Primary Source Documents: Table of Contents Medieval European Outlook and Worldview Bishop Adalbero of Laon The Tripartite Society (1050) Lothario dei Segni (Pope Innocent III) On the Misery of the Human Condition (c.1190) Pope Gregory VII The Dictates of the Pope [Dictatus Papae] (1075*) Pope Innocent III “Royal Power Derives Its Dignity From the Pontifical Authority” (c.1200) The Hereford Map (c. 1290) The Medieval World-­‐View: The Vanity of This World Magna Carta (1215) Geoffrey Chaucer “The Prologue” The Canterbury Tales (1380) “The Miller’s Prologue” The Canterbury Tales (1380) 2 3 4 5 5 6 7 8 9-­‐10 11 12 13 14 Martin Luther Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate (1520) The Freedom of a Christian (1520) John Calvin The Institutes of the Christian Religion (1535) The Twelve Articles (1524) Martin Luther Against the Thievish, Murderous Hordes of Peasants (1525) Chronicle of King Francis I: Burning of Protestants in Paris (1535) The Persecution of Anabaptists: The Examination of Elizabeth Dirks (1549) King Henry VIII / English Parliament Act of Supremacy (1534) Queen Elizabeth ‘Tilbury Speech’ (1588) King Henry IV The Edict of Nantes (1598) 15 15 16 17 17 18 18 19 20 21 22 King Affonso I Letter to King John of Portugal (1526) Emperor Qianlong Letter from the Celestial Emperor to the 'Barbarian' King (c.1780s) Clive Ponting A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (1992) 23 23 24-­‐27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34-­‐35 36 37-­‐38 39 40 40 41 41 41 42-­‐45 46 The Renaissance Pico della Mirandola Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486) William Shakespeare Macbeth (1611) Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince (1513/1532) selected quotes The Prince (1513/1532) quotes in context The Protestant Reformation The Scientific Revolution Cardinal Bellarmine Letter to Fr. Paolo Antonio Foscarini (April 12, 1615) The First Global Age: Age of Exploration/Discovery Europe circa 16th-­‐17th centuries Cotton Mather ‘The Devil in New England’ (1692) (from The Wonders of The Invisible World) Johannes Junius ‘A Confession Of Witchcraft Explained’ (1628) The Atlantic Slave Trade Stowage of the British Slave Ship ‘Brookes’ Under the Regulated Slave Trade [1788] Bartolome de las Casas The Tears of the Indians (1541) King Ferdinand/Queen Isabella Edict of the Expulsion of Jews [Alhambra Decree] (1492) Jacques Benigne Bossuet Politics Drawn From the Very Words of Holy Scripture (1707) Thomas Hobbes Leviathan (1651) The Age of Enlightenment The English Bill of Rights (1689) John Locke The Second Treatise of Civil Government (1692) Montesquieu The Spirit of the Laws (1748) Voltaire Treatise on Tolerance (1763) and The Philosophical Dictionary (1764) Baron d’Holbach Good Sense (1772) Denis Diderot Encyclopedia (1772) Immanuel Kant “What is Enlightenment?” (1784) Thomas Paine The Age of Reason (1794-­‐1796) Voltaire Candide (1759) Thomas Jefferson et al. The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America (1776) 1 Medieval European Outlook and Worldview Bishop Adalbero of Laon The Tripartite Society (1050) The community of the faithful is a single body, but the condition of society is threefold in order. For human law distinguishes two classes. Nobles and serfs, indeed , are not governed by the same ordinance …. The former are the warriors and the protectors of the churches. They are the defenders of the people, of both great and small, in short, of everyone, and at the same time they ensure their own safety. The other class is that of the serfs. This luckless breed possesses nothing except at the cost of its own labour. Who could, reckoning with an abacus, add up the sum of the cares with which the peasants are occupied, of their journeys on foot, of their hard labours? The serfs provide money, clothes, and food, for the rest; no free man could exist without serfs. Is there a task to be done? Does anyone want to put himself out? We see kings and prelates make themselves the serfs of their serfs; [but in truth] the master, who claims to feed his serf, is fed by him. And the serf never sees an end to his tears and his sighs. God’s house, which we think of as one, is thus divided into three; some pray, others fight, and yet others work. The three groups, which coexist, cannot bear to be separated; the services rendered by one are a precondition for the labours of the two others; each in his turn takes it upon himself to relive the whole. Thus the threefold assembly is none the less united, and it is thus that law has been able to triumph, and that the world has been able to enjoy peace. abacus – a tool to do complex addition and subtraction; early version of a calculator prelate – church official (i.e. abbot, bishop, archbishop) 2 Lothario dei Segni (Pope Innocent III) On the Misery of the Human Condition (c.1190) • For sure man was formed out of earth, conceived in guilt, born to punishment. What he does is depraved and illicit, is shameful and improper, vain and unprofitable. He will become fuel for the eternal fires food for worms, a mass of rottenness. I shall try to make my explanation clearer and my treatment fuller. Man was formed of dust, slime, and ashes; what is even more vile, of the filthiest seed. He was conceived from the itch of the flesh, in the heat of passion and the stench of lust, and worse yet, with the stain of sin. He was born to toil, dread, and trouble; and more wretched still, was born only to die. He commits depraved acts by which he offends God, his neighbor, and himself, shameful acts by which he defiles his name, his person, and his conscience; and vain acts by which he ignores all things important, useful, and necessary. He will become fuel for those fires which are forever hot and burn forever bright; food for the worm which forever nibbles and digests; a mass of rottenness which will forever stink and reek. • A bird is born to fly; man is born to toil. All his days are full of toil and hardship, and at night his mind has no rest. • How much anxiety tortures mortals! They suffer all kinds of cares, are burdened with worry, tremble and shrink with fears and terrors, are weighted down with sorrow. Their nervousness makes them depressed, and their depression makes them nervous. Rich or poor, master or slave, married or single, good and bad alike—all suffer worldly torments and are tormented by worldly vexations. • For sudden sorrow always follows worldly joy: what begins in gaiety ends in grief. Worldly happiness in besprinkled in deed with much bitterness. Then, suddenly, when least expected, misfortune strikes, a calamity befalls us, disease attacks or death, which no one can escape, carries us off. • Men strive especially for three things: riches, pleasures, and honors. Riches lead to immorality, pleasures to shame, and honors to vanity. • But suppose a man is lifted up high, suppose he is raised to the very peak. At once his cares grow heavy, his worries mount up, he eats less and cannot sleep. And so nature is corrupted, his spirit weakened, his sleep disturbed, his appetite lost; his strength is diminished, he loses weight. Exhausting himself, he scarcely lives half a lifetime and ends his wretched days with a more wretched death. • Almost the whole life of mortals is full of mortal sin, so that one can scarcely find anyone who does not go astray, does not return to his own vomit and rot in his own dung. Instead they “are glad when they have done evil and rejoice in most wicked things.” “Being filled with all iniquity malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murders, contention, deceit, evil, being whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, irreverent, proud, haughty, plotters of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy.” This world is full of such and worse; it abounds in heretics and schismatics [Christians who reject the authority of the pope], traitors and tyrants, simonists [buyers or sellers of spiritual offices or sacred items] and hypocrites; the ambitious and the covetous, robbers and brigands, violent men, extortionists, usurers, forgers; the impious and sacrilegious, the betrayers and liars, the flatterers and deceivers; gossips, tricksters, gluttons, drunkards; adulterers, incestuous men, deviates, and the dirty-­‐minded; the lazy, the careless, the vain, the prodigal, the impetuous, the irascible, the impatient and inconstant; poisoners, fortune tellers, perjurers, cursers; men who are presumptuous and arrogant, unbelieving and desperate; and finally those ensnared in all vices together. 3 Pope Gregory VII The Dictates of the Pope [Dictatus Papae] (1075*) 1.
2.
3.
4.
That the Roman church was founded by God alone. That the Roman pontiff alone is rightly called universal. That he alone can depose or reinstate bishops. That, in a council his legate, even if a lower grade, is above all bishops, and can pass sentence of deposition against them. 5. That the pope may depose the absent. 6. That, among other things, we ought not to remain in the same house with those excommunicated by him. 7. That for him alone is it lawful, according to the needs of the time, to make new laws, to assemble together new congregations, to make an abbey of a canonry; and, on the other hand, to divide a rich bishopric and unite the poor ones. 8. That he alone may use the imperial insignia. 9. That all princes shall kiss the feet of the pope alone. 10. That his name alone shall be spoken in the churches. 11. That the name applied to him belongs to him alone. 12. That he has the power to depose emperors. 13. That he may be permitted to transfer bishops if need be. 14. That he has power to ordain a clerk of any church he may wish. 15. That he who is ordained by him may preside over another church, but may not hold a subordinate position; and that such a one may not receive a higher grade from any bishop. 16. That no synod shall be called a general one without his order. 17. That no chapter and no book shall be considered canonical without his authority. 18. That a decree passed by him may be annulled by no one; and that he may annul the decrees of anyone. 19. That he himself may be judged by no one. 20. That no one shall dare to condemn one who appeals to the apostolic chair. 21. That to the pope should be referred the more important cases of every church. 22. That the Roman church has never erred; nor will it err to all eternity, according to the testimony of the holy Scriptures. 23. That the Roman pontiff, if he have been canonically ordained, is undoubtedly made a saint by the merits of St. Peter; St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, bearing witness, and many holy fathers agreeing with him. As is contained in the decrees of St. Symmachus the pope. 24. That, by his command and consent, it may be lawful for subjects may accuse their rulers. 25. That he may depose and reinstate bishops without assembling a synod. 26. That no one can be regarded as catholic who does not agree with the Roman church. 27. That he has the power to absolve subjects from their fealty [oath of fidelity] to wicked rulers. dictates – decrees, orders, directives annul – cancel, terminate, rescind 4 Pope Innocent III “Royal Power Derives Its Dignity From the Pontifical Authority” (c.1200) The Creator of the universe set up two great luminaries in the firmament of heaven; the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night. In the same way for the firmament of the universal Church, which is spoken of as heaven, he appointed two great dignities; the greater to bear rule over souls (those being, as it were, days), the lesser to bear rule over bodies (those being, as it were, nights). These dignities are the pontifical authority and the royal power. Furthermore, the moon derives her light from the sun, and is in truth inferior to the sun in both size and quality, in position as well as effect. In the same way the royal power derives its dignity from the pontifical authority: and the more closely it cleaves to the sphere of the authority the less is the light with which it is adorned; the further it is removed, the more it increases in splendor. The Hereford Map (c. 1290) 5 The Medieval World-­‐View “The modern world is linked in many ways to the Middle Ages. European cities, the middle class, the state system, English common law, representative government, universities – all had their origins in the Middle Ages. Despite these elements of continuity, the characteristic outlook of medieval people is markedly different from that of people today. Whereas science and secularism shape the modern point of view, religion was the foundation of the Middle Ages. Christian beliefs as formulated by the church made life and death purposeful and intelligible. Medieval thinkers drew a sharp distinction between a higher, spiritual world and a lower, material world. God, the creator of the universe and the source of moral values, dwelled in the higher celestial world, an abode of perfection. The universe was organized as a hierarchy with God at the summit and hell at the other extremity. Earth, composed of base matter, stood just above hell. By believing in Christ and adhering to God’s commandments as taught by the church, people could overcome their sinful nature and ascend to God’s world. Sinners, on the other hand, would descend to hell, a fearful place the existence of which medieval people never doubted. Scholastic philosophy, which sought to demonstrate through reason the truth of Christian doctrines, and the Gothic cathedral, which seemed to soar from the material world to heaven, were two great expressions of the medieval mind.” -­‐ Perry, Marvin The Sources of the Western Tradition: Vol I. 193-­‐194 The Vanity of This World Why does the world war for glory that’s vain? All its successes wax only to wane; Quickly its triumphs are frittered away, Like vessels the potter casts out of frail clay. All those great noblemen, all those past days, All king’s achievements and all prelate’s praise, All the world’s princes in all their array -­‐ In the flash of an eye comes the end of the play. As well trust to letters imprinted on ice As trust the frail world with its treacherous device Its prizes a fraud and its values all wrong Who would put faith in its promise for long? Short is the season of all earthly fame; Man’s shadow, man’s pleasure, they both are the same, And the prizes eternal he gives in exchange For the pleasure that leads to a land that is strange. Rather in hardship’s uncertain distress Trust that in this world’s unhappy success; With dreams and with shadows it leads men astray, A cheat in our work and a cheat at our play. Food for the worms, dust and ashes, O why, Bubble on water, be lifted so high? Do good unto all men as long as ye may; Ye know not your life will last after to-­‐day. Where now is Samson’s invincible arm, And where is Jonathan’s sweet-­‐natured charm? Once-­‐famous Solomon, where now is he Or the fair Absolom, so good to see? This pride of the flesh which so dearly ye prize, Like the flower of the grass (says the Scripture), it dies Or as the dry leaf which the wind whirls away, Man’s life is swept out from the light of the day. Whither is Caesar the great Emperor fled, Or Croesus whose show on his table was spread? Cicero’s eloquence now is in vain; Where’s Aristotle’s magnificent brain? Call not your own what one day ye may lose; The world will take back all it gives you to use. Let your hearts be in heaven, your thoughts in the skies; Happy is he who the world can despise. *This poem was written in Latin by an unknown thirteenth-­‐
century author
