring to an end my examination of this last era. And this picture of the human species—freed from all its shackles, no longer dominated by chance or by the enemies of its advances, and striding with a firm and sure step along the path of truth, virtue and happiness—how consoling it is for the philosopher who laments the errors, the crimes and the injustices which still 35pollute the earth and of which he is often a victim! Contemplating this picture is the reward for all his efforts on behalf of reason’s advances and of the defence of liberty. He ventures to regard these efforts as links in the eternal chain of human destiny; and that is the true repayment for virtue, namely the pleasure of having done lasting good that fate can’t destroy through any fatal 40operation that brings back prejudice and slavery. This contemplation is for him a refuge into which the memory of his persecutors cannot pursue him. In there he unites himself in thought with man re-established in his rights and in the dignity of his nature; he forgets those who are tormented and corrupted by

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greed, fear or envy; he truly lives there with people like him, in an elysium which his reason has created for him and which his love for humanity enhances with the purest joys.

THE END 5

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Enlightenment and Its Critics

Reading Three

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803)

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(The following selection is adapted from the translation by Michael Forster of Herder’s Philosophical Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002))

A. From This Too a Philosophy of History (1774)

I. No one in the world feels the weakness of general characterizing more than I. One paints a whole people, age, region of the earth — whom has one painted? One draws together peoples and periods of time that follow one another in an eternal succession like waves of the sea — whom has one painted?, whom has the depicting word captured? Finally, one after all draws them together into 5nothing but a general word in relation to which each person perhaps thinks and feels what he wants — imperfect means of depiction!, how one can be misunderstood!

Whoever has noticed what an inexpressible thing one is dealing with in the distinctive individuality of a human being — to be able to say what 10distinguishes him in a distinguishing way, how he feels and lives, how different and idiosyncratic all things become for him once his eye sees them, his soul measures them, his heart feels them — what depth lies in the character of just a single nation which, even if one has often enough perceived and stared at it, yet so escapes the word, and at least so rarely becomes recognizable to everyone in the 15word so that he understands and feels along — [for him] it is as though one were supposed to survey the world-sea of whole peoples, ages, and lands, comprehend it in one view, one feeling, one word. Tired semi phantom that a word is! The whole living painting of mode of life, habits, needs, peculiarities of land and climate, would have to be added or to have preceded; one would have first to 20sympathize with the nation, in order to feel a single one of its inclinations or actions all together, one would have to find a single word, to imagine everything in its fullness — or one reads — a word!

We all believe that we still now have paternal and household and human drives as the Oriental had them; that we can have faithfulness and diligence in art 25as the Egyptian possessed them; Phoenician activeness, Greek love of freedom, Roman strength of soul — who does not think that he feels a disposition for all that, if only time, opportunity ... And behold!, my reader, we are precisely there. The most cowardly villain no doubt still has a remote disposition and potential for being the most great-hearted hero — but between those and “the whole 30feeling of being, of existence, in such a character” — a gulf! Hence even if you lacked nothing but time, opportunity to change your dispositions for being an Oriental, a Greek, a Roman, into finished skills and solid drives— a gulf! Drives and finished skills are all that is in question. The whole nature of the soul, which rules through everything, which models all other inclinations and forces of the 35

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soul in accordance with itself, and in addition colors even the most indifferent actions — in order to share in feeling this, do not answer on the basis of the word but go into the age, into the clime, the whole history, feel yourself into everything — only now are you on the way towards understanding the word. But also only now will you lose the thought “as though you too are all that 5taken individually or collectively.” You all taken collectively? Quintessence of all times and peoples? That really shows stupidity!

Character of the nations! Only data of their constitution and history must decide. But did not a patriarch, in addition to the inclinations which “you attribute to him, also have, and have the ability to have, other ones?” I say to 10both questions simply: certainly! Certainly, he had other ones, subordinate traits which are self-understood from what I have said or not said, which I and perhaps others with me who have his history in mind indeed already recognized in the word, and still more readily that he had the ability to have something very much other — in another place, in this time, with that progress 15in civilization [Bildung], under those other circumstances — why in that case should not Leonidas, Caesar, or Abraham be a genteel man of our century? Had the ability to be, but was not. Ask history about it; that is what is in question.

I therefore likewise prepare myself for small-scale objections based on the great detail of peoples and times. That no people long remained or could 20remain what it was; that each one, like each art and science and whatever in the world not?, had its period of growth, of bloom, and of decline; that each of these changing states only lasted the very small amount of time that could be given it on the wheel of human fate; finally, that no two moments in the world are the same, that consequently Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks were also not the 25same at all times — I tremble when I think what sorts of wise criticisms wise people, especially experts on history, can make concerning this! Greece consisted of many lands: Athenians and Boeotians, Spartans and Corinthians, were anything but like each other. Did not people practice agriculture in Asia too? Did not Egyptians at one time trade just as much as Phoenicians? Were not the 30Macedonians just as much conquerors as the Romans? [Was] not Aristotle just as much a speculative head as Leibniz? Did not our northern peoples excel the Romans in bravery? Were all Egyptians, Greeks, Romans — are all rats and mice — like each other? No! But they are still rats and mice!

How vexing it must become to speak to the public, where one always 35has to expect from the noisy part (the more nobly thinking part keeps quiet!) such and still worse criticisms, and presented in what a tone, and has then at the same time to expect that the great heap of sheep which does not know right from left immediately follows this delusion. Can there be a general image without an ordering among and together? Can there be a distant prospect without 40an elevation? If you hold your face close up to the image, carve at this sliver, pick at that little lump of pigment, you never see the whole image — you see anything but an image! And if your head is full of a group that you have fallen madly in love with, can your view well embrace, order, gently follow, a whole of

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such changing periods, separate out just the main effect in each scene, quietly accompany the gradual transitions, and now — name them? But if you can do none of all that!, history shimmers and flickers before your eyes!, a confusion of scenes, peoples, periods — first read and learn to see! Incidentally, I know as well as you do that every general image, every general concept, is only an 5abstraction — it is only the Creator who thinks the whole unity of one, of all, nations in all their manifoldness without having the unity thereby fade for him.

*** 10III. And the universal, philosophical, human-friendly tone of our century grants so gladly to each distinct nation, each oldest age, in the world “our own ideal” in virtue and happiness? Is such a unique judge as to pass judgment on, condemn, or beautifully fictionalize their ethics according to its own measure alone? Is not the good on the earth strewn about? Because one form of humanity and one 15region of the earth could not grasp it, it got distributed into a thousand forms, it roams forth — an eternal Proteus! — through all parts of the world and all centuries. Also, as he roams and roams further, it is not for greater virtue or happiness of the individual that he strives — humanity ever remains only hu-manity — and yet a plan of striving further becomes visible — my great theme! 20

Those who have so far undertaken to unfold the progress of the centuries for the most part have in the process the pet idea: progress to more virtue and happiness of individual human beings. People have then for this purpose exaggerated or made up facts, understated or suppressed contrary facts, hidden whole sides, taken words for [deeds], enlightenment for happiness, more and 25subtler ideas for virtue — and in this way people have made up novels “about the universally progressing improvement of the world” — novels that no one believes, at least not the true pupil of history and the human heart.

Others, who saw the objectionableness of this dream, and knew nothing better, saw vices and virtues, like climes, change, perfections arise and perish like a 30springtime of leaves, human ethics and inclinations fly away, turn over, like leaves of fate — no plan!, no progress!, eternal revolution — weaving and undoing! — Penelope-work! — They fell into a whirlpool, skepticism about all virtue, happiness, and vocation of humankind, into which they weave all history, religion, and ethical doctrine — the most recent fashionable tone of the most 35recent, in particular French, philosophers is doubt! Doubt in a hundred forms, but all with the dazzling title “based on the history of the world.” Contradictions and ocean waves — one suffers shipwreck, or what of morality and philosophy one saves from the shipwreck is hardly worth talking about.

Should there not be manifest progress and development but in a higher 40sense than people have imagined it? Do you see this river current [Strom] swimming along — how it sprang forth from a little source, grows, breaks off there, begins here, ever meanders, and bores further and deeper — but always remains water!, river current!, drop always only drop, until it plunges into the

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ocean — what if it were like that with the human species? Or do you see that growing tree!, that upwards-striving human being!, having to pass through diverse ages of life!, all manifestly in progress!, a striving one for the other in continuity! Between each there are apparent resting places, revolutions!, changes!, and yet each has the center of its happiness in itself!; the youth is not happier 5than the innocent, satisfied child, nor the quiet old man unhappier than the forcefully striving man; the pendulum always swings with the same force, whether it swings furthest and strives that much more quickly or oscillates most slowly and approaches rest. However, it is still an eternal striving! No one is in his age alone, he builds on the preceding one, this becomes nothing but the 10foundation of the future, wants to be nothing but that — this is what we are told by the analogy in nature, God’s speaking exemplary model in all works! Manifestly so in the human species! The Egyptian was not able to exist without the Oriental, the Greek built upon them, the Roman raised himself onto the back of the whole world — truly progress, progressive development, even if no 15individual won in the process! Its goal is on the large Scale! It becomes — what husk-history boasts about so much, and what it shows so little of—the stage of a guiding intention on earth!, even if we should not be able to see the final intention, the stage of the deity, even if only through openings and ruins of individual scenes. 20

At least this view is further than that philosophy, which mixes up, only ever illuminates here and there in the case of individual confusions, in order to turn everything into a play of ants, into a striving of individual inclinations and forces without a purpose, into a chaos in which one despairs of virtue, purpose, and deity! If I succeeded in binding together the most disparate scenes without 25confusing them — in showing how they relate to one another, grow out of one another, lose themselves in one another, all of them taken individually only moments, only through the progression means to purposes— what a sight!, what a noble application of human history!, what encouragement to hope, to act, to believe, even where one sees nothing or not everything. — I continue. 30

***

Finally there followed, as we say, the dissolution, the unfolding: long, eternal night enlightened itself into morning, there arose Reformation, Renaissance of the 35arts, sciences, ethics! — the yeast sank and there arose — our thought!, culture!, philosophy! — on commençait à penser comme nous pensons aujourd’hui; on n’était plus barbare [people began to think as we think today; people were no longer barbarians].

No temporal point in the unfolding of the human spirit has been more 40beautifully described than this! — since all our histories, discours preliminaires to the encyclopedia of all human knowledge, and philosophies point to it [Herder her refers to D’Alembert’s introduction to the famous French Encyclopedia], and from east and west, from the beginning and yesterday, all the threads that

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are drawn out, or that wave in the head like autumnal cobwebs, know to draw towards it as the highest peak of human civilization [Bildung]. And since the system is now already so brilliant, famous, lovingly accepted, and completely evident, I dare to add nothing — I merely set a few small notes alongside. 5I. First of all, I must say concerning the excessively high renown of the human understanding that, if I may put the matter so, it had less and less effect in this universal alteration of the world than a blind fate that cast and guided things. Either they were such great, so to speak, cast forth events which went beyond all human forces and prospects, which human beings usually resisted, where no one 10[even] dreamed of the consequences as a considered plan, or they were small accidental happenings, more finds than inventions, applications of a thing that one had had for a long time. and not seen, not used — or nothing at all but a simple mechanism, new knack, manual skill, that changed the world. Philosophers of the eighteenth century, if that is so, then where does that leave your idolatry 15towards the human spirit?

Who laid out Venice here in this place under the deepest pressure of necessity? And who thought through what this Venice, only in this place, could and should be for all people of the earth for a whole millennium? The person who cast this sound of islands into the marsh, who led these few 20fishermen there, was the same as he who makes fall the seed so that at this time and in this place an oak may grow, he who planted the hut by the Tiber so that Rome, the eternal capital of the world, might develop from it. It is precisely the same person who at one time brings along barbarians so that they should destroy the literature of the whole world, the library at Alexandria (so to speak, a 25sinking part of the world!), and at another time brings along just the same barbarians so that they should beg, preserve, a small remnant of literature and convey it to Europe on a quite different side, on paths that no one had dreamed or wished. Just the same person who at another time on another side makes an imperial city be destroyed by them so that the sciences, which no one sought 30there and which had been so long idle there, might flee to Europe ... Everything is great fate!, neither thought through, nor hoped for, nor effected by human beings. Do you not see, you ant, that you only crawl on the great wheel of destiny? When we penetrate more closely into the circumstances of the origins of all so-called world illuminations, the same thing. There on a large scale, here 35on a small, contingency, fate, deity! What began every reformation was small things which never had from the start the great, monstrous plan that they won afterwards — by contrast, as often as there had been the great, really considered, human plan beforehand, it failed. All your great church councils, you emperors!, kings!, cardinals and lords of the world!, will never change 40anything, but this unrefined, ignorant monk, Luther, is destined to accomplish it! And that from small things in relation to which he himself anything but thinks so far ahead!, through means with which in the manner of our age, speaking philosophically, such a thing could never be accomplished!, for the most

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part he himself accomplishing the least part, only he impelled others, awakened reformers in all the other lands, he stood up and said “I make a move! Therefore there is movement!” — that is how what came about came about. A transformation of the world! How often such Luthers had earlier risen up and — sunk. Their mouths stopped up with smoke and flames, or their word did 5not yet find any open air to resound in — but now it is springtime; the earth opens up, the sun incubates, and a thousand new plants emerge ... Human being, you were only ever, almost contrary to your will, a small, blind tool.

“Why did not,” cries out the gentle philosopher, “each such reformation, rather!, happen without a revolution? The human spirit should just have been 10allowed to follow its quiet course instead of, as actually happened, passions in the storm of action giving birth to new prejudices, and evil being exchanged for evil.” — Answer!: because such a quiet course of progress of the human spirit for the improvement of the world is hardly anything but a phantom of our heads, never God's course in nature. This seed falls into the earth!, there it lies and 15becomes hard; but now the sun comes to awaken it, then it splits open, the chambers swell apart violently, it breaks through the ground — thus bloom, thus fruit. Hardly even the horrible toadstool grows as you dream it does. The basis of every reformation was always just such a small seed, fell quietly into the earth, hardly worth talking about; human beings had already had it for a long 20time, saw it and paid no heed to it — but now inclinations, ethics, a world of habits are destined to be changed, created anew, through it — is that possible without revolution, without passion and movement? What Luther said had long been known, but now Luther said it! Roger Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Leibniz — when they invented [erfanden], things were quiet; there was a ray of light — but their 25inventions were destined to break through, to do away with opinions, to change the world — there arose storm and flame. Even if the reformer always had passions which the matter, the science, did not itself require, the introduction of the matter required them, and precisely the fact that he had them, had enough in order now to get through a nothing to whither whole centuries had not been 30able to get by institutions, machineries, and ponderings — precisely that is a warrant for his vocation!

“Mostly just simple, mechanical inventions which had in part been seen, possessed, played with, for a long time, but which now through a bright idea applied in this way and not otherwise transformed the world.” Thus, for example, 35the application of glass for optics, of the magnet for the compass, of gunpowder for war, of the art of book printing for the sciences, of calculus for a completely new mathematical world — and everything took on a new shape. The tool had been transformed, a place had been found outside the old world, and thus this old world got moved ahead. 40

The gun invented!, and behold, the old bravery of Theseuses, Spartans, Romans, knights, and giants is gone — war is different, and how much is different with this different war!

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Book printing invented!, and to what a great extent the world of the sciences is changed!, facilitated and disseminated!, become light and level! Everyone can read, spell — everyone who can read gets taught.

With the little needle on the ocean — who can count the revolutions in all parts of the world that have been effected with this? Lands discovered, so 5much larger than Europe! Coasts conquered full of gold, silver, gemstones, spices, and death! Human beings made converts into, or cultivated into, mines, slave-mills, and vicious ethics! Europe depopulated, consumed in its most secret forces with diseases and luxury — who can count!, who describe! New ethics, inclinations, virtues, vices — who can count and describe? The wheel in 10which for three centuries the world has moved is endless — and what did it turn on?, what impelled it? — the needle point of two or three mechanical thoughts!

II. Precisely for this reason it must follow that a large part of this so-called new civilization [Bildung] is itself real mechanics — more closely investigated, to what an extent this mechanics turns out to be our modern 15spirit! If for the most part new methods in every type and art transformed the world — new methods made superfluous forces which were previously necessary, but which now — since every unused force sleeps! — in time got lost. Certain virtues of the science of war, of civil life, of shipping, of government — they were no longer needed; there emerged a machine, and only one man governs the 20machine. With one thought!, with one sign! — and in compensation how many forces sleep! The gun invented, and thereby what sinews of primitive, bodily war-strength, and soul-war-strength, bravery, faithfulness, presence of mind in individual cases, feeling for honor that belonged to the old world exhausted! The army became a hired, thoughtless, forceless, will-less machine which one 25man directs in his head, and which he only pays as a puppet of movement, a living wall, to throw bullets and catch bullets. Hence at bottom, a Roman or Spartan would perhaps say, virtues in the innermost hearth of the heart burned off, and a wreath of military honor withered — and what replaces them?; the soldier is the first paid servant of the state in a hero’s livery — behold his 30honor and his vocation! He is ... and with little effort the remains of individual existences exploded — the old Gothic forms of freedom, classes, and property, this miserable building in bad taste!, shot into the ground and destroyed, gets so tightly blocked [blockiert] in its small ruins that land, inhabitant, citizen, fatherland is no doubt sometimes something, but lord and serf, despot and liveried 35servant in every office, vocation, and class — from the farmer to the minister and from the minister to the priest — is everything. It is called sovereignty!, refined statecraft!, new philosophical form of government! — and it really is this. The prince’s hat and crown of modern centuries — on what do they rest! — as that most famous sun-eagle on all our coins shows, on drums, flags, bullets, and ever-40ready soldiers’ caps.

The spirit of modern philosophy — that it must be mechanics in more than one way is shown, I think, by the greater part of its children. Despite their philosophy and learning, often how ignorant and forceless in matters of life and

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of the healthy understanding! Instead of the philosophical spirit as in ancient times never existing for itself alone, beginning from occupations and rushing to occupations, and hence also only having the purpose of creating full, healthy, effective souls, since it stands alone and has become a trade — it is a trade. The however manyeth part of you considers logic, metaphysics, moral theory, 5physics as what they are — organs of the human soul, tools with which one should take effect!, exemplary models of thought forms, which are just supposed to give our soul a more beautiful thought form that belongs to it. Instead, a person beats his thoughts into these mechanically, plays, and juggles — the strangest of pugilistic fellows! He dances with his dagger on the academic tightrope to the 10admiration and joy of all who sit around and cheer at the great artist that he may not break his neck and leg — this is his art. An occupation in the world — if you want to see it badly taken care of, then give it to the philosopher! On paper how pure!, how gentle!, how beautiful and great — but hopeless in execution!, at each step amazed and staring frozen before unseen obstacles and 15consequences. Meanwhile, the child was really a great philosopher, could calculate and play with syllogisms, figures, and instruments fluently, often so happily that new syllogisms, results, and so-called discoveries emerged — the fruit, the honor, the peak of the human spirit! — through mechanical play!

That was the more difficult philosophy — and now the easy one, the 20beautiful one! God be praised!, what is more mechanical than this? In sciences, arts, habits, mode of life into which it has penetrated, where it is the sap and bloom of the century, what more mechanical than it? Precisely ancient tradition, the senseless prejudice of learning, slow maturation, deep penetration, and late judgment, it has of course cast off like a yoke from the neck!, has brought to our 25judicial bars, instead of small, dusty, detailed knowledge in which each incident is supposed to be treated and investigated as that which it is — has brought into them what a beautiful, easy, free judgment, one of measuring and dealing with everything in light of two incidents!, of sticking — passing beyond what is individual, in which alone consists species facti — to the bright, splendid 30universal, of being, instead of a judge a philosopher (bloom of the century!). Has brought into our state economics and science of government, instead of laboriously achieved knowledge of the needs and true condition of the land, what an eagle's eye!, what a vision of the whole, as though on a map and a philosophical table! Has developed first principles through the mouth of Montesquieu, from and 35according to which a hundred diverse peoples and regions get calculated ex-tempore in two moments according to the one-times-one of politics. — Thus Aline arts, manual trades, and almost the smallest daylabors — who needs to clamber about, to work, laboriously in their depths as in a vaulted cellar? One rationalizes! Dictionaries and philosophies about all of them, without 40understanding a single one of them with the tool in one’s hand. They have one and all become abrégé raisonné of their former pedantry — abstracted spirit!, philosophy [made] out of two thoughts — the most mechanical thing in the world.

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Do I have to prove what a noble, mechanical thing modern wit is? Does there exist a more formed language and sentential form, that is, a more narrow last for thoughts, for mode of life, for genius and taste, than in the case of the people from whom modern wit has spread in the world most brilliantly under a hundred shapes? What drama has become more the puppet of a beautiful 5regularity —what mode of life more the aping of a light, mechanical politeness, gaiety, and verbal ornamentation — what philosophy more the display of few sentiments and a treatment of everything in the world according to these sentiments, than these ... apes of humanity, of genius, of happiness, of virtue? And precisely because they are nothing but this, and can be so easily aped in turn, 10they are this for all of Europe.

III. Thence it of course now becomes readily intelligible towards “which center” this civilization [Bildung] strives and ever gets guided: “philosophy!, thought! — easier mechanics!, rationalizing that reaches right down to the foundation pillars of society which formerly just stood and carried!” And here too 15I can in ten sorts of ways hardly understand how this can be so universally and uniquely rationalized as the peak and purpose of all human civilization, of all happiness, of all good. Is the whole body destined to see, then? And if hand and foot want to be eye and brain must not the whole body suffer? Rationalizing spread too carelessly, too uselessly — could it not weaken, and has it not really 20weakened, inclination, drive, activity for living?

Nevertheless now, this exhaustion may well be comfortable for the spirit of some lands: exhausted limbs have to go on, have no forces except ... for example, for counterthought. Each cog remains in its place from fear or habit or luxury and philosophy, and what, then, is many a great philosophy-governed 25flock but a forced-together pile — livestock and wood! They think!, perhaps thinking gets spread abroad among them — up to a point, so that from day to day they feel themselves more than a machine, but feel according to given prejudices, learn to grind, and must go on. They grind but alas, they can do nothing but grind, and comfort themselves with free thinking [Freidenken]. 30Dear, weak, annoying, useless free thinking — substitute for everything that they perhaps needed more: heart!, warmth!, blood!, humanity!, life!

Now let each person calculate. Light infinitely increased and, spread abroad, while inclination, drive for living, is disproportionately weakened! Ideas of universal love of humanity, of peoples, of enemies increased!, and the warm feeling of 35father’s, mother’s, brother’s, child’s, friend’s inclinations infinitely weakened! First principles of freedom, honor, virtue spread so far and wide that every person recognizes them most clearly, that in certain lands everyone right down to the most insignificant has them on his tongue and lips— and each of them at the same time bound with the worst chains of cowardice, shame, luxury, servility, and 40miserable planlessness. Handy knacks and facilitations infinitely spread—but all these handy knacks converge into the hand of one person or several people, who is the only one to think; for the machine, the desire to live, to take effect, to live in a humanly noble and beneficial way, with pleasure, has disappeared. Does the

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machine live any longer? In the whole and in the smallest part, the sole thought of the master.

Is this, then, the beautiful ideal condition towards which we have been formed through everything, which spreads abroad further and further in Europe, which sails to all parts of the world, and wants to civilly administer ev-5eryone to be what we are ... Human beings?, citizens of a fatherland ?, beings who are independently something in the world? — to be these? Perhaps! But at least and certainly, all of them in number, needs, purpose, and destiny political calculation; each of them in the uniform of his class machines! — There stand now those resplendent market places for the formation of humanity, pulpit and stage, halls of 10justice, libraries, schools, and of course especially the crowns of them all: illustrious academies! In what splendor!, to the eternal after-renown of the princes!, to what great purposes of the formation and enlightenment of the world, of the happiness of human beings!, splendidly consecrated. What do they do, then?, what can they do? — they play! 15

IV. So about several of the most famous means which — the honor of our century! — have the creative plan “to form humanity” — one word! With this we at least come to a very practical side of the book.

If I have not written in vain from the beginning, then it can be seen that the formation and progressive formation of a nation is never anything but a work 20of fate — the result of a thousand cooperating causes of the whole element in which they live, so to speak. And if this is so, then what child’s play to present this formation as merely consisting in and occurring through a few brighter ideas towards which people have been trotting almost since the reinstitution of the sciences! This book, this author, this mass of books is said to form; their whole 25result, the philosophy of our century, is said to form. What would that mean but: awaken or strengthen the inclinations through which humanity is blessed? And what a gulf for this to happen! Ideas actually yield only ideas — more clarity, correctness, and order for thought. But that is also all that one can count on with certainty. For how, then, all that might mix in the soul; what it should find 30before it and change; how strong and lasting this change might prove; and then finally, how this change might mix and cast itself into the thousand formed occasions and contexts of human life, let alone of an age, of a whole people, of all Europe, of the whole universe (as our humility imagines) — ye gods, what another world of questions! 35

A human being who became acquainted with our century’s artificial manner of thought would read all the books that we read, praise, and — as it is said — form ourselves in accordance with from childhood up, would collect the first principles that we all explicitly or tacitly concede and also process with certain forces of our souls, etc., would want now to infer thence to the whole, living 40mechanism of the century — pitiful fallacy! Precisely because these first principles are so commonplace, pass as playthings from hand to hand and as platitudes from lip to lip — precisely for this reason, it proves probable that they cannot any longer achieve any effect. Does one use what one plays with? And when one has

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so much grain that one does not sow, plant the field but must inundate it as a granary floor — barren, dry granary floor! — can anything take root?, sprout?, does a grain even enter the earth?

Why should I seek examples for a truth for which almost everything, unfortunately!, would be an example, religion and moral theory, legislation and 5common ethics. How deluged with beautiful first principles, developments, systems, expositions — deluged to the point that hardly anyone any longer sees the bottom and has a footing — but just for this reason also simply swims across. The theologian leafs through the most stirring representations of religion, learns, knows, proves, and forgets — we are all from childhood up formed to be these 10theologians. The pulpit resounds with first principles which we all concede, know, beautifully feel, and — leave on and beside the pulpit. Likewise with books, philosophy, and moral theory. Who is not fed up with reading them? And what author does not already make it his main business to dress [things] up well, to silver-coat beautifully the forceless pill at all costs. Head and heart are now 15separated; the human being has, unfortunately!, reached the point of acting not according to what he knows but according to what he likes. What help does the ill man get from all that store of treats which he cannot enjoy with his sick-heartedness [mit siechem Herzen], indeed whose excess was precisely what made him sick-hearted. 20

One could still allow the disseminators of the medium of this formation the language and the delusion that they form “humanity,” and of course especially the philosophers of Paris the language and the delusion that they form toute l'Europe and tout l'univers. One knows of course what this language means — tone!, conventional phrase!, beautiful expression, or at most useful delusion. But 25when such letter-culture means are also lighted upon by those for whom quite different tools ... when they with those means give the century a beautiful fog, direct eyes to the shine of this ineffective light, precisely in order to have hearts and hands free — error and loss, you are lamentable!

There was an age when the art of legislation was seen as the sole means 30for forming nations, and this means, taken in hand in the strangest manner, was for the most part supposed to become only a universal philosophy of humanity, a codex of reason, of humanity, and what all more I do not know. The matter was certainly more deceptive than useful. Certainly, one was able with this “to exhaust all common principles of what is right and good, maxims of love of 35humanity and of wisdom, prospects from all times and peoples for all times and peoples” — for all times and peoples? — and thus, unfortunately!, precisely not for the people whom this legal code is supposed to fit as its suit of clothing. Such a universal ladled-off thing — is it not perhaps also foam that flows to bits in the air of all times and peoples? And what a different matter to prepare 40nourishment for the arteries and sinews of one’s people so that this nourishment strengthens its heart and invigorates its very bone and marrow!

Between every universally stated, even the most beautiful, truth and its least application there is a gulf! And application in the single right place?, for the

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right purposes?, in the single best way? — The Solon of a village who has really eliminated only one bad habit, set in motion only one stream of human sensations and activities — he has done a thousand times more than all you rationalizers [Raisonneurs] about legislation, with whom everything is true and everything false — a miserable universal shade. 5

There was a time when the erecting of academies, libraries, halls of art was called formation of the world. Splendid!, this academy is the name of the court, the dignified prytaneum of meritorious men, a support of valuable sciences, a splendid hall at the birthday celebration of the monarch. But what, then, does it do for the formation of this land, of this people, of these subjects? And even if it 10did everything — to what extent does this provide happiness? Can these statues, even if you put them along the way and at door jambs, turn each passerby into a Greek so that he looks upon them in that way, feels them in that way, feels himself in them in that way? Hard! Can these poems, these beautiful recitations in the Attic manner create a time when these poems and speeches 15worked miracles and had effect? I think not! And the so-called restorers of the sciences, even if pope and cardinals, always still let Apollo, the Muses, and all the gods play in the modern Latin poems — they knew that it was play. The statue of Apollo was always still able to stand beside Christ and Leda — all three had one effect: none! If theatrical performance, the stage, could produce real Roman 20heroism and create Brutuses and Catos, do you think that your stage would stand?, that your pulpit would stand? — Finally, people in the noblest sciences pile Ossa on top of Pelion [i.e. make mythically great efforts] — a great undertaking! - people hardly know for what purpose they pile. The treasures lie there and are not used; at least it is certainly not humanity that now uses them. 25

There was a time when everyone stormed for education — and education was equated with beautiful practical knowledge, instruction, enlightenment, facilitation ad captum [directed to the masses], and of course with early refinement to polite ethics. As if all that could change and form inclinations! Without thinking about a single one of the despised means by which good 30habits, even prejudices, trainings, and forces could be restored or newly created and thereby a “better world” be formed for all. — The essay, the plan got written, printed, forgotten! — a textbook of education like a thousand we have! — a codex of good rules like a million more that we will have, and the world will remain as it is. 35

How differently ages and peoples formerly thought about this when everything was still so narrowly national. All formation rose out of the most particular individual need and returned back to it — pure experience, action, life-application in the most defined circle. Here in the patriarch’s hut, there in a narrow agricultural area, there [again] in a small republic of human beings, 40where a person knows, feels, and hence was also able to cause [others] to feel, everything had control of the human heart, and surveyed what he talked about! It was consequently there a good reproach that our enlightened century makes against the less enlightened Greeks that they philosophized nothing properly

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universal and purely abstracted but always spoke in the nature of small needs on a narrow stage. There people also spoke in an applied way, every word found a role — and in the better periods when people did not yet speak through words at all, [but] through action, habit, exemplary model, thousandfold influence — how differently! Definedly, strongly, and eternally. We speak about a hundred ranks, 5classes, periods, human races at once, so as to say for each of them nothing. Our wisdom, so refined and immaterial, is abstracted spirit which without use flies away. There it was and remained citizen’s wisdom, history of a human object, sap full of nutrition.

Hence if my voice had power and space, how I would call to all those 10who work at the formation of humanity: not commonplaces about improvement!, paper-culture!, or possibly institutions — [but] act! Let those talk and form fancies into the sky’s blue who have the misfortune to be able to do nothing else. Has not the maid’s lover a more beautiful role than the poet who celebrates her in song or the suitor who seeks her hand? Behold, he who can most 15beautifully sing the praises of human friendship, love of peoples - and faithfulness to fathers perhaps intends to inflict on it the deepest dagger-thrust for centuries. In appearance the noblest legislator, perhaps the most fervent destroyer of his century! No question of inner improvement, humanity, and happiness — he strove to follow the current of the century, became the savior of 20the human species according to the delusion of the century, hence also achieved for himself the brief reward of all — the withering laurel of vanity, tomorrow dust and ashes. — The great, divine work of forming humanity — quietly, strongly, hiddenly, eternally — it could not share borders with petty vanity!

