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a
journal
of political
volume
philosophy
4/2
1974
winter
page
65
homeric honor
thomas s. engeman
and thucydidean
necessity
79
w.
b.
theory
alien
and practice
founding 98
intellectual
robert r. orr
form
107
of
of the
atheistic
harry neumann
in the
the republic
biography as a history of ideas
freedom
and the
international society for the suppression of savage customs: an
interpretation
of conrad's
heart of darkness
martinus
nijhoff, the
hague
edited at
queens college of
of new york
the city university
interpretation a
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65
HOMERIC HONOR AND THUCYDIDEAN NECESSITY Thomas S. Engeman
Commentators is exceedingly
on
Thucydides generally agree on at least one point: he to reveal his own thoughts concerning the meaning
reluctant
Thucydides'
reticence has naturally led to in understanding his true intention. For example, was Thucydides a supporter of Athenian imperialism, as is often argued, or did he believe that imperial ambition was inevitably prone to a lack of moderation in
of
the events
he
which
narrates.1
confusion
success and therefore
Sicilian
juxtaposition
ultimate
breed
success
Athenians'
Sicily is designed to teach hope, daring, and defeat.
fate in Sicily, "their
However, dramatic
dialogue-
Looking at the Melian frequently noted that the
disaster?
it is
skillful sequence, the hubristic speeches of the Athenians at Meios and
of
their defeat in
the
to
expedition
this
conclusion
association of
Athenian defeat in
Sicily
success
sensible men
that
and
ambition
As H. D. F. Kitto judged the them."2
had betrayed
to be only an inference based upon
seems
the two events. Thucydides himself ascribes the
to the
absence of an
outstanding
statesman who
the steady adherence of a majority of the citizens to a consistent foreign pohcy (11.65.10-11). (What is more important, this could command
out by a study of the events which caused the Athenian Pericles had lived, the expedition would not have been If defeat.) undertaken; or if Alcibiades had been trusted by the Athenion demos,
judgment is borne
Sicily
could
depends or upon
1
have been
upon
Thucydides thus indicates that
conquered.
individuals
and
conditions,
designs
not upon the
politics of
gods
fate.3
Cf., for instance, A.
W.
Greek Attitude to
Gomme, The
Poetry
and
History
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954), pp. 307-8; A. W. Gomme, More Essays in Greek History and Literature (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), pp. 123,
159ff.; Jacqueline DeRomilly, Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism (New York; and Noble, 1963), pp. 58, 103; H. D. F. Kitto, Poiesis: Structure and Thought (London: Cambridge University Press, 1966), pp. 307-8; Leo Strauss, The City and Barnes
Man (New York: Rand-McNally, 1964), 2 3
the
Meios to leaders pious
p.
understand
the
essential
the best natures,
with
understanding of right
they lost danger
the trust of the
of
from their execute
pp.
144-45.
pp.
336; Strauss, City and Man, p. 153. This is not to deny that there is a connection between the Melian dialogue and Sicilian defeat. That connection can been in the inability of the Athenians at
Kitto, Poiesis,
i.e.,
piety of those
in favor
demos,
politics.
After
capable of rule
of the natural
who,
when
Pericles'
point
of
view
sorely troubled
perfectly trustworthy.
195-209.
by
the
daring
of right.
understanding
the Sicilian expedition, naturally turned to the
the plan conceived
death the Athenian
(Alcibiades), depreciated
Nicias,
of
Alcibiades. See
by
the
pious
magnitude
Nicias,
course,
was
Strauss, City
the
Therefore
who
and
was
unable and
to
Man,
Interpretation
66 The
Thucydides
elusiveness of
Kitto has
writing.
them."4
things without saying
judgments
can make
A
events.
the speeches
relates with events
in
Hobbes
to
order
says
be traced to his
singular manner of
Thucydides (or any
must
one of
the events
compare
he (or any character)
which
the deepest reflections of the
reveal
Readers"
in the "Address to the
"could say his characters)
as someone who
or speeches which are contradicted
reader
careful
can
Thucydides
characterized
of
by
the course of
Thucydides
which
those
makes about
As Thomas
writer.
his translation
of
Thucydides, "But these conjectures [about the meaning of a history] cannot often be certain, unless withal so evident, that the narration itself may be
sufficient
to
suggest
the
same also
The
The Corinthians Athenian
manner
innovative, lovers
of
swift
describing whose
to desire and attempt, public-spirited,
and
lovers
forms the
struggle
Thucydides,
significant.
is
quantity
of wealth
The
rest; it provides the
decades
11.38. 2, 62.1). The
period of progress which and
has
Sparta,
is also, in
to wage
are
Athens,
"total"
a
now possess
one
a
these two
made them
that has been stored up
age of progress
everyone
cau
Their struggle,
importance because
of the greatest
material needed
involving
and
history.6
of
and power
and
VIII.96.5). The Corinthians
long Greeks, led by Athens
The
prior age of progress.
of
cf.
Thucydides'
axis
cities stand at the end of a
vast
(1.70;
are
bold, hopeful,
traditional, slow, self-concerned,
are
of rest
the
contrast
Where the Athenians
the characters of the dramatic protagonists Sparta and
according to
truly
Lacedaemon
at
the Spartan manner.
and
motion, the Spartans
tious, doubtful,
Archeology
the first Congress
at
reader."5
to the
during
sense,
war
the
an age
lasting
for
(1.1.1-2, 23.1-4, II.82.1-2, 83.1, 85-87,
greatest rest and progress
issue in the greatest,
to
not
say the universal, motion of the Peloponnesian War. The war between Athens and her allies and Sparta and her allies is a civil war, a stasis in
4
Kitto, Poiesis,
5
The English Works of Thomas
John
p.
302.
Bohn, 1843), Vol. 8,
Hobbes,
accidental
occurrence
Or,
the
to
put
scientific or
question
historian
to what extent
indeed
seems
of
events,
in
he
Sir William Molesworth (London:
correct
limits
Thucydides'
revealing way, to
"logographic"
potential?
what extent was
only to describe accurately the
concerned with
discovering
to be the case, he was concerned
force him, when necessary, to literal and unrevealing facts? 6
which
a more
who wanted was
Is Hobbes
ed.
in assuming that Thucydides was perfectly free to choose, arrange, or perhaps invent events, i.e., to say anything he "historiographic" wished through his narrative? Is there not a necessity, the p. viii.
compromise
events
Thucydides
the causes of the events?
with
the
latter,
wouldn't
the simply scientific
a
that occurred,
If,
as
that task
recitation
of
the
A. W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950), Vol. 1, p. 233 (1.71.5); DeRomilly, Thucydides, pp. 77-82, 311-13; Strauss, City and Man, pp. 148-49.
Homeric Honor
Greece
barbarian
and the rise of the
the growth, the
shows
The times given
"universal"
leads to the
which
proof
Thucydidean
and
fruition,
and
in the individual Greek cities,
stasis
II.100.1-2).7
(111.83. 1,
powers
67
Necessity
the decline of
Thucydides
"Greekness."
the superiority and significance of modern, or Greek, the inferiority and insignificance of ancient times is
of
and therefore
in the very
Thucydides'
beginning of
account, the archeology (1.1-23).
In the archeology Thucydides characterizes style of
hfe
as
it
inferring by an almost that
men were
ancient
(or barbarian)
in
fearful, poor, confused, weak, daring while lacking was harsh, brutish, and cruel. Ancient times were marked universal fear; fear of new migrations, of attacks by depredations
and of
pirates,
the and
forced to
by
one's neighbors
armed, to
go
plant
only
(1.2-5). In
ancient times
immediately
as much as could
be used, and to move or flee at a moment's The weakness of those times is also found in the unreliability ancient poets and storytellers, and therefore in ancient wisdom as notice.8
Thucydides can
be
directly
whether
for
a sufficient witness
magnifies and adorns
anyone
the events
which
Homer, (1.9.4, 10.3). Like
as compared with all
of the such.9
himself,
poets, Homer
he recounts; in particular, he
adorns
the Trojan War (1.10.3). Part of his adornment is bis beautification of
According
men's motives.
Trojan
the
expedition
to the poets, Agamemnon was able to
because the kings
of
Greece felt bound
command
by
the
oath
Thucydides'
unadorned Tyndareus to obey him (1.9.1). However, version, which he has learned from the most reliable sources, demonstrates that Agamemnon's wealth, and hence his power, compelled the loyalty of
the other kings. To
of
much
by
favor
as
by
The archeology is wisdom. As such, it His
is to
method
paraphrase
fear"
(1.9.3,
Thucydides'
reveals
relate
Thucydides, "men
are moved not so
22.4).
defense
of
the
modern age and modern
three fundamental elements of his intention.
the
simple
truth
of
in
events
that the
order
Peloponnesian War may be revealed in the had not proceeded as honestly themselves. Previous "wise
universal significance of the
men"
events and
truthfully. The storytellers, viz.,
Herodotus, have
fables to
concocted
supplement the literal truth of their account in order to say something
universal, to
make
while
it
Thucydides weak,
fully
developed. The arts,
University
of
Chicago
Gomme, Commentary,
Vol.
Thucydides'
brief discussion
of
the equipment to
pp.
a
develop
of
his full
view of
Benardete, Herodotean Inquiries,
pohtical
89-90; David Grene, Greek Political Theory
Press, 1965), p. 60. 1, p. 109 (1.9.4), p. 113 (1.10.3). For
an excellent
the poets and storytellers, see Seth
Herodotean Inquiries (The Hague: Martinus io
times,
and
man) had product of the
(and therefore the true logos
wealth of modern
gives man
Plato, Republic, 469b3-471cl. Gomme, Commentary, Vol. 1,
(Chicago: 9
21.1).10
receiving universal acclaim (1.10.3, that because the ancient times were poor
of
also claims
progress of the
t
worthy
man's pohtical potential
not yet
8
the poets have magnified and adorned the literal in order
seem
p.
30.
Nijhoff, 1969),
pp.
30, 33.
Benardete,
Interpretation
68
"modern"
Sparta
regimes,
The
potential.
spiritual
and
warfare
Athens, fully
and
the
of
possibilities,
pohtical
man's
reveals
Greek
premier
represents the pinnacle understanding of that war and its causes his wisdom and his establishes Thucydides of human knowledge. Thus, Homer's heroic age. destruction of the of the renown on the "ashes
while the
past,"
That destruction is necessary because will, when at rest and freed from the as more
events
descendants
worthy
warfare,
the
legendary
the Trojan
more significant than
war
not
Thebes
and
been for
ancient
some
revered
between Athens
War, had it
they
:
ancient
regard
(1.21.2). As the
of admiration than recent ones
the Achaean heroes would have
of
perhaps
struggle
of
rigors
beings
traditional
are
men
Homer,
as
so the
follow the Peloponnesian War would return to their admiration of the Trojan War were it not for Thucydides. intention. It Thirdly, the archeology reveals a portion of undermines past the of does so by the very fact that the demythologizing generations which
Thucydides'
pohtical regimes
founded
favoritism toward Sparta
fullness In
of
Thucydides'
on
conclusions
mythology.
hollow
seems
his implied attack,
drawing
traditional
when
debunking,
or
it is
of all
from the archeology,
that it is one of the few parts of
Thucydides'
rely
of
the
"Spartan."
things
we
praise or
in the light
seen
on our observation
history
in
which none of
the ambiguities between speech and deed complicate its interpretation.
Indeed, Thucydides times is the
ancient
the facts as
emphasizes
that his presentation of the facts about the
most accurate possible.
been
having
"He [the reader]
made out with sufficient
should regard on
accuracy,
the basis
indications, considering that they have to do with ancient 1).11 (1.21. One might, like Hobbes, wonder whether Thucydides
of the clearest times"
"best
government,"
but
approved of a regal
about the reliability of the
And
yet
of
some
one cannot
wonder, it seems,
archeology.12
Thucydides does
mention
in passing in the archeology that
the peoples of Greece still live in the old, customary
manner
of the ancients : and even
the
today in many
region
of
thereabouts.
the
And
Hobbes says] is
parts of
Ozolian these
Hellas life
goes
on under
the
Locrians, Aetolians, Acarnanians,
old
customs, as in
and
mainlanders'
a survival of
habits
their
old piratical
the
mainland
["wearing life [1.5.3, 5.1-2, 5.6, 6.6]. of
carrying
iron,"
arms
Thucydides introduces the possibility that the past may be found in the This possibility parallels Benardete's observation about the nature
present. of the all
Herodotean
history
:
"The
surface of the
earth presents together
the Hesiodic ages, which are not distinguished so much
they 11
use as
by
their
customs."13
The archeology is
by
what metals
not self-contained
Translations follow C. Foster
in
Smith, Loeb Classical Library (New York: G. P. Sons, 1919), with a few minor exceptions. 12 Hobbes, "Of the Life and History of Molesworth, Hobbes, Vol. 8, p. xvii. 13 Benardete, Herodotean Inquiries, p. 29. Putnam's
Thucydides,"
Homeric Honor Thucydides'
deceptive
of
spite
to
exhortation
it
accept
as
The
such.
harshness,
regarding the weakness,
reaches
69
Necessity
and
the past as opposed to the strength, mildness, and artfulness
of
rusticity
he
which
conclusions
Thucydidean
and
present, and his picture of the ignorance and adornment of the the truthfulness and honesty of the present, are open to a
of the
past versus
reevaluation
the
based
the
on
description
narrative
live
of the peoples who
by
old customs.
"Ancient'
The Of the three who
peoples who are named
They
narrative.
the
are
i.e.,
and of the others
Ionian gulf, the
around the
fully revealed by the Thucydidean mentioned by name more than twice as often
people
are not
by Thucydides,
thereabouts,"
live in the "mainland
Acarnanians
Acarnanians
only
most
the Ozolian Locrians and Aetolians combined but are also, as we shall
as
later see, the close friends and and Demosthenes. The latter is, Thucydidean
Athenian
allies of the we
believe,
Phormio
generals
fittingly
the true and
undra-
Further
following Strauss, we note that the Acarnanians are associated with Demosthenes, a knower of nature (IV.3-4) and that the year in which they figure most prominently in the
matic
(the
narrative
14
his
nowhere
services
to
specifically
Athens,
and
an
inspiring leader
but he apparently
also
of men and
him
regarded
strategy occasionally
unsound and
designedly
present
of
the ability
assesses
to
chosen
approval
too
reluctant
ativeness
which
optimistic.
the
the
or
is
enter-
and
energetic
tactician, is perfectly clear,
readers with
however, in
year
narrative
found his
and
It may be that Thucydides
to give Demosthenes due credit showed.
by
inclined to be impetuous
Demosthenes to his
he undoubtedly
brave,
a good
normally as
disapproval. He seems,
and
strangely
Demosthenes
of
the general impression given
That he believed Demosthenes to have been
equivocal.
prizing,
the first part of the war) is the only
sixth year of
"Thucydides
value of
action.14
man of
precisely this parts
some
of
his
for the originality
.
has
.
narrative
imagin
and
These qualities, in the military Themistocles, which Thucydides
.
mixture
sphere
at
praises so least, bore some resemblance to those of Cambridge [Cambridge: in Thucydides Individuals D. (H. Westlake, (1.138.2) University Press, 1968], pp. 97-98). Professor Westlake, as he clearly demonstrates, warmly"
is in factual tion
his One
of
on
might suggest
daring
the
independent
from his hopeful
wished
learned the
[VTI.86], but he
a
"nature"
of
more
slighted
an
expedition
and
on
the
account
would
undertaken
on
brought
he nearly
saves
Nicias
by
Demosthenes does
expedition and
not
his city through his
an
Demosthenes learns
bad intelligence, in too
military
preparation.
Having
moderation, Demosthenes cleverly beats the Spartans
by Alcibiades, the
because
pious
be discovered
narrative.
without sufficient
with
for it.
account
adequately
Pylos. The defeat forced the Spartans to sue for peace and thus to the end sought by Pericles. After the renewal Athenian empire about
denigra
death
Thucydides'
in
true worth
Demosthenes based
spirit,
cannot
clearly the rivalry between the
Demosthenes'
in Aetolia
incautious
unjust Nicias'
on
striking eulogy
to dramatize
assessment of
Thucydides'
notes
Thucydides'
that Demosthenes was
Alcibiades.
mistake
and
He
narrative.
Demosthenes'
silence
Thucydides and
Thucydides'
command of
Demosthenes (compare
reappear
prudent
until
daring
recognize of
the
Sicily,
at
the
war, when
and patriotism.
Interpretation
70 in
Thucydides'
account which
with
the
"almost begins (III. 89)
the events of that year, events which take place
literally ends describing
and
In addition,
phenomena."15
mention of natural
while
around
the Ionian gulf
practiced, Thucydides mentions both Hesiod and Homer by name; this is his only reference to Hesiod in the entire history and the only reference to Homer after the archeology where
the
are
customs
old
(III.96.1, 104.4). Finally, importance
be
can
seen
an
still
indirect
in the
proof of
following
the
detail: they
in the archeology who practice to the ancients by Thucydides. If
the peoples named
those attributed
Acarnanians'
customs all
singular
are the
only one of different from
the peoples in "the
thereabouts"
mainland
differed from the description in the archeology, never have maintained the "progressive as the thesis"
Thucydides
could
preliminary understanding
thoughts, Thucydides didean
of
would
his work. By so confusing the levels of his have been impolitic in a wholly un-Thucy-
manner.
These
of
only be proved or disproved by Thucydides narrates. So let
can
observations
interpretation
the events
which
a
proper
us
turn to
the events so that "the narration itself may be sufficient to suggest the same also to the reader."
At the beginning of the war the Athenians decided that they needed the friendship of the peoples who lived around the Pelopponnese if they were to send fleets to harass the Spartans. The ambassadors sent to the Acarnanians were, however, unsuccessful in establishing friendly relations (II.7.3).
In the
second year of the
help
to
drive the
them
war the
Acarnanians
Ampraciots
from
asked
the Athenians
Amphilochian
Argos,
the
Amphilochians
of
Acarnanians.
settled
having placed themselves under the protection Successfully defeating the Ampraciots, the Athenians
the Acarnanians and the Amphilocians in Argos. At this time a was
first
between the Athenians
made
In the
and
the
treaty
the Acarnanians (11.68).
summer of the third year of the war
the Ampraciots and the
wishing to subdue the whole of Acarnania and detach it from
Chaonians,
the Athenians (11.80.