6 Magna Carta (1215) In the original charter the clauses are not numbered, and the text reads continuously. This translation sets out to convey the sense rather than the precise wording of the original Latin. JOHN, by the grace of God King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, to his archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justices, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants, and to all his officials and loyal subjects, Greeting. KNOW THAT BEFORE GOD, for the health of our soul and those of our ancestors and heirs, to the honour of God, the exaltation of the holy Church, and the better ordering of our kingdom, at the advice of our reverend fathers Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, and cardinal of the holy Roman Church, … [and all the other archbishops and subdeacons], and Brother Aymeric master of the knighthood of the Temple in England, … [and notable earls, constables], and other loyal subjects: 1. First that we have granted to God, and by this present charter have confirmed for us our heirs in perpetuity that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired. . . . 12. No "scutage" or "aid" may be levied in our kingdom without its general consent, unless it is for the ransom of our person, to make our eldest son a knight, and (once) to marry our eldest daughter. For these purposes only a reasonable "aid" may be levied. 20. For [a] trivial offence, a free man shall be fined only in proportion to the degree of his offence, and for a serious offence correspondingly, but not so heavily as to deprive him of his livelihood. 39. No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. 40. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice. 52. To any man whom we have deprived or dispossessed of lands, castles, liberties, or rights, without the lawful judgment of his equals, we will at once restore these. In cases of dispute the matter shall be resolved by the judgment of the twenty-­‐five barons referred to below in the clause for securing the peace. 61. Since we have granted all these things for God, for the better ordering of our kingdom, and to allay the discord that has arisen between us and our barons, and since we desire that they shall be enjoyed in their entirety, with lasting strength, forever, we give and grant to the barons the following security: The barons shall elect twenty-­‐five of their number to keep, and cause to be observed with all their might, the peace and liberties granted and confirmed to them by this charter. If we, our chief, justice, our officials, or any of our servants offend in any respect against any man, or transgress any of the articles of the peace or of this security, and the offence is made known to four of the said twenty-­‐five barons, they shall come to us … to declare it and claim immediate redress. If we, or in our absence abroad the chief justice, make no redress within forty days … the four barons shall refer the matter to the rest of the twenty-­‐five barons, who may … assail us in every way possible, with the support of the whole community of the land, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, or anything else saving only our own person and those of the queen and our children, until they have secured such redress as they have determined upon. . . . The twenty-­‐five barons shall swear to obey all the above articles faithfully, and shall cause them to be obeyed by others to the best of their power. . . . It is accordingly our wish and command that the English Church shall be free, and that men in our kingdom shall have and keep all these liberties, rights, and concessions, well and peaceably in their fullness and entirety for them and their heirs. . . . Both we and the barons have sworn that all this shall be observed in good faith and without deceit . . . . Given by our and in the meadow that is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June in the seventeenth year of our reign [June 15, 1215]. 7 Geoffrey Chaucer “The Prologue” The Canterbury Tales (1380) Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (c.1380s-­‐1390s) offer a glimpse into life during the late medieval period in Europe (The High Middle Ages). The tales revolve around 29 pilgrims on their way to Canterbury Cathedral whom tell each other tales to pass the time. Notable for being written in the English vernacular (the language of the common man), The Canterbury Tales was meant to be read out loud for one and all in public places (squares, halls, and taverns). In the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer introduces the reader to all the main characters. Five of those characters are listed below: There was a Knight, a most distinguished man, Who from the day on which he first began To ride abroad had followed chivalry, Truth, honor, generousness, and courtesy. He had done nobly in his sovereign’s war As well in Christian as heathen places, And ever honored for his noble graces…. There was a Merchant with a forking beard And motley dress; high on his horse he sat, Upon his head a Flemish beaver hat And on his feet daintily buckled boots…. He was an expert at currency exchange. This estimable Merchant so had set His wits to work, to none he was in debt, He was so stately in negotiation, Loan, bargain, and commercial obligation… The rule of Maurus or Saint Benedict, By reason it was old and somewhat strict, This said [the] Monk let such old things slowly pace And followed new-­‐world manners in their place. He cared not for that text a clean-­‐plucked hen Which holds that hunters are not holy men…. I saw his sleeves were purled at the hand With fur of grey, the finest in the land; Also, to fasten hood beneath his chin, He had of good wrought gold a curious pin…. His boots were soft; his horse of great estate. Now certainly he was a fine prelate: He was not pale as some poor wasted ghost. A fat swan loved he best of any roast. There was a good man of religion, too, A country Parson, poor, I warrant you; But rich he was in holy thought and work. He was a learned man also, a clerk, Who Christ's own gospel truly sought to preach; Devoutly his parishioners would he teach…. Going afoot, and in his hand, a stave. This fine example to his flock he gave…. Nor haughty in his speech, nor too divine, But in all teaching prudent and benign. To lead folk into Heaven but by stress Of good example was his busyness…. Him he reproved, and sharply, as I know. There is nowhere a better priest, I trow. [The Plowman] was an honest worker, good and true, Living in peace and perfect charity…. For steadily about his work he went To trash his corn, to dig or to manure Or make a ditch; and he would help the poor For love of Christ and never take a penny If he could help it, and, as prompt as any, He paid his tithes in full when they were due…. 8 Geoffrey Chaucer “The Miller’s Prologue” The Canterbury Tales (1380) The Words between the Host and the Miller Now when the knight had thus his story told, In all the rout there was nor young nor old But said it was a noble story, well Worthy to be kept in mind to tell; And specially the gentle folk, each one. Our host, he laughed and swore, "So may I run, But this goes well; unbuckled is the mail; Let's see now who can tell another tale: For certainly the game is well begun. Now shall you tell, sir monk, if't can be done, Something with which to pay for the knight's tale." The miller, who with drinking was all pale, So that unsteadily on his horse he sat, He would not take off either hood or hat, Nor wait for any man, in courtesy, But all in Pilate's voice began to cry, And by the Arms and Blood and Bones he swore, "I have a noble story in my store, With which I will requite the good knight's tale." Our host saw, then, that he was drunk with ale, And said to him: "Wait, Robin, my dear brother, Some better man shall tell us first another: Submit and let us work on profitably." "Now by God's soul," cried he, "that will not I! For I will speak, or else I'll go my way." Our host replied: "Tell on, then, till doomsday! You are a fool, your wit is overcome." "Now hear me," said the miller, "all and some! But first I make a protestation round That I'm quite drunk, I know it by my sound: And therefore, if I slander or mis-­‐say, Blame it on ale of Southwark, so I pray; For I will tell a legend and a life Both of a carpenter and of his wife, And how a scholar set the good wright's cap." The reeve replied and said: "Oh, shut your trap, Let be your ignorant drunken ribaldry! It is a sin, and further, great folly To asperse any man, or him defame, And, too, to bring upon a man's wife shame. There are enough of other things to say." This drunken miller spoke on in his way, And said: "Oh, but my dear brother Oswald, The man who has no wife is no cuckold. But I say not, thereby, that you are one: Many good wives there are, as women run, And ever a thousand good to one that's bad, As well you know yourself, unless you're mad. Why are you angry with my story's cue? I have a wife, begad, as well as you, Yet I'd not, for the oxen of my plow, Take on my shoulders more than is enow, By judging of myself that I am one; I will believe full well that I am none. A husband must not be inquisitive Of God, nor of his wife, while she's alive. So long as he may find God's plenty there, For all the rest he need not greatly care." 9 What should I say, except this miller rare And blame not me if you do choose amiss. He would forgo his talk for no man there, The miller was a churl, you well know this; But told his churlish tale in his own way: So was the reeve, and many another more, I think I'll here re-­‐tell it, if I may. And ribaldry they told from plenteous store. And therefore, every gentle soul, I pray Be then advised, and hold me free from blame; That for God's love you'll hold not what I say Men should not be too serious at a game. Evilly meant, but that I must rehearse, HERE ENDS THE PROLOGUE All of their tales, the better and the worse, Or else prove false to some of my design. Therefore, who likes not this, let him, in fine, Turn over page and choose another tale: For he shall find enough, both great and small, Words of note Of stories touching on gentility, And holiness, and on morality; •
former carpenter •
•
•
asperse: attack or criticize the reputation or integrity of ribaldry: referring to sexual matters in an amusingly rude or irreverent way wright: of a profession (in this case a carpenter) Reeve: manager of a large estate; •
churlish: rude and crass 10 The Renaissance Pico della Mirandola Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486) In the opening section of the ‘Oration’, Pico declares that unlike other creatures, human beings have not been assigned a fixed place in the universe. Our destiny is not determined by anything outside of us. Rather, God has bestowed upon us a unique distinction: the liberty [free will] to determine the form and value our lives shall acquire. The notion that people have the power to shape their own lives is a key element in the emergence of the modern outlook (Perry 288). The following is an excerpt of the ‘Oration’: “I have read in the records of the Arabians, revered Fathers, that Abdala the Saracen, when questioned as to what on this stage of the world, as it were, could be seen most worthy of wonder, replied: “There is nothing to be seen more wonderful than man.” In agreement with this opinion is the saying of Hermes Trismegistus: “A great miracle … is man.“ .… God the Father, the supreme Architect, had already built this cosmic home we behold, the most sacred temple of His godhead, by the laws of His mysterious wisdom. … But, when the work was finished, the Craftsman kept wishing that there were someone to ponder the plan of so great a work, to love its beauty, and to wonder at its vastness. Therefore, when everything was done (as Moses and Timaeus bear witness), He finally took thought concerning the creation of man. [God created man] constrained by no limits, in accordance with thine own free will, … [so that] thou mayest fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer. Thou shalt have the power to degenerate into the lower forms of life, which are brutish. Thou shalt [also] have the power, out of thy soul’s judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, which are divine. O supreme generosity of God the Father …! To [man] it is granted to have whatever he chooses, to be whatever he wills. Beasts as soon as they are born (so says Lucilius) bring with them from their mother’s womb all they will ever possess. … On man when he came into life the Father conferred the seeds of all kinds and the germs of every way of life. Whatever seeds each man cultivates will grow to maturity and bear in him their own fruit. If they be vegetative, he will be like a plant. If sensitive, he will become brutish. If rational, he will grow into a heavenly being. If intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God. And if, happy in the lot of no created thing, he withdraws into the center of his own unity, his spirit, made one with God, in the solitary darkness of God, who is set above all things, shall surpass them all.” 11 William Shakespeare Macbeth (1611) By the end of the play’s first act, the nobleman Macbeth is victorious and yet troubled, for after winning glory on the battlefield, he stumbles across three witches who prophesize [foretell] that he would be King of Scotland. While Macbeth was initially suspicious of the witches (who vanish after telling their prophesies), after two of the prophesies come true, Macbeth begins to wonder if he could actually become King. Importantly, he wonders if it will just happen or if he must take matters into his own hands, and at the end of Act I, the audience finds Macbeth talking to himself out loud [in drama, this is called a soliloquy] concerning the prophesy and contemplating killing his kinsman and lord, King Duncan. While he is not completely certain of whether or not he is going to do the deed, pay close attention to how Macbeth weighs the ‘pros and cons’ of killing King Duncan and his final agonizing thought before being interrupted by Lady Macbeth coming into the room. “If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well So clear in his great office, that his virtues It were done quickly. If th’assassination Will plead like angels, trumpet-­‐tongued against Could trammel up the consequence and catch The deep damnation of his taking-­‐off. With his surcease, success, that but this blow And pity, like a naked newborn babe Might be the be-­‐all and the end-­‐all – here, Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin horsed But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, Upon the sightless couriers of the air, We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, We still have judgement here that we but teach That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur Bloody instructions, which being taught, return To prick the sides of my intent, but only To plague th’inventor. This even-­‐handed justice Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself Commends th’ingredience of our poisoned chalice And falls on th’other – “ (I:7:1-­‐28) To our own lips. He’s here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, trammel up the consequence catch the result surcease death, killing jump the life to come referring to Heaven’s punishment faculties powers as king cherubin angelic children Strong both against the deed; then, as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 12 Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince (1513/1532) “Turning away from the religious orientation of the Middle Ages, Renaissance thinkers discussed the human condition in secular terms and opened up possibilities for thinking about moral and political problems in new ways. Thus, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-­‐1527), a Florentine statesman and political theorist, broke with medieval political theory. Medieval political thinkers held that the ruler derived power from God and had a religious obligation to rule in accordance with God’s precepts. Machiavelli, though, ascribed no divine origin to kingship, nor did he attribute events to the mysterious will of God; and he explicitly rejected the principle that kings should adhere to Christian moral teachings. For Machiavelli, the state was a purely human creation. Successful kings or princes, he asserted, should be concerned only with preserving and strengthening the state’s power and must ignore questions of good and evil, morality and immorality. Machiavelli did not assert that religion was supernatural in origin and rejected the prevailing belief that Christian morality should guide political life. For him, religion’s value derived from other factors: a ruler could utilize religion to unite his subjects and to foster obedience to law” (Marvin Perry. Sources of the Western Tradition: Volume II. pg. 10). SELECTED QUOTES: The following are selected quotes from Machiavelli’s The Prince. In the space between each quote, try to derive the central meaning of what he is arguing and at the end write a brief statement about what you think ‘Machiavellian politics’ is all about. Reference to our main textbook may be helpful. “For how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather learn to bring about his own ruin than his preservation.” “Therefore it is necessary for a prince, who wished to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good.” “A prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty….” “It is much safer to be feared than loved….” “For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain….” “[A] prince should make himself feared….” “…there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force….” “And it must be understood that a prince, and especially a new prince, cannot observe all those things which are considered good in men, being often obliged, in order to maintain the state, to act against faith, against charity, against humanity, and against religion.” “… [The] end justifies the means. Let a prince therefore aim at conquering and maintaining the state, and the means will always be judged honorable and praised by everyone….” Final analysis: Write a short summary of ‘Machiavellian politics’. In other words, what is Machiavelli’s outlook on mankind (the nature of man) and thus, how should one rule a state as a prince? 