0 
 
SCEPTICISM IN THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 
 
 A Sketch of Some Conflicts Between Medieval and Modern 
 Thought as Expressed in English Literature 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUIS IGNATIUS BREDVOLD 
 A. B. University of Minnesota, 1909 
 A. M. University of Minnesota, 1910 
 
 THESIS 
 
 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the 
 
 Degree of 
 
 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
 IN ENGLISH 
 
 IN 
 
 THE GRADUATE SCHOOL 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 1921 
 

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 THE GRADUATE SCHOOL 
 
 191__ 
 
 I HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER MY 
 
 SUPERVISION BY, 
 
 ENTITLED 
 
 BE ACCEPTED AS FULEILLING THIS PART OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 
 THE DEGREE OF 
 
 In Charge of Thesis 
 
 Head of Department 
 
 Recommendation concurred in* 
 
 Committee 
 
 on 
 
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 *Required for doctor’s degree but not for master’s 
 

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PREFACE 
 
 The writer of this study is conscious that it is 
 not an exhaustive account of all phases of scepticism in 
 the English Renaissance. The subject was new and large, 
 and the time was limited. I hope that the constant haste 
 in preparation is not too evident in the pages that follow. 
 
 My investigations have been aided by the loan of 
 books from the libraries of the Universities of Chicago, 
 Princeton and Harvard and the General Theological Seminary 
 Library of New York. I am gratefully indebted to Professor 
 H. S. V. Jones, who has read the second chapter in manu- 
 script, and who has constantly borne this investigation in 
 mind and called my attention to helpful books and articles. 
 Professor B. H. Bode has kindly read and commented on the 
 first chapter. I owe a heavy debt of gratitude to Professor 
 Ernest Bernbaum. The im.perfections of my work are my own, 
 but every chapter has been strengthened by his stimulus and 
 suggestions. I am happy to acknowledge the benefit, in 
 every stage of my work, of his ready sympathy and always 
 helpful criticism. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/scepticisminenglOObred 
 
COUTENTS 
 
 IIITRO0UCTION; THE RELATION OF THIS STUDY TO CURRENT DOCTRINES 
 ON THE SUBJECT 
 
 I. The Misunderstanding of the Sixteenth Century in 
 TT ^^^-Classical and Romantic Periods 
 
 H-S Conception of the Renaissance in the 
 
 Mid-Nineteenth Century 
 
 I I I. The Failure of English Literary History to Apply 
 this Conception Thoroughly 
 
 IV. The Partial Application of the New Conception of 
 the Renaissance Illustrated in the Criticism 
 of the Metaphysical Poets 
 
 V. The Purpose of this Study 
 
 CHAPTER ONE. THE DISSOLUTION OF MEDIEVALISM AND THE DEVELOP- 
 MENT OF SCEPTICISM IN THE RENAISSANCE 
 
 I. The Problem of Universals 
 
 II. Dualism of Faith and Reason 
 
 III. The Comparative Study of Relicrions 
 
 IV. The Reformation 
 
 Culture of the Libertines 
 
 VI. The Revival of Greek Scepticism 
 
 CHAPTER TWO. SCEPTICAL TENDENCIES IN ENGLAND IN THE 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 I. Individualism in the English Reformation 
 II; The Indifference of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 III. Heresy as a Crime 
 
 IV. The "Italian Danger" 
 
 V. Machiavellism in England 
 
 VI. The "Atheism" of Marlowe and Raleigh 
 
 CHAPTER THREE. SCEPTICISM AND NATURALISM IN DONNE'S EARLY 
 VERSE 
 
 I. The Sceptical Thought of Donne 
 
 Formulation of the Law of Nature 
 
 TV Discussion of the Law of Nature 
 
 IV. pe "Libertine" Appeal to Nature 
 V Scepticism and Naturalism in Montaigne 
 vi. Continuations in the Seventeenth Century 
 
 Page 
 
 9 
 
 13 
 
 15 
 
 25 
 
 30 
 
 32 
 
 37 
 
 45 
 
 51 
 
 55 
 
 60 
 
 64 
 
 66 
 
 71 
 
 75 
 
 81 
 
 88 
 
 97 
 
 111 
 
 113 
 
 119 
 
 123 
 
 130 
 
 141 
 
 148 
 
 J 
 
Page 
 
 CHAPTER FOUR. DAVIES' NOSCE TEIPSUM AND THE IDEALISTIC 
 TRADITION 
 
 Suggested Sources of ILosce Teiosum 
 II. Precursors of Davies 
 
 Primaudaye and Others 
 ly. The Obsolete Rationalism of Davies 
 Appendix to Chapter Four 
 
 CHAPTER FIVE. THE NEW PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 
 
 I. The Medieval Cosmology 
 
 Development of the Mechanistic Theory 
 ill. The Position of Bacon 
 
 IV. The Materialism of Hobbes 
 
 V. The Opposition to Hobbes: Cartesianism and Scepticism 
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 CENTURY 
 
 DIFFUSION OF SCEPTICAL THOUGHT IK THE SEVENTEENTH 
 
 I. Critloal Temper of the Seventeenth Century 
 
 II. in the Thought of the Liberal 
 
 Soeptiolsm and Religious Wonder 
 IV. Francis Osborn: Scepticism and the New Courtier Type 
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN. SCEPTICISM AND THE ORIGINS OF DEISM 
 
 I. Two Tendencies in Deism 
 
 II. The Development of Deism among Renaissance Soeotics 
 
 III. Deism Dissolved in Complete sSepticism '>=®Ptios 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT. SCEPTICISM AND MYSTICISM IN JOHN DONNE 
 August inianism of Donne 
 
 Expression of Donne's 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 bibliography 
 
 153 
 
 155 
 
 158 
 
 175 
 
 190 
 
 196 
 
 198 
 
 201 
 
 206 
 
 213 
 
 224 
 
 227 
 
 239 
 
 240 
 
 247 
 
 258 
 
 268 
 
 278 
 
 279 
 283 
 291 
 
 293 
 
 294 
 
 309 
 
 314 
 
 323 
 
 330 
 

 
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INTRODUCTION: THE RELATION OF THIS STUDY TO CURRENT 
 
 DOCTRINES ON THE SUBJECT 
 
 I. The Misunderstanding of the Sixteenth Century in the Neo- 
 Classical and Romantic Periods.- II. The Clearer Conception 
 of the Renaissance in the Mid-Nineteenth Century.- III. The 
 Failure of English Literary History to Aoply this Conception 
 Thoroughly.- IV. The Partial Application of the New CoScep- 
 tion Ox the Renaissance Illustrated in the Criticism of the 
 Metaphysical Poets.- V. The Purpose of this Study. 
 
 The student of scepticism may approach his subject in one 
 of two ways. He may examine it critically, that is, to a certain 
 extent dogmatically, test its methods and results, and determine 
 how far its pretensions are justified. He would select for this 
 purpose the supreme exponents of the sceptical temper, regardless 
 of periods, and relate them to their times only in so far as 
 necessary to the exposition of their doctrines. His main effort 
 would be to evaluate their permanent contributions and to distin- 
 guish these from what was erroneous, or perhaps of some transitory 
 value. Such a critical study of scepticism we have from Saisset. 
 Saisset feared the scepticism in the Nineteenth century; he thought 
 it had become too powerful and dominating by combination with the 
 religious, philosophical, and scientific tendencies of the century; 
 and he sought to combat it by studying its great representatives in 
 the past, Aenesideme, Pascal, Kant; ”je viens le combattre, 
 sender . . . le problerae de 1' analyse de la raison humaine, et y 
 chercher les titres eternels du dogmatisme , 
 
 — 5SS2tlS.isme: Aene Bid^me. Pascal . Kant . 3nd ed. 
 

 
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2 
 
 On the other hand, he may make his study purely 
 historicalj he may describe the development of scepticism in some 
 period and trace its influences on the imaginative, intellectual 
 and spiritual life of the age. His evaluation then would not be 
 absolute, but an appreciation of scepticism as a force in history. 
 He would ask what work this acid influence performed, and how 
 essential it was in the characteristic movements of the age. What 
 beliefs and preconceptions did it attack? How successful was it? 
 And what new ideas were made possible by this disintegration of 
 the old? Such an historical study, a chapter of the natural 
 history of the human mind, I propose to make of the sceptical ten- 
 dencies in the English Renaissance. 
 
 The pertinence of this investigation is perhaps not at 
 first apparent. Why select the Renaissance, rather than more 
 recent periods, for the study of scepticism? Or, if one is study- 
 ing the Renaissance, why should an account of the sceptical move- 
 ments throw any considerable light on the period as a whole? For 
 even the natural historian is expected to collect his specimens 
 with some purpose, and to illuminate as large a body of data as 
 possible by concentrating on crucial problems. To answer these 
 questions it will be helpful, before defining more fully the 
 objects of this study, to revievir the various conceptions of the 
 period we call the "Renaissance", and see how far they justify ray 
 assumption that scepticism was a significant element in its complex 
 intellectual and imaginative life. These conceptions, in their 
 variety, and with their historical reasons, will assist us in 
 judging our present theories of the period. I shall aim, therefore, 
 to sketch the development of the current conception of the 
 
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3 
 
 Renaissance, show how and when this development was retarded or 
 aided, and what has been the tendency of recent study. Finally, 
 
 I shall explain the relation of my own investigation to the general 
 problems of the history of the Renaissance culture and literature. 
 In this review one or two excursions into cognate fields will be 
 unavoidable, though in the main it will be confined to literary 
 history, and in the latter part of it, attention will be focussed 
 on one of the most interesting and vexing problems in the study of 
 English poetry. 
 
 I, 
 
 The Misunderstanding of the Sixteenth Century in 
 the Neo-Classical and Romantic Periods. 
 
 Two hundred years were destined to elapse before the age 
 of Elizabeth received a generous and really philosophical compre- 
 hension. Both the neo-classicists and the romanticists held 
 definite theories and cultivated certain tastes, which made it 
 difficult for them to see the sixteenth century as it was. As 
 their failures are instructive, their efforts merit some attention 
 at the beginning of this study. 
 
 The self —gratulat ion of the Restoration and Eighteenth 
 century made it impossible for readers at that time to see clearly 
 the greatness of the Elizabethan age. Of course the towering 
 geniuses could not be denied. But praise was ever more ready for 
 the precursors of neo-classical "perfection” than for native genius. 
 This condescending attitude towards the ’’barbarous" Sixteenth century 
 began early in the Seventeenth. Clarendon, who in hie youth had 
 

 
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4 
 
 been the friend and admirer of Ben Jonson, praised him as the 
 reformer of the stage and of poetry. 
 
 "Ben Johnson's name," he wrote, "can never be for- 
 gotten, having by his very good learning, and the 
 severity of his nature and manners, very much reformed 
 the stage; and indeed the English poetry itself . . . 
 and surely as he did exceedingly exalt the English 
 language in eloquence, propriety, and masculine ex- 
 pressions, so he was the best judge of, and fittest 
 to prescribe rules to poetry and poets, of any man, 
 who had lived with, or before him, or since . . ^ 
 
 The courtier poet, Carew, in an admirable verse criticism of Donne, 
 genuinely and intelligently appreciative even of his stylistic 
 peculiarities, yet feels it necessary to depreciate Donne's con- 
 temporaries and assert his absolute uniqueness in terras that 
 prophecy the coming "school of good sense." 
 
 "The Muses’ garden, with pedantic weeds 
 O’erspread, _ was purged by thee; the lazy seeds 
 Of servile imitation thro'wn away. 
 
 And fresh invention planted; thou didst pay 
 The debts of our penurious bankrupt age . . 
 
 But thou art gone, and thy strict laws will be 
 Too hard for libertines in poetry; 
 
 They will recall the goodly exiled train 
 0f gods and goddesses, which in thy just reign 
 Was banish’d nobler poems; now with these 
 The silenced tales i ' th ’Metamorphoses, 
 
 Shall stuff their lines, and swell the windy page 
 Till verse, refined by thee in this last age, 
 
 Turn ballad-rhyme, or those old idols be 
 Adored again with new apostacy."^ 
 
 With the Restoration even these "reformers" of the poetry of "the 
 last age" were censured for lapses, though with the implication 
 that one might pardon them and blame the age in which they lived. 
 Thus Dryden, in 1673, writes; "As for Ben Jonson, I am loath to 
 name him, because he is a most judicious writer; yet he very often 
 
 of Clarendon. Oxford (1857) . I, 38. 
 
 — ^em s_ ^ Thomas Carew . Muses’ Library, pp. 100-103. 
 

 
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 falxs into there errors of language : and I once more beg the 
 reader's pardon for accusing him of them. Only let him consider, 
 that I live in an age where my least faults are severely censured 
 
 etc.«^ In the same strain are his comments on Donne, and even 
 
 on Cowley. "I may safely say it of this present age," he wrote in 
 1693, "that if we are not so great wits as Donne, yet certainly we 
 are better poets." And in 1700 he noted the wane of Cowley's 
 reputation, in that for lack of judgment, "though he must always be 
 thought a great poet, he is no longer esteemed a good writer; and 
 for ten impressions, which his works have had in so many successive 
 years, yet at present a hundred books are scarcely purchased once a 
 twelvemonth."^ It is unfair to Addison as a critic to quote his 
 youthful indiscretion in his Account of the Greatest English Poets , 
 but his lines on Spenser are a reflection of the opinion then 
 current as to the sixteenth century: 
 
 "Old Spenser next, warmed with poetic rage, 
 
 In ancient tales amused a barbarous age; , 
 
 But now the mystic tale, that please^of ’ yore , 
 
 Can charm an understanding age no more." 
 
 But nowhere, I think, is the neo-classical depreciation of the | 
 
 Renaissance more striking than in the liberal Joseph Warton's 
 
 |ssa^ on t^ ge nius Writings of Pone (Volume I, 1756) . 
 
 "History," he said, "has recorded five ages of the world, in which 
 
 the human mind has exerted itself in an extraordinary manner; and 
 
 in which its productions in literature and the fine arts, have 
 
 arrived at a perfection not equalled in other periods." These 
 
 D e _ f ense thp_ Epilogue • Essays . ed. W.P.Ker, Oxford (1900). I 167 
 
 ^Ed. cit. II, 102. ' 
 
 ^Ed. cit. II, 358. 
 
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periods came In the reigns of Philip and Alexander; Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus, king of Egypt, Julius Caesar and Augu.stus; Julius II 
 and Leo X (a period Warton distinguished only in Italy) ; and 
 Louis XIV in France and King William and Queen Anne in England.^ 
 
 In a work which was designed to show that the greatest poetry 
 written in the reign of Queen Anne must ever remain second-rate 
 compared with the kind of poetry cultivated in the age of Elizabeth, 
 such inconsistency can be explained only as the result of an over- 
 bearing tradition. 
 
 The significance of these passages for our purpose lies 
 in the neo-classical belief that the Sixteenth Century was merely a 
 continuation of the Middle Ages. But the early critics of neo- 
 classicism, swinging towards the opposite pole in literary doctrine, 
 did not challenge this theory of history; they built their defense 
 on it. Their study of Spenser and Milton was stimulated by their 
 enthusiasm over the Middle Ages.^ Thus Hurd, in his Letters on 
 Chivalry and Romance (1762), undertakes to defend the poetic I 
 
 availability of the Middle Ages by reference to Spenser and Milton. 
 
 "Both appear," he says, "when most inflamed, to have 
 been more particularly rapt with the Gothic fables 
 of chivalry. 
 
 "Spenser, tho’ he had been long nourished with the 
 spirit and substance of Homer and Virgil, chose the 
 times of chivalry for his theme, and fairy Land for 
 the scene of his fictions. He could have planned, no 
 doubt, an heroic design on the exact classic model: 
 
 Or, he might have trimmed between the Gothic and 
 Classic, as his contemporary Tasso did. But the 
 charms of fairy prevailed . . . Under this idea then j 
 
 ^5th ed. London (1806). I, 180-182. 
 
 Cf. "Though Joseph Warton was not a medievalist like Thomas, he 
 had that appreciation of Spenser and Milton which was the chief 
 sign and accompaniment of medieval studies in England." W. P. Ker, 
 in Camb . Hist , of Eng. Lit . X, 271. Cf. 269. 
 
B if-.... « . - *^- • . ,. i--'^";’ V'"'’’ >^-4,. • •V'-''^v-\^Wirfrf/ 
 
 w '; . , • , 1' .. iv>s*« t«W %? , Wt s'iSfe-ittbs*''^.' ’ 
 
7 
 
 of a Gothic, not classical poem, the Faery Q.ueen 
 is to be read and criticized. And on these principles, 
 it would not be difficult to unfold its merit in 
 another way than has hitherto been attempted . . . 
 