V. Doubtless after what I have written the commonplace will be cited 25that people always praise what is distant and complain about the present, that it is children who fall in love with the distance of tinsel and give up for it the apple which they have in hand because they do not know the former. But perhaps I am not this child. I recognize everything great, beautiful, and unique in our century, and despite all my scolding have always at bottom kept it — 30“philosophy!, disseminated clarity!, mechanical skill and facility to wonder at!, gentleness!” How high our century has risen in this since the restoration of the sciences!, with what strangely easy means it has reached this height!, how strongly it has reinforced it and secured it for posterity! I believe that I have provided observations about this instead of the exaggerated eulogy that one finds 35in all fashionable books, especially French ones.

Truly a great century as means and purpose — without doubt the highest peak of the tree in relation to all the preceding ones on which we stand! How we have exploited for ourselves as much sap from root, stem, and branches as ever our thin peak-twigs can take in!, stand high over Oriental, Greek, Roman, 40especially over the Gothic barbarians who come in the middle!, hence we see high over the earth! All peoples and parts of the world under our shade, so to speak, and when a storm shakes two small twigs in Europe how the whole world quakes and bleeds! When has the whole earth ever so universally

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converged together on so few united threads as now? When have more power and mechanism been possessed for shaking whole nations to the core with one press, with one movement of a finger? Everything floats on the point of two or three thoughts!

At the same time, when has the earth been as universally enlightened as 5now? — and constantly proceeds to become more enlightened. If before wisdom was always still only narrowly national, and hence also dug deeper and drew to itself more firmly — how far its rays now extend!, where is what Voltaire writes not read!, already almost the whole earth shines with Voltaire’s clarity!

And how this seems to advance further and further! Whither do 10European colonies not reach, and whither will they not reach! Everywhere the savages, the more they become fond of our brandy and luxury, become ripe for our conversion too! Everywhere approach, especially through brandy and luxury, our culture. Will soon, God help us!, all be human beings like us! — good, strong, happy human beings! 15

Trade and papacy, how much you have already contributed to this great business! Spaniards, Jesuits, and Dutchmen — you human-friendly, unselfish, noble, and virtuous nations! — how much has not the civilization [Bildung] of humanity to be grateful to you for already in all parts of the world!

If that works in the remaining parts of the world, then of course why not 20in Europe? Shame for England that Ireland for so long remained savage and barbarous; it is civilly administered and happy. Shame for England that the Highland Scots for so long went without pants; they now bear these, at least with them on a stake, and are happy. In our century what realm has not civilized [gebildet] itself to the point of greatness and happiness! A single one lay 25there in the middle to the shame of humanity — without academies or agricultural societies, wore moustaches, and accordingly nurtured regicides. And behold!, what noble-minded France had already undertaken alone with savage Corsica — this was done by three: civilize [bilden] moustaches into human beings like us! —good, strong, happy human beings. 30

All the arts that we practice — risen how high! Can one imagine anything better than that art of government, that system!, that science for the formation [Bildung] of humanity? — the whole single driving motive of our states: fear and money. Without in the least needing religion (that childish motive!) — or honor or freedom of soul or human happiness. How we know to seize 35the single god of all gods, Mammon [i.e., wealth personified as an idol], as a second Proteus!, and how to change him!, and how to extort everything from him that ever we want! — highest, happy art of government!

Behold an army!, the fairest original model of human society! All of them how colorfully and easily clothed, easily fed, harmonious in thought, free and 40comfortable in all limbs!, moving nobly! What bright, spot-on tools in their hands! Epitome of virtues, which they learn in every daily wielding. A picture of the highest superiority of the human spirit and of the government of the world — resignation!

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Balance of power in Europe!, you great discovery of which no age before had any knowledge! How these great bodies of state, in which without doubt humanity can best be cared for, now rub against one another without destroying themselves or ever being able to destroy themselves, in the manner of which we have such sad examples in the miserable statecraft of the Goths, 5Huns, Vandals, Greeks, Persians, Romans, in short, of all periods before ourselves! And how they continue forth on their noble royal course to swallow up this water butt full of insects in order to create uniformity, peace, and security. Poor city? Tormented village? Salvation be ours! — for the preservation of obedience, of peace, and of security, of all cardinal virtues and happinesses: 10mercenaries!, allies!, balance of power in Europe! There will and must remain — salvation be ours! — eternal tranquillity, peace, security, and obedience in Europe.

Then our political historians and historical epic poets of monarchy only need to paint the growth of this condition from age to age! “Formerly, sad times! when people merely, for example, acted according to need and their own feeling; 15sadder times when the power of regents was not at all yet boundless; and saddest times of all when their incomes were not yet entirely their arbitrary choice — when” — how little there is for the philosophical epic-writing historian to rationalize universally or to paint onto the whole of Europe!; no armies which would be able to unsettle distant borders, no ruler of the land who would be able to 20leave his land to conquer — hence everything set up merely for miserable resistance and self-defense; no politics!, no regard for distant times and lands, no speculation to the moon!, hence no unifying of lands through these human-friendly regards for one’s neighbor — in short, no — and this is the word for the modernest, highest taste! — no societal life in Europe. God be praised! since 25individual forces and limbs of the state have been abolished; there has occurred such a glorious counterweighing and outweighing, and shepherding into that miraculous thing the machine, of the nobility by cities, of cities by free land, and of the nobility, cities, and free land by peoples; and no one any longer knows or may know about autonomous justice, autonomous dignity, and 30autonomous determination — salvation be ours!, what a societal life in Europe! Where the monarch has the state so entirely in his power that the state is no longer his purpose but external action through the state is the purpose — where he hence sees, calculates, deliberates, acts in this scope; everyone gets stirred to enthusiasm and led through signals of which he understands and knows 35nothing; no state can so much as raise a down feather without the other regarding it — without the remotest cause leading to the automatic decision of a universal bloodletting in all parts of the world! Great universality!, what concise, humane, passionless wars arising therefrom!, what just, humane, fair negotiations arising therefrom! And how the highest virtue, the resignation of 40each individual, gets promoted in this — high societal life in Europe!

And through what glorious means people have reached the point that the power of the monarchy has grown in equal step with the weakening of individual limbs and the strength of the mercenary class!, through which means

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the monarchy has broadened its privileges, increased its income, subjugated or steered its internal enemies, extended its borders — this is shown by medieval and modern, and especially — the forerunner of all Europe — French, history. Glorious means and how great the purpose: the scales of Europe!, Europe's happiness! On these scales and in this happiness each individual grain of sand 5doubtless means a lot!

“Our system of trade!” Can one imagine anything superior to the subtlety of this all-embracing science? What miserable Spartans they were who used their Helots for agriculture, and what barbaric Romans who shut up their slaves in prisons in the earth! In Europe slavery has been abolished because it has been 10calculated how much more these slaves would cost and how much less they would bring in than free people. Only one thing have we still permitted ourselves: to use as slaves, to trade, to exile into silver mines and sugar mills, three parts of the world — but those are not Europeans, not Christians, and in return we receive silver and gemstones, spices, sugar, and — secret disease; thus for 15the sake of trade and for the reciprocal brotherly help and community of the lands.

“System of trade” — the greatness and uniqueness of the institution is clear! Three parts of the world laid waste and civilly administered by us, and we through them depopulated, emasculated, sunk in luxury, oppression, and death — that is rich and happy trading. Who is there who is not constrained to 20participate in the great tornado that is sucking Europe dry, who is not constrained to press his way into it, and, if he cannot do this to other children, to drain out his own children, as the greatest man of trade? The old title “shepherd of the people” has been turned into “monopolist” — and when, now, the whole tornado breaks loose with a hundred storm winds — great god 25Mammon — whom we all now serve — help us!

“Mode of life and ethics!” How miserable when there were still nations and national character, what reciprocal hate, aversion to foreigners, fixedness on one’s center of gravity, ancestral prejudices, clinging to the lump of earth on which we are born and on which we are destined to rot! Native manner of 30thought!, narrow circle of ideas — eternal barbarism! With us, God be praised!, all national characters have been extinguished! We love all of us, or rather no one needs to love the other. We socialize with each other; are completely each other’s like — ethically proper, polite, blissful!; indeed have no fatherland, no our people for whom we live, but are friends of humanity and citizens of the world. 35Already now all of Europe’s regents do so, and soon we will all speak the French language! And then — bliss! — the Golden Age begins again “when everyone in the world had one tongue and language!, there will arise a single flock and a single shepherd!” National characters, what has happened to you?

“Europe’s mode of life and ethics!” How late the youth matured in the 40Gothic periods of Christianity; hardly attaining majority by their thirtieth year; people lost half of their lives in a miserable childhood. Philosophy, education, and good ethics, what a new creation you have made! We are now mature in our

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thirteenth year, and through silent and loud sins past our bloom in our twentieth. We enjoy life right in its dawn and its fairest bloom!

“Europe's mode of life and ethics!” What Gothic virtue, modesty, youthful bashfulness, shame!' We early on get rid of the ambiguous, clumsy coat of virtue; social gatherings, women (who now are most lacking in respect of shame!, and 5who also least need it!), even our parents wipe it off our cheeks early on. Or if that does not happen, we go on journeys, those teachers of good ethics!, and who will bring back his outgrown garment of childhood, out of fashion and suiting [Anstand]? We have boldness, societal good tone, facility in helping ourselves to everything!, beautiful philosophy!, “delicacy of taste and of the 10passions!” How crude the Greeks and Romans still were in their taste!, had least of all the good tone of social intercourse with the fair sex! Plato and Cicero were able to write volumes of conversations about metaphysics and masculine arts and no woman ever spoke. Who with us should endure a play, even if it were Philoctetes on his desolate island, without love! Voltaire — but let one read how 15seriously he himself warned against imitating [here]. Women are our public, our Aspasias of taste and philosophy. We know how to dress Cartesian vortices and Newtonian attractions in a corset, write history, sermons, and what not else, for and as women. The subtler delicacy of our taste is proved.

“Fine arts and sciences!” To be sure, the ancients, and indeed that 20miserable, unstable form of constitution, small republics, were able to develop the cruder ones. But behold also, how crude that oratory of Demosthenes!, that Greek theater! — crude even that praised antiquity itself! And where their painting and music are concerned it was even just a bloated fairytale and hue-and-cry. The subtler bloom of the arts waited for the bliss of monarchy! At the 25courts of Louis did Corneille copy his heroes, Racine his sensations. An entirely new species of truth, of emotion-stirring, and of taste got invented of which the fabled, cold, splendorless ancients knew nothing: the opera. Salvation to you, opera! You collecting-place and competition of all our fine arts!

It happened in the bliss of monarchy, where there were still further 30inventions. Instead of the old, pedantic universities, brilliant academies were invented. Bossuet invented a history, entirely declamation and sermon and register of years’ numbers, which so far excelled simple Xenophon and Livy; Bourdaloue invented a genre of speech [that was] how much better than Demosthenes! A new music was invented — harmony that needed no melody;1O7 a new art of 35building; what everyone had thought impossible, a new column;io8 and — what posterity will admire most — an architecture on the flat and with all the products of nature: landscape gardening! Full of proportions and symmetry! Full of eternal enjoyment and entirely new nature without nature. Salvation be ours!, what we were only able to invent under monarchy! 40

Last of all people began to philosophize. And how modernly! — without system or first principles, so that it might remain free for one always at another time to believe the opposite. Without demonstration!, wrapped in wit, for “all the strict philosophy has never improved the world.” Finally even — splendid

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invention! — in memoirs and dictionaries where everyone can read what and however much he wants — and the most splendid of splendid inventions — the dictionary, the Encyclopedia of all sciences and arts. “If at some future time all books, arts, and sciences perish through fire and water, then from and in you, Encyclopedia!, the human spirit has everything!” What the art of printing became 5for the sciences, the Encyclopedia has become for the art of printing: the highest peak of dissemination, completeness, and eternal preservation.

Now I ought in addition to praise the best thing, our huge steps of progress in religion — now that we have even begun to count up the readings of biblical passages! In the first principles of honor — since we have abolished 10ridiculous chivalry, and have elevated orders ribbons to being leashes for boys and court gifts. But above all [I ought to] praise our highest peak of human — paternal, wifely, child’s — virtues. But who in such a century as ours is can praise everything? Enough, we are the “peak of the tree!, weaving away in heavenly air — the Golden Age is nigh!” 15

*** So rather what will also please the invalid more. We are in this advance admittedly also in our place a purpose and tool of fate. 20

Generally, the philosopher is most an animal when he would wish to be most reliably a God— thus also in the confident calculation of the perfection of the world. Of course, if only it were true that everything proceeded prettily in a straight line and that every succeeding human being and every succeeding race got perfected according to his ideal in a beautiful progression for which he alone knew 25to give the exponent of virtue and happiness! Then in that case it always came to him last of all — he the last, highest member with which everything concludes. "Behold, the world has risen to such enlightenment, virtue, happiness! I, high on the swing-bar!, the golden pointer of the world-scales — behold me!" 30

And this wise man did not take into account what, really, even the faintest echo from heaven to earth would have had to teach him, that probably human being always remains human being, in accordance with the analogy of all things nothing but human being! Angelic and devilish forms in the human being — fictional forms! — He nothing but the middle thing in between! — defiant 35and fainthearted, striving in need, tiring in inactivity and luxury, without occasion and practice nothing, gradually progressing through them almost everything — hieroglyph of good and bad, of which history is full — human being! — always only tool!

[He] did not take into account that this hidden double creature can be 40modified a thousandfold, and, given the structure of our earth, almost must be — that there is a creation of clime, of circumstances of an age, hence national and generational virtues, blooms which grow under that sky and thrive on almost nothing, die out or miserably turn yellow there (a physics of history, science of the

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soul, and politics at which our century has of course already fictionalized and pondered so much!) — that there can and 'must be all this but that inside beneath the manifold transformed husk the same kernel of essential nature and of capacity for happiness can still be preserved, and according to all human expectation almost will be so. 5

[He] did not take into account that it shows infinitely more solicitude of the father of all if this happened, if in humanity there lies one invisible

seed of receptivity for happiness and virtue on the whole earth and in all ages which, differently developed, indeed appears in different forms but [is] inwardly only one measure and mixture of forces. 10

Finally, [he] did not take into account — all-knowing creature! — that with the human species there can be a greater plan of God's in the whole which an individual creature precisely does not survey, precisely because nothing is running towards something merely individual as its ultimate finishing line, especially not towards the philosopher or throne occupant of the eighteenth 15century — because all the scenes only in each of which each actor has a role in which he can strive and be happy perhaps still ... all these scenes still perhaps can form a whole, a main performance of which indeed the individual, selfish player could know and see nothing but which the audience member with the right viewpoint and tranquilly awaiting the sequence's whole could well see. 20

Behold the whole universe from heaven to earth — what is means?, what is purpose? Is not everything means for millions of purposes? Is not everything the purpose of millions of means? The chain of almighty, all-wise goodness is entwined one part into and through the other a thousandfold — but each member in the chain is in its place a member — hangs on the chain and does not 25see where in the end the chain hangs. Each in its delusion feels itself to be the central point, in its delusion feels everything around itself only to the extent that it pours rays or waves on this point — beautiful delusion! But the great circle of all these waves, rays, and seeming central points: where?, who?, why?

Would it be otherwise in the history of the human species?, even with all 30waves and periods in the sequence, otherwise than precisely the "building-plan of almighty wisdom"? If the residential house reveals "divine picture" right down to its smallest fitting — how not the history of its resident? The former only decoration!, picture in a single act, view! The latter an "endless drama of scenes!, an epic of God's through all millennia, parts of the world, and human races, a 35thousand formed fable full of a great meaning!"

That this meaning, this vision of the whole, must at least lie beyond the human species — insect of a lump of earth, look again at heaven and earth! Do you in the whole universe, as it weaves its work dead and alive all at once, find yourself the exclusive central point towards which everything operates?, or do 40not you yourself cooperate (where?, how?, and when? — who has asked you about this?) in the service of higher purposes unknown to you!, of purposes in the service of which the morning star and the little cloud beside it, you and the worm that you are now squashing!, cooperate. Given, now, that this is

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undeniable and beyond investigation in the great, all-extensive together-world of a moment, can you suspect anything less or different in the great, all-extensive sequential-world, in all the events and progressive windings of the human species, in the drama full of the inventor's wisdom and knotty plot? And if the whole were for you a labyrinth with a hundred doorways closed, with a 5hundred open - this labyrinth is a "palace of God for his all-fulfillment, perhaps for his pleasurable viewing, not for yours!"

The whole world, the vision of God at one moment, an abyss. — Abyss in which I stand lost on all sides!, see a great work without a name and everywhere full of names!, full of voices and forces! I do not feel myself in that place where the 10harmony of all these voices resounds into one ear, but what here in my place I hear by way of abbreviated, confusing sound — this much I know and hear with certainty—also has something harmonious in it!, also resounds as a song of praise in the ear of Him for whom space and time are nothing. — The human ear stays around for few moments, and only hears few notes, often only a 15vexatious tuning of false notes, for this ear came precisely at the time of tuning-up and unfortunately perhaps landed in the whirlwind of one corner. The enlightened human being of later time — he wants to be not only a hearer of all but himself the final epitomizing note of all notes!, mirror of all the past and representative of the purpose of the composition in all its scenes! The precocious 20child slanders and blasphemes — alas, if it were even only possibly the after-echo of the last left-over death-sound or a part of the tuning!

Among the great tree of the father of all whose peak reaches above all the heavens and whose roots reach beneath worlds and hell, am I an eagle on this tree?, am I the raven who on his shoulder daily brings the worlds' evening 25greeting to his ear? What a little strand of foliage of the tree I may be!, a small comma or dash in the book of all worlds!

Whatever I may be!, call from heaven to earth that, like everything, similarly I too mean something in my place. With forces set aside for the whole, and indeed only with the feeling of happiness according to the extent of these 30forces too! Which of my brothers had a privilege before he existed? And if the purpose and harmony of the household effects required that he became a golden container and I an earthenware one — I now, precisely an earthenware container also in purpose, sound, duration, feeling, and competence, can I argue with the craftsman? I have not been passed over, no one has been preferred — the 35capacity for feeling, activity, and competence of the human species is distributed. Here the river current [Strom] breaks off, there it begins. He to whom much is given also has much to accomplish. Whoever is enlivened with many senses has to struggle with many senses. — I do not believe that a single thought, with what it expresses and keeps quiet, what it presents to view and what 40it pulls cloud-cover over, yields greater sensation than this one in the light of the whole of history!

***

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Freedom, sociability, and equality as they are now sprouting up everywhere — they have caused harm and will cause harm in a thousand misuses. Anabaptists and fanatics wrought havoc on Germany in Luther's times; and now, with the general mixing of the classes, with the upwards drive of the lower people to the 5place of withered, proud, and useless high ones in order soon to become still worse than these — the strongest, most essential foundational positions of humanity become emptier, the mass of corrupted life-sap flows deep down. Even if a guardianship of this great body pays attention, praises, and promotes for the sake of a timely increased appetite or a seeming addition of forces, or even if it were to 10exercise opposition in the direst way — still, it will never eliminate the cause of the "advancing refinement and of the driving for rationalization, luxury, freedom, and impudence." How much the true, voluntary respect for the authorities, elders, and highest classes in the world has fallen since just one century ago is inexpressible when one undertakes a small comparison — our great people, 15both the small and the great ones, continue to contribute to this in a tenfold way: barriers and turnpikes torn down; prejudices — as they are called — of class, of education, and naturally of religion trampled under foot, and even mocked to their harm; we are all becoming — through one sort of education, philosophy, irreligion, enlightenment, vice, and finally, as a bonus, through oppression, 20bloodthirstiness, and insatiable avarice, which certainly awakens minds and brings them to self-feeling — we are all becoming — salvation be ours!, and after much disorder and misery, salvation be ours! — what our philosophy so praises and strives for — lord and serf father and child, youth and the most foreign maiden, we are all becoming brothers. These gentlemen prophesy like Caiaphas, 25though indeed in the first instance about their own heads or the heads of their children!

Even if our "human government" had gained nothing more than a beautiful covering — this good seeming and appearance, the language, the first principles and dispositions and order, which now every book and every young prince, as though 30he were a living book, carries on the tongue — great progress. Let someone make the experiment of reading Machiavelli and Antimachiavelli together — the philosopher and friend of humankind will honor the latter, will gladly overlook his untouched rotten spots covered over with flowers and green brush and his unplumbed mounds where it has not been desired or liked to get to the bottom of 35the matter, and say: What a book!, what a prince he who would think like that book!, would only confess, acknowledge, know, act in accompanying dispositions — what a prince for the world and the world of posterity! It is true that instead of crude, inhumanly cruel madness illnesses could govern which are just as oppressive and more damaging because they creep [up on one], get praised and not 40recognized, and eat into the soul right down to bone and marrow. The universal dress of philosophy and love of humankind can hide oppressions, attacks on the true, personal freedom of human beings and lands, citizens and peoples, of just the sort that Cesare Borgia would wish for.'45 All that in accordance with the accepted first

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principles of the century, with a decent appearance of virtue, wisdom, love of humankind, and care for peoples. Since it can happen that way and almost must — I do not like to be a eulogist of these coverings as though they were actions. Doubtless, even Machiavelli would in our century not have written as he wrote and Cesare would in a different context not have been allowed to act as he did in 5his day - at bottom even with all this still nothing but the dress would be changed. But even just the changing of this is a mercy. The fact that in our century anyone who wrote like Machiavelli would get stoned ... but I take back what I just said ... He who writes more harmfully for virtue than Machiavelli does not get stoned — he writes philosophically, wittily, French, and of course — 10without religion. Hence "like one of us"! And — of course disavows his writings!

Wildness in thinking, as long as it happens with certain proprieties of prosperity (the true prosperity may be all the further off!) — even on this poisonous, undisciplined tree there sprout good fruits! Do you not believe that this sense and nonsense which is now spoken so uninhibitedly against religion 15will at some future point have excellent effects? Abstracting from elucidations, justifications, and proofs of religion, which often do not prove much, I do not know what great man would prophesy a next century of superstition given that our century exhausted itself into such stupid unbelief. — But however this may turn out (and it would be grim if only superstition could again take over from 20unbelief and the eternal, miserable circular course yielded no progress!), religion, reason, and virtue must inevitably one day profit through the maddest attacks of their foes! Wit, philosophy, the freedom to think were certainly only contrary to their knowledge and volition a frame for this new throne — suddenly one day the cloud parted, and if they then stand their ground there will emerge in full 25glory the all-illuminating sun of the world.

Also the great scope and the universality in which all that proceeds can, we see, clearly become an unrecognized frame for this. The more we Europeans invent means and tools to subjugate, to deceive, and to plunder you other parts of the world ... Perhaps it will one day be precisely your turn to triumph! We 30affix chains with which you will pull us; the inverted pyramids of our constitutions will turn upright on your ground; with us you will ... Enough, it is evident that everything is tending to a larger whole! We embrace the circle of the earth — whatever we may do this with — and what comes next can probably never any longer narrow this circle's foundation! We are approaching 35a new act [of the play], even if admittedly only through decay!

Precisely the fact that our manner of thought becomes refined in good and bad and that precisely thereby our stronger, more sensuous first principles and motives get worn down, without the greater mass having the desire or force to oppose this with anything nor yet to put anything in its place — whither 40must this bring us? The sensuous, strong bonds of the ancient republics and ages are long since (and it is a triumph of our time!) dissolved; everything gnaws at the finer bonds of our time: philosophy, freethinking, luxury, and an education in all this that is from member to member deeper and more widely spread. — Even

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peaceful wisdom already has to damn or despise most of our political motives, and what an old reproach and scruple on both sides is the quarrel between Christianity and worldliness! Hence, since weakness can end in nothing but weakness, and an overstrenuous resort to and misuse of the forces' last patient throw can only hasten that complete throwing down ... But it is not my office to 5prophesy!

Still less to prophesy "what alone can, will, and almost must be the substitute and source of new life-forces on a so broadened stage — whence new spirit can and will bring all the light and the human disposition that we are working for to warmth, to permanence, and to complete bliss." Without a doubt I am still 10talking about distant times!

Let us, my brothers, work with courageous, happy hearts even right in the middle of the cloud [Wolke] — for we are working for a great future.

And let us accept our goal as pure, as bright, as free of accretions as we can — for we run in the light of a will-o'-the-wisp and twilight and fog. 15

B. From Letters for the Advancement of Humanity

(1793-7) 20

The more and the more easily messengers reach everywhere here, everywhere there, then the more the communication of thoughts is advanced, and no prince, no king will seek to hinder this who understands the infinite advantages of the mind-industry, of mind-culture, of the reciprocal 25communication of inventions, thoughts, suggestions, even of mistakes committed and weaknesses. Every one of these things benefits human nature, and hence also society; the mistake gets discovered, the error gets corrected, thought awakens thought, sensations and decisions stimulate and motivate.

Free investigation of the truth from all sides is the sole antidote against 30delusion and error of whatever sort they may be. Let the deluded person defend his delusion, the person who thinks differently his thought; that is their business. Even if both of them fail to be corrected, for the unbiased person there certainly arises out of every criticized error a new reason, a new view of the truth. Let it only not be believed that truth can ever be captured, or even 35kept fast in jail for eternity, by means of armed delusion! Truth is a spirit and communicates itself to spirits almost without a body. Often its sound may be stirred at a single end of the world, and it resounds in remote lands; but the river current of human cognition always purifies itself through oppositions, through strong contrasts. Here it breaks off, there it starts; and in the end a 40long- and much-purified delusion is regarded by human beings as truth.

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[Through Christianity] the peoples of Europe not only came to know each other better, ,but also became, through reciprocal needs, with common purposes and strivings, indispensable to each other; their tendency became ever more and more directed at a single point. Inventions came in addition, which given these common needs one people borrowed from the other, in 5which one sought to speed ahead of the other; there arose in their perfecting a competition among the nations. Now thoughts, experiments, discoveries, trainings could no longer so easily perish as in the periods-of the peoples who were formerly separated from each other; the seed that did not take root here and now was carried by a favorable zephyr to a gentler ground where it 10perhaps thrived under a new name.

Several teachers in a single faculty, several faculties, several universities facing one another are commonly in competition. With the years this com-petition inevitably does not decline but grows. The more the restrictions of the trade are weakened (they must necessarily be so), the more the work of the 15academies becomes a work of the mind and of a free practice, then the more the competition catches fire with a purer flame. Universities are watchtowers and lighthouses of science; they spy out what is happening in the distance and abroad, advance it further, and themselves shine a path forward for others. Universities are gathering- and meeting places of science; out of their bringing-together and 20reciprocal fighting or friendship arise there and then new results. Finally, universities should be the last sanctuaries and a bulwark of the sciences if they were to find a sanctuary nowhere [else]. What went unrecognized everywhere, what in daily business raised its voice here and there without protection, should here enjoy an unbiased attention and a support that would 25be disturbed by no influence. If I am not mistaken, this has happened on several occasions; the counsels of teachers have stopped persecutions which the counsels of the wise men of state could not suppress; and thus for the future too do I see counsels of teachers in universities coming forth which the counsels of stupid wise men can hardly withstand. 30

The public of authors is thus of a distinctive kind: invisible and omnipresent, often deaf, often dumb, and perhaps after years, after centuries, very loud and active. Lost and yet unlost, indeed unlosable, is that which gets deposited in its lap. One can never tally up with it; its book is never closed, the trial before and with it never gets concluded; it is always learning and never 35arrives at the final result.

People have wanted to appoint guardians for this eternal minor, the censors—but as experience has shown, with fruitless effort and for the most part with the most unpleasant outcome. The minor most likes to taste what one denied him; he searches out what one wanted to hide from him; the prohibition 40of a presentation to this public is precisely the means to afford even a useless word respect, weight, and attention. And what modest man will dare to be a guardian of the entire human understanding, of the public of all times and lands?

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Let each wise man and fool write in his own way if only he in doubtful cases gives his name and personally insults no one.

Let me be permitted to explain myself on this point. The wisest censor, even if he represents the voice-vote of a whole, indeed of the most enlightened, state, can hardly want, in what concerns doctrine and opinion, to 5counterbalance or outweigh the voice-vote of the public, to which an author voluntarily subjects himself. Even if his judgment were the wisdom of Solomon, if it contained the cleverness of all past centuries, and anticipated the tested understanding belonging to a great future, still, though, he is missing one thing: the legitimation for this. For neither the past world nor the world of 10posterity has certified him concerning this. The author will hence always have the ground of objection against him that he is usurping in advance the judgment of the world, that he is without authorization presumptuously taking on himself a decision which only belongs to the public in the broadest sense of the word; he will appeal from this pope of a small state to the universal 15concilium which alone, and indeed only in ever advancing voice-votes, can be a judge of the true and the false. Probably many voice-votes will come to his side, and, notwithstanding the highest legal right, the censor will, in form and on account of the consequences, prove in the wrong.? I do not have to repeat what has been said so often and so much, where truth is concerned, about 20freedom of opinions, which may only be refuted, but not suppressed.

If one may therefore rob the public of no opinions, not even the craziest ones, in that the state, when they seem false or dangerous to it, may rather occasion their public refutation, so that darkness may be conquered by light for the world's advantage, then, given this unrestrained freedom, given the respect 25that the state itself shows the public by not withholding from it anything that any author offers it, the state may surely also demand that every author who sees fit to offer something to the public should give his name.

30

Letter 115

Certainly a dangerous gift, power without kindness, inventive slyness without understanding. The corruptedly cultivated human being wants only to be able, to have, to rule, to enjoy, without considering to what end he is able, what he has, 35and whether what he calls enjoyment does not eventually turn into a killing of all enjoyment. What philosophy will free the nations of Europe from the stone of Sisyphus, from the wheel of Ixion, to which a greedy politics has damned them?

In novels we cry for the butterfly whose wings get wetted by the rain; in 40conversations we bubble over with great sentimental dispositions — and for this moral corruption of our species, from which all evil arises, we have no eye. We slaughter to greed, to pride, to our slothful boredom a thousand sacrificial victims who do not cost us a single tear. One hears of thirty thousand human

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beings left dead on the battlefield for nothing as one hears of cockchafers that have been shaken down, of a field of crops ruined by hail, and one will perhaps feel sorrier about the latter disaster than about them. Or one expresses disapproval of what happened in Peru,1O Ismail," Warsaw,12 while, as soon as our prejudice, our greed for gain, finds a role in the matter, one wishes 5something similar and worse with grim anger.

This is indeed how it is. It is a well-known and sad saying that the human species never appears less deserving of love than when it affects one another by nations.

But are the machines that affect one another in this way even nations, or 10does one misuse their name?

Nature begins from families. Families combine with each other; they form a tree with twigs, stem, and roots. Each root digs its way into the ground and seeks its nutrition in the earth just as each twig right up to the top seeks it in the air. They do not separate from each other; they do not fall over each 15other.

Nature has divided peoples through language, ethics, customs, often through mountains, seas, rivers, and deserts; it, so to speak, did everything in order that they should for a long time remain separated from each other and become rooted in themselves. Precisely contrary to the world-unifying plan of 20that Nimrod, the languages got confused (as the old legend says); the peoples divided from each other. The diversity of languages, ethics, inclinations, and ways of life was destined to become a bar against the presumptuous linking together of the peoples, a dam against foreign inundations – for the steward of the world was concerned that for the security of the whole each people and 25race preserved its impress, its character; peoples should live beside each other, not mixed up with and on top of each other oppressing each other.

Hence no passions are as mightily effective in everything living as those that aim at self-defense. At the risk of her life, with manifold-multiplied forces, a hen protects her young against vulture and goshawk – she has forgotten 30herself, has forgotten her weakness, and feels herself only as the mother of her race, of a young people. Thus all nations which get called savages – whether they defend themselves against foreign visitors with cunning or with violence. It is a poor manner of thought that holds this against them, indeed even classifies peoples according to the passivity with which they allow themselves 35to be deceived and captured. Did their land not belong to them? And is it not the greatest honor that they can accord the European when they consume him at their feast? I do not see why they should believe themselves created in order to stand more precisely recorded in Büsching’s Geography, in order to delight the idle European in copper engravings, and to enrich the greed of a trading 40company with the products of their land.