13 Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince (1513/1532) “It now remains to be seen what are the methods and rules for a prince as regards his subjects and friends. ….But my intention being to write something of use to those who understand, it appears to me more proper to go to the real truth of the matter than to its imagination; and many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather learn to bring about his own ruin than his preservation.” “A man who wished to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.” I say that every prince must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. He must, however, take care not to misuse this mercifulness. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel, but his cruelty had brought order to the Romagna, united it, and reduced it to peace and fealty. If this is considered well, it will be seen that he was really much more merciful than the Florentine people, who, to avoid the name of cruelty, allowed Pistoia to be destroyed. A prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and faithful; for, with a very few examples, he will be more merciful than those who, from excess of tenderness, allow disorders to arise, from whence spring bloodshed and rapine; for these as a rule injure the whole community, while the executions carried out by the prince injure only individuals. “From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved more than feared, or feared more than loved. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved if one of the two has to be wanting. For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain … [and because of this] men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligation which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails. Still, a prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred. … And when he is obliged to take the life of any one, let him do so when there is a proper justification and manifest reason for it; but above all he must abstain from taking the property of others, for men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.” You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second. It is therefore necessary for a prince to know well how to use both the beast and the man…. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves. Those that wish to be only lions do not understand this. Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one; but as they are bad, so you are not bound to keep faith with them. Thus it well to seem merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, religious, and also to be so; but you must have the mind so disposed that when it is needful to be otherwise you may be able to change to the opposite qualities. And it must be understood that a prince, and especially a new prince, cannot observe all those things which are considered good in men, being often obliged, in order to maintain the state, to act against faith, against charity, against humanity, and against religion. And, therefore, he must have a mind disposed to adapt itself according to the wind, and as the variations of fortune dictate, and, as I said before, not deviate from what is good, if possible, but be able to do evil if constrained.” “A prince must take great care that nothing goes out of his mouth which is not full of the above-­‐named five qualities, and, to see and hear him, he should seem to be all mercy, faith, integrity, humanity, and religion. And nothing is more necessary than to seem to have this last quality…. Everybody sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are, and [thus] … the end justifies the means. Let a prince therefore aim at conquering and maintaining the state, and the means will always be judged honorable and praised by everyone…. A certain prince of the present time, whom it is well not to name, never does anything but preach peace and good faith, but he is really a great enemy to both, and either of them, had he observed them, would have lost him state or reputation on many occasions. 14 The Protestant Reformation Martin Luther Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate (1520) The Romanists [traditional Catholics loyal to the papacy] have very cleverly built three walls around themselves. Hitherto they have protected themselves by these walls in such a way that no one has been able to reform them. As a result, the whole of Christendom has fallen abominably. In the first place, when pressed by the temporal power they have made decrees and declared that the temporal power had no jurisdiction over them, but that, on the contrary, the spiritual power is above the temporal. In the second place, when the attempt is made to reprove [criticize] them with the Scriptures, they raise the objection that only the pope may interpret the Scriptures. In the third place, if threatened with a council, their story is that no one may summon a council but the pope. In this way they have cunningly stolen our three rods from us, that they may go unpunished. They have [settled] themselves within the safe stronghold of these three walls … [and] have so intimidated kings and princes with this technique that they believe it would be an offense against God not to be obedient to the Romanists in all their knavish and ghoulish deceits. The Freedom of a Christian (1520) Faith alone is the saving and efficacious use of the Word of God, according to Rom. 10:9: “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Furthermore, “Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified” (Rom. 10:4). Again, in Rom. 1:17, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” The Word of God cannot be received and cherished by any works whatever but only by faith. Therefore it is clear that, as the soul needs only the Word of God for its life and righteousness, so it is justified by faith alone and not any works; for it if could be justified by anything else, it would not need to Word, and consequently it would not need faith. … They (the Roman Catholic Popes) want to be the only masters of Scriptures … They assume sole authority for themselves and would persuade us … that the Pope, whether he be bad or good, cannot err in matters of faith…. They cannot produce a letter to prove that the interpretation of Scripture … belongs to the Pope alone. They themselves have usurped this power … and though they allege that this power was conferred on Peter when the keys were given to him, it is plain enough that the keys were not given to Peter alone but to the entire body of Christians (Matt. 16:19; 18:18)…. Every baptized Christian is a priest already, not by appointment or ordination from the Pope or any other man, but because Christ Himself has begotten him as a priest … in baptism…. The Pope has usurped the term “priest” for his anointed and tonsured hordes [clergy and monks]. By this means they have separated themselves from the ordinary Christians and have called themselves uniquely the “clergy of God”, God’s heritage and chosen people who must help other Christians by their sacrifice and worship…. Therefore the Pope argues that he alone has the right and power to ordain and do what he will…. 15 While Martin Luther set the Protestant Reformation in motion and provided its most powerful and destructive attacks against the Roman Church, John Calvin’s “The Institutes of the Christian Religion” was a far-­‐reaching primer on how to develop, organize, and operate Protestant churches. In addition to this very practical and pragmatic advice, Calvin also promoted the concept of predestination and the importance of creating a theocratic state. Among the various Protestant faiths that derive from Calvinism, English Puritans are among the most well-­‐known an influential. John Calvin The Institutes of the Christian Religion (1535) The covenant of life is not preached equally to all, and among those to whom it is preached, does not always meet with the same reception. … To many this seems a perplexing subject, because they deem it most incongruous that of the great body of mankind some should be predestinated to salvation, and others to destruction… … By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one of other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death…. … We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction. …. Hence, what Christ said to his disciples is found to be universally applicable to all believers, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you” (John xv. 16). Here he not only excludes past merits, but declares that they had nothing in themselves for which they could be chosen, except in so far as [God’s] mercy anticipated. … [T]he Apostle [Paul] does on to show, that the adoption of Jacob proceeded not on works but on the calling of God. In works he makes no mention of past or future, but distinctly opposes them to the calling of God… the only things to be considered is what pleased God, not what men furnished for themselves…. We learn from the Apostle’s words, that the salvation of believers is founded entirely on the decree of divine election, that the privilege is procured not by works but free calling…. … We must indeed hold, when he affirms that he knows whom he has chosen, first, that some individuals of the human race are denoted; and, secondly, that they are not distinguished by the quality of their virtues, but by a heavenly decree. Hence it follows, that since Christ makes himself the author of election, none excel by their own strength or industry. 16 Religious and Political Upheaval During this time of religious upheaval in the German provinces, economic and political problems erupted in a series of rebellions as knights, peasants, and lower-­‐class workers attempted to revolt against the nobility, urban upper classes, and the church. While the ruling nobles (lords) crushed the knight’s rebellion of 1524 and the peasant rebellion of 1525 viciously, many rebellious leaders had thought that they might gain the support and endorsement of the newly declared heretic, Martin Luther, who had previously attacked the abuses of the ruling nobles and the clergy. They would be mistaken as Luther, though he actually pointed out the just complaints of the peasants, did not intend to create a social rebellion and reacted forcefully against the peasants in support of the state. The Twelve Articles (1524) Peace to the Christian reader and the grace of God through Christ: The articles below shall … serve, in the first place, to remove [criticism] from the word of God and, in the second place, to give a Christian excuse for the disobedience or even the revolt of the entire Peasantry…. The Second Article: According as the just tithe [a tax paid in grain] is established by the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New, we are ready and willing to pay …[for] the word of God plainly provides that in giving … to God and distributing to his people the services of a pastor are required. … The small tithes, whether ecclesiastical or lay, we will not pay at all … [because it] is of man’s invention. The Third Article: It has been the custom hitherto for men to hold us as their own property, which is pitiable enough, considering that Christ has delivered and redeemed us all, without exception, by the shedding of his precious blood, the lowly as well as the great. Accordingly it is consistent with Scripture that we should be free and should wish to be so … [and we] therefore take it for granted that you will release us from serfdom as true Christians, unless it be shown us from the gospel that we are serfs…. Martin Luther: Against the Thievish, Murderous Hordes of Peasants (1525) It does not help the peasants when they pretend that according to Genesis 1 and 2 all things were created free and common, and that all of us alike have been baptized. For under the New Testament, Moses does not count [and Christ stated] … “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s [and to God the things that are God’s]” …. They did not demand, as do our insane peasants … that the goods of others … be common. … Fine Christians they are! I think there is not a devil left in hell; they have all gone into the peasants…. … I will not oppose a ruler who, even though he does not tolerate the gospel, will smite and punish these peasants … he is within his rights, since the peasants are not contending any longer from the gospel, but have become faithless, perjured, disobedient, rebellious murderers, robbers, and blasphemers, whom even a heathen ruler has the right and authority to punish. 17 As the Reformation spread out from Germany, religious passions culminated in social upheaval and violence as vicious religious persecution increased and intensified. Because a ruler’s religious preference largely determined whether the state and its people remained Catholic or Protestant (at this point Lutheran or Calvinist), the success or failure of the Protestant and Catholic reformers depended upon the support of the ruling political forces of Europe. Thus, the Reformation was not just a religious matter but quickly took on a political character as a challenge to church authority was often closely intertwined with a challenge to temporal authority. Chronicle of King Francis I: Burning of Protestants in Paris (1535) The most Christian king, our sovereign lord, knowing that certain damnable heresies and blasphemies swarmed in his kingdom and desiring with the aid of God to extirpate the same decreed that a sacred procession should be held in this city of Paris on the twenty-­‐first day of January 1535. The streets were adorned with gorgeous tapestries and the crowds held in order by archers in uniform. First came the crosses and banners of the Diocese of Paris followed by citizens and merchants carrying torches, then the four monastic orders with relics, next priests and canons of the parochial churches with relics, and the monks of Saint Martin…. Among these relics were the true cross of Christ and the crown of thorns and the lance that pierced his side. Then came a great number of the archbishops and bishops … archdeacons … [and following] the Holy Sacrament came the King alone with bare head carrying a lighted taper. After him marched Monseigneur the Cardinal of Lorraine, then all the princes and knights and members of the Parlement, etc. …. After dinner the King made a speech against the execrable and damnable opinions dispersed throughout his kingdom. While the King, the Queen, and their court were with the Bishop of Paris, in to their presence were brought six of the said heretics and in front of the church of Notre Dame they were burned alive. A number of other heretics went to the stake during the days following so that all over Paris one saw gibbets [gallows] by which the people were filled with terror. The Persecution of Anabaptists: The Examination of Elizabeth Dirks (1549) Anabaptists were persecuted by both Catholics and other Protestant groups for their radical views. While some Anabaptists organized armed religious uprisings, the majority of Anabaptists rejected the use of violence in either supporting their religious views or proselytizing [preaching to gain converts]. In addition, they believed in a separation of religious and temporal authority and rejected ornate/decorative religious rituals and doctrines. EXAMINER: We will make it so tough that you will tell us. Elizabeth: I hope through the grace of God to guard my tongue that I shall not be a traitor…. EXAMINER: What do you mean by the house of the Lord? Don’t you consider our church to be the house of the Lord? Elizabeth: I do not, my Lords. For it is written, “You are the temple of the living God” [II Cor. 6:16]. As God said, “I will dwell with you” (Lev. 26:11). EXAMINER: What do you think of our Mass? Elizabeth: My Lords, I have no faith in your Mass but only in that which is in the Word of God. EXAMINER: What do you believe about the Holy Sacrament? Elizabeth: I have never in my life read in Scripture about a Holy Sacrament, but only of the Supper of the Lord. EXAMINER: Shut your mouth. The devil speaks through it. …. Elizabeth: No, my Lords, I speak with a free tongue. This was her first hearing. Afterwards, they took her again before the council and brought her to the torture room. Screws were driven into her thumbs, fingernails, and legs, but she refused to denounce her friends and recant [take back] what she had said. Condemned to death by the Catholic council of Holland, Elizabeth was drowned in a sack on March 27, 1549. 