 "Milton, it is true, preferred the classic model 
 to the Gothic. . . Yet we see thro* all hie poetry, 
 where his enthusiasm flames out most, a certain 
 predilection for the legends of chivalry before the 
 fables of Greece . . . 
 
 "I say nothing of Shakespeare. . . Yet one thing 
 is clear, that even he is greater when he uses Gothic 
 manners and machinery, than when he employs classical: 
 which brings us again to the same point, that the 
 former have, by their nature and genius, the advantage 
 of the latter in producing the sublime . 
 
 But finally, Hurd declares, chivalry died out, the reason gained the 
 ascendant over the imagination, "so that Milton, as fond as we have 
 seen he was of the Gothic fictions, durst only admit them on the 
 bye, and in the way of simile and illustration only," and "at length 
 the magic of the old romances was perfectly dissolved."^ 
 
 As the romantic movement throughout Europe inspired the 
 greatest minds and gained in unanimity and profundity by their 
 efforts, this conception of the relation between the Middle Ages 
 and the period we call the Renaissance was developed and deepened 
 by other larger and more philosophical conceptions. Art, literature 
 and modes of life were regarded as the expression of the native 
 genius of a people, as an evidence of its national vigor and in- 
 dividuality; they must be indigenous to be of any worth. This 
 reverence for nationalism in culture, the reverse of which was a 
 fear of the cosmopolitan influences of the period of the 
 "Enlightenment" as malign, immensely stimulated the study of origin^ 
 
 ^Hurd, Letters on Chivalry and Romance, ed. E. J. Morley, London 
 (1911). pp. 114-117. 
 
 %urd, ed. cit. pp. 152-3. 
 
V 
 
 
 
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8 
 
 1 
 
 of the Middle Ages, of primitive Germanic life. The most eminent 
 illustration of enthusiastic scholarship at the service of 
 Romanticism full-blown is the work of the brothers Grimm in Germany.'^ 
 But this was not all. Romanticism developed a cult of Germanic 
 solidarity as against the cult of Classical antiquity; the modern 
 world, because of its Germanic — or, as it was then usually called, 
 Gothic — — origin and basis, had attained to a greatness beyond the 
 reach of the Greeks and Romans. In Hegel this cult became a 
 philosophy of history, that is, an explanation of the necessary 
 course of development, the logic of events, the final cause and 
 ultimate significance of the history of man. Spiritml freedom, 
 Hegel said, was the ultimate aim of history. He therefore traced 
 the parallel development of spiritual and political freedom in the 
 Orient, in Greece, in Rome, until, in the Germanic world, which is 
 the modern world, "and under the inspiration of Christianity, we 
 come to the age of full maturity, whose mission is to comprehend 
 and carry out the truth that freedom is the birthright of all men.’^ 
 This, the crowning conception of the whole Hegelian philosophy, had 
 in its day more than a mere metaphysical vogue; for example, the 
 distinguished historian, Heinrich Leo, although he later broke away 
 from the spell, in his early career accepted Hegel as his "guide in I 
 religion, as in practical politics and the treatment of History."^ 
 But to be a Romanticist one need not accept Hegel’s specific inter- 
 
 For the influence of Romanticism on historical study in Germany 
 see Wolf, Gustav, Einfuhrun g in das Studium der Neueren Geschichte 
 Berlin (1910). pp. 311-242. ’ 
 
 ^Morris G. S., Hegel's Philosophy of the State and of History. 
 Chicago (1892). p.l36. 
 
 3 
 
 Hashagen, Justus, in article on Leo, Encvo . Brit . 11th ed. 
 

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9 
 
 pretation of the significance of Gernianic culture; every Romantic 
 critic played variations on the same theme. And when Mme. de Stael 
 sought to interpret the Romantic generation in Germany at the 
 beginning of the IJineteenth century, she believed that this tenet 
 was the most fundamental that they had in common. ”Si 1‘on n'admet 
 pas que le paganisms et le Christ ianisme, le nord et le mid'i, 
 I'antiquite et le moyen age, la chevalerie et les institutions 
 grecques et romaines, se sont partage' 1' empire de la litterature, 
 
 1 on ne parviendra jamais a juger sous un point de vue philosophique 
 le gout antique et le gout moderne.”^ And herself a cosmopolitan, 
 she expressed the Romantic fear of cosmopolitanism in literature: 
 
 La litterature des anciens est chez les modernes une litterature 
 transplant^e: la litte^'rature romantique ou chevaleresque est chez 
 
 nous indigene, et c*est notre religion et nos institutions oui 
 I'ont fait eclore.”^ 
 
 II 
 
 The Clearer Conception of the Renaissance 
 in the Mid-Nineteenth Century 
 
 Such national and racial patriotism prevented the other- 
 wise appreciative romanticists from understanding the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries. For the conception of the Renaissance as 
 a period in the history of civilization belongs to the field of 
 comparative studies. The movement was international, it passed 
 from one country to another, variously but profoundly influencing 
 people after people. It seems therefore to be an interruption of 
 
 ^De_ I’Allemagne . 2eme e^'dition, Paris (1813). I, 384. 
 
 Ed. cit. I, 289. Coleridge discussed the same subject in his 
 lectures in 1818. See hlg InxjLa, N. Y. (1868). IV, 232-ff. 
 

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10 
 
 !| 
 
 that national and inligenons development which the Romanticists 
 regarded as alone truly inward and genuine; in fact the introduction 
 of the term ’’Renaissance" was accompanied by a sharp differentiation 
 and contrast between the period it designates and the Middle Ages. 
 
 It comes as a surprise to the reader of modern historical j 
 literature to learn that the term "Renaissance" as a designation 
 for a period in the history of civilization has been current little 
 more than half a century.^ The Italians used the word 
 rinasoimento as early as the latter part of the Eighteenth century 
 to indicate the revival of art and letters, but, as the form indi- 
 cates, England and Germany borrowed the term from France. 
 Beyle-Stendhal spoke of a "renaissance des arts," and Guizot and 
 De Stael of the "renaissance des lettres." In 1838 Libri published 
 his Histoire des sciences math^matigues en Italie denuis la 
 Renai ssance . "Da ist," says Goetz, ^ "so viel ich sehe, zum ersten 
 Male das Wort in dem das ganze Zeitalter umfassenden Sinn als 
 allgemein bekannt vorausgesetzt . " But the first histories of the 
 whole period which really popularized the modern conception of the 
 Renaissance were Michelet's seventh volume of his Histoire de la 
 France, which appeared in 1855 with the sub-title Renaissance, and 
 Burckhardt's Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (i860), which, as 
 Goetz points out, was in some points indebted to Michelet. 
 
 Michelet expounds his views in a lengthy introduction, 
 and they are not flattering to the Middle Ages,- "I'e'^tat bizarre 
 et monstrueux, prodigieusement artificiel, qui fut celui du Moyen- 
 
 In this section I am following especially an article by Walter 
 ^oetz, Mittelalter und Renaissance. Historische Zeitsohrift. Vol.98 
 (1907), 30-54. 
 
 ^Op. cit. p. 46. 
 
/ 
 
 i 
 
 ■s 
 
11 
 
 age, n’a d' argument en sa faveur que son extreme duree, sa 
 re'^sistance obstin^e au retour de la nature." There were living 
 forces, mighty enough to destroy the Middle Ages, in the 12th 
 cent'ury, in the 13th, in the 14th, and yet it was agonizing in the 
 15th and 16th and at last expired four centuries too late. "Ainsi 
 dure le Moyen-age, d'autant plus difficile "a tuer qu'il est mort 
 depuis longtemps. Pour etre tue'', il faut vivre."^ Through a hun- 
 dred pages of eloquent, but violent, prose, Michelet arraigns 
 medieval civilization for its ignorance, its mechanizing of religion, 
 its disregard for nature and the nat\iral, its syllogizing philosophy^ 
 in short, its suppression of the individual by authority and stereo- 
 typed form. There were numerous efforts towards freedom from the 
 Twelfth century to the Renaissance, but they proved abortive; 
 authority closed door after door, until at last through the only 
 neglected portal, that of art, the human spirit achieved its eman- 
 cipation, and authority was never again able to capture and confine 
 it. Thus did humanity re— discover itself, and the modern world was 
 born. But the process was not inevitable in any sense except that 
 in which heroism in the face of oppression is inevitable. For the 
 Renaissance was the great effort of humanity bursting its chains. 
 "Tout I'honneur en sera a I'^ie, a la volonte he^roique."^ 
 
 Of Burokhardt ' s well-known work, a masterpiece of his- 
 torical writing and still the authority 
 
 unnecessary to speak at length. A portrait of an age, a psycholog- 
 ical study of an epoch, it depicts the salient characteristics of 
 
 ^Michelet, Oeuvres Complete s. Paris (n.d). VII, 9-10. 
 
 Michelet, ed. cit. VII, 100. 
 

 
 
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12 
 
 the Renaissance, but neglects its connections with the periods befoiB 
 and after. The chief criticism of Burckhardt's book is his somewhat 
 artificial isolation of his period.^ But even though he nowhere 
 attacks the Middle Ages so vehemently as Michelet, it is clear 
 enough that he regards them as characterized by a movement 
 essentially the opposite to that of the Renaissance. The 
 Renaissance was a period of individualism, of the freedom of choice 
 in individual development which makes possible living as a form of 
 art; and where Burckhardt finds occasion to allude to Medievalism, 
 
 p 
 
 it is to contrast it in this respect with the Renaissance. 
 
 Burckhardt, however, is a more philosophical historian than Michelet, 
 and has a more profound explanation of the sources of this individu- 
 alism, He does not consider the revival of antiquity, the new 
 learning, an essential in the movement of the Renaissance, although 
 of course historically it has to be treated, inasmuch as it colored 
 and quickened the whole process; but it is ”one of the chief 
 propositions of this book” that the narrow term, "revival of 
 learning," does not correctly designate the essential intellectual 
 and spiritual tendency of the age.^ 
 
 Two great historians thus created, almost simultaneously, 
 the current impression of the 15th and 16th centuries as one of the 
 great ages of history, primarily because it was permeated by the 
 spirit and philosophy of individualism; both conceived of the Middle 
 Ages as a prison house of humanity; and the liberation from this 
 Medieval spirit was for Michelet an important result, for Burckhardt 
 
 1 / 
 
 ^ Goetz, op. cit. pp. 48-54. Also Gebhart, Emile, La Renaissance 
 itallenne et la Phllosoohie de I'Histoire. Revue des deux Mondes. 
 
 Vol. 72 (188517 342-379. 
 
 ^Burckhardt, The Renaissance in Italy, London (1909). pp. 129,359. 
 
 ^Ed. cit. pp . ~1T1 -I'72 . I 
 
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13 
 
 th6 essence itself, of that infinitely complex movement which carried 
 the intellect and imagination of Europe to such supreme achievement, 
 and which we have, following them, denominated the re -birth of 
 humanity, the Renaissance. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Failure of English Literary History to 
 Apply this Conception Thoroughly 
 
 English literary history has not been much tormented with 
 philosophic questionings as to its nature and aim. So far as it is 
 possible to indicate any tendency from Warton down to recent years, 
 it has been, aside from writing chronological annals, towards 
 emphasizing the renaissance of arts and letters after the manner of 
 Michelet, rather than penetrating to Burckhardt's deeper interpreta- 
 tion. It was of course inevitable that the earliest plans of the 
 history of English poetry, those of Pope and Gray, should recognize 
 the grouping of poets into schools and point out the prominent for- 
 eign influences.^ But as these projected histories were never 
 written, one can only surmise how far they would have been anything | 
 more than annalistic descriptions of literary groups. Courthope 
 brings the charge against Warton, that "though he saw that the Origin 
 of Romantic Fiction and the Introduction of Learning into England 
 were both intimately associated with the History of Poetry, he did 
 not treat them as if they were of its essence, but discussed them 
 separately, incidentally, in a merely archaeological temper, and 
 
 J^The plans of Pope and Gray are given by Courthope, Historv of I 
 
 English Poetry . I, Preface , vi-x. ^ — 
 
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14 
 
 with so little perception of their necessary relation to his subject, 
 
 that he gave equal prominence to a ’Dissertation’ on the Gesta 
 1 
 
 Roman or urn. ” Warton’s history, however, was something more than 
 
 mere annals; it was a campaign docimient. As a historian he had to 
 admit the fertilizing influence of Classical and Italian literature 
 on the English; but he was always suspicious of it, he could never 
 praise it heartily, and his critical judgment was based on a belief 
 in the superior value of the "Gothic,” the indigenous element in 
 English literature. The "inundation of classical pedantry," he 
 wrote, "soon infected our poetry." And "the early Italian poets 
 disfigured, instead of adorning, their works by attempting to 
 imitate the classics. The cha,rms which we so much admire in Dante, 
 do not belong to the Greeks and Romans. They are derived from 
 another origin, and must be traced back to a different stock. 
 
 Warton, clearly enough, in spite of the antiquarian and annalistic 
 manner of his work, expounded the Romantic philosophy of history. 
 
 But what was true of Warton has been true of English 
 literary history in general, throughout its course. It has 
 followed more or less faithfully, but vaguely and uncritically, the 
 shifting conceptions of history which we have already sketched. The 
 Romantic critics restored the Sixteenth and early Seventeenth 
 centuries, along with the Middle Ages, to preeminence; then began | 
 the process of classification and editing, with much discussion of 
 the "New Age" and the forces that were made to account for it: the 
 Reformation, Revival of Learning, Discovery of America, and others; 
 
 ^Courthope, op. cit. I, xii. 
 
 ^ History of English Poetry , ed. Hazlitt (1871). IV, 357,191. 
 
finally the term "Renaissance” ms introduced, and the conception 
 of Burckhardt, with modifications, has become current. But to 
 illustrate these changes in the large would require too much space, 
 and they can better be indicated by a narrower study of the 
 successive conceptions of the so-called "metaphysical" school of 
 poetry, a study which will lead us back to the subject of scepticism 
 in the Renaissance. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Partial Application of the New Conception of the 
 Renaissance Illustrated in the Criticism 
 of the Metaphysical Poets 
 
 The term "metaphysical," applied to Donne and his 
 followers, although popularized by Johnson's Life of Cowley (1779), 
 was used before by others. Dryden seems to have coined it, in 
 speaking of Donne: "He affects the metaphysics, not only in his 
 
 satires, but in his amorous verses, where only nature should reign. 
 According to Spence, Pope used it, no doubt borrowing it from Dryden.] 
 D'Avenant, Pope said, was "a scholar of Donne's, and took his ; 
 
 sententiousness and metaphysics from him." And "Cowley is a fine 
 poet in spite of all his faults. He, as well as D'Avenant, borrowed 
 his metaphysical turn from Donne. Thomas Warton, in his 
 Observations on the Faery Queen of Spenser (1754), uses the term and 
 
 supports it with a theory regarding the origin of this school of 
 poets . 
 
 ^ Essays, ed. cit. II, 19. 
 
 3 ^ I 
 
 Spence ' s Anecdotes, ed. Murray, London (1820) . pp. 84, 96. 
 
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16 
 
 "After the Faery Queen , allegory began to decline, 
 and by degrees gave place to a species of poetry, 
 whose images were of the metaphysical and abstracted 
 kind. This fashion evidently took its rise from 
 the predominant studies of the times, in which the 
 disquisitions of school divinity, and the perplexed 
 subtleties of philosophic disputation, became the 
 principal pursuits of the learned."^ 
 
 Warton's theory gives the term aptness. But there is no real con- 
 sistency between Johnson's use of the term and either his explana- 
 tion of the nature of this kind of poetry or his theory of its 
 origin. The "metaphysical" poets were characterized, he said, by 
 a peculiar species of wit. True wit is that 
 
 "which is at once natural and new, that which though 
 not obvious is, upon its first production, acknowledged 
 to be just; . . . to wit of this kind the metaphysical 
 poets have seldom risen . . . But wit . . , may be 
 more rigorously and philosophically considered as a 
 kind of discordia ooncors : a combination of dissimilar 
 images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things 
 apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have 
 more than enough . . . 
 
 "This kind of writing, which was, I believe, 
 borrowed from Marino and his followers, had been 
 recommended by the example of Donne, a man of very 
 extensive and various knowledge, and by Jenson, 
 whose manner resembled that of Donne more in the 
 ruggedness of the lines than in the cast of his 
 sentiments. 
 
 "When their reputation was high they had un- 
 doubtedly more imitators than time has left behind. 
 