1-2),
hoplites to
conquest.
in the
aid
persuaded
the Spartans to send a fleet and
The Spartans
consented
to the
plan and
When this Peloponnesian army arrived, with an accompanying fleet soon expected, the Acarnanians did not join together to defend their major city Stratus, but "each defended his (11.81. 1). The Stratians, however, without assistance, cleverly managed to defeat the organized
their allies.
own"
invaders
by
ambushing the Chaonians
semblance of order.
The
Thucydides
in
that
they
That on
the
15
accounts
were
Spartans,
part
quickly recognizing
for the
thought best in the
the barbarians who lacked
use of slings
defeat,
Acarnanians (11.80-82).
success of the
all
withdrew.
by
noting
winter the Acarnanians joined Phormio in an unsuccessful attack Acarnanian city of Oeniadae, the only Acarnanian city hostile to
Strauss, City
and
Man,
p.
223,
n.
83.
Homeric Honor
Oeniadae, it should be noted, had an obvious Athenians, having been besieged by Pericles during
oppose the
the Athenian empire (1.111.3). In the next
rise of
Phormio's
son
had specifically to
sent
71
Necessity
(II.102).16
Athens
out
Thucydidean
and
the early
the Athenians sent
to take command in the Ionian gulf, for the Acarnanians that a son
asked
him. Phormio's
succeed
year
to
reason
kinsman
a
or
son
led
of
another
Phormio
unsuccessful
should
be
attack
on
Oeniadae (III.7).
By
the
Ionian
The first joint
launched
was
course of
attack
Aetolia
this
the inveterate enemy of the Acarnanians. Demosthenes was unwisely persuaded to
campaign
from there to
and
withdrew
angrily
expedition of
Leucas,
against
In the
Demosthenes had become general in the the Athenians and Acarnanians
the war
sixth year of
gulf.
Boeotia. The Acarnanians course ended disas
on
march
from the expedition,
which
trously (111.94). Nevertheless, immediately
in due
afterwards,
when the
Athenians
entirely driven from the area, the Acarnanians listened to Demosthenes and relieved Naupactus, the Athenian stronghold in danger
were
threatened
being
of
the Ampraciots and Spartans (III. 102).
by
Naupactus, the Ampraciots, still wishing defeat, persuaded the Spartans that the
to take
Failing
Demosthenes'
on
Acarnania
would
bring
Spartans'
and
approval
Acarnania
fortified
Fearing half
all
and secured
promise
the
watched
while
joining
off
Demosthenes
with
Olpae. In the ensuing ambush similar
the
other
to the
a
they
their coast. The
interdiction
at
attempts
small
battle,
(dikasterion)"
justice
half tried to
allowing
them
the Ampraciots
i
One
should
comparatively
a
made
Spartans, however, avoided joined the Ampraciots,
force joined the Acarnanians before
by
Acarnanians, using an Chaonians,
the Stratians against the
agreement
with
and
generals
Peloponnesians,
the
to escape and condemning the remainder of the army, and
the other allies, to almost certain destruction. This
note
that
long
while
disquisition
(II. 102.2-4). His "observations Plato's Critias
peace
the and
and
defeated the Ampraciot-Spartan force. The Acarnanian Demosthenes then
army:
prevent
for Demosthenes
sent
the Athenians and
one used
(III. 105).
the Acarnanians divided their
them. In addition,
Acarnanians'
while
assistance, the Ampraciots invaded the Acarnanians had once
place which
Spartans,
Ampraciots
Athenian fleet sailing
the
of
Olpae, "the
the arrival of the
of
conquest
the continent into their league. With the
and used as a common place of
Spartans from the
of
to capitalize
speaking
on
the
of
natural
Oeniadae Thucydides relationship
of
earth
speculations"
and
(III.A-B) (Commentary, Vol. 2,
on
this subject
p.
250).
remind
presents and
a
water
Gomme
Also, Thucydides has
of
a
lengthly digression on the mythical origins of Acarnania (11.102. 5-6). (In the Third Book, at 104, he presents Homer, interrupting his account of the events in Acarnania [compare ni.104, with 1.8. for a further identification of ancients and moderns]; while at 96.1, describing events in Aetolia, he puts Hesiod and Demosthenes in the same sentence.) As will be shown more fully below, Thucydides continually associates the
present
there
is
no
Acarnanians
with
the mythical,
difference between them.
poetic past
in
order
for
us
to
see
that
Interpretation
72
to follow
attempted
escaping,
Ampraciots, having
The
stratagem was successful.
by
were cut off
them,
the Peloponnesians
seen
the
Acarnanians,
and
a neighboring country (111.105-13). After the defeat of the Ampraciots, the Acarnanians refused to invade Ampracia as the Athenians and Demosthenes desired them to do, for they
driven into
feared
if
that
Ampracia
had
Athenians
the
neighbors
than their present ones.
Athenians
left, they
Instead,
Demosthenes
after
treaty
a peace
concluded
very liberal terms (III. 114.2-4; cf. In the summer of the seventh
be
would
they with
worse
the
and
Ampracians
the
on
TV.92.5).17
the Athenians helped
year of the war
Anactorium (a city inimical to the Acarnanians [III. 114.3]) and turned it over to the Acarnanians, who settled it with their own people (IV.49). That winter the Acarnanians took part with Demosthenes in
capture
an unsuccessful voyage
they
101). The Acarnanians
history
unsuccessful attack on part of
to
come
Sicily, having been
in
him there What
the Boeotian town of Siphae. On the
on
attack
tried another
on
can
his
for
sight
be learned from
Demosthenes to accompany
by
persuaded
relief expedition
Thucydides'
last time in
the
return
Sicyonia (IV.77,
(VII. 31).
these
narrative
Thucydidean
and
events
(III. 113.6, VII.57. 10-11) which deepen the understanding of the hfe and and hence the deprecation of "progressive
remarks
"ancient"
thesis"
wisdom?
the
To
narrative.
this question we must further distill the
answer
it
First,
Thucydides had
appears
are not even united under the
the Acarnanians live in
obviously to the
As
people of
is
zation.
They
assembled,
by
their
are
general
techniques
are
difficult to
order
daring. The Acarnanian
plan
two
effective
generals
ambushes
and
are
an
cient
17
her
in the
use of
slings,
to be the
therefore
analogous
(II. 15. 1-2).
weak militarily.
Their
efficient
purposes
military
of
organi
warfare;
once
for battle. However, weakness in lack of individual intelligence, skill,
are
share
Individually
an open
ethnos; the
appear
resourceful
in the
devious.
and
kind
the
They
"peace"
agreement
the Peloponnesians which gives them the opportunity to
neighbors, the Ampraciots.
lack
They
and apparent unwillingness,
for
needed
to assemble for
reluctant
like
gathered them together
inability,
their case cannot be associated with a or
are
(1.5.1). The Acarnanians
regimented
they
by
they
of
laws. Politically, they polis. The majority of
tyrants who
expect, the Acarnanians are also
caused
to learn the
of a single
villages;
are ruled
Attica before Theseus
one might
weakness
locality
superior men
leadership
unwalled
sense
unorganized as
(1.3.1).
were
or rehgious conventions or
strong political, military,
inhabitants
"ancients"
that the
suggested
of each
that the Acarnanians are as
Acarnanian
of warfare
Gomme, Commentary, Vol. 2, p. 429: "Amprakia defeat, and Athens got little by the victory of
destroy
with
their
soldiers are profi
requiring
gets off
Demosthenes."
personal skill
very
lightly
after
Homeric Honor
daring,
and
as
the discipline
to
opposed
Thucydidean
and
the
of
and
galley
phalanx,
convention.18
to
which necessitates strict obedience
73
Necessity
FinaUy, Thucydides indicates that the Acarnanians are not excessively In fact, he never shows a single instance of their religious festivals
pious. or
before campaigns,
auspices
such oaths
to legitimate the
each of the three
does he
nor
nor report oaths sworn to
temples,
any Acarnanian
mention
the gods (one certainly would
treaty
Ampracia;
with
treaties between Sparta
and
anticipate
oaths were sworn
in
Athens [IV. 119, V.I 8-19,
24]).
In
to
addition
is
one
struck
Their
by
is
prudence
Athenian
laxity
the apparent
of
the Acarnanian
in their
evident
to
power
maintain
alliance
Athens
with
improve their
and
allowing the Athenians to become too
never
conventions,
the overall prudence and moderation of their policies. and
in the
powerful
use
position
own
of
while
But
area.
the Acarnanians did not ignore considerations of equity (dike) and loyalty in their deliberations. Originally they allied themselves to Athens only
they had
after
to
come
motivated their request
(a
request which
into the The
temporate
of
anger,
of
their own regime).
Demosthenes and loyalty to Athens led them Athenian disaster in Sicily. Acarnanians'
the
the Acarnanians
While this may one
seem
another,
hesitant to inflict city), both
injury
On
Olpae
together for
explicitly draws
was
used
"matters
to indicate that in peaceful times that
on
during
they
as of
a
acted
the course of the war
place
justice."
justly
they
are
their own people. Even though
the Athenians
campaigns
III.7).19
(11.102,
meet
we can see
with
expeditions
Thucydides
revenge.
stronghold at
would
be traced to their
can
moderation
desire for
or
fact that the
attention to the
two
the nature
also reveals
probably
middle of the source
toward
kinsman
a
their affection for
Finally,
where
Phormio. This attachment apparently of Phormio be sent to replace him
respect
that
were
marked
another
against
they joined in Oeniadae (an Acarnanian
by inactivity
occasion
when
and
anger
nonengagement
or
might
revenge
have been expected, the Acarnanians acted in a generous manner by giving liberal peace terms to the quarrelsome Ampraciots, who had invaded them no fewer than three times during the course of the war. Could the Acarnanians have stupendous
18
defeat (the
Occasionally
Since there is
pitied
greatest
some question
is
raised as
no substantial evidence
the
defeat
to
Ampraciots because
suffered
to
whether
support
by
any city, in
of
their
a
short
the Acarnanians had a
the fleet
thesis,
fleet.
most commentators
they did not; cf. Gomme, Commentary, Vol. 2, p. 411. It is clear, how they did have a hoplite force (Commentary, p. 420 [107.4]. These are probably troops from the larger cities and form exceptions to the almost universal agree
that
ever, that
(11.81. 8, 82, VH.31.5, 67.2). Gomme, Commentary, Vol. 2,
slingers is
Oeniadae their
was always at variance with
own
(IV.77.2).
disagreement
and
made
p.
the
11
(9.4), is
rest of
wrong
when
he
claims
Acarnania. The Acarnanians
Oeniade become
a
member
of
the
that
settled
alliance
Interpretation
74
the entire war)? Such a
time, in desire
to have the Athenians as
not
be
motive would neighbors
their
compatible with
(III. 113.6). Whatever in
the
(VIII.24.4-5).
success
reason, it is certainly an example of moderation Thucydides notes the anger of the Acarnanians on only
one
occasion,
Even though Demosthenes reneged and one is astonished by its attack Leucas, their inveterate Acarnanians to the on his promise to anger and helped Demos their forgot Acarnanians the quickly mildness.
enemy, thenes defend Naupactus (III. 102.3). The
emphasis
"To
statis:
of
than never to have suffered
WhUe the
not
archeology,
in
moderation
less than
death"
found in
revenge
for the
Diodotus,
through
is,
revenge
in
"Probably of
the
infinite
Thucydides,
times the
relatively mUd, but
time the penalty
raises
according to
ancient
an
defense
makes a sophistical
greatest offenses were course
Mytilenaeans,
the
against
Diodotus
he concludes,
which
occurred, in (III.45.3).
The desire for
life may actuaUy have been gentler In a speech designed to
customs).21
named
still
Thucydides, 20
desire for
individual
penalties prescribed
transgressions
the Acarnanians is surprising in of ancient life described in the
cruelty
different
under
Athenians'
otherwise unknown of
more
Justice
of
and
which suggests that
in former times (or the
was
to mention the savagery of modern political man, it is not
the only evidence assuage
harshness
someone
on
(III.82.7).20
oneself"
mUdness
comparative
of the supposed
revenge
get
injury
Thucydides"
light
anger
revenge
especiaUy in times valued
moderate
is particularly striking because of the overriding Thucydides puts upon this passion in motivating pohtical men,
desire for
or
Acarnanians'
as
seldom
was
of
question
the
the strongest and deepest
The first conflict, the conflict which became the Corinthians' expressed cause for the war, issued from the desire to have revenge on Corcyra (1.25). Pericles, in the funeral oration, ennobles anger by saying that passion
the
greatest source of
to the the
man.
honor for
city (II.42.4). The
of one's
of
political
spirited
defender
of
city's universalism.
citizens
is to die seeking
ennoblement of
the city through the
Such
universalism
revenge upon
the
enemies
i.e., the immortality guaranteed immortality of the city, is the basis
anger,
is only
possible through an abstraction
from the body and its erotic attachments: an abstraction from one's death, children, wife, lover. This abstraction may be consecrated by nomos (V.67-69, 72, VII.86.5), "public" or it may be obfuscated by a eros the universal glory and demination of one's
(II.41.4-5, 43.2-4, 44.2-4, 1.70.6, VI.16.5).
city
spiritedness
seem
to
characterize
the
difference
These different
between
the
ways
Spartans
to
public-
and
the
Athenians. 21
B:nardete has
book III
facets of
the
of
pointed
nowhere
else.
Thucydides'
out
Its
that usage
Thucydides
Eurestanians
repented, says
ate raw
the
word
savage
is instructive
and
(cofjov)
occurs
thrice
throws light on
in
several
(1) the Athenians, after their original harsh judgment feeling that they had acted savagely (36); (2) in that men acted savagely (82); (3) it was reported that
account:
Mytilenaeans,
Corcyra, the
and
flesh (94).
Homeric Honor human
of
relationship
Thucydidean
and
nature
Diodotus
convention.
and
"progressive"
the legislative art, is convention, the progress of convention is the same
like the
or
progress
equals
has the
convention
"Greekness"
creates
the
and
Putting
the
two
among
and makes possible
wealth,
Athens.
and
the archeology, we observe what
speech and
pay for the
that
showed
relation of motion and rest
Greek cities, Sparta
premier
But
of convention:
strengthening Thucydides
generates
rest,
that
argues
other arts.
archeology,
Diodotus'
together
price men
the
power to change
(1.18.1, 6-7). It
men
In
power.
as the
75
Necessity
it leads to
progress of convention:
an ever greater
consequently a heightened fear of its This accounts for the increased punitiveness
reliance on convention and
contra
vention and removal.
of
and
Diodotus
which
men
by
generated
the stasis at
mentions
Corcyra.22
for the overpowering
and
Diodotus,
Athenian,
the
laws
anger
appears as
the spokesman for the ancient, Acarnanian nuldness. But his mUdness is
reflection, the
a result of
innovative
Athens;
(and rest)
reflection
in post-conventional,
possible
Acarnanians'
the
from the
results
pre-progressive
is corrupted, but necessarily corrupted by convention; the innocence of both the Athenians and Acarnanians is easUy and necessarUy lost on the level of political affairs laxness
Human
of their conventions.
Sparta
and
However
her
this
defeat Athens
aUies
may
nature
be,
to their gentleness
with testimonials
her
and
aUies.
the importance of the Acarnanians does and
an
"ancient"
they
people
are
associated with
undoubtedly
emphasizes this association when
Hesiod died
the
and
Demosthenes'
purfication of
purification
Delos includes
wisdom.
he digresses to describe the
verses
Delos, in
of
expeditions around the
Ionian
not end
"ancient"
As
moderation.
Thucydides place where
the
gulf.
section recounting The digression on the
from Homer's Hymn to
Apollo,
which
describe colorful, idyUic festival held long ago on the island of Delos. This romantic scene is the only passage in the whole of the Thucydidean a
looks
narritive which
At
times,
other
trailing name,
whenever
Convention
Corcyra, 23
they
One
cannot
with
the
and
help
also and
farewell,
all you
altogether supreme
'The blind
(the
best"
and
When
anger.
revenge are
do
you
take
man who
in
song, making
convention
Ionians in your
way;
mention of your
his
ends
The
upon
quotation
complete
sweetest
the earth,
of minstrels
delight?'
most
dwells in
Do
is removed,
as
at
emancipated.
Chios'
rugged
of
the
quotation,
times,
after visit
shall
to you
of
second
with
gracious and
you make
Homer, in the contest of contenders. Entering the lists
(165-73).
superiority to all other
the
children
insanely
mid-sentence.
dweller
toil-enduring man, what man is the whom
where
and
follows: "Come now, let Apollo be maidens. Yet remember me even in a
in
dancing
heart,
wives
as
'O maidens, and
your
observing that Thucydides
underscored, is
hither,
to
and privately:
contest.23
the Hymn to Apollo in
some other
and
rules
the desire for
omission
ask:
boxing
ordain
nurtures
peacefully
together with their
gathered
anger and
passage of
affairs
Phoebus, Delos is dearest
are
they delight thee
there
22
robes
human
at
the
Artemis
whenever
this island and all who wander
answer, piously and
whose songs are evermore
poets,
proclaims
somewhat
his
eternal
late, Thucydides
Interpretation
76
"war"
narrative, abandoning his political and nnlitairy or Thucydides introduces the ancient Homer to speak of private, sexual, and
TemporarUy
honor-seeking is
which
in the
presented
indicates
the Peloponnesian
War, may
for the
The fact that the only view of peace of Thucydides takes place in the past
whole
"progress"
the
again that
compensate
(eros).2i
relations
be
aU
greatest
Does that
a regress.
motion, progress
Homer?25
a
of
absence
the
which produced
after
But beyond this, the narrative presence of the Acarnanians further indictment of the past. Thucydides, as we have seen, corrects Thucydides'
because they exaggerate and beautify the The poets, to take the most important events served Agamemnon did so to fulfill the who the heroes claimed that case, Thucydides corrects that mistaken beautification oath to Tyndareus. says that poets
are unreliable
(I.10.3).26
they describe
through his historical
"not
Thucydides expedition,
his
gives
sober
and
research
favor (or
by
so much
honor)
catalogue
as
of
by
the
(1.9.3). In this the
on
combatants
motivated
are
men
reflection:
fear"
light,
when
SicUian
great
he naturaUy reaffirms his unblinking judgment of human (the aUies) chose sides not so much on the ground of right
"they
things:
(dike)
to one another but either out of regard for their
kinship
or even
from necessity (ananke), according to the circumstances happened to be (VII.57.1; for the entire assembly, they And yet when we look down the Iliad II.485-end). compare 57-58;
own advantage or
placed"
in
which
see
the list of Athenian aUies this
on
long
reasons of advantage or
concern.