18 King Henry VIII / English Parliament Act of Supremacy (1534) Albeit the king's Majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the supreme head of the Church of England, and so is recognized by the clergy of this realm in their convocations, yet nevertheless, for corroboration and confirmation thereof, and for increase of virtue in Christ's religion within this realm of England, and to repress and extirpate all errors, heresies, and other enormities and abuses heretofore used in the same, be it enacted, by authority of this present Parliament, that the king, our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England, called Anglicans Ecclesia; and shall have and enjoy, annexed and united to the imperial crown of this realm, as well the title and style thereof, as all honors, dignities, preeminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities to the said dignity of the supreme head of the same Church belonging and appertaining; and that our said sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall have full power and authority from time to time to visit, repress, redress, record, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, offenses, contempts and enormities, whatsoever they be, which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed, repressed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained, or amended, most to the pleasure of Almighty God, the increase of virtue in Christ's religion, and for the conservation of the peace, unity, and tranquility of this realm; any usage, foreign land, foreign authority, prescription, or any other thing or things to the contrary hereof notwithstanding. corroboration – confirmation, verification, support extirpate – to remove, get rid of, cleanse heresies – profanations, deviations, unorthodoxies enormities – horrors, monstrosities, wickedness sovereign – supreme, dominant, self-­‐governing, autonomous 19 Queen Elizabeth ‘Tilbury Speech’ (1588) Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533-­‐1603) was the daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and was known as the Virgin Queen or Good Queen Bess. She was 25 years old when she became Queen and ruled England for 45 years until age 69. Throughout the 1500s, the ongoing rivalry between England and Spain over control of trade in the New World became further complicated by the religious tensions between a Protestant England and a Catholic Spain. In 1588, King Philip II of Spain decided to settle both issues by invading and conquering England and assembled a huge fleet of warships known as 'The Spanish Armada'. During the nine-­‐day battle, the smaller, more maneuverable English ships met the Spanish Armada and inflicted terrible losses. The Spanish ships that escaped the English ran into bad weather and only a few returned to Spain. Following the defeat of the armada, England became the dominant world power and remained so for centuries. Below are the words Elizabeth spoke when she visited her troops in the field as they prepared for battle. "My loving people, we have been persuaded by some, that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear; I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects. And therefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down, for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even the dust. I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms: to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble and worthy subject; not doubting by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and by your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over the enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people." 20 King Henry IV The Edict of Nantes (1598) Henry, By the Grace of God, King of France, and Navarre, To all Present, and to Come, greeteth. Among the infinite Mercies that God hath pleased to bestow upon us, that most Signal and Remarkable is, his having given us Power and Strength not to yield to the dreadful Troubles, Confusions, and Disorders, which were found at our coming to this Kingdom, divided into so many Parties and Factions, that the most Legitimate was almost the least, enabling us with Constancy in such manner to oppose the Storm, as in the end to surmount it, reducing [France] to Peace…. [Now that] all Hostility and Wars through the Kingdom being now ceased, and we hope he will also prosper us in our other affairs, which remain to be composed, and that by this means we shall arrive at the establishment of a good Peace. . . . For this cause, acknowledging this affair to be of the greatest importance, and worthy of the best consideration, after having considered the papers of complaints of our [Catholic] subjects, and [those] … of the Reformed Religion … we have upon the whole judged it necessary to give to all our said Subjects one general Law, Clear, Pure, and Absolute, by which they shall be regulated … and having had no other regard in this deliberation than solely the Zeal we have to the service of God, praying that he would henceforward render to all our subjects a durable and Established peace. Upon which we implore and expect from his divine bounty the same protection and favour, as [God] hath alwayes visibly bestowed upon this Kingdom .. . . 6. And not to leave any occasion of trouble and difference among our Subjects, we have permitted and do permit to those of the Reformed Religion, to live and dwell in all the Cities and places of this our Kingdom and Countreys under our obedience, without being inquired after, vexed [troubled by], molested, or compelled to do any thing in Religion, contrary to their Conscience, … [(7) and have] the exercise of the said Religion … be allowed there…. 9. We permit also to those of the said Religion to hold, and continue the Exercise of the same in all the Cities and Places under our obedience, where it hath by them been Established and made publick by many and divers times, in the Year 1586, and in 1597, until the end of the Month of August, notwithstanding all Decrees and Judgments whatsoever to the contrary. . . . 16. Following the second Article of the Conference of Nerat, we grant to those of the said Religion power to build Places [churches] for the Exercise of the same, in Cities and Places where it is granted them. . . . 27. To the end to reunited so much the better the minds and good will of our Subjects, as is our intention, and to take away all complaints for the future; We declare all those who make or shall make profession of the said Reformed Religion, to be capable of holding and exercising all Estates, Dignities, Offices, and publick charges whatsoever, Royal, Signioral, or of Cities of our Kingdom, Countreys, Lands, and Lordships under our obedience, notwithstanding all Oaths to the contrary, and to be indifferently admitted and received into the same, and our Court of Parliament and other Judges shall content themselves with informing and inquiring after the lives, manners, Religion and honest Conversation of those that were or shall be preferred to such offices, as well of the one Religion as the other, without taking other Oath of them than for the good and faithful service of the King in the exercise of their Office. . . . 21 The Scientific Revolution Cardinal Bellarmine Letter to Fr. Paolo Antonio Foscarini (April 12, 1615) Cardinals are the highest ranking religious leaders of the Roman Catholic Church below the pontiff, and it is from their members that a Pope is chosen. Father Foscarini was the head of the religious order of the Carmelites and a professor of theology in Calabria, Italy. My Very Reverend Father, I have read with interest the letter in Italian and the essay in Latin in which Your [Reverence] sent me; I thank you for the one and for the other and confess that they are full of intelligence and erudition. You ask for my opinion, and so I shall give it to you, but very briefly, since now you have little time for reading and I for writing. First, . . . to want to affirm that in reality the sun is at the center of the world and only turns on itself without moving from east to west, and the earth … revolves with great speed around the sun … is a very dangerous thing, likely not only to irritate all scholastic philosophers and theologians, but also to harm the Holy Faith by rendering the Holy Scripture false. For your [Reverence] has well shown many ways of interpreting Holy Scripture, but has not applied them to particular cases, without a doubt you would have encountered very great difficulties if you had wanted to interpret all those passages you yourself cited. Second, I say that, as you know, the Council prohibits interpreting Scripture against the common consensus of the Holy Fathers; and if Your [Reverence] wants to read not only the Holy Fathers, but also the modern commentaries on Genesis, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Joshua, you will find all agreeing in the literal interpretation that the sun is in heaven and turns around the earth with great speed, and that the earth is very far from heaven and sits motionless at the center of the world. Consider now, with your sense of prudence, whether the Church can tolerate giving Scripture a meaning contrary to the Holy Fathers and to all the Greek and Latin commentators. Nor can one answer that this is not a matter of faith, since if it is not a matter of faith “as regards the topic”, it is a matter of faith “as regards the speaker”; and so it would be heretical to say that Abraham did not have two children and Jacob twelve, as well as to say that Christ was not born of a virgin, because both are said by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of the prophets and the apostles. Third, I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun is at the center of the world and the earth in the third heaven, and that the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun, then one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary, and say rather that we do not understand them than that what is demonstrated is false. But I will not believe that there is such a demonstration, until it is shown to me…. And in the case of doubt one must not abandon the Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Holy Fathers. I add that the one who wrote, “The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose, “ was Solomon [King of ancient Israel], who not only spoke inspired by God, but was a man above all others wise and learned in the human sciences and in the knowledge of created things; he received all this wisdom from God; therefore it is not likely that he was affirming something that was contrary to truth already demonstrated or capable of being demonstrated. 22 The First Global Age: Age of Exploration/Discovery King Affonso I Letter to King John of Portugal (1526) Nzinga Mbemba was the son of a Kongo king whom converted to Christianity in 1490 and was renamed Affonso. With the help of the Portuguese, Affonso took over his father’s throne, but his subsequent relationship with Portugal did not turn out the way that he had forseen. Sir, Your Highness of Portugal should know how our Kingdom is being lost in so many ways. This is caused by the excessive freedom given by your officials to the men and merchants who are allowed to come to this Kingdom to set up shops with goods and many things which have been prohibited by us. Many of our vassals, whom we had in obedience, do not comply because they have the things in greater abundance than we ourselves. It was with these things that we had them content and subjected under our jurisdiction, so it is doing a great harm not only to the service of God, but to the security and peace of our Kingdoms and State as well. And we cannot reckon how great the damage is, since the mentioned merchants are taking every day our natives, sons of the land and the sons of our noblemen and vassals and our relatives. The thieves and men of bad conscience grab them wishing to have the things and wares of this Kingdom which they are ambitious of; they grab them and get them to be sold. And so great, Sir, is the corruption and licentiousness that our country is being completely depopulated, and your Highness should not agree with this nor accept it as in your service. And to avoid it we need from those your Kingdoms no more than some priests and a few people to teach in schools, and no other goods except wine and flour for the holy sacrament. That is why we beg of Your Highness to help and assist us in this matter, commanding your factors that they should not send here either merchants or wares, because it is our will in these kingdoms there should not be any trade of slaves nor outlet for them. Concerning what is referred to above, again we beg of Your Highness to agree with it…. Emperor Qianlong Letter from the Celestial Emperor to the 'Barbarian' King (c.1780s) We have perused [read] the text of your state message and the wording expresses your earnestness. From it your sincere humility and obedience can clearly be seen. It is admirable and we full approve…. As to what you have requested in your message, O King, namely to be allowed to send one of your subjects to reside in the Celestial Empire to look after your country’s trade, this does not conform to the Celestial Empire’s ceremonial system, and definitely cannot be done…. Moreover, the territories ruled by the Celestial Empire are vast, and for al lthe envoys of vassal [inferior] states coming to the capital there are definite regulations…. There has never been any precedent for allowing them to suit their own convenience…. Furthermore, there are a great many Western Ocean countries altogether, and not merely your one country. If, like you, O King, they all beg to send someone to reside at the capital, how could we grant their request in every case? It would be absolutely impossible for us to do so. How can we go so far as to change the regulations of the Celestial Empire… because of the request of one man – of you, O King?... We have never valued ingenious articles, nor do we have the slightest need of your country’s manufacturers…. You, O King, should simply act in conformity with our wishes by strengthening your loyalty and swearing perpetual obedience so as to ensure that your country may share the blessings of peace. 