It is hence unfortunately true that a series of works – English, French, Spanish, and German – authored in this presumptuous, covetous conceit, are indeed written in a European manner but certainly not humanely. The nation

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that expresses itself in this without any doubts at all is well known. “Rule, Britannia, rule the waves” – many people believe that with this slogan there is given to them the coasts, the lands, the nations, and the riches of the world. The captain and his sailor are (it is believed) the main wheels of creation by means of which Providence effects its eternal work exclusively to the honor of 5the British nation and for the advantage of the [East] India Company. Such calculations and self-evaluations may serve politically and for the parliament; [but] to the sense and feeling of humanity they are intolerable. Absolutely so when we poor, innocent Germans echo the British in this respect — lamentation and misery! 10

What is a measuring of all peoples by the measure of us Europeans sup-posed to be at all? Where is the means of comparison? That nation which you call savage or barbaric is in essentials much more humane than you — and where it perished under the pressure of its clime, where its senses were unhinged by an organization peculiar to it or by special circumstances in the 15course of its history, then, however, let each of us beat his own breast and look for the beam in his own brain. All works which nourish the — already in itself intolerable — pride of the Europeans through distorted, unproved, or manifestly unprovable assertions — the genius of humanity throws them back with contempt and says: “An unhuman [Unmensch] wrote them!” 20

You nobler human beings, to whichever people you belong — Las Casas, Fenelon, you two good St. Pierres, many an honest Quaker, Montesquieu, Filangieri — whose first principles aim not at contempt for but at the valuing and happiness of all human nations; you travelers who, like Pages and others, knew how to place yourselves into the ethics and mode of life of several, indeed 25all, nations, and found it not without value to consider our earth as a sphere on which, along with all the climes and their products, there also must be and will be many kinds of peoples in every condition — representatives and guardian angels of humanity, who is there from your midst, with your beneficent manner of thought, who will give us a history of them of the sort that we need? 30

Letter 116 You wish a natural history of humanity written in a purely humane spirit. I wish 35it too. For we are in agreement that a gathered-together description of peoples according to so-called races [Rassen], varieties, modes of play, ways of mating, etc. does not yet deserve this name. Let me pursue the dream of such a history.

1. Above all, let one be unbiased like the genius of humanity itself; let one have no pet tribe, no favorite people on the earth. Such a preference often 40seduces one into ascribing too much good to the favored nation, and too much bad to others. If, in the extreme case, the beloved people were merely a collective name (Celts, Semites, Cushites, etc.) that has perhaps nowhere

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existed, whose origins and perpetuation cannot be proved, then one would have written at sheer wild random [ins Blaue des Himmels].

2. Let one still less contemptuously insult any people that has never insulted us. Even if authors may not hope that the good first principles which they spread will everywhere find quick acceptance, caution against giving rise 5to dangerous first principles is their greatest duty. People readily draw support from contemptuous judgments about other peoples in order to justify dark deeds, savage inclinations. Pope Nicholas the Fifth (already a long time ago) gave away the unknown world; he pontifically gave permission to the white and nobler human beings to turn all unbelievers into slaves. We arrive 10too late with our papal bulls. Kakistocracy maintains its rights in practice without us having to authorize it to do so theoretically and therefore having to invert the history of humanity. Should, for example, someone express the opinion that “if it can be demonstrated that no coffee, sugar, rice, or tobacco plantations can survive without negroes, then the legitimacy of the trade in 15negroes is simultaneously proved, in that this trade benefits more than harms the whole human species, that is, the white, nobler human beings,” then a first principle of this sort would immediately destroy the whole history of humanity. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam it would privilege the most impudent presumptions, the cruellest usurpations. Rather, let one not put into the hands 20of any people on earth on grounds of “innate superiority” the scepter over other peoples — much less the sword and the slave whip.

3. The nature-investigator presupposes no order of rank among the crea-tures that he observes; all are equally dear and valuable to him. Likewise the nature-investigator of humanity. The negro has as much right to consider the 25white man a degenerate, a born albino freak, as when the white man considers him a beast, a black animal. Likewise the [native] American, likewise the Mongol. In that period when everything was taking form, nature developed the form of the human type as manifoldly as her workshop required and allowed. She developed in form, not various seeds (a word which is empty and which 30contradicts the formation of humankind), but various forces in various proportions, as many of them as lay in her type and as the various climes of the earth could develop in form. The negro, the [native] American, the Mongol has gifts, talents, preformed dispositions that the European does not have. Perhaps the sum is equal — only in different proportions and compensations. 35We can be certain that what in the human type was able to develop on our round earth has developed or will develop — for who could prevent it from doing so? The original form, the prototype of humanity hence lies not in a single nation of a single region of the earth; it is the abstracted concept from all exemplars of human nature in both hemispheres. The Cherokee and the 40Huswana,38 the Mongol and the Gonagua, are as much letters in the great word of our species as the most civilized [gebildetste] Englishman or Frenchman.

4. Each nation must therefore be considered solely in its place with everything that it is and has — arbitrary separatings, slingings into a confused

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jumble, of individual traits and customs yield no history. With such collections one enters into a charnel house, an equipment and clothes closet, of peoples, but not into living creation, into that great garden in which peoples grew up like plants, to which they belong, in which everything — air, earth, water, sun, light, even the caterpillar that creeps upon them and the worm that consumes 5them — belongs to [gehört zu] them. Living domestic management [Haushaltung] is nature’s concept, as in the case of all organizations [Organisationen], likewise in the case of multiform humanity. Suffering and joy, lack and possession, ignorance and consciousness, stand beside each other in the great domestic manager's [Haushälterin] book and are calculated to balance 10each other.

5. Least of all, therefore, can our European culture be the measure of universal human goodness and human value; it is no yardstick or a false one. European culture is an abstracted concept, a name. “Where does it exist entirely? With which people? In which times?” Moreover (who can deny it?), 15there are so many shortcomings and weaknesses, so many twistings and horrors, bound up with it that only an unkind being could make these occasions of higher culture into a collective condition of our whole species. The culture of humanity is something different; it shoots forth everywhere in accordance with place and time, here more richly and more luxuriantly, there 20more poorly and meagerly. The genius of human natural history lives in and with each people as though this people were the only one on earth.

6. And it lives in it in a human way. All separatings-off and dissections through which the character of our species gets destroyed yield semi-concepts or delusive ones, speculations. The Pescherah is a human being too; likewise the 25Albino. Manner of living (habitus) is what defines a kind; in our diverse humanity it is extremely various. And yet in the end everything is linked to a few points; in the greatest variety the simplest order shows itself. The negro reveals himself in his footstep, as does the Hindu in his finger-tip; likewise both of them in love and hate, in the smallest and the greatest occupation. A 30penetratingly perceptive being who knew every possible alteration of the human type according to situations on our earthly sphere in a genetic manner would easily discover from a few given characteristic marks the totality of the entire conformation and of the entire manner of living [habitus] of a people, of a tribe, of an individual. 35

Faithful travel descriptions lead to this recognition of the humanity in the human being much more surely than do systems. I was happy that your letter named among those who have transposed themselves deeply into the ethics of foreign peoples Pages too. Let one read his depictions of the characters of several nations in America, of the peoples in the Philippines, and 40the judgments that he passes here and there on the behavior of the Europeans towards them, how he sought to, so to speak, incorporate into himself the manner of thought of the Hindus, of the Arabs, of the Druse, etc. even through participating in their manner of living. — Travel descriptions of such a sort —

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of which (let us be thankful to humanity!) we have many — expand our horizon and multiply our sensitivity for every situation of our brothers. Without losing a word about this, they preach sympathy, tolerance, forgiveness, praise, pity, many-sided culture of the mind, satisfaction, wisdom. Certainly, in travel descriptions too, as on travels, each person seeks his own 5thing. The base person seeks bad company, and of course among a hundred nations one will be found there that favors his prejudice, that nourishes his delusion. The noble human being everywhere seeks the better, the best, just as the drawer chooses picturesque regions. This person will notice originally good but misused first principles even behind the veil of bad habits, and will 10garner even from the abyss of the ocean not slime but pearls. — A classification of travel descriptions, not, as might be entertained, only according to noteworthy features of natural history, but also according to the inner content of the travel describers themselves, to what extent they had a pure eye and in their breast universal natural and human sensitivity — such a work 15would be very useful for the distracted flock of readers who do not know right from left.

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Modernity Beyond Enlightenment

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Questions to Consider

William Shakespeare: Voltaire and David Hume:

• What according to Voltaire and David Hume are the flaws in Shakespeare’s works?

• What kind of theatre do you think they would have preferred? • How do is it possible that two such great thinkers and critics could

judge Shakespeare so differently than we do today? August Schlegel:

• What, in Schlegel’s view is “romanticism”? • What is the origin of the term “romantic”? • How does “romantic” differ from “classical”? • What essential features, in his view, characterize a “romantic” view of

things? • Why do you think Shakespeare is such an important figure for the

theory of the romantic? • How is religion related to “romanticism” in Schlegel? • What kind of standpoint should the critic adopt in looking at works of

the past and the present? • What place, if any, does reason have in “romanticism”? • How, in Schlegel, do philosophy and aesthetics come to be intimately

related? • What place do science and nature play in Schlegel’s view of the romantic

standpoint? • Copernicus compared Ptolemy’s system to a monster; Voltaire speaks of

the monstrous character of Shakespeare’s works. In both cases, the monstrous indicates disorder, a visible lack of order or of simple systematic unity. What new significance does the “monster” take on in the romantic standpoint? Why?

The Oldest System Program:

• What kind of new “physics” do you suppose this text is talking about? • Is this text “egotistical” or must it be understood in some more subtle

way? • Does this text propose we go beyond reason or rather that we go

beyond previous all-too-narrow conceptions of reason?

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• Why must the philosopher and poet become one? • What is meant by “idea” in this text? • What do you think a “mythology” of reason would look like? • What does this new philosophy/poetry/religion have to do with the

development and realization of the human being? • What does it have to do with human freedom?

Georg Hegel:

• How does Hegel characterize “understanding” and how does he contrast it with “reason”?

• Who or what you think Hegel is thinking of when he talks about the “understanding?”

• Does Hegel invite us to dispense with the understanding altogether? • What role does development play in Hegel’s thought? • What does Hegel mean by the “negative” or the act of “negation” and

why is its result not something empty? How is it different from mere skepticism?

• How does Hegel take the findings of the Enlightenment revolution in the sciences and transform it in dealing with society and history?

• Through what process does self-consciousness posit itself? • What features does Hegel’s attempt to go beyond the Enlightenment

view of the work share with the views of Schlegel and those expressed in the Oldest System Program? In what ways is it different?

Johann Goethe:

• Is there a relationship between Mephistopheles, as the spirit of negation, and Hegel’s negation?

• How can we read Faust’s character as a formation of consciousness similar to Hegel’s description of its unfolding in the Phenomenology of Spirit?

• Why is Faust so dissatisfied with his studies? • What more can magic and the spirit world offer to Faust? • What is Faust’s ultimate ambition? Is he simply looking for pleasure? • Why should Faust be the Lord’s favorite? • In what ways does the play embrace the romantic and the monstrous? • Why is Faust so drawn to Margaret (Gretchen) and what does she

symbolize to him? Does he really love her? • Would you describe Hegel and Faust as tragic thinkers?

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Modernity Beyond Enlightenment. Reading One.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

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Hamlet

Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine with Michael Poston and Rebecca Niles

Folger Shakespeare Library 5(EDITED AND ABRIDGED)

Characters in the Play 10

THE GHOST, of former King Hamlet HAMLET, Prince of Denmark, son of the late King Hamlet and Queen

Gertrude QUEEN GERTRUDE, widow of King Hamlet, now married to Claudius KING CLAUDIUS, brother to the late King Hamlet 15

OPHELIA LAERTES, her brother POLONIUS, father of Ophelia and Laertes, councillor to King Claudius

20HORATIO, Hamlet’s friend and confidant

Courtiers at the Danish court:

ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN 25 OSRIC

Danish soldiers: BARNARDO MARCELLUS30

Players who take the roles of Prologue, Player King, Player Queen, and

Lucianus in The Murder of Gonzago

Sailor 35Gravedigger Gravedigger’s companion Doctor of Divinity

Attendants, Lords, Guards, Musicians, Soldiers, Officers 40

ACT 1

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[Scene 1 omitted]

Scene 2

Flourish. Enter Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Laertes, Hamlet, with others. 5

KING Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death The memory be green, and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom 10To be contracted in one brow of woe, Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature That we with wisest sorrow think on him Together with remembrance of ourselves. Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, 15Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we (as ’twere with a defeated joy, With an auspicious and a dropping eye, With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, In equal scale weighing delight and dole) 20Taken to wife. Nor have we herein barred Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone With this affair along. For all, our thanks. And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you? You told us of some suit. What is ’t, Laertes? 25

LAERTES My dread lord, Your leave and favor to return to France, And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

KING Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius? 30

POLONIUS Hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave By laborsome petition, and at last Upon his will I sealed my hard consent. I do beseech you give him leave to go. 35

KING Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine, And thy best graces spend it at thy will.— But now, my cousin Hamlet and my son—

HAMLET, aside 40A little more than kin and less than kind.

KING How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET

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Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun. QUEEN

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not forever with thy vailèd lids 5Seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET Ay, madam, it is common. 10

QUEEN If it be, Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET “Seems,” madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.” ’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, 15Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly. These indeed “seem,” For they are actions that a man might play; But I have that within which passes show, These but the trappings and the suits of woe. 20

QUEEN Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet. I pray thee, stay with us. Go not to Wittenberg.

HAMLET I shall in all my best obey you, madam. 25

KING Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply. Be as ourself in Denmark.—Madam, away.

Flourish. All but Hamlet exit. HAMLET 30

O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God, God, How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable 35Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on ’t, ah fie! ’Tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this: But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two. 40So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and Earth,

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Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on. And yet, within a month (Let me not think on ’t; frailty, thy name is woman!), A little month, or ere those shoes were old 5With which she followed my poor father’s body, Like Niobe, all tears—why she, even she (O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason Would have mourned longer!), married with my

uncle, 10My father’s brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules. Within a month, Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes, She married. O, most wicked speed, to post 15With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not, nor it cannot come to good. But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Barnardo. 20

HORATIO Hail to your Lordship. HAMLET Horatio—or I do forget myself! HORATIO

The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever. 25HAMLET

I am very glad to see you. But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

HORATIO A truant disposition, good my lord. 30

HAMLET I would not hear your enemy say so, Nor shall you do my ear that violence To make it truster of your own report Against yourself. I know you are no truant. 35But what is your affair in Elsinore?

HORATIO My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

HAMLET I prithee, do not mock me, fellow student. 40I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.

HORATIO Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.

HAMLET

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Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio! My father—methinks I see my father. 5

HORATIO Where, my lord?

HAMLET In my mind’s eye, Horatio. HORATIO

I saw him once. He was a goodly king. 10HAMLET

He was a man. Take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.

HORATIO My lord, I think I saw him yesternight. 15

HAMLET Saw who? HORATIO

My lord, the King your father. HAMLET The King my father? HORATIO 20

Season your admiration for a while With an attent ear, till I may deliver Upon the witness of these gentlemen This marvel to you.

HAMLET For God’s love, let me hear! 25HORATIO

Two nights together had these gentlemen, In the dead waste and middle of the night, Been thus encountered: a figure like your father, Appears before them. Thrice he walked 30By their oppressed and fear-surprisèd eyes Within his truncheon’s length, whilst they, distilled Almost to jelly with the act of fear, Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me In dreadful secrecy impart they did, 35And I with them the third night kept the watch, Where, as they had delivered, both in time, Form of the thing (each word made true and good), The apparition comes. I knew your father; These hands are not more like. 40

HAMLET Did you not speak to it?

HORATIO My lord, I did, But answer made it none. Yet once methought

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It lifted up its head and did address Itself to motion, like as it would speak; But even then the morning cock crew loud, And at the sound it shrunk in haste away And vanished from our sight. 5

HAMLET ’Tis very strange. HORATIO

As I do live, my honored lord, ’tis true. And we did think it writ down in our duty To let you know of it. 10

HAMLET Indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. Hold you the watch tonight?

ALL We do, my lord. HAMLET What, looked he frowningly? HORATIO 15

A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. HAMLET And fixed his eyes upon you? HORATIO

Most constantly. HAMLET I would I had been there. 20HORATIO It would have much amazed you. HAMLET I will watch tonight.

Perchance ’twill walk again. HORATIO I warrant it will. HAMLET 25

If it assume my noble father’s person, I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all, If you have hitherto concealed this sight, Let it be tenable in your silence still; 30And whatsomever else shall hap tonight, Give it an understanding but no tongue. I will requite your loves. So fare you well. Upon the platform, ’twixt eleven and twelve, I’ll visit you. 35

All but Hamlet exit. My father’s spirit—in arms! All is not well. I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come! Till then, sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s 40

eyes. He exits.

Scene 3

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Enter Laertes and Ophelia, his sister.

LAERTES My necessaries are embarked. Farewell. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor, 5Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood, No more.

OPHELIA No more but so? LAERTES Think it no more. Perhaps he loves you now,

And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch 10The virtue of his will; but you must fear, His greatness weighed, his will is not his own, For he himself is subject to his birth. He may not, as unvalued persons do, Carve for himself, for on his choice depends 15The safety and the health of this whole state. Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain If with too credent ear you list his songs Or lose your heart or your chaste treasure open To his unmastered importunity. 20Fear it, Ophelia; fear it, my dear sister.

OPHELIA I shall the effect of this good lesson keep As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, 25Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads And recks not his own rede.

LAERTES O, fear me not. 30

Enter Polonius. POLONIUS

Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame! 35The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail, And you are stayed for. There, my blessing with

thee. And these few precepts in thy memory Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, 40Nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

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Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel, Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in,

Bear ’t that th’ opposèd may beware of thee. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. 5Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy (rich, not gaudy), For the apparel oft proclaims the man. Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, 10And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. The time invests you. Go, your servants tend. 15

LAERTES Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well What I have said to you.

OPHELIA ’Tis in my memory locked, And you yourself shall keep the key of it. 20

Laertes exits. POLONIUS

What is ’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you? OPHELIA

So please you, something touching the Lord 25Hamlet.

POLONIUS Marry, well bethought. ’Tis told me he hath very oft of late Given private time to you.

OPHELIA 30He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders Of his affection to me.

POLONIUS Do you believe his “tenders,” as you call them?

OPHELIA 35I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

POLONIUS Marry, I will teach you. Tender yourself more dearly.

OPHELIA My lord, he hath importuned me with love 40In honorable fashion—

POLONIUS Ay, “fashion” you may call it. Go to, go to!

OPHELIA

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And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

POLONIUS Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know, When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul 5Lends the tongue vows. I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth Have you give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet. Look to ’t, I charge you. Come your ways.

OPHELIA I shall obey, my lord. 10They exit.

Scene 4

Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus. A flourish of trumpets and two cannons go off. 15HORATIO What does this mean, my lord? HAMLET

The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swagg’ring upspring reels; And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, 20The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his pledge.

HORATIO Is it a custom? HAMLET Ay, marry, is ’t,

But, to my mind, though I am native here 25And to the manner born, it is a custom More honored in the breach than the observance. This heavy-headed revel east and west Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations. They clepe us drunkards. 30So oft it chances in particular men That for some vicious mole of nature in them, As in their birth (wherein they are not guilty, Since nature cannot choose his origin), By the o’ergrowth of some complexion 35(Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason), Or by some habit that too much o’erleavens The form of plausive manners—that these men, Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, Being nature’s livery or fortune’s star, 40His virtues else, be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man may undergo, Shall in the general censure take corruption From that particular fault.

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Enter Ghost.

HORATIO Look, my lord, it comes. HAMLET 5

Angels and ministers of grace, defend us! Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned, Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from

hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, 10Thou com’st in such a questionable shape That I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee “Hamlet,” “King,” “Father,” “Royal Dane.” O, answer me!

Ghost beckons. HORATIO 15

It beckons you to go away with it. MARCELLUS Look with what courteous action

It waves you to a more removèd ground. But do not go with it.

HORATIO No, by no means. 20HAMLET

It will not speak. Then I will follow it. HORATIO

Do not, my lord. HAMLET Why, what should be the fear? 25

I do not set my life at a pin’s fee. And for my soul, what can it do to that, Being a thing immortal as itself? It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.

HORATIO 30What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord? Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o’er his base into the sea, And there assume some other horrible form Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason 35And draw you into madness? Think of it.

HAMLET It waves me still.—Go on, I’ll follow thee.

MARCELLUS You shall not go, my lord.They hold back Hamlet. 40

HAMLET Hold off your hands. By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me! I say, away!—Go on. I’ll follow thee.

Ghost and Hamlet exit.

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HORATIO He waxes desperate with imagination.

MARCELLUS Let’s follow. ’Tis not fit thus to obey him.

HORATIO 5Have after. To what issue will this come?

MARCELLUS Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

HORATIO Heaven will direct it. 10

MARCELLUS Nay, let’s follow him. They exit.

Scene 5

Enter Ghost and Hamlet. 15 HAMLET

Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak. I’ll go no further.

GHOST 20Mark me.

HAMLET I will. GHOST My hour is almost come

When I to sulf’rous and tormenting flames Must render up myself. 25

HAMLET Alas, poor ghost! GHOST

Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall unfold.

HAMLET Speak. I am bound to hear. 30GHOST

So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. HAMLET What? GHOST I am thy father’s spirit,

Doomed for a certain term to walk the night 35And for the day confined to fast in fires Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word 40Would harrow up thy soul. List, list, O list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love—

HAMLET O God! GHOST

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Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. HAMLET Murder? GHOST

Murder most foul, as in the best it is, But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. 5

HAMLET Haste me to know ’t, that I, with wings as swift As meditation or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge.

GHOST I find thee apt. Now, Hamlet, hear. 10’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forgèd process of my death Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father’s life 15Now wears his crown.

HAMLET O, my prophetic soul! My uncle! GHOST

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wits, with traitorous gifts— 20O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power So to seduce!—won to his shameful lust The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen. O Hamlet, what a falling off was there! But soft, methinks I scent the morning air. 25Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard, My custom always of the afternoon, Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, And in the porches of my ears did pour The leprous distilment. 30Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched, Cut off, even in the blossoms of my sin, No reck’ning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head. 35O horrible, O horrible, most horrible! If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not. Let not the royal bed of Denmark be A couch for luxury and damnèd incest. But, howsomever thou pursues this act, 40Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once.

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The glowworm shows the matin to be near And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire. Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me. He exits.

HAMLET O all you host of heaven! O Earth! What else? 5And shall I couple hell? O fie! Hold, hold, my heart, And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee? Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. Remember thee? 10Yea, from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial, fond records, All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, That youth and observation copied there, And thy commandment all alone shall live 15Within the book and volume of my brain, Unmixed with baser matter. Yes, by heaven! O most pernicious woman! O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain! My tables—meet it is I set it down 20That one may smile and smile and be a villain. At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.

He writes. So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word. It is “adieu, adieu, remember me.” 25I have sworn ’t.

Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

MARCELLUS Illo, ho, ho, my lord! 30HAMLET Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come! HORATIO What news, my lord? HAMLET No, you will reveal it. HORATIO

Not I, my lord, by heaven. 35MARCELLUS Nor I, my lord. HAMLET

There’s never a villain dwelling in all Denmark But he’s an arrant knave.

HORATIO 40There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave To tell us this.

HAMLET Why, right, you are in the right. And so, without more circumstance at all,

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I hold it fit that we shake hands and part. HORATIO

These are but wild and whirling words, my lord. HAMLET

I am sorry they offend you, heartily; 5Yes, faith, heartily.

HORATIO There’s no offense, my lord. HAMLET

Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio, And much offense, too. Touching this vision here, 10It is an honest ghost—that let me tell you. For your desire to know what is between us, O’ermaster ’t as you may. And now, good friends, As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers, Give me one poor request. 15

HORATIO What is ’t, my lord? We will. HAMLET

Never make known what you have seen tonight. HORATIO/MARCELLUS My lord, we will not. HAMLET 20

Upon my sword. GHOST cries under the stage Swear. HAMLET

Come on, you hear this fellow in the cellarage. Consent to swear. 25

HORATIO Propose the oath, my lord. HAMLET

Never to speak of this that you have seen, Swear by my sword.

GHOST, beneath Swear. 30HAMLET

Come hither, gentlemen, And lay your hands again upon my sword. Swear by my sword Never to speak of this that you have heard. 35

GHOST, beneath Swear by his sword. HORATIO

O day and night, but this is wondrous strange. HAMLET

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. 40There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come. Here, as before, never, so help you mercy, How strange or odd some’er I bear myself

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(As I perchance hereafter shall think meet To put an antic disposition on) That you, at such times seeing me, never note That you know aught of me—this do swear, So grace and mercy at your most need help you. 5

GHOST, beneath Swear. HAMLET

Rest, rest, perturbèd spirit. —The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite That ever I was born to set it right! 10

They exit.

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ACT 2

[Scene 1 omitted] 5

Scene 2 Flourish. Enter King and Queen, Rosencrantz and

Guildenstern and Attendants. 10

KING Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I entreat you both That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court Some little time, so by your companies 15To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather So much as from occasion you may glean, Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus That, opened, lies within our remedy.

ROSENCRANTZ Both your Majesties 20Might, by the sovereign power you have of us, Put your dread pleasures more into command Than to entreaty.

GUILDENSTERN But we both obey, And here give up ourselves in the full bent 25To lay our service freely at your feet, To be commanded.

KING Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

QUEEN 30Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz. And I beseech you instantly to visit My too much changèd son.

GUILDENSTERN Heavens make our presence and our practices 35Pleasant and helpful to him!

QUEEN Ay, amen! Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit

with some Attendants. 40

Enter Polonius. POLONIUS My liege, and madam, to expostulate

What majesty should be, what duty is,

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Why day is day, night night, and time is time Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. Your noble son is mad. 5“Mad” call I it, for, to define true madness, What is ’t but to be nothing else but mad? But let that go.

QUEEN More matter with less art. POLONIUS 10

Madam, I swear I use no art at all. That he’s mad, ’tis true; ’tis true ’tis pity, And pity ’tis ’tis true—a foolish figure, But farewell it, for I will use no art. Mad let us grant him then, and now remains 15That we find out the cause of this effect. Perpend. I have a daughter (have while she is mine) Who, in her duty and obedience, mark, Hath given me this. Now gather and surmise. 20

He reads. To the celestial, and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia—In her excellent white bosom, these, etc.—

QUEEN Came this from Hamlet to her? POLONIUS

Good madam, stay awhile. I will be faithful. 25Reads. Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love. 30

O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon my groans, but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.

Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him, Hamlet. 35

This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me, And more above, hath his solicitings, As they fell out by time, by means, and place, All given to mine ear.

KING But how hath she received his love? 40POLONIUS What do you think of me? KING

As of a man faithful and honorable. POLONIUS

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I would fain prove so. I went round to work, And my young mistress thus I did bespeak: “Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star. This must not be.” And then I prescripts gave her, That she should lock herself from his resort, 5Admit no messengers, receive no tokens; Which done, she took the fruits of my advice, And he, repelled (a short tale to make), Fell into a sadness, then into a fast, Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness, 10Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension, Into the madness wherein now he raves And all we mourn for.

KING, to Queen Do you think ’tis this? QUEEN It may be, very like. 15POLONIUS

Take this from this, if this be otherwise. KING How may we try it further? POLONIUS

You know sometimes he walks four hours together 20Here in the lobby.

QUEEN So he does indeed. POLONIUS

At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him. To the King. Be you and I behind an arras then. 25

KING We will try it.

Enter Hamlet reading on a book. QUEEN 30

But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

POLONIUS Away, I do beseech you both, away. I’ll board him presently. O, give me leave. 35

King and Queen exit. How does my good Lord Hamlet?

HAMLET Well, God-a-mercy. POLONIUS Do you know me, my lord? HAMLET Excellent well. You are a fishmonger. 40POLONIUS Not I, my lord. HAMLET Then I would you were so honest a man. POLONIUS Honest, my lord? HAMLET To be honest, as this world goes, is to

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be one man picked out of ten thousand. POLONIUS That’s very true, my lord. HAMLET For if the sun breed maggots in a dead

dog, being a good kissing carrion—Have you a daughter? 5

POLONIUS I have, my lord. HAMLET Let her not walk i’ th’ sun. Conception is a

blessing, but, as your daughter may conceive, friend, look to ’t.

POLONIUS, aside How say you by that? Still harping on 10my daughter. Yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger. He is far gone. And truly, in my youth, I suffered much extremity for love, very near this. I’ll speak to him again.—What do you read, my lord? 15

HAMLET Words, words, words. POLONIUS What is the matter, my lord? HAMLET Between who? POLONIUS I mean the matter that you read, my lord. HAMLET Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here 20

that old men have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I 25hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

POLONIUS, aside Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t.—Will you walk out of the air, my lord? 30

HAMLET Into my grave? POLONIUS Indeed, that’s out of the air. Aside. How

pregnant sometimes his replies are!—My lord, I will take my leave of you.

HAMLET You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I 35will more willingly part withal—except my life, except my life, except my life.

POLONIUS Fare you well, my lord. Polonius exits.

40HAMLET These tedious old fools.

Enter Guildenstern and Rosencrantz.

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GUILDENSTERN My honored lord. ROSENCRANTZ My most dear lord. HAMLET My excellent good friends! How dost thou,

Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do you both? What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune 5

that she sends you to prison hither? GUILDENSTERN Prison, my lord? HAMLET Denmark’s a prison. ROSENCRANTZ We think not so, my lord. HAMLET Why, then, ’tis none to you, for there is 10

nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me, it is a prison. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. I know the good king and queen have sent for you.

ROSENCRANTZ To what end, my lord? 15HAMLET That you must teach me. But let me conjure

you by the rights of our fellowship: be even and direct with me whether you were sent for or no.

ROSENCRANTZ, to Guildenstern What say you? GUILDENSTERN My lord, we were sent for. 20HAMLET I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation

prevent your discovery. I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the 25Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the 30beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me, no, nor women neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

ROSENCRANTZ My lord, there was no such stuff in 35my thoughts.

HAMLET Why did you laugh, then, when I said “man delights not me”?

ROSENCRANTZ To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten entertainment the players shall 40receive from you. We coted them on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.

HAMLET What players are they? ROSENCRANTZ Even those you were wont to take such

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delight in, the tragedians of the city.

A flourish for the Players. GUILDENSTERN There are the players. 5HAMLET Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore.

Your hands, come then. You are welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUILDENSTERN In what, my dear lord? 10HAMLET I am but mad north-north-west. When the

wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.

Enter Polonius. 15

POLONIUS The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor 20Plautus too light.

Enter the Players.

HAMLET25You are welcome, masters; welcome all. We’ll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality. Come, a passionate speech.

FIRST PLAYER What speech, my good lord? HAMLET I heard thee speak me a speech once. ’Twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido, and 30

thereabout of it especially when he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line—let me see, let me see:

The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast— ’tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus: 35

The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms, Black as his purpose, did the night resemble Old grandsire Priam seeks.