 Their immediate successors, of whom any remembrance 
 can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, 
 Cowley, Cleij-eland, and Milton. Denham and Waller 
 sought another way to fame, by improving: the harmony 
 of our numbers. Milton tried the metaphysick style 
 only in his lines upon Hobson the Carrier. Cowley 
 adopted it, and excelled his predecessors; having as 
 much sentiment and more musick. Suckling neither 
 improved versification nor abounded in conceits. 
 
 The fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley: 
 
 1 
 
 Warton, Observations on the Faerv Queen of Snenser. 3rd ed. . 
 London (1807). II, 104. 
 

 
 
 V , "J 
 
 
 
 #' ' 
 
 X ■: 
 
 •...:>J ■ 
 
17 
 
 Sucklins: could not reach it, and Milton disdained 
 it." 1 ’ 
 
 Gray, in his letter to Warton, gives the same source of the school, 
 
 but an appropriately different name: he calls it "a third Italian 
 
 school full of conceit, begun in Queen Elizabeth's time, continued 
 
 under James and Charles I. by Donne, Crashav?, Cleveland, and ends 
 
 2 
 
 perhaps in Sprat." 
 
 Johnson's criticism has been the chief influence on 
 succeeding scholarship and criticism down to com.paratively recent 
 times. Even so different a critic as Hazlitt praised fervently 
 Johnson's slashing denunciation of the "conceitists . Colerilffe 
 read the prose and verse of Donne; the lecture on his poetry has 
 not been preserved, but some famous verses on Donne indicate a 
 
 4 
 
 state of perplexed appreciation. Lamb, who loved dusty old folios 
 for their own sake, once mentioned in a letter to Coleridge "a poet, 
 very dear to me,- the now-out-of-fashion Cowley."^ Nevertheless, 
 on the whole, it must be said that the Romantic critics, fond as 
 they were of restoring Elizabethan literature, have done little 
 more for this group than the earlier neo-classicists. The 
 "conceitists" are difficult to classify on their basis; and there- 
 fore, as Saintsbury says, "the Caroline age was, as far as its 
 poetical development went, a little slurred, a little pooh-poohed, 
 and by a very curious illustration of the extreme difficulty of 
 
 of tl^ Ppej^ ed. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford (1905). I, 30-32. 
 
 In an appendix, p. 68, the editor refers to the use of the term 
 metaphysical" by Dryden and Pope, but says nothing of ?/arton. 
 ^Courthope, op. cit. I, x. 
 
 ?J^ 2 litt, The C_omic Writers , Lecture III. ed. Waller and Glover, 
 
 V H J. ^ 4r9 • 
 
 Works . N. Y. (1868) . IV, 286-7. Notes on Donne's prose: 
 __^Lam.b. .Letters, ed. Ainger. I 
 

 
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18 
 
 maintaining literary catholicity this mishap of falling between two 
 schools has constantly recurred to it."^ 
 
 History which ignores important phenomena will inevitably 
 be revised. But progress is sometimes slow and erudition alone does 
 not suffice. Thus Hallam is_ able to point out an error in facts in 
 Johnson. 
 
 "This style Johnson supposes to have been derived 
 from Marini. But Donne, its founder, as Johnson 
 imagines, in England, wrote before Marini. It is, 
 in fact, as we have lately observed, the style which, 
 though Marini has earned the discreditable reputation 
 of perverting the taste of the country by it, had been 
 gaining ground through the latter half of the sixteenth 
 century. It was, in a more com.prehensive view, one 
 modification of that vitiated taste which sacrificed 
 all ease and naturalness of writing and speaking for 
 the sake of display. The mythological erudition and 
 Grecisms of Ronsard's school, the Euphuism of that of 
 Lilly, the 'estilo culto' of Gongora, and even the 
 pedantic quotations of Burton and many similar writers, 
 both in England and on the Continent, sprang like the 
 concetti of the Italians, and of their English imita- 
 tors, from the same source, a dread of being over- 
 looked if they paced on like their neighbours . ”2 
 
 In spite of the great virtue in its day of Hallam’ s wide reading of 
 vernacular Renaissance literature, his defect on the critical side 
 becomes apparent in his attribution of so large a part of it to 
 puerility; and on the same page he says that in the poetry of Donne 
 "it would perhaps be difficult to select three passages that we 
 should care to read again." Masson answers this remark, without 
 making himself, however, any very illuminating suggestion: "And 
 
 yet, in reading him, one can see that the admiration of his contem- 
 poraries was not a mere pretence, and that, as his conversation was 
 full of suggestion to men who were far better poets than himself, so 
 
 \ 
 
 I 
 
 ^Saintsbury, History of Elizabethan Literature . N. Y.(l912). p.b88. 
 
 Hallam, Literature of Europe . 2nded., London (1843). 11,31-32. 
 

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19 
 
 his poetry served as an intellectual gymnastic where, as poetry, it 
 gave but little pleasure.”^ 
 
 Since Masson, criticism of Donne and his followers has 
 become much more enlightened, and the studies of them are too 
 numerous to be mentioned here. Among those who have called atten- 
 tion to Jacobean and Caroline poetry in general, mention should be 
 made of Gosse and Saintsbury. Schelling's passing discussion^ 
 deserves praise as one of the most intelligent, keen, enthusias- 
 tically phrased criticisms of Donne, in his purely literary aspects. 
 But recently the most important contributions to the study of Donne 
 and his school have been by Courthope, PaLmer, and Grierson; their 
 studies have in common, very significantly, that they attempt to 
 relate the school of Donne to the general movement of the 
 Renaissance, in its modern conception since Burckhardt; and on 
 account of their pertinence to the subject of scepticism they desert 
 quotation more at length. 
 
 Courthope first developed his theory in his Life of Pope. 
 where he points out the superficiality and inadequacy of Hallam's 
 facile explanation, and declares that the school of ”wit” must be 
 "the result of the operation of similar forces, religious, social, 
 and political, and of the influence of some wide-spread literary 
 tradition.” What these forces were, he explains again in sub- I 
 
 stantially the same manner in his later History of English Poetry : 
 the school of ”wit” is a survival of Medieval scholasticism; when 
 
 ^Masson, Life of Milton . Boston (1859). I, 377. 
 
 , Rebelling, A Book of Elizabethan Lyrics. Boston (1895). 
 Introduction, xxi-xxiii. 
 
 ^ Pope's Works, ed. Elwell and Courthope, London (1889). V, 52-61. 
 
V 
 
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20 
 
 the true Renaissance at last triumphed, the school of "wit” died. 
 
 In "wit" there were three essentials: paradox, hyperbole, and 
 
 excess of metaphor. 
 
 "All these qualities, which flourish exuberantly in 
 the poetry of the seventeenth century, appear germinally 
 in the poetry of the fourteenth; it is therefore not an 
 unfair conclusion that they belong to a single system of 
 thought, and that their predominance in the later age 
 signifies the efflorescence of decay. 
 
 "(l) The habit of startling the imagination with 
 paradoxical reasoning about the order of the universe, 
 physical and moral, which is so striking a character-’ 
 istic of the metaphysical school of Donne, is, I think, 
 the final result of the exaggerated importance attached 
 by the schoolmen to the study of logic . . . 
 
 "(2) With the habit of reasoning paradoxically was 
 intimately associated the habit of writing hyper- 
 bolically. The spirit of the logician penetrated not 
 only the poetry which derived its inspiration from 
 theology, but also that which had its source in 
 chivalrous action and sentiment . . . 
 
 "(3) . . . the excessive use of metaphor is to be 
 explained by the decay of allegory as a natural mode 
 of poetical expression."^ 
 
 In another passage Courthope speaks of scholasticism as defunct by 
 the time of Donne; in the sphere of reason the Renaissance is char- 
 acterized by "a new kind of Pyrrhonism," represented by Montaigne. 
 
 And "many poets, in their ideal representations of Nature, seized 
 upon the rich materials of the old and ruined philosophy to decorate 
 the structures which they built out of their lawless fancy.' On such! 
 foundations rose the school of metaphysical wit, of which the 
 earliest and most remarkable example is furnished in the poetry of 
 John Donne. "2 
 
 Courthope, Hist , of Eng . Poetry . London (1911). Ill, 103-117. 
 Courthope ‘s "large views" are always stimulating (even where they 
 have been shown to be wrong). For instance, his short discussion of 
 xhe term "Renaissance," "a phrase at once misleading and obscure, "in 
 volume I, 158-9, is a very helpful warning to the reader of Burckharci 
 
 ^Courthope, op. cit. Ill, 147-8. 
 
21 
 
 I 
 
 Leslie Stephen, in a recent essay on Donne, ^ takes a 
 similar view: 
 
 "In one way Donne has partly become obsolete because 
 he belonged so completely to the dying epoch. The 
 scholasticism in which his mind was steeped was to 
 become hateful and then contemptible to the rising 
 philosophy; the literature which he assimilated went 
 to the dust-heaps; preachers condescended to drop 
 their doctorial robes; do'wnright commonsense came 
 in with Tillotson and South in the next generation; 
 and not only the learning but the congenial habit 
 of thought became unintelligible.”^ 
 
 George Herbert Palmer, however, emphasizes the modern 
 
 element in the same writers; he considers the peculiar style of the 
 
 "metaphysical,” or as he prefers to call them, psychological, poets, 
 
 peculiarly the product of their own age, its individualism, its 
 
 spirit of rebellion against authority, its introspection. 
 
 "Certain general tendencies of Herbert’s time,” he 
 says, "combined with the peculiarities of his own 
 nature to bring about this new poetry. Individualism 
 was abroad, disturbing 'the unity and married calm of 
 states, ’ and sending its subtle influence into every 
 department of English life. The rise of Puritanism 
 was but one of its manifestations. Everywhere the 
 Renaissance movement pressed toward a return to 
 nature and an assertion of the rights of the individual. 
 
 At its rise these tendencies were partially concealed. 
 
 Its first fruits were delivery from oppressive serious- 
 ness, a general emancipation of human powers, the 
 enrichment of daily life, beauty, splendor, scholar- 
 ship, a quickened and incisive intelligence. But as 
 it advanced, the Renaissance opened doors to all kinds 
 of self-assertion. Each person, each desire, each 
 opinion, became clamorous and set up for itself, 
 regardless of all else. In its remoteness England 
 was tardy in feeling these disintegrating influences. 
 
 The splendor, too, of the Renaissance was somewhat 
 dimmed in Italy and France before it shone on the 
 age of Elizabeth. There it found a society excep- 
 tionally consolidated under a forceful Queen. Foreign 
 dangers welded the nation together. It is doubtful 
 if at any other period of its history has the English 
 people believed, acted, enjoyed, and aspired so 
 nearly like a single person as during the first three 
 
 ^Th^ National Reydej?. (1899). Vol.34, 613. 
 
I' ^ • * 
 
 -...i i ' 
 
 / 
 
 f 
 
 •j 
 
 i' 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 Jij 
 
 ■'■j. ■ -,? 
 
22 ^ 
 
 \ 
 
 quarters of the age of Elizabeth. She, her great 
 ministers, andthe historical plays of Shakespeare 
 set forth its ideals of orderly government. 
 
 Spenser's poem consummated its ideals of orderly 
 beauty, as did Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity those 
 of an orderly church. Men in those days marched 
 together. Dissenters, either of a religious, 
 political, or artistic sort, were few and despised. 
 
 "But change was impending. A second period of 
 the Renaissance began, a period of introspection, 
 where each man was prone to insist on the importance 
 of whatever was his own. At the coming of the 
 Stuarts this great change was prepared, and was 
 steadily fostered by their inability to comprehend 
 it. In science. Bacon had already questioned 
 established authority and sent men to nature to 
 observe for themselves. In government, the king's 
 prerogative was speedily questioned, and Parliament s- 
 became so rebellious that they were often dismissed. 
 
 A revolution in poetic taste was under way. Spenser's 
 lulling rhythms and bloodless heroes were being dis- 
 placed by the jolting and passionate realism of 
 Donne . " ^ 
 
 The exuberance of the Elizabethan age was therefore turned into 
 new channels. "The soul of man took the place of the outer world, 
 while the old delight in daring and difficult tasks appeared in 
 this new sphere as a kind of intellectual audacity and an ardent 
 exploration of mental enigmas. To how many strange theories did 
 this England of the first half of the seventeenth century give 
 rise! To exploit a new doctrine became more exciting than a voyage 
 to the Spanish main."^ 
 
 Grierson accepts Courthope's historical explanation of 
 Donne as sound, but thinks that it leaves unexplained and undefined 
 "the interest which Donne's poetry still has for us, not as a his- 
 torical phenomenon, but as poetry." His own study^ is an attempt 
 
 ^^T^ English Works of George Herbert , ed. Palmer, Boston (1905) . 
 ^Op.cit. pp. 155-156. 
 
 Poems of John Donne , Oxford (1913) . II, Introduct ion. 
 
■■' _. oiwinTiSwM'- wna 'te;*-i<^‘' ^ ' ■•■i 
 
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 fc“' " 7.'i? i ii' i ■ 'ii : :; tjrjfco^iqj; ' fA; n*? ‘ .'' 
 
 • j 
 
23 
 
 to understand how the various contradictory elements in Donne's 
 nature were combined in the poetic genius. I shall quote only from 
 Grierson's discussion of Donne's love poetry, as the best illustra- 
 tion of his method: 
 
 "Donne's love poetry is a very complex phenomenon, 
 but the two dominant strains in it are just these: 
 the strain of dialectic, subtle play of argument 
 and wit, erudite and fantastic; and the strain of 
 vivid realism, the record of a passion which is 
 not ideal or conventional, neither recollected in 
 tranquillity nor a pure product of literary fashion, 
 but love as an actual, immediate experience in all 
 its moods, gay and angry, scornful and rapturous 
 with joy, touched with tenderness and darkened with 
 sorrow — though these last two moods, the commonest 
 in love-poetry, are with Donne the rarest. The first 
 of these strains comes to Donne from the Middle Ages, 
 the dialectic of the Schools, which passed into 
 medieval love-poetry almost from its inception; 
 the second is the expression of the new temper of 
 the Renaissance as Donne has assimilated it in Latin 
 countries. " 
 
 Grierson, in a comparison between Ovid and Donne, notes the deep 
 
 difference which the careful reader soon discerns underneath the 
 
 apparent similarity; so also with Burns and Catullus. 
 
 "Burns gets no further than the experience, Catullus 
 than the obvious and hedonistic reflection that time 
 is flying, the moment of pleasure short. In Donne's 
 4.nnive rsarie one feels the quickening of the 
 brain, the vision extending its range, the passion 
 gathering sweep with the expanding rhythms, and from 
 the mind thus heated and inspired emerges, not a cry 
 that time might stay its course, . . , but a clearer 
 consciousness of the eternal significance of love, 
 not the love that aspires after the unattainable, 
 but the love that unites contented hearts." 
 
 Donne's poetry is thus truly "psychological," as Palmer has pointed 
 
 out, for it is a study of the psyche or soul of man; it may be 
 
 called "metaphysical" in Dryden's rather than Johnson's sense, in 
 
 that it is the product of great spiritual and intellectual effort. ! 
 
 Palmer, F^ormative Types in English Poetry (1918). p.l03. 
 

 I 
 
 i 
 
 s 
 
 >■ 
 
 r' 
 
 ii 
 
 f 
 
 t 
 
In Donne's religious verse there is none of the "natural love of 
 God which overflows the pages of the great mystics," hut "effort 
 is the note which predominates — the effort to realize the majesty 
 of God, the heinousness of sin, the terrors of Hell, the mercy of 
 Christ. "1 Donne's peculiar style is therefore not to be explained, 
 after the manner of Johnson and Hallam, as a mere affectation, as 
 the survival of outworn rhetoric; it has its sources in his inner 
 conflicts, in his curiosity about the subjective, in the intellec- 
 tual urge of his nature. To understand the "wits" of the period, 
 we must study their problems in understanding the world. 
 
 "Donne's qualities," to quote Courthope again,^"were 
 essentially those of his age . . . To those who see 
 in poetry a mirror of the national life, and who 
 desire to amplify and enrich their own imagination 
 by a s^pathetic study of the spiritual existence 
 of their ancestors, the work of " Donne will always 
 be profoundly interesting. No more lively or 
 characteristic representative can be found of the 
 thought of an age when the traditions of the 
 ancient faith met in full encounter the forces of 
 the new philosophy. The shock of that collision 
 is far from having spent its effect, even in our 
 07m day; and he who examines historically the move- 
 ments of imagination will find in Donne's subtle 
 analysis and refined paradoxes much that helps to 
 throw light on the contradictions of human nature." 
 