23 Clive Ponting A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (1992) ‘The Lessons of Easter Island’ Easter Island is one of the most remote, inhabited places on earth. Only some 150 square miles in area, it lies in the Pacific Ocean, 2,000 miles off the west coast of South America and 1,250 miles from the nearest inhabitable land of Pitcairn Island. At its peak the population was only about 7,000. Yet, despite its superficial insignificance, the history of Easter Island is a grim warning to the world. The Dutch Admiral Roggeveen, onboard the Arena, was the first European to visit the island on Easter Sunday 1722. He found a society in a primitive state with about 3,000 people living in squalid reed huts or caves, engaged in almost perpetual warfare and resorting to cannibalism in a desperate attempt to supplement the meagre food supplies available on the island. During the next European visit in 1770 the Spanish nominally annexed the island but it was so remote, underpopulated and lacking in resources that no formal colonial occupation ever took place. There were a few more brief visits in the late eighteenth century, including one by Captain Cook in 1774. An American ship stayed long enough to carry off twenty-­‐two inhabitants to work as slaves killing seals on Masafuera Island off the Chilean coast. The population continued to decline and conditions on the island worsened: in 1877 the Peruvians removed and enslaved all but 110 old people and children. Eventually the island was taken over by Chile and turned into a giant ranch for 40,000 sheep run by a British company, with the few remaining inhabitants confined to one small village. What amazed and intrigued the first European visitors was the evidence, amongst all the squalor and barbarism, of a once flourishing and advanced society. Scattered across the island were over 600 massive stone statues, on average over twenty feet high. When anthropologists began to consider the history and culture of Easter Island early in the twentieth century they agreed on one thing. The primitive people living in such poverty-­‐stricken and backward conditions when the Europeans first visited the island could not have been responsible for such a socially advanced and technologically complex task as carving, transporting anderecting the statues. Easter Island therefore became a 'mystery'and a wide variety of theories were advanced to explain its history. Some of the more fantastic ideas involved visits by spacemen or lost civilizations on continents that had sunk into the Pacific leaving Easter Island as a remnant. The Norwegian archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl, in his popular book Aku-­‐Aku written in the 1950S, emphasizes the strange aspectsof the island and the mysteries that lay hidden in its history. He argued that the island was first settled from South America and that from there the people inherited a tradition of monumental sculpture and stonework (similar to the great Inca achievements). To account for the decline he introduced the idea that at a late stage other settlers arrived from the west and began a series of wars between the so-­‐called 'long-­‐ears' and the 'short-­‐ears' that destroyed the complex society on the island. While this theory is less extravagant than some of the others that have been put forward it has never been generally accepted by other archaeologists. The history of Easter Island is not one of lost civilisations and esoteric knowledge. Rather it is a striking example of the dependence of human societies on their environment and of the consequences of irreversibly damaging that environment. It is the story of a people who, starting from an extremely limited resource base, constructed one of the most advanced societies in the world for the technology they had available. However, the demands placed on the environment of 24 the island by this development were immense. When it could no longer withstand the pressure, the society that had been painfully built up over the previous thousand years fell with it. The colonisation of Easter Island belongs to the last phase in the long-­‐drawn-­‐out movement of human settlement across the globe. The first people arrived sometime in the fifth century at a period when the Roman empire was collapsing in western Europe, China was still in chaos following the fall of the Han empire two hundred years earlier, India saw the end of the short-­‐lived Gupta empire and the great city of Teotihuacan dominated most of Mesoamerica. They were Polynesians and part of a great process of exploration and settlement across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. The original Polynesians came from south-­‐east Asia and they reached the islands of Tonga and Samoa about 1000 BC. From there they moved further east to the Marquesas Islands about 300 AD and then in two directions, south-­‐east to Easter Island and north to Hawaii in the fifth century. The last phases of the movement were to the Society Islands about 6oo and from there to New Zealand about 800. When this settlement was complete, the Polynesians were the most widely spread people on earth encompassing a huge triangle from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south-­‐west and Easter Island in the south-­‐east-­‐-­‐an area twice the size of the present continental United States. Their long voyages were made in double canoes, joined together by a broad central platform to transport and shelter people, plants, animals and food. These were deliberate colonization missions and they represented considerable feats of navigation and seamanship since the prevailing currents and winds in the Pacific are against west to east travel. When the first people found Easter Island, they discovered a world with few resources. The island was volcanic in origin, but its three volcanoes had been extinct for at least 400 years before the Polynesian settlers arrived. Both temperatures and humidity were high and, although the soil was adequate, drainage was very bad and there were no permanent streams on the island; the only fresh water available was from lakes inside the extinct volcanoes. Because of its remoteness the island had only a few species of plants and animals. There were thirty indigenous species of flora, no mammals, a few insects and two types of small lizard. The waters around the island contained very few fish. The arrival of the first humans did little to improve the situation. The Polynesians in their home islands depended on a very limited range of plants and animals for subsistence: their only domesticated animals were chickens, pigs, dogs and the Polynesian rat and the main crops were yam, taro, breadfruit, banana, coconut and sweet potato. The settlers on Easter Island brought only chickens and rats with them and they soon found that the climate was too severe for semi-­‐tropical plants such as breadfruit and coconut and extremely marginal for the usual mainstays of their diet, taro and yam. The inhabitants were, therefore, restricted to a diet based mainly on sweet potatoes and chickens. The only advantage of this monotonous, though nutritionally adequate, diet was that cultivation of the sweet potato was not very demanding and left plenty of time for other activities. It is not known how many settlers arrived in the fifth century but they probably numbered no more than twenty or thirty at most. As the population slowly increased the forms of social organisation familiar in the rest of Polynesia were adopted. The basic social unit was the extended family, which jointly owned and cultivated the land. Closely related households formed lineages and clans, each of which had its own centre for religious and ceremonial activity. Each clan was headed by a chief who was able to organise and direct activities and act as a focal point for the redistribution of food and other essentials within the clan. It was this form of organisation and the competition (and probably conflict) between the clans that produced both the major achievements of Easter Island society and ultimately its collapse. Settlements were scattered across the island in small clusters of peasant huts with crops grown in open fields. Social activities were centred around separate ceremonial centres, which were occupied for part of the year. The chief monuments were large stone platforms, similar to those found in other parts of Polynesia and known as ahu, which were used for burials, ancestor worship and to commemorate past clan chiefs. What made Easter Island different was that crop production took very little effort and therefore there was plenty of free time which the clan chiefs were able to direct 25 into ceremonial activities. The result was the creation of the most advanced of all the Polynesian societies and one of the most complex in the world for its limited resource base. The Easter Islanders engaged in elaborate rituals and monument construction. Some of the ceremonies involved recitation from the only known Polynesian form of writing called rongorongo, which was probably less a true script and more a series of mnemonic devices. One set of elaborate rituals was based on the bird cult at Orongo, where there are the remains of forty-­‐seven special houses together with numerous platforms and a series of high-­‐relief rock carvings. The crucial centres of ceremonial activity were the ahu. Over 300 of these platforms were constructed on the island, mainly near the coast. The level of intellectual achievement of at least some parts of Easter Island society can be judged by the fact that a number of these ahu have sophisticated astronomical alignments, usually towards one of the solstices or the equinox. At each site they erected between one and fifteen of the huge stone statues that survive today as a unique memorial to the vanished Easter Island society. It is these statues which took up immense amounts of peasant labour. The statues were carved, using only obsidian stone tools, at the quarry at Rano Raraku. They were fashioned to represent in a highly stylised form a male head and torso. On top of the head was placed a 'topknot' of red stone weighing about ten tons from another quarry. The carving was a time-­‐consuming rather than a complex task. The most challenging problem was to transport the statues, each some twenty feet in length and weighing several tens of tons, across the island and the then erect them on top of the ahu. The Easter Islanders' solution to the problem of transport provides the key to the subsequent fate of their whole society. Lacking any draught animals they had to rely on human power to drag the statues across the island using tree trunks as rollers. The population of the island grew steadily from the original small group in the fifth century to about 7,000 at its peak in 1550. Over time the number of clan groups would have increased and also the competition between them. By the sixteenth century hundreds of ahu had been constructed and with them over 600 of the huge stone statues. Then, when the society was at its peak, it suddenly collapsed leaving over half the statues only partially completed around Rano Raraku quarry. The cause of the collapse and the key to understanding the 'mysteries' of Easter Island was massive environmental degradation brought on by deforestation of the whole island. When the first Europeans visited the island in the eighteenth century it was completely treeless apart from a handful of isolated specimens at the bottom of the deepest extinct volcano crater of Rano Kao. However, recent scientific work, involving the analysis of pollen types, has shown that at the time of the initial settlement Easter Island had a dense vegetation cover including extensive woods. As the population slowly increased, trees would have been cut down to provide clearings for agriculture, fuel for heating and cooking, construction material for household goods, pole and thatch houses and canoes for fishing. The most demanding requirement of all was the need to move the large number of enormously heavy statues to ceremonial sites around the island. The only way this could have been done was by large numbers of people guiding and sliding them along a form of flexible tracking made up of tree trunks spread on the ground between the quarry and the aha. Prodigious quantities of timber would have been required and in increasing amounts as the competition between the clans to erect statues grew. As a result by1600 the island was almost completely deforested and statue erection was brought to a halt leaving many stranded at the quarry. The deforestation of the island was not only the death knell for the elaborate social and ceremonial life, it also had other drastic effects on every day life for the population generally. From 1500 the shortage of trees was forcing many people to abandon building houses from timber and live in caves, and when the wood eventually ran out altogether about a century later everyone had to use the only materials left. They resorted to stone shelters dug into the hillsides or flimsy reed huts cut from the vegetation that grew round the edges of the crater lakes. Canoes could no longer be built and only reed boats incapable of long voyages could be made. Fishing was also more difficult because nets had previously been made from the paper mulberry tree (which could also be made into cloth) and that was no longer available. Removal of the tree cover also badly affected the soil of 26 the island, which would have already suffered from a lack of suitable animal manure to replace nutrients taken up by the crops. Increased exposure caused soil erosion and the leaching out of essential nutrients. As a result crop yields declined. The only source of food on the island unaffected by these problems was the chickens. As they became ever more important, they had to be protected from theft and the introduction of stone-­‐built defensive chicken houses can be dated to this phase of the island's history. It became impossible to support 7,000 people on this diminishing resource base and numbers fell rapidly. After 1600 Easter Island society went into decline and regressed to ever more primitive conditions. Without trees, and so without canoes, the islanders were trapped in their remote home, unable to escape the consequences of their self-­‐inflicted, environmental collapse. The social and cultural impact of deforestation was equally important. The inability to erect any more statues must have had a devastating effect on the belief systems and social organisation and called into question the foundations on which that complex society had been built. There were increasing conflicts over diminishing resources resulting in a state of almost permanent warfare. Slavery became common and as the amount of protein available fell the population turned to cannibalism. One of the main aims of warfare was to destroy the ahu of opposing clans. A few survived as burial places but most were abandoned. The magnificent stone statues, too massive to destroy, were pulled down. The first Europeans found only a few still standing when they arrived in the eighteenth century and all had been toppled by the 1830s. When they were asked by the visitors how the statues had been moved from the quarry, the primitive islanders could no longer remember what their ancestors had achieved and could only say that the huge figures had 'walked' across the island. The Europeans, seeing a treeless landscape, could think of no logical explanation either and were equally mystified. Against great odds the islanders painstakingly constructed, over many centuries, one of the most advanced societies of its type in the world. For a thousand years they sustained a way of life in accordance with an elaborate set of social and religious customs that enabled them not only to survive but to flourish. It was in many ways a triumph of human ingenuity and an apparent victory over a difficult environment. But in the end the increasing numbers and cultural ambitions of the islanders proved too great for the limited resources available to them. When the environment was ruined by the pressure, the society very quickly collapsed with it leading to a state of near barbarism. The Easter Islanders, aware that they were almost completely isolated from the rest of the world, must surely have realised that their very existence depended on the limited resources of a small island. After all it was small enough for them to walk round the entire island in a day or so and see for themselves what was happening to the forests. Yet they were unable to devise a system that allowed them to find the right balance with their environment. Instead vital resources were steadily consumed until finally none were left. Indeed, at the very time when the limitations of the island must have become starkly apparent the competition between the clans for the available timber seems to have intensified as more and more statues were carved and moved across the island in an attempt to secure prestige and status. The fact that so many were left unfinished or stranded near the quarry suggests that no account was taken of how few trees were left on the island. The fate of Easter Island has wider implications too. Like Easter Island the earth has only limited resources to support human society and all its demands. Like the islanders, the human population of the earth has no practical means of escape. How has the environment of the world shaped human history and how have people shaped and altered the world in which they live? Have other societies fallen into the same trap as the islanders? For the last two million years humans have succeeded in obtaining more food and extracting more resources on which to sustain increasing numbers of people and increasingly complex and technologically advanced societies. But have they been any more successful than the islanders in finding a way of life that does not fatally deplete the resources that are available to them and irreversibly damage their life support system? 