So, proceed you. FIRST PLAYER Anon he finds him 40

Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword, Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, Repugnant to command. Unequal matched, Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;

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But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword Th’ unnervèd father falls. Then senseless Ilium, Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear. For lo, his sword, 5Which was declining on the milky head Of reverend Priam, seemed i’ th’ air to stick. So as a painted tyrant Pyrrhus stood And, like a neutral to his will and matter, Did nothing. 10But as we often see against some storm A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still, The bold winds speechless, and the orb below As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus’ pause, 15Arousèd vengeance sets him new a-work, And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall On Mars’s armor, forged for proof eterne, With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword Now falls on Priam. 20Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods In general synod take away her power, Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven As low as to the fiends! 25

POLONIUS This is too long. HAMLET It shall to the barber’s with your beard.—

Prithee say on; come to Hecuba. FIRST PLAYER

But who, ah woe, had seen the moblèd queen— 30Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames With bisson rheum, a clout upon that head Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe, About her lank and all o’erteemèd loins A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up— 35Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steeped, ’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have

pronounced. But if the gods themselves did see her then When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport 40In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs, The instant burst of clamor that she made (Unless things mortal move them not at all) Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven

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And passion in the gods. POLONIUS Look whe’er he has not turned his color and

has tears in ’s eyes. Prithee, no more. HAMLET ’Tis well. I’ll have thee speak out the rest of

this soon.—Good my lord, will you see the players 5well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

POLONIUS My lord, I will use them according to their 10desert.

HAMLET God’s bodykins, man, much better! Use every man after his desert and who shall ’scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in 15your bounty. Take them in.

POLONIUS Come, sirs. HAMLET Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play

tomorrow. As Polonius and Players exit, Hamlet speaks to the First Player. Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can 20you play “The Murder of Gonzago”?

FIRST PLAYER Ay, my lord. HAMLET We’ll ha ’t tomorrow night. You could, for a

need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in ’t, 25could you not?

FIRST PLAYER Ay, my lord. HAMLET Very well. Follow that lord—and look you

mock him not. First Player exits. My good friends, I’ll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore. 30

ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord. HAMLET

Ay, so, good-bye to you. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit.

Now I am alone. 35O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit That from her working all his visage wanned, 40Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit—and all for nothing! For Hecuba!

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What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? What would he do Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears And cleave the general ear with horrid speech, 5Make mad the guilty and appall the free, Confound the ignorant and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, 10And can say nothing—no, not for a king Upon whose property and most dear life A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward? Who calls me “villain”? breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face? 15Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i’ th’ throat As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Ha! ’Swounds, I should take it! For it cannot be But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall To make oppression bitter, or ere this 20I should have fatted all the region kites With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless

villain! O vengeance! 25Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murdered, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words. About, my brains!—Hum, I have heard 30That guilty creatures sitting at a play Have, by the very cunning of the scene, Been struck so to the soul that presently They have proclaimed their malefactions; For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak 35With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players Play something like the murder of my father Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks; I’ll tent him to the quick. If he do blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen 40May be a devil, and the devil hath power T’ assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps, Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits,

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Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds More relative than this. The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.

He exits. 5

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ACT 3

Scene 1

Enter King, Polonius, Ophelia.5 POLONIUS

Ophelia, walk you here.—Gracious, so please you, We will bestow ourselves. To Ophelia. Read on this

book, 10I hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.

They withdraw.

Enter Hamlet. 15

HAMLET To be or not to be—that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles 20And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep— No more—and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep— 25To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life. 30For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes, 35When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn 40No traveler returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

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And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action.—Soft you now, 5The fair Ophelia.—Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered.

OPHELIA Good my lord, How does your Honor for this many a day?

HAMLET I humbly thank you, well. 10OPHELIA

My lord, I have remembrances of yours That I have longèd long to redeliver. I pray you now receive them.

HAMLET 15No, not I. I never gave you aught.

OPHELIA My honored lord, you know right well you did, And with them words of so sweet breath composed As made the things more rich. Their perfume 20

lost, Take these again, for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lord.

HAMLET Ha, ha, are you honest? 25OPHELIA My lord? HAMLET Are you fair? OPHELIA What means your Lordship? HAMLET That if you be honest and fair, your honesty

should admit no discourse to your beauty. 30OPHELIA Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce

than with honesty? HAMLET Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner

transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his 35likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

OPHELIA Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. HAMLET You should not have believed me, for virtue

cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall 40relish of it. I loved you not.

OPHELIA I was the more deceived. HAMLET Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be

a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest,

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but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offenses at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act 5them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where’s your father?

OPHELIA At home, my lord. 10HAMLET Let the doors be shut upon him that he may

play the fool nowhere but in ’s own house. Farewell. OPHELIA O, help him, you sweet heavens! HAMLET If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague

for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as 15snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell. 20

OPHELIA Heavenly powers, restore him! HAMLET I have heard of your paintings too, well

enough. God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig and amble, and you lisp; you nickname God’s creatures and make 25your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on ’t. It hath made me mad. I say we will have no more marriage. Those that are married already, all but one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. He exits. 30

OPHELIA O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue,

sword, Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state, 35The glass of fashion and the mold of form, Th’ observed of all observers, quite, quite down! And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, That sucked the honey of his musicked vows, Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, 40Like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh; That unmatched form and stature of blown youth Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me T’ have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

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KING, advancing with Polonius I have in quick determination Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England. Haply the seas, and countries different, With variable objects, shall expel 5This something-settled matter in his heart, Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus From fashion of himself. It shall be so. Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

They exit. 10

Scene 2 Enter Hamlet and three of the Players.

HAMLET Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced 15

it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, 20whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the 25most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise.

PLAYER I warrant your Honor. HAMLET Be not too tame neither, but let your own

discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the 30word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to 35nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone or come tardy off, though it makes the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure 40of the which one must in your allowance o’erweigh a whole theater of others. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them, for there be of them that will themselves

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laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the meantime some necessary question of the play be then to be considered. That’s villainous and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready. 5

Players exit.

Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Horatio, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and other attendants. 10

KING How fares our cousin Hamlet? HAMLET Excellent, i’ faith, of the chameleon’s dish. I

eat the air, promise-crammed. KING I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These 15

words are not mine. HAMLET No, nor mine now. To Polonius. My lord, you

played once i’ th’ university, you say? POLONIUS That did I, my lord, and was accounted a

good actor. 20HAMLET What did you enact? POLONIUS I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i’ th’

Capitol. Brutus killed me. HAMLET It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a

calf there.—Be the players ready? 25ROSENCRANTZ Ay, my lord. They stay upon your

patience. QUEEN Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. HAMLET No, good mother. Here’s metal more

attractive. Hamlet takes a place near Ophelia. 30POLONIUS, to the King Oh, ho! Do you mark that? HAMLET Lady, shall I lie in your lap? OPHELIA No, my lord. HAMLET I mean, my head upon your lap? OPHELIA Ay, my lord. 35HAMLET Do you think I meant country matters? OPHELIA I think nothing, my lord. HAMLET That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’

legs. OPHELIA What is, my lord? 40HAMLET Nothing. OPHELIA You are merry, my lord. HAMLET Who, I? OPHELIA Ay, my lord.

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HAMLET O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within ’s two hours.

OPHELIA Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord. 5HAMLET So long? Nay, then, let the devil wear black,

for I’ll have a suit of sables. O heavens, die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year. 10

Enter Prologue.

PROLOGUE For us and for our tragedy, 15 Here stooping to your clemency, We beg your hearing patiently. He exits.

HAMLET Is this a prologue or the posy of a ring? OPHELIA ’Tis brief, my lord. HAMLET As woman’s love. 20

Enter the Player King and Queen. PLAYER KING

Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round 25Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbèd ground, And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen About the world have times twelve thirties been Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands Unite commutual in most sacred bands. 30

PLAYER QUEEN So many journeys may the sun and moon Make us again count o’er ere love be done!

PLAYER KING Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too. 35My operant powers their functions leave to do. And thou shall live in this fair world behind, Honored, beloved; and haply one as kind For husband shalt thou—

PLAYER QUEEN O, confound the rest! 40Such love must needs be treason in my breast. In second husband let me be accurst. None wed the second but who killed the first.

HAMLET That’s wormwood!

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PLAYER KING I do believe you think what now you speak, But what we do determine oft we break. This world is not for aye, nor ’tis not strange That even our loves should with our fortunes change; 5

PLAYER QUEEN Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, If, once a widow, ever I be wife.

HAMLET If she should break it now! PLAYER KING 10

’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile. My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile The tedious day with sleep. Sleeps.

PLAYER QUEEN Sleep rock thy brain, And never come mischance between us twain. 15

Player Queen exits. HAMLET Madam, how like you this play? QUEEN The lady doth protest too much, methinks. HAMLET O, but she’ll keep her word. KING Have you heard the argument? Is there no 20

offense in ’t? HAMLET No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest. No

offense i’ th’ world. KING What do you call the play? HAMLET “The Mousetrap.” ’Tis a knavish piece of work, but 25

what of that? Your Majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not.

Enter Lucianus. 30This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

LUCIANUS Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time

agreeing, Confederate season, else no creature seeing, 35Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, Thy natural magic and dire property On wholesome life usurp immediately.

Pours the poison in his ears. 40HAMLET He poisons him i’ th’ garden for his estate. His

name’s Gonzago. The story is extant and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.

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Claudius rises. OPHELIA The King rises. HAMLET What, frighted with false fire? QUEEN How fares my lord? POLONIUS Give o’er the play. 5KING Give me some light. Away! POLONIUS Lights, lights, lights!

All but Hamlet and Horatio exit. HAMLET O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for

a thousand pound. Didst perceive? 10HORATIO Very well, my lord. HAMLET Upon the talk of the poisoning? HORATIO I did very well note him. HAMLET Ah ha! Come, some music! Come, the

recorders! 15

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you. 20

HAMLET Sir, a whole history. GUILDENSTERN The King, sir— HAMLET Ay, sir, what of him? GUILDENSTERN Is in his retirement marvelous

distempered. 25HAMLET With drink, sir? GUILDENSTERN Is in his retirement marvelous

distempered. No, my lord, with choler. The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

HAMLET You are welcome. 30GUILDENSTERN Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not

of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s commandment. If not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business. 35

ROSENCRANTZ She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.

HAMLET We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us? 40

Enter the Players with recorders.

HAMLET O, the recorders! Let me see one. He takes a recorder and turns to Guildenstern. To withdraw

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with you: why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERN O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

HAMLET I do not well understand that. Will you play 5upon this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN My lord, I cannot. HAMLET I pray you. GUILDENSTERN Believe me, I cannot. HAMLET I do beseech you. 10GUILDENSTERN I know no touch of it, my lord. HAMLET It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages

with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops. 15

GUILDENSTERN But these cannot I command to any utt’rance of harmony. I have not the skill.

HAMLET Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck 20out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. ’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? 25Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Enter Polonius. 30God bless you, sir.

POLONIUS My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.

HAMLET I will come by and by. POLONIUS I will say so. 35HAMLET “By and by” is easily said. Leave me,

friends. All but Hamlet exit.

’Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes 40

out Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot

blood And do such bitter business as the day

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Would quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother. O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom. Let me be cruel, not unnatural. I will speak daggers to her, but use none. 5My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites: How in my words somever she be shent, To give them seals never, my soul, consent.

He exits. 10

Scene 3 Enter King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.

KING

I like him not, nor stands it safe with us 15To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you. I your commission will forthwith dispatch, And he to England shall along with you.

GUILDENSTERN We will ourselves provide. Most holy and religious fear it is 20To keep those many many bodies safe That live and feed upon your Majesty.

KING Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage, For we will fetters put about this fear, 25Which now goes too free-footed.

ROSENCRANTZ We will haste us. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit.

Enter Polonius. 30

POLONIUS

My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet. Behind the arras I’ll convey myself To hear the process. 35

KING Thanks, dear my lord. Polonius exits.

O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven; It hath the primal eldest curse upon ’t, A brother’s murder. 40

He kneels.

Enter Hamlet.

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HAMLET Now might I do it pat, now he is a-praying, And now I’ll do ’t. He draws his sword.

And so he goes to heaven, And so am I revenged. That would be scanned: 5A villain kills my father, and for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send To heaven. Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge. No. 10

He sheathes his sword. When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed, At game, a-swearing, or about some act That has no relish of salvation in ’t— 15Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, And that his soul may be as damned and black As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays. This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

Hamlet exits. 20KING, rising

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

He exits. 25

Scene 4 Enter Queen and Polonius.

POLONIUS

He will come straight. Look you lay home to him. 30Pray you, be round with him.

HAMLET, within Mother, mother, mother! QUEEN I’ll warrant you. Fear me not. Withdraw,

I hear him coming. Polonius hides behind the arras. 35

Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET Now, mother, what’s the matter? QUEEN 40

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. HAMLET

Mother, you have my father much offended. QUEEN

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Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. HAMLET

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. QUEEN

Why, how now, Hamlet? 5HAMLET What’s the matter now? QUEEN

Have you forgot me? HAMLET No, by the rood, not so.

You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife, 10And (would it were not so) you are my mother.

QUEEN Nay, then I’ll set those to you that can speak.

HAMLET Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge. 15You go not till I set you up a glass Where you may see the inmost part of you.

QUEEN What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? Help, ho! 20

POLONIUS, behind the arras What ho! Help! HAMLET

How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead. He kills Polonius by thrusting a rapier

through the arras. 25POLONIUS, behind the arras

O, I am slain! QUEEN O me, what hast thou done? HAMLET Nay, I know not. Is it the King? QUEEN 30

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! HAMLET

A bloody deed—almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king and marry with his brother.

QUEEN 35As kill a king?

HAMLET Ay, lady, it was my word. He pulls Polonius from behind the arras.

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell. I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune. 40Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger. To Queen. Leave wringing of your hands. Peace, sit

you down, And let me wring your heart; for so I shall

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If it be made of penetrable stuff. QUEEN

What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me?

HAMLET Such an act 5That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows As false as dicers’ oaths. 10

QUEEN Ay me, what act? HAMLET

Look here upon this picture and on this, The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See what a grace was seated on this brow, 15A combination and a form indeed Where every god did seem to set his seal To give the world assurance of a man. This was your husband. Look you now what follows. Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear 20Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed And batten on this moor? Ha! Have you eyes? Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight.

QUEEN O Hamlet, speak no more! 25Thou turn’st my eyes into my very soul, And there I see such black and grainèd spots As will not leave their tinct.

HAMLET Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed, 30Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty!

QUEEN O, speak to me no more! These words like daggers enter in my ears. No more, sweet Hamlet! 35

HAMLET A murderer and a villain, A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings, A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole 40And put it in his pocket—

QUEEN No more! HAMLET A king of shreds and patches—

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Enter Ghost.

Save me and hover o’er me with your wings, You heavenly guards!—What would your gracious

figure? 5QUEEN Alas, he’s mad. HAMLET

Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by Th’ important acting of your dread command? 10O, say!

GHOST Do not forget. This visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. But look, amazement on thy mother sits. O, step between her and her fighting soul. 15Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works. Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAMLET How is it with you, lady? QUEEN Alas, how is ’t with you,

That you do bend your eye on vacancy 20And with th’ incorporal air do hold discourse? Whereon do you look?

HAMLET On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares. His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones, 25Would make them capable. To the Ghost. Do not

look upon me, Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern effects. Then what I have to do Will want true color—tears perchance for blood. 30

QUEEN To whom do you speak this? HAMLET Do you see nothing there? QUEEN

Nothing at all; yet all that is I see. HAMLET Nor did you nothing hear? 35QUEEN No, nothing but ourselves. HAMLET

Why, look you there, look how it steals away! My father, in his habit as he lived! Look where he goes even now out at the portal! 40

Ghost exits. QUEEN

This is the very coinage of your brain. This bodiless creation ecstasy

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Is very cunning in. HAMLET Mother, for love of grace,

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul That not your trespass but my madness speaks. It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, 5Whiles rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven, Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come, And do not spread the compost on the weeds To make them ranker. 10

QUEEN O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain!

HAMLET O, throw away the worser part of it, And live the purer with the other half! 15Good night. But go not to my uncle’s bed. And, when you are desirous to be blest, I’ll blessing beg of you. For this same lord

Pointing to Polonius. I do repent; but heaven hath pleased it so 20To punish me with this and this with me, That I must be their scourge and minister. I will bestow him and will answer well The death I gave him. So, again, good night. I must be cruel only to be kind. 25This bad begins, and worse remains behind. One word more, good lady.

QUEEN What shall I do? HAMLET

Not this by no means that I bid you do: 30Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed. Make you to ravel all this matter out That I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft.

QUEEN 35Be thou assured, if words be made of breath And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me.

HAMLET I must to England, you know that. 40

QUEEN Alack, I had forgot! ’Tis so concluded on.

HAMLET There’s letters sealed; and my two schoolfellows,

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Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged, They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way And marshal me to knavery. Let it work, For ’tis the sport to have the enginer Hoist with his own petard; and ’t shall go hard 5But I will delve one yard below their mines And blow them at the moon. O, ’tis most sweet When in one line two crafts directly meet. This man shall set me packing. I’ll lug the guts into the neighbor room. 10Mother, good night indeed. This counselor Is now most still, most secret, and most grave, Who was in life a foolish prating knave.— Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.— Good night, mother. 15

They exit, Hamlet tugging in Polonius.

20

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ACT 4

[Scenes 1 and 2 omitted]

5Scene 3

Enter King and two or three.

KING I have sent to seek him and to find the body. 10How dangerous is it that this man goes loose! Yet must not we put the strong law on him. He’s loved of the distracted multitude.

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. 15

How now, what hath befallen? ROSENCRANTZ

Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord, We cannot get from him. 20

KING But where is he? ROSENCRANTZ Ho! Bring in the lord.

They enter with Hamlet. 25KING Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius? HAMLET At supper. KING At supper where? HAMLET Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A

certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at 30him.

KING Alas, alas! HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat

of a king and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. 35

KING What dost thou mean by this? HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a

progress through the guts of a beggar. KING Where is Polonius? HAMLET In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger 40

find him not there, seek him i’ th’ other place yourself. But if, indeed, you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

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KING, to Attendants. Go, seek him there. HAMLET He will stay till you come.Attendants exit. KING

Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety (Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve 5For that which thou hast done) must send thee

hence With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself For England.

HAMLET For England? 10KING Ay, Hamlet. HAMLET Good. KING

So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes. HAMLET 15

I see a cherub that sees them. But come, for England.

Farewell, dear mother. KING Thy loving father, Hamlet. HAMLET 20

My mother. Father and mother is man and wife, Man and wife is one flesh, and so, my mother.— Come, for England. He exits.

KING I’ll have him hence tonight. 25

All but the King exit. And England, thou mayst not coldly set Our sovereign process, which imports at full, By letters congruing to that effect, The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England, 30For like the hectic in my blood he rages, And thou must cure me. Till I know ’tis done, Howe’er my haps, my joys will ne’er begin.

He exits. 35

[Scene 4 omitted]

Scene 5 Enter Horatio, Queen, and a Gentleman.

40QUEEN I will not speak with her. GENTLEMAN She is importunate,

Indeed distract; her mood will needs be pitied. QUEEN What would she have?

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GENTLEMAN She speaks much of her father, says she hears There’s tricks i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her

heart, Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt 5That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing, Yet the unshapèd use of it doth move The hearers to collection. They aim at it And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts; Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield 10

them, Indeed would make one think there might be

thought, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

QUEEN Let her come in. Gentleman exits. 15

Enter Ophelia.

OPHELIA Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark? 20

QUEEN How now, Ophelia? OPHELIA sings

How should I your true love know From another one? By his cockle hat and staff 25 And his sandal shoon.

QUEEN Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPHELIA Say you? Nay, pray you, mark. Sings. He is dead and gone, lady, 30 He is dead and gone; At his head a grass-green turf, At his heels a stone. Oh, ho!

QUEEN Nay, but Ophelia— 35OPHELIA Pray you, mark.

Sings. White his shroud as the mountain snow—

Enter King. 40

QUEEN Alas, look here, my lord. OPHELIA sings

Larded all with sweet flowers; Which bewept to the ground did not go

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With true-love showers. KING How do you, pretty lady? OPHELIA Well, God dild you. They say the owl was a

baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are but know not what we may be. God be at your table. 5

KING Conceit upon her father. OPHELIA Pray let’s have no words of this, but when

they ask you what it means, say you this: Sings. Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day, All in the morning betime, 10 And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine. Then up he rose and donned his clothes And dupped the chamber door, Let in the maid, that out a maid 15 Never departed more.

KING How long hath she been thus? OPHELIA I hope all will be well. We must be patient,

but I cannot choose but weep to think they would lay him i’ th’ cold ground. My brother shall know of 20it. And so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night. She exits.

KING Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you. 25

Horatio exits. O, this is the poison of deep grief. It springs All from her father’s death, and now behold! O Gertrude, Gertrude, When sorrows come, they come not single spies, 30But in battalions. A noise within.

QUEEN Alack, what noise is this?

Enter Laertes with followers. 35

LAERTES Where is this king?—Sirs, stand you all without. I thank you. Keep the door. Followers exit. O, thou

vile king, 40Give me my father!

QUEEN Calmly, good Laertes. KING What is the cause, Laertes,

That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?

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LAERTES Where is my father? KING Dead. QUEEN

But not by him. KING Let him demand his fill. 5LAERTES

Let come what comes, only I’ll be revenged Most throughly for my father.

KING Good Laertes, If you desire to know the certainty 10Of your dear father, is ’t writ in your revenge That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and

foe? LAERTES None but his enemies. KING Why, now you speak 15

Like a good child and a true gentleman. That I am guiltless of your father’s death And am most sensibly in grief for it, It shall as level to your judgment ’pear As day does to your eye. 20

A noise within

Enter Ophelia. OPHELIA There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. 25

Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts. There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. You must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would 30give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died. They say he made a good end.

Sings. For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy. LAERTES

Thought and afflictions, passion, hell itself 35She turns to favor and to prettiness.

OPHELIA sings And will he not come again? And will he not come again? No, no, he is dead. 40 Go to thy deathbed. He never will come again. His beard was as white as snow,

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All flaxen was his poll. He is gone, he is gone, And we cast away moan. God ’a mercy on his soul.

And of all Christians’ souls, I pray God. God be wi’ 5you. She exits.

LAERTES Do you see this, O God? KING

Laertes, I must commune with your grief, Or you deny me right. Go but apart, 10Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will, And they shall hear and judge ’twixt you and me. And where th’ offense is, let the great ax fall. I pray you, go with me.

They exit. 15

Scene 6 Enter Horatio and to him a Sailor.

SAILOR There’s a letter 20

for you, sir. It came from th’ ambassador that was bound for England—if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is. He hands Horatio a letter.

HORATIO reads the letter Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave 25us chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valor, and in the grapple I boarded them. On the instant, they got clear of our ship; so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy, but they knew what they did: I am to 30do a good turn for them. Repair thou to me with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern 35hold their course for England; of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell.

He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet.

Come, direct me to him from whom you brought them. 40They exit.

Scene 7

Enter King and Laertes.

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KING

Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, And you must put me in your heart for friend, Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, 5That he which hath your noble father slain Pursued my life.

LAERTES And so have I a noble father lost, A sister driven into desp’rate terms, 10Whose worth, if praises may go back again, Stood challenger on mount of all the age For her perfections. But my revenge will come.

KING I will work him 15To an exploit, now ripe in my device, Under the which he shall not choose but fall; And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe, But even his mother shall uncharge the practice And call it accident. 20

LAERTES My lord, I will be ruled, The rather if you could devise it so That I might be the organ.

KING Will you do this? Keep close within your chamber. 25Hamlet, returned, shall know you are come home. A Frenchman gave such masterly report For art and exercise in your defense, And for your rapier most especial Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy 30That he could nothing do but wish and beg Your sudden coming-o’er, to play with you. We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence And wager on your heads. He, being remiss, Most generous, and free from all contriving, 35Will not peruse the foils, so that with ease, Or with a little shuffling, you may choose A sword unbated, and in a pass of practice Requite him for your father.

LAERTES I will do ’t, 40And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword. I bought an unction of a mountebank: I’ll touch my point With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,

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It may be death. KING Let’s further think of this,

When in your motion you are hot and dry And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepared

him 5A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping, If he by chance escape your venomed stuck, Our purpose may hold there.—But stay, what

noise? 10

Enter Queen.

QUEEN One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, So fast they follow. Your sister’s drowned, Laertes. 15

LAERTES Drowned? O, where? QUEEN

There is a willow grows askant the brook That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. Therewith fantastic garlands did she make 20Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do “dead men’s fingers” call

them. There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds 25Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds, 30As one incapable of her own distress Or like a creature native and endued Unto that element. But long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay 35To muddy death.

LAERTES Alas, then she is drowned. Exits.

KING Let’s follow, Gertrude. They exit. 40

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ACT 5

Scene 1

Enter Gravedigger and Another. 5

GRAVEDIGGER Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she willfully seeks her own salvation?

OTHER I tell thee she is. Therefore make her grave straight. 10

GRAVEDIGGER How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defense?

OTHER Nay, but hear you, goodman delver— GRAVEDIGGER Give me leave. Here lies the water;

good. Here stands the man; good. If the man go to 15this water and drown himself, it is (will he, nill he) he goes; mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself.

OTHER But is this law? GRAVEDIGGER Ay, marry, is ’t 20OTHER Will you ha’ the truth on ’t? If this had not been

a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial.

GRAVEDIGGER Why, there thou sayst. And the more pity that great folk should have count’nance in this 25world to drown or hang themselves more than their even-Christian. Come, my spade.

Enter Hamlet and Horatio. Other Man exits and Gravedigger digs singing. 30

HAMLET Whose grave’s this, sirrah? GRAVEDIGGER Mine, sir. HAMLET I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in ’t.

What man dost thou dig it for? GRAVEDIGGER For no man, sir. 35HAMLET What woman then? GRAVEDIGGER For none, neither. HAMLET Who is to be buried in ’t? GRAVEDIGGER One that was a woman, sir, but, rest

her soul, she’s dead. 40HAMLET How absolute the knave is!

—How long hast thou been grave-maker? GRAVEDIGGER It was that very day that young Hamlet

was born—he that is mad, and sent into England.

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HAMLET Ay, marry, why was he sent into England? GRAVEDIGGER Why, because he was mad. He shall

recover his wits there. Or if he do not, ’tis no great matter there.

HAMLET Why? 5GRAVEDIGGER ’Twill not be seen in him there. There

the men are as mad as he. HAMLET How long will a man lie i’ th’ earth ere he rot? GRAVEDIGGER Faith, if he be not rotten before he die

he will last you some eight year or nine year. Here’s a skull now hath lien you 10i’ th’ earth

three-and-twenty years. HAMLET Whose was it? GRAVEDIGGER A whoreson mad fellow’s it was.

He poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. 15This same skull, sir, was, sir, Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.

HAMLET This? GRAVEDIGGER E’en that. HAMLET, taking the skull Let me see. Alas, poor 20

Yorick! I knew him, Horatio—a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. 25Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? Quite chapfallen? Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch 30thick, to this favor she must come. Make her laugh at that.—Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

HORATIO What’s that, my lord? HAMLET Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this

fashion i’ th’ earth? 35HORATIO E’en so. HAMLET And smelt so? Pah!He puts the skull down. HORATIO E’en so, my lord. HAMLET To what base uses we may return, Horatio!

Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of 40Alexander till he find it stopping a bunghole?

HORATIO ’Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.

HAMLET No, faith, not a jot;

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Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. O, that that earth which kept the world in awe Should patch a wall t’ expel the winter’s flaw! 5

Enter King, Queen, Laertes, attendants, with a Doctor of Divinity and Ophelia’s corpse.

But soft, but soft awhile! Here comes the King, The Queen, the courtiers. Who is this they follow? 10

LAERTES Lay her i’ th’ earth, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring!

HAMLET, to Horatio What, the fair Ophelia? QUEEN Sweets to the sweet, farewell! 15

She scatters flowers. I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife.

LAERTES O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursèd head Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense 20Deprived thee of!—Hold off the earth awhile, Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.

Leaps in the grave. Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,

HAMLET, advancing 25What is he whose grief

Bears such an emphasis, whose phrase of sorrow Conjures the wand’ring stars and makes them stand Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, Hamlet the Dane. 30

LAERTES The devil take thy soul!

HAMLET Thou pray’st not well. They grapple. KING Pluck them asunder. 35

Hamlet and Laertes are separated. HAMLET

I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love 40Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

KING O, he is mad, Laertes! QUEEN For love of God, forbear him. HAMLET ’Swounds, show me what thou ’t do.

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Woo’t weep, woo’t fight, woo’t fast, woo’t tear thyself,

Woo’t drink up eisel, eat a crocodile? I’ll do ’t. Dost thou come here to whine? To outface me with leaping in her grave? 5Be buried quick with her, and so will I.

QUEEN This is mere madness; HAMLET Hear you, sir,

What is the reason that you use me thus? I loved you ever. But it is no matter. 10Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

Hamlet exits. KING

I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him. 15They exit.

Scene 2 Enter Hamlet and Horatio. 20

HAMLET

So much for this, sir. Now shall you see the other. Our indiscretion sometime serves us well When our deep plots do pall; and that should learn 25

us There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will—

HORATIO That is most certain. HAMLET Up from my cabin, 30

My sea-gown scarfed about me, in the dark Groped I to find out them; had my desire, Fingered their packet, and in fine withdrew To mine own room again, making so bold (My fears forgetting manners) to unfold 35Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio, A royal knavery—an exact command, That on the supervise, no leisure bated, My head should be struck off.

HORATIO Is ’t possible? 40HAMLET

But wilt thou hear now how I did proceed? HORATIO I beseech you. HAMLET I sat me down,

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Devised a new commission, wrote it fair— An earnest conjuration from the King, Without debatement further, more or less, He should those bearers put to sudden death, Not shriving time allowed. 5

HORATIO So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to ’t.

HAMLET It will be short. The interim’s mine, And a man’s life’s no more than to say “one.” 10But I am very sorry, good Horatio, That to Laertes I forgot myself, For by the image of my cause I see The portraiture of his. I’ll court his favors. But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me 15Into a tow’ring passion.

HORATIO Peace, who comes here?

Enter Osric. 20OSRIC Your Lordship is right welcome back to

Denmark. HAMLET I humbly thank you, sir. OSRIC Sweet lord, if your Lordship were at leisure, I

should impart a thing to you from his Majesty. 25HAMLET I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of

spirit. OSRIC My lord, his Majesty

bade me signify to you that he has laid a great wager on your head. Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes—You are not 30

ignorant of what excellence Laertes is—The King, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary horses, hath laid, sir, that in a dozen

passes between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you three hits. He hath laid on twelve for nine, and it would come to immediate trial if your 35Lordship would vouchsafe the answer.

HAMLET Sir, I will walk here in the hall. Let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the King hold his purpose, I will win for him, an I can. If not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd 40hits.

OSRIC Shall I deliver you e’en so? HAMLET To this effect, sir, after what flourish your

nature will.

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OSRIC I commend my duty to your Lordship. HAMLET Yours. Osric exits. HORATIO You will lose, my lord. HAMLET I do not think so. Since he went into France,

I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the 5odds; but thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart. But it is no matter.

HORATIO If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their repair hither and say you are not fit.

HAMLET Not a whit. We defy augury. There is a 10special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. 15

A table prepared. Enter King, Queen, Osric, Laertes and all the court.

KING Come, Hamlet, come and take this hand from me.

He puts Laertes’ hand into Hamlet’s. 20HAMLET, to Laertes

Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong; But pardon ’t as you are a gentleman. Sir, in this audience Free me so far in your most generous thoughts 25That I have shot my arrow o’er the house And hurt my brother.

LAERTES I am satisfied in nature, but in my terms of honor I stand aloof and will no reconcilement. 30I do receive your offered love like love And will not wrong it.

HAMLET I embrace it freely And will this brothers’ wager frankly play.— Give us the foils. Come on. 35

LAERTES Come, one for me. KING

Cousin Hamlet, You know the wager? HAMLET Very well, my lord.

Your Grace has laid the odds o’ th’ weaker side. 40KING

I do not fear it; I have seen you both. LAERTES

This is too heavy. Let me see another.