 It is important for the purposes of this study to note 
 how unanimous is the conception of the Renaissance as a period of 
 individualism, of escape from Medievalism, hence of disintegration 
 and scepticism., and that this conception is made to explain the mis- 
 understood poets of the school of Donne. We have therefore in this 
 narrow section of English literary history a development analogous 
 
 Grierson, op. cit. p.li. 
 history of English Poetry . II, 167-8. 
 
. - 4 < 
 
 V*i >. A#iM 
 
 ;\f^T 
 
 V 
 
 
 ■* 1 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 ] 
 
25 
 
 to that which we have already noted in the general study of the 
 Renaissance, and no doubt directly influenced by the latter. But 
 at the same time, the contra^dictions are suggestive. Courthope 
 thinks the metaphysical poets were survivals of medievalism, Palm.er 
 that they were anticipators of the modern mind, Grierson that they 
 were both. The problem raised here can be solved only by a more 
 thorough and better documented account of the thought of these poets, 
 and its relation to the intellectual milieu of the Renaissance. 
 
 V 
 
 The Purpose of this Study 
 
 To summarize the results of this "history of history," 
 
 modern scholarship has arrived at the conception of the Renaissance 
 as a period of individualism which manifested itself on the critical 
 side as a liberation from Medievalism and on the creative side as a 
 sense of power which made the age one of the supreme achievements in 
 
 history. In such a period of great ferment, of conflict of ideas, 
 
 therefore truly a transition period intellectually — we would 
 naturally expect scepticism to play a large part, not merely as a 
 ijustifioation of libertine ethics, or even of individualism for its 
 own sake, but as one of the intellectual forces transforming the 
 medieval mind into the modern. And this phase of the Renaissance in 
 Italy and France has in the last three or four decades been quite 
 extensively discussed. 
 
 The Italian Renaissance, which the reader of Ascham remem- 
 bers as scandalously irreligious and immoral, did not produce any one 
 writer of European significance who can be considered primarily a 
 
:;1‘ ^'■■’"V? , ' ' , '‘ ^ 
 
 '" ' ' Iv •' . :"•■ •' ■ .h ' i#ii "'Vlirf® ‘i 
 
 ' AV>: 
 
 ■' ■■■: ■/■ 
 
 ■o’J,. 
 
 
 . > V. 3J 
 
 - T/-y 
 
 
 III • /|‘i- i'.-: ■.^■r- " ' •*<;' 
 
 iij/"'' •■- '^ ■ ' ’ ' V-f'' ’■ ' ' ■' ■• - ■ ' 
 
 
 
26 
 
 representative of the sceptical spirit, except perhaps 
 Macchiavelli. But more than in any^country in Europe there was a 
 wide and subtle diffusion, even to the very heart of the papal 
 Curia, of a very modern spirit of unbelief and criticism; as every 
 history of the Italian Renaissance, therefore, has had to describe 
 it, there is the less need for a special treatise on the subject. 
 But every student is under obligation to the scholarly volume by 
 John Owen, written in a spirit of moralistic liberalism, especially 
 valuable for its appreciation of the historical function of 
 scepticism. ^ 
 
 Montaigne and Pascal have long directed the attention of 
 French students to the scepticism of the Renaissance, but only 
 recently has their relation to the general current of Pyrrhonism 
 been carefully studied. M. Pierre Villey, in a remarkable work 
 which for the first tim.e gives a full and documented mental bio- 
 graphy of Montaigne, has described with great thoroughness the 
 influence on him of Sextus Empiricus.^ M. Fortunat Strowski has 
 discussed in his Histoire ^ Sentiment Religieux en France au XVIIe 
 Slecle, in connection with Pascal, some of the religious and moral 
 aspects of the liber tins ; but, writing in the spirit of a loyal 
 Catholic, he is not sympathetic with these more trivial and super- 
 ficial manifestations of scepticism between Montaigne and Pascal.^ 
 The spirit of incredulity in the Seventeenth century has been more 
 impartially described by Perrens."^ And John Owen's volume on the 
 
 London^ (1908) Sceptics of the Italian Renaissance . 3rd ed. 
 
 ^2viiiey,_Pierre, Le£ Sources ^ L 'Evo lution des Essais de Montaigne, 
 S^Vols., Paris (19017. "" — 
 
 _ Strowski, F., Pascal et son Tem ps. Vol. I, De Montaii 2 :ne a Pascal. 
 
 4:|h ed., Paris (1909) . 
 
 ____Per^ns, F. T., Les Libertins en France, Paris (1899) . 
 
27 
 
 French Renaissance is distinguished by the same sympathetic insight 
 as his study of the Italians already referred to.^ John M. 
 Robertson has succeeded in discussing, or at least naming, every 
 note.Torthy heretical thinker, from antiquity to the present, in a 
 comprehensive work which makes little pretension to any philosophi- 
 cal grasp of historical movements, but which is a valuable summary 
 and manual. Articles and volumes which deal incidentally or par- 
 tially with phases of scepticism are so numerous that obligations 
 to them can be acknowledged only as they occur throughout the pages 
 that follow. 
 
 But when we come to the English field, we find that the 
 sceptical element in the thought and literature of the Renaissance 
 has been almost entirely neglected. No consecutive account has 
 been made of it. The materials for such a study are still 
 scattered through many volumes.^ The suggestions of Courthope, 
 
 Owen, John, Th^ Skeptics of the French Renaissance. London (1893) . 
 (I906)^^2°vols°^^ ~ History of Free thought . 2nd ed. , N.Y. 
 
 ^Einstein (Itajd^ Renaissance in England. N.Y. ,1902) discusses the 
 Italian danger , pp. 155-175; and the influence of Macchiavelli on 
 English political ideas, pp. 291-307. 
 
 A. H. Upham ( French Influence in English Literature . N.Y. 1908) in a 
 chapter on Montaigne points out the indebtedness of several English 
 writers to the Essais. but does not accord any importance to the 
 borrowing of sceptical ideas. 
 
 Sidney Lee (Fre^h Renaissance in England. N. Y. ,1910) discusses the 
 
 Montaigne's influence, pp. 165-179; and pp. 323- 
 328 he deals briefly with the vogue in England of Peter Ramus, 
 r eui lie rat/ (John Lyly , Cambridge, 1910) has some pages on the cor- 
 rupting influence of Italy, as an explanation of a passage in 
 Euphues. These merely incidental references to scepticism are 
 tpical of the discussion of it in English literary history. But 
 often it is ignored completely, as in E. Hershey Sneath's Philosophy 
 
 in^Poetry_, N. Y.,1903, a volume devoted to Sir John Davies's Nosce 
 ieipsum. with no recognition whatever of any direct connect ion~of 
 the poem with Renaissance currents of thought. 
 
 J. J. Jusserand ( Literary History of the English People. N.Y. 1906) 
 
■ 10. t'.<ilittftfc»*lJi! 5ii/iii»eoS^ e*i 
 
 ■'.. v^v'."- . ' \ ■ T/ -.;Si i? ,_.i®'' 
 
 
 
 
28 
 
 Palmer and Grierson are most helpful and encouraging to the 
 investigator who considers the subject important, but, general and 
 undocumented, they are hardly more than suggestions. This tardiness 
 in English studies as compared with French and Italian is to be 
 accounted for partly by the characteristic English neglect of the 
 history of ideas in literature, and partly by the fact that 
 scepticism produced no Anglo-Saxon Montaigne or Pascal to draw 
 attention to its historical importance, no notorious archbishop of 
 Canterbury who was reputed to doubt the immortality of the soul and 
 the authenticity of the Bible. For its existence in the more 
 extreme forms in England the evidence is often slight and largely 
 indirect, usually in polemics against freethought; in its milder 
 forms it has corresponded so closely with our current manner of 
 thought that its novelty and significance in the sixteenth century 
 has not been noticed. 
 
 And yet, in spite of this unobtrusiveness, the spirit of 
 scepticism was everywhere at work in the English Renaissance. It 
 formed no school or definite tradition, for scepticism is more a 
 state of mind than a doctrine. It is an attack on doctrine, and 
 where, as in Greek and Roman philosophy, there persists for cen- 
 turies a continuous sceptical tradition, it is because the doctrine 
 attacked — in this case Stoicism — continued to lay itself open 
 to criticism. Scepticism, the essence of which is opposition to the 
 
 usually conveys admirably the temper of whatever age he discusses, 
 but he has neglected the scepticism of the Renaissance. 
 
 To expand this list would be only to multiply the evidence of 
 either cursory treatment or absolute neglect in English literary 
 history of this important element in the Renaissance. But this 
 deficiency is not more singular than some others; where can we read 
 a connected and thorough account of such other obvious elements in 
 the English Renaissance as Stoicism and Platonism? 
 

 
 I 
 
 
dogmatio temper, is therefore as various as dogma, taking all forms, 
 playing like a corroding flame now on this surface, now on that, 
 multi-colored, evanescent, disappearing as soon as it succeeds. 
 
 It is with this sceptical temper as exhibited in the 
 literature and thought of the English Renaissance that this inves- 
 tigation is concerned. If our assumption regarding the historical 
 role of scepticism is correct, a connected presentation of its 
 development and diffusion should orient us in the study of the 
 currents of thought in English literature in the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries. What conflicts of ideas had a determining 
 influence on the course of the literature of that time? In what 
 way did Medievalism still dominate the minds of men? What forms did 
 reaction to it assume? Is the so-called Pyrrhonism of John Donne’s 
 early poetry merely a "sport" in the evolution of thought, or has 
 it some connection with the scepticism of the age? What was the 
 position, as regards scholasticism, of English science, of Bacon, 
 of the Royal Society? Did scepticism have anything to do with the 
 rise of Deism, the distinctively English school of thought which 
 gradually conquered Europe? Was there in England any such recon- 
 cilement of scepticism and mystical piety as is familiar to us in 
 Pascal? Finally, we should after these studies be able to state 
 more accurately what we mean by the "modern mind" as distinguished 
 from, and developed out of, the thought of the Renaissance. And per- 
 haps one may hope that such a historical account of scepticism in 
 one of the critical period of thought will even be helpful towards 
 forming that absolute evaluation which we began by distingiaishing 
 as the prerogative of the philosopher. 
 

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CHAPTER ONE 
 
 THE DISSOLUTION OF MEDIEVALISM, AND THE DEVELOPMENT 
 OF SCEPTICISM IN THE RENAISSANCE 
 
 I. The Problem of Universale.- II. D’aalism of Faith and 
 Reason.- III. The Comparative Study of Religions.- IV. The 
 Reformation.- V. Paganism: the Culture of the Libertines. - 
 VI. The Revival of Greek Scepticism. 
 
 In one of the tales in the Decameron . ^ Boccaccio narrates 
 of Guido Cavalcanti, the cultivated and lettered gentleman, one of 
 the best logicians in the world, an excellent natural philosopher, 
 but guilty of that slight tincture of independence of thought in 
 religious matters which was then stigmatised as "Epicureanism, ”3 
 that as he walked abstractedly in the streets of Florence, the honest 
 burghers, ge.nte volgare , said that his speculations were merely a 
 search after proofs that God does not exist. The incident symbolizes 
 the spirit of the Middle Ages with its narrow bounds, its subordina- 
 tion to authority, its distrust of liberal humanistic culture. And 
 yet these medieval bourgeois of Florence were justified in fearing 
 Such troubled meditation as a sign of an uncertain groping that was 
 then considered the most dangerous error, intellectually and spiritu- 
 ally. In medieval thought the possibility of knowledge was axio- 
 matic; the human mind must be fitted to know reality, and reality 
 must be such that it can be known. "Knowledge," says Dante, at the 
 beginning of the Co nvivio , "is the distinguishing perfection of our 
 
 ^Sixth day, ninth novella . 
 
31 
 
 1 
 
 soul, wherein consists our distinguishing blessedness." And the 
 chief impediment within the soul to this perfection appears "when 
 vice hath such supremacy in her that she giveth herself to pursuing 
 vicious delights, wherein she is deluded to such a point that for 
 their sake she holds all things cheap. Only a debased character, 
 it was thought, could be torm.ented by doubt, and therefore those who 
 were suspected of ruminating over the essentials of salvation were 
 significantly called "Epicureans," a term which remained current in 
 that sense from the thirteenth century to the seventeenth. 
 
 To appreciate the compelling power which this rigid and 
 intolerant orthodoxy exercised over the medieval mind, we must 
 remember the work Medievalism had to do after the Barbarian inva- 
 sions and the Dark Ages, namely, to organize and institutionalize 
 *^^^iTization. In the intellectual as well as political and 
 ecclesiastical spheres, it had to restore order and authority. As 
 organization proceeded, each authority was expected to bow to higher 
 authority until centralization should be complete, and the world 
 ruled by edicts of the Emperor, the Pope, and the University of 
 Paris. In the Middle Ages, therefore, the reason could not be free; 
 it was the handmaid to theology. It was expected to elucidate a 
 prescribed canon, but it was denied the right to criticise this 
 canon. Such was the Medieval ideal, inspiring a great constructive 
 effort. But the ideal was impossible of realization, the effort 
 required too great. Baffled humanity grew critical, sceptical, and 
 sought its blessedness by new paths. The way to truth, which to the 
 thinkers of the Middle Ages was broad and straight, is to the modern 
 
 Temple translation. London (n.d)., pp. 1-2. 
 
i 
 
 i 
 
 ■ • ’ i I ' ^ 
 
 . Jk Ji- 
 
32 
 
 mind a labyrinth. In the words of John Donne, 
 
 "On a huge hill, 
 
 Dragged, and steep. Truth stands, and hee that will 
 Reach her, about must, and about must goe."l 
 
 The greatest and most imposing work of medieval thought is the 
 
 Summa Theplogica of Thomas Aquinas, a systematization of religion 
 
 by means of rational demonstration; the greatest achievement in 
 
 philosophy of the opposite, the modern temper, is the critical 
 
 philosophy of Kant, at once profoundly sceptical and profoundly 
 believing. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Problem of Universals 
 
 The great intellectual struggle which determined the 
 
 formulation of scholastic philosophy was the conflict between 
 Nominalism and Realism. The problem involved was no barren or 
 artificial one; it was the problem of the validity of knowledge, 
 still debated and often in terms not far different from those of 
 the scholastics. It had been formulated for medieval students by 
 Porphyry, in his Isagoge . an introduction to the Logic of 
 Aristotle, in a short passage worth quoting: 
 
 ^Donne, John; Satire n_I, Poems . ed. Grierson, 0xford(l912) . p,157. 
 
 Born 232 A.D A pupil of Longinus and Plotinus. See Erdmann, 
 History pf Philosophy . London (1898). Vol. I, 245-6. 
 
 In this survey of scholasticism I am especially indebted to Erdmann, 
 article by Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison in Encvc. Brit. 11th 
 ea. ; Punier, Bernhard, History of the Christian Phi 
 Rg.l igiop, English trans^ Edinburgh's^) ; Webb, C.C.J., Studies in 
 Hlstp^ gf Nabu^ Theology , Oxford (1915); Rashdall, “HastingsT 
 iM. Universities of Europe tM. Middle Ages, Oxford (1895) 
 
‘^a 
 
 
 ! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
33 
 
 "Next, concerning genera and species, the question 
 indeed whether they have a substantial existence, or whether 
 they consist in bare intellectual concepts only, or 
 whether if they have a substantial existence they are 
 corporeal or incorporeal, and whether they are separable 
 from the sensible properties of the things (or particu- 
 lars of sense) , or are only in those properties and sub- 
 sisting about them, I shall forbear to determine. For a 
 question of this kind is a very deep one and one that 
 requires a longer investigation."^ 
 
 The question was, in short, whether universals exist. The 
 Realists, influenced by the Platonic doctrine of Ideas vwhich had 
 filtered dovm to them through the Dark Ages, affirmed that univer- 
 sals have a real existence apart from the mind which knows them. 
 Logically, this Realism was beset with the danger of Pantheism. 
 
 For there must be a hierarchy of universals and the highest 
 universal of all must be God; now, since no individual object was 
 thought to exist as individual except as a universal was present 
 in it and gave it form, i.e., makes it a member of some class, 
 it seemed necessary to conceive of God, Being, E^, as in some way 
 permeating all the universe. It was with difficulty that the 
 scholastics suppressed and obscured this pantheistic tendency 
 implicit in Realism.^ 
 
 In spite of this danger, Realism became the orthodox 
 philosophy of the Middle Ages. In the first place, it harmonized 
 with the great constructive dreams of Medievalism, a universal 
 empire and a universal church.^ And more specifically, the forrau- 
 
 ■iv, "by Rashdall, op.cit. I, 39, Rashdall says: "The words 
 
 in which this writer states, without resolving, the problem of the 
 bcholastic philosophy, have played perhaps a more momentous part in 
 the history of Thought than any other passage of equal length in all 
 literature outside the Canonical ScripturesT" 
 
 2a system of graded universals was worked out by Porphvry and after 
 him called Arbor Pornhvrli . Erdmann, I, S45. 
 