27 Europe circa 16th-­‐17th centuries Cotton Mather ‘The Devil in New England’ (1692) (from The Wonders of The Invisible World) The New-­‐Englanders are a people of God settled in those, which were once the Devil's territories; and it may easily be supposed that the Devil was exceedingly disturbed, when he perceived such a People here accomplishing the Promise of old made unto our Blessed Jesus, That he should have the Utmost parts of the Earth for His Possession. … The Devil thus Irritated, immediately [tried] all sorts of Methods to overturn this poor Plantation: and so much of the Church, as was Fled into this Wilderness, immediately found, The Serpent cast out of his Mouth a Flood for the carrying of it away. I believe, that never were more Satanical Devices used for the [unsettling] of any People under the Sun, than what have been Employ'd for the Extirpation of the Vine which God has here Planted, Casting out the Heathen, and preparing a Room for it, and causing it to take deep Root and fill the Land, so that it sent its Boughs unto the Atlantic Sea Eastward, and its Branches unto the Connecticut River Westward, and the Hills were covered with the shadow thereof. But All those Attempts of Hell, have hitherto been Abortive, …and, Having obtained Help from God, we continue to this Day. Wherefore the Devil is now making one Attempt more upon us; an Attempt more Difficult, more Surprizing, more snarl'd with unintelligible Circumstances than any that we have hitherto Encountered; an Attempt so Critical, that if we get well through, we shall soon enjoy Halcyon Days with all the Vultures of hell Trodden under our Feet. He has wanted his Incarnate Legions to Persecute us, as the People of God have in the other Hemisphere been Persecuted: he has therefore drawn forth his more Spiritual ones to make an [attack] upon us. We have been advised by some Credible Christians yet alive, that a Malefactor, accused of Witchcraft as well as Murder, and Executed in this place more than Forty Years ago, did then give Notice of, An Horrible PLOT against the Country by WITCHCRAFT, and a Foundation of WITCHCRAFT then laid, which if it were not seasonably discovered would probably Blow up, and pull down all the Churches in the Country. And we have now with Horror seen the Discovery of such a Witchcraft! An Army of Devils is horribly broke in upon the place which is the Center, and after a sort, the First-­‐born of our English Settlements; and the Houses of the Good People there are fill'd with the doleful Shrieks of their Children and Servants, Tormented by Invisible Hands, with Tortures altogether preternatural. …[Several] of them have been Convicted of a very Damnable Witchcraft: yea, more than one Twenty have Confessed that they have Signed unto a Book, which the Devil show'd them, and Engaged in his Hellish Design of Bewitching, and Ruining our Land. … Now, by these Confessions 'tis Agreed, That the Devil has made a dreadful Knot of Witches in the Country, and by the help of Witches has dreadfully increased that Knot: That these Witches have driven a Trade of Commissioning their Confederate Spirits, to do all sorts of Mischiefs to the Neighbours, whereupon there have ensued such Mischievous consequences upon the Bodies and Estates of the Neighbourhood, as could not otherwise be accounted for: yea, That at prodigious Witch-­‐meetings, the Wretches have proceeded so far, as to Concert and Consult the Methods of Rooting out the Christian Religion from this Country, and setting up instead of it, perhaps a more gross Diabolism, than ever the World saw before…. 28 Johannes Junius ‘A Confession Of Witchcraft Explained’ (1628) In 1628 Johannes Junius, lord mayor of Bamberg, a city in Bavaria, Germany, was accused of practicing witchcraft. Junius denied the charge and he was tortured. He then confessed to having become a witch and was burned at the stake. The reasons for his confession are revealed in a letter he secretly sent to his daughter. Many hundred thousand good-­‐nights, dearly beloved daughter Veronica. Innocent have I come into prison, innocent have I been tortured, innocent must I die. For whoever comes into the witch prison must become a witch or be tortured until he invents something out of his head and—God pity him—
bethinks him of something. I will tell you how it has gone with me. When I was the first time put to the torture, Dr. Braun, Dr. Kötzendörffer, and two strange doctors were there. Then Dr. Braun asks me, “Kinsman, how come you here?” I answer, “Through falsehood, through misfortune.” “Hear, you,” he says, “you are a witch; will you confess it voluntarily? If not, we’ll bring in witnesses and the executioner for you.” I said “I am no witch, I have a pure conscience in the matter; if there are a thousand witnesses, I am not anxious, but I’ll gladly hear the witnesses.” Now the chancellor’s son was set before me . . . and afterward Hoppfen Elss. She had seen me dance on Haupts-­‐moor. . . . I answered: “I have never renounced God, and will never do it—God graciously keep me from it. F 11 rather bear whatever I must.” And then came also—God in highest Heaven have mercy—the executioner, and put the thumb-­‐ screws on me, both hands bound together, so that the blood ran out at the nails and everywhere, so that for four weeks I could not use my hands, as you can see from the writing. Thereafter they first stripped me, bound my hands behind me, and drew me up in the torture. Then I thought heaven and earth were at an end; eight times did they draw me up and let me fall again, so that I suffered terrible agony. . . . When at last the executioner led me back into the prison, he said to me: “Sir, I beg you, for God’s sake confess something, whether it be true or not. Invent something, for you cannot endure the torture which you will be put to; and, even if you bear it all, yet you will not escape, not even if you were an earl (high nobleman], but one torture will follow after another until you say you are a witch. Not before that,” he said, “will they let you go, as you may see by all their trials, for one is just like another.”. And so I begged, since I was in wretched plight, to be given one day for thought and a priest. The priest was refused me, but the time for thought was given. Now, my dear child, see in what hazard I stood and still stand. I must say that I am a witch, though I am not,—must now renounce God, though I have never done it before... And so I made my confession, . . . but it was all a lie. Now follows, dear child, what I confessed in order to escape that great anguish and bitter torture, which it was impossible for me longer to bear. [He then describes his confession] Now, dear child, here you have all my confession, for which I must die. And they are sheer lies and made-­‐up things, so help me God. For all this I was forced to say through fear of the torture which was threatened beyond what I had already endured. For they never leave off with the torture till one confesses something be he ever so good, he must be a witch. Nobody escapes, though he were an earl. Dear child, keep this letter secret so that people do not find it, else I shall be tortured most piteously and the jailers will be beheaded. So strictly is it forbidden. . . . Dear child, pay this man a dollar. . . . I have taken several days to write this: my hands are both lame. I am in a sad plight….. Good night, for your father Johannes Junius will never see you more. July 24, 1628. [And on the margin of the letter he adds:] Dear child, six have confessed against me at once: the Chancellor, his son, Neudecker, Zaner, Hoffmaisters Ursel, and Hoppfen Elss—all false, through compulsion, as they have all told me, and begged my forgiveness in God’s name before they were executed. They know nothing but good of me. They were forced to say it, just as I myself was…. ∗
29 The Atlantic Slave Trade Stowage of the British Slave Ship ‘Brookes’ Under the Regulated Slave Trade [1788] Magnified detail of ‘slave stowage’: 30 Bartolome de las Casas The Tears of the Indians (1541) IN THE YEAR 1492, the West-­‐Indies were discovered, …. These Countreys are inhabited by such a number of people, as if God had assembled and called together to this place, the greatest part of Mankinde. … This infinite multitude of people was so created by God, as that they were without fraud, without subtilty or malice, to their natural Governours most faithful and obedient. Toward the Spaniards whom they serve, patient, meek and peaceful, and who … live without any hatred or desire of revenge; the people are most delicate and tender, … neither proud nor ambitious. …. To these "quiet Lambs, endued with such blessed qualities," came the Spaniards like most cruel Tygres, Wolves, and Lions, enrag'd with a sharp and tedious hunger; for these forty years past, minding nothing else but the slaughter of these unfortunate wretches, whom with divers kinds of torments neither seen nor heard of before, they have so cruelly and inhumanely butchered, that of three millions of people which Hispaniola it self did contain, there are left remaining alive scarce three hundred persons. …. IN THE ISLAND OF Hispaniola, to which the Spaniards came first, these slaughters and ruines of mankinde took their beginning. They took away their women and children to serve them, though the reward which they gave them was a sad and fatal one. … Being thus broken with so many evils, afflicted with so many torments, and handled so ignominiously, they began at length to believe that the Spaniards were not sent from Heaven. And therefore some of them hid their Children, others their Wives, [and]… began to think what way they might take to expell the Spaniards out of their Countrey. But good God! what sort of Armes had they? such as were as available to offend or defend as bulrushes might be. Which when the Spaniards saw, they came with their Horsemen well armed with Sword and Launce, making most cruel havocks and slaughters among them. Overrunning Cities and Villages, where they spared no sex nor age; neither would their cruelty pity Women with childe, whose bellies they would rip up, taking out the Infant to hew it in pieces. They would often lay wagers who should with most dexterity either cleave or cut a man in the middle, or who could at one blow soonest cut off his head. The children they would take by the feet and dash their innocent heads against the rocks, and when they were fallen into the water, with a strange and cruel derision they would call upon them to swim. Sometimes they would run both Mother and Infant, being in her belly quite through at one thrust. They erected certain Gallowses, that were broad but so low, that the tormented creatures might touch the ground with their feet, upon everyone of which they would hang thirteen persons, blasphemously affirming that they did it in honour of our Redeemer and his Apostles, and then putting fire under them, they burnt the poor wretches alive. Those whom their pity did think fit to spare, they would send away with their hands half cut off, and so hanging by the skin. Thus upbraiding their flight, [said to them:] Go carry letters to those who lye hid in the mountains and are fled from us. …. Of these and other things innumerable I have been an eye-­‐witnesse; Now because there were some [natives] that shun'd like so many rocks the cruelty of a Nation [Spain] so inhumane, so void of piety and love to mankinde, and therefore fled from them to the mountains; therefore they hunted them with their Hounds, whom they bred upand taught to pull down and tear the Indians like beasts: by these Dogs much humane bloud was shed; and because the Indians did now and then kill a Spaniard, taking him at an advantage, as justly they might; therefore the Spaniards made a Law among themselves, that for one Spaniard so slaine, they should kill a hundred Indians. 31 King Ferdinand/Queen Isabella Edict of the Expulsion of Jews [Alhambra Decree] (1492) (1) King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, by the grace of God, King and Queen of [united Spain]….
Salutations and grace.
(2) You know well or ought to know, that whereas we have been informed that in these our
kingdoms there were some wicked Christians who Judaized and apostatized from our holy Catholic
faith, the great cause of which was interaction between the Jews and these Christians, in the [year
1480] …we ordered the separation of the said Jews in all the cities, towns and villages of our
kingdoms and lordships and [commanded] that they be given Jewish quarters and separated places
where they should live, hoping that by their separation the situation would remedy itself.
Furthermore, we procured and gave orders that inquisition should be made in our aforementioned
kingships and lordships, which as you know has for twelve years been made and is being made, and
by many guilty persons have been discovered, as is very well known, and accordingly we are
informed by the inquisitors and by other devout persons, ecclesiastical and secular, that great injury
has resulted and still results, since the Christians have engaged in and continue to engage in social
interaction and communication they have had means and ways they can to subvert and to steal
faithful Christians from our holy Catholic faith and to separate them from it, and to draw them to
themselves and subvert them to their own wicked belief and conviction, …This proved by many
statements and confessions, both from these same Jews and from those who have been perverted and
enticed by them, which has redounded to the great injury, detriment, and opprobrium of our holy
Catholic faith.
(3) … And since we are informed that neither … [separation nor condemnation] against the said
Jews …have been sufficient as a complete remedy to obviate [remove] and correct so great an
opprobrium and offense to the faith and the Christian religion, because every day it is found and
appears that the said Jews increase in continuing their evil and wicked purpose wherever they live
and congregate, and so that there will not be any place where they further offend our holy faith, and
corrupt those whom God has until now most desired to preserve…
(4) Therefore, we… resolve to order the said Jews and Jewesses of our kingdoms to depart and never
to return or come back to them or to any of them. … [And] they shall not dare to return to those
places, nor to reside in them, nor to live in any part of them, neither temporarily on the way to
somewhere else nor in any other manner, under pain that if they do … they incur the penalty of
death…. And we command and forbid that any person or persons of the said kingdoms, of whatever
estate, condition, or dignity that they may be, shall dare to receive, protect, defend, nor hold publicly
or secretly any Jew or Jewess beyond the date of the end of July and from henceforth forever, in their
lands, houses, or in other parts of any of our said kingdoms and lordships, under pain of [social and
economic punishment]….
(5) And so that the said Jews and Jewesses during the stated period of time until the end of the said
month of July … no one shall harm them, nor injure them, no wrong shall be done to them against
justice, in their persons or in their possessions, under the penalty which falls on and is incurred by
those who violate the royal safeguard. ….
(7) Given in our city of Granada, the XXXI day of the month of March, the year of the birth of our
lord Jesus Christ one thousand four hundred and ninety-two years.