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HAMLET This likes me well. These foils have all a length?

OSRIC Ay, my good lord. Prepare to play.

KING 5Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.— If Hamlet give the first or second hit The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath, And in the cup an union shall he throw, Richer than that which four successive kings 10In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups, And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, The trumpet to the cannoneer without, The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth, “Now the King drinks to Hamlet.” Come, begin. 15

Trumpets the while. HAMLET Come on, sir. LAERTES Come, my lord. They play. HAMLET One. LAERTES No. 20HAMLET Judgment! OSRIC A hit, a very palpable hit. LAERTES Well, again. KING

Stay, give me drink.—Hamlet, this pearl is thine. 25Here’s to thy health.

He drinks and then drops the pearl in the cup. Drum, trumpets, and shot.

Give him the cup. HAMLET 30

I’ll play this bout first. Set it by awhile. Come. They play. Another hit. What say you?

LAERTES A touch, a touch. I do confess ’t.

KING 35Our son shall win.

QUEEN He’s fat and scant of breath.— Here, Hamlet, take my napkin; rub thy brows. The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

She lifts the cup. 40HAMLET Good madam. KING Gertrude, do not drink. QUEEN

I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.She drinks.

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KING, aside It is the poisoned cup. It is too late.

HAMLET I dare not drink yet, madam—by and by.

QUEEN Come, let me wipe thy face. 5LAERTES, to Claudius

My lord, I’ll hit him now. KING I do not think ’t. LAERTES, aside

And yet it is almost against my conscience. 10HAMLET

Come, for the third, Laertes. You do but dally. I pray you pass with your best violence. I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

LAERTES Say you so? Come on. Play. 15OSRIC Nothing neither way. LAERTES Have at you now!

Laertes wounds Hamlet. Then in scuffling they change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds Laertes.

KING Part them. They are incensed. 20HAMLET Nay, come again.

The Queen falls. OSRIC Look to the Queen there, ho! HORATIO

They bleed on both sides.—How is it, my lord? 25OSRIC How is ’t, Laertes?

Laertes falls. LAERTES I am justly killed with mine own treachery. HAMLET

How does the Queen? 30KING She swoons to see them bleed. QUEEN

No, no, the drink, the drink! O, my dear Hamlet! The drink, the drink! I am poisoned. She dies.

HAMLET 35O villainy! Ho! Let the door be locked.Osric exits. Treachery! Seek it out.

LAERTES It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain. No med’cine in the world can do thee good. 40In thee there is not half an hour’s life. The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, Unbated and envenomed. The foul practice Hath turned itself on me. Lo, here I lie,

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Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poisoned. I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame.

HAMLET The point envenomed too! Then, venom, to thy

work. Hurts the King. 5KING

O, yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt. HAMLET

Here, thou incestuous, murd’rous, damnèd Dane, Drink off this potion. Is thy union here? 10

Forcing him to drink the poison. Follow my mother. King dies.

LAERTES He is justly served. It is a poison tempered by himself. Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet. 15Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee, Nor thine on me. Dies.

HAMLET Heaven make thee free of it. I follow thee.— I am dead, Horatio.—Wretched queen, adieu.— 20You that look pale and tremble at this chance, That are but mutes or audience to this act, Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, Death, Is strict in his arrest), O, I could tell you— But let it be.—Horatio, I am dead. 25Thou livest; report me and my cause aright To the unsatisfied. What a wounded name, Things standing thus unknown, shall I leave behind

me! If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, 30Absent thee from felicity awhile And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain To tell my story—the rest is silence. Dies.

HORATIO 35Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

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Modernity Beyond Enlightenment Reading Two

David Hume (1711-1776)

&

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet, 1694-1778)

David Hume (1711-1776)

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From The History of England, vol. 6

If Shakespeare be considered as a MAN, born in a rude age, and educated in the lowest manner, without any instruction, either from the world or from books, he may be regarded as a prodigy: If represented as a POET, capable of furnishing a proper entertainment to a refined or intelligent audience, we must abate much of this eulogy. In his compositions, we regret, that many 5irregularities, and even absurdities, should so frequently disfigure the animated and passionate scenes intermixed with them; and at the same time, we perhaps admire the more those beauties, on account of their being surrounded with such deformities. A striking peculiarity of sentiment, adapted to a singular character, he frequently hits, as it were by inspiration; but a 10reasonable propriety of thought he cannot, for any time, uphold. Nervous and picturesque expressions, as well as descriptions, abound in him; but it is in vain we look either for purity or simplicity of diction. His total ignorance of all theatrical art and conduct, however material a defect; yet, as it affects the spectator rather than the reader, we can more easily excuse, than that want of 15taste which often prevails in his productions, and which gives way, only by intervals, to the irradiations of genius. A great and fertile genius he certainly possessed, and one enriched equally with a tragic and comic vein; but, he ought to be cited as a proof, how dangerous it is to rely on these advantages alone for attaining an excellence in the finer arts. And there may even remain a 20suspicion, that we over-rate, if possible, the greatness of his genius; in the same manner as bodies often appear more gigantic, on account of their being disproportioned and misshapen. He died in 1616, aged 53 years.

Johnson possessed all the learning which was wanting to Shakespeare, and wanted all the genius of which the other was possessed. Both of them were 25equally deficient in taste and elegance, in harmony and correctness. A servile copyist of the ancients, Johnson translated into bad English the beautiful passages of the Greek and Roman authors, without accommodating them to the manners of his age and country. His merit has been totally eclipsed by that of Shakespeare, whose rude genius prevailed over the rude art of his 30cotemporary. The English theatre has ever since taken a strong tincture of Shakespeare’s spirit and character; and thence it has proceeded, that the nation has undergone, from all its neighbors, the reproach of barbarism, from which its valuable productions in some other parts of learning would otherwise have

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exempted it. Johnson had a pension of a hundred marks from the king, which Charles afterwards augmented to a hundred pounds. He died in 1637, aged 63.

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Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet,

1694-1778)

From his Philosophical Letters, or Letters Regarding the English Nation, pp. 69-73 (edited by John Leigh and

translated by Prudence Steiner, Indianapolis: Hackett, 2007)

The English already had theater, as did the Spanish, when the French only had traveling players. Shakespeare, who was, so to speak, the English Corneille, flowered in the days of Lope de Vega; he created the true theater. His genius was strong and fertile, full of nature and the sublime, without the slightest spark of good taste, and without the least understanding of the rules. I will tell 5you something daring but true: The great accomplishments of this author doomed English theater; he gave us such beautiful scenes, such great and terrible moments sprinkled through his monstrous farces, which some call tragedies, that these plays have always been performed to great applause. Time, which alone can establish a man’s reputation, has at last made those 10defects respectable. Most of the bizarre and monstrous inventions of this author have, after two hundred years, gained the right to be considered sublime. Most modern authors have copied them; but what worked well for Shakespeare is hissed at when they try it, and you can imagine that the homage paid to this older writer grows in proportion to the disrespect given to 15the modern playwrights. No one understands that one ought not to imitate him, and the failures of these imitators simply makes others believe he is inimitable.

You know that in The Moor of Venice, a very touching play, a husband strangles his wife on the stage, and when the poor woman is strangled she 20cries that she has been unjustly killed. You are aware that in Hamlet the gravediggers are drunk, sing tavern songs, and make jokes proper to their profession as they play with the skulls they unearth. But what will surprise you is that these follies were imitated during the reign of Charles II, an era of elegance and the golden age of the fine arts. Otway, in his Venice Preserv’d, 25inserts the courtier Antonio and the courtesan Naki in the midst of the horrors of Marquis Bedmar’s conspiracy. The old senator Antonio offers his courtesan all the ridiculous compliments made by all impotent foolish old men: he pretends to be a bull and a hound; he bites his mistress’s legs, who kicks and

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whips him. These buffooneries, addressed to the vulgar mob, have been edited out of Otway, but in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar the jokes of the Roman shoemakers and cobblers, who are brought onto the same stage as Brutus and Cassius, have been kept. It is because Otway’s foolishness is modern while Shakespeare’s is ancient. 5

You will no doubt complain that those who have told you about English theater, and especially about this famous Shakespeare, have until now shown you only his errors, and that no one has translated those wonderful moments that excuse all his faults. I will reply that it is easy to reproduce in prose the defects of a poet, but very difficult to translate his beautiful verse. All those 10scribblers who set themselves up as critics of celebrated writers have filled volumes; I would prefer two pages that acquaint us with some excellence. I will always maintain, as do people who have good taste, that more is to be gained from twelve lines of Homer and Virgil than from all the critical commentaries on these two great men. 15

I have dared to translate a few fragments of the best English poets. Here is one by Shakespeare; be generous to the copy for the sake of the original, and remember always, when you see a translation, that you see only a poorly engraved print of a beautiful painting. I have chosen the monologue from the tragedy of Hamlet, which is known by all, and which begins with this line: To 20be, or not to be? That is the question!

[The following is the original Shakespeare:] To be, or not to be? that is the question: Whether ’t is nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 25Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep— No more, and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. ’T is a consummation 30Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep— To sleep; perchance to dream—Ay, there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There ’s the respect 35That makes a calamity of so long life:

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For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, 5When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin. Who would fardels bear To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn 10No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution 15Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought: And enterprises of great weight and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action—] 20

Do not think I have given you the English word for word; a curse on those who concoct literal translations, and who, translating each word, destroy the meaning! Here indeed one can say that the letter killeth, and the spirit giveth life.

[…] 25

It is in these fragments that English tragedians have thus far excelled; their plays, almost all barbaric, lacking decorum, order, verisimilitude, have these astonishing flashes in the midst of darkness. The style is too swollen, too outrageous, too much copied from Hebrew writing so filled with Asiatic excess; but it must also be acknowledged that the stilts of the figurative style 30on which the English language is hoisted do elevate the mind, though with an uneven stride.

Modernity Beyond Enlightenment

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Reading Three

August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845)

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Selections from Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature

LECTURE I. Introduction—Spirit of True Criticism—Difference of Taste between the Ancients and Moderns—Classical and Romantic Poetry and Art—Division of Dramatic Literature; the Ancients, their Imitators, and the Romantic Poets. 5The object of the present series of Lectures will be to combine the theory of Dramatic Art with its history, and to bring before my auditors at once its principles and its models.

It belongs to the general philosophical theory of poetry, and the other fine arts, to establish the fundamental laws of the beautiful. Every art, on the 10other hand, has its own special theory, designed to teach the limits, the difficulties, and the means by which it must be regulated in its attempt to realize those laws. For this purpose, certain scientific investigations are indispensable to the artist, although they have but little attraction for those whose admiration of art is confined to the enjoyment of the actual productions 15of distinguished minds. The general theory, on the other hand, seeks to analyze that essential faculty of human nature—the sense of the beautiful, which at once calls the fine arts into existence, and accounts for the satisfaction which arises from the contemplation of them; and also points out the relation which subsists between this and all other sentient and cognizant faculties of 20man. To the man of thought and speculation, therefore, it is of the highest importance, but by itself alone it is quite inadequate to guide and direct the essays and practice of art.

Now, the history of the fine arts informs us what has been, and the theory teaches what ought to be accomplished by them. But without some 25intermediate and connecting link, both would remain independent and separate from one and other, and each by itself, inadequate and defective. This connecting link is furnished by criticism, which both elucidates the history of the arts, and makes the theory fruitful. The comparing together, and judging of the existing productions of the human mind, necessarily throws light upon 30the conditions which are indispensable to the creation of original and masterly works of art.

Ordinarily, indeed, men entertain a very erroneous notion of criticism, and understand by it nothing more than a certain shrewdness in detecting and exposing the faults of a work of art. As I have devoted the greater part of my 35life to this pursuit, I may be excused if, by way of preface, I seek to lay before my auditors my own ideas of the true genius of criticism.

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We see numbers of men, and even whole nations, so fettered by the conventions of education and habits of life, that, even in the appreciation of the fine arts, they cannot shake them off. Nothing to them appears natural, appropriate, or beautiful, which is alien to their own language, manners, and social relations. With this exclusive mode of seeing and feeling, it is no doubt 5possible to attain, by means of cultivation, to great nicety of discrimination within the narrow circle to which it limits and circumscribes them. But no man can be a true critic or connoisseur without universality of mind, without that flexibility which enables him, by renouncing all personal predilections and blind habits, to adapt himself to the peculiarities of other ages and nations—to 10feel them, as it were, from their proper central point, and, what ennobles human nature, to recognize and duly appreciate whatever is beautiful and grand under the external accessories which were necessary to its embodying, even though occasionally they may seem to disguise and distort it. There is no monopoly of poetry for particular ages and nations; and consequently that 15despotism in taste, which would seek to invest with universal authority the rules which at first, perhaps, were but arbitrarily advanced, is but a vain and empty pretension. Poetry, taken in its widest acceptation, as the power of creating what is beautiful, and representing it to the eye or the ear, is a universal gift of Heaven, being shared to a certain extent even by those whom 20we call barbarians and savages. Internal excellence is alone decisive, and where this exists, we must not allow ourselves to be repelled by the external appearance. Everything must be traced up to the root of human nature: if it has sprung from thence, it has an undoubted worth of its own; but if, without possessing a living germ, it is merely externally attached thereto, it will never 25thrive nor acquire a proper growth. Many productions which appear at first sight dazzling phenomena in the province of the fine arts, and which as a whole have been honored with the appellation of works of a golden age, resemble the mimic gardens of children: impatient to witness the work of their hands, they break off here and there branches and flowers, and plant them in 30the earth; everything at first assumes a noble appearance: the childish gardener struts proudly up and down among his showy beds, till the rootless plants begin to droop, and hang their withered leaves and blossoms, and nothing soon remains but the bare twigs, while the dark forest, on which no art or care was ever bestowed, and which towered up towards heaven long before human 35remembrance, bears every blast unshaken, and fills the solitary beholder with religious awe.

Let us now apply the idea which we have been developing, of the universality of true criticism, to the history of poetry and the fine arts. This, like the so-called universal history, we generally limit (even though beyond 40this range there may be much that is both remarkable and worth knowing) to whatever has had a nearer or more remote influence on the present civilization of Europe: consequently, to the works of the Greeks and Romans, and of those of the modern European nations, who first and chiefly distinguished

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themselves in art and literature. It is well known that, three centuries and a-half ago, the study of ancient literature received a new life, by the diffusion of the Grecian language (for the Latin never became extinct); the classical authors were brought to light, and rendered universally accessible by means of the press; and the monuments of ancient art were diligently disinterred and 5preserved. All this powerfully excited the human mind, and formed a decided epoch in the history of human civilization; its manifold effects have extended to our times, and will yet extend to an incalculable series of ages. But the study of the ancients was forthwith most fatally perverted. The learned, who were chiefly in the possession of this knowledge, and who were incapable of 10distinguishing themselves by works of their own, claimed for the ancients an unlimited authority, and with great appearance of reason, since they are models in their kind. Maintaining that nothing could be hoped for the human mind but from an imitation of antiquity, in the works of the moderns they only valued what resembled, or seemed to bear a resemblance to, those of the 15ancients. Everything else they rejected as barbarous and unnatural. With the great poets and artists it was quite otherwise. However strong their enthusiasm for the ancients, and however determined their purpose of entering into competition with them, they were compelled by their independence and originality of mind, to strike out a path of their own, and to impress upon their 20productions the stamp of their own genius. Such was the case with Dante17 among the Italians, the father of modern poetry; acknowledging Virgil18 for his master, he has produced a work which, of all others, most differs from the Aeneid, and in our opinion far excels its pretended model in power, truth, compass, and profundity. It was the same afterwards with Ariosto,19 who has 25most unaccountably been compared to Homer,20 for nothing can be more

17 Durante degli Alighieri (simply called; c. 1265 – 1321), was a major Italian poet of the Late Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa and later christened Divina by Boccaccio, is widely considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature. (Wikipedia) 18 Publius Vergilius Maro (October 15, 70 BC – September 21, 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. Virgil is traditionally ranked as one of Rome's greatest poets. His Aeneid has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome from the time of its composition to the present day. Modeled after Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid follows the Trojan refugee Aeneas as he struggles to fulfill his destiny and arrive on the shores of Italy—in Roman mythology the founding act of Rome. 19 Ludovico Ariosto (8 September 1474 – 6 July 1533) was an Italian poet. He is best known as the author of the romance epic Orlando Furioso (1516). The poem, a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, describes the adventures of Charlemagne, Orlando, and the Franks as they battle against the Saracens with diversions into many sideplots. Ariosto also coined the term “humanism” for choosing to focus upon the strengths and potential of humanity, rather than only upon its role as subordinate to God. (Wikipedia) 20 Homer (late 8th century BCE) is best known as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. He was believed by the ancient Greeks to have been the first and greatest of the epic poets.

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unlike. So in art with Michael Angelo and Raphael, who had no doubt deeply studied the antique. When we ground our judgment of modern painters merely on their greater or less resemblance to the ancients, we must necessarily be unjust towards them, as Winckelmann21 undoubtedly has in the case of Raphael. 5

Author of the first known literature of Europe, he is central to the Western canon. When he lived, as well as whether he lived at all, is unknown. (Wikipedia) 21 Johann Joachim Winckelmann (9 December 1717 – 8 June 1768) was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art. “The prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology” (Boorstin), Winckelmann was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the history of art. (Wikipedia)

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(Above left) Laocoön and His Sons, Greek, circa 200 BCE, attributed to Agesander, Athendoros and Polydorus, Vatican Museum. (Above right) Paris or Perseus, Greek, attributed to Euphranor, circa 340-330 BCE, National Archeological Museum, Athens. (Below left) Michelangelo’s Pietà, 1499, St. Peter’s, the Vatican. (Below right) Michelangelo’s David, 1504, Academia Gallery, Florence.

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As the poets for the most part had their share of scholarship, it gave rise to a curious struggle between their natural inclination and their imaginary duty. When they sacrificed to the latter, they were praised by the learned; but by yielding to the former, they became the favorites of the people. What 5preserves the heroic poems of a Tasso22 and a Camoëns23 to this day alive in the hearts and on the lips of their countrymen, is by no means their imperfect resemblance to Virgil, or even to Homer, but in Tasso the tender feeling of chivalrous love and honor, and in Camoëns the glowing inspiration of heroic patriotism. 10

Those very ages, nations, and ranks, who felt least the want of a poetry of their own, were the most assiduous in their imitation of the ancients; accordingly, its results are but dull school exercises, which at best excite a frigid admiration. But in the fine arts, mere imitation is always fruitless; even what we borrow from others, to assume a true poetical shape, must, as it were, 15be born again within us. Of what avail is all foreign imitation? Art cannot exist without nature, and man can give nothing to his fellow-men but himself.

Genuine successors and true rivals of the ancients, who, by virtue of congenial talents and cultivation have walked in their path and worked in their spirit, have ever been as rare as their mechanical spiritless copyists are 20common. Seduced by the form, the great body of critics have been but too indulgent to these servile imitators. These were held up as correct modern classics, while the great truly living and popular poets, whose reputation was a part of their nations’ glory, and to whose sublimity it was impossible to be altogether blind, were at best but tolerated as rude and wild natural geniuses. 25But the unqualified separation of genius and taste on which such a judgment proceeds, is altogether untenable. Genius is the almost unconscious choice of the highest degree of excellence, and, consequently, it is taste in its highest activity.

22 Torquato Tasso (11 March 1544 – 25 April 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered, 1581), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem. He suffered from mental illness and died a few days before he was due to be crowned as the king of poets by the Pope. Until the beginning of the 20th century, Tasso remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe. (Wikipedia) 23 Luís Vaz de Camões (c. 1524 or 1525 – 20 June [O.S. 10 June] 1580), is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and drama but is best remembered for his epic work Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads). His collection of poetry The Parnasum of Luís de Camões was lost in his lifetime. The influence of his masterpiece Os Lusíadas is so profound that Portuguese is sometimes called the “language of Camões.” (Wikipedia)

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In this state, nearly, matters continued till a period not far back, when several inquiring minds, chiefly Germans, endeavored to clear up the misconception, and to give the ancients their due, without being insensible to the merits of the moderns, although of a totally different kind. The apparent contradiction did not intimidate them. The groundwork of human nature is no 5doubt everywhere the same; but in all our investigations, we may observe that, throughout the whole range of nature, there is no elementary power so simple, but that it is capable of dividing and diverging into opposite directions. The whole play of vital motion hinges on harmony and contrast. Why, then, should not this phenomenon recur on a grander scale in the history of man? In this 10idea we have perhaps discovered the true key to the ancient and modern history of poetry and the fine arts. Those who adopted it, gave to the peculiar spirit of modern art, as contrasted with the antique or classical, the name of romantic. The term is certainly not inappropriate; the word is derived from romance—the name originally given to the languages which were formed 15from the mixture of the Latin and the old Teutonic24 dialects, in the same manner as modern civilization is the fruit of the heterogeneous union of the peculiarities of the northern nations and the fragments of antiquity; whereas the civilization of the ancients was much more of a piece.

The distinction which we have just stated can hardly fail to appear well 20founded, if it can be shown, so far as our knowledge of antiquity extends, that the same contrast in the labors of the ancients and moderns runs symmetrically, I might almost say systematically, throughout every branch of art—that it is as evident in music and the plastic arts as in poetry. This is a problem which, in its full extent, still remains to be demonstrated, though, on 25particular portions of it, many excellent observations have been advanced already.

Among the foreign authors who wrote before this school can be said to have been formed in Germany, we may mention Rousseau, who acknowledged the contrast in music, and showed that rhythm and melody were the prevailing 30principles of ancient, as harmony is that of modern music. In his prejudices against harmony, however, we cannot at all concur. On the subject of the arts of design an ingenious observation was made by Hemsterhuys,25 that the ancient painters were perhaps too much of sculptors, and the modern sculptors too much of painters. This is the exact point of difference; for, as I shall 35distinctly show in the sequel, the spirit of ancient art and poetry is plastic, but that of the moderns pìcturesque.

By an example taken from another art, that of architecture, I shall endeavor to illustrate what I mean by this contrast. Throughout the Middle Ages there prevailed, and in the latter centuries of that era was carried to 40perfection, a style of architecture, which has been called Gothic, but ought

24 i.e., Germanic. 25 François Hemsterhuis (27 December 1721 – 7 July 1790) was a Dutch writer on aesthetics and moral philosophy. (Wikipedia)

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really to have been termed old German. When, on the general revival of classical antiquity, the imitation of Grecian architecture became prevalent, and but too frequently without a due regard to the difference of climate and manners or to the purpose of the building, the zealots of this new taste, passing a sweeping sentence of condemnation on the Gothic, reprobated it as 5tasteless, gloomy, and barbarous. This was in some degree pardonable in the Italians, among whom a love for ancient architecture, cherished by hereditary remains of classical edifices, and the similarity of their climate to that of the Greeks and Romans, might, in some sort, be said to be innate. But we Northerns are not so easily to be talked out of the powerful, solemn 10impressions which seize upon the mind at entering a Gothic cathedral. We feel, on the contrary, a strong desire to investigate and to justify the source of this impression. A very slight attention will convince us, that the Gothic architecture displays not only an extraordinary degree of mechanical skill, but also a marvelous power of invention; and, on a closer examination, we 15recognize its profound significance, and perceive that as well as the Grecian it constitutes in itself a complete and finished system.

To the application!—The Pantheon is not more different from Westminster Abbey or the church of St. Stephen at Vienna, than the structure of a tragedy of Sophocles26 from a drama of Shakespeare. 20

26 Sophocles (c. 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC) is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides. Sophocles wrote 120 plays during the course of his life, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus. For almost 50 years, Sophocles was the most celebrated playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens that took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in 30 competitions, won 18, and was never judged lower than second place. (Wikipedia)

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(Above) The Pantheon, dedicated 186 CE, Rome. (Below) A depiction of Westminster Abbey, founded 960 CE, London.

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The comparison between these wonderful productions of poetry and architecture might be carried still farther. But does our admiration of the one compel us to depreciate the other? May we not admit that each is great and 5admirable in its kind, although the one is, and is meant to be, different from the other? The experiment is worth attempting. We will quarrel with no man for his predilection either for the Grecian or the Gothic. The world is wide, and affords room for a great diversity of objects. Narrow and blindly adopted prepossessions will never constitute a genuine critic or connoisseur, who 10ought, on the contrary, to possess the power of dwelling with liberal impartiality on the most discrepant views, renouncing the while all personal inclinations.

For our present object, the justification, namely, of the grand division which we lay down in the history of art, and according to which we conceive 15ourselves equally warranted in establishing the same division in dramatic literature, it might be sufficient merely to have stated this contrast between the ancient, or classical, and the romantic. But as there are exclusive admirers of the ancients, who never cease asserting that all deviation from them is merely the whim of a new school of critics, who, expressing themselves in 20language full of mystery, cautiously avoid conveying their sentiments in a tangible shape, I shall endeavor to explain the origin and spirit of the romantic,

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and then leave the world to judge if the use of the word, and of the idea which it is intended to convey, be thereby justified.

The mental culture of the Greeks was a finished education in the school of Nature. Of a beautiful and noble race, endowed with susceptible senses and a cheerful spirit under a mild sky, they lived and bloomed in the full health of 5existence; and, favored by a rare combination of circumstances, accomplished all that the finite nature of man is capable of. The whole of their art and poetry is the expression of a consciousness of this harmony of all their faculties. They invented the poetry of joy.

Their religion was the deification of the powers of nature and of the 10earthly life: but this worship, which, among other nations, clouded the imagination with hideous shapes, and hardened the heart to cruelty, assumed, among the Greeks, a mild, a grand, and a dignified form. Superstition, too often the tyrant of the human faculties, seemed to have here contributed to their freest development. It cherished the arts by which it was adorned, and its 15idols became the models of ideal beauty.

But however highly the Greeks may have succeeded in the Beautiful, and even in the Moral, we cannot concede any higher character to their civilization than that of a refined and ennobled sensuality. Of course this must be understood generally. The conjectures of a few philosophers, and the 20irradiations of poetical inspiration, constitute an occasional exception. Man can never altogether turn aside his thoughts from infinity, and some obscure recollections will always remind him of the home he has lost; but we are now speaking of the predominant tendency of his endeavors.

Religion is the root of human existence. Were it possible for man to 25renounce all religion, including that which is unconscious, independent of the will, he would become a mere surface without any internal substance. When this center is disturbed, the whole system of the mental faculties and feelings takes a new shape.

And this is what has actually taken place in modern Europe through the 30introduction of Christianity. This sublime and beneficent religion has regenerated the ancient world from its state of exhaustion and debasement; it is the guiding principle in the history of modern nations, and even at this day, when many suppose they have shaken off its authority, they still find themselves much more influenced by it in their views of human affairs than 35they themselves are aware.

After Christianity, the character of Europe has, since the commencement of the Middle Ages, been chiefly influenced by the Germanic race of northern conquerors, who infused new life and vigor into a degenerated people. The stern nature of the North drives man back within himself; and what is lost in 40the free sportive development of the senses, must, in noble dispositions, be compensated by earnestness of mind. Hence the honest cordiality with which Christianity was welcomed by all the Teutonic tribes, so that among no other race of men has it penetrated more deeply into the inner man, displayed more

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powerful effects, or become more interwoven with all human feelings and sensibilities.

The rough, but honest heroism of the northern conquerors, by its admixture with the sentiments of Christianity, gave rise to chivalry, of which the object was, by vows which should be looked upon as sacred, to guard the 5practice of arms from every rude and ungenerous abuse of force into which it was so likely to sink.

With the virtues of chivalry was associated a new and purer spirit of love, an inspired homage for genuine female worth, which was now revered as the acme of human excellence, and, maintained by religion itself under the 10image of a virgin mother, infused into all hearts a mysterious sense of the purity of love.

As Christianity did not, like the heathen worship, rest satisfied with certain external acts, but claimed an authority over the whole inward man and the most hidden movement of the heart; the feeling of moral independence 15took refuge in the domain of honour, a worldly morality, as it were, which subsisting alongside of, was often at variance with that of religion, but yet in so far resembling it that it never calculated consequences, but consecrated unconditionally certain principles of action, which like the articles of faith, were elevated far beyond the investigation of a casuistical reasoning. 20

Chivalry, love, and honor, together with religion itself, are the subjects of that poetry of nature which poured itself out in the Middle Ages with incredible fullness, and preceded the more artistic cultivation of the romantic spirit. This age had also its mythology, consisting of chivalrous tales and legends; but its wonders and its heroism were the very reverse of those of the 25ancient mythology.

Several inquirers who, in other respects, entertain the same conception of the peculiarities of the moderns, and trace them to the same source that we do, have placed the essence of the northern poetry in melancholy; and to this, when properly understood, we have nothing to object. 30

Among the Greeks human nature was in itself all-sufficient; it was conscious of no defects, and aspired to no higher perfection than that which it could actually attain by the exercise of its own energies. We, however, are taught by superior wisdom that man, through a grievous transgression, forfeited the place for which he was originally destined; and that the sole 35destination of his earthly existence is to struggle to regain his lost position, which, if left to his own strength, he can never accomplish. The old religion of the senses sought no higher possession than outward and perishable blessings; and immortality, so far as it was believed, stood shadow-like in the obscure distance, a faint dream of this sunny waking life. The very reverse of all this is 40the case with the Christian view: everything finite and mortal is lost in the contemplation of infinity; life has become shadow and darkness, and the first day of our real existence dawns in the world beyond the grave. Such a religion must waken the vague foreboding, which slumbers in every feeling heart, into

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a distinct consciousness that the happiness after which we are here striving is unattainable; that no external object can ever entirely fill our souls; and that all earthly enjoyment is but a fleeting and momentary illusion. When the soul, resting as it were under the willows of exile, breathes out its longing for its distant home, what else but melancholy can be the key-note of its songs? 5Hence the poetry of the ancients was the poetry of enjoyment, and ours is that of desire: the former has its foundation in the scene which is present, while the latter hovers betwixt recollection and hope. Let me not be understood as affirming that everything flows in one unvarying strain of wailing and complaint, and that the voice of melancholy is always loudly heard. As the 10austerity of tragedy was not incompatible with the joyous views of the Greeks, so that romantic poetry whose origin I have been describing, can assume every tone, even that of the liveliest joy; but still it will always, in some indescribable way, bear traces of the source from which it originated. The feeling of the moderns is, upon the whole, more inward, their fancy more incorporeal, and 15their thoughts more contemplative. In nature, it is true, the boundaries of objects run more into one another, and things are not so distinctly separated as we must exhibit them in order to convey distinct notions of them.

The Grecian ideal of human nature was perfect unison and proportion between all the powers,—a natural harmony. The moderns, on the contrary, 20have arrived at the consciousness of an internal discord which renders such an ideal impossible; and hence the endeavor of their poetry is to reconcile these two worlds between which we find ourselves divided, and to blend them indissolubly together. The impressions of the senses are to be hallowed, as it were, by a mysterious connexion with higher feelings; and the soul, on the 25other hand, embodies its forebodings, or indescribable intuitions of infinity, in types and symbols borrowed from the visible world.

In Grecian art and poetry we find an original and unconscious unity of form and matter; in the modern, so far as it has remained true to its own spirit, we observe a keen struggle to unite the two, as being naturally in opposition to 30each other. The Grecian executed what it proposed in the utmost perfection; but the modern can only do justice to its endeavors after what is infinite by approximation; and, from a certain appearance of imperfection, is in greater danger of not being duly appreciated. 35[…] LECTURE XVII. 40 Antiquities of the French Stage—Influence of Aristotle and the Imitation of the Ancients—Investigation of the Three Unities—What is Unity of Action?—Unity of Time—Was it observed by the Greeks?—Unity of Place as connected with it.