"Some
we
find
of
the end the
near
doubtful venture,
and
necessity, but
the Acarnanians
out of
served
friendship,
24
record
Thucydides
(compare 11.62. 1-3, mentions
example, they fight
in their
silent
proves
erotic
his discussion
unusual
consider
love
the
and
of
eros
striking Homer's boast
(II.4.2,
life. For
111.74). Pericles tells them to be
eros
of their
city (11.43. 1). (For the
and
a
Thucydides'
good regime
tyrannicides Harmodius
/or the
the common, the city
by
connection with political
1.136.3.) Most important,
so-called
portion
toward the
is only used once by Thucydides in the while Pericles the Athenians for Sicily (VI.24.3)
desire (the private)
of
Thucydides depreciates public
Corcyra
and
Athenians to become lovers
the rule,
between
only in their
women
Plataea
and
1.21, 22.4, 23).
(11.45.2). Further,
grief
nominative, in the asks the
at
for
not
wiU,
(VII. 57. 10). 2T
to break the code of good sportsmanship
not appear
good
good wUl
and
aid"
does
who came
for gain, but the larger
[were moved] by friendship for Demosthenes Athenians being allies and coming to their
from the
Acarnanians,
Thucydides himself affirms,
as
same
reason
exception
that
view of the conflict
(the public)
can
be
seen
in
Aristogeiton (VI.53.3-59).
and
Plato does
for the
sake
of
the
(Republic, 420b-421c, 440b, 452c-459e).
25
Strauss, City and Man, p. 236. Thucydides, of course, does take the literal basis of Homer's both in the archeology (1.10.3-4) and, more important, in book III, 26
presents and
27
Homer to
show
that there
was an ancient
festival
on
account where
seriously,
Thucydides
Delos (compare 1.9.3
III.104.6).
The Acarnanians
symbolize
the
ancient
peoples
at
their best. The Aetolians
Homeric Honor
and
Thucydidean
77
Necessity
Thucyidides thus foregoes his customary severity, and permits the ancient or Homeric people, to voyage on his epic expedition, not prosaically, for reasons of gain or necessity, but
Acarnanians, his
"silent"
HomericaUy, for friendship and honor. In this marvelously indirect fashion, Thucydides apologizes to Homer for the injustice he
and
had
to him in the archeology.
Homeric wisdom, which adorns and entire "progressive of the archeology is corrected. The ancient Acarnanians (the barbarians) are shown to be in fundamental respects the precursors of Athenian and Thucydidean gentleness, inteUigence, daring, and moderation (dike). shown
exaggerates,
is restored,
Thucydides thus
and
83.1, II.38.2, 62.1); always
restful
possible
places
and
restful
as there are men
motion,
Thucydides)
own account
who
(1.1.1-2, 23.1-4, III.82.1-2,
is total war, no motion is total motion. War brings can never become universal. There are
no war
the motion which war
and
his
qualifies
thesis"
the
can
live
amidst
times
(the
in the
midst
of
the
greatest
Acarnanians, Demosthenes,
the greatest motion,
still
and
by
guided
only to be found in peace (III.82.2).28 The wisdom of Thucydides,
passions and opinions which are supposed
honor,
mUdness, which
is
looks to
and patriotism
an absolute
necessity
(ananke)
caused
by
absolute
motion,
deficient as the wisdom of Homer, which disguises necessity (war and motion) in a halo of gods and heroes (1.9.3). There is always a combination of motion and rest in both the theoretical and the practical as
world.
Homeric wisdom is as true as Thucydidean wisdom. The Homeric barbarians are, in many respects, better men than the Greeks: Thucydides allows us to see this. So in the end, ancients and moderns, barbarians
Greeks, Homer
and
judged
Thucydides,
and
Thucydides in
by
a new and
honor
and
juster
and
necessity
Thucydides'
In summary, one might characterize follows: Homer proceeds with poetic eloquence his
all
are
perspective. contest with and
Homer
as
then sUently qualifies
themes through the dramatic
denouement. As Benardete has "the Iliad moves from the higher to the lower; apparently AchiUes, the Achaean hero, apparently One might say that the honor-loving finaUy yields to his AchUles yields to the wily Odysseus.30 great
observed
Homer's
about
manner of writing:
opposites."29
Thucydides, severely (in
on
hand, claiming to proceed prosaicaUy Homer), in fact fashions a poetic drama,
the other
opposition
to
then sUently qualifies both his prosaic and his
serve of
for
gain
(VII.57.9),
the Ozolian Locrians
He
proceeds
longer mentioned,
and none
poetic accounts.
are no
the other peoples of the Ionian gulf are distinguished 28
The Spartans
of outsiders private and
and gods
to be
hidden
and
the pious
at rest and
Nicias,
while
to desire rest,
motion results
from the
actually
Iliad"
"Achilles
and
so
Consider
Odyssey XI.488-91, XXIV.
the
name.
always
potential or actual
(1.101-2, IV.41.3, 80, VIII.40.2, VII.50.4).
29
by
appearing from the
are
Hermes 91 (1963):16.
and and
in
point
of
motion.
depredations
of
view
Their
helots
Interpretation
78
from the the
to
prosaic
archeology to the
teaching
sUent
conveyed
grandeur
in
part
by
of the
the
Sicilian
expedition
Acarnanians,
whose
qualities elevate the archeology (the non-Greeks) and thus oUminish the
tragedy
of the
Sicilian
expedition and the
decline
"Greekness."
of
AU in aU, the contest between Homer and Thucydides is so severe because they have so much in common. Both seek to become the highest standard for the Greeks through their accounts of decisively important men and events. WhUe both their accounts point to a standard which is beyond the particular.31
features honor
particular
events
So Homer
and
of the particular:
vs. necessity.
Thucydidean particular,
31
Harry
or
V.
ancients vs.
Plato's Socrates
wisdom are
in the
are
forced to
moderns, fate
not
transcend the
emphasize vs.
different
motion and
rest,
say that Homeric wisdom and fundamental respect the same, i.e.,
would
most
imitative.32
Jaffa, "The Case
(New York: Oxford 32
they describe, they do
Thucydides
against
Political
University Press, 1965),
Plato, Republic 595a-612b.
pp.
Theory,"
221ff.
Equality
and
Liberty
79 THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE FOUNDING OF THE REPUBLIC
W. B. Allen
Those serious, though the
and
nobility,
disinclination place
of
enmities, which occur between the popular classes
natural
from
arising
desire
the
of
latter to
the
the
and
command,
the former to obey, are the causes of most of the troubles which take
in cities; and from this derive their origin.
diversity
of
all
purpose,
the other
disturb
evils which
republics
Niccolo
A
interpretation
recent
America
of
of
negligible
been held to have
Montesquieu's
of
Florence, Bk. Ill
of
contribution
to the
disagreement between Federalists
argues that the
federalists is
Machiavelli, History
founding
and Anti-
importance. Traditionally, Montesquieu has
contributed to
the
principaUy through the
founding
doctrine of separation of powers. In rejecting that view, this argument does not maintain that separation of powers has been misunderstood in Montesquieu though that argument is possible. Rather, it is urged that separation of powers was an administrative
thus
and
necessity,
historically
determined. Thus is Montesquieu rejected, without question as to what he meant to say or as to how he was understood by Federalists and Antifederalists.
The
problem
in
part
arises
from
the
difficulty
Montesquieu's
of
work, De I'Esprit des lois. It offers the critic an extremely difficult task: to derive the schematic form of a government from a work that, in the final analysis, offers only a picture of its character. The honest principal
critic
wUl
only
reconstruct
confronted with an
honesty
immediate
firts two
sections of can
mechanisms
be
a
definitive
can
to
by
a
an
the first two
and perhaps even to
But
have
StUl,
misled
which
the founders
sections
Montesquieu, therefore,
the and
incomplete
section
middle
con
to
to form
as
is
task,
critics
as
one's appraisal
the republic.
a consideration of the republic.
argument
is to limit
foUowed
attention on
than Federalists.
to have left them behind moves
the
they
are
characterization of
forced to focus their
alists stiU more so
Antifederalists
and
possible approach
as
one
task as well as the interpretive
L'Esprit des lois, where some dicta found. Yet those sections form
statement, particularly
develops
If, however,
characterization.
pohtical
is insufficient. Federalists
fronted this difficulty. A
were
the
Antifeder would seem
them
as
whether that could
he
justify
that Montesquieu's understanding is not that of the regime by judging that understanding in the hght of the
only be determined
founding.1
i
Such investigation
portrayal.
The
suggests that
Federalists, in
the determinist
view
is
not an
entirely
accurate
particular, demonstrate an attachment to modern virtue
Interpretation
80
In
the course of this attempt to avoid an aU too rigid interpretation of
Montesquieu
powers, the
and separation of
interpretation
new
in
succeeds
eliminating Montesquieu (more precisely, denying the importance of theory in the founding of regimes) from any serious discussion of pohtics in the American
itself
circumstance
history
is
to
is
moreover,
true, but it
only be the Framers
shown
could
to be true
principle,
for
practice as a precondition
theless, describe
is
there
that the
legitimate
a
history
But
(which
of
and
not
never
be
must
agriculture,
with
form
essential
with
of
history
respect
the
well
much
a
to
understanding of This would
by
preceded
phUosophy
or
by
interposed,
hence,
the
interests
the
presenting
the learned professions
that it only became
in
possible
beyond considering the
as
modern
confederal
a
usefulness
of
defensive matter; the salutary effects of government various small states. The federation would not be a new first
only in the sounding
to Montesquieu). In essay 35 Publius
a
tion drawn from
history
of
but
conventions
a
a
republic.
all
This,
republic
human of
as
from the
come
structure
superstructure.
The
they
They
republic.
confederal
would
of
the essential
the republic as the best form of government;
understood
understand
moved
history has
qua
abUity
consists
problem
the discussion about representation and.
Antifederalists did
the
to
as
consulting,
Montesquieu.
be Herodotean inquiry.
be developed below
will
the
of such events or actions.
that alone would suggest that
commerce
form
of
understanding
question
that, in fact, history
must
demonstrates th;
on the
by
be the primacy of human action. None
events or actions without the existence of prior
seem to suggest
theory:
history
would
principle
the characteristics or moral qualities
by
and the writings of
Were it possible, in determinist terms, to say that
dominating
impeUed
history
only justification of such response. Events or pohtical action. Pohtical speech is anciUary. Now
this case, the speeches of
single,
it depends
qualified: or
circumstance
the
alone can explain
this may be
in
Its success,
regime.
that the response
notion
conven
course,
meant
that that structure was removed but one step from the state of nature and all too close
to the
awful
truths
of
that
state.
Among
understanding that it is welfare was
to be
indeed, but
a commerce
such a
through
based
would
citizenry)
a virtuous
concluded
come
called a complex consolidation.
including
government
citizenry
Antifederalists
questions, such a
that secures
large territory
liberty. The based
a virtue
on agriculture still more
Antifederalists
principles,
virtuous
secured
moderate
other
be installed in
questioned whether moderate government could
on
than on manufacture. With
that the only possibility for
through
the
Federalists, too,
confederal
liberty (and they
arrangement
presented an argument
the basic principle that the
general
comme'ce,
also
in terms
of
is independent good, though it is true that it may initially result from an extensive territory. It is the contention of this essay that such principles did, indeed, inform principles,
phenomenon
of
representation
an
the
political
decisions
made
referred their principles principles can.
Montesquieu.
Montesquieu, or
both.
by
the founders.
Both Federalists
and
to Montesquieu. If nothing more, this must
Antifederalists that their
mean
to a great extent, be understood in terms of their understanding of
Conceding that, it should then be he understood himself, was rightly
as
possible
to
understood
determine
by
one or
whether
the other,
Theory
theoretical principles.
of general or qua
This
possibUity.
moral
practice; this
says
History
of events or actions and
history
qua
history
actions that
may be
impossible
theory
without
history, but
must
precede
theory.
Unless,
be held to be commonly practiced, there must conclusion. Revelation provides one such possibUity,
another possible
in the
not qua
exists
than that
more
81
must
yielding definitive descriptions actions
of the Republic
Founding
that practice is
says
therefore, phUosophy be
Practice in the
and
of
the characteristics
thereby permitting inquiry. This
absence of
arrangement works
to exist for just so
long
as
moral
qualities or
weU, permitting
there occur no events or
beyond the judgment
adjudged
or
the judgment of such events
of revelation
or
divine
legislation. The
problem
the practical
books)
is
prefigured
in Montesquieu's L'Esprit des
books. The opening
announces
lois,
turns on an understanding of the last
of which
understanding
that the
book XXIV (the first
of
author
will
unfold
the
a complete eight
books
of the practical
proper
in
manner
study human things and that he wiU demonstrate that the possibUity of providing men "the best pohtical laws and the best civU is dependent upon such study. This strikes one's attention sharply to
which
laws"
because book XXIV is have
itself."
In this
wiU
each
laws, in
country,
the relationship that
considered
in its practices,
they
and
in
there wUl be things that are true only in The author pleads that he is not a theologian and that
book, however,
sense."
"a human he
"The
entitled
in
with the religion
speak, therefore, not of the best religion, but of the best laws.
It may be
History
explain
the
historical
books,
hence the
and
through rigorous analysis and close comparison of the
Florence2
of
to
possible
books,
practical
with
those books. I am not presently capable of
making that analysis, but some things do appear at first glance that may be of more than passing significance. Each author seeks to present the
history
his
of
Montesquieu, even where
through
contemptible
history must
be
MachiaveUi,
the
of
city
the same facts are material. The
men
(though
sometimes
history
arms, my
France
of
for
regime
Florence,
the country of France. But their histories are very
admitted
reluctantly
history
of
Florence
"with these idle
must therefore
be
filled"
for
moves
princes and
[I, 3,
end]);
the
laws (though the impact of greatness "l'empire se maintint par la under Charlemagne le prince etoit grand, I'homme l'etoit
moves through
davantage"
du chef: [XXXI, 18, beginning]).
grandeur
and
different,
Again, considering
the fate of the
empire
after
the death of Charle
magne, Machiavelli lays the blame for its disintegration to the discords
among the Louis (the sons
that
grandsons:
Pious), at
the
"the Emperor Charles died
death
of
(I, 3, end). Fortune, then, paved bred, at differing occasions, Niccolo
by
so
empire"
time
she
2
and was succeeded
many disputes arose among his his grandchUdren France lost the
after whose
Machiavelli, History
the way for the empire's destruction as the forces of strength or of weakness.
of Florence (New York: Colonial
Press, 1901).
82
Interpretation But Montesquieu race"
seconde of
Lothar, Louis,
left
ruin would
also
outgrowth of the permitted
(XXXI, 25, Thus it
"cause
the
a
have foUowed. The free
of
changes made
to
constitution
made
such
was that portion of
their
choose
the discords
changes
occurred, it is true,
changes
Fontenay. But it
men
settle
in the
Charlemagne to
Pepin. Had Charlemagne
and
Battle
de l'affoibhssement de la
principale
Charles than the
and
Charlemagne
by
which
saw
to be less the absence of
as
an
treaty
brought
that
seignors
the
ruin
middle).
that the laws made
appears
by
regimes maintain their
force
at
the expense of other possibilities and in disregard of fortune.
The
history
from her
origins
Machiavelli specific
The
of
Florence to her
"descends"
history
of
constitutions to
France,
of returns and reverses
"imbecility."
(I, 3,
events, alliances,
history
a
current end).
history
of
a
history
Florence is
takes one
into
which
of periods
intrigues.
and on
The
It is
the other
her developed
takes one from France's first
hand,
It is
constitution.
history
a
of practices and
[which] must be read [XXX, 10-12]). It is a history of laws, presented by Montesquieu "rather as [he has] envisaged them than as [he has] treated (XX, 1). ordinances
and
("cold, dry, insipid
devoured
as
and
hard
writings
stones"
the fable says Saturn devoured them"
History, Montesquieu argues, is a particular force particular to a thus to its institutions (XXVIII, 23-XXX, 14). Men have
civilization and
positive or negative effects on
result, but that arrived
change would
their laws or
invariably
institutions,
result
from
and change
such
may
effects, however
(XXXI, 18, 25, 32). For Montesquieu, history can exist only to continuity (XXX, 10-12). And the first step in estabhsbing that
estabhsh
continuity is to know perfectly
laws and morals. It is only meaning (XXX, 15). He does not address the question or place of self-interest in specific acts or events related in his history. Machiavelli relates his interest entirely in terms of one's ancient
through these that events and actions have
self-interest. must
not
ascends;
It
If
history
must show
be its basis. Where
where
would
it is
present and
continuity, it
is
self-interest
uncontroUed,
be unfair, however, to
speak of
would appear that absent
one
or
controUed,
one
descends.
Machiavelli
in the unfolding of selfish conflicts. A discussion of interest necessarily points beyond itself to
interest
of
the
as
interested only
history
of conflicts
discussion of the dis discussion beyond only concludes that
interested
a
this is true even if the disinterested behavior is impossible or, at best, unreasonable. Nowhere is this better attested than in a history of interested conflicts that occur in a religious
context.
questions subject
As
revelation
to the judgment
terms of interests is to
is
presumed
of
religion, to discuss such questions in
undermine revelation
Such discussion is human
and prepares
to
supply the basis for
and
the human
thus to point
judgment
of
beyond.
the divine.
urges that religion be judged, politicaUy speaking, in terms its conformity to law that is, logos (XXTV, 1). Such an inquiry, therefore, argues a basis for history other than revelation and superior
Montesquieu
of
Theory
and
Practice in the
to it. Machiavelli joins
judgment
In the first book
the
of
of the church.