[signed]
I, the King,
I, the Queen
32 Jacques Benigne Bossuet (1627-­‐1704) Politics Drawn From the Very Words of Holy Scripture (1707) Third Book, Article II: Royal Authority is Sacred Proposition 1: God establishes kings as his ministers, and reigns through them over the peoples We have already seen that all power is of God. … Rulers then act as the ministers of God and as his lieutenants on earth. It is through them that God exercises his empire. … [Thus] the royal throne is not the throne of a man, but the throne of God himself. The Lord “hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel.” And again, “Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord.” Proposition 2: The person of the king is sacred It appears from all this that the person of the king is sacred, and that to attack him in any way is sacrilege [blasphemy, religious violation]…. Accordingly God calls Cyrus his anointed. “Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him.” Kings should be guarded as holy things, and whosoever neglects to protect them is worthy of death. . . . Proposition 3: One must obey the prince by reason of religion and conscience [morality/ethics] There is something religious in the respect accorded to a prince. The service of God and the respect for kings are bound together. St. Peter unites these two duties when he says, “Fear God. Honor the king.”. . . Proposition 4: Kings should respect their own power, and use it only for the public good But kings, although their power comes from on high, as has been said, should not regard themselves as masters of that power to use it at their pleasure ; . . . they must employ it with fear and self-­‐restraint, as a thing coming from God and of which God will demand an account. “Hear, 0 kings, and take heed, understand… [it] is God who gives you the power. Your strength comes from the Most High, who will question your works and penetrate the depths of your thoughts…” Fourth Book, Article I: Royal Authority is Absolute Proposition 1: The prince need account to no one for what he ordains The royal power is absolute. With the aim of making this truth hateful and insufferable, many writers have tried to confound absolute government with arbitrary government. But no two things could be more unlike…. The prince need render account of his acts to no one…. Proposition 10: The unity of power in the prince on earth is the unity of the power of God God is infinite, God is all. The prince, as prince, is not regarded as a private person: he is a public personage, all the state is in him; the will of all the people is included in his. As all perfection and all strength are united in God, so all the power of individuals is united in the person of the prince. What grandeur that a single man should embody so much! …. The power of God makes itself felt in a moment from one extremity of the earth to another. Royal power works at the same time throughout all the realm. It holds all the realm in position, as God holds the earth. Should God withdraw his hand, the earth would fall to pieces; should the king's authority cease in the realm, all would be in confusion. …. Behold an immense people united in a single person; behold this holy power, paternal and absolute; behold the secret cause which governs the whole body of the state, contained in a single head: you see the image of God in the king, and you have the idea of royal majesty. God is holiness itself, goodness itself, and power itself. In these things lies the majesty of God. In the image of these things lies the majesty of the prince. 33 Thomas Hobbes Leviathan (1651) 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 claim 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 . . . And as to the faculties of the mind . . . men are . . . [more] equal than unequal . . . From this equality of ability, ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our Ends. 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, . . . endeavor to destroy, or subdue one another . . . 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 labor, but also of his life, or liberty . . . So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, Competition; Secondly, Diffidence; Thirdly, Glory. The first maketh men invade for Gain; the second, for Safety; and the third, 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 reflexion in their Kindred, their Friends, their 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 . . . . * * * Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of War, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withall. 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 require 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 . . . 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 them. And Reason suggesteth convenient Articles of Peace, upon which men may be drawn to agreement . . . 34 And because the condition of Man, (as hath been declared in the precedent Chapter) is a condition of War of everyone against everyone; in which case everyone 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 everything 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 . . . . . . If there be no Power erected, or not great enough for our security, every man will and may lawfully rely on his own strength and art, for caution against all other men . . . The only way to erect . . . a Common Power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of [foreigners] and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort, as that by their own industry, and by the fruits of the Earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly is, to confer all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will . . . and therein to submit their Wills, every one to his Will, and their judgments, to his judgment. This is more than Consent, or Concord; it is a real Unity of them all, in one and the same Person, made by Covenant of every man with every man, in such manner, as if every man should say to every man, I Authorize and give up my Right of Governing myself to this Man, or to this Assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy Right to him, and Authorize all his Actions in like manner. This done, the Multitude so united in one Person, is called a COMMONWEALTH . . . For by this Authority, given him by every particular man in the Commonwealth, he hath the use of so much Power and Strength ... conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to Peace at home, and mutual [aid] against their enemies abroad. And in him consisteth the Essence of the Commonwealth; which (to define it) is One Person, of whose Acts a great Multitude, by mutual Covenants one with another, have made themselves everyone the Author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their Peace and Common Defense. And he that carryeth this Person, is called SOVEREIGN, and said to have Sovereign Power; and everyone besides, his SUBJECT . . . . . . They that have already Instituted a Commonwealth, being thereby bound by Covenant . . . cannot lawfully make a new Covenant, amongst themselves, to be obedient to any other, in anything whatsoever, without his permission. And therefore, they that are subjects to a Monarch cannot, without his leave, cast off Monarchy and return to the confusion of a disunited Multitude; nor transfer their Person from him that beareth it to another Man, or other Assembly of men for they . . . are bound, every man to every man, to [acknowledge] . . . that he that already is their Sovereign, shall do, and judge fit to be done, so that [those who do not obey] break their Covenant made to that man, which is injustice; and they have also every man given the Sovereignty to him that beareth their Person, and therefore if they depose him, they take from him that which is his own, and so again it is injustice . . . And whereas some men have pretended for their disobedience to their Soveraign, a new Covenant, made, not with men, but with God, this also is unjust. For there is no Covenant with God, but by mediation of some body that representeth God's Person, which none doth but God's Lieutenant, who hath the Soveraignty under God. But this pretence of Covenant with God is so evident a [lie], even in the pretenders own consciences, that it is not only an act of an unjust, but also of a vile and unmanly disposition . . . . . . Consequently none of [the sovereign's] Subjects, by any pretence of forfeiture, can be freed from his Subjection. 35 The Age of Enlightenment The English Bill of Rights (1689) Whereas, the late King James II … did endeavor to subvert and extirpate [eliminate] the Protestant religion and the laws and liberties of this kingdom … and whereas the said late King James II having abdicated the government, and the throne being thereby vacant, his Highness the prince of Orange (whom it hath pleased Almighty God to make the glorious instrument of delivering this kingdom from popery and arbitrary power) did (by the advice of the lords spiritual and temporal, and diverse principal persons of the Commons) cause letters to be written to … [choose and appoint a] … parliament, to meet and sit at Westminster upon the two and twentieth day of January, in this year 1689, in order to such an establishment as that their religion, laws, and liberties might not again be in danger of being subverted… And thereupon the said lords spiritual and temporal and Commons, pursuant to their respective letters and elections, being new assembled in a full and free representation of this nation, taking into their most serious consideration the best means for attaining the ends aforesaid, do in the first place (as their ancestors in like case have usually done), for the vindication and assertion of their ancient rights and liberties, declare: 1. That the pretended power of suspending of laws or the execution of laws by regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal… 2. That the pretended power of dispensing with the laws, or the execution of law by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal. 4. That levying money for or to the use of the crown by pretense of prerogative [right] without grant of Parliament … is illegal. 5. Thus it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal. 6. That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law. 7. That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by law. 8. That election of members of Parliament ought to be free…. 9. That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached [challenged] or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament…. 10. That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted…. 11. That jurors ought to be duly impaneled and returned, and jurors which pass upon men in trials for high treason ought to be freeholders. 12. That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction are illegal and void. 13. And that, for redress of all grievances and for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of the laws, Parliaments ought to be held frequently. And they do claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular the premises, as their undoubted rights and liberties.... Having therefore an entire confidence that his said Highness the prince of Orange will perfect the deliverance so far advanced by him, and will still preserve them from the violation of their rights, which they have here asserted, and from all other attempt upon their religion, rights, and liberties: The said lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, assembled at Westminster, do resolve that William and Mary, prince and princess of Orange, be, and be declared, king and queen of England, France, and Ireland.... 36 John Locke The Second Treatise of Civil Government (1692) … Political power is that power, which every man having in the state of nature, has given up into the hands of the society, and therein to the governors, whom the society hath set over itself, with this express or tacit trust, that it shall be employed for their good, and the preservation of their property…. So that the end and measure of this power, … [is] to preserve the members of that society in their lives, liberties, and possessions; and so cannot be an absolute, arbitrary power over their lives and fortunes … but a power to make laws, and annex such penalties to them, as may tend to the preservation of the whole…. And this power has its original only from compact and agreement, and the mutual consent of those who make up the community. … These are the bounds which the trust, that is put in them by the society, and the law of God and nature, have set to the legislative power of every common-­‐wealth, in all forms of government. 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 society… the power of the society or legislative constituted by them can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good…. Whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth, is bound to govern by established decrees, by [unbiased] and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those 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. First, They are to govern by promulgated established laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the favorite at court, and the country man at plough. Secondly, These laws also ought to be designed for no other end ultimately, but the good of the people. Thirdly, They must not raise taxes on the property of the people, without the consent of the people, given by themselves, or their deputies. And this properly concerns only such governments where the legislative is always in being, or at least where the people have not reserved any part of the legislative to deputies, to be from time to time chosen by themselves. Fourthly, The legislative neither must nor can transfer the power of making laws to anybody else, or place it anywhere, but where the people have. …The legislative acts against the trust [given to] them, when they endeavour to invade the property of the subject, and to make themselves, or any part of the community, masters, or arbitrary disposers of the lives, liberties, or fortunes of the people. 37 …The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they [choose] and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society … whenever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any [further] obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence. Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislative, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society. What I have said here, concerning the legislative in general, holds true also concerning the supreme executor, who having a double trust put in him, both to have a part in the legislative, and the supreme execution of the law, acts against both, when he goes about to set up his own arbitrary will as the law of the society. He acts also contrary to his trust, when he either employs the force, treasure, and offices of the society, to corrupt the representatives, and gain them to his [own] purposes [rather than what those representatives have previously] promised before-­‐hand … to vote, and what to enact. … [Such] revolutions happen not upon every little mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty, will be born by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going; it is not to be wondered, that they should then [rouse] themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected…. … [This] doctrine of a power in the people of providing for their safety a-­‐new, by a new legislative, when their legislators have acted contrary to their trust, by invading their property, is the best defence against rebellion, and the probablest means to hinder it: for rebellion being an opposition, not to persons, but authority, which is founded only in the constitutions and laws of the government; those, whoever they be, who by force break through, and by force justify their violation of them, are truly and properly rebels: for when men, by entering into society and civil-­‐government, have excluded force, and introduced laws for the preservation of property, peace, and unity amongst themselves, those who set up force again in opposition to the laws, do rebellare, that is, bring back again the state of war, and are properly rebels: which they who are in power, (by the pretence they have to authority, the temptation of force they have in their hands, and the flattery of those about them) being likeliest to do; the properest way to prevent the evil, is to shew them the danger and injustice of it, who are under the greatest temptation to run into it. … The end of government is the good of mankind; and which is best for mankind, that the people should be always exposed to the boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers should be sometimes liable to be opposed, when they grow exorbitant in the use of their power, and employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation of the properties of their people? 38 Montesquieu The Spirit of the Laws (1748) Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-­‐1755), was a nobleman, a judge in a French court, and one of the most influential political thinkers. Based on his research he developed a number of political theories presented in “The Spirit of the Laws” (1748). This treatise presented numerous theories -­‐ among the most important was respect for the role of history and climate in shaping a nation's political structure. It was for his views on the English Constitution, which he saw in an overly idealized way, that he is perhaps most renowned. In every government there are three sorts of power; the legislative; the executive, in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive, in regard to things that depend on the civil law. By virtue of the first, the prince or magistrate enacts temporary or perpetual laws, and amends or abrogates those that have been already enacted. By the second, he makes peace or war, sends or receives embassies; establishes the public security, and provides against invasions. By the third, he punishes criminals, or determines the disputes that arise between individuals. The latter we shall call the judiciary power, and the other simply the executive power of the state. The political liberty of the subject is a tranquility of mind, arising from the opinion each person has of his safety. In order to have this liberty, it is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of` another. When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner. Again, there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control, for the judge would then be the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with all the violence of an oppressor. There would be an end of every thing were the same man, or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the people to exercise those three powers that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and that of judging the crimes or differences of individuals. Most kingdoms in Europe enjoy a moderate government, because the prince, who is invested with the two first powers, leaves the third to his subjects. In Turkey, where these three powers are united in the sultan's person the subjects groan under the weight of a most frightful oppression. In the republics of Italy, where these three powers are united, there is less liberty than in our monarchies. Hence their government is obliged to have recourse to as violent methods for its support, as even that of the Turks witness the state inquisitors, and the lion's mouth into which every informer may at all hours throw his written accusations. What a situation must the poor subject be in, under those republics! The same body of magistrates are possessed, as executors of the laws, of the whole power they have given themselves in quality of legislators. They may plunder the state by their general determinations; and as they have likewise the judiciary power in their hands, every private citizen may be ruined by their particular decisions. The whole power is here united in one body; and though there is no external pomp that indicates a despotic sway, yet the people feel the effects of it every moment. Hence it is that many of the princes of Europe, whose aim has been leveled at arbitrary power, have constantly set out with uniting in their own persons, all the branches of magistracy, and all the great offices of state. 