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[…] Of the earlier attempts it is only necessary for us to observe, that the endeavour to imitate the ancients showed itself from the very earliest period in 5France. Moreover, they considered it the surest method of succeeding in this endeavour to observe the outward regularity of form, of which their notion was derived from Aristotle, and especially from Seneca, rather than from any intimate acquaintance with the Greek models themselves. In the first tragedies that were represented, the Cleopatra, and Dido of Jodelle, a prologue and 10chorus were introduced; Jean de la Peruse translated the Medea of Seneca; and Garnier’s pieces are all taken from the Greek tragedies or from Seneca, but in the execution they bear a much closer resemblance to the latter. The writers of that day, moreover, modelled themselves diligently on the Sophonisbe of Trissino, in good confidence of its classic form. Whoever is acquainted with 15the procedure of true genius, how it is impelled by an almost unconscious and immediate contemplation of great and important truths, and in no wise by convictions obtained mediately, and by circuitous deductions, will be on that ground alone extremely suspicious of all activity in art which originates in an abstract theory. But Corneille did not, like an antiquary, execute his dramas as 20so many learned school exercises, on the model of the ancients. Seneca, it is true, led him astray, but he knew and loved the Spanish theatre, and it had a great influence on his mind. The first of his pieces, with which, according to general admission, the classical aera of French tragedy commences, and which is certainly one of his best, the Cid, is well known to have been borrowed from 25the Spanish. It violates in a great degree the unity of place, if not also that of time, and it is animated throughout by the spirit of chivalrous love and honour. But the opinion of his contemporaries, that a tragedy must be framed in strict accordance with the rules of Aristotle, was so universally predominant, that it bore down all opposition. Almost at the close of his dramatic career, Corneille 30began to entertain scruples of conscience, and in a separate treatise endeavoured to prove that, although in the composition of his pieces he had never even thought of Aristotle, they were yet all accurately written according to his rules. This was no easy task, and he was obliged to have recourse to all manner of forced explanations. If he had been able to establish his case 35satisfactorily, it would but lead to the inference that the rules of Aristotle must be very loose and indeterminate, if works so dissimilar in spirit and form, as the tragedies of the Greeks and those of Corneille are yet equally true to them. […] 40

In so far as we have to raise a doubt of the unconditional authority of the rules followed by the old French tragic authors, of the pretended affinity between the spirit of their works and the spirit of the Greek tragedians, and of

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the indispensableness of many supposed proprieties, we find an ally in Voltaire. But in many other points he has, without examination, nay even unconsciously, adopted the maxims of his predecessors, and followed their practice. He is alike implicated with them in many opinions, which are perhaps founded more on national peculiarities than on human nature and the essence 5of tragic poetry in general. On this account we may include him in a common examination with them; for we are here concerned not with the execution of particular parts, but with the general principles of tragic art which reveal themselves in the shape of the works.

The consideration of the dramatic regularity for which these critics 10contend brings us back to the so-called Three Unities of Aristotle. We shall therefore examine the doctrine delivered by the Greek philosopher on this subject: how far the Greek tragedians knew or observed these rules; whether the French poets have in reality overcome the difficulty of observing them without the sacrifice of freedom and probability, or merely dexterously avoided 15it; and finally, whether the merit of this observance is actually so great and essential as it has been deemed, and does not rather entail the sacrifice of still more essential beauties. […] 20

The far-famed Three Unities, which have given rise to a whole Iliad of critical wars, are the Unities of Action, Time, and Place.

The validity of the first is universally allowed, but the difficulty is to agree about its true meaning; and, I may add, that it is no easy matter to come 25to an understanding on the subject.

The Unities of Time and of Place are considered by some quite a subordinate matter, while others lay the greatest stress upon them, and affirm that out of the pale of them there is no safety for the dramatic poet. In France this zeal is not confined merely to the learned world, but seems to be shared by 30the whole nation in common. Every Frenchman who has sucked in his Boileau with his mother’s milk, considers himself a born champion of the Dramatic Unities, much in the same way that the kings of England since Henry VIII are hereditary Defenders of the Faith.

It is amusing enough to see Aristotle driven perforce to lend his name to 35these three Unities, whereas the only one of which he speaks with any degree of fullness is the first, the Unity of Action. With respect to the Unity of Time he merely throws out a vague hint; while of the Unity of Place he says not a syllable.

I do not, therefore, find myself in a polemical relation to Aristotle, for I 40by no means contest the Unity of Action properly understood: I only claim a greater latitude with respect to place and time for many species of the drama, nay, hold it essential to them. In order, however, that we may view the matter

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in its true light, I must first say a few words on the Poetics of Aristotle, those few pages which have given rise to such voluminous commentaries. […] 5Let us now hear what Aristotle says on the Unity of Action.

“We affirm that Tragedy is the imitation of a perfect and entire action which has a certain magnitude: for there may be a whole without any magnitude whatever. Now a whole is what has a beginning, middle, and end. A beginning is that which is not necessarily after some other thing, but that 10which from its nature has something after it, or arising out of it. An end, on the other hand, is that which from its nature is after something else, either necessarily, or usually, but after which there is nothing, A middle, what is itself after some other thing, and after which also there is something. Hence poems which are properly composed must neither begin nor end accidentally, but 15according to the principles above laid down.”

Strictly speaking, it is a contradiction in terms to say that a whole, which has parts, can be without magnitude. But Aristotle goes on to state, in explanation, that by “magnitude” as a requisition of beauty, he means, a certain measure which is neither so small as to preclude us from distinguishing its 20parts, nor so extensive as to prevent us from taking the whole in at one view. This is, therefore, merely an external definition of the beautiful, derived from experience, and founded on the quality of our organs of sense and our powers of comprehension. However, his application of it to the drama is remarkable. “It must have an extension, but such as may easily be taken in by the memory. 25The determination of the length according to the wants of the representation, does not come within the province of Art. With respect to the essence of the thing, the composition will be the more beautiful the more extensive it is without prejudice to its comprehensibility.” This assertion would be highly favourable for the compositions of Shakespeare and of other romantic poets, 30who have included in one picture a more extensive circle of life, characters, and events, than is to be found in the simple Greek tragedy, if only we could show that they have given it the necessary unity, and such a magnitude as can be clearly taken in at a view, and this we have no hesitation in affirming to be actually the case. 35

In another place Aristotle requires the same unity of action from the epic as from the dramatic poet; he repeats the preceding definitions, and says that the poet must not resemble the historian, who relates contemporary events, although they have no bearing on one another. Here we have still a more express demand of that connexion of cause and effect between the represented 40events, which before, in his explanation of the parts of a whole, was at most implied. He admits, however, that the epic poet may take in a much greater number of events connected with one main action, since the narrative form enables him to describe many things as going on at the same time; on the other

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hand, the dramatic poet cannot represent several simultaneous actions, but only so much as is going on upon the stage, and the part which the persons who appear there take in one action. But what if a different construction of the scene, and a more skillful theatric perspective, should enable the dramatic poet, duly and without confusion, although in a more compressed space, to develop a 5fable not inferior in extent to the epic poem? Where would be the objection, if the only obstacle were the supposed impossibility?

This is nearly all that is to be found in the Poetics of Aristotle on Unity of Action. A short investigation will serve to show how very much these anatomical ideas, which have been stamped as rules, are below the essential 10requisites of poetry.

Unity of Action is required. What is action? Most critics pass over this point, as if it were self-evident. In the higher, proper signification, action is an activity dependent on the will of man. Its unity will consist in the direction towards a single end; and to its completeness belongs all that lies between the 15first determination and the execution of the deed.

This idea of action is applicable to many tragedies of the ancients (for instance, Orestes’ murder of his mother, Oedipus’ determination to discover and punish the murderer of Laius), but by no means to all; still less does it apply to the greater part of modern tragedies, at least if the action is to be 20sought in the principal characters. What comes to pass through them, and proceeds with them, has frequently no more connexion with a voluntary determination, than a ship's striking on a rock in a storm. But further, in the term action, as understood by the ancients, we must include the resolution to bear the consequences of the deed with heroic magnanimity, and the execution 25of this determination will belong to its completion. The pious resolve of Antigone to perform the last duties to her unburied brother is soon executed and without difficulty; but genuineness, on which alone rests its claim to be a fit subject for a tragedy, is only subsequently proved when, without repentance, and without any symptoms of weakness, she suffers death as its 30penalty. And to take an example from quite a different sphere, is not Shakspeare’s Julius Caesar, as respects the action, constructed on the same principle? Brutus is the hero of the piece; the completion of his great resolve does not consist in the mere assassination of Caesar (an action ambiguous in itself, and of which the motives might have been ambition and jealousy), but in 35this, that he proves himself the pure champion of Roman liberty, by the calm sacrifice of his amiable life.

Farther, there could be no complication of the plot without opposition, and this arises mostly out of the contradictory motives and views of the acting personages. If, therefore, we limit the notion of an action to the determination 40and the deed, then we shall, in most cases, have two or three actions in a single tragedy. Which now is the principal action? Every person thinks his own the most important, for every man is his own central point. Creon's determination to maintain his kingly authority, by punishing the burial of Polynices with

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death, is equally fixed with Antigone's determination, equally important, and, as we see at the end, not less dangerous, as it draws after it the ruin of his whole house. It may be perhaps urged that the merely negative determination is to be considered simply as the complement of the affirmative. But what if each determines on something not exactly opposite, but altogether different? 5In the Andromache of Bacine, Orestes wishes to move Hermione to return his love; Hermione is resolved to compel Pyrrhus to marry her, or she will be revenged on him; Pyrrhus wishes to be rid of Hermione, and to be united to Andromache; Andromache is desirous of saving her son, and at the same time remaining true to the memory of her husband. Yet nobody ever questioned the 10unity of this piece, as the whole has a common connexion, and ends with one common catastrophe. But which of the actions of the four persons is the main action? In strength of passion, their endeavours are pretty nearly equal—in all the whole happiness of life is at stake; the action of Andromache has, however, the advantage in moral dignity, and Racine was therefore perfectly right in 15naming the piece after her.

We see here a new condition in the notion of action, namely, the reference to the idea of moral liberty, by which alone man is considered as the original author of his own resolutions. For, considered within the province of experience, the resolution, as the beginning of action, is not a cause merely, but 20is also an effect of antecedent motives. It was in this reference to a higher idea, that we previously found the unity and wholeness of Tragedy in the sense of the ancients; namely, its absolute beginning is the assertion of Free-will, and the acknowledgment of Necessity its absolute end. But we consider ourselves justified in affirming that Aristotle was altogether a stranger to this view; he 25nowhere speaks of the idea of Destiny as essential to Tragedy. In fact, we must not expect from him a strict idea of action as a resolution and deed. He says somewhere—"The extent of a tragedy is always sufficiently great, if, by a series of probable or necessary consequences, a reverse from adversity to prosperity, or from happiness to misery, is brought about." It is evident, 30therefore, that he, like all the moderns, understood by action something merely that takes place. This action, according to him, must have beginning, middle, and end, and consequently consist of a plurality of connected events. But where are the limits of this plurality? Is not the concatenation of causes and effects, backwards and forwards, without end? and may we then, with equal 35propriety, begin and break off wherever we please? In this province, can there be either beginning or end, corresponding to Aristotle's very accurate definition of these notions? Completeness would therefore be altogether impossible. If, however, for the unity of a plurality of events nothing more is requisite than casual connexion, then this rule is indefinite in the extreme, and 40the unity admits of being narrowed or enlarged at pleasure. For every series of incidents or actions, which are occasioned by each other, however much it be prolonged, may always be comprehended under a single point of view, and denoted by a single name. When Calderon in a single drama describes the

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conversion of Peru to Christianity, from its very beginning (that is, from the discovery of the country) down to its completion, and when nothing actually occurs in the piece which had not some influence on that event, does he not give us as much Unity in the above sense as the simplest Greek tragedy, which, however, the champions of Aristotle's rules will by no means allow? 5 […]

But we should derive but little advantage from groping about empirically with the commentators on Aristotle. The idea of One and Whole is 10in no way whatever derived from experience, but arises out of the primary and spontaneous activity of the human mind. To account for the manner in which we in general arrive at this idea, and come to think of one and a whole, would require nothing short of a system of metaphysics.

The external sense perceives in objects only an indefinite plurality of 15distinguishable parts; the judgment, by which we comprehend these into an entire and perfect unity, is in all cases founded on a reference to a higher sphere of ideas. Thus, for example, the mechanical unity of a watch consists in its aim of measuring time; this aim, however, exists only for the understanding, and is neither visible to the eye, nor palpable to the touch: the 20organic unity of a plant or an animal consists in the idea of life; but the inward intuition of life, which, in itself uncorporeal, nevertheless manifests itself through the medium of the corporeal world, is brought by us to the observation of the individual living object, otherwise we could not obtain it from that object. 25

The separate parts of a work of art, and (to return to the question before us,) the separate parts, consequently, of a tragedy, must not be taken in by the eye and ear alone, but also comprehended by the understanding. Collectively, however, they are all subservient to one common aim, namely, to produce a joint impression on the mind. Here, therefore, as in the above examples, the 30Unity lies in a higher sphere, in the feeling or in the reference to ideas. This is all one; for the feeling, so far as it is not merely sensual and passive, is our sense, our organ for the Infinite, which forms itself into ideas for us.

Far, therefore, from rejecting the law of a perfect Unity in Tragedy as unnecessary, I require a deeper, more intrinsic, and more mysterious unity 35than that with which most critics are satisfied. This Unity I find in the tragical compositions of Shakespeare, in as great perfection as in those of Aeschylus and Sophocles; while, on the contrary, I do not find it in many of those tragedies which nevertheless are lauded as correct by the critics of the dissecting school. 40

Logical coherence, the causal connexion, I hold to be equally essential to Tragedy and every serious drama, because all the mental powers act and react upon each other, and if the Understanding be compelled to take a leap, Imagination and Feeling do not follow the composition with equal alacrity.

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But unfortunately the champions of what is called regularity have applied this rule with a degree of petty subtlety, which can have no other effect than that of cramping the poet, and rendering true excellence impossible.

We must not suppose that the order of sequences in a tragedy resembles a slender thread, of which we are every moment in anxious dread lest it should 5snap. This simile is by no means applicable, for it is admitted that a plurality of subordinate actions and interests is inevitable; but rather let us suppose it a mighty stream, which in its impetuous course overcomes many obstructions, and loses itself at last in the repose of the ocean. It springs perhaps from different sources, and certainly receives into itself other rivers, which hasten 10towards it from opposite regions. Why should not the poet be allowed to carry on several, and, for a while, independent streams of human passions and endeavours, down to the moment of their raging junction, if only he can place the spectator on an eminence from whence he may overlook the whole of their course? And if this great and swollen body of waters again divide into several 15branches, and pour itself into the sea by several mouths, is it not still one and the same stream?

So much for the Unity of Action. With respect to the Unity of Time, we find in Aristotle no more than the following passage: “Moreover, the Epos is distinguished from Tragedy by its length: for the latter seeks as far as possible 20to circumscribe itself within one revolution of the sun, or to exceed it but little; the Epos is unlimited in point of time, and in that respect differs from Tragedy. At first, however, the case was in this respect alike in tragedies and epic poems.” We may in the first place observe that Aristotle is not giving a precept here, 25but only making historical mention of a peculiarity which he observed in the Grecian examples before him. But what if the Greek tragedians had particular reasons for circumscribing themselves within this extent of time, which with the constitution of our theatres no longer exist? We shall immediately see that this was really the case. 30

Corneille with great reason finds the rule extremely inconvenient; he therefore prefers the more lenient interpretation, and says, “he would not scruple to extend the duration of the action even to thirty hours.” Others, however, most rigorously insist on the principle that the action should not occupy a longer period than that of its representation, that is to say, from two 35to three hours.—The dramatic poet must, according to them, be punctual to his hour. In the main, the latter plead a sounder cause than the more lenient critics. For the only ground of the rule is the observation of a probability which they suppose to be necessary for illusion, namely, that the actual time and that of the representation should be the same. If once a discrepancy be 40allowed, such as the difference between two hours and thirty, we may upon the same principle go much farther. This idea of illusion has occasioned great errors in the theory of art. […] What an unpoetical spectator were he who, instead of following the incidents with his sympathy, should, like a gaoler, with

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watch or hour-glass in hand, count out to the heroes of the tragedy, the minutes which they still have to live and act! Is our soul then a piece of clock-work, that tells the hours and minutes with infallible accuracy? Has it not rather very different measures of time for agreeable occupation and for wearisomeness? In the one case, under an easy and varied activity, the hours 5fly apace; in the other, while we feel all our mental powers clogged and impeded, they are stretched out to an immeasurable length. Thus it is during the present, but in memory quite the reverse: the interval of dull and empty uniformity vanishes in a moment; while that which marks an abundance of varied impressions grows and widens in the same proportion. Our body is 10subjected to external astronomical time, because the organical operations are regulated by it; but our mind has its own ideal time, which is no other but the consciousness of the progressive development of our beings. In this measure of time the intervals of an indifferent inactivity pass for nothing, and two important moments, though they lie years apart, link themselves immediately 15to each other. Thus, when we have been intensely engaged with any matter before we fell asleep, we often resume the very same train of thought the instant we awake and the intervening dreams vanish into their unsubstantial obscurity. It is the same with dramatic exhibition: our imagination overleaps with ease the times which are presupposed and intimated, but which are 20omitted because nothing important takes place in them; it dwells solely on the decisive moments placed before it, by the compression of which the poet gives wings to the lazy course of days and hours. […] 25

In vain, as we have already said, shall we look to Aristotle for any opinion on this subject [i.e. Unity of Place]. It is asserted that the rule was observed by the ancients. Not always, only generally. Of seven plays by Aeschylus, and the same number by Sophocles, there are two, 30the Eumenides and the Ajax, in which the scene is changed. That they generally retain the same scene follows naturally from the constant presence of the chorus, which must be got rid of by some suitable device before there can be a change of place. And then, again, it must not be forgotten, that their scene represented a much wider extent than in most cases ours does; not a mere 35room, but the open space before several buildings: and the disclosing the interior of a house by means of the encyclema, may be considered in the same light as the drawing a back curtain on our stage.

The objection to the change of scene is founded on the same erroneous idea of illusion which we have already discussed. To transfer the action to 40another place would, it is urged, dispel the illusion. But now if we are in reality to consider the imaginary for the actual place, then must stage decoration and scenery be altogether different from what it now is. Johnson, a critic who, in general, is an advocate for the strict rules, very justly observes, that if our

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imagination once goes the length of transporting us eighteen hundred years back to Alexandria, in order to figure to ourselves the story of Antony and Cleopatra as actually taking place before us, the next step, of transporting ourselves from Alexandria to Rome, is easier. The capability of our mind to fly in thought, with the rapidity of lightning, through the immensity of time and 5space, is well known and acknowledged in common life; and shall poetry, whose very purpose it is to add all manner of wings to our mind, and which has at command all the magic of genuine illusion, that is, of a lively and enrapturing fiction, be alone compelled to renounce this universal prerogative?

Voltaire wishes to derive the Unity of Place and Time from the Unity of 10Action, but his reasoning is shallow in the extreme. “For the same reason,” says he, “the Unity of Place is essential, because no one action can go on in several places at once.” But still, as we have already seen, several persons necessarily take part in the one principal action, since it consists of a plurality of subordinate actions, and what should hinder these from proceeding in 15different places at the same time? Is not the same war frequently carried on simultaneously in Europe and India; and must not the historian recount alike in his narrative the events which take place on both these scenes?

“The Unity of Time,” he adds, “is naturally connected with the two first. If the poet represents a conspiracy, and extends the action to fourteen days, he 20must account to me for all that takes place in these fourteen days.” Yes, for all that belongs to the matter in hand; all the rest, being extraneous to it, he passes over in silence, as every good storyteller would, and no person ever thinks of the omission. “If, therefore, he places before me the events of fourteen days, this gives at least fourteen different actions, however small they may be.” 25No doubt, if the poet were so unskilful as to wind off the fourteen days one after another with visible precision; if day and night are just so often to come and go and the characters to go to bed and get up again just so many times. But the clever poet thrusts into the background all the intervals which are connected with no perceptible progress in the action, and in his picture 30annihilates all the pauses of absolute stand-still, and contrives, though with a rapid touch, to convey an accurate idea of the period supposed to have elapsed. But why is the privilege of adopting a much wider space between the two extremes of the piece than the material time of the representation important to the dramatist, and even indispensable to him in many subjects? The example of 35a conspiracy given by Voltaire comes in here very opportunely.

A conspiracy plotted and executed in two hours is, in the first place, an incredible thing. Moreover, with reference to the characters of the personages of the piece, such a plot is very different from one in which the conceived purpose, however dangerous, is silently persevered in by all the parties for a 40considerable time. Though the poet does not admit this lapse of time into his exhibition immediately, in the midst of the characters, as in a mirror, he gives us as it were a perspective view of it. In this sort of perspective Shakespeare is the greatest master I know: a single word frequently opens to view an almost

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interminable vista of antecedent states of mind. Confined within the narrow limits of time, the poet is in many subjects obliged to mutilate the action, by beginning close to the last decisive stroke, or else he is under the necessity of unsuitably hurrying on its progress: on either supposition he must reduce within petty dimensions the grand picture of a strong purpose, which is no 5momentary ebullition, but a firm resolve undauntedly maintained in the midst of all external vicissitudes, till the time is ripe for its execution. It is no longer what Shakespeare has so often painted, and what he has described in the following lines:—

10 Between the acting of a dreadful thing, And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream: The genius, and the mortal instruments, Are then in council; and the state of man, 15 Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection. But why are the Greek and romantic poets so different in their practice with respect to place and time? The spirit of our criticism will not allow us to follow 20the practice of many critics, who so summarily pronounce the latter to be barbarians. On the contrary, we conceive that they lived in very cultivated times, and were themselves highly cultivated men. As to the ancients, besides the structure of their stage, which, as we have already said, led naturally to the seeming continuity of time and to the absence of change of scene, their 25observance of this practice was also favoured by the nature of the materials on which the Grecian dramatist had to work. These materials were mythology, and, consequently, a fiction, which, under the handling of preceding poets, had collected into continuous and perspicuous masses, what in reality was detached and scattered about in various ways. Moreover, the heroic age which they 30painted was at once extremely simple in its manners, and marvellous in its incidents; and hence everything of itself went straight to the mark of a tragic resolution.

But the principal cause of the difference lies in the plastic spirit of the antique, and the picturesque spirit of the romantic poetry. Sculpture directs 35our attention exclusively to the group which it sets before us, it divests it as far as possible from all external accompaniments, and where they cannot be dispensed with, it indicates them as slightly as possible. Painting, on the other hand, delights in exhibiting, along with the principal figures, all the details of the surrounding locality and all secondary circumstances, and to open a 40prospect into a boundless distance in the background; and light and shade with perspective are its peculiar charms. Hence the Dramatic, and especially the Tragic Art, of the ancients, annihilates in some measure the external circumstances of space and time; while, by their changes, the romantic drama

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adorns its more varied pictures. Or, to express myself in other terms, the principle of the antique poetry is ideal; that of the romantic is mystical: the former subjects space and time to the internal free-agency of the mind; the latter honours these incomprehensible essences as supernatural powers, in which there is somewhat of indwelling divinity. 5 LECTURE XXII. Comparison of the English and Spanish Theatres—Spirit of the Romantic Drama—Shakespeare—His age and the circumstances of his Life. 10 […] Those critics who consider the authority of the ancients as models to be such, that in poetry, as in all the other arts, there can be no safety out of the pale of 15imitation, affirm, that as the nations in question have not followed this course, they have brought nothing but irregular works on the stage, which, though they may possess occasional passages of splendour and beauty, must yet, as a whole, be forever reprobated as barbarous, and wanting in form. We have already, in the introductory part of these Lectures, stated our sentiments 20generally on this way of thinking; but we must now examine the subject somewhat more closely.

If the assertion be well founded, all that distinguishes the works of the greatest English and Spanish dramatists, a Shakspeare and a Calderon, must rank them far below the ancients; they could in no wise be of importance for 25theory, and would at most appear remarkable, on the assumption that the obstinacy of these nations in refusing to comply with the rules, may have afforded a more ample field to the poets, to display their native originality, though at the expense of art. But even this assumption, on a closer examination, appears extremely questionable. The poetic spirit requires to be 30limited, that it may move with a becoming liberty, within its proper precincts, as has been felt by all nations on the first invention of metre; it must act according to laws derivable from its own essence, otherwise its strength will evaporate in boundless vacuity.

The works of genius cannot therefore be permitted to be without form; 35but of this there is no danger. However, that we may answer this objection of want of form, we must understand the exact meaning of the term form, since most critics, and more especially those who insist on a stiff regularity, interpret it merely in a mechanical, and not in an organical sense. Form is mechanical when, through external force, it is imparted to any material merely 40as an accidental addition without reference to its quality; as, for example, when we give a particular shape to a soft mass that it may retain the same after its induration. Organical form, again, is innate; it unfolds itself from within, and acquires its determination contemporaneously with the perfect development of

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the germ. We everywhere discover such forms in nature throughout the whole range of living powers, from the crystallization of salts and minerals to plants and flowers, and from these again to the human body. In the fine arts, as well as in the domain of nature—the supreme artist, all genuine forms are organical, that is, determined by the quality of the work. In a word, the form is 5nothing but a significant exterior, the speaking physiognomy of each thing, which, as long as it is not disfigured by any destructive accident, gives a true evidence of its hidden essence.

Hence it is evident that the spirit of poetry, which, though imperishable, migrates, as it were, through different bodies, must, so often as it is newly born 10in the human race, mould to itself, out of the nutrimental substance of an altered age, a body of a different conformation. The forms vary with the direction taken by the poetical sense; and when we give to the new kinds of poetry the old names, and judge of them according to the ideas conveyed by these names, the application which we make of the authority of classical 15antiquity is altogether unjustifiable. No one should be tried before a tribunal to which he is not amenable. We may safely admit, that the most of the English and Spanish dramatic works are neither tragedies nor comedies in the sense of the ancients: they are romantic dramas. That the stage of a people who, in its foundation and formation, neither knew nor wished to know anything of 20foreign models, will possess many peculiarities; and not only deviate from, but even exhibit a striking contrast to, the theatres of other nations who had a common model for imitation before their eyes, is easily supposable, and we should only be astonished were it otherwise. But when in two nations, differing so widely as the English and Spanish, in physical, moral, political, and 25religious respects, the theatres (which, without being known to each other, arose about the same time,) possess, along with external and internal diversities, the most striking features of affinity, the attention even of the most thoughtless cannot but be turned to this phenomenon; and the conjecture will naturally occur, that the same, or, at least, a kindred principle must have 30prevailed in the development of both. […]

The similarity of the English and Spanish theatres does not consist merely in the bold neglect of the Unities of Place and Time, and in the commixture of comic and tragic elements: that they were unwilling or unable to comply with the rules and with right reason, (in the meaning of certain 35critics these terms are equivalent,) may be considered as an evidence of merely negative properties. The ground of the resemblance lies far deeper, in the inmost substance of the fictions, and in the essential relations, through which every deviation of form, becomes a true requisite, which, together with its validity, has also its significance. What they have in common with each other 40is the spirit of the romantic poetry, giving utterance to itself in a dramatic shape. However, to explain ourselves with due precision, the Spanish theatre, in our opinion, down to its decline and fall in the commencement of the eighteenth century, is almost entirely romantic; the English is completely so in

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Shakespeare alone, its founder and greatest master: in later poets the romantic principle appears more or less degenerated, or is no longer perceivable, although the march of dramatic composition introduced by virtue of it has been, outwardly at least, pretty generally retained. The manner in which the different ways of thinking of the two nations, one a northern and the other a 5southern, have been expressed; the former endowed with a gloomy, the latter with a glowing imagination; the one nation possessed of a scrutinizing seriousness disposed to withdraw within themselves, the other impelled outwardly by the violence of passion; the mode in which all this has been accomplished will be most satisfactorily explained at the close of this section, 10when we come to institute a parallel between Shakespeare and Calderon, the only two poets who are entitled to be called great.

Of the origin and essence of the romantic I treated in my first Lecture, and I shall here, therefore, merely briefly mention the subject. The ancient art and poetry rigorously separate things which are dissimilar; the romantic 15delights in indissoluble mixtures; all contrarieties: nature and art, poetry and prose, seriousness and mirth, recollection and anticipation, spirituality and sensuality, terrestrial and celestial, life and death, are by it blended together in the most intimate combination. As the oldest lawgivers delivered their mandatory instructions and prescriptions in measured melodies; as this is 20fabulously ascribed to Orpheus, the first softener of the yet untamed race of mortals; in like manner the whole of the ancient poetry and art is, as it were, a rhythmical nomos (law), an harmonious promulgation of the permanently established legislation of a world submitted to a beautiful order, and reflecting in itself the eternal images of things. Romantic poetry, on the other hand, is 25the expression of the secret attraction to a chaos which lies concealed in the very bosom of the ordered universe, and is perpetually striving after new and marvellous births; the life-giving spirit of primal love broods here anew on the face of the waters. The former is more simple, clear, and like to nature in the self-existent perfection of her separate works; the latter, notwithstanding its 30fragmentary appearance, approaches more to the secret of the universe. For Conception can only comprise each object separately, but nothing in truth can ever exist separately and by itself; Feeling perceives all in all at one and the same time. Respecting the two species of poetry with which we are here principally occupied, we compared the ancient Tragedy to a group in 35sculpture: the figures corresponding to the characters, and their grouping to the action; and to these two in both productions of art is the consideration exclusively directed, as being all that is properly exhibited. But the romantic drama must be viewed as a large picture, where not merely figure and motion are exhibited in larger, richer groups, but where even all that surrounds the 40figures must also be portrayed; where we see not merely the nearest objects, but are indulged with the prospect of a considerable distance; and all this under a magical light, which assists in giving to the impression the particular character desired.

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Such a picture must be bounded less perfectly and less distinctly, than the group; for it is like a fragment cut out of the optic scene of the world. However the painter, by the setting of his foreground, by throwing the whole of his light into the centre, and by other means of fixing the point of view, will learn that he must neither wander beyond the composition, nor omit anything 5within it.

In the representation of figure, Painting cannot compete with Sculpture, since the former can only exhibit it by a deception and from a single point of view; but, on the other hand, it communicates more life to its imitations, by colours which in a picture are made to imitate the lightest shades of mental 10expression in the countenance. The look, which can be given only very imperfectly by Sculpture, enables us to read much deeper in the mind, and to perceive its lightest movements. Its peculiar charm, in short, consists in this, that it enables us to see in bodily objects what is least corporeal, namely, light and air. 15

The very same description of beauties are peculiar to the romantic drama. It does not (like the Old Tragedy) separate seriousness and the action, in a rigid manner, from among the whole ingredients of life; it embraces at once the whole of the chequered drama of life with all its circumstances; and while it seems only to represent subjects brought accidentally together, it 20satisfies the unconscious requisitions of fancy, buries us in reflections on the inexpressible signification of the objects which we view blended by order, nearness and distance, light and colour, into one harmonious whole; and thus lends, as it were, a soul to the prospect before us.

The change of time and of place, (supposing its influence on the mind to 25be included in the picture; and that it comes to the aid of the theatrical perspective, with reference to what is indicated in the distance, or half- concealed by intervening objects;) the contrast of sport and earnest (supposing that in degree and kind they bear a proportion to each other;) finally, the mixture of the dialogical and the lyrical elements, (by which the poet is 30enabled, more or less perfectly, to transform his personages into poetical beings:) these, in my opinion, are not mere licenses, but true beauties in the romantic drama. In all these points, and in many others also, the English and Spanish works, which are pre-eminently worthy of this title of Romantic, fully resemble each other, however different they may be in other respects. 35

Of the two we shall first notice the English theatre, because it arrived earlier at maturity than the Spanish. In both we must occupy ourselves almost exclusively with a single artist, with Shakespeare in the one and Calderon in the other; but not in the same order with each, for Shakespeare stands first and earliest among the English; any remarks we may have to make on earlier or 40contemporary antiquities of the English stage may be made in a review of his history. But Calderon had many predecessors; he is at once the summit and the close nearly of dramatic art in Spain.