 ^Bryce, James, Holy Roman Empire . N.Y. (1904). 97-99. 
 

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34 
 
 lators of theology found the doctrine of the independent existence 
 of universale very useful for a rational interpretation of some 
 important and puzzling Christian doctrines, especially those of the 
 Trinity and the bodily presence of Christ in the Mass. On the other 
 hand. Nominalism led only to a terrifying despair. Inasmuch as it 
 denied the existence of universale, it appeared in that age to deny 
 the possibility of any knowledge at all; it reduced the organized 
 fforld of Realism to an anarchic world of mere unrelated individual 
 phenomena. Roscellinus, who was the first to develop the philosophy 
 of Nominalism, and who scandalized the Church by his heretical 
 conclusions, declared, according to his bitter opponent Anselm, 
 that "the universal substance” is only a f latum voois. a verbal 
 breathing. As he did not hesitate to follow his tenets to their 
 logical conclusions even in theology, he denied that we can speak 
 of three persons in one person — we must speak of three Gods. 
 Naturally, he also raised difficulties over the Mass. The Church 
 consequently condemned Nominalism, and Roscellinus was compelled to 
 recant at the Synod of Soissons in 1093. In the next two centuries 
 the adherents of Nominalism were few and mostly secret. Authority 
 for the time prevailed.^ 
 
 Scholasticism flourished at its height in the thirteenth I 
 century. During that period the problem of the universals in its 
 first form had apparently been solved by the three -fold method of 
 conceiving their existence either ante rem. in ^ or post rem . But 
 it returned in a new and more subtle form as the problem of indivi- 
 
 ^Pringle-Pattison, Encvc . Brit. Vol. 34, 349. 
 
 ^Punjer, op. cit. 28-39. 
 

35 
 
 duation. Aristotle had taught that matter is a universal substance 
 ffhich is individualized by form. But if form also be considered 
 universal, why should any object be different from any other of its 
 class? Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas therefore shifted their 
 ground and taught that matter, not form, was the principle of 
 individuation; but as this explanation did not explain, Aquinas 
 sought to push the vexing problem out of sight by saying that ”the 
 principle of the diversity of individuals of the same species is 
 the quantitative division of matter."! "To answer one doubt," 
 said Montaigne of the scholastics, "they give me three: it is a 
 Hydra's head." 
 
 The failure of this principle of individuation in the 
 Thomist philosophy led to a revival of a modified and subtilized 
 form of Nominalism, championed by the Englishman William of Occam. 
 Again philosophy took the reality of the individual as its point of 
 departure, and grew sceptical of the reality of the universal except 
 as a mental concept. 
 
 "Such a doctrine," writes Pringle-Pattison, "in 
 the stress it lays upon the singular, the object of 
 immediate perception, is evidently inspired by a 
 spirit differing widely even from the moderate 
 Realism of Thomas. It is a spirit which distrusts 
 abstractions, which makes for direct observation 
 for inductive research. Occam, who is still a 
 
 gives us the Scholastic justification 
 of the spirit which had already taken hold upon 
 Roger Bacon, and which was to enter upon its 
 rights in the 15th and 18th centuries. Moreover, 
 there is no denying that the new Nominalism not 
 only represents the love of reality and the spirit 
 of induction, but also contains in itself the"^ germs 
 
 Pringle-Pattison, Encvc . Brit . . Vol. 24, 354. 
 

 
 
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 l?^:;.;-' .. ■, '..A'-.' . «■ ■ ; .V'^'.^s ■ S -^'‘ 
 
of that eaipiricisQi and sensualism so frequently 
 associated with the former tendencies,”! 
 
 The philosophy of Occam, usually called Terminism to distinguish it 
 
 from the Nominalism of Roscellinus, was feared by the Church as 
 
 much as the earlier school. Occam, after a life of imprisonment and 
 
 persecution, died in 1347 . Already in 1339 the University of Paris, 
 
 the intellectual capital of scholasticism, put his treatises under 
 
 the ban, and the next year the philosophy of Nominalism was again 
 
 formally condemned. But persecution and condemnation availed 
 
 nothing. Followers came to Occam in crowds. As Erdmann remiarks, 
 
 the Thomists and Scotists, who unite themselves against the common 
 
 enemy . . . can nevertheless only prove by the fruitlessness of 
 
 their struggle that the time for nominalism is come, and that 
 therefore he who declares for it best understands his age, that is, 
 is most philosophical."'" Although opposition to it kept up, and 
 Louis XI in 1473 issued an edict binding all the teachers at the 
 
 University of Paris by oath to teach the doctrines of Realism, it 
 
 Pringle-Pattison, Encyc . Brit . . Vol. 24, 355. 
 btudents of Occam have not failed to point out the significance of 
 the fact that he was a countryman of Francis Bacon and Hobbes, as 
 well as of Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus. Thus T, M. Lindsay, British 
 
 1872) ,p .2: "He was the great English 
 choolman, and his nationality appears everywhere in his writings 
 and actions, distinguishing him from the other leaders of medieval 
 xnought. ...we see in William of Occam some of the beet features o-^ 
 English character ... He was full of sturdy self-dependence, 
 and had a strong love of freedom, which made itself felt on ques- 
 ons both of Church and State policy.” Likewise George Groom 
 
 discussing the English mind, says: ”And for certain, in 
 
 this English Franciscan, still deep in the middle age, three long 
 centuries before the day of Bacon and Hobbes, we can descry, throue-h 
 xne veil of his scholastic jargon, a thinker mentally akin to these 
 zo Hobbes especially — in a fashion of which they in the indis- 
 criminating impatience of their opposition to the scholastic system 
 little dreamt.” Philosophical Remains. Lend. (1894). 37. 
 
 Erdmann, I, 514. 
 
iv 
 
 ' i 
 
 
 ii' 
 
 , } ,V • 
 
r 
 
 37 
 
 was too late to win a philosophical victory hy means of such over- 
 bearing fiats, and the edict remained in force only eight years. 
 Nominalism, however, never succeeded in dominating intellectual 
 Europe to the extent that Realism had in the thirteenth century. 
 The age of ecplecticism and decay had come, and the debate of the 
 two opposing schools lasted through the Renaissance. Even as late 
 as 1651 there appeared in France a work by Salabert with the sig- 
 nificant title, Philosonhia Nominalium v indie at a. 
 
 We shall get a better understanding of Nominalism as a 
 preparation for certain aspects of Renaissance thought if we go 
 back and trace the development of a related problem: the divergence 
 
 of reason and faith. When the scholastic philosophy was in the 
 process of form.ation in the twelfth century, it gradually estab- 
 lished also the theory of the identity of faith and reason as means 
 of knowledge. Anselm demonstrated the existence of God by means 
 of the ontological argument, that is, by assuming as axiomatic the 
 real existence of universals. Abelard’s rationalism, it is true, i 
 was the cause of his persecution by the conservatives of his day, 
 who objected to ’’the whole tone, spirit and method of his theo- 
 logical teaching. He had presumed to endeavour to understand, to 
 explain the mystery of the Trinity: he had dared to bring all 
 
 things in Heaven and earth to the test of Reason.”^ But Abelard 
 
 II 
 
 Dualism of Faith and Reason 
 

 
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38 
 
 certainly had no heretical intention; on the contrary, he believed 
 in the reason as the efficacious instrument of orthodoxy. That he 
 was not afraid of debating any of the sacred doctrines is clear from 
 his curious Sic ^ Non, a compilation from the Scriptures and such 
 other writings as were then available, of arguments for and against 
 each of 158 propositions in theology, ethics and historical 
 Christianity, with no comment and no conclusions drawn. ^ And though 
 Abelard was stigmatized as a heretic in his own day, his spirit of 
 ®o^-*-idence in the reason as the instrument of theology, permitting 
 it the fullest freedom of inquiry, triumphed in the next age, with 
 Albert and Aquinas. In these two men scholasticism reached its 
 greatness, with the unqualified belief as its basis that philosophy 
 and theology must be identical, that reason can not possibly con- 
 tradict faith, though the latter may at times appear suprarational 
 to us in this life. 
 
 Aquinas is generally knom for his Summa Theologica. a 
 monumental system of theology and still the classic treatise in the 
 Roman Catholic church. But his confidence in the reason in matters 
 of religion is more easily shown from his treatise on Natural 
 Theology, the Summa contra Gentiles .^ In this work Aquinas had in | 
 mind primarily to stop the flood of new ideas coming in, along with 
 the genuine texts of Aristotle, from Arabian philosophy. It was 
 
 |jb JTpn, ed. Henke and Lindenkohl, Marburg (1851). Some typical 
 propositions: l.Quod fides humanis rationibus sit adstruenda, et 
 
 contra. 4. Quod sit credendum in Deum solum, et contra. 38. Quod 
 o^ia soiat Deus, et non. 68. Quod Christus secundum carnem factus 
 ? = / contra. 134. Quod liceat habere concubinam, et contra. 
 
 154. Quod liceat mentiri, et contra. 
 
 S 
 
 Translation by Rickaby, Joseph, S.J., 0 ^ God ar^ Hi^ Creatures . 
 London (1905). For a full discussion see Webb, op.cit. pp. 233-291. 
 
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difficult to refute the errors of these new opponents of 
 Christianity, because, "Mohammedans and Pagans, they do not agree 
 with us in recognizing the authority of any scripture, available for 
 their conviction, as we can argue against the Jews from the Old 
 Testament, and against heretics from the New. But these receive 
 neither: hence it is necessary to have recourse to natural reason, 
 
 which all are obliged to assent to. But in the things of God 
 reason is often at a loss."^ At first sight indeed reason unaided 
 does not seem to go far; it can prove the existence of God as First 
 Cause and intelligent orderer of the universe. Revelation alone 
 can teach us the mysteries of Christianity, such as the Trinity, 
 original sin, the sacraments, the resurrection, final judgment, 
 heaven and hell. Reason can only refute the arguments of the oppo- 
 nents of these revealed truths. But it is important to note here 
 that the principle of natural theology is laid down so definitely 
 by the classic philosopher of the Middle Ages; for this principle 
 was constantly relied on to refute unbelievers down through the 
 Renaissance, until it reached its most elaborate and independent 
 development in Deism. 
 
 This circumscribed area allotted to Natural Theology is, 
 however, no index to the extent of the rationalism of Aquinas. For 
 to him God, the world, the tenets of Christianity, all were 
 intelligible absolutely, even though our imperfect means of knowledg 
 prevent our knowing them in this life. "The prime author and mover 
 of the universe is intelligence," he says. "Therefore the last end 
 of the universe must be the good of the intelligence, and that is 
 
 1 
 
 Trans. Rickaby, ed. cit. p.2. Book I, Chap. ii. 
 
 J 
 
fetti' /?0A'-fifce#'fiJ ' ■^'‘ ' ’*t^? I 
 
 ' ...|h 
 
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 ’ ,U..i' :;:i\ '^a ? ...fc.'J^ 
 
 ... ■ ■witw J .II I >'i‘i l yi ^ iii]iiiiiii '■ 
 
Truth then must he the final end of the whole universe.”^ 
 However, for various practical reasons few people are qualified to 
 pursue knowledge and thus achieve their blessedness (Book I, 
 
 Chap, iv) ; therefore they have to accept on faith so much of it as 
 is necessary to salvation. But to say that the natural dictates 
 of reason are co ntrary to faith, is to accuse God of having given 
 us two contradictory principles, an obviously absurd proposition 
 (Book I, Chap, vii) . Reason is dependable so far as it can go. We 
 can not know the essence of God, because "the huinan understanding 
 cannot go so far of its natural power to grasp His substance, since 
 under the conditions of the present life the knowledge of our under 
 standing commences with sense; and therefore objects beyond sense 
 cannot be grasped by human understanding except so far as knowledge 
 is gathered of them through the senses (Book I, Chap.iii)." But 
 although what we now accept on faith cannot give us perfect 
 blessedness, when we shall see God we shall have knowledge itself; 
 for happiness consists in the perfect activity of the human 
 intellect, and the end of all "Subsistent intelligences" is to know 
 God (Book III, Chaps, i-lxiii) . 
 
 For Aquinas then, reason and faith are not contradictory, 
 and in their absolute aspect they must be identical. But this 
 harmony was immediately denied by John Duns Scotus (12747-1308) , 
 the first great critic and opponent of Aquinas. Duns Scotus did 
 not on the whole regard the reason as such a valuable aid in 
 expoimding matters of faith, and set aside more doctrines as 
 indemonstrable by reason. But more than that, God was not, accord- 
 
 1 _ 
 
 Trans. Rickaby, p. 1. Book I, Chap. i. 
 

 ^ . -■i' • 'X . • ,^ . '* 'y ^ '.>i!T- 
 
 SSb^^^oa^-ms '*% V -4 r.4i&fi^»‘i|X«t-i3^‘i^‘/M j 
 
 
 T^S9 
 
ing to Scotus, absolute intelligence, but absolute will. The good 
 is good merely because God wills it. As there is no science which 
 can explain the inexplicable, the world is thus reduced to an 
 indeterminism with no rational principle. Though the full 
 sceptical conclusion of such a philosophy was not clear to the 
 Scotists, it is easy to see in retrospect the deep cleavage 
 developing between reason and faith as we recede farther and farther 
 from Aquinas. In the Nominalism of Occam, which we have already 
 discussed as evidence of the decay of scholasticism, the distinction 
 between reason and faith is made absolute. For Occam, by denying 
 the philosophical value of universals, denied that God could be 
 known, and thereby rejected the basis of Natural Theology; all 
 knowledge of God, even of his existence, and all the truths of 
 religion and ethics, had to be accepted on faith. This position is 
 especially clear in Occam’s celebrated Centilogium theologioum. 
 which is thus described by Erdmann: 
 
 ”By far the greater part of the hundred conclusions, 
 of which his Centilogium consists, show either that all 
 proofs for the principal dogmas, the existence of God, 
 
 His unity, etc., are uncertain, or that the most 
 important doctrines, such as the Trinity, Creation, 
 Incarnation, the sacramental presence of the body of 
 Christ, lead to results which contradict the recognized 
 axioms of reason: namely, that nothing can at the same 
 time exist and not exist, that nothing can exist 
 before itself, that a conclusion drawn from sound 
 premises must be correct, that a part is smaller 
 than the whole, that two bodies cannot occupy the 
 same place at the same time, etc. We are the less 
 justified in seeing irony in this, as Rettberg and 
 von Baur do, or scepticism, as is done by others, 
 since in that case it would at least remain a 
 question whether the irony were not levelled at 
 the reason . . . That a thing may be true for 
 the theologian, but false for the philosopher, 
 an opinion expressed by Duns only in passing, 
 
 William is firmly convinced, and he is nevertheless. 
 
42 
 
 while holding this dualism, an upright Aristotelian 
 and a believing Catholic." ^ 
 
 Thus in the philosophy of Occam converge the two great 
 
 disruptive tendencies of Scholastic philosophy: the denial of the 
 
 validity of universale, and the dualism between faith and reason. 
 
 A glance forward into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will 
 
 enable us to show that these tendencies were present in the 
 2 
 
 Renaissance. 
 