39 Excerpts of Enlightenment Thought Voltaire Treatise on Tolerance (1763) and The Philosophical Dictionary (1764) TOLERANCE It does not require any great art or studied elocution to prove that Christians ought to tolerate one another. I will go even further and say that we ought to look upon all men as our brothers. What! call a Turk, a Jew, and a Siamese, my brother? Yes, of course; for are we not all children of the same father, and the creatures of the same God? What is tolerance? … We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon our follies. This is the last law of nature…. It is clear that every private individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster…. Of all religions, the Christian ought doubtless to inspire the most tolerance, although hitherto the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men. DOGMA … If Jesus the Word? If He be the Word, did He emanate from God in time or before time? If He emanated from God, is He co-­‐eternal and consubstantial with Him, or is He of a similar substance? Is He distinct from Him, or is He not? Is He made or begotten? Can He beget in His turn? … Is the Holy Ghost made? or begotten? or produced? or proceeding from the Father? or proceeding from the Son? or proceeding from both?... Assuredly, I understand nothing of this; no one has ever understood any of it, and that is why we have slaughtered one another. The Christians tricked, caviled [complained on petty matters], hated, and excommunicated one another, for some of these dogmas inaccessible to human intellect. FANATICISM Fanaticism is to superstition what delirium is to fever, what rage is to anger. He who has ecstasies and visions, who take dreams for realities, and his own imaginations for prophecies is an enthusiast; he who reinforces his madness by murder is a fanatic…. The most detestable example of fanaticism is that exhibited on the night of St. Bartholomew, when the people of Paris rushed from house to house to stab, slaughter, throw out of the window, and tear to pieces their fellow citizens who did not go to mass. There are some cold-­‐blooded fanatics; such as those judges who sentence men to death for no other crime than that of thinking differently from themselves. Baron d’Holbach Good Sense (1772) [Man] has remained a child without experience, a slave without courage, fearing to reason, and unable to extricate [free/rescue] himself from the labyrinth, in which he has so long been wandering. He believes himself forced to bend under the yoke of his gods, known to him only by the fabulous accounts given by his ministers, who, after binding each unhappy mortal in the chains of his prejudice, remain his masters, or else abandon him defenceless to the absolute power of tyrants, no less terrible than the gods, of whom they are the representatives upon earth.… Man has been a mere machine in the hands of tyrants and priests, who alone have had the right of directing his actions. Always treated as a slave, he has contracted the vices of a slave. … Men are unhappy, only because they are ignorant; they are ignorant, only because every thing conspires to prevent their being enlightened; they are wicked, only because their reason is not sufficiently developed. 40 Denis Diderot Encyclopedia (1772) Government … The good of the people must be the great purpose of the government. The governors are appointed to fulfill it; and the civil constitution that invests them with this power is bound therein by the laws of nature and by the law of reason, which has determined that purpose in any form of government as the cause of its welfare. The greatest good of the people is its liberty. … [It] necessarily follows that power cannot be arbitrary and that it must be exercised according to the established laws so that the people may know its duty and be secure within the shelter of laws, and so that governors at the same time should be held within just limits and not be tempted to employ the power they have in hand to do harmful things to the body politic…. Humanity … is a benevolent feeling for all men … [which] is troubled by the pains of other people and by the necessity to alleviate them. With these sentiments an individual would wish to cover the entire universe in order to abolish slavery, superstition, vice, and misfortune… Intolerance … What did Christ recommend to his disciples when he sent them among the Gentiles? Was it to kill or to die? Was it to persecute or to suffer? …. The Press … [press includes newspapers, magazines, books, and so forth] … People ask if freedom of the press is advantageous or prejudicial to a state. The answer is not difficult. It is of the greatest importance to conserve this practice in all states founded on liberty. I would even say that the disadvantages of this liberty are so inconsiderable compared to its advantages that this ought to be the common right of the universe, and it is certainly advisable to authorize its practice in all governments. Immanuel Kant “What is Enlightenment?” (1784) Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-­‐caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-­‐caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one’s intelligence without being guided by another. Spaere Aude! [Dare to Know!] Have the courage to use your own intelligence! is therefore the motto of the enlightenment. …. All that is required for this enlightenment is freedom; and particularly the least harmful of all that may be called freedom, namely, the freedom for man ot make public use of his reason in all matters. But I hear people clamor on all sides: Don’t argue! The officer says: Don’t argue, drill! The tax collector: Don’t argue, pay! The pastor: Don’t argue, believe! … Here we have restrictions on freedom everywhere. Which restriction is hampering enlightenment, and which does not, or even promotes it! I answer: The public use of a man’s reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment among men…. Thomas Paine The Age of Reason (1794-­‐1796) I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-­‐creatures happy. But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church…. 41 Voltaire Candide (1759) Voltaire’s satirical novella, “Candide”, follows the strange and ridiculous adventures of a simple young man, Candide, who experiences the world after being kicked out of his own homeland. Two of his frequent companions are Pangloss and Martin. Pangloss is a philosopher who believes in the concept of theodicy, or that this world is “the best of all possible worlds”. In other words, it is the belief that this world was designed by God to be the best that it could be and that all things happen for the best regardless of the circumstance. Martin, on the other hand, is a resolute pessimist who believes that the only truth in this world is that it is evil, corrupt, and sinful. While Voltaire satirizes Pangloss’s belief system without mercy throughout the novella, Martin’s viewpoint is harder to contradict and argue against as Voltaire populates his novella with all the horribleness and evil of the 18th century world. In doing so, though, Voltaire makes his clear claim as a philosophe: mankind alone must improve his world. To Voltaire it is just as ridiculous to think that everything has been mapped out by God’s plan and that all is for the best as it is to resign oneself to despair and acceptance in thinking that one cannot reduce and at least soften the evils of this world. To read “Candide” properly, though, the reader needs to know that Voltaire mixed humor and wit with his social critique. In doing so the reader can laugh at the horribleness of the events that occur as the utter ridiculousness and exaggeration of the satire allows the reader to see the point of the critique without being overwhelmed by the awfulness of the situations. Early on in the story, Candide has just been reunited with a sickly Pangloss after their homeland had been destroyed by war. Candide has been working for Jacques, an Anabaptist, who is one of the few ‘good souls’ in the novella and begs him to help his old friend…. … [Candide] went and flung himself at the feet of the charitable Anabaptist Jacques, and gave him so touching a picture of the state to which his friend was reduced, that the good man did not hesitate to take Dr. Pangloss into his house, and had him cured at his expense. In the cure Pangloss lost only an eye and an ear. He wrote well, and knew arithmetic perfectly. The Anabaptist James made him his bookkeeper. At the end of two months, being obliged to go to Lisbon about some mercantile affairs, he took the two philosophers with him on his ship. Pangloss explained to him that everything was for the best, but Jacques didn’t agree with him. “It must be,” said he, “that men have somehow corrupted Nature, for they were not born wolves, and yet that is what they become. God gave them neither twenty-­‐four pound cannon nor bayonets, yet they have manufactured both in order to destroy one another…. “All this was indispensable,” replied the one-­‐eyed doctor, “for private misfortunes make the general good, so that the more private misfortunes there are the greater is the general good.” While he reasoned, the sky darkened, the winds blew from the four quarters, and the ship was assailed by a most terrible tempest within sight of the port of Lisbon. Half of the passengers were not even sensible of the danger, while the other half shrieked and prayed. The sails were ripped to shreds, the masts snapped, the vessel opened up at the seams. Everyone worked who could stir, nobody listened for orders or issued them. The Anabaptist was lending a hand on deck when a brutish sailor struck him roughly and knocked him to the deck. The violence of the blow caused the sailor himself to tumble head foremost over the side, where he hung, clutching a fragment of the broken mast. The good Jacques ran to his aid, helped him back on board, but in the process was himself thrown into the sea under the very eyes of the sailor, who allowed him to drown without even glancing at him. Candide rushed to the rail, and saw his benefactor, who rose to the surface one moment and was then swallowed up for ever. Candide wanted to dive to his rescue, but was prevented by the philosopher Pangloss, who demonstrated to him that the Bay of Lisbon had been 42 made on purpose for the Anabaptist to be drowned. While he was proving this a priori, the ship foundered; all perished except Pangloss, Candide, and that brutal sailor who had drowned the good Anabaptist. The villain swam safely to the shore, while Pangloss and Candide drifted there on a plank…. At one point in his travels, Candide and his companion Cacambo find the mythical, utopian land of Eldorado where mud is gold, pebbles are precious stones, and there is no want, no poverty, no violence; a perfect society of innocence, happiness, and purity. Candide is fascinated by the kingdom and inquires about their religion… At length Candide, having always had a taste for metaphysics, made Cacambo ask whether there was any religion in that country. The old man reddened a little. “How then,” said he, “can you doubt it? Do you take us for ungrateful wretches?” Cacambo humbly asked, “What was the religion in El Dorado?” The old man reddened again. “Can there be two religions?” said he. “I suppose our religion is the same as everyone’s, we worship God from morning to evening.” “Then you worship a single deity?” said Cacambo, who still acted as interpreter in representing Candide’s doubts. “Surely,” said the old man, “there are not two, nor three, nor four. I must confess the people from your side of the world ask very extraordinary questions.” … Candide having a curiosity to see the priests asked where they were. The good old man smiled. “My friend,” said he, “we are all priests.… [Candide was shocked] “What! have you no monks who teach, argue, govern, intrigue, and burn at the stake everyone who disagrees with them?” “We should have to be mad, indeed, if that were the case,” said the old man; “here we are all of one opinion, and we don’t understand what you’re up to with your monks.” …. Eventually, Candide and Cacambo realize that if they stay in Eldorado they would be exactly like everyone else, but if they took some of the gold and precious stones they would be richer than all the kings of Europe. The king of Eldorado says this is a “foolish mistake” but since “all men are free” he reluctantly agrees to help them leave his kingdom with 20 sheep laden with treasure…. Our travelers spent the first day very agreeably. They were delighted with possessing more treasure than all Asia, Europe, and Africa could scrape together. … The second day two of their sheep plunged into a morass, where they and their burdens were lost; two more died of fatigue a few days after; seven or eight perished with hunger in a desert; and others subsequently fell down precipices. At length, after travelling a hundred days, only two sheep remained. Said Candide to Cacambo: “My friend, you see how perishable are the riches of this world; there is nothing solid but virtue, and the happiness of seeing Miss Cunegonde once more.” “I agree,” said Cacambo, “but we have still two sheep remaining, with more treasure than the King of Spain will ever have; and I see a town which I take to be Surinam, belonging to the Dutch. We are at the end of all our troubles, and at the beginning of happiness.” As they drew near the town, they saw a negro stretched upon the ground, with only half of his clothes left, that is, of his blue linen drawers; the poor man had lost his left leg and his right hand. 43 “Good Lord!” said Candide in Dutch, “what are you doing there in that shocking condition, my friend?” “I am waiting for my master, Mr. Vanderdendur, the famous merchant,” answered the negro. “Was it Mr. Vanderdendur,” said Candide, “that treated you this way?” “Yes, sir,” said the negro, “it is the custom. Twice a year they give us a pair of linen drawers to wear. If we catch a finger in the sugar mill where we work, they cut off the hand; and if we try to run away, they cut off our leg; both of these things have happened to me. This is the price at which you eat sugar in Europe. Yet when my mother sold me for ten patagons on the coast of Guinea, she said to me: ‘My dear child, bless our witch doctors, adore them for ever; they will make you live happily; you have the honour of being the slave of our white masters, which is making the fortune of you father and mother.’ Alas! I know not whether I have made their fortunes; but they certainly did not make mine. The dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less wretched than we are. The Dutch witch doctors, who have converted me, declare every Sunday that we are all of us children of Adam—blacks as well as whites. I am not a genealogist, but if these preachers are right, we must all be remote cousins. As, you must admit no one could treat his own flesh and blood in a more horrible and barbarous manner.” “Oh, Pangloss!” cried Candide, “you had no notion of these abominations! I’m through, I must give up your optimism after all.” “What is this optimism?” said Cacambo. “Alas!” said Candide, “it is the madness of maintaining that everything is right when it is wrong.” Looking at the negro, he shed tears, and weeping, he entered Surinam. The first thing they inquired after was whether there was a vessel in the harbour which could be sent to Buenos Ayres. The person to whom they applied was a Spanish sea-­‐captain, who offered to agree with them upon reasonable terms. He appointed to meet them at a public-­‐house, whither Candide and the faithful Cacambo went with their two sheep, and awaited his coming. Finally, all the main characters of the novella are reunited after their experiences and settle in the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire. During this conversation, the news was spread that two Viziers and the Mufti had been strangled at Constantinople, and that several of their friends had been impaled. This catastrophe made a great noise for some hours. Pangloss, Candide, and Martin, returning to the little farm, saw a good old man taking the fresh air at his door under an orange bower. Pangloss, who was as inquisitive as he was argumentative, asked the old man what was the name of the strangled Mufti. “I do not know,” answered the worthy man, “and I have never cared to know the name of any Mufti, nor of any Vizier. I am entirely ignorant of the event you mention; I presume in general that they who meddle with the administration of public affairs die sometimes miserably, and that they deserve it; but I never trouble my head about what is transacting at Constantinople; I content myself with sending there for sale the fruits of the garden which I cultivate.” Having said these words, he invited the strangers into his house; his two sons and two daughters presented them with several sorts of sherbet, which they made themselves, with Kaimak enriched with the candied-­‐peel of citrons, with oranges, lemons, pine-­‐apples, pistachio-­‐nuts, and Mocha coffee unadulterated with the bad coffee of Batavia or the American islands. After which the two daughters of this good Muslim perfumed the strangers’ beards. “You must have a vast and magnificent estate,” said Candide to the Turk. “I have only twenty acres,” replied the old man; “I and my children cultivate them; our labour preserves us from three great evils—weariness, vice, and want.” 44 Candide, on his way home, made profound reflections on the old man’s conversation. “This honest Turk,” said he to Pangloss and Martin, “seems to be in a situation far preferable to that of the six kings with whom we had the honour of supping.” “Grandeur,” said Pangloss, “is extremely dangerous according to the testimony of philosophers. For, in short, Eglon, King of Moab, was assassinated by Ehud; Absalom was hung by his hair, and pierced with three darts; King Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, was killed by Baasa; King Ela by Zimri; Ahaziah by Jehu; Athaliah by Jehoiada; the Kings Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, were led into captivity. You know how perished Crœsus, Astyages, Darius, Dionysius of Syracuse, Pyrrhus, Perseus, Hannibal, Jugurtha, Ariovistus, Cæsar, Pompey, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian, Richard II. of England, Edward II., Henry VI., Richard III., Mary Stuart, Charles I., the three Henrys of France, the Emperor Henry IV.! You know——” “I know also,” said Candide, “that we must cultivate our garden.” “You are right,” said Pangloss, “for when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, that he might cultivate it; which shows that man was not born to be idle.” “Let us work,” said Martin, “without speculating; it is the only way to render life tolerable.” The whole little society entered into this laudable design, according to their different abilities. Their little plot of land produced plentiful crops. Cunegonde was, indeed, very ugly, but she became an excellent pastry cook; Paquette worked at embroidery; the old woman looked after the linen. Everyone, down even to Friar Giroflée, did something useful; for he made a good carpenter, and became a very honest man. Pangloss sometimes used to say to Candide: “There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbed the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-­‐nuts.” “All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.” 45 Thomas Jefferson et al. The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America (1776) When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-­‐evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. -­‐-­‐Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. … He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. … He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. … He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature. ... He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us … [and] protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states: For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: For imposing taxes on us without our consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: … For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies: For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments: For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. … In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. … [Even our] British brethren … have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. 46