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The wish to speak with the brevity which the limits of my plan demand, of a poet to the study of whom I have devoted many years of my life, places me in no little embarrassment. I know not where to begin; for I should never be able to end, were I to say all that I have felt and thought on the perusal of his works. With the poet as with the man, a more than ordinary intimacy prevents 5us, perhaps, from putting ourselves in the place of those who are first forming an acquaintance with him: we are too familiar with his most striking peculiarities, to be able to pronounce upon the first impression which they are calculated to make on others. On the other hand, we ought to possess, and to have the power of communicating, more correct ideas of his mode of 10procedure, of his concealed or less obvious views, and of the meaning and import of his labours, than others whose acquaintance with him is more limited.

Shakespeare is the pride of his nation. A late poet has, with propriety, called him “the genius of the British isles.” He was the idol of his 15contemporaries: during the interval indeed of puritanical fanaticism, which broke out in the next generation, and rigorously proscribed all liberal arts and literature, and during the reign of the Second Charles, when his works were either not acted at all, or if so, very much changed and disfigured, his fame was awhile obscured, only to shine forth again about the beginning of the last 20century with more than its original brightness; and since then it has but increased in lustre with the course of time; and for centuries to come, (I speak it with the greatest confidence,) it will, like an Alpine avalanche, continue to gather strength at every moment of its progress. Of the future extension of his fame, the enthusiasm with which he was naturalized in Germany, the moment 25that he was known, is a significant earnest. In the South of Europe, his language, and the great difficulty of translating him with fidelity, will be, perhaps, an invincible obstacle to his general diffusion. In England, the greatest actors vie with each other in the impersonation of his characters; the printers in splendid editions of his works; and the painters in transferring his 30scenes to the canvas. Like Dante, Shakespeare has received the perhaps indispensable but still cumbersome honour of being treated like a classical author of antiquity. […]

We shall endeavour, in the first place, to remove some of these false views, in order to clear the way for our own homage, that we may thereupon 35offer it the more freely without let or hindrance.

From all the accounts of Shakespeare which have come down to us, it is clear that his contemporaries knew well the treasure they possessed in him; and that they felt and understood him better than most of those who succeeded him. In those days a work was generally ushered into the world with 40Commendatory Verses; and one of these, prefixed to an early edition of Shakespeare, by an unknown author, contains some of the most beautiful and happy lines that ever were applied to any poet. An idea, however, soon became prevalent that Shakespeare was a rude and wild genius, who poured forth at

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random, and without aim or object, his unconnected compositions. Ben Jonson, a younger contemporary and rival of Shakespeare, who laboured in the sweat of his brow, but with no great success, to expel the romantic drama from the English stage, and to form it on the model of the ancients, gave it as his opinion that Shakespeare did not blot enough, and that as he did not possess 5much school-learning, he owed more to nature than to art. The learned, and sometimes rather pedantic Milton was also of this opinion, when he says,

Our sweetest Shakspeare, fancy’s child, Warbles his native wood-notes wild. 10 Yet it is highly honourable to Milton, that the sweetness of Shakespeare, the quality which of all others has been least allowed, was felt and acknowledged by him. The modern editors, both in their prefaces, which may be considered as so many rhetorical exercises in praise of the poet, and in their remarks on 15separate passages, go still farther. Judging them by principles which are not applicable to them, not only do they admit the irregularity of his pieces, but on occasions they accuse him of bombast, of a confused, ungrammatical, and conceited mode of writing, and even of the most contemptible buffoonery. Pope asserts that he wrote both better and worse than any other man. All the 20scenes and passages which did not square with the littleness of his own taste, he wished to place to the account of interpolating players; and he was in the right road, had his opinion been taken, of giving us a miserable dole of a mangled Shakespeare. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at if foreigners, with the exception of the Germans latterly, have, in their ignorance of him, even 25improved upon these opinions. They speak in general of Shakespeare's plays as monstrous productions, which could only have been given to the world by a disordered imagination in a barbarous age; and Voltaire crowns the whole with more than usual assurance, when he observes that Hamlet, the profound master- piece of the philosophical poet, “seems the work of a drunken savage.” 30That foreigners, and in particular Frenchmen, who ordinarily speak the most strange language of antiquity and the middle ages, as if cannibalism had only been put an end to in Europe by Louis XIV should entertain this opinion of Shakespeare, might be pardonable; but that Englishmen should join in calumniating that glorious epoch of their history, [Footnote: The English 35work with which foreigners of every country are perhaps best acquainted is Hume's History; and there we have a most unjustifiable account both of Shakespeare and his age. “Born in a rude age, and educated in the lowest manner, without any instruction either from the world or from books.” How could a man of Hume's acuteness suppose for a moment that a poet, whose 40characters display such an intimate acquaintance with life, who, as an actor and manager of a theatre, must have come in contact with all descriptions of individuals, had no instruction from the world? But this is not the worst; he goes even so far as to say, “a reasonable propriety of thought he cannot for any

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time uphold.” This is nearly as offensive as Voltaire's “drunken savage.”—TRANS.] which laid the foundation of their national greatness, is incomprehensible. Shakespeare flourished and wrote in the last half of the reign of Queen Elizabeth and first half of that of James I.; […] Bacon, the founder of modern experimental philosophy, and of whom it may be said, that 5he carried in his pocket all that even in this eighteenth century merits the name of philosophy, was a contemporary of Shakespeare. His fame, as a writer, did not, indeed, break forth into its glory till after his death; but what a number of ideas must have been in circulation before such an author could arise! Many branches of human knowledge have, since that time, been more 10extensively cultivated, but such branches as are totally unproductive to poetry: chemistry, mechanics, manufactures, and rural and political economy, will never enable a man to become a poet. I have elsewhere examined into the pretensions of modern enlightenment, as it is called, which looks with such contempt on all preceding ages; I have shown that at bottom it is all little, 15superficial, and unsubstantial. The pride of what has been called the existing maturity of human intensity, has come to a miserable end; and the structures erected by those pedagogues of the human race have fallen to pieces like the baby-houses of children. 20[…]

Had no other monument of the age of Elizabeth come down to us than the works of Shakespeare, I should, from them alone, have formed the most favourable idea of its state of social culture and enlightenment. When those 25who look through such strange spectacles as to see nothing in them but rudeness and barbarity cannot deny what I have now historically proved, they are usually driven to this last resource, and demand, “What has Shakespeare to do with the mental culture of his age? He had no share in it. Born in an inferior rank, ignorant and uneducated, he passed his life in low society, and laboured 30to please a vulgar audience for his bread, without ever dreaming of fame or posterity.”

In all this there is not a single word of truth, though it has been repeated a thousand times. It is true we know very little of the poet's life; and what we do know consists for the most part of raked-up and chiefly suspicious 35anecdotes, of such a description nearly as those which are told at inns to inquisitive strangers, who visit the birthplace or neighbourhood of a celebrated man. […] 40

The English critics are unanimous in their praise of the truth and uniform consistency of his characters, of his heartrending pathos, and his comic wit. Moreover, they extol the beauty and sublimity of his separate

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descriptions, images, and expressions. This last is the most superficial and cheap mode of criticising works of art. Johnson compares him who should endeavour to recommend this poet by passages unconnectedly torn from his works, to the pedant in Hierocles, who exhibited a brick as a sample of his house. And yet how little, and how very unsatisfactorily does he himself speak 5of the pieces considered as a whole! Let any man, for instance, bring together the short characters which he gives at the close of each play, and see if the aggregate will amount to that sum of admiration which he himself, at his outset, has stated as the correct standard for the appreciation of the poet. It was, generally speaking, the prevailing tendency of the time which preceded 10our own, (and which has showed itself particularly in physical science,) to consider everything having life as a mere accumulation of dead parts, to separate what exists only in connexion and cannot otherwise be conceived, instead of penetrating to the central point and viewing all the parts as so many irradiations from it. Hence nothing is so rare as a critic who can elevate 15himself to the comprehensive contemplation of a work of art. Shakespeare's compositions, from the very depth of purpose displayed in them, have been especially liable to the misfortune of being misunderstood. Besides, this prosaic species of criticism requires always that the poetic form should he applied to the details of execution; but when the plan of the piece is concerned, it never 20looks for more than the logical connexion of causes and effects, or some partial and trite moral by way of application; and all that cannot be reconciled therewith is declared superfluous, or even a pernicious appendage. On these principles we must even strike out from the Greek tragedies most of the choral songs, which also contribute nothing to the development of the action, but are 25merely an harmonious echo of the impressions the poet aims at conveying. In this they altogether mistake the rights of poetry and the nature of the romantic drama, which, for the very reason that it is and ought to be picturesque, requires richer accompaniments and contrasts for its main groups. In all Art and Poetry, but more especially in the romantic, the Fancy lays 30claims to be considered as an independent mental power governed according to its own laws.

In an essay on Romeo and Juliet, written a number of years ago, I went through the whole of the scenes in their order, and demonstrated the inward necessity of each with reference to the whole; I showed why such a particular 35circle of characters and relations was placed around the two lovers; I explained the signification of the mirth here and there scattered, and justified the use of the occasional heightening given to the poetical colours. From all this it seemed to follow unquestionably, that with the exception of a few witticisms, now become unintelligible or foreign to the present taste, (imitations of the 40tone of society of that day,) nothing could be taken away, nothing added, nothing otherwise arranged, without mutilating and disfiguring the perfect work. I would readily undertake to do the same for all the pieces of Shakespeare's maturer years, but to do this would require a separate book.

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Here I am reduced to confine my observations to the tracing his great designs with a rapid pencil; but still I must previously be allowed to deliver my sentiments in a general manner on the subject of his most eminent peculiarities.

Shakespeare's knowledge of mankind has become proverbial: in this his 5superiority is so great, that he has justly been called the master of the human heart. A readiness to remark the mind's fainter and involuntary utterances, and the power to express with certainty the meaning of these signs, as determined by experience and reflection, constitutes "the observer of men;" but tacitly to draw from these still further conclusions, and to arrange the separate 10observations according to grounds of probability, into a just and valid combination, this, it may be said, is to know men. The distinguishing property of the dramatic poet who is great in characterization, is something altogether different here, and which, (take it which way we will,) either includes in it this readiness and this acuteness, or dispenses with both. It is the capability of 15transporting himself so completely into every situation, even the most unusual, that he is enabled, as plenipotentiary of the whole human race, without particular instructions for each separate case, to act and speak in the name of every individual. It is the power of endowing the creatures of his imagination with such self-existent energy, that they afterwards act in each conjuncture 20according to general laws of nature: the poet, in his dreams, institutes, as it were, experiments which are received with as much authority as if they had been made on waking objects. The inconceivable element herein, and what moreover can never be learned, is, that the characters appear neither to do nor to say anything on the spectator's account merely; and yet that the poet 25simply, by means of the exhibition, and without any subsidiary explanation, communicates to his audience the gift of looking into the inmost recesses of their minds. Hence Goethe has ingeniously compared Shakespeare's characters to watches with crystalline plates and cases, which, while they point out the hours as correctly as other watches, enable us at the same time to perceive the 30inward springs whereby all this is accomplished.

Nothing, however, is more foreign to Shakespeare than a certain anatomical style of exhibition, which laboriously enumerates all the motives by which a man is determined to act in this or that particular manner. This rage of supplying motives, the mania of so many modern historians, might be 35carried at length to an extent which would abolish everything like individuality, and resolve all character into nothing but the effect of foreign or external, influences whereas we know that it often announces itself most decidedly in earliest infancy. After all, a man acts so because he is so. And what each man is, that Shakespeare reveals to us most immediately: he demands and 40obtains our belief, even for what is singular and deviates from the ordinary course of nature. Never perhaps was there so comprehensive a talent for characterization as Shakespeare. It not only grasps every diversity of rank, age, and sex, down to the lispings of infancy; not only do the king and the

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beggar, the hero and the pickpocket, the sage and the idiot, speak and act with equal truthfulness; not only does he transport himself to distant ages and foreign nations, and portray with the greatest accuracy (a few apparent violations of costume excepted) the spirit of the ancient Romans, of the French in the wars with the English, of the English themselves during a great part of 5their history, of the Southern Europeans (in the serious part of many comedies), the cultivated society of the day, and the rude barbarism of a Norman fore-time; his human characters have not only such depth and individuality that they do not admit of being classed under common names, and are inexhaustible even in conception: no, this Prometheus not merely 10forms men, he opens the gates of the magical world of spirits, calls up the midnight ghost, exhibits before us the witches with their unhallowed rites, peoples the air with sportive fairies and sylphs; and these beings, though existing only in the imagination, nevertheless possess such truth and consistency, that even with such misshapen abortions as Caliban, he extorts 15the assenting conviction, that were there such beings they would so conduct themselves. In a word, as he carries a bold and pregnant fancy into the kingdom of nature, on the other hand, he carries nature into the regions of fancy, which lie beyond the confines of reality. We are lost in astonishment at the close intimacy he brings us into with the extraordinary, the wonderful, and 20the unheard-of.

Pope and Johnson appear strangely to contradict each other, when the first says, “all the characters of Shakespeare are individuals,” and the second, “they are species.” And yet perhaps these opinions may admit of reconciliation. Pope’s expression is unquestionably the more correct. A character which 25should be merely a personification of a naked general idea could neither exhibit any great depth nor any great variety. The names of genera and species are well known to be merely auxiliaries for the understanding, that we may embrace the infinite variety of nature in a certain order. The characters which Shakespeare has so thoroughly delineated have undoubtedly a number of 30individual peculiarities, but at the same time they possess a significance which is not applicable to them alone: they generally supply materials for a profound theory of their most prominent and distinguishing property. But even with the above correction, this opinion must still have its limitations. Characterization is merely one ingredient of the dramatic art, and not dramatic poetry itself. It 35would be improper in the extreme, if the poet were to draw our attention to superfluous traits of character, at a time when it ought to be his endeavour to produce other impressions. Whenever the musical or the fanciful preponderates, the characteristical necessarily falls into the background. Hence many of the figures of Shakespeare exhibit merely external designations, 40determined by the place which they occupy in the whole: they are like secondary persons in a public procession, to whose physiognomy we seldom pay much attention; their only importance is derived from the solemnity of their dress and the duty in which they are engaged. Shakespeare's messengers,

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for instance, are for the most part mere messengers, and yet not common, but poetical messengers: the messages which they have to bring is the soul which suggests to them their language. Other voices, too, are merely raised to pour forth these as melodious lamentations or rejoicings, or to dwell in reflection on what has taken place; and in a serious drama without chorus this must always 5be more or less the case, if we would not have it prosaical.

[…] Hamletis singular in its kind: a tragedy of thought inspired by continual and never-satisfied meditation on human destiny and the dark perplexity of the 10events of this world, and calculated to call forth the very same meditation in the minds of the spectators. This enigmatical work resembles those irrational equations in which a fraction of unknown magnitude always remains, that will in no way admit of solution. Much has been said, much written, on this piece, and yet no thinking head who anew expresses himself on it, will (in his view of 15the connexion and the signification of all the parts) entirely coincide with his predecessors. What naturally most astonishes us, is the fact that with such hidden purposes, with a foundation laid in such unfathomable depth, the whole should, at a first view, exhibit an extremely popular appearance. The dread appearance of the Ghost takes possession of the mind and the imagination 20almost at the very commencement; then the play within the play, in which, as in a glass, we see reflected the crime, whose fruitlessly attempted punishment constitutes the subject-matter of the piece; the alarm with which it fills the King; Hamlet's pretended and Ophelia's real madness; her death and burial; the meeting of Hamlet and Laertes at her grave; their combat, and the grand 25determination; lastly, the appearance of the young hero Fortinbras, who, with warlike pomp, pays the last honours to an extinct family of kings; the interspersion of comic characteristic scenes with Polonius, the courtiers, and the grave-diggers, which have all of them their signification,—all this fills the stage with an animated and varied movement. The only circumstance from 30which this piece might be judged to be less theatrical than other tragedies of Shakespeare is, that in the last scenes the main action either stands still or appears to retrograde. This, however, was inevitable, and lay in the nature of the subject. The whole is intended to show that a calculating consideration, which exhausts all the relations and possible consequences of a deed, must 35cripple the power of acting; as Hamlet himself expresses it:—

And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, 40 And lose the name of action.

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With respect to Hamlet’s character: I cannot, as I understand the poet’s views, pronounce altogether so favourable a sentence upon it as Goethe does. He is, it is true, of a highly cultivated mind, a prince of royal manners, endowed with the finest sense of propriety, susceptible of noble ambition, and open in the highest degree to an enthusiastic admiration of that excellence in others of 5which he himself is deficient. He acts the part of madness with unrivalled power, convincing the persons who are sent to examine into his supposed loss of reason, merely by telling them unwelcome truths, and rallying them with the most caustic wit. But in the resolutions which he so often embraces and always leaves unexecuted, his weakness is too apparent: he does himself only 10justice when he implies that there is no greater dissimilarity than between himself and Hercules. He is not solely impelled by necessity to artifice and dissimulation, he has a natural inclination for crooked ways; he is a hypocrite towards himself; his far-fetched scruples are often mere pretexts to cover his want of determination: thoughts, as he says on a different occasion, which have 15

——but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward.——- 20

He has been chiefly condemned both for his harshness in repulsing the love of Ophelia, which he himself had cherished, and for his insensibility at her death. But he is too much overwhelmed with his own sorrow to have any compassion to spare for others; besides his outward indifference gives us by no means the 25measure of his internal perturbation. On the other hand, we evidently perceive in him a malicious joy, when he has succeeded in getting rid of his enemies, more through necessity and accident, which alone are able to impel him to quick and decisive measures, than by the merit of his own courage, as he himself confesses after the murder of Polonius, and with respect to 30Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Hamlet has no firm belief either in himself or in anything else: from expressions of religious confidence he passes over to sceptical doubts; he believes in the Ghost of his father as long as he sees it, but as soon as it has disappeared, it appears to him almost in the light of a deception. [Footnote: It has been censured as a contradiction, that Hamlet in 35the soliloquy on self-murder should say, The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns——- For was not the Ghost a returned traveller? Shakespeare, however, purposely wished to show, that Hamlet could not fix himself in any conviction of any kind whatever.] He has even gone so far as to say, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so;” 40with him the poet loses himself here in labyrinths of thought, in which neither end nor beginning is discoverable. The stars themselves, from the course of events, afford no answer to the question so urgently proposed to them. A voice from another world, commissioned it would appear, by heaven, demands

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vengeance for a monstrous enormity, and the demand remains without effect; the criminals are at last punished, but, as it were, by an accidental blow, and not in the solemn way requisite to convey to the world a warning example of justice; irresolute foresight, cunning treachery, and impetuous rage, hurry on to a common destruction; the less guilty and the innocent are equally involved 5in the general ruin. The destiny of humanity is there exhibited as a gigantic Sphinx, which threatens to precipitate into the abyss of scepticism all who are unable to solve her dreadful enigmas.

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Modernity Beyond Enlightenment Reading Four

Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831),

Friedrich W. J. Schelling (1775-1854)

& Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843)

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[Adapted from the translation of Diana I. Behler in The Philosophy of German Idealism, edited by Ernst Behler (New York: Continuum, 1987). The text is in Hegel’s hand, but the content could belong to him or to Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling or Friedrich Hölderlin.]

The Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism An Ethics. Since all metaphysics will henceforth fall into morals—for which Kant, with both of his practical postulates has given only an example and exhausted nothing, so this ethics will contain nothing other than a complete system of all ideas, or what is the same, of all practical postulates. The first idea is naturally the conception of my self as an absolutely free being. Along 5with the free, self-conscious being an entire world emerges simultaneously —out of nothingness — the only true and conceivable creation out of nothingness — Here I will descend to the fields of physics; the question is this: How should a world be constituted for a moral being? I should like to give our physics, progressing laboriously with experiments, wings again. 10So whenever philosophy provides the ideas, experience the data, we can finally obtain physics on the whole, which I expect of later epochs. It does not seem as if present day physics could satisfy a creative spirit such as ours is or should be. From nature I come to man’s works. The idea of the human race first— I want 15to show that there is no idea of the state because the state is something mechanical, just as little as there is an idea of a machine. Only that which is the object of freedom is called idea. We must therefore go beyond the state! — Because every state must treat free human beings like mechanical works; and it should not do that; therefore it should cease. You see 20for yourself that here all the ideas, that of eternal peace, etc., are merely subordinate ideas of a higher idea. At the same time I want to set forth the principles for a history of the human race here and expose the whole miserable human work of state, constitution, government, legislature— down to the skin. Finally the ideas of a moral world, deity, immortality— overthrow of 25everything ((superstition)) pseudo doctrines, persecution of the priesthood, which recently poses as reason, come through reason itself. — (The) absolute freedom of all spirits who carry the intellectual world within themselves, and may not seek either God or immortality outside of themselves. Finally the idea which unites all, the idea of beauty, the word taken in the 30higher platonic sense. I am convinced that the highest act of reason, which, in that it comprises all ideas, is an aesthetic act, and that truth and goodness are united like sisters only in beauty — The philosopher must possess just as much aesthetic power as the poet. The people without aesthetic sense are our philosophers of the letter. The philosophy of the spirit is an aesthetic 35philosophy. One cannot be clever in anything, one cannot even reason cleverly in history — without aesthetic sense. It should now be revealed here what

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those people who do not understand ideas are actually lacking—and candidly enough admit that everything is obscure to them as soon as one goes beyond charts and indices. Poetry thereby obtains a higher dignity; it becomes again in the end what it was in the beginning — teacher of (history) the human race because there is no 5longer any philosophy, any history; poetic art alone will outlive all the rest of the sciences and arts. At the same time we so often hear that the great multitude should have a sensual religion. Not only the great multitude, but even philosophy needs it. Monotheism of reason and the heart, polytheism of the imagination and art, 10that is what we need! First I will speak about an idea here, which as far as I know, has never occurred to anyone’s mind — we must have a new mythology; this mythology must, however, stand in the service of ideas, it must become a mythology of reason. 15Until we make ideas aesthetic, i.e., mythological, they hold no interest for the people, and conversely, before mythology is reasonable, the philosopher must be ashamed of it. Thus finally the enlightened and unenlightened must shake hands; mythology must become philosophical, and the people reasonable, and philosophy must become mythological in order to make philosophy sensual. 20Then external unity will reign among us. Never again the contemptuous glance, never the blind trembling of the people before its wise men and priests. Only then does equal development of all powers await us, of the individual as well as if all individuals. No power will be suppressed any longer, then general freedom and equality of spirits will reign — A higher spirit sent from heaven 25must establish this religion among us, it will be the last work of the human race.

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Enlightenment Beyond Modernity Reading Five

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-

1831)

[Adapted from the translation by A. V. Miller (Oxford: OUP, 1977)]

A. From the Phenomenology of Spirt (1807)

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INDEPENDENCE AND DEPENDENCE OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS: LORDSHIP AND BONDAGE 178. Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged. The Notion of this its unity in its duplication embraces many and varied meanings. Its moments, then, must on the one hand be held strictly apart, and on the other hand must in this differentiation at the same time also be taken and known as 5not distinct, or in their opposite significance. The twofold significance of the distinct moments has in the nature of self-consciousness to be infinite, or directly the opposite of the determinateness in which it is posited. The detailed exposition of the Notion of this spiritual unity in its duplication will present us with the process of Recognition. 10 179.Self-consciousness is faced by another self-consciousness; it has come out of itself. This has a twofold significance: first, it has lost itself, for it finds itself as an other being; secondly, in doing so it has superseded the other, for it does not see the other as an essential being, but in the other sees its own self. 15 18o. It must supersede this otherness of itself. This is the supersession of the first ambiguity, and is therefore itself a second ambiguity. First, it must proceed to supersede the other independent being in order thereby to become certain of itself as the essential being; secondly, in so doing it proceeds to 20supersede its own self, for this other is itself. 181. This ambiguous supersession of its ambiguous otherness is equally an ambiguous return into itself. For first, through the supersession, it receives back its own self, because, by superseding its otherness, it again becomes equal 25to itself; but secondly, the other self-consciousnss equally gives it back again to itself, for it saw itself in the other, but supersedes this being of itself in the other and thus lets the other again go free. 182. Now, this movement of self-consciousness in relation to another self-30consciousness has in this way been represented as the action of one self-consciousness, but this action of the one has itself the double significance of being both its own action and the action of the other as well. For the other is equally independent and self-contained, and there is nothing in it of which it is not itself the origin. The first does not have the object before it merely as it 35exists primarily for desire, but as something that has an independent existence of its own, which, therefore, it cannot utilize for its own purposes, if that object does not of its own accord do what the first does to it. Thus the movement is simply the double movement of the two self-consciousnesses. Each sees the

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other do the same as it does; each does itself what it demands of the other, and therefore also does what it does only in so far as the other does the same. Action by one side only would be useless because what is to happen can only be brought about by both. 5183. Thus the action has a double significance not only because it is directed against itself as well as against the other, but also because it is indivisibly the action of one as well as of the other. 184. In this movement we see repeated the process which presented itself as 10the play of Forces, but repeated now in consciousness. What in that process was for us, is true here of the extremes themselves. The middle term is self-consciousness which splits into the extremes; and each extreme is this exchanging of its own determinateness and an absolute transition into the opposite. Although, as consciousness, it does indeed come out if itself, yet, 15though out of itself, it is at the same time kept back within itself, is for itself, and the self outside it, is for it. It is aware that it at once is, and is not, another consciousness, and equally that this other is for itself only when it supersedes itself as being for itself, and is for itself only in the being-for-self of the other. Each is for the other the middle term, through which each mediates itself with 20itself and unites with itself; and each is for itself, and for the other, an immediate being on its own account, which at the same time is such only through this mediation. They recognize themselves as mutually recognizing one another. 25185. We have now to see how the process of this pure Notion of recognition, of the duplicating of self-consciousness in its oneness, appears to self-consciousness. At first, it will exhibit the side of the inequality of the two, or the splitting-up of the middle term into the extremes which, as extremes, are opposed to one another, one being only recognized, the other only recognizing. 30 186. Self-consciousness is, to begin with, simple being-for-self, self-equal through the exclusion from itself of everything else. For it, its essence and absolute object is ‘I’; and in this immediacy, or in this [mere] being, of its being-for-self, it is an individual. What is ‘other’ for it is an unessential, 35negatively characterized object. But the ‘other’ is also a self-consciousness; one individual is confronted by another individual. Appearing thus immediately on the scene, they are for one another like ordinary objects, independent shapes, individuals submerged in the being [or immediacy] of Life – for the object in its immediacy is here determined as Life. They are, for each other, shapes of 40consciousness which have not yet accomplished the movement of absolute abstraction, of rooting-out all immediate being, and of being merely the purely negative being of self-identical consciousness; in other words, they have not as yet exposed themselves to each other in the form of pure being-for-self, or as

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self-consciousnesses. Each is indeed certain of its own self, but not of the other, and therefore its own self-certainty still has no truth. For it would have truth only if its own being-for-self had confronted it as an independent object, or, what is the same thing, if the object had presented itself as this pure self-certainty. But according to the Notion of recognition this is possible only 5when each is for the other what the other is for it, only when each in its own self through its own action, and again through the action of the other, achieves this pure abstraction of being-for-self. 187. The presentation of itself, however, as the pure abstraction of self-10consciousness consists in showing itself as the pure negation of its objective mode, or in showing that it is not attached to any specific existence, not to the individuality common to existence as such, that it is not attached to life. This presentation is a twofold action: action on the part of the other, and action on its own part. In so far as it is the action of the other, each seeks the death of the 15other. But in doing so, the second kind of action, action on its own part, is also involved; for the former involves the staking of its own life. Thus the relation of the two self-conscious individuals is such that they prove themselves and each other through a life-and-death struggle. They must engage in this struggle, for they must raise their certainty of being for themselves to truth, 20both in the case of the other and in their own case. And it is only through staking one’s life that freedom is won; only thus is it proved that for self-consciousness, its essential being is not [just] being, not the immediate form in which it appears, not its submergence in the expanse of life, but rather that there is nothing present in it which could not be regarded as a vanishing 25moment, that it is only pure being-for-self. The individual who has not risked his life may well be recognized as a person, but he has not attained to the truth of this recognition as an independent self-consciousness. Similarly, just as each stakes his own life, so each must seek the other’s death, for it values the other no more than itself; its essential being is present to it in the form of an ‘other’, 30it is outside of itself and must rid itself of its self-externality. The other is an immediate consciousness entangled in a variety of relationships, and it must regard its otherness as a pure being-for-self or as an absolute negation. 188. This trial by death, however, does away with the truth which was 35supposed to issue from it, and so, too, with the certainty of self generally. For just as life is the natural setting of consciousness, independence without absolute negativity, so death is the natural negation of consciousness, negation without independence, which thus remains without the required significance of recognition. Death certainly shows that each staked his life and held it of no 40account, both in himself and in the other; but that is not for those who survived this struggle. They put an end to their consciousness in its alien setting of natural existence, that is to say, they put an end to themselves, and are done away with as extremes wanting to be for themselves, or to have an

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existence of their own. But with this there vanishes from their interplay the essential moment of splitting into extremes with opposite characteristics; and the middle term collapses into a lifeless unity which is split into lifeless, merely immediate, unopposed extremes; and the two do not reciprocally give and receive one another back from each other consciously, but leave each other free 5only indifferently, like things. Their act is an abstract negation, not the negation coming from consciousness, which supersedes in such a way as to preserve and maintain what is superseded, and consequently survives its own supersession. 10189. In this experience, self-consciousness learns that life is as essential to it as pure self-consciousness. In immediate self-consciousness the simple 'I' is absolute mediation, and has as its essential moment lasting independence. The dissolution of that simple unity is the result of the first experience; through this there is posited a pure self-consciousness, and a consciousness which is not 15purely for itself but for another, i.e. is a merely immediate consciousness, or consciousness in the form of thinghood. Both moments are essential. Since to begin with they are unequal and opposed, and their reflection into a unity has not yet been achieved, they exist as two opposed shapes of consciousness; one is the independent consciousness whose essential nature is to be for itself, the 20other is the dependent consciousness whose essential nature is simply to live or to be for another. The former is lord, the other is bondsman. 190. The lord is the consciousness that exists for itself, but no longer merely the Notion of such a consciousness. Rather, it is a consciousness existing for 25itself which is mediated with itself through another consciousness, i.e. through a consciousness whose nature it is to be bound up with an existence that is independent, or thinghood in general. The lord puts himself into relation with both of these moments, to a thing as such, the object of desire, and to the consciousness for which thinghood is the essential characteristic. And since he 30is (a) qua the Notion of self-consciousness an immediate relation of being-for-self, but (b) is now at the same time mediation, or a being-for-self which is for itself only through another, he is related (a) immediately to both, and (b) mediately to each through the other. The lord relates himself mediately to the bondsman through a being [a thing] that is independent, for it is just this 35which holds the bondsman in bondage; it is his chain from which he could not break free in the struggle, thus proving himself to be dependent, to possess his independence in thinghood. But the lord is the power over this thing, for he proved in the struggle that it is something merely negative; since he is the power over this thing and this again is the power over the other [the 40bondsman], it follows that he holds the other in subjection. Equally, the lord relates himself mediately to the thing through the bondsman; the bondsman, qua self-consciousness in general, also relates himself negatively to the thing, and takes away its independence; but at the same time the thing is independent

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vis-a-vis the bondsman, whose negating of it, therefore, cannot go the length of being altogether done with it to the point of annihilation; in other words, he only works on it. For the lord, on the other hand, the immediate relation becomes through this mediation the sheer negation of the thing, or the enjoyment of it. What desire failed to achieve, he succeeds in doing, viz. to 5have done with the thing altogether, and to achieve satisfaction in the enjoyment of it. Desire failed to do this because of the thing’s independence; but the lord, who has interposed the bondsman between it and himself, takes to himself only the dependent aspect of the thing and has the pure enjoyment of it. The aspect of its independence he leaves to the bondsman, who works on it. 10 191. In both of these moments the lord achieves his recognition through another consciousness; for in them, that other consciousness is expressly something unessential, both by its working on the thing, and by its dependence on a specific existence. In neither case can it be lord over the being 15of the thing and achieve absolute negation of it. Here, therefore, is present this moment of recognition, viz. that the other consciousness sets aside its own being-for-self, and in so doing itself does what the first does to it. Similarly, the other moment too is present, that this action of the second is the first’s own action; for what the bondsman does is really the action of the lord. The 20latter’s essential nature is to exist only for himself; he is the sheer negative power for whom the thing is nothing. Thus he is the pure, essential action in this relationship, while the action of the bondsman is impure and unessential. But for recognition proper the moment is lacking, that what the lord does to the other he also does to himself, and what the bondsman does to himself he 25should also do to the other. The outcome is a recognition that is one-sided and unequal. 192. In this recognition the unessential consciousness is for the lord the object, which constitutes the truth of his certainty of himself. But it is clear that this 30object does not correspond to its Notion, but rather that the object in which the lord has achieved his lordship has in reality turned out to be something quite different from an independent consciousness. What now really confronts him is not an independent consciousness, but a dependent one. He is, therefore, not certain of being-for-self as the truth of himself. On the contrary, his truth is 35in reality the unessential consciousness and its unessential action. 193. The truth of the independent consciousness is accordingly the servile consciousness of the bondsman. This, it is true, appears at first outside of itself and not as the truth of self-consciousness. But just as lordship showed that its 40essential nature is the reverse of what it wants to be, so too servitude in its consummation will really turn into the opposite of what it immediately is; as a consciousness forced back into itself, it will withdraw into itself and be transformed into a truly independent consciousness.