 Erdmann, I, 511-2.- This distinction between theological and 
 philosophical truth had already in the thirteenth century been 
 introduced into European thought by the philosophy of Averroes. In 
 1277 a large number of heretical doctrines taueht at the University 
 of Paris were formally condemned, including many Averroistic propo- 
 sitions which asserted the distinction discussed here: Anima 
 
 separata non est alterabilis secundum philosophiam, licet secundum 
 fidem alteretur.— Quod naturalis philosophus simpliciter debet 
 negare mundi novitatem, quia nititur causis et rationibus natural- 
 ibus: fidelis autem potest negare mundi aeternita.tem, quia nititur 
 
 causis supernaturalibus. - Quod creatio non est possibilis, quamvis 
 contrarium sit tenendum secundum fidem.- Quod resurrectio futura 
 non debet credi a philosopho, quia impossibilis est investip'ari per 
 rationem. Error, quia philosophus debet captivare intellectum in 
 obsequium fidei.- Renan, Averroes et 1* Averro'isme . pp. 273-5. Cf 
 DeWulf, Histoire de ^ Philosophic iJdi^vale. Paris (1912) .pp.469-4^70 
 
 Rashdall seems to take exception to the interpretation of 
 Nominalism as a progress of the human mind. "This association " he 
 says, (op. cit. I, 539-540) "of the rise and fall of Nominalism with 
 me rise and fall o^ intellectual activity, may be supposed to lend 
 some colour to the theory put forward by the late Mr.*Pattison as to 
 the intrinsic connexion between Nominalism and intellectual progress 
 on the one hand and between Realism and religious or political 
 reaction on the other. But if in the annals of medieval Paris the 
 prevalence of Nominalism may to some extent be taken as an index of 
 + V?!" vitality, that is simply because opposition to an es- 
 
 tablished Philosophy, whatever be its character, is a sign of 
 Intellectual vigour; but the heresy tends to lose its vitality as 
 
 orthodoxy. At Prague we shall find an estab- 
 lished Nominalism associated with the narrowest and most intolerant 
 ecclesiasticism, while Realism . . . was certainly the creed of some 
 or the ablest men and the most fearless reformers that ever made 
 rneir appearance in a medieval University. Ockham no doubt 
 
 history of Philosophy which cannot be 
 master Wycliffe, but this impor- 
 extend to the nominalist opponents of Wycliffe at 
 Oxford or the nominalist burners of Hus at Constance." 
 
 identity of "the late Mr. 
 
 Pattison," and I have searched In vain in the vorks of Mark P^ttison 
 
43 
 
 The chief value of Nominalism was undoubtedly that it 
 prepared a receptive audience for the non-Aristotelian philosophers 
 of the Renaissance; its triumph signified the exhaustion of the 
 constructive effort of Realism. But if scholasticism ceased as a 
 creative force in the fifteenth century, it continued tenaciously 
 to control theology and philosophical speculation touching religious 
 matters. One has only to note the prompt, frequent, and voluminous 
 printings of the medieval philosophers to realize that the printing 
 press of the Renaissance was not devoted exclusively to spreading 
 classical learning, and that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 were still debating the problems raised by the thirteenth and 
 fourteenth. 
 
 This extension of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance 
 will be frequently evident in this study. For the present two 
 illustrations must suffice, Petrus Pomponatius (1462-1525), a 
 teacher of philosophy at Bologna, whose writings implied a doubt 
 as to the immortality of the soul and denied the freedom of the 
 
 will, was accused of heresy. He defended himself by an appeal to 
 
 living! referred to. Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison is still 
 
 oiit nature of Nominalism, Raehdall seems to have pointed 
 
 not champions of Nominalism do 
 
 claim for it "intellectual vitality" or "vigour"- 
 
 Nominal^^r.'^^+if well known, may be as vigorous as revolution. ’But 
 ^ominalism, they claim, means intellectual freedom with all its 
 
 Haureau a fervent partisan of the 
 
 to 
 
 ? Zj Xiauixccau, ct ieX'VenTi pamSaU Of th( 
 
 (o Hist oire de la philos oohie scolastiaue 
 
 recrIrJ revised, IB'^-BOT) was led by his political faith n 
 
 comms-nri ?? itself, a philosophy born to serve not to 
 
 true temperate, sensible search for truth, the 
 
 ? philosophy, approaching in spirit to Bacon, Descartes, 
 thP * Kant. For Haureau, Nominalism is intimately bound up with 
 the modern mind in politics as^ well as in philosophy. See Picavet 
 .^?.^^tsse d une Histoire Gen e rale et Comoare'e des “ ’ 
 
 -die vale 8. Paris (1905). pp. 319-335. 
 
 Philosophies 
 
I' ': »? • . ■ 'l^ -'' ,• '. U. 
 
 
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 . . w.-' . 
 
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 up., *1 
 
 K' ' • *..• 33sa; . '^ilR. - -rv;;}>'. „ 
 
 ', 'f, 
 
 
 
 
 
44 
 
 the principle, believe as a Christian what I cannot believe as 
 a philosopher." Reason, he said, is two-fold: intellectual and 
 
 practical;philo8ophy, dealing only with natural truths, rests on 
 the former; theology, concerned only with life and morals, on the 
 latter. But the Lateran Council of the 19th of December ISIS con- 
 demned the theory of "double truth" in words that recall Thomas 
 Aquinas: "As what is true can never contradict what is true, we 
 
 determine that every proposition which is contrary to the truth 
 of the revealed faith is entirely false. "1 
 
 Pomponatius and his "double truth" became a byword and a 
 scandal throughout the Renaissance. And yet there was a whole 
 school of orthodox Christians who made as sharp a distinction as 
 he did between philosophy and theology. But they made this dis- 
 tinction, not as Pomponatius, to emancipate philosophy from the 
 shackles of theology, but in the interests of a less rationalistic 
 religious experience. Thus, to go back to Occam's immediate 
 followers, Peter D'Ailly (1350-1425) and John Gerson (1363-1429), 
 both Chancellors of the University of Paris, went beyond Occam 
 both in their scepticism and their emphasis on faith. Gerson 
 especially, is kno'/m as a mystic. We shall frequently observe 
 that mysticism flourishes best outside of the bounds of dogma; the 
 spirit of rationalism dispels the ecstatic vision. It was the 
 perception of this antagonism between faith and reason that made 
 the poet Cowley identify the tree in the garden of Eden, whose 
 forbidden fruit brought all our woe, with the Arbor Porohyr ii . 
 which bore the fruit of Realism: 
 
 Punjer, op. cit. pp. 50-52. 
 

 r,’- -V 
 
 
 
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45 
 
 That right Porphyrian Tree which did true Logick shew, 
 
 Each Leaf did learned Notions give. 
 
 And th* Apple s were Demonstrative . . . 
 
 The onely Science Man by this did get, 
 
 Was but to know he nothing Knew . . 
 
 In this railing "against the dogmatists" Cowley shows not a trace of 
 Sextus Empiricus, the ancient sceptic whose work was so influential 
 in the Renaissance; the seventeenth century poet is a belated 
 Nominalist. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Comparative Study of Religions 
 
 With the failure of the great scholastic effort to 
 nationalize Christianity thus signalized by the development of the 
 sceptical Nominalism which tended towards mysticism, the approach 
 of a new kind of philosophy was announced by the gradual development 
 already in the Middle Ages of the comparative study of religions. 
 Scholasticism had labored within the boundaries of accepted Christian 
 dogma; but at the same time a new problem arose of accommodation to 
 other religions. For Europe acquired in the thirteenth century a 
 new respect for the Mohammedans and their religion, partly owing to 
 contact with them during the Crusades, and partly to the fact that 
 it was discovered that the Arabs were in possession of the great 
 treasures of ancient learning, especially the true Aristotle. The 
 
 CaSbSlIe 1^457^ — K n ojledse, Poems, ed. Waller, 
 
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46 1 
 
 non-Christian religions ceased to appear so Satanic, and discussion 
 of them grew at the same time better informed and more tolerant. 
 Treatises on them became common, cast in the dialogue form, each 
 religion being championed by an adherent. The intention of the 
 earlier authors was of course that in this debate Christianity 
 should emerge triumphant; but in the sixteenth century the dialogue 
 became a useful device for presenting in a veiled form such criticiar 
 of Christianity as might otherwise bring the author to the stake. 
 
 These dialogues begin very early. Gilbert Crispin, 
 
 Abbot of Westminster, disciple of Anselm, wrote two; one between a 
 Christian and a Jew, and another between a Christian and a 
 philosopher. In the latter the Christian fails to convert the 
 philosopher, who ”rose and departed I know not whither, downcast 
 alike in mind and in countenance."^ Abelard combined these two 
 situations in his Dialogue between a Christian, a Jew, and a 
 Philosopher. He represents himself as dreaming that these three 
 men, in various ways the worshippers of one God, ask him to judge 
 between them. The philosopher presents a religion based on Natural 
 Law, and declares that custom and education are largely responsible 
 for the hold Judaism and Christianity have on their people. The Jew 
 maintains that the Philosopher is unable to disprove the divine 
 origin of the Jewish faith; and the Christian defends his own 
 beliefs chiefly on the basis of the superiority of Christ’s ethical 
 teaching. All three participants proceed on the assumption that all 
 religious doctrine, if not absolutely demonstrable, is at least 
 
 1 
 
 Webb, op. cit. pp. 194-198. 
 
 i 
 
IWivw'irrti'T 
 
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accessible to the reason, and the spirit throughout is amicable 
 and fair.^ 
 
 Both Crispin and Abelard were orthodox, at least in 
 intention. But as I have suggested, the dialogues of the sixteenth 
 century were by no means uniformly favorable to Christianity. In 
 the interval between Abelard and his sceptical successors, we can 
 trace with accuracy the spread of the notion of the equality of 
 Christianity, Judaism, and Mohammedanism, in the successive versions 
 of the widely circulated story of the three rings, used again by 
 Lessing in Nathan der Weise .^ In its earlier versions the tale is 
 clearly Christian. The three chief religions were compared to three 
 rings given by a father to his three sons, so that after his death 
 the true heir might be identified by the genuine one. Although they 
 are alike in appearance, the true ring is discovered by its healing 
 power. In this form the story is told by Stephen of Bourbon 
 (died about 1261), by the unkno'wn author of an old French poem 
 about twenty five years later, ^ and found its way into the Gesta 
 Romanorum, in which the application is made as follows: "My 
 
 beloved, the Knight is Christ; the three sons are the Jews, 
 
 Saracens, and Christians; the most valuable ring is faith, which is 
 the property only of the younger: that is, of the Christians."^ 
 
 ^Webb, pp. 207-233; and Punjer, pp. 38-9. 
 
 Best brief discussion, with bibliography, in Lee, A. C. The 
 Decameron : rts Sources and Analogues . London (1909). pp. 6-13. 
 
 /aris, Gaston, Ppesie du moyen ige . Lectures et Lecons. 2ms 
 eerie, 2nd ed. Paris (190f) . p.l4l7^ 
 
 ^ 3 . 4ou vrai aniel . ed. Tobler, Leipzig (1871) . 
 
 Lee, op. cit. p.8. 
 

 
 
 
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Early in the fourteenth century the story was included 
 in the Italian compilation, Cento Novelle Ant iohe . ^ hut with a 
 new framework and a new conclusion. It is there told by a wealthy 
 Jew, who is asked by a grasping sultan the embarrassing question. 
 What is the true religion? Whichever way he answers, he will give 
 the sultan a pretext for confiscating his wealth. The Jew shrewdly 
 replies with this story of a father who gave each of his sons a 
 ring, two of which were imitations of the original genuine one. 
 
 This non-Christian framework betrays the Oriental influence which 
 has now taken possession of the story; the conclusion is no longer 
 Christian; the rings are indistinguishable, and only the father 
 could ever tell the original from the imitations. 
 
 This version is by some scholars believed to be the 
 source of Boccaccio's famous tale in the Decameron . But others 
 point out that a fuller version exists in Busone da Gubbio's 
 A vyenturoso Ci^l liano, and still others think that the story was 
 so widely current in this sceptical form that Boccaccio was indebted 
 to an oral tradition, which perhaps had in it elements of 
 Rabbinical origin. In the conclusion of Boccaccio's story we have 
 even more clearly and emphatically stated the tolerant notion that 
 there is some truth in all three religions, and that the preten- 
 sions of each to be alone genuine can not be substantiated. "E 
 cosi Vi dico, signor mio, delle tre Leggi alii tre popoli date da 
 
 ^No. 73 in the edition in Bibliotheca Romanica. Strassburg (n.d). 
 
 On the influence of Arabian culture on this idea of comparative 
 religion, see Renan, Aver roes et I'Averrolsme . pp. 278-ff . 
 
 Burckhardt, p.493. Lee, pp. 11-12. 
 
I 
 
 
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49 
 
 Dio Padre, delle quali la quistion proponeste: ciascuno la sua 
 eredita, la sua vera Legge, et i suoi commandamenti si crede avere 
 a fare; ma chi se I'abbia, come degli anelli, ancora ne pende la 
 quistione . 
 
 But the comparative study of religions may equally well 
 emphasize the falsity as the truth of all religions, and for the 
 existence in the late Middle Ages of this more sceptical tendency, 
 we have evidence in the notorious De Tribus Impostoribus . said to 
 have had its origin at the court of Frederick II, the most cosmo- 
 
 politan in Europe; by one tradition the book is ascribed to the 
 monarch himself. The three impostors were of course Jesus, 
 
 Mohammed and Moses, the founders of the three religions. This 
 peculiar treatise was mysteriously referred to as a scandal from 
 the thirteenth century on through the Renaissance; in the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries there was a protracted debate as to 
 whether the book had ever existed. One printed copy, however, dated 
 1598, has been discovered, but the volume had its chief influence 
 as a legend. The title was everywhere known and almost proverbial, 
 and the scoffing spirit which it represented had an underground 
 circulation in the Renaissance, the extent of which we can now ^orm 
 no definite notion.^ 
 
 Milano^U883)~ Giornata prima, novella terza. 
 
 2 • p. . 
 
 De T^r^ Imppstoribus, ed. Brunet, G. , Paris (1861). See account 
 
 Theologie und Kirche . 3rd ed. Leipzig 
 + 72-ff.~ A typical Renaissance allusion to this work by 
 
 two English writers, neither of whom probably had seen it, occurs in 
 the literary quarrel between Harvey and Nashe. As Nashe was knom 
 as the English Aretine," Harvey deals him a back-hand blow by 
 accusing Aretine of the authorship of this "most detestable Black- 
 Dooke . A New Letter Notable Contents (1593) . Harvey's Works 
 
 A 
 
TO''V’ 
 
 
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50 
 
 The v7ay was therefore well prepared for the sixteenth 
 century practice of using the dialogue as an instrument of 
 criticism of Christianity, under the guise of a defense. Only a 
 few of the more celebrated of these treatises can be enumerated 
 here. Servetus, in De Trinitatis Dialogj (1532), and Bernardino 
 Ochino, in malogue de la Tr init e (1563), attacked the doctrine of 
 the Trinity; Cardanus inserted a fragment of a dialogue in his De 
 subtilitate (1553), generally regarded as a dangerous book. Jean 
 Bodin, in his Conoquium Heotaplomeres. presents a clash of seven 
 religious and philosophical sects. ^ Such dialogues, with their 
 incisive criticism and their ridicule, must have given many a 
 student a shock of disillusion which might lead him to a complete, 
 but secret, agnosticism or atheism. But it is a mistake to 
 
 attribute this intention to them. What they really attempted was 
 to rid religion of its superstition and establish it on a firmer 
 and surer foundation than revelation, by an appeal to the God-given 
 instincts of mankind, to the Law of Nature, the Consensus gentium .^ 
 The connection of this current of ideas with the rise of Deism 
 will be discussed in a future chapter on Lord Herbert of Cherbury. 
 
 Nashe replied in The Unfortun ate Traveller 
 if??-' I? transferring the accusation to "one of Machine Is 
 
 The nlmes n? i McKerrow, London (1904) . II, 265. 
 
 SL TlLf list. ^°°^sed of the authorship of this book would 
 
 Bodins Colloquium Heotanlomerea und der 
 16- -Jahrhundert s . Historische Zeitschrift~ 
 
 (1914; , 260-315i and 114(1915) , 237l36l. ^ 
 
 This proposition is laid down even in the extant version of De 
 I^postoribus: "Religionem et cultum Dei secundum dictamen 
 i^lnis naturalis consentaneum et veritati et aequitati esse." 
 d. Brunet, p.l2. Quoted by Owen, Skeptics of the Italian 
 ^naissance. p.30, n.l. 
 