Florence, Machiavelli
of
portrays the
the pope's, for he speaks of men, not
of
laws
the decline of Italy. He demonstrates the absurdity of
institutions) in
or
History
says
83
of the Republic
Montesquieu in establishing
indeed, has led
or,
the principle of a reasonable
Church's influence (he
Founding
its policy of hiring arms to fight in its behalf and of its attempt to extend its temporal dominance. The pontiffs he holds responsible for nearly aU the barbarian inundations, each occasion of which was an instance of pontific
As
(I, 3, beginning).
aggrandizement
in the city
religion
to
to law in
must yield
Montesquieu,
religious
the struggles of interest in Machiavelli.
principalities must undergo
the ascendance of the religious principality is, ipso the decline of the city. A history which describes
speak of
speak
of
therefore, describes
occurrence,
The
determinants
actions of men are
the
separates
history of
only
certain men with certain consider
Italy
government;
other
changed
their
forms
customs,
modes of
"Frequent men
good
living,
language,
religion,
by
(IV, beginning)
this nature
as
and good
"If
discord
the most
ruin
they also
we
a change
much
not
their
only
laws,
(I, 2, beginning).
history
render a
of
the Clio of that history. "Imper
may be
who
misfortune,"
by
by civil
to
when
name"
"for their
A
but
and
individual
seldom.
and what
France is the fact that
princes, but
repubhcs require
appears"
but
suffered,
and
introduce Fortuna
of some
unserviceable
basis
institutions,
an
decline.
may then easily imagine how
government
of
of and
we
such a
can effect certain changes:
provinces
organized"
fortune
of
even slight variations suffice
Roman
changes"
necessary
fectly
and
history
by foreign interference,
not
States),
or
the
and
how
see
may
kingdoms
powerful
interests
it is human
the evils which arise to a republic or kingdom
of prince or of
which we
laws
of
Florence from the
only (in
to the extent that
Further, facto, to
the
welfare
removed
by
virtue
death
and
or
the
become
"a good, wise, and powerful citizen would have "good laws for its
republic
regulations"
for enforcing them. It
and good
require the wise man
histories wiU be histories may be written only for free."
history
It
of men and
not, therefore,
would
to balance its contending forces.
Most, if
contending forces. A
not
aU,
history of laws "may be caUed
that government which properly appear, therefore, that the History of Florence and the France differ only in that the one is written for an "imperfectly
would
of
organized"
republic and the other
for
a
perfectly
organized republic.
And
the latter must be understood only in terms of the claim presented for it: in the history of laws, the laws have been presented as they were envisaged rather than as
Practice, it as
it is "good
decidedly books
theory
of of
is
would
they
were
treated.
seem, may be informed by theory, but only insofar or the practice of the "good which
practice"
not
the
L'Esprit des lois
are
regime.
To the
extent
that
the
practical
informed
by theory, it is likely that it is the developed in books XIX and XX. But if
finaUy Montesquieu, in proposing
the republic as
this be correct,
regime,"
divine
that the construction of the
Interpretation
84 republic
good
is dependent
upon
ability to study human things human creation properly indicates
the
"history'
laws,
religion,
and the
of
philosophy may be born among or in the contemplation of the imperfect. Put another way, to construct the good regime, one must that
theory
or
eight study the imperfect as if it were or contained the perfect (see the first books of L'Esprit des lois). That the theoretical books come before the
books, therefore,
practical
books
theoretical
can
are preceded
be justified only by the fact that the by the truly historical books those that
treat of ancient regimes.
When Montesquieu politicaUy, he signification
to teach
suggests that one must
that
means
things
pohtical
study the things of pohtics be given their fullest
must
(XXIV, 1). And if it be true that it is the legislator's task the laws (XXLX, 19), then the history of laws begins
and make
with
the legislator. For if
who
judges
history,
and
history
he
is truly be
that of
human creation, it is he CXXVTLT, 3-4). Thus
questioned
who must
the practical books begin with the character of the laws and their relation to the best regime, and then discuss the legislator's with a
history of the
task; they
conclude
laws.
II An understanding pohtical
theory
American
the
of
therein
necessarily
founding
lators. In Montesquieu's terms this is to focus said
as
distinguished from
A Beardian to
give
analysis
pohtical
is
and
commences with the
the
problem
of
American legis
upon what
they did
and
background that underlay their actions. place because what background and interests
the
out of
decisions is
fully
contained
in the
products
of
such
decisions. Such things are, as it were, at the bottom. A discussion of the competing interests that led to the fateful treaty concluding the Battle of
Fontenay
cannot obviate the
necessity
of
dealing
with
the
treaty
and the
changes that ensued on their own terms.
The the
problem
of
political
suggestion that what
tionable. That
private
is
theory at
as
formulated
by
Montesquieu
interest is glaringly
present
in Machiavelli
to heighten its glaring absence in Montesquieu. And there is muteness
in Montesquieu
individual rights. This
a
serves
simUar
coroUary of private interests: necessarily inform a discussion of the
with respect to the
position must
American founding, wherein the founders spht on the question. Antifederalist founders private interest was important but was
Among not
obviously discussed. Among Federalist founders individual rights important but were not so obviously discussed. Each side is properly about
only half
suggestion
of
what
is
the bottom of pohtical practice is unmen
Montesquieu treats
that the study of the
as
unmentionable.
is
so
were sUent
In the
organized"
"perfectly
repubhc
a
study
laws, Montesquieu maintains, ipso facto, that the problem of interests hence, individual rights has been accounted for in a manner transcending or, indeed, obviating the need for further reflection. of a
history
of
Theory The
is
set
Among
regime.
Practice in the
Founding
of the Republic
85
in the discussion among the founders and in L'Esprit in terms of a discussion of the circumstances of the
problem
des lois
and
these the most
important, troublesome,
and
frequently
recurrent
is
extensive
territory. With this question every other issue is immediately in a manner that makes it appear architectonic in scope
connected and
combining
a republican government with an
effect.3
This the
the question of
is in
result
to be resolved:
agreement with the principal problem
in the
nature of repubhcan government
modern world.
An
extensive
to distinguish the ancients from the moderns, but it does not answer finaUy the question as to the form of repubhcan government.
territory
serves
Montesquieu
seeks to provide that answer.
Federalists
and
Antifederalists
presented rival answers.
Though it has been
it is clear that the founders drew from opposing conceptions of the nature and possibihty of government. Professor Kenyon holds that the Federalist-Anti-
differently
argued,4
their arguments republican
federalist dispute is really a dispute about the possible kinds of federalism. But most Antifederalists agreed with "An Old Whig" that the lessons of
history in
phUosophy teach "that a repubhcan government can exist only territory."5 Although it is admittedly possible that one may size and circumstance in explaining federalism, problems arise
and
a narrow
speak of
from
not
lation
a
federal
correlation with
extent, but from
a repubhcan corre
with extent.
One
can neither
reject
consideration
of
the possibUity of repubhcan
take it as given. To show the possibUity of the republic in the new world, it is necessary to demonstrate why it could not exist government nor
in the
so
world,
aU
giving
a
did the
hinges
from
the
3
size
William
diss.,
for the
on
curious
existence of the republic.
In
and
circum
the modern
the capacity to dominate such circumstance,
and
to detach the
new
an
architectonic
role
serves
seem to be deahng with polarities among the clearly to form a single pole with respect to one It is apparent that both Federalists and Antifederalists
would
means of
was
establishing
5,040
mention
exterminating over
depended
seem
polis.
discussed the to
the differences between ancient
greatness
a world of architectonic principles. one
Founders, they
not
chance
on
circumstance
Though other:
must show
histories. As Rome's
stances,6
world
One
ancient world.
modern
or
citizens;
exUing
not
that
everyone
of
a republic weU
in
excess of
bigger
vs.
smaUer; it
was
Allen, "Montesquieu. The Federalist-Antifederalist
Claremont Graduate
School,
Cecelia
5
Morton Borden, ed., Antifederalists Papers (East
The Antifederalists (New York:
State University Press, 1965-67), 6 Montesquieu, Considerations
leur decadence.
rather
that
Dispute"
of
(Ph.D.
1972).
*
Kenyon,
10,000
they intended to do so without above ten years of age. Their dispute
and
nos. sur
Bobbs-Merrill, 1966). Lansing, Mich.: Michigan
18-20. les
causes
de la
grandeur
des Romains
et
de
Interpretation
86
Antifederalists
In both quieu
Kenyon
When, therefore, Professors
calculation.
were animated
by
one could
is
cases, their attempt to realize the republic an attempt
The first ancient
eight
exceed ancient
books
L'Esprit des lois
of
adumbrations of the
the Founders
such principles
to historical
not so given
need not
pohtical objective
be
is
confused.
Montes
as with
develop initiaUy
discussion
the
be
concept
set
the
of
the
With
republic.
They
of mechanisms.
Montesquieu; he
the
of
against
reaches a
are
discussion
discussion of ancient mechanisms. This for merely by the fact that Montesquieu's immediate as their own. For him the birth of
through
of modern possibilities
difference
must
general principles
permit a
analysis as
suggest that
be
limitations.
it is this that
and
republic,
Founders'
to
Borden
and
ideals,7
ancient
a
accounted
not so
philosophy must be re-created. There are, therefore, two republics. The first is found among the ancients in a consideration of first things.
pohtical
The
is to be found in the
second
That
with which
modern
Initially, Montesquieu's the hideout of
As This
purpose
this essay.
of
it. If
I
am
not
capable
of
is introduced
by
famous book containing the virtue
of
to
order
main
reveal
each.
The
importance.
it only insofar
developing is
constrained
to
appear
section
of
of nine
section
be two
books,
of
as
to foUow
nine
main
and
two
books is
the transition section that ends with the
English
constitution.
It is
by
relationship that that oft-quoted chapter is here rather than conclusive. Montesquieu suggests this
read
as
chapter on the
this
introductory through
in
beyond the immediate
point
preface, there
books each, one transition sections of three books and
ends:
be indicated below.
presented
political prescription
sections of eight
central
wUl
L'Esprit des lois is to
the
count
of
appear
would
Montesquieu's
does
one
be
prescription must
above, the design
design, however,
exposition of
position
interest.
private
suggested
Montesquieu
with which
Publius'
its basis.
and
virtue
(IX, 1).
modern world
Publius begins is that
his interpretation
of
Socrates'
efforts
as
weU
in the Republic. 8
Montesquieu
reminds the reader of the purpose of the first eleven books demonstrate ancient limitations) in the central number of the last eleven books: in chapter 23 he advises that "a large state (a), having become accessory to another, weakens itself and even weakens the principal In footnoting this passage (in particular, the expression
(principaUy
to
state."
"large
state,"
does
say precisely the same thing as does the he indicates several earlier passages that dealt whole), with the extent of a regime's territory. Of these citations (twelve), exactly half are contained in the first section and half in the second section, which
not
passage taken as a
7
Kenyon, Antifederalists, Introduction; Borden, Antifederalists Papers, Intro
duction. 8
V, 6; XI, 6. The
treatment purpose
of
treatment of the English
the Spartan constitution
that is
analogous
constitution
analogous to
should yield a statement as
to the statement as to
Socrates'
purpose.
to
Socrates'
Montesquieu's
Theory
Practice in the Founding of the Republic
and
begins to detaU those
which
to remedy their defects ancients
and
moderns:
The
it joins
his
for
appetite
to the problems
they
must
be
France
of
discussion
it
king
to the
for
not
a
smaU
France to
of
fact that
the
do
some
indicate that
icaUy (VIII, 16)
that a dual purpose is involved: the
to establish a "universal monarchy"; and a
is
states
of
citations
hold that
federation. admonitions
possible
should not seek
the size
of
which
and specif
republics,
It is
largeness. But the
and
example)
conquest were
of
smaU.
a
be
passages would seem to
refer
king
to
(IX, 1, for
republic wiU perish unless
restrain
the ancient regimes could employ indicate the first distinctions between
means which
and
representation
those passages
encircle
87
a
convenient
means
of
considering
ancient repubhcs.
the passage to which the footnote is attached does not
Again, the
states'
exceeding the limits
problem of particular states'
of
speak of
form. It
speaks
states) attaching themselves to other states. And the citation, to repeat, is placed not at the end of this passage where it should be if meant to apply only to France but after "large rather of
(any
state,"
a
suggesting
more
general
passages, therefore, is to
application.
To
the
return
him to the distinctions
return
reader
these
to
of ancients
and
moderns.
In the first
section of
L'Esprit des
lois,
it is
established that
there
are
only three separate principles that may inform regimes. These are simple principles; in fact, one discovers them by consulting the "least instructed men"
(II, 1; III, 1). They
honor
false honor
a
the
of virtue motivates
are, in
fact,
motivates republic.
Fear
passions.
motivates
despotism;
monarchy; and, curiously, the
This
is
virtue
passion
also caUed a renunciation
of self.
This formulation ment of
would suggest
the absence of
governments, but Montesquieu has that
explanation
it is indeed
reason
reason
makes
which
in the
bis treatise
opened
man
establish with
perfectly obeying the laws of nature and propels him into error
V, 14
beastly
In
and preface).
one can expect more
to the
so with regard
The
necessitate quieu
the
of
a
accident
emphasized
in
chance
power
3), (V, 8).
Paternal
rule
which, because of the need
in the formation
legislator from the
difficulties inherent in that
natural
is
(I, 1;
more
than
of
error, is
seldom
for intentionality, is
(V, 14).
intentionality
desire for
association
of governments would
earliest moment.
(I,
Montes
arguing the 2). This natural desire
position
by
the presiding officer over first societies. The point is the refutation of Aristotle's history of kingship. The
refutation consists of
ruling (I,
factor
which, because
presence of a
the
avoids
existence makes
by
presence of
nature
of
than the beastly. Yet if it is more, it is only
rational
pursued and
prudently seldom favored
words, because human
other
the
incapable
and
two parts: paternal
paternal
is httle
rule
more than
is
rule
not
historical
is
the
not
the historical basis
pattern
for
an accident that
accident
of
monarchical
is
Interpretation
88 irrelevant
since paternal rule
is
most useful
in that
government
(a republic)
where it is least likely to appear accidentaUy (the laws attempt to add it there) (V, 7). Pohtical societies begin not among relatives linked by their
but,
relationship several
tive
conditions, is
such
under
archetypicaUy,
families. The defective
A legislator
form,
initial
at the
that
association
is,
of
association, assuming that an effec
by
the addition
have been present, in however limited a It is the fact that monarchy is intentional
must
transition.
distinguishes it from despotism.
which
The
is the intentional form
repubhc
for
of government par excellence,
wanting to be a citizen. Its motive force is self-renuncia a decision to be something other than what one is (III, 2, 5). To
it is based tion want
upon
to be a
citizen
is to
want
to have a city, and to want to have a city is
to love the city. This virtue is a sentiment within
to want to be virtuous
the
natural
Pohtical power,
unrelated.
existed, would be transformed
such association ever
of pohtics.
among the
a question of pohtical
every man. It is not knowledge; it is opinion, and, ultimately, And it is a passion which, among ancient repubhcs, required
reach of
a passion.
for its indulgence the
forgoing
of other passions.
This passion, according to Montesquieu, is a substitute for more particular or individual passions: it is general, it is pubhc. As fewer
be satisfied, this general passion is all the more sense, created by humans as a result of the imposition
particular passions can
It is, in
accessible. of
a
social, religious,
higher
or political
order
(V, 2). It serves, therefore, the
or ultimate passion which undermines
as
a
the ordinary
of
effect
For this reason, Montesquieu can say that political virtue is renunciation. It is renunciation of what Hobbes designated as our
passions.
self-
real
selves.
Of the two forms only the latter
by
of
ancient
was perfect.
It
be
as
the
In
must
limit
And
be
the possibUity of gain
and
contained within the
does
(V, 6),
framework
must
be
democracy, it
enter
a
order
to avoid the
must
gain, by distribution.
since
be held to
a
economy"
in
of
6). Individual happiness
them as
always
they
possible
distinguishes choices,
men
of equal
and
"good
real
not
could
because their
different
possibilities.
principles moderns
This is
equality:
enemy is dependent
be. The imphcation is that
the ancients from the
of
sense"
mediocrity of talents and fortunes in a republic (V, 3). At this point Montesquieu speaks of the perfection of are
possible
self-
should
itself"
commerce
"commerce
taking
requires
"inequalities [are to be derived] from the nature of the principle of equality (V, 5). Such a state
commerce
luxury (V,
democratic,
aU
and
cannot
where
that
regime
few temptations to ordinary passions as means that the differences among
fact,
democracy
definition,
a
That
presented.
negligible.
and
boast that equality necessitated that form in which repubhcan virtue
virtue (II, 2-3; V, 8). It is alone hence, equality can be perfected. In
renunciation
aristocratic
republics,
alone could
are are
ancient
on a
repubhcs,
such governments
always
viable.
What
different intentions
amply demonstrated
or
when
Theory Montesquieu
and
Founding
of the Republic
states
that most ancient peoples hved
virtue
for
"have"
which
Practice in the
The
their principle.
under
peoples are
89
governments
past; the
principles
are perpetual.
These
ancient repubhcs were the recipients
(IV, 5). The formed to
deahng
man's
can
are
the
the raising of
and sisters and mothers and
that,
aU
aU
ancient
Greece
of
(IV, 5),
"These kinds
end.
where virtue
republic,
like the towns
general education and
But, for
were
governments
intransigent desires
and
the means to that
be instituted in
a smaU state
brothers
basic
most
institutions"
tions"
necessary because their
was
institutions"
the usual. 'The task of the legislator has been that of
alter
with
"singular only in
unusual
"singular
of
(IV,
and
institu
is the principle, but 6). They require a
though
all citizens as
of
they
were aU
fathers (IV, 6).
regimes
are corruptible
monarchy
and
despotism
by their inherent defects.9 The corruption is entirely a matter founding and refounding (VIII, 12). That which is defective in the
bad
of
principle of the regime
leads to its decline. As
corrupts the principle of the republic
danger
a republic must
Montesquieu the small
be
closes the
is
republic
section with
capable of
escaping
above, that
2-5). To
which
avoid that
the apparent notion that only This establishes two
corruption.
the possibUity for a lasting regime, but that goal. The second principle
principles: that the repubhc offers
that the
noted
luxury (VIII,
(VIII, 16, 20).
small
first
is
ancient republic never achieved
is developed in the
next section, which begins with the announcement: "If a repubhc is smaU, it is destroyed by a foreign force; if it is large, it destroys itself by an interior (IX, 1). vice"
Montesquieu
opens
in
can exist except never
have been
a
the second
section with
federated form. This
truly
considered
with
that
the past, but in the
mean"
for making
republic
a republic could
in the forms heretofore
viable
In that sense, this is a clear break an attempt to discover a "useful
the notion that no
means
examined.
sense
that it is
past virtues a part of
a viable and enduring regime, it is a modern undertaking. This contra diction is further emphasized by the fact that the remedy the federated repubhc
which
is itself
The federated was understood
is
also a
removed
either
a
humans had
break from
from
human construction, i.e., it is
repubhc
by
put
together from things
made.
is then twice
the "state of
with
nature
nature"
removed
from nature,
the present: Montesquieu holds that the
is
inherently
without or within.
a state of
He thus
as nature
theorists. The break with the
war; the
republic
presents an alternative:
state
past
once-
is destroyed the
conven
tions already created out of an imaginary state of nature may be perfected. There is in this a superficial resemblance to the ancient view, and it
9
It
should
suggesting salvation.
that
also
the
be
noted
that
distinction
no
modern
between
counterpart
ancients
and
is
offered
modern
offers
for either, them
no
Interpretation
90
the confederated republic is introduced more as introduction
suggests that
than conclusion,
an
introduction to
"beautiful
description, gathering
almost
of
hke
a single regime
independent
cities.