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194. We have seen what servitude is only in relation to lordship. But it is a self-consciousness, and we have now to consider what as such it is in and for itself. To begin with, servitude has the lord for its essential reality; hence the truth for it is the independent consciousness that is for itself. However, 5servitude is not yet aware that this truth is implicit in it. But it does in fact contain within itself this truth of pure negativity and being-for-self, for it has experienced this its own essential nature. For this consciousness has been fearful, not of this or that particular thing or just at odd moments, but its whole being has been seized with dread; for it has experienced the fear of 10death, the absolute Lord. In that experience it has been quite unmanned, has trembled in every fibre of its being, and everything solid and stable has been shaken to its foundations. But this pure universal movement, the absolute melting-away of everything stable, is the simple, essential nature of self-consciousness, absolute negativity, pure being-for-self, which consequently is 15implicit in this consciousness. This moment of pure being-for-self is also explicit for the bondsman, for in the lord it exists for him as his object. Furthermore, his consciousness is not this dissolution of everything stable merely in principle; in his service he actually brings this about. Through his service he rids himself of his attachment to natural existence in every single detail; and gets rid of it by 20working on it. 195. However, the feeling of absolute power both in general, and in the particular form of service, is only implicitly this dissolution, and although the fear of the lord is indeed the beginning of wisdom, consciousness is not therein 25aware that it is a being-for-self. Through work, however, the bondsman becomes conscious of what he truly is. In the moment which corresponds to desire in the lord’s consciousness, it did seem that the aspect of unessential relation to the thing fell to the lot of the bondsman, since in that relation the thing retained its independence. Desire has reserved to itself the pure negating 30of the object and thereby its unalloyed feeling of self. But that is the reason why this satisfaction is itself only a fleeting one, for it lacks the side of objectivity and permanence. Work, on the other hand, is desire held in check, fleetingness staved off; in other words, work forms and shapes the thing. The negative relation to the object becomes its form and something permanent, 35because it is precisely for the worker that the object has independence. This negative middle term or the formative activity is at the same time the individuality or pure being-for-self of consciousness which now, in the work outside of it, acquires an element of permanence. It is in this way, therefore, that consciousness, qua worker, comes to see in the independent being [of the 40object] its own independence. 196. But the formative activity has not only this positive significance that in it the pure being-for-self of the servile consciousness acquires an existence; it

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also has, in contrast with its first moment, the negative significance of fear. For, in fashioning the thing, the bondsman’s own negativity, his being-for-self, becomes an object for him only through his setting at nought the existing shape confronting him. But this objective negative moment is none other than the alien being before which it has trembled. Now, however, he destroys this 5alien negative moment, posits himself as a negative in the permanent order of things, and thereby becomes for himself, someone existing on his own account. In the lord, the being-for-self is an ‘other’ for the bondsman, or is only for him [i.e. is not his own]; in fear, the being-for-self is present in the bondsman himself; in fashioning the thing, he becomes aware that being-for-self belongs 10to him, that he himself exists essentially and actually in his own right. The shape does not become something other than himself through being made external to him; for it is precisely this shape that is his pure being-for-self, which in this externality is seen by him to be the truth. Through this rediscovery of himself by himself, the bondsman realizes that it is precisely in 15his work wherein he seemed to have only an alienated existence that he acquires a mind of his own. For this reflection, the two moments of fear and service as such, as also that of formative activity, are necessary, both being at the same time in a universal mode. Without the discipline of service and obedience, fear remains at the formal stage, and does not extend to the known 20real world of existence. Without the formative activity, fear remains inward and mute, and consciousness does not become explicitly for itself. If consciousness fashions the thing without that initial absolute fear, it is only an empty self-centred attitude; for its form or negativity is not negativity per se, and therefore its formative activity cannot give it a consciousness of itself as 25essential being. If it has not experienced absolute fear but only some lesser dread, the negative being has remained for it something external, its substance has not been infected by it through and through. Since the entire contents of its natural consciousness have not been jeopardized, determinate being still in principle attaches to it; having a ‘mind of one’s own’ is self-will, a freedom 30which is still enmeshed in servitude. Just as little as the pure form can become essential being for it, just as little is that form, regarded as extended to the particular, a universal formative activity, an absolute Notion; rather it is a skill which is master over some things, but not over the universal power and the whole of objective being. 35

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[Adapted from the translation of T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and H. S. Harris (Hackett, 1991)]

B. From the Encyclopedia Logic (1817 with additions from the 1830 edition) § 79 With regard to its form, the logical has three sides: (a) the side of abstraction or of the understanding, (b) the dialectical or negatively rational side, [and] (c) the speculative or positively rational one. 5

These three sides do not constitute three parts of the Logic, but are moments of everything logically real; i.e., of every concept or of everything true in general. All of them together can be put under the first moment, that of the understanding; and in this way they can be kept separate from each other, but then they are not considered in 10their truth. – Like the division itself, the remarks made here concerning the determinations of the logical are only descriptive anticipations at this point.

§ 80 15(a) Thinking as understanding stops short at the fixed determinacy and its distinctness vis-a-vis other determinacies; such a restricted abstraction counts for the understanding as one that subsists on its own account, and [simply] is. Addition. When we talk about “thinking” in general or, more precisely, about “comprehension,” we often have merely the activity of the understanding in 20mind. Of course, thinking is certainly an activity of the understanding to begin with, but it must not stop there and the Concept is not just a determination of the understanding. – The activity of the understanding consists generally in the bestowing of the form of universality on its content; and the universal posited by the understanding is, of course, an abstract one, which is held onto 25in firm opposition to the particular. But as a result, it is itself determined also as a particular again. Since the understanding behaves toward its objects in a way that separates and abstracts them, it is thereby the opposite of immediate intuition and feeling, which, as such, deal entirely with the concrete and stick to that. 30The oft-repeated complaints that are regularly made against thinking in general are connected with this antithesis between understanding and sense-experience. The burden of the complaints is that thinking is hard and one-sided and, if pursued consistently, leads to ruinous and destructive results. The first answer to these charges, insofar as they are justified in content, is that 35they do not apply to all thinking, and specifically not to rational thinking [i.e. the thinking of Reason], but only to the thinking of the understanding.

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But it should be added that even the thinking of the understanding must unquestionably be conceded its right and merit, which generally consists in the fact that without the understanding there is no fixity or determinacy in the domains either of theory or of practice. First, with regard to cognition, it begins by apprehending given objects in their determinate distinctions. Thus, 5in the consideration of nature, for example, distinctions are drawn between matters, forces, kinds, etc., and they are marked off, each on its own account, in isolation one from another. In doing all this, thinking functions as understanding, and its principle here is identity, simple self-relation. So it is first of all this identity by which the advance from one determination to 10another is conditioned in cognition. Thus, for instance, in mathematics, magnitude is the one determination with respect to which a progression happens, all others being left out. In the same way we compare figures with one another in geometry, bringing out what is identical in them. In other areas of cognition, too, for instance, in jurisprudence, it is identity that is the 15primary means of progress. For, since we here infer one determination from another, our inferring is nothing but an advance in accordance with the principle of identity. Understanding is just as indispensable in the practical sphere as it is in that of theory. Character is an essential factor in conduct, and a man of character is a 20man of understanding who (for that reason) has definite purposes in mind and pursues them with firm intent. As Goethe says, someone who wants to do great things must know how to restrict himself. In contrast, someone who wants to do everything really wants to do nothing, and brings nothing off. There is a host of interesting things in the world; Spanish poetry, chemistry, 25politics, music are all very interesting, and we cannot blame a person who is interested in them. But if an individual in a definite situation is to bring something about, he must stick to something determinate and not dissipate his powers in a great many directions. Similarly, in the case of any profession, the main thing is to pursue it with 30understanding. For instance, the judge must stick to the law and give his verdict in accordance with it; he must not let himself be sidetracked by this or that; he must admit no excuse, and look neither to right nor left. – Furthermore, the understanding is an essential moment in culture generally. A cultivated person is not satisfied with what is cloudy and indeterminate; 35indeed, he grasps subject matters in their fixed determinacy, whilst someone who is uncultivated sways uncertainly hither and thither, and it often takes much effort to come to an understanding with such a person as to what is under discussion, and get him to keep the precise point at issue steadily in view. 40Our earlier explanation showed that logical thinking in general must not be interpreted merely in terms of a subjective activity, but rather as what is strictly universal and hence objective at the same time. It should be added that this applies to the understanding as well, which is the first form of logical

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thinking. The understanding must therefore be regarded as corresponding to what people call the goodness of God, where this is understood to mean that finite things are, that they subsist. For instance, we recognise the goodness of God in nature by the fact that the various kinds and classes, of both animals and plants, are provided with everything they need in order to preserve 5themselves and prosper. The situation is the same with man, too, both for individuals and for whole peoples, who similarly possess what is required for their subsistence and their development. In part this is given to them as something that is immediately present (like climate, for example, or the character and products of the country, etc.); and in part they possess it in the 10form of aptitudes, talents, etc. Interpreted in this way, then, the understanding manifests itself everywhere in all the domains of the objective world, and the “perfection” of an object essentially implies that the principle of the understanding gets its due therein. For example, a State is imperfect if a definite distinction between estates and professions has not yet been achieved 15in it, and, similarly, if the conceptually diverse political and governmental functions have not yet formed themselves into particular organs – just like the various functions of sensation, motion, digestion, etc., in the developed animal organism. From the discussion so far, we can also gather that even in the domains and 20spheres of activity which, in our ordinary way of looking at things, seem to lie furthest from the understanding, it should still not be absent, and that, to the degree that it is absent, its absence must be considered a defect. This holds especially for art, religion, and philosophy. In art, for example, the understanding manifests itself in the fact that the forms of the beautiful, which 25are conceptually diverse, are maintained in their conceptual distinctness and are presented distinctly. The same holds for single works of art, too. It is a feature of the beauty and perfection of a dramatic work, therefore, that the characters of the various persons should be sustained in their purity and determinacy, and, similarly, that the various purposes and interests that are 30involved should be presented clearly and decisively. – As to what follows next, the domain of religion, the superiority of Greek over Nordic mythology, for instance, essentially consists (apart from any further diversity of content and interpretation) in the fact that in the former each figure of the Gods is developed into a sculptural determinacy, whilst in the latter they flow into one 35another in a fog of murky indeterminacy. – And finally, after what has been said already, it scarcely requires special mention that philosophy cannot do without the understanding either. Philosophising requires, above all, that each thought should be grasped in its full precision and that nothing should remain vague and indeterminate. 40But again, it is usually said also that the understanding must not go too far. This contains the valid point that the understanding cannot have the last word. On the contrary, it is finite, and, more precisely, it is such that when it is pushed to an extreme it overturns into its opposite. It is the way of youth to

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toss about in abstractions, whereas the man of experience does not get caught up in the abstract either-or, but holds onto the concrete. § 81 (b) The dialectical moment is the self-sublation of these finite determinations on their own part, and their passing into their opposites. 5

(1) The dialectical, taken separately on its own by the understanding, constitutes scepticism, especially when it is exhibited in scientific concepts. Scepticism contains the mere negation that results from the dialectic. (2) Dialectic is usually considered as an external art, 10which arbitrarily produces a confusion and a mere semblance of contradictions in determinate concepts, in such a way that it is this semblance, and not these determinations, that is supposed to be null and void, whereas on the contrary what is understandable would be true. Dialectic is often no more than a subjective seesaw of 15arguments that sway back and forth, where basic import is lacking and the [resulting] nakedness is covered by the astuteness that gives birth to such argumentations. – According to its proper determinacy, however, the dialectic is the genuine nature that properly belongs to the determinations of the understanding, to 20things, and to the finite in general. Reflection is initially the transcending of the isolated determinacy and a relating of it, whereby it is posited in relationship but is nevertheless maintained in its isolated validity. The dialectic, on the contrary, is the immanent transcending, in which the one-sidedness and restrictedness of the de 25terminations of the understanding displays itself as what it is, i.e., as their negation. That is what everything finite is: its own sublation. Hence, the dialectical constitutes the moving soul of scientific progression, and it is the principle through which alone immanent coherence and necessity enter into the content of science, just as all 30genuine, nonexternal elevation above the finite is to be found in this principle.

Addition 1. It is of the highest importance to interpret the dialectical [moment] properly, and to [re]cognise it. It is in general the principle of all 35motion, of all life, genuinely scientific cognition. In our ordinary consciousness, not stopping at the abstract determinations of the understanding appears as simple fairness, in accordance with the proverb “live and let live”, so that one thing holds and the other does also. But a closer look shows that the finite is not restricted merely from the outside; rather, it 40sublates itself by virtue of its own nature, and passes over, of itself, into its opposite. Thus we say, for instance, that man is mortal; and we regard dying as having its ground only in external circumstances. In this way of looking at things, a man has two specific properties, namely, he is alive and also mortal.

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But the proper interpretation is that life as such bears the germ of death within itself, and that the finite sublates itself because it contradicts itself inwardly. Or again, the dialectic is not to be confused with mere sophistry, whose essence consists precisely in making one-sided and abstract determinations valid in their isolation, each on its own account, in accord with the individual's interest 5of the moment and his particular situation. For instance, it is an essential moment of my action that I exist and that I have the means to exist. But if I consider this aspect, this principle of my well-being, on its own, and derive the consequence from it that I may steal, or that I may betray my country, then we have a piece of sophistry. – In the same way, my subjective freedom is an 10essential principle of my action, in the sense that in my doing what I do, I am [there] with my insights and convictions. But if I argue abstractly from this principle alone, then my argument is likewise a piece of sophistry, and all the principles of ethical life are thrown overboard in arguments like that. – The dialectic diverges essentially from that procedure, since it is concerned 15precisely with considering things [as they are] in and for themselves, so that the finitude of the one-sided determinations of the understanding becomes evident. [Passage omitted regarding Dialectic in the ancients] And, however much the understanding may, as a matter of habit, bristle at the 20dialectic, still the latter must in no way be regarded as present only for philosophical consciousness; on the contrary, what is in question here is found already in all other forms of consciousness, too, and in everyone's experience. Everything around us can be regarded an example of dialectic. For we know that, instead of being fixed and ultimate, everything finite is alterable and 25perishable, and this is nothing but the dialectic of the finite, through which the latter, being implicitly the other of itself, is driven beyond what it immediately is and overturns into its opposite. We said earlier (§ 80) that the understanding must be regarded as what is contained in the notion of the goodness of God. We must now add that the principle of the dialectic in the 30same (objective) sense corresponds to the notion of God’s might. We say that all things (i.e., everything finite as such) come to judgment, and in that saying we catch sight of the dialectic as the universal, irresistible might before which nothing can subsist, however firm and secure it may deem itself to be. This determination certainly does not exhaust the depth of the divine essence, the 35concept of God; but it still forms an essential moment in all religious consciousness. Furthermore, the dialectic also asserts itself in all the particular domains and formations of the natural and spiritual world. In the motion of the heavenly bodies, for example, a planet is now in this position, but it also has it in-itself to 40be in another position, and, through its motion, brings this, its otherness, into existence. Similarly, the physical elements prove themselves to be dialectical, and the meteorological process makes their dialectic apparent. The same principle is the foundation of all other natural processes, and it is just this

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principle by virtue of which nature is driven beyond itself. As to the occurrence of the dialectic in the spiritual world, and, more precisely, in the domain of law and ethical life, we need only to recall at this point how, as universal experience confirms, the extreme of a state or action tends to overturn into its opposite. 5 This dialectic is therefore recognised in many proverbs. The legal proverb, for instance, says, “Summum ius summa iniuria”, which means that if abstract justice is driven to the extreme, it overturns into injustice. Similarly, in politics, it is well known how prone the extremes of anarchy and despotism are 10to lead to one another. In the domain of individual ethics, we find the consciousness of dialectic in those universally familiar proverbs: “Pride goes before a fall”, “Too much wit outwits itself”, etc. – Feeling, too, both bodily and spiritual, has its dialectic. It is well known how the extremes of pain and joy pass into one another; the heart filled with joy relieves itself in tears, and the 15deepest melancholy tends in certain circumstances to make itself known by a smile. Addition 2. Scepticism should not be regarded merely as a doctrine of doubt; rather, it is completely certain about its central point, – i.e., the nullity of everything finite. 20[Passage omitted about ancient scepticism and Kantian scepticism.] Even nowadays, of course, scepticism is often regarded as an irresistible foe of any positive knowledge, and hence of philosophy too, so far as the latter deals with positive cognition. In response to this it needs to be remarked that in fact it is only the finite and abstract thinking of the understanding that has 25anything to fear from scepticism, and that cannot resist it; philosophy, on the other hand, contains the sceptical as a moment within itself-specifically as the dialectical moment. But then philosophy does not stop at the merely negative result of the dialectic, as is the case with scepticism. The latter mistakes its result, insofar as it holds fast to it as mere, i.e., abstract, negation. When the 30dialectic has the negative as its result, then, precisely as a result, this negative is at the same time the positive, for it contains what it resulted from sublated within itself, and it cannot be without it. This, however, is the basic determination of the third form of the Logical, namely, the speculative or positively rational [moment]. 35§ 82 (c) The speculative or positively rational apprehends the unity of the determinations in their opposition, the affirmative that is contained in their dissolution and in their transition. 40

(1) The dialectic has a positive result, because it has a determinate content, or because its result is truly not empty, abstract nothing, but the negation of certain determinations, which are contained in the result precisely because it is not an immediate nothing, but a result. (2)

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Hence this rational [result}, although it is something-thought and something-abstract, is at the same time something-concrete, because it is not simple, formal unity, but a unity of distinct determinations. For this reason philosophy does not deal with mere abstractions or formal thoughts at all, but only with concrete thoughts. (3) The 5mere logic of the understanding is contained in the speculative Logic and can easily be made out of the latter; nothing more is needed for this than the omission of the dialectical and the rational; in this way it becomes what is usually called logic, a descriptive collection of determinations of thought put together in various ways, which in 10their finitude count for something infinite.

Addition. In respect of its content, what is rational is so far from being just the property of philosophy that we must rather say that it is there for all people, whatever level of culture and spiritual development they possess. That is the 15sense in which, from time immemorial, man has been called, quite correctly, a rational essence. The empirically universal way of knowing about what is rational is that of prejudgment and presupposition; and, as we explained earlier (§ 45), the general character of what is rational consists in being something unconditioned which therefore contains its determinacy within itself. In this 20sense, we know about the rational above all, because we know about God, and we know him as [the one] who is utterly self-determined. But also, the knowledge of a citizen about his country and its laws is a knowledge about what is rational, inasmuch as these things count for him as something unconditioned, and at the same time as a universal, to which he must subject 25his individual will; and in the same sense, even the knowing and willing of a child is already rational, when it knows its parents' will, and wills that. To continue then, the speculative is in general nothing but the rational (and indeed the positively rational), inasmuch as it is something thought. The term “speculation” tends to be used in ordinary life in a very vague, and at the same 30time, secondary sense – as, for instance, when people talk about a matrimonial or commercial speculation. All that it is taken to mean here is that, on the one hand, what is immediately present must be transcended, and, on the other, that whatever the content of these speculations may be, although it is initially only something subjective, it ought not to remain so, but is to be realised or 35translated into objectivity. The comment made earlier about the Idea holds for this ordinary linguistic usage in respect of “speculations,” too. And this connects with the further remark that very often those who rank themselves among the more cultivated 40also speak of “speculation” in the express sense of something merely subjective. What they say is that a certain interpretation of natural or spiritual states of affairs or situations may certainly be quite right and proper, if taken in a merely “speculative” way, but that experience does not agree with it, and

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nothing of the sort is admissible in actuality. Against these views, what must be said is that, with respect to its true significance, the speculative is, neither provisionally nor in the end either, something merely subjective; instead, it expressly contains the very antitheses at which the under- standing stops short (including therefore that of the subjective and objective, too), sublated 5within itself; and precisely for this reason it proves to be concrete and a totality. For this reason, too, a speculative content cannot be expressed in a one-sided proposition. If, for example, we say that “the Absolute is the unity of the subjective and the objective,” that is certainly correct; but it is still one-sided, in that it expresses only the aspect of unity and puts the emphasis on 10that, whereas in fact, of course, the subjective and the objective are not only identical but also distinct. It should also be mentioned here that the meaning of the speculative is to be understood as being the same as what used in earlier times to be called “mystical”, especially with regard to the religious consciousness and its 15content. When we of the “mystical” nowadays, it is taken as a rule to be synonymous with what is mysterious and incomprehensible; and, depending on the ways their culture and mentality vary in other respects, some people treat the mysterious and incomprehensible as what is authentic and genuine, whilst others regard it as belonging to the domain of superstition and deception. 20About this we must remark first that “the mystical” is certainly something mysterious, but only for the understanding, and then only because abstract identity is the principle of the understanding. But when it is regarded as synonymous with the speculative, the mystical is the concrete unity of just those determinations that count as true for the understanding only in their 25separation and opposition. So if those who recognise the mystical as what is genuine say that it is something utterly mysterious, and just leave it at that, they are only declaring that for them, too, thinking has only the significance of an abstract positing of identity, and that in order to attain the truth we must renounce thinking, or, as they frequently put it, that we must “take reason 30captive.” As we have seen, however, the abstract thinking of the understanding is so far from being something firm and ultimate that it proves itself, on the contrary, to be a constant sublating of itself and an overturning into its opposite, whereas the rational as such is rational precisely because it contains both of the opposites as ideal moments within itself. Thus, everything rational 35can equally be called “mystical”; but this only amounts to saying that it transcends the understanding. It does not at all imply that what is so spoken of must be considered inaccessible to thinking and incomprehensible.

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[Adapted from: Kaufmann, Walter. Hegel: Texts and Commentary; Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1966, pp. 113-118.]

C. Who Thinks Abstractly? (1808) Think? Abstractly? — Sauve qui peut! Let those who can save themselves! Even now I can hear a traitor, bought by the enemy, exclaim these words, denouncing this essay because it will plainly deal with metaphysics. For metaphysics is a word, no less than abstract, and almost thinking as well, from which everybody more or less runs away as from a man who has caught 5the plague.

But the intention here really is not so wicked, as if the meaning of thinking and of abstract were to be explained here. There is nothing the beautiful world finds as intolerable as explanations. I, too, find it terrible when somebody begins to explain, for when worst comes to worst I understand 10everything myself. Here the explanation of thinking and abstract would in any case be entirely superfluous; for it is only because the beautiful world knows what it means to be abstract that it runs away. Just as one does not desire what one does not know, one also cannot hate it. Nor is it my intent to try craftily to reconcile the beautiful world with thinking or with the abstract as if, under the 15semblance of small talk, thinking and the abstract were to be put over till in the end they had found their way into society incognito, without having aroused any disgust; even as if they were to be adopted imperceptibly by society, or, as the Swabians say, hereingezäunselt, before the author of this complication suddenly exposed this strange guest, namely the abstract, whom 20the whole party had long treated and recognized under a different title as if he were a good old acquaintance. Such scenes of recognition which are meant to instruct the world against its will have the inexcusable fault that they simultaneously humiliate, and the wirepuller tries with his artifice to gain a little fame; but this humiliation and this vanity destroy the effect, for they push 25away again an instruction gained at such a price.

In any case, such a plan would be ruined from the start, for it would require that the crucial word of the riddle is not spoken at the outset. But this has already happened in the title. If this essay toyed with such craftiness, these words should not have been allowed to enter right in the beginning; but like 30the cabinet member in a comedy, they should have been required to walk around during the entire play in their overcoat, unbuttoning it only in the last scene, disclosing the flashing star of wisdom. The unbuttoning of the metaphysical overcoat would be less effective, to be sure, than the unbuttoning of the minister's: it would bring to light no more than a couple of words, and 35the best part of the joke ought to be that it is shown that society has long been in possession of the matter itself; so what they would gain in the end would be the mere name, while the minister's star signifies something real — a bag of money.

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That everybody present should know what thinking is and what is abstract is presupposed in good society, and we certainly are in good society. The question is merely who thinks abstractly. The intent, as already mentioned, is not to reconcile society with these things, to expect it to deal with something difficult, to appeal to its conscience not frivolously to neglect 5such a matter that befits the rank and status of beings gifted with reason. Rather it is my intent to reconcile the beautiful world with itself, although it does not seem to have a bad conscience about this neglect; still, at least deep down, it has a certain respect for abstract thinking as something exalted, and it looks the other way not because it seems too lowly but because it appears too 10exalted, not because it seems too mean but rather too noble, or conversely because it seems an Espèce, something special; it seems something that does not lend one distinction in general society, like new clothes, but rather something that — like wretched clothes, or rich ones if they are decorated with precious stones in ancient mounts or embroidery that, be it ever so rich, has long 15become quasi-Chinese — excludes one from society or makes one ridiculous in it.

Who thinks abstractly? The uneducated, not the educated. Good society does not think abstractly because it is too easy, because it is too lowly (not referring to the external status) — not from an empty affectation of nobility 20that would place itself above that of which it is not capable, but on account of the inward inferiority of the matter.

The prejudice and respect for abstract thinking are so great that sensitive nostrils will begin to smell some satire or irony at this point; but since they read the morning paper they know that there is a prize to be had for 25satires and that I should therefore sooner earn it by competing for it than give up here without further ado.

I have only to adduce examples for my proposition: everybody will grant that they confirm it. A murderer is led to the place of execution. For the common populace he is nothing but a murderer. Ladies perhaps remark that he 30is a strong, handsome, interesting man. The populace finds this remark terrible: What? A murderer handsome? How can one think so wickedly and call a murderer handsome; no doubt, you yourselves are something not much better! This is the corruption of morals that is prevalent in the upper classes, a priest may add, knowing the bottom of things and human hearts. 35

One who knows men traces the development of the criminal's mind: he finds in his history, in his education, a bad family relationship between his father and mother, some tremendous harshness after this human being had done some minor wrong, so he became embittered against the social order — a first reaction to this that in effect expelled him and henceforth did not make it 40possible for him to preserve himself except through crime. — There may be people who will say when they hear such things: he wants to excuse this murderer! After all I remember how in my youth I heard a mayor lament that writers of books were going too far and sought to extirpate Christianity and

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righteousness altogether; somebody had written a defense of suicide; terrible, really too terrible! — Further questions revealed that The Sufferings of Werther [by Goethe, 1774] were meant.

This is abstract thinking: to see nothing in the murderer except the abstract fact that he is a murderer, and to annul all other human essence in him 5with this simple quality.

It is quite different in refined, sentimental circles — in Leipzig. There they strewed and bound flowers on the wheel and on the criminal who was tied to it. — But this again is the opposite abstraction. The Christians may indeed trifle with Rosicrucianism, or rather cross-rosism, and wreathe roses around 10the cross. The cross is the gallows and wheel that have long been hallowed. It has lost its one-sided significance of being the instrument of dishonorable punishment and, on the contrary, suggests the notion of the highest pain and the deepest rejection together with the most joyous rapture and divine honor. The wheel in Leipzig, on the other hand, wreathed with violets and poppies, is 15a reconciliation à la Kotzebue, a kind of slovenly sociability between sentimentality and badness.

In quite a different manner I once heard a common old woman who worked in a hospital kill the abstraction of the murderer and bring him to life for honor. The severed head had been placed on the scaffold, and the sun was 20shining. How beautifully, she said, the sun of God's grace shines on Binder's head! — You are not worthy of having the sun shine on you, one says to a rascal with whom one is angry. This woman saw that the murderer's head was struck by the sunshine and thus was still worthy of it. She raised it from the punishment of the scaffold into the sunny grace of God, and instead of 25accomplishing the reconciliation with violets and sentimental vanity, saw him accepted in grace in the higher sun.

Old woman, your eggs are rotten! the maid says to the market woman. What? she replies, my eggs rotten? You may be rotten! You say that about my eggs? You? Did not lice eat your father on the highways? Didn't your mother 30run away with the French, and didn't your grandmother die in a public hospital? Let her get a whole shirt instead of that flimsy scarf; we know well where she got that scarf and her hats: if it were not for those officers, many wouldn't be decked out like that these days, and if their ladyships paid more attention to their households, many would be in jail right now. Let her mend 35the holes in her stockings! — In brief, she does not leave one whole thread on her. She thinks abstractly and subsumes the other woman — scarf, hat, shirt, etc., as well as her fingers and other parts of her, and her father and whole family, too — solely under the crime that she has found the eggs rotten. Everything about her is colored through and through by these rotten eggs, 40while those officers of which the market woman spoke — if, as one may seriously doubt, there is anything to that — may have got to see very different things.

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To move from the maid to a servant, no servant is worse off than one who works for a man of low class and low income; and he is better off the nobler his master is. The common man again thinks more abstractly, he gives himself noble airs vis-à-vis the servant and relates himself to the other man merely as to a servant; he clings to this one predicate. The servant is best off 5among the French. The nobleman is familiar with his servant, the Frenchman is his friend. When they are alone, the servant does the talking: see Diderot's Jacques et son maître; the master does nothing but take snuff and see what time it is and lets the servant take care of everything else. The nobleman knows that the servant is not merely a servant, but also knows the latest city 10news, the girls, and harbors good suggestions; he asks him about these matters, and the servant may say what he knows about these questions. With a French master, the servant may not only do this; he may also broach a subject, have his own opinions and insist on them; and when the master wants something, it is not done with an order but he has to argue and convince the 15servant of his opinion and add a good word to make sure that this opinion retains the upper hand.

In the army we encounter the same difference. Among the Austrians a soldier may be beaten, he is canaille; for whatever has the passive right to be beaten is canaille. Thus the common soldier is for the officer this abstractum of 20a beatable subject with whom a gentleman who has a uniform and port d'epée must trouble himself — and that could drive one to make a pact with the devil.

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Modernity Beyond Enlightenment Reading Five

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-

1842)

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Faust, Part I, is available in the AUB bookstore.

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