51 
 
 IV 
 
 The Reformation 
 
 Like the other movements of emancipation of the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries, the Reformation had its secret origins 
 deep in the Middle Ages. The great institutionalizing effort of 
 Medievalism, its dream of world organization and authority in the 
 realms of government, religion and education, met with inevitable 
 failure, almost from the very beginning. We have already seen how 
 the philosophical basis of Medievalism, immediately after Aquinas 
 had constructed on it his supposedly impregnable fortress, crumbled 
 under the attacks of Duns Scotus and William of Occam. While it 
 would be an exaggeration to say that these doughty British insur- 
 
 gents "anticipated" the Reformation, still their effective 
 criticism of universalism made possible — even necessary — an 
 individualism in religious matters which first manifested itself in 
 emphasis on mystical piety within the Catholic church, and later in 
 a denial of the right of the church to mediate between the believing 
 soul and God. The essential and fundamental principle of the 
 Reformation, as of the Renaissance as a whole, was individualism; 
 and the acrimoniousness of the debates over doctrine and practice 
 is explained by this purpose of the Reformation spirit, not merely 
 to cleanse the Catholic church, but to destroy it?“ 
 
 Reformation . Hibbert Lectures, 1883. 5th 
 (1907). p. 2: "The Ref ormat ion, in the view which I shall 
 •caxe Of It, was not, primarily, a theological, a religious, an 
 ecclesiastical movement at all. It was part of a general awakening 
 Ox tne human intellect, which had already begun in the fourteenth 
 century, and which the revival of classical learning and the inven- 
 
 2 '^ printing urged on with accelerating rapidity in 
 life of the Renaissance infused into 
 
52 
 
 Here a qualification is necessary. Though the Reformation 
 rejected the authority of the church to determine what is truth, it 
 affirmed with equal emphasis the principle that there is one truth, 
 a principle which readmits somewhere the principle of authority. The 
 Reformers did not at once seek emancipation from dogmatism, but 
 merely the liberty of each individual of formulating his own dogma 
 and maintaining it against contenders. In practice this position 
 led to innumerable sects and endless disputation, and very soon to 
 a hard and illiberal temper and a rigid formulation of doctrines for 
 polemical reasons, which has sometimes been called "Protestant 
 scholasticism." A new tyranny then controlled the consciences and 
 intelligence within each sect; Calvin became the "Pope of Geneva"; 
 alliances of these new sects with various political powers made 
 possible a Protestant persecution, as rigorous in some cases as the 
 Catholic. Yet in spite of these counter-currents within the 
 Reformation, it must be set down as on the whole an emancipatory 
 movement, both in principle and in its far-reaching results. As 
 this is the commonly held conception of the Reformation, no dis- I 
 
 cussion is necessary to enforce it. But in order to connect the 
 Reformation more precisely with the sceptical movement of the 
 Renaissance, I shall point out two ways in which it directly and 
 immediately stimulated greater freedom of thought. 
 
 In the fixst place, in the multitude of new sects there 
 was room for all shades of opinion, from English episcopacy with an 
 almost Roman Catholic spirit, to vague forms of Unitarianism. The 
 most influential of the more liberal sects was Socinianism, which 
 from Poland spread into Germ^y, Holland and England. Its founder, 
 Lelio Socinus (1525-1562), was one of a number of brilliant Italians 
 
53 
 
 who had to emigrate during the sixteenth century to escape per- 
 secution and perhaps death, and who were all distinguished for 
 I their incisive criticism of the leading doctrines of Christianity, 
 especially the Trinity and the deity of Christ. This sect died out 
 i;i the seventeenth century, but though its life was short, says 
 Punjer, "so much the more widely did the decomposing influence of 
 their cold intellectual criticism extend. And Socinianism thus 
 became one of the most essential preparations for the enlightenment 
 of the deistic rationalism."! Other sects of less intellectual and 
 more pietistic cast, such as the Anabaptists and Family of Love, 
 were less likely to indulge in destructive criticism, but even they 
 rejected freely some of the essential Christian tenets. There was 
 
 a saying that a Socinian was a learned Anabaptist. How audacious 
 some of these individualists in religion could be, is shoro by the 
 doctrines of certain Anabaptists in London, who asserted before a 
 commission of bishops in 1549 that 
 
 a man regenerate could not sin; that thouarh the 
 outward man sinned, the inward man sinned not: that 
 there was no Trinity of Persons; that Christ was 
 only a holy ppphet and not at all God; that all 
 we had by Christ was that he taught us the way to 
 heaven; that he took no flesh of the Virgin; and 
 that the baptism of infants was not prof itable . 
 
 Though they nowhere became numerous, such dangerous sects were 
 
 constantly springing up and causing grave concern to Protestant 
 
 leaders both in church and state; persecution could not eradicate 
 
 them, and they deserve grateful recognition from posterity, at 
 
 least for their share in the victory of the principle of tolerance 
 
 ^Plinjer, ed. cit. p.207. 
 
 llth°ed^ Conybeare, F. C., article on Anabaptists, Encvc . Brit . 
 
ti^’^'' ' *1'' 1- ■ -' '^ ' ,■'•■*.' '^■’ '■ J 
 
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54 
 
 in the seventeenth century. 
 
 In the second place, these religious schisms and contro- 
 versies had the effect of making men sceptical about all religion. 
 Montaigne tells us how hie father foresaw that the result of 
 Lutheranism would be atheism; for the criticism of a few doctrines 
 would lead to a general questioning of all, even those essential 
 to salvation. Catholics were constantly warning gigainst this 
 danger in Protestanism, and there is abundant evidence that they 
 did not do so merely from prejudice. Hooker, speaking of atheists, 
 says that "with our contentions their irreligious humour also is 
 much strengthened. Nothing pleaseth them better than these mani- 
 fold oppositions upon the matter of religion. . . because by this 
 hot pursuit of lower controversies among men professing religion, 
 and agreeing in the principal foundations thereof, they conceive 
 hope that about the higher principles themselves time will cause 
 altercation to grow."^ Likewise the Huguenot leader. La Noue, com- 
 plains that the civil wars waged by the religious factions of 
 France produced a class of light-minded atheists. Libertines, and 
 Epicureans numbering, he thinks, at least a million.^ "Si on 
 demands,” he says, "qui a produit une telle generation, on ne 
 respondra pas mal, que ce sont nos guerres pour la Religion, qui 
 nous ont fait oublier la Religion. 
 
 ^Montaigne, Essays. Book II, Chap. xii. 
 
 ^Hooker, R. , Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Bk. V, ii, 2. 
 
 La Noue, Discours Politigues et Milltaires . Basle (1587). p.34. 
 
 See also the 24th Discourse, pp. 492-525. 
 
 4 
 
 La Noue, p. 5. 
 
55 I 
 
 V 
 
 Paganism: the Culture of the Libertines 
 
 As we have seen, the desire for perfection in human 
 nature took in the Middle Ages the form of a desire for knowledge; 
 in the knowledge of God the men of that time sought their blessed- 
 ness. Such an aspiration could of course find place only for the 
 rational and "universal elements of human nature; the non-rational, 
 the individual elements, the guiddam suum ac pronrium. were obstacles 
 in the way of happiness. The imagination, the senses, and the 
 instincts were the enemies of the soul — the "flesh" in league with 
 the devil. Medieval religious life, in short, was ascetic. And to 
 make our account of the emancipation from medievalism complete, we 
 must point out how a new cult of humanity was substituted, through 
 the influence of classical literature, for the asceticism of the 
 Middle Ages. It is true that a certain amount of individualism was 
 stimulated in the imaginative life of the Reformation by the mysti- 
 cism which we have noted as a significant development at the con- 
 clusion of the Middle Ages.^ But the Reformation was too narrow, 
 too preoccupied with theology, to produce any culture that would by 
 contrast show the defects of Medievalism. This task was accomplished 
 by the Renaissance passion for classical letters and the consequent 
 diffusion of paganism. In this restoration of pagan poetry and 
 ideals of life, Italy was the first among modern nations and 
 Petrarch the "first modern man." 
 
 thought the medieval Theol og-ia Germanioa. 
 and Augustine, the most valuable booklbe had read, 
 bee j^eologia Germanioa. trans. Winkworth, Susanna. London (1913). 
 introductimn ^ xxi . 
 
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56 
 
 When Boccaccio was in his fifty-first year a certain 
 Peter of Sienna, a holy man, sent a prophetic message from his 
 death-bed to the famous man of letters, that few years of his life 
 remained to him, and that on pain of his eternal damnation he mu.st 
 renounce the study of poetry. This warning voice of the ascetic 
 Middle Ages troubled Boccaccio, and he confided his fears to 
 Petrarch. But Petrarch, after serious and respectful consideration, 
 replied as a humanist: "To desert our studies shows want of self- 
 
 confidence rather than wisdom, for letters do not hinder but aid 
 the properly constituted mind which possesses them; they facilitate 
 our life, they do not retard it."^ Only weak stomachs, he goes on 
 to say, have to be so careful about their diet. We who are strong 
 may cultivate pagan literature, not only with impunity, but to our 
 great advantage . 
 
 Petrarch decided in favor of poetry. But perhaps he would 
 have hesitated more had he foreseen all the developments of the 
 study of antiquity. The cult of poetry which he defended was the 
 cult of humanity: Homo sum , human! nihil a ^ allenum puto . But 
 
 the formula is a wide one and capable of many interpretations. And 
 the cult of humanity soon degenerated from the fine idealism such as 
 Seneca s g aud i urn rg s se ve ra est to a refined but facile epicureanism 
 J^hich appealed to "Nature" for a justification of its excesses. 
 
 Italy, where this paganism in life and conduct first developed, 
 became notorious for it. Lorenzo Valla (1406-1457) even sought in 
 his dialogue De_ Voluptate to interpret Christian blessedness as a 
 form of yoluptas, refined and elevated to be sure, and the "mother 
 
 ^Robinson, J. H., and Rolfe, H. W., Petrarch . N. Y. (1907). p.392. 
 
of virtues." 
 
 But this philosophy of pleasure was inconsistent 
 with Christianity, and usually found lodgment in those Renaissance 
 minds which were predisposed to be sceptical or indifferent towards 
 religion; it was more easily combined with the atomistic materialism 
 of Lucretius, whose Re rum Natura became the most popular 
 classical volume among the Libertines. This paganism in thought 
 and feeling, this epicureanism, intellectual and aesthetic as well 
 as sensual, was the contribution of ancient letters to the Italian 
 Renaissance, and, combined with cynicism and indifference with 
 regard to moral and religious matters, it pervades the vernacular 
 Italian literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.^ 
 
 Paganism penetrated only much later into northern Europe, 
 and therefore had to contend with the full force of the Reformation. 
 Erasmus, who had found in the example of Valla the inspiration for 
 his own life and work,^ -wrote in 1517 that he feared that under the 
 cover of the study of ancient literature, paganism would raise its 
 head for many people were Christians in appearance only.^ This 
 distrust was shared by most of the Humanists of northern Europe in 
 the first half of the sixteenth century, and they therefore 
 appropriated chiefly the Stoic and Platonic elements of ancient 
 culture, as more easily reconcilable with Christian earnestness and 
 moral fervor. But about the middle of the century the paganism and 
 
 negazione e della indifferenza che nuocera 
 tanto all Italia." Settem.brini, L., Lezion i di Letteratura 
 italiana_, 16th ed., Naples (1894). I, 274. 
 
 and throughout his life expressed this indebted 
 ness Especially significant in this connection are some youthful 
 
 Cornelius Gerard, in which he defends 
 character of Valla, who has been maligned by 
 AUen, P.S., Opus Epistola rum Des.Era.gmi 
 3 vols. Oxford (1910). I, 112-120?^ 
 
 Unus adhuc scrupulus habet animum meum, ne sub obtextur priscae 
 

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immorality of Italian culture, the "Italian danger", began to spread 
 rapidly among the constantly growing class of non-clerical educated 
 men. The English phase of this development will be discussed in 
 the next chapter, but the French may be outlined here very briefly. | 
 Though he had predecessors, less out-spoken and consistent 
 than himself, in Rabelais, Desperiers, and Dolet, Montaigne may be 
 considered the real originator of the pagan tradition in French 
 thought and literature. He did not conceal himself under the veil 
 
 of an amusing allegory; Montaigne put dov^n in his Essays the frank 
 confessions of a man who was above all things sincere. Therefore, 
 even though he lacked moral earnestness, his intellectual sincerity 
 gave to his record of his inmost personal development that 
 fascination and power which it has ever since exercised over 
 
 thoughtful men. Such a man inevitably inspires discipleship and 
 founds a tradition. 
 
 This personal development was in effect a revolution, an 
 uprising against Stoicism, the current philosophy of the Humanists. 
 Montaigne was never weary of railing at the unnatural rigidity of 
 Stoicism; he himself knew but one precept. Follow Nature. And as 
 his eminent Stoic contemporary, Du Vair, said. Nature and Stoicism 
 can never be reconciled; we must choose which one of them we shall 
 retain. Montaigne saw clearly the necessity of this choice, and 
 made it with calm insouciance. And the Nature he sought to 
 elucidate and follow was his own individual and peculiar Nature. 
 
 conetur paganismus, ut sunt 
 
 caeteri^^ Christianos qui titulo pene duntaxat Christum a^noscunt, 
 caeterum intus gentilitatem spirant.- Allen, P.S., op. cit. II/ 491 . 
 
 d’acillmatP^nr^®''''^ ve^ritable ... a 
 
 a.^acciimater la morale payenne en France." 
 
 Du Vair, Qevres Politique s ^ Morales . Geneva (1631) . p.899. 
 

 
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59 
 
 "I study myself,” he said, "more than any other subject. It is my 
 supernatural! Metaphysike, it is my naturall Philosophy."^ 
 Montaigne's upright and well-intentioned friend, the priest Pierre 
 Charron (1541-1603) tried in vain to combine this naturalism of 
 
 I 
 
 Montaigne with the Stoicism of Du Vair;^ his book la Sagesse 
 (1601) was read only for its echoes of Montaigne, and shortly 
 became known as the breviary of the Libertines, the "beaux-esprits, " 
 
 who, according to Pere Garasse, denied any divinity or supreme 
 power in the world except Nature, which, they held, we must satisfy 
 in all matters, vvithout denying anything to our senses which they 
 might desire in the exercise of their natural powers and faculties.^ 
 The new names for these Libertines, the "esprits forts" and "beaux- 
 esprits," indicate the characteristics of the movement in France in 
 the seventeenth century; they prided themselves on their study of 
 refinement, their cleverness, and their intellectual and moral 
 audacity. Libertinism had won both a social and a philosophical 
 success — it could afford to be gay, care-free, satirical, con- 
 fident of its position of superiority. It had behind it a great 
 
 tradition; it had acquired a library of its ovm,"^ it became an 
 important force in the intellectual and literary life of France, 
 
 ^Montaigne, Essaves . trans. Florio. Ed. Everyman, III, 331. 
 gCf. Strowski, F., De Montaigne a Pascal, ed. cit. pp. 176-ff. 
 
 ^ ^^ra'Sse^__La Doctrine curieuse des beaux esprits de ce temps. 
 Paris U6237T- For a good summary of this volume, with quotations, 
 see Notice sur Theophile . xxxix-ff., in the first volume of 
 
 Oeuvres Completes, ed. Alleaume, 2 vols., Paris (1856). 
 
 This library, according to Garasse, included in the first rank, 
 Pomponatius, Paracelsus and Macchiavelli; in the second, Cardanus, 
 Vanini and Charron; in the third, the satires on the religious 
 orders; but "outre et par-desus ces trois ordres et livres, les 
 Libertins ont en main le Rabelais comme I'Enchiridion du 
 libertinage . " — Quoted by Strowski, op. cit. p. 160. 
 

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60 
 
 and reappeared in a long line of French classics from Moliere to 
 Voltaire . 
 
 VI 
 
 The Revival of Greek Scepticism 
 
 Scepticism as a philosophical school was founded by 
 Pyrrho of Elis, who after taking part in Alexander’s campaign to 
 India, settled in his native city and taught that seeking after 
 knowledge was vain, and that indifference to all philosophical 
 assertions was the only way to peace of mind. Against every 
 proposition the truly wise man should balance its contrary and thus, 
 by showing the futility of both, he might arrive at the happy state 
 of imperturbability (ataraxia) . But though Pyrrho thus absolutely 
 denied the value of the life of reason, his ethics, strangely 
 enough, were conservative and conventional; for this imperturbable 
 agnostic held that the only guide in practical conduct was custom. 
 