England. The
is that it is the
suggestion
reader's
And,
attention
this
by
that
the
on
extolling the
by
extoUing the
in
not
setting Montesquieu
enough,
contrast
The
described
confederation unlike
others, for the
between
Montesquieu is
by
purpose
specific
virtues of
a new
1)
that
one
benefit
the
accidentally derived from confederations by the ancients (IX, necessity for intentional confederation among the moderns. created,
than a
administration rather section opens
republicanism
were
federation
(IX, 3). The Lycia, seems, in the
exemplar,
and closes
republic
that warrants examination.
the
Further,
or
regime.
of the
picture
description
accepted
chosen as
the confederal
virtues of
focuses
first, by
a
repubhc"
confederated
best
consideration of the
This interpretation is supported, the which sharply diverges from
and
the
must
be
repub
of
perpetuating licanism. It suffers, therefore, certain constraints, among them, that aU confederates must be republics (IX, 2). The need for intentionality imposes a
need
for
control
unintentional
"best form neither
in
(IX, 13). That
circumstances
of
Montesquieu decrees, ever imagined by
this respect
the
ancients
were
he describes the
when
man."
of government
ancient
Sparta
nor
Rome. It
ancient
That
was
a
government was
form
of
monarchy
among the barbarian Germanic tribes. There, says the history of intentional good government begins The Germans began
as
free
and
Montesquieu, is where (XI, 8). democratic. They became several smaU
monarchies after conquest and separation.
to
deliberate
on
common
tempered their rule
"Aristotle's Manner
and
offered
Thinking,"
of
accident: virtue and vice. not the
affairs
That
quahty of rule (XI, 9). The Then he adds that
of
government.
a
These
were
monarchs
thus
simulacrum
then
assembled
representatives.
of
political
They
hberty. In
distinguishes regimes by things of distinguishes is the constitution and
one
which
government.
barbarian
and
weU-run government
the
English
From the Germans it is
system
is the
weU-formed
is based
on
the
possible to trace the origins
the modern English republic. As Sparta drew her laws from Crete only by Plato, the Enghsh laws are drawn from the
to have them perfected
German tribes only to be
it is argued by Montesquieu (XI, 6). Montesquieu begins with their establishment laws, their corruption. He begins with that which would corrupt
In considering and ends with
perfected
ancient
the laws of the modern republic. The modern system, too, is perishable, but through mechanical defects (abrogation of separation of powers)
(XI, 6). Unlike the ideal repubhc of Plato, whose corruption is almost insensible, the cause of the decline of the English republic can be precisely known. More exactly, its essential characteristic, liberty, can be studied to see how it might be lost, and also how it might be established. Unlike Harrington, Montesquieu has recognized true liberty and constructs a true state (XI, 6). That liberty consists of the power to be virtuous, and that virtue is modern (XI, 2-4).
Theory Montesquieu but
a model
Practice in the
the
form. Discussion
In his teaching, of
hberty,
that
source of
foreshadows the
focus
Founding
an
or
91
hberty
of
in its
the requisites of the
several
republican
to introduce discussion of this
serves
not as
which animates the
virtue,
understanding
emergence of
England
of the Republic
by discussing England,
concludes the second section
as
modern republic. variations
and
liberty,
strictly defined. What foUows is a portrait of the repubhc. Pohtical liberty is the necessary condition of the civU hberty which the citizen exercises. It exists, therefore, in the constitution with a
on pohtical
(XI, 6). Its
creation
in granting
power to
is
The
citizen
as
is, in
hberty,
discussion
a
abuses of power as
accomplished
depends
by
on
Montesquieu's
and
it. It is defined
of
the citizen holds of his safety
opinion
limiting
upon
the arrangement. It
civU
exercises
with
dependent
do the hmited. This is
to check power, that
commences
liberty,
as
(XII, 1-2). The
using
the legislator.
central
section
the
as
or
safety,
most
it is
power
basic form
of
safety is physical safety, and it is with the body that the bulk of this section is concerned. CivU hberty is based on private interests, and this fact is
best has
in its opposite, slavery
seen
the slave has no wUl
private
interest that
an
the
ignoring
destruction
or
7). Montesquieu
(XV, 1,
argues
of
the
that no
one
requires slavery.
Only after a lengthy discussion of body, including the effects of various
liberty
civU
(or the demands
of
the
climates and the means employed
in
providing sustenance) may consideration of the best laws be undertaken. This consideration begins with distinctions between laws, morals, manners, The
etc.
hence
that between interior
distinction, however, is
principal
nongovernable
exterior
and
hence
and
and
conduct
governable
things attaching to the body and its passions basis for the formulation of laws. In fact, citizens wUl more readUy be induced to do great things by their passions than by reason (XIX, 27).
(XIX, 16-17, 19, 20). Those
provide a surer
This
can
be explained, to
individualists, rather
"free
than
of
which
a
mean
and
caring for their
that their
Wealth
men wiU
qualities,"
rather
than vanity
wUl
be
luxury,
(XIX, 27). The
men
be less distinguished. Men
those are only two:
and
wealth and
though based on "real
in this
regime
wiU
be
needs"
occupied
their interests.
whoUy This
by
basing
itself
regime
wUl
further distinguish itself
on a predisposition
in favor
error they wiU, in fact, calculate that is important. Reasoning brings
the
wiU
be industrious. Individual interests wUl between them wiU multiply. Positions of
multiply greatly, and conflicts be greatly distinguished; wiU be esteemed by "real And there
heavy
and
interests
private
be commercial, taxes wiU be introduced,
nation
wUl
power wiU
personal merit.
the fact that citizens wiU be
by
prejudices."
limited fortunes
and men of
large extent,
only
interests,
public
destructive
can
forming
particularly
of
opinions
protective of
or
by including
of reason.
Men
all
wiU
but it is the reasoning,
hberty
to a free
calculations
the favored
about
nation
not
(XIX,
one's
position of reason and
men
and
reason
in
its end, 27). It is
safety that is thereby
of
the
Interpretation
92 As
regime.
is
the process could be
interests,
as private regime
its
and extensive changes
if the
perpetual
the
principle of
understand the principle of this regime one must
To
maintained.
consider
frequent
the opinions must undergo as
commerce, in terms of its relationship to the three
basis,
possible principles.
It is
of note
the book
by
that the book
develops
which
But
of the central section.
In the final
does
treated in book
6),
chapter
in
absent
this
advertised
is
where
is
is
more striking:
it
which
final book
in the former.
made
"repubhc"
of the regime
twenty-eight times
used
(seven in
"repubhc"
the word
is
that the character of the
appears
developed. It is
fuUy
most
the
aU
in
chapter
the one
the
further treatment
as
"repubhc"
omission
is to be
republic
"free
a
no mention of principle
Since it is
XI,
in
commerce
nation,"
the book on a free nation, the word
chapter of
not occur.
is foUowed
nation"
develops the "free
which
surprising because
stUl more
"repubhc"
Montesquieu Plato.10
its
and
Having
bis for that
substituted
that of
and
Plato, he then drops
of
the repubhc
principle altogether.
This
paradox
is
solved
27, is indeed
chapter
in two
in
possible
This is
commerce
was
free
the
nation of
from
clear
it necessary to
book XIX,
foUowing book,
the
described in this
and, ultimately, in
a repubhc
12, 23). Why, then,
First,
ways.
a repubhc.
demonstrates that the
which
between his
correlation
a
suggests
is only
chapter
(XX, 3-4, 9,
a modern repubhc avoid mention of
the
in
republic
the chapter that most openly speaks of the pursuit of private passion and
its
in
place
A
it,
of
once
The
the regime?
to the
return
response provides the second solution.
ancient republic
it has been
or,
corrected,11
more
specifically, to what
the
suggests
What
solution.
remains
remains
is
Vamour de patrie, without the actual for self-renunciation. That singular passion, virtue, is no longer necessity exclusive of ah the other passions. Indeed, exceUence is now based on the
attachment
10
Bk. V. This
the
regime,
helped to
correlation
aristocracy is
scheme: since
to
perfect
as
only
explain
it
the difference between the Republic
it has been reason
corrupted.
for the
This is Aristotle's
corruption
is unclear;
is just that, there
state
must
be
a
and
not
denominating the
more
can
only
of
move
be
allows
If, in the
version
can
in the direction most
the
of
republican.
republic
extent
principle
modern world,
constant attention
be
perfected.
being
resultant
the
republic
i.e.,
after
aristocracy presentation:
the
becoming
the
corrupted version of
the
the one
that the
of movement accounts
If it
can
more republican.
Montesquieu
to disappear
the corollaries of that size
goods,
its of
state
between them
be
demonstrating
perfected,
That the
removes
which
for these factors by
the two regimes as examples of the republic, and
corrupted
must
then he 11
the true republic,
see
demonstrates this coming into being. Montesquieu
loses
aristocracy in his
Socrates'
criticism
do
we
other, as in all the other examples. To the
then,
of
democracy,
position
the two are clearly different regimes. The difference between the two strongly
resembles
ideal
the
approaches
which
this
how
process
it approaches,
obscurity
of
Socrates;
altogether.
loses its
singular
size
(smallness), it follows that it
institutions
of each citizen toward
every
such
as
the community
other citizen, etc.
Theory
and
Practice in the
them. But those very passions most effective not when
error) but were
A
upon which
the regime must
(men
reflected upon
consciously
when subhmated to the exercise of
93
of the Republic
Founding
be based
are
wiU reason
in
sovereignty (as indeed they
subhmated, for pohtics of the
true gloss
on
differing reasons, among the ancients). beastly must not be beastly politics: this would
the
to great things
passions
that
statement even
a
free
people
against their
seem
be led
can
by
true interests. This
the
their
assertion
be true only if the fact that men are acting on the basis of interest is not disclosed to them. Their interests must be operative but unmentionable. L'amour de patrie may only be I'amour propre but it must sound like can
Vamour de
patrie. "republic"
discussion turns to interest proper, the cannot be the although this is true of its mentioned, principle, virtue understanding and hence equality. It is only his equality which permits ancient and When
the
modern republics
in
to bear the same name.
the one and perfect
in the other; that
Equality is, however,
which unites
imperfect
the two also divides
them. The ancient republic grants equality to aU citizens; the modern
citizenship to ah. This necessitates differing standards of judgment in these contrasting regimes, as indicated by the fact that the ancient citizenship is constructive while the modern is receptive. Modern republic grants
citizenship thereby conveys those unmentionable rights the coroUaries of interest whUe ancient citizenship provides the occasion for greatness to those who can or would be great. Therein lies the meaning of Aristotle's defense of the natural slave; therein hes the meaning of Montesquieu's assertion
that Aristotle
FinaUy,
the
between books XIX that
suggests
they
proves nothing.
Montesquieu
effort
and
must
makes
be
"I
the one
brings into
want
or
that its subject was metaphors of each
XIX, Montesquieu moves he makes light; in book XX, he is
and
torrent."
on a
tranquU river,
along by the historian. What book XIX
carried
"humanite,"
once again speaks of
the fact that its place is in the
passion,
commercial
dissociating
to
except
show
virtue,
of modern
modern repubhc.
its
connection
with
virtue,
It
speaks
"exact
that induce men to
Commerce, he says, a
civUizing
bringing
which
he
renounce
corrupts pure morals
influence, curing
self-interest
but it
the destructive
perfects
justice"
and
interest in the
what
it
must praise
on
the other.
barbarian
morals.
prejudices of pure morals
It is this course, a course of The modern repubhc, in short, must
gentle morals.
extols.
tiveness, but
of
In short, Montesquieu retakes the high ground, his regime from brigandage on the one hand and "those
virtues"
and
less
republic.
moral
It is
section)
he is creative; in the other he is a open discussion is hidden again in book XX.
Book XX of
to flow
central
in book
contrasts also appear:
to the right, slides, pierces,
moved
In
explained
extent; the latter is deemed to be limited. In the
introduction moves
the
of
together if one is to appreciate those
read
differences. The introduction to the former of great
heighten the differences
to
XX (the final books
prudent
modernity,
encourage acquisi
is the peacefulness, civility, gentility
Interpretation
94
humanite
for
it is
which
responsible.
Books XIX
and
XX differ
greatly only because they go together. To say that commerce is the necessary condition of the repubhc obscures the issue of the nature of the confederal
confederal repubhc
the discussion of a
A
modern repubhc
But it is the understanding of the necessity for a which permits eliminating, as it does, a state of war
above.
mentioned
so
modern repubhc and
confederation of repubhcs
based
its necessary condition, commerce. wiU not do. "those moral virtues"
on
The only noncommercial repubhc of consequence to have ever existed from the very moment at which it tried to survive without plying
perished
the arts of a warrior state. Rome faUed to provide its citizens with that which
Montesquieu and a
clothing,
The
avoid
of
interests
tyranny,
include what
or
Only interest
the
food,
comfortable
republic's virtue.
a separation of powers
bring
A
about the
regime
based
multiplicity on
majority
the majority in the exercise of sovereignty unless it denies to the majority the right to govern
is the
same
commercial
state.
response
subsistence,
more than
interests)
pursuit of
assured:
of
only this separation can
to the
essential
rule cannot
(a
since
be
hfe (XXIII, 19). established must have
confederal repubhc
to
totaUy
says must
healthful way
That, then, is
to hold power.
thing
is
repubhc
the
basis
capable
of
becoming
public-
the
of the confederal repubhc. It was a
to the inner weakness of the large repubhc
and
the
exterior
From its initial consideration, Montesquieu the repubhc of singular institutions and of the
weakness of the smaU republic. moves
to consideration of
commercial repubhc.
in
smaU
repubhcs
possibilities
insofar
Legislators, he indicates,
to
for
compensate
as provision
must
create singular
institutions
they lack in commercial be made for the general welfare what
(XX, 3, 23; II, 2; V, 3-4, 6). The legislator's
maintaining
by
purpose
is to
create
sufficient exterior power
happiness inside
the
city
to be secure. That purpose is
the combination of a confederal and a commercial republic.
whUe served
Thus
the
away from the ancient city is complete, if we understand the happiness of which Aristotle speaks to consist in virtuous activity. The turn
happiness
provided
with such
a
by
the legislator of prudent modernity concerns itself the Epicurean goal of satisfaction. Such
understood as
activity legislator engages in
the construction of
to the singular purpose of peacefulness.
ordinary institutions dedicated
Ultimately,
the
merely the love of peace, and the good city knowns no
new
virtue
other good
is
life.
Ill The
Antifederalists, in
quieu as their authority.
exceptions,
they
the elaboration of their principles, cited
But in the
areas of principal
arrived at opposite conclusions.
concern,
Each, for
Montes
with a
example,
few
argues
necessity of commerce for establishing the best regime. Montesquieu, however, describes that commerce as one of economy, based on manthe
Theory ufactures
and
trade. What is
and
is
by
offered
the
95
of the Republic
Antifederalists is
one
Thus the equality of the Montesquieu's description of the best
of
on agriculture.
the
not
Founding
Antifederalists'
sufficiency, based regime
Practice in the
same
as
It is the equality of yeoman farmers, uncluttered tion of income and other industrial offshoots.
by
city.
notions of redistribu
Antifederalists'
SimUarly, the position, which argues that government is to lead the vicious to virtue, faUs to take account of Montesquieu's reference to virtue and vice as accidental matters, outside of the funda mental
discussion
created
for the
of politics.
distinctions to judgments. moral
which
It is not, therefore,
by
He does
Antifederalists base
upon which the
be led
Government, in Montesquieu's terms, is
repression of vice.
it
not reject the natural
their position,
free
anomalous that the
of political
book XIX
people of
their passions rather than their reason. Their love for the
is first lowered to
a passion and
regime wiU not repress or punish
not
thesis
but he denies that the
necessary basis
gives rise are the
law
wiU state
only thereby raised to a virtue. The good vice; it wUl manipulate it in such manner
that it is useful to the state. This may be what Montesquieu means when
he
laws
says that the
suppose citizens to
be
good.
As to the necessity of representation, the Antifederalists agreed with Montesquieu. They considered it an essential element of salutary govern ment. But representation must be open, and its essential foundation is equality.
of
And, finally, its
classes
believed ruler
as
that the
and
ruled
Montesquieu distinguished
as a
proliferation of
guarantees the
is
direct
of
could
be
that
direct
equality
of
But
avoided.
the
of
as true a representation
representation,
Antifederalists
the
the development of separate interests between
positions
result of
with
of
to
respect
power
the
republic,
become greatly
wUl
the effect of commerce and the effect
extreme
that is guaranteed
by
the regime. Montesquieu argues that the
the arrangement of
in terms
classes
representation of
classes.
such
interests. And it is this
by
maintained
arrangement
danger
states
is
proper manifestation
Given
possible.
offices.
of
interests. His
But this does
rendering
them
for
This is stUl, it may be argued, an one notes that it is not the
not mean the
distinct
and
the
confounding of arrangement. The point is
republic caUs
conceded, but
and
regime
a
arrangement
sought
by
the
Antifederalists. The
Federalists
Montesquieu, Initially, their
are
more
often
though occasionaUy
abUity to
to
be found in
disagreeing the defining
agreement
with
on matters of significance.
appreciate
characteristics
of
the
laid the foundation for this agreement. In its absolute form, Montesquieu's dictum with respect to territory led the Federalists, properly, to decide that government would be impossible; hence the intent of Montesquieu must have been directed to something regime's
less
circumstances
damaging
for the
prospect of
human
principle of representation ameliorated
affairs.
They
this difficulty.
reasoned
that the
Interpretation
96 This
question of
general
a
as
its extent, but
not of
governing,
states
quieu
the fundamental
conclusion was reached through consideration of
that
rule
its
of
be repubhcan,
must
states
small
When Montes
nature.
mediocre states, monarchic, etc., he seems only to be saying that one can discover its essential nature in its classical locus. When he says that a
is destroyed from without, etc., he is suggesting that the repubhc cannot depend on recreating the classical locus.
smaU repubhc
durability In
other
the
of
in the
a change
words,
its handicaps
the
removes
incapacity. The Federalists in
system
were
uniting
rejected
greater
held
people
all
weU
as
size
of
power
the citizens
in
"all would be
powers
bodies for the
single
In
fact,
as
tyrannical.
of
legislating, they
long
so
are
its fundamental
as
Montesquieu that
with
concluded
their parting glance at ancient democracies.
constitutes
repubhcs
the
which
nature of repubhcan government to remove
strictures
Tiny
under
lost."
a
This
agricultural
management of affairs
the
as
hold the
people
the holders of aU the powers of
why the legislative power is seen as greatest. Although it is true that a people may commit themselves to the hands of governors because of an extensive territory, the Federalists held such This is
government.
action
to be
an
independent
It
good.
only to
remains
basis
adduce the
of
a regime so constituted.
Montesquieu's natural allies and
mises
and
interests, other,
interests form
to buUd
wUl
aU
be
raised
Montesquieu holds that poorest must work
of
American
wUl
interests
a
be to
an
republican
of
reflected
pohtics
in interested
through a proliferation of and
become
wiU
Publius. hke
more
level
of
each
interested behavior.
wUl
mediocrity
exist
to the general interest. It
wUl serve to attach aU
as
which compro
to survive, the richest to conserve. The
be instituted if the
wherein
the
multiplication
is,
bottom,
at
representation
is to
effective.
The
Antifederalists
directly
than
representation
it is
either
to
appear
predisposition to provide
for the
body,
Montesquieu
specificaUy, for
have or
fully
appreciated
representation of the middle
often aimed at aU or most
This may require interests, but that is part affair.
not viewed
regime
is
protected
not
by
as
"interests"
is based
acknowledgment
of the
bargain.
protected
motive
by
noble
force, equahty
that
Reminding
reminding them of their
to be
its
the
the
modern
but they approach that task more Pubhus. Their caU for a wider
that the protection of equality and individual rights
is
in
to a common denominator but
equal
general
as
officer
pohtical
Montesquieu
states
reduced
this trade and finance that must
be
stuff
homogeneity
unites the theories of
because
aU
the
knowledge
pohtical
of
argues that the
not
because
of
attempt
therefore,
Pubhus
the
and
negociant
view of the manner
a concept
behavior. The
the
of
Federalists'
coalitions
in
combine
view
the
must
men
assumption
be
an
have
open
private
men of their
rights
In that sense, the wise men; it is to be
passions.
hes as
class, though
on the
or
derived from
natural
law.
Theory Indeed,
government
are to the pursuit of
The Federalists
they
were
human
of
to
for
of
whatever
satisfying
private
limits there
interests,
and
the place that interests occupy in reluctant to discuss the fact that the
were
government
instituting
basis
the
on
They
of
interest
of
posited
government
existing independent
as
classes
in terms
enforce
discussing
pursue their passions.
as the occasion ment
reasoned
Yet they
affairs.
citizens
exists specificaUy to happiness.
not ashamed of
establishment
97
Practice in the Founding of the Republic
and
vests
the fact of
but
discreetly
a
right
in
behavior
such
treated govern
behavior.
The confounding of elimination of distinctions
such
that was created treated equahty as the rich and poor wlhle creating the distinction
between
of
interests. As
not
be equal, the multiplicity of interests represents an inequality. Yet that inequality exists only between specific interests and is interests
all
can
drawn from the
equahty itself. It is this
regime's
inequality
created
by
equahty that renders necessary a sUence as to rights: this is so because it is impossible for government to enforce, equally, every limit on the
happiness.
pursuit of
That Federalists Founders
Together
priate.
With
Antifederalists
and
America
of
respect
they
to that
present
the basis
Whether
one accepts
complete
be
considered
be
and are
mute
modernity is dependent
theory is
to be
seen
of
in
properly
prudent
the one or the other
problem of pohtical
interpretation
should
foUow
either
prudence, the
of an older
to which the
a
about which one
maintaining regimes, they on
jointly
must
is
thus uniting their contrary positions
the regime.
founding
silent or
of
the
appro
and
reject,
Montesquieu. the
extent
embodied
in the
upon
American founding. If
virtue
repubhcan
to the
is
the
to the
answer
pursuit of private
interests,
whatever makes such exceUence
basis
such
of
a an
repubhcs suffer
constitution,
understood.
nature of
that to
Small
be
the possibUity of modern
are
sufficiently
possible, if Montesquieu's
of one's
and
large
dictum that
small
defect
prudently control the form and The virtue of a republic's citizens
constitution can
it
alone applies.
republics
can,
to
of
avoid
and
its neighboring
nurtures
citizens
in the citizen.
regimes.
Montesquieu, is for their defense if they
this,
says
course, provide the internal defect
of
only be thus virtuous in a commercial republic, virtue with their immediate interests. The public-interest can
to the interest the
country or is the
republics a curable
then
prey to conquest,
virtuous
love
an extensive commerce
a guarantee of the virtue of those of
repubhcs
incurable. Large are
A
which
of
consists of that exceUence particular
understood as
incurable defect
is readUy can not
problem
government, if this virtue
dissension.
They
identifying
their
state speaks not
hold in the city, but to the interest the
pubhc
98 INTELLECTUAL BIOGRAPHY
AS A FORM OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS Robert R. Orr
To
write
inteUectual form
books
other people's
about
biography
of parasitism
amounts
best
at
a
at worst an attempt
warehouse,
to),
can
it
retailing
books (for be
ever
of
more
goods
to seU something
is roughly
this
than
from
which
what
an acceptable
manufacturer's
a
is already
avaUable
for free?
I
to address the
propose
can we
standing
question:
expect
reasonably
how
give an account of
who
writer came
some
to our under
contribution
what
from somebody
undertakes
to
to think as he did?
noteworthy A century ago, when biography and panegyric were barely distinguishable, it was considered scarcely proper to ask how so-and-so developed or changed his ideas. Nowadays there is The
no
itself is
enterprise
lack
books
of
a recent one.
which center their attention upon this specific question.
on Tolstoy; G. J. Warnock on Wittgenstein; Peter Hooker; Peter Brown on St. Augustine; Shirley Letwin (in The Pursuit of Certainty) on Hume, Bentham, J. S. Mill, and Beatrice Webb; Gertrude Himmelfarb on Darwin and Acton. Of these, the lastnamed might, indeed, be called a professional intellectual biographer.
We have Leon Troyat Munz
on
The
"intellectual
expression
biography"
suggests
thereby something less than a abstraction, restriction. Less is said and
be a
It is,
said.
limited
course, true that
of
range of
catalogue
of
vision,
events
human
compendium of
must
threaded
life;
complete
lively
about the
biography,
aU
the hfe of a mind,
is abridgement,
there
subject
look
might
it
avows
be something more than a comprehensive on to a time sequence. An exhaustive
responses
between the
margins of
may be conceivable, but if one were ever to be found it be biography than chronicle could ever be history. If
than
whether or not
birth
and
death
would no more
general, apparently unqualified, biographies, we find built around some theme, or some phase represented they commonly as the high point of the story; how he became a millionaire, prime we
at the
are
minister,
or
the founder of the Salvation Army. Sometimes there is more
than one theme; the career, and
downs
of
his
caUed an account not of one
in
one
Lytton
lifetime,
which
Strachey
two
simple
in
climber,
a
is itself
composes a
some pure natural
gives us
domestic life, favorite diversions, or the ups Some general biographies might be life but of several, which happen to converge
church membership.
study
a social
career,
history. Ivone Kirkpatrick
themes: a political career and a a
of
junction. Michael Holroyd's
a mere physical
literary
on
a
biographer,
and
a sex
life,
and
an
essay on domestic life. Julian Symons
his brother A. J. A. Symons
gastronome,
saga,
Mussolini is
a
a
bibliophile,
coUector
of
a social
knick-knacks.
Intellectual
Biography
There is, in principle,
no
as a
Form of the
Umit to the
number of
constructed out of the records of a man's a modern more
man, hved in times the abUity to
than
when
run
99
of Ideas
History
themes
life, especiaUy
which might
the pubhc
hfe
be of
to be civilized probably means little
several
concurrent
lives in
one
lifespan.
Theme-buUding wUl be limited only by the biographer's own interest and by what the documents wUl permit; you could hardly get a mathematician's CromweU's letters
career out of
and
or
speeches,
a
sociologist's
out
of
Calvin's Institutes. now from the aUegedly general to the avowedly qualified here we have a self-conscious, dehberate attempt to draw the biography, subject into categoricaUy close focus, to fix upon a theme believed to have
Turning
an
identity
or
interests
qualified
its own, owing nothing of a direct nature to other pursuits may have foUowed. The prototypes of all
of
which the subject
biography
of Martyrs of spiritual
its
are
the lives of the saints,
In the
beginning
with
Foxe's Book
century there was a flood biographies and autobiographies coinciding with the heyday of and
successors.
nineteenth
British missionary societies. WeU does one recaU some of the titles on a Nonconformist famUy bookshelf: My Call to Tibet, Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, Forty Years with Christ in China, Mary Slessor's Life of Service, Adventures with the Bible in Brazil. These were aU lives of nineteenth-century Protestant a single
in the
was
dislike
which was
story,
home, his
of the
saints.
They told,
and set out
only to teU,
that of a pUgrim's progress. How impossible he
venereal
finer arts, his
inclinations
management of
or
lack
them, his like
of
his financial
affairs
or
none of
this appeared or needed to appear. The biographer wrote a circumscribed
life
of the soul;
how
so-and-so
became
a moral
or a globe-trotter
exemplar,
for God, how he came to be as he was in a certain special respect. What about hves of the mind? If we look to the nineteenth century for books portending the
inteUectual
modern
biography
we
find them less in
missionary and more in literary biography, under titles like The Life and Works or Life and Times of somebody, and written sometimes by scribes of
the
they
assessment of
we now
Now, before
but
the career,
have the what
subjects, but insofar
we
for
it. A reputation,
of a mental
skiU,
inteUectual,
we
Cavendish. In the
as
they
main
attempted a critical
biographical idiom
of which
to
expect
from
and
a particular
the
"inteUectual"
qualification
life"; everybody
one,
possibly a livelihood, is it is this skill which is our
and
of course
has one,
living is earned acquired by the practice
whether or not a
quarry.
The
skill of the
may say initiaUy, is that of sophisticated utterance. The not necessarUy be done with words; C. R. Leslie's book on
uttering wUl John Constable is Strauss is
germinated a
biography? A "mind
looking
exclusively,
they
or
mature offspring.
are
the word
we are
with
Froude, Lockhardt, Macaulay,
class of
were eulogies of their
a
whUe
a recent
biography
of a mind which uses visual materials almost
Norman del Mar's three-volume study of Richard addition to the library of musical biography. But for
Interpretation
100 the
most
part,
utterers
sophisticated
be dealers in words, in short,
wUl
writers.
We may note in passing that sophisticated utterance, or inteUectual but less definite than, for work, is more precise than "mental instance, phUosophy, mathematics, or pohtical thought. The adjective work,"
"intellectual,"
indeed, holds
a place
"moral."
Moral
to that of
comparable
in
the scale of conceptual are
relationships
a
definition
kind
specific
human relationship, but they are less definite than particular relation like those between doctor and patient, landlord
of
ships of mutual obhgation
teacher and pupU.
tenant,
and
Sophisticated utterance, then, is writing, gesture,
ah
organized
more than
into
idle
It is speech,
thoughts. are
statements which
designed to be
we mutuaUy reinforcing, that is to say, argumentative. The inteUectual, may say, is one who constantly feels a need to add to what he has already said.
He
and,
if
try
wiU
asked
to be ready with another wiU
again,
obhge
living out his hfe in tary questions, doing his best to
know
Now
He is
first,
chronically
the shadow of anticipated supplemen
them
answer
His discourse has to be argumentative,
and
indeed,
to put a stop to the process, or,
to buttress the
to.
try
or
again,
self-conscious,
statement
to
of such
a considerable
before they
asked.
are
he is liable to find it difficult in any other fashion. writing, but for our purpose speak
we variety it may be helpful to distinguish two types, which I shaU call, adapting Aristotle's terminology, the formal and the substantial.
Formal as
in
to their point or order
complete
and and
which never aU
invite query
that needs to be
to make their sense. Mathematical theorems and
said
phUosophical
leave nothing unsaid which is needed to make the discourse intelligible. One need never ask the point of a Euclidean
arguments
and
Aristotle's
or of
proof,
in themselves, their justification. They say
arguments are complete
mutuaUy such
classification of the ancient polis
exclusive types.
arguments
are
The disclosure
self-terminating.
into
six exhaustive
within the argument
They
cannot
is total,
be "settled
out
court."
of
reasoning intended to make sense of, to justify, or to bring about a result which is not part of, and cannot be put into, the argument itself. They have an activating occasion and a Substantial
arguments are pieces of
If initial
comprehensible. so
does the
argument.
this kind. out of with
Pohtical
which
and
reasoning itself becomes
the
anticipated
arguments and
outcome
legal
disappear,
proceedings
are
of
hve only as long as they are not dropped, or settled They court. In 1971 the Wilberforce tribunal in Britain concerned itself
settling in
upon
a
properly
comparable
mentioned
strike,
of
occasion
can
argument was
wages
in terms
outcome
subsequent
in the
fair
rate
confined
of
pay for electricity
to questions of
jobs, productivity
scales,
employees.
differentials,
and the
The
comparable
like. What
was not
proceedings was that the argument was the result of a
and took place under the threat of
further
strike action.
These
were
Intellectual Biography the circumstances
which
inteUectualism is
be
besetting he is
of which at
far
extended as
life. The
a
argumentative that
impulse,
brink, is
hfe
whole of
and
on condition
this
kind
battle,
of
any limits
the belief that,
that
they
substantial
in
possible
aU
pre-empting The
end aU verbal resistance.
betrays,
place
The ideal society this kind never stops
ultimate
of the complete
a total and
to
self-justifying
justification lies
intellectual is
lease
keep inabuity to
refusal an
perhaps,
have
which
whose
ones,
themselves.
with
every human wish, every field on which final victories
a
consists
victory
dicourse in its
and
to
vulnerable
distinguish between formal arguments, quality,
recognize
to be translated into the compass
vanquished opponents are given a grace-and-favor
hold
of
And the
ways.
you can press
acumen,
where
won,
Your
responses.
it.
of argument should
to
the refusal
ideaUy
as
discursive field
onto the
in these two
its end,
and
possible, that it be let loose into the whole tide of inteUectual, the excess, the folie de grandeur
as
industry
be
to
are
beginning
the boundaries
101
of Ideas
sin of the
discourse. He is occupationaUy
of
sufficient
History
were not themselves a part of
belief
always on the
aU, to see the
Form of the
the argument its
gave
it intelligible, but Thus intellectual practice is
which made
credo of
as a
outside
one where the
and where nothing else ever starts, or, if it its life entirely to the permission of argument. Now the man we can caU an inteUectual has this skiU, but we need to
talk of
starts, it
owes
know more, because it can be turned in different directions. It itself onto problems in formal logic or arguments for and coeducation,
or
it
can engage
in the
weird
casuistry
can
set
against
which surrounds peace
talks. If a man writes exclusively about one of these matters we usually caU
him simply
strategic
speciahsm.
We
logician,
a
educational
an
And biographies
studies.
find books
shah
and
and
theorist,
theses
an
or
autobiographies entitled
will
The
authority in reflect
such
Philosophy
of
Bertrand Russell, The Educational Ideas of Cyril Burt, and The Political Thought of Henry Kissinger. If, however, he does not specialize but writes in aU three, and perhaps in addition finds writing a novel not beyond him, together with some books on marriage and morals, we may rest content to caU him an inteUectual, meaning, simply, that his capacity for organized thought is generously employed. He is a general practitioner of
the
discursive
art.
no
territory
corner
be
of
unvisited.
the
resident
to the
Such
as
travelers, political
who
of
biography
man
may,
he
caUs
his home, was
seems
of
where
one
he is
mathematics.
the
whole
that he has left
course, have
a
of
citizen
a
it
love,
one
recognized
to
Or he may be
Arthur Koestler has done, from sex manuals to the history of science, to Eastern mysticism,
to
Thirty Years War,
Most intellectuals
body
his
For RusseU this
expert.
punishment,
diverse
end of
world which
nomadic, passing, capital
The ideal intellectual is
At the
systematic world.
with no permanent roots
restrict
letters
their travels
caUed
political
somewhat.
in
one or
The
the
history
thought displays a line
have divided then trudgings between the flat
and moral recommendation and
the high
peaks of
other.
of that of
such
plains
theology
of
and
Interpretation
102
In
phUosophy.
some
recent years
have
lower
the
roamed
for
of eco
slopes
earthly heavenly activity of the inteUectual. How is this mind to be accorded biographical treatment? Biography, if it is a genuinely historical undertaking, turns on the recognition of change and movement. The
nomic
theory, seeking
Such, then, is
in
by
many
whose
wiU
a man's
be to
intelligible
perceive and render
life. As
a
historian he has
his coUeagues; he has chosen, in biography, limits are made for him. The termini
of
inteUectual the
biography biography
the life and death of the
are
moment when the
including, if
publication,
beginning
are the
subject
you are
first
lucky
and
a
field
of
subject.
the
of
study
general,
Those
of
enough
to
pen
to his last
paper
to find them,
has
the
hfe,
the end of a working
puts
else
unpublished manuscripts which
the shifts and
an advantage not shared
outer
unspecified
from
city.
an
the
biographer's task alterations
model
there a
some usable
noticed.
nobody At any rate you have a body of finished work, and whatever falls outside it belongs to another story, that of posthumous influence or reputation.
There
faU into
which
almost as
this class,
Bongie's study
of
writers made of your
are
as
many books
there are on
Hume's thought has
Hume. A
a
"machiavelhanism,"
on
Machiavelli,
lengthy
prologue of writers who
subject, of course, faUs
within
the
whUe
Lawrence
taUpiece on what
biography
later
aUegedly influenced itself, since it teUs
of Hooker is in entirely fact constructed entirely in this way, with chapters on the use which Hooker made of Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas, and Marsilius of Padua. This asset of having hmited boundaries within which to work is, of
what
he
made of them.
Peter Munz's study
or any about the only sohd advantage which the inteUectual biographer may caU his own. There is a daunting catalogue of difficulties, and of these the central one, and it is as old as BosweU, is that
however, other
biographer,
you, the chosen
He,
are
the subject, has used
Can you, the about
recorder of
himself,
formidable
entering inescapably into competition with your in which you are very hkely to be worsted. words as precise instruments of the imagination.
a competition
subject,
his labors, do less? He has already
and you are
corpus.
You
make yourself as vulnerable as
knew himself to be in writing those whose work is in a sense you are
trying
about
WUde
their own
Hesketh Pearson
Shaw. InteUectuals
are
inteUectual autobiography,
and
and
present
the greatest chaUenge to the
biographer,
the essence of phUosophy to strive for total transpicuous provide
their own skepticism
those who write about their
Diogenes
plenty
to improve upon what is already creditable.
Philosophers
Plhlosophers
said
presuming to add, without supererogation, to a
Laertius,
with an
and
since
it is
self-explanation.
their own commentary, and
working lives usuaUy have to rest content, like account of the lifetime of the man, an elliptical
his doctrines, and perhaps some potted criticisms. Some it is times, true, the biographer may detect and set out to explain an apparent mutation in a philosopher's thinking. G. J. Warnock records the
presentation of
Intellectual
Biography
Form of the
as a
History
long-recognized hiatus between Wittgenstein's Tractatus
tions,
Less chaUenging but
alterations
of
letters
has
phUosophy, have
Whether
one of
articulate
contributions
may be
contain
complexity they for change within
your
of
big
with
Montaigne, for
penchant
a
chaUenge of
about a philosopher
writing
faces is
what can
I
an
already
biographers'
that
suggest
exhaustively into four types. The types are, inteUectual biography wUl often be than
more
of
phasing
rumbustious
to
added
actual
any
elements
be
the
a single major
In
one.
detecting
story;
theme;
and
to
trying
of ascending in it; accounting
order
themes
relate one
theme,
or
to others. and most
thereby giving commentary.
modest,
structure
Geoffrey
may detect phases in in the hitherto seamless
you
seams
and
line to
Faber's book
in the story, which he "Decline and FaU of a
phases
elaborate version
and end.
Faber's work,
by
Benjamin Jowett
story Master of Balhol's
of the
This is
us past
hardly
"pure"
of
be
mere three
presents
and
formula, a beginning, middle,
a simple enough
even simpler
carrying
career rather
a
work
time and
"Ascendancy,"
"Apprenticeship,"
one
of
Jowett's
death,
might
The focus is
of a career plus posthumous reputation.
the
of
otherwise
would
what
on
life's
the
robe
calls
Reputation."
thus
supposed
Cranston.
writers
self-declaration?
classified and
subject, making
slightly
Maurice
to
moralistic
John Locke, incoher
apology.
and
to detect intellectual system in a
trying
piece
are
interest, First,
aU
question one
course, abstract,
found to
these
plot
provided simUar opportunity.
writer, the
pohtical
polemics
material
Pascal,
writers often
may try to
rewarding subjects of aU are those at different levels of abstraction, whose level to another, now engaging in formal
seasoned
one accepts the
the lesser
Such
causes.
you
teased commentators with its
excellent
and
and
are pohtical scribblers who
most
who write
always
offered
Machiavelli,
of
The
in sharply
now
analysis,
whose work
highly
front,
of
tends to slip from one
thinking
ences,
or
mind,
course.
of
gentlemen of
or
stiU rewarding subjects reasoning to support their
generalized
changes
show
Investiga
and the
tries to set forth an underlying consistency.
and
employ
103
of Ideas
than upon changes in his
be
called
upon
ideas,
the
and
is
inteUectual biography.
you may be a httle more ambitious and sort the story out into In Gertrude Himmelfarb's book on Lord Acton, change and movement are virtuaUy restricted to the first and last chapters. The rest
Second,
themes.
of
the book is
the
Papacy,"
tribution,
thematically "Liberal stays
which
reclassification.
organized under
Pohtics,"
close
headings like "Conflicts
"Writings
and
on
Liberty."
The
with con
to its sources, is that of classifcation, or
Miss Himmelfarb knows that
themes; they are the declared interests she admits to giving only a "textual
of
she
is
not
inventing
Acton himself. In the
the
preface
analysis"
defends the that
is,
of
of a prolific
writer,
and
"overintellectualizing,"
by pointing to the dangers of attributing to a writer a level of thought to which he never procedure
aspired or which
he
never attained.
104
Interpretation
Peter QuenneU, writing
themes, denoted by Himmeifarb's central
Acton,
in the
"a balanced
gives shape
Critic,"
Art
Development."
there is no attempt to locate subject's
work.
QuenneU
a
story into
the
shapes
of an
As
"Literary
and
concern
attempted
headed "Opinions
Reformer,"
Social
ence of a
hkewise
Ruskin,
on
chapters
master
"Influ
with
Miss
interest
or
only to have to the sources, but
claims
portrait."
The book
stays close
to them.
This way of writing is not easy. It is beset, hke aU historical writing, the bugbear of preserving chronological movement while analyzing the themes. As soon as a theme is explored to any depth, the time with
disruption. Biographers have
sequence suffers
to
keep
in
the two
Strachey,
employs
kind
employed various techniques
balance. Michael Holroyd, in his Lytton flashbacks and flash-forwards. Ivone Kirkpatrick keeps some
of
his Mussolini moving steadUy forward save for one static chapter which analyzes the character of his subject. Elie Halevy on Bentham (in The Growth of Philosophic
Radicalism)
present
of
critical
studies
and
inteUectual
Maurice
positions
Cowling
J. S. MU1
on
to be more or
assumed
less fixed. The or
third contribution
behef in
of the chosen
himself, but
this
suspect
this
evidence
natural
for
record and account
wUl rank as
only
a change
selection
said
of mind
central
against
other
that the idea of the
in
his
one
an account of
initiaUy
one piece of evidence, and
that, to be tested
at
in his later years,
Darwin,
by
is to
the interests
usually identified as the inteUectual. He may, of course, have given
one of
Charles
evidence.
mutation
of
species
the germinating Miss Himmelfarb, going through the diaries and Darwin, in his later years, said that the idea of the mutation of species which apparently remained intact throughout the voyage, foUowed shortly was
mind
"Beagle,"
aboard
whUe
"Beagle"
yet
afterwards mature at
face
by
a
blinding
relections
of
a
inspirational writer
on
period.
his
changes of mind
like
those of
thing fairly definite
to fix
interests
engagement, since
or
failing
or even
reticent,
with
ignorant
upon.
of
of
his
the question of how
the
great
stressed the
regnum
work,
Much
historian
are
never
of
ideas
the
to be taken
Darwin
give
the biographer
more elusive to
trace
Hooker, having
complementarity
marshaled aU the
Thomist
of the orders of nature and
sacerdotum, came, in the last three books fall into a MarsUian strain of argument which
and the
to
priority of civU peace and therefore of the Munz accounts for the change from
the ecclesiastical.
referring to the
some
are shifts of
your subject may be inarticulate, Peter Munz, writing on Hooker, was
of these.
arguments about the mutual
grace,
the
value.
Overt
faced
For
own work
political commission
to defend the
civil
order over
within
Hooker,
Settlement from
which
the great apologist started. He had begun with the firm conviction that the
Acts
of
Supremacy
and
Uniformity
with grace supplementing, not government
harmoniously
could
be
represented
supplanting, nature,
cooperating
under
a
in Thomist terms,
and church
monarch
and
and
civil
Supreme
Intellectual Governor
Biography
in
united
as a
one person.
however, his growing
and
Form of the
the time he had reached book
By
painful
105
of Ideas
History
awareness
VI,
the realities of Tudor
of
practice had undermined his abUity to use Thomist categories with con fidence. He then turned to MarsUius for generalized arguments more
to the
appropriate
Here, then, is from extraneous
internal,
Munz
his
in fact
This theme and
raphy
to
itself. The
later
not
is entirely subject's
passages of
Hooker
which
disUlusion-
betoken
Hooker's growing uneasiness about the coherence explain his faUure to finish writing it.
adduces
disiUusionment is
of
points
sharply to a brief. In writing
a
frequent
major of
But
self-knowledge.
their
passion
determinedly
intellectual
motif of
difficulty
intellectuals
of super-civUized people whose whole
reticent or even
evidence
hypothesis to
"life-of-the-mind"
doings
direction drawn
a writer's
the substantial circumstances which first set his pen to
points to
work as a
in
record
the formal argument to the
and relates the collapse of
ment and
of
before him.
saw
but from the
sources
changed view of
paper.
he
situation
an account of a change
life
keeping
of
biog the
to
examining the
you are
represents an engagement
for consistency
them
makes
often
unaware of then changes of
mind,
in
and
exploring these the biographer is treading the outer reaches of the mind itself, where the inteUectual and the affective life meet and merge. If one foUows any
account
or
argument,
of
switch
"disappointment"
a
in
writer's style
change
of
front,
of
one
apology,
abandonment
an
of
words
encounters
like
"disiUusionment"
and phrases about realizing the something with something else or references to a growing sense of ineffectiveness. The language of sensibUity invades the story of an argument. C. R. Leslie, setting out to draw the mind of Constable, observes that in Constable's case the invasion is near-total, since "the and
incompatibUity
affections
of
of
the heart were
inseparably
blended
with
all
that
related
painting."
to
Mrs. Letwin, in The Pursuit of Certainty, acknowledges an emotive in the thinking of Hume and of J. S. Mill. In a chapter entitled she shows that Hume's "The PhUosophical Enthusiasm component
Renounced"
increasing feeling
for the complexity
for philosophy, that his essay writing On MiU, she
by
a
new
of
"sentiments"
everything
undermined
turned him
notes
interest in "the
Accounting
men"
souls
for
as
of
a change of
weU
mind,
as
in the machinery
front,
or commitment
interest, therefore, is a third way of shaping biography. In complexity it outdistances the phasing of classification into more or less self-contained themes. a central
The fourth to
connect
and most
he
must wiU
intricate
contribution
the diverse interests of his
principle which wiU and
and
for thinking on paper about politics. that the friendship with Harriet Taylor was followed
as more suitable media
of government.
to
his energy
history
towards
respond
search
for
bind the
to, an
a
whole corpus
many-sided
even
subject
more
mind.
the
to
an a
biographer
find, if he
intellectual
story
can make
comprehensive
of
master
is
can, a unifying
together. He is challenged
If writing
its
or
a
by,
phUosopher, idea than his
Interpretation
106 in
subject used
to improve the
order
conception of
ideas."
thought to demonstrate a total "system of
his book
Nietzsche,
on
J. W. N. Watkins joins
coherence.
the method proper to phUosophy with his pohtical
Hobbes'
Arnold
Kaufmann, in power."
the old behef that "the wUl to
reargues
atheism, is the centerpiece of Nietzsche's thinking. This impulse to find consistency is not limited to
not
C. R. Leshe discloses
philosophers.
about
based
the
on
Leon Troyat takes Tolstoy's order to determine how far the
diaries in
Irene Coltman, in Private Men Royalist
moderate
is
gence
in
major
theory theory
and
to
the
autobiographical.
sets the
literary
interests
seventeenth-century Englishmen
of
other; the point of conver
these inteUectuals were indecisive ditherers
that
Russell, in his lectures in interests, theology
1890s,
the
and metaphysics.
tried to
He
unify Leibniz's Leibniz's
argued that
that the essence of matter is not extension met a demand for a
Eucharist
of the
as weU as the requirements of
as evidence the open perturbation suffered
behef in
a vacuum conflicted with
RusseU
and plenitude. with
are
novels
persuasion alongside each
demonstration
a
pohtics.
two
Constable,
refer
which
of
Public Causes,
pohtical commitments of some
the
some
write
who
of
novels and matches them with the
paintings.
and
letters,
on
and
paintings
those
mind
single
a
repeated
extraphUosophical
which could
be
styled a
by
Leibniz
formal on
logic, citing
discovering
this procedure of connecting
phUosophical
History of Western Western intellectualism.
Philosophy,
interests in his
history
of
that
the theological principles of continuity
he chooses, the biographer who foUows this fourth to detect and match up at least two distinct writing interests of the mind before him, to strive to connect them, without, Whatever
manner
subject
of
needs
however, forcing Whichever
of
his
upon
subject
contrived
a
account of change and must contrive to
has
not
already Perhaps the
about
himself,
way is to
use
Cowling's In both
said
of
the
inviting
most and
his
there
pitfaU
J. S. MU1 teU is
is to
the of
biographer's
doing
studies
Plato
more of their
visible
use
of
luminous
a
consistency.
for
writer
to translate
which
the
subject
preference
own
own
for his
and
own
Hegel
passion
write
behefs
and
and
Maurice
to discredit. The less
preoccupations, worries,
bargain
a
career
inteUectual life. The inteUectual offers the
is to
the subject as a sympathetic vehicle on which
have been
his
track
this. The more obvious
authors than of their subjects.
would-be philosopher who made
would
frequently
in
two ways
are
biographer may load his the
say something
chosen subject as target practice
cases there
obvious method
Tolstoy,
total
for himself.
K. R. Popper's
preferences.
and
the four methods is adopted, the whole argument must take
of
do
as a
even obsessions.
novelist, the fox
who
hedgehog, has inspired
at
least
interpretation
of
Tolstoy's
into
an
biographer,
more than
two hves for the price
any
other
of one.
one
writer,
107
ATHEISTIC FREEDOM AND THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF SAVAGE CUSTOMS: AN INTERPRETATION OF CONRAD'S DARKNESS*
HEART OF
Harry Neumann In Plato's Republic Socrates denounces his
passions which
cravings, these inteUectuals citizens, their
attachment
once they discern forbidden or illicit
to
utopia wishes
undermine
who
hidden
unearth
publicizing interdicted publicspiritedness. Unlike ordinary
By
to the prevailing morality is not jeopardized
in its
the skeletons side.
poets
suppress.1
Thus their fight
Instead, they
closet.
champion
its
with unsophisticated, old-fashioned
morahty is a famUy quarrel between the same morality's noble and its repulsive forms. Indeed the inteUectuals seem more loyal than others to that morality, since they, unlike pious citizens, embrace its ugly,
repeUent
forms.2
PhUosophers, however,
take their insight into the questionable founda
the regnant morality as grounds for doubting its worth. Unlike old-fashioned citizens, they do not shun those questions but believe that
tions
of
inteUectuals
should
the
question
value
the
of
side
shocking
the
of
predominant orthodoxy instead of defending it against suppression by traditional faith and morals. From a phUosophical standpoint, both
inteUectuals The
and traditionalists are
plulosopher's
is
morahty
responsible
traditionalist and its
he
defenders
belief in his ignorance for
his
sophisticated
supports one or another of
the prevailing
of
in
the
neutrality defenders. Depending
these warring
orthodoxies.
true value of the
of the
on
orthodox
its
between
war
circumstances,
camps.3
In Heart of Darkness, Conrad or his Marlow are not phUosophers but the sense just defined. On their horizon, the affirmation of Western morality's illicit underground presents itself as a triumph of intellectuals in
wisdom
*
1
2 and can
and
This
ethics, far
article was assisted
by
than its
noble
a research
puritanical
repression
or
the Earhart Founde.tion.
fellowship from
Allan Bloom, The Republic of Plato (New York, 1968), pp. 433-34. Max Weber, "Science as a in From Max Weber, trans. H. H. Garth Vocation,"
C. Wright Mills (New York, 1958), pp. 147-48: "We realize today that something be sacred not only in spite of its not being beautiful, but rather because and in
far
of
the book of Isaiah and
as
it is
beautiful. You
so
not
that something good, but
Fleurs du to
more
can
rather
Mai,
observe
as
will
find this documented in the fifty-third
in the twenty-first
be beautiful,
not
psalm.
only in
And,
spite of
since
the
Nietzsche,
aspect
in
which
in that very aspect. You will find this expressed Baudelaire named his volume of poems. It is today
that something may be true
although
it is
not
beautiful
chapter
we realize
it is
earlier
not
in the
commonplace
and
not
holy
respects."
Indeed it may be true in precisely those The Neumann, "Is Philosophy Still
and not good.
3 pp.
Possible?"
Harry 545-65.
Thomist, XXXVI (1972),
Interpretation
108
I
its
about
mean
from
govern
value
the authoritative ethics in
important
legitimized
was
by
theocracy the
superstition, for there
divine emperor, their consent; in fact, his
sake
upon
democratic opponents)
and
as unenlightened
their
of
liberal
and
rule
Consequently
ridiculed
the Japanese
the people
consent
or
wiU
aU
(Volk).
legitimacy
whose
to
right
Lenin, Hitler insisted that his
or
the consent or wUl of the people
he (like his Communist
derive their
Communist
as
weU
as
democratic. No less than Jefferson
morahty"
This definition includes
governed.
Nazi
regimes,
"Western
By
governments which
the consent of the
modern
72-73).4
(pp.
skepticism"
"tepid
not
was was
for
existed
dependent for
responsible
their legitimacy.
Western individuals
freely
for Japanese theocracy arose from the behef that not be subject to moral authorities which they do not
contempt should
to
choose
Legitimate
accept.
individual choice, not precludes free consent.
stood
need
crucial
governed
I
deny
not
is the
point
by
In this paper,
freedom
acceptance upon that
the
are
or
divine
gods
of
Atheism thus
atheistic.
which
their
under
The
standards.
moral
or
insistence that his
upon
solely
compulsion
dependent for
moralities
called
existence
atheist's
depends
acceptance
natural
some
upon
or
reason
is
wUl
not
authority he is not at liberty to reject. springs from the opinion that the individual's
standards whose that
suggest
atheism
itself from the morahty authoritative in his Once emancipated, he can strive for an impartial evaluation per mitting him to accept or reject that morality on its own merits. However, the belief that men should attempt this emancipation is itself
reason
emancipate
should
regime.
questionable.5
Consider Genesis (2:16-17). If its
its
from
worth arises
insight. That
self-assertion
to
is the hallmark existence
the right of self-determination.
Atheism,
the
skeptical of
forgetting
reason
which
natural
atheism.
is
standards
not
in
Socrates
gods
of
or some other
one's
executed,
city.
that
references
This
atheistic or
are
ed.
to this
Possible?"
paper
with
emerged
assumes
self-assertion
Western
Greek. Mr. Kurtz,
Joseph Conrad. Heart of Darkness,
5
was
Of course, it appears as atheism only to men claims to demonstrate the justice of rational
have informed European
(New York, 1971). All
or
Atheists may believe in gods, but
that it is an assumption
birth in Socrates
4
for
or science.
from the
this paper calls
of what
divine
of
the faith in
from impartial
right.0
that philosophy's
emancipation
impartial
this
crime
Greek philosophy
demonstrable,
to recognize any authority which denies
an unwillingness
gods which preclude
not
an atheistic assertion of wiU and not
For atheists, belief in the subordinate
is
value
the
R. Kimbrough.
never
and
civilization since
not
its
hero (or anti-hero)
rev.
Norton
crit.
ed.
edition.
Neumann, "Is Philosophy Still Leo Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Chicago, 1952), pp. 99-100; Leo St-auss, Natural Right and History (Chicago, 19521. p. 92; Harry V. Jaffa, "The Case against Political Equality and Liberty (New York, 1965), pp. 220-29. 8
Theory,"
Atheistic Freedom Heart of
of
Marlow, Kurtz
discussion
a
regime,
Roman
contrasts
Rome
the
exploitation
of
which
British
of
the two civUizations. Since the Roman's
of
morality
authorities, his gods,
were concerned
solely
with
ultimate
Rome's happiness,
consciences experienced no qualms about ruthless exploitation of
foreigners: indeed, Roman
loving
one's
morality is which
Darkness, begins his description
pre-atheistic
European imperiahsm in Africa. The fundamental difference
the regnant
Roman
a
Britain (p. 6). He
savages with
moral
(p. 50).
Heart of of
"AU Europe
civUization's moral triumph:
Kurtz"
of
making
the narrator of
with
conquered
is
is that
Darkness,
contributed to the
109
enemies
civic
However,
atheistic.
the
concerned with
it. On
encouraged
piety
appears
horizon,
such an
modern
atheistic
or
to self-determination of individuals
right
believed to be moraUy independent of any communal bonds. are interpreted as the free creations of morally
are
these bonds
Indeed,
individuals. Thus
autonomous
Communist,
Fascist
or
to aU liberated individuals.
Consequently,
for democratic,
support
appealing to
moral concerns common
their moral exhortations
are
tend to stress common human goods and not the
they
universal;
justify
atheists
by
regimes
to
aggrandizement
in fact
which
morality does
atheistic
self-
all
subordinate
goods.7
common
Marlow knows that any
imperialistic,
"An idea
crusades:
atheistic
needs the siren at the
ideas to
lofty
song back of it
.
.
imperialistic
whether
regime,
of
and an unselfish
.
anti-
or
for its
enlist support
belief in the
idea
something you can set up, and bow down before, and sacrifice (p. 7). In a variant reading, he envies Romans the
offer
a
to"
civic
piety
those
for their lack
responsible fictions"
"pretty
designed
darkness (p. 7). His
of
by
revulsion
concern"
(p.
whole
25)
concern
the
at
his
causes
of
atheists
with
such
narrow
propaganda,
to seduce others into their heart
"philanthropic
respect
for Kurtz's
pretense
the
of
abandonment
of
that pretense.
The mare
atheism's pretty fictions and Kurtz's final night between the loftiness of his original report to the
between
relation
resembles
that
ISSSC (the International and
his later
He began arrived
we
the
approach
simple
of
exercise etc.
etc.,
the
notion
tingle
with
current
of
evidently
t
[savages] in
them with the might as of a our
From that
an
he
point
Immensity
exotic
enthusiasm.
phrases,
much
Martin
Savage Customs)
the
nature
of supernatural
deity,''
and
a
exert
power
and
soared
so
for
.
.
.
unless
later in
an
There a
kind
ruled
were of
unsteady
by
no
note
hand,
an
august
practical
at
good
took me with
p.
on.
him.
The
gave
me
made
me
magic
the last page, scrawled
regarded
Heidegger, Nietzsche (Pfullingen, 1961), II,
It
Benevolence. It
of
so
practically
hints to interrupt the
the foot
may be
and
on,
magnificent, though difficult to remember, you know.
was of
can
we
will
unbounded,"
peroration
of
the argument that we whites, from the point of development we had
with
at, "must necessarily appear to them
beings
"By
for the Suppression
Society to it:
subscriptum
198.
as the exposition of a
Interpretation
110 It
method.
was
serene sky:
that moving
simple, and at the end of
very
it blazed
sentiment
luminous
at you,
"Exterminate
Mr. Kurtz here
brutes!"
the
all
the
reveals
terrifying, like
and
to every
appeal
a
flash
altruistic
lightning in
of
a
[p. 51].
Western
informing
atheism
civilization's
men storming barricades pretty fictions. In the absence of that revelation, weaning in the name of those fictions appear to be "emissaries of hght emissaries of pity and science ignorant millions from their horrid ways and progress.
by Europe,
We
...
for the
want
speak, higher
so to
.
.
the cause entrusted to us
guidance of
intelligence,
(pp. 12, 25-26). The ISSSC's (except for its obvious singleness of purpose"
of
sympathies, a singleness
wide
is
Romans
the ancient
hberation to
choice
has
that
share
who
free to
secondarily, if without a
in tribal
all,
citizens
its divine
piety for
Thus the
pious
as Romans and only human beings. In their eyes, only slaves, men religion of their own, were primarily human beings.
piously traced their
families
sacred
and
inconceivable to them. who
gods
such
authority is the
Only
or
permitted
it. For
of
individuals but
free
man's
to
prerequisite
would
acceptance piety.9
true
authority to the denial made to reject its authority. Thus both
rejection of their
are at
8
liberty
Burke, Burke's Politics,
Edmund p.
object
which
To
religion.
domineer in
by
pursued
that
every
a
ambition was exceeded
they
parish
wholly
of
Mahomet
matter where,
if I be
atheists
himself."
/ Can
still
of
make a
/ To
here
had
one
the utter
predominant
extirpation
They had
of
rather
they
reign
is
I
hell,
should
least / We drive
worth
a
us
hell
be,
shall
of all
were not
mind
is its
heaven. / What
but less than he
be free;
hence. / Here
th'
we
ambition, though in hell
Almighty may
reign
/ Better to
heaven."
in
Problem
is,
subordinate.
of a
where
at
will not
hell, than serve in Harry Neumann, "Milton's Adam
reign
0
choice
heaven
/ And
the name,
built / Here for his envy, in my
P. Levack (New York,
Milton, Paradise Lost, I, 254-63: "The
hath
and
and
philosophers
was
empire
citizens
than rule over a Christian world. Their temporal
thunder hath made greater?
secure,
the
.
atheistic
piety that
to their proselytizing spirit, in which
/ Whom not
.
fanatical fury: that
a
question
subservient
place, and in itself
own
with
.
their
of
free
atheists and the gods who
J. Hoffman
ed.
466: "In the French Revolution
1949),
They by civic
Only
capable
men
rejection
prefer
to
was
freedom.
create
or
bonds
those
such
claim
would
atheism
encouraged a
gods,
atheists
Consequently
as subordinate
Emancipation from
cities.
laws back
and unwritten
written
saw themselves not as autonomous
their
of
only feUow citizens Romans who ruthlessly
to lawgivers who were gods or received their laws from gods.
they
Freedom
authority.
which
as
tribal or civic
Ancient
as
themselves primarUy
perceived
at
reject
or civic
count.
piety
Britain
exploited
such
those regimes preclude atheistic
tribal or civic piety does not permit its devotees
experience themselves as
no place
atheistic
of pre-atheistic regimes
African tribes, for
or
then
since
qualities
propaganda
ways"
"horrid
the
lofty
to these
claim
purpose)8
intended to devalue
.
.
.
.
of
Freedom before
God."
and
Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor
The Personalist, XLVIII (1967),
pp.
on
317-27.
the
Atheistic Freedom in
are possible
the "horrid
at
Freedom, does
one
to
Fascist
or
hberty. Western
the behef in
use
and
justifications, is
the ultimate court of
and
freedom's
atheistic
freedom, including
of
and
its
not
Should
appeals?
into
such condemnations as relapses
Communist
acquainted with
Kurtz's Africa to discover
need
adamant
freedom, encouraging
propaganda glorifies this
its bestial forms. Men
hardly
its
than
moral authorities which preclude
darkness. Yet why condemn any Stalin's, if that freedom itself,
of
Hitler's
is less important
regimes
undermine
overlook
Fascist terror heart
revulsion
of tribal and civic piety.
specificaUy inteUectual freedom, is atheism's core. What freedom whether one supports democratic, anarchist,
and
determination to one
the ISSSC's
atheistic regimes would subscribe to ways"
with one's
Communist, atheistic
111
products
or
its
despise
not atheists
a now-discredited past governed
by
tribal and civic superstition?
Does
fear
not
disgrace
of punishment or
freedom, preventing
one's
fuU
preclude
atheistic use of
the unleashing of the lusts forbidden
by
unen
lightened tastes? The
joy
killing
of
.
.
why not? The mind
and
.
because everything is in it, all?
Joy, fear,
could
you?
ready to
sorrow,
with
the policeman, in
holy make
terror
killing
whom
he
come
propaganda
glorifying
impaled
showed
lusts.
whether
.
.
.
wilderness about
himself
with at
what
That
he did this
echoed
of
out not
great
loudly
.
after
How
you can't understand.
.
and
lunatic
asylums
....
morahty declines, Kurtz in Africa, far from
non-atheistic own.
nothing on earth to prevent (p. 57). The sohtude of the
was
for the
house,
within
his
upon
Marlow restraint
early.
know,
...
altruistic
self-determina
notes
in the
that his
gratification of
I think it had
can't
say.
whispered
.
.
.
various
But
to him
the
things
things of which he had no conception till he and
solitude within
the
the heads which Kurtz had
deficiency himself I
this
by
human
sake of
Had he
atheism.
have been fooled
him
the
whisper
because he
had
was
proved
hollow
at
irresistibly the
core
58-59].
Mr. Kurtz
You
he knew
which
with
counsel
his
.
gallows
freedom
that Mr. Kurtz lacked
had found him
fascinating. It
my
of
might
martyrdom
on stakes around
they only
[pp.
joUy abyss
the rights of man. In commenting
tion,
anything
pleased"
well
Africa, he
to
of
36-37, 50].
into its
comes
capable
the future. What is there
surrounded by kind neighbors delicately between the butcher and
and
for
the more the respect
wUderness uncovered the
took
scandal
restraints, found that "there
accustomed
never
of
is
man
feet,
under your
the difference [pp.
all
the more atheistic hcence
him from
rage
apathy, valor,
pavement
of
past as well as all
to fall on you, stepping
These little things
For Conrad,
the
devotion,
solid
cheer you or
all
his
came
to
regard
the whole universe as his property to
should
have heard him say, "My ivory, my intended, my station, my river, but that was a trifle. The thing was to know
everything belonged to him
he belonged to, how many was
be dealt
pleasure:
the
reflection
that
.
.
.
powers
made you
of
darkness
claimed
creepy all over [p. 49].
him for their
own.
Interpretation
112 Marlow
by
unfettered
basis for
checks exists
(p. 34). Aware
this problem,
of
a
Platonic
the Ulusion
of
faith that
the
was
in
not
atheistic
.
from
.
to
refusal
is
an
darkness"
nature
I
which
is
the ISSSC's
preaches:
"I
II).10
(p.
am not
Marlow's
to deprive Kurtz's
"bowing my
head before I
which
not
could
could
defend
even
In that case, rests
of
upon
unproved opinions
assumption
of
of
what
liberty
then
against
is naturaUy experienced as that it is contrary to
charge
atheism
self-determination
is
true, become noble or ignoble lies. despises as pretty fictions is the
that piety. Such faith almost
conflict with the
natural,
rebeUion
a
would
which
tribal or civic piety in regimes dedicated to the
remnant of pre-atheistic
destruction
nature,
that unchecked
accepted as
what
are
the case against it seem to spring from
atheism and
which, if
Faith in the truth
degrades
authorities
authorities
conquer
edifying lies. Yet the
the
Thus both
unnatural.
atheism
self-subsistent; it arises from the
any If those
to
effort
not
moral
acknowledge
unnatural
to the level
good
luckily"
luckily,
darkness from
the triumphant
preclude unbridled self-indulgence.
nature.
hberty
(p. 77).
Marlow's "triumphant
atheism
is
ground
that great and saving Ulusion which shone
her, before
an
myself"
he
refusal
her life:
which ennobles
unearthly glow in have defended her.
with
what
disciples"
I
as
to
aversion
true
clerk who glorifies
to practice
look, quoth Plato to his lies (p. 27) is moderated by his
fool
fiancee
morality's
"The inner truth is hidden
messianic zeal nevertheless refuses a
if
Consequently, Marlow believes it fortunate freedom as the ground of virtue faU to comprehend
abyss.
commitment's
such
by
moderated
unless
prior restraints.
that most advocates of
their
inhuman
atheism
22, 26-27, 32-34, 42, 49-50, 58-59, 67-69). How
(pp.
checks
no rational
ever,
Mr. Kurtz's
considers
internal
which
it
claims to
invariably
faUs to discern its
justify. For
atheistic
freedom
justifies anything from inteUectual emancipation to cannibalism, from Socrates and Jesus to Lenin and Hitler. Mr. Kurtz finaUy comprehends what readers of
in
conflict
with
cannibalism
Heart of Darkness usually faU to grasp. Far from being the ISSSC's lofty endorsement of human freedom, his
is its
moral
triumph.
In his
"extremist"
pursuit
of
liberty
(p. 74), Kurtz practices what the ISSSC preaches. Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor rightly notes that most people abhor the consequences of atheistic freedom and censures Jesus for founding a religion and
dependent for its
the
dying
Kurtz
acceptance on man's
religions
of
freedom. To the Inquisitor
this sort seem inhuman.
Probably
for
reasons, Tacitus characterizes Christians as haters of mankind (Annals 15:44). Kurtz both embraces his freedom and revues it. Since simUar
of his passions especially those which formed him prior to his African odyssey were not fully atheistic, they opposed the boundless freedom of atheism. Thus Marlow "saw the inconceivable mystery of a some
soul that
10
knew
Cf. Leo
no
restraint,
Strauss, Thoughts
no
on
faith,
and no
Machiavelli
fear,
yet
struggling
(Glencoe, 111., 1958),
p.
327,
blindly n.
287.
Atheistic Freedom itself"
with
frustrated
(p.
by
Appeals to Kurtz's less
the strength
in the
appeal
68).
113
name
of
his newly
of
atheism's
atheistic
acquired atheistic
fictions
altruistic
passions
cravings,
could
were
and no much
carry
weight:
The awakening
forgotten
of
beyond the bounds I
could not
himself
him
above
in the
appeal
his
own
aspirations..
name
exalted
.
.
.
had beguiled his
.
I had to do
.
anything high
of
or
with
He had kicked himself loose
...
a
unlawful
being
to
soul
whom
low. I had to invoke him
incredible degradation. There
and
below him.
or
brutal instincts
and
of permitted
was
either
nothing
the earth,
of
of
every
[p. 67].
restraint
On Marlow's were
horizon, Kurtz's last words ("The horror! The horror!") by true self-knowledge. Furthermore, Marlow discerns
sparked
moral greatness
He had a
summed
a
affirmation,
remained
If may
he had judged. "The
up
truth
glimpsed
terrors, by
in them:
that
moral
strange
victory
abominable
for
paid
...
a
was
victory.
of an
abominable
That is why I have
loyal to Kurtz to the last [p. 72].
is freedom
morality's essence weU
that
it had the appalling face and hate. It was
...
desire
of
by innumerable defeats, by
But it
satisfactions.
moral
This
rootlessness.11
obedience, Kurtz's last
and not
Few have been
victory.
signify capacity to uproot men from responsible for what Heidegger of
horror!"
commingling
so
to
alive
words
atheism's
earthly ties. Atheism's hegemony is homesickness (Heimweh), the pain
aU
caUs
becomes
pain
global
as
Western morality
discredits the last remnants of tribal and civic piety. At best, those remnants are lumped together with the ennobling Ulusion which Marlow encouraged in Kurtz's fiancee. At worst, they are scorned or patronized as
"disadvantaged,"
only "superstition some
preventing
.
"deprived,"
"backword"
or .
hungry
peoples.
kind
some
.
cannibals
honor"
of
from
primitive
devouring
Marlow discerns in the
restraint
him (p. 42). Interpreta
spring from the opinion that atheistic self-determination is the true ground of morality. AU powerful contemporary regimes sub tions
of this sort
scribe
to this opinion,
atheism
informing
If Conrad
agrees with
triumph to the
dying
only Marxists officially recognize the its origin in Greek thought.
although
Western
civilization since
Marlow's
ascription of self-knowledge and moral
Kurtz, he thereby
shows
his Greek
or
atheistic
To be sure, traditionalists attached to atheism's pretty fictions Conrad's glorification of Kurtz just as Socrates condemned censure may poets who exposed the lack of nobUity in his Utopia's noble lies. However, prejudice.
denunciation misses the question
11 stadt
is
Martin
of
Kurtz in the
not
whether
right
to self-determination
misused
his freedom but
The
whether
real
that
Heidegger, Martin Heidegger zum 80. Geburtstag von seiner Heimatam Main, 1969); Leo Strauss, "Philosophy as Rigorous Political Interpretation, II (1971), p. 5. Philosophy,"
and
of man's
perfect embodiment of that right.
Kurtz
Messkirch (Frankfurt
Science
name
point, if Kurtz is the
114
Interpretation
freedom, however
used, is
serious attention
pay leave
regimes
atheism's
depths
whose main
pretty fictions
and
embark
between Socrates strive to
free
To
comprehend this
and
is between
sophisticated
historical
on
and
struggle
studies
bis Athenian
centering around the conflict In particular, one must if grasp
issue
Greek thought
long
should not
impeding
as
be
Western
Western
and
ignoble hes question of
to noble
moral
skepticism,
man's
prejudiced
what
of
remains
Socrates
while
Probably
intellectuals
such
philosophers
such as
Marlow
refusal to engage
directly
or
both
in it (p. 11).
Athenians emerged
Kurtz's
moral
questionable, the
Kurtz,
for Plato's
is to its heart
atheism's
of
Socratic
detachment may be for strive
and
(p. 71). Perhaps something of this phUosophical Platonic clerk's praise of the ISSSC's business
pious
calls
as atheism's noble exterior
forms, however difficult tastes?
by
civilization
Marlow
question
in favor
That
not skepticism the proper response to
its Kurtzian
Western
in
phUosoph-
of the or
civilization.
and culminated
Socrates is to Conrad's Kurtz darkness. Is
worth of the
human freedom. The
of non-atheistic pious attachment
the question of
So
the
of
implications
the Tightness of the condemnation of Socratic atheism
victory.
of
its hideous
of
accusers.
accusers perceived the atheistic
and unenlightened prejudices
with
must
defense
old-fashioned
the Athenians is to emerge.
ical devaluation
remains
one must
question,
glorification
one's mind of atheistic prejudice
accusation of Socrates'
good.
to the strongest case against that freedom. One
to
Kurtz
effort at
a
embrace
this
its tepidity is implied by the shun
distance
and
his
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