 Pyrrho determined the fundamental doctrines of the ancient 
 sceptical tradition, which lasted more or less continuously for five 
 centuries and included among its leaders, Arcesilaus, Carneades, 
 Aenesidemus and Sextus Empiricus. The writings of Sextus alone 
 have been preserved, and they, with Cicero and Diogenes Laertius, 
 are the main source of our knowledge of the earlier adherents of 
 the school. This long life of the Sceptical school in antiquity is 
 explained largely by the persistent irritating dogmatism of the 
 
 ^T^ P^ r^honic Hynotyposes and Against the Mathematicians : standard 
 Greek text with Latin translation, by Fabricius, Leipzig- 
 U718;; reprinted by Kuhn, 3 vols., Leipzig (1842). " 
 

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schools it attacked, the Stoics and Epicureans, who, as Cicero 
 said (De Natura Depru^ I, viii.), discussed the universe with such 
 assurance, with the air of having just descended from an assembly 
 
 Throughout the Middle Ages the sceptical philosophy of 
 antiquity remained practically unkno’wn. Some echoes of it from 
 Cicero, Augustine, and the Npctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius, can be 
 traced in the Pplycraticus (Book VII) of John of Salisbury, in 
 Henry of Ghent, and in Siger of Brabant, all of whom demonstrate 
 the necessity of believing in the efficacy of the reason; but their 
 discussions are superficial, and their knowledge of ancient 
 scepticism^necessarily extremely vague and fragmentary. A curious 
 manuscript of the Hypotyposes of Sextus, in a bad Latin translation, 
 dating from the Middle Ages, has indeed been found by Charles 
 Jourdain in the Bibliotheque Nationals,^ but it is an isolated 
 
 phenomenon. The Middle Ages did not even know the names of Pyrrho 
 and Sextus, 
 
 We have seen ho7/ the ambitious intellectual effort of 
 the Middle Ages provoked the scepticism of Duns Scotus and William 
 of Occam. But this scepticism, after all, was directed only against 
 the dogmatism of the Aristotelian theologians; it was never per- 
 

 ■»15 !- '.i,' 
 
 
 
 g5.| ^0 
 
62 
 
 mitted to go all the way to the bitterest disillusion. Alternative 
 to the Aristotelian logic were sought by such men as Petrus 
 Hispanus (1336-1277), Nicolaus of Cusa (1401-1464) and Peter Ramus 
 (1515—1572), and their effort testifies to the persistence of the 
 faith that some sort of knowledge is possible. Even when a 
 thorough scepticism first appears in incert itudine e t vanitate 
 soientiarum (1531) by Cornelius Agrippa (1487-1535), we are pre- 
 vented from attaching much significance to it by the fact that in 
 the sixteenth century this book was considered only a source of 
 amusing paradoxes with which gentlemen might spice their 
 conversation. ^ 
 
 But in 1563 the French scholar-publisher, Henri Estienne 
 (1532-1598), reputed the "prince of atheists," revived classical 
 scepticism by his publication of the Greek text with Latin trans- 
 lation and commentary, of the Hvnotvposes of Sextus Empiricus. This 
 volume was fated to fall into the hands of Montaigne and precipitate 
 the crisis in his development by which he passed from the Stoicism 
 of his first essays to the Naturalism of his greatest and most 
 characteristic work. Through Montaigne, Pyrrhonism passed into 
 Charron and the Libertine movement of France, until Pascal seized 
 it as a propaedeutic to Christianity. 
 
 In this revival of Greek scepticism little emphasis was 
 laid on the ethical ideal of imperturbability. What attracted the 
 men of the Renaissance was the new destructive criticism of the 
 common-sense theory of knowledge, which raised problems undreamed 
 
 1 
 
 See Villey, Pierre, Les Sources , etc., II, 177-ff. 
 
63 
 
 of in the Middle Ages. Nominalism had contended that universals 
 were mere concepts, existed only in the mind of the thinker; but 
 Greek scepticism declared that even as concepts they are futile 
 and misleading, for all knowledge is built up from sense impressions 
 and who can test the reliability of our senses? Such imperfect 
 examination of them as we can make — a comparison of men with 
 one another and of men with animals — tends only to show that our 
 senses are defective and give us a false and inadequate impression 
 of the world about us. This was the challenge with which modern 
 thought became familiar in Sextus, and which the seventeenth 
 century labored to meet in a long series of treatises on the j 
 
 methods of knowledge. And in setting this new problem of modern 
 thought, the scepticism of Sextus helped rid the Renaissance of 
 the vestiges of medievalism and give the seventeenth century that 
 modern cast which distinguishes it from the sixteenth. We are at 
 
 home in the agnosticism of Joseph Glanvill, couched though it be 
 in the rhythms of another age: 
 
 "Whatever I look upon within the amplitude of 
 heaven and earth, is evidence of humane ignorance; 
 
 For all things are a greai; darkness to us, and we 
 are so to ourselves: The plainest things are as 
 
 obscure, as the most confessedly mysterious; and 
 the plants we tread on, are as much above us, as 
 the stars and heavens. The things that touch us 
 are as distant from us, as the pole; and we are 
 as much strangers to ourselves, as to the inhabi- 
 tants of America."^ 
 
 Glanvill, Joseph, An Address to the Royal Society, in Scepsi s 
 Spientif ica. London TTsss) . 
 
r V * ! ' ' i 
 
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CHAPTER TWO 
 
 SCEPTICAL TENDENCIES IN ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 I. Individualism in the English Reformation.- II, The In- 
 Queen Elizabeth.- III. Heresy as a Crime. 
 
 7rT Italian Danger.”- V. Machiavellism in England. 
 
 VI. The "Atheism” of Marlowe and Raleigh. 
 
 In approaching the subject of the sceptical tendencies in 
 England in the sixteenth century, the student must first be warned 
 of the nature of his source-material. It is both fragmentary and 
 unreliable. Necessarily the evidence is fragmentary for a movement 
 of thought which the authorities, both ecclesiastical and secular, 
 sought in every way to repress, even by means of not infrequent 
 burnings at the staice. In England, as well as in France, Geneva, 
 and Rome, intolerance in religion was the accepted principle, and 
 our path through the sixteenth century is lighted by fires and 
 human sacrifices. How great the effect of this repression was, can 
 never be told; but we may assume that it was greater in appearance 
 than in reality. No doubt many a free-thinlr.er of that time, when 
 brought before a solemn court, perhaps after a taste of torture, 
 abjured sincerely and penitently; we can hardly realize, after three 
 centuries of progress in science and higher criticism, how pre- 
 carious religious doubt appeared in the sixteenth century, how 
 difficult it was for the sceptic at that time to justify himself 
 even to his own intellect and conscience; we unjustly doubt the 
 sincerity of Raleigh and Bacon, when they speak as devout Christians. 
 Nevertheless we must assume the existence of a large class who were 
 
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 ii 
 
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 i\uiy 
 
 
 
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65 
 
 never led back into the straight path by fear, who secretly held 
 and propagated dangerous notions, without incurring even any sus- 
 picion of heresy. And this class must have gro-mi constantly larger 
 and larger, until towards the end of the century the critical and 
 sceptical spirit became general, especially among Englishmen 
 educated abroad. The evidence, however, is not continuous; and 
 sometimes it gives little more than vague hints. Yet from it we 
 must construct our conception of a continuous sceptical development 
 in the England of the Renaissance. 
 
 This evidence is also unreliable. No books on atheism by 
 atheists could appear in sixteenth century England. Our information 
 on such matters comes chiefly from the accusers, and an accusation 
 of atheism in that day was no dispassionate, well-considered 
 intellectual judgment; it was an insult, a whip-lash, a threat of 
 horrible death. The term "atheist" had therefore very definite 
 connotation to an Elizabethan, but its definition remained vague. 
 
 It might mean "Papist" or "Italian"; it might mean "anti-Trinitar- 
 ian"; it might mean merely a dabbler in natural science. And when- 
 ever it appears we have to decide for ourselves as precisely as we 
 can, what ideas must have provoked this severe moral condemnation. 
 Atheists, in the modern sense of the word, probably did not exist 
 in the sixteenth century. 
 
 However, keeping these difficulties in mind, and remember- 
 ing also that the general intellectual forces of the age were much 
 the same in England as on the Continent, it should be possible to 
 discover the significance of the few bits of evidence we have and 
 relate them to the development of European thought. Shall we feel 
 justified in assuming from them a continuous, though largely hidden 
 
 I 
 

 f' - 
 
 
 
 3f l^'r^ 
 
 i ’►. '^..* •. ' i\ ■'»■■ *A. if ♦ f ^rii' - •• ' ' 4 s- . • i '. r^ V^' 
 
 \^: 
 
 RjiStaNti)! tr^. ' 
 
 \fUiL 
 
 Ir^: 
 
 
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 rirssvvi 
 
66 
 
 development? It is the purpose of this chapter to present 
 this fragmentary evidence and see what conclusions can be drai-m 
 from it regarding the intellectual milieu of the English men of 
 letters of the sixteenth century.^ 
 
 Individualism in the English Reformation 
 
 The moral and intellectual aspects of the Reformation, it 
 has often been remarked, are naturally congenial to the wholesome- 
 ness and independence of the British character. We expect, there- 
 fore, to find in England before the Reformation some indications 
 of these national traits. And historians have pointed out, as was 
 noted in the previous chapter, that Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon and 
 William of Occam, all three of them great critics of the reigning 
 Thomistio tradition in theology and philosophy, and the last named 
 an influential critic of the pretensions of the pope to temporal 
 power, were all natives of Britain. In the Lollardy of the four- 
 teenth century, in the personality and writings of Wycliffe, in the 
 ^ Plowman, the English character applied its moral 
 
 No consecutive account has hitherto been attempted of the scep- 
 
 England during this period. Therefore, although 
 ®^^o?^^^iscussions by Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in Englarr, 
 
 DD.lFiR— 17R ja-nrl 4 . 1 ^^ n t 4- ^ ^ m ~ — tt- — — — =r- - — ' 
 
 VNVN Tccr n r- ^ 111 ^ J-xxo y w XIX, ^ V_ Q.X X cHI nc IlcLX o qd^IICc XU XJU^xSlIi 
 
 291-307, on the "Italian danger" and Machiavellianism 
 and by Feuillerat Jphn Lyly. pp.50-ff., on the Italian influence, as 
 well as uhe important researches of Boas on Marlowe, Kyd, and 
 Raleigh, have furnished valuable information as well as points of 
 departure in my search for material, the collection and arrangement 
 Of material for the purposes of this chapter was largely pioneer 
 work. Where the field of possible sources is so extensive and so 
 little explored with this specific aim, there is probably much more 
 material to be found, but I feel that it would not alter the main 
 
 sketch. My specific obligations are indicated in my 
 
& J '.' “ ' / '" ■ . w ' .;"* '‘ ''"IB', ''‘^^^■jj 
 
 ,d ^ . • ; , ^ i'i/ '■■■ ■ ■' ■ ■ ' ’ ' ’’ 
 
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 '. :ji L .■.i,*rt,-,-'..-„^o*%.^ a«» >/•; i!.y*mT3 »!►* 
 
 7W W.-r.- : ' . 
 
 iCVt « lMl>>f 17 ' 
 
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ITjl 
 
 bent to a renovation of the ethical and religious life of the 
 nation, and created a popular tradition which powerfully influenced 
 the sixteenth century.^ 
 
 At the threshold of the sixteenth century we meet again 
 this moral and religious fervor united with quite unusual 
 intellectual independence — even audacity — in the sroup of 
 humanists gathered about John Colet. They sought a middle path 
 between the dangers of Renaissance paganism and scholastic aridity.^ 
 Colet had been in Italy and seen how carefully the lamp of pagan 
 philosophy had been tended, and how the true spirit of Christianity 
 was neglected for pagan epicureanism. Likewise in the introduction 
 to his edition of the New Testament in 1516, Erasmus observed that 
 "Platonists, Pythagoreans, and the disciples of all other 
 philosophers, are well instructed and ready to fight for their sect. 
 Why do not the Christians with yet more abundant zeal espouse the 
 cause of thei^ Master and Prince? Shall Christ be put in compari- 
 son with Zeno and Aristotle — his doctrines with their insignifi- 
 cant precepts?”^ But these men believed that paganism was a natural 
 reaction to scholasticism, and that a complete liberation from 
 scholastic thought and method, and a renewal of patristic and 
 apostolic Christianity, was the wisest attack on the dangers of the 
 Renaissance.^ In this spirit Colet gave his lectures on Romans at 
 Oxford in 1496-7. He did not seek a philosophical system; he 
 
 T Lq l lardy a^ Reformat ion in England. 4 vols. 
 London (1908) . The popularity of the Vision of Piers Plowman was 
 revived by the Reformation and there were five editions of it 
 between 1550 and 1563. See Schelling, Life and Writings of George 
 Gascoigne. Boston (1893). p. 78. 
 
 p The Oxford Reformers . Chap. Ill, iii. Ed. Everyman, 
 
 ^Seebohm, Chapter XI, i. p. 303. ^Seebohm, Chap. Ill, iii. 
 
rejected the textarian method of exposition of the scholastics and 
 its fourfold interpretation of Scripture: the literal, the 
 allpgorical, the moral and the anagogical; he rejected, in practice 
 at least, even the theory of literal inspiration.^ He sought to 
 understand Paul and the Remans as characters in history, to 
 appreciate the human element in the epistle,- in short to study 
 this holy text as a historical document and then base on this study 
 an interpretation of its religious teaching.^ Colet J 7 as inspired in 
 his work by a noble religious purpose; but his method of interpreta- 
 tion was so novel, so liberal and individualistic in spirit, that we 
 are not surprised that the theologians of the medieval school tried 
 to prove him and his "New Learning" heretical. For though both 
 Colet and his friends remained within the Catholic Church, they 
 -..ormed an essential part of the Reformation movement; and not 
 infrequently, as in Colet ‘s theory of the "accommodation" of 
 Scripture to the apprehension of man, ^ or in lore’s theory of toler- 
 ance of a multiplicity of sects, they were far more liberal even 
 than the Protestantism of the sixteenth century. 
 
 These Catholic reformers therefore contributed uninten- 
 tionally, one may say unwillingly, to the future Anglican tradition. 
 The New Learning was disseminated for political purposes by 
 Henry VIII, and was turned to religious uses by such Protestant 
 leaders as Tyndale. As a result, a strong Protestant party was pro- 
 
 ^Seebohm, Chap. X, iii. pp. 195-6 and Chap. XI, p. 308. 
 
 H, , Dean Colet * s Lectures on the Romans . L 
 
 Lupton, J. H 
 
 s Lectures on the Romans . London (1873) . 
 Erasmus's philological and historical 
 

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duced, which was powerful enough to pass through the Marian 
 persecutions and dominate the really national religious establish- 
 ment formed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 At Oxford, however, the tradition of Colet and Erasmus, as 
 well as the influence of Protestantism, seems to have broken down 
 almost completely under Mary. At the accession of Elizabeth the 
 professorships were held by Roman Catholics of the old school of 
 theology, haters of humanistic enlightenment, whose private morals 
 seem to have been those of the clericals in Boccaccio and Rabelais. 
 Jewel, writing to Bullinger at Zurich in 1559, said that at Oxford 
 "there are scarcely two individuals who think with us; and even 
 they are so dejected and broken in spirit, that they can do nothing." 
 Elizabeth came to the throne when Oxford, as all England, was in 
 that deepest darkness which precedes dawn. 
 
 But when Protestantism came into power in the reign of 
 Elizabeth, both of its chief factions, the Puritans as well as the 
 Anglicans, carefully repressed all extreme phases of religious 
 individualism. Both parties equally dreaded a democratic church 
 government as unsafe and unsound. The ranks were drilled into 
 uniformity in these churches militant, and discipline enforced by | 
 an official hierarchy. Consequently individualism sought expression! 
 in the last two or three decades of the century in the uprising in 
 various parts of England of Separatist movements, with which Robert 
 Browne was in his earlier years connected, and which were commonly 
 called Brownist after him.^ Out of these Separatist movements, the 
 
 ^ ^Z urich Letters , ed. Robinson, H. (Parker Societv. Vol. 43). -n.33. 
 
 Cf. also pp. 11, 12, 29, 55, 77. ^ 
 
 ^^Dexter,^H. M., Congregationalism of the ^st Three Hundred 
 i£a££U880) . Burrage, C., The Tr^ Story o£ Robert Browne, j 
 

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70 
 
 leaders of which were so severely persecuted, grew the modern 
 Baptist and Congregational churches.^ 
 
 Thus persisted and triumphed what was at the same time a 
 national trait of independence and the Renaissance spirit of 
 individualism; manifested continuously from the Lollardy of the 
 fourteenth century to the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth; 
 not created by statesmen, though manipulated by Henry VIII and 
 Elizabeth to serve their own political purposes; remaining throuarh- 
 out a popular tradition, though it pervaded the Humanism of the 
 Oxford Reformers and appropriated the New Learning as its O'wn 
 instrument; finally, as a protest against the oligarchical and 
 hierarchical principles of the dominant Protestantism, establishing 
 a democratic ecclesiastical organization which has grown into two 
 of the most po7/erful and influential religious denominations of 
 modern times. In England, as on the Continent during the 
 Renaissance and Reformation, the principle of individualism was 
 
 coming into its O'wn, never again to be suppressed by authority. 
 
 Browne recanted under pressure. Two other leaders. Greenwood and 
 
 imprisoned in 1586, and remained 
 in the Fleet from 1587 until they were hanged at Tyburn in 1593. 
 
 others were imprisoned in the later years of Elizabeth 
 Seppatist opinions. See Selbie, W. B., English Sects, 
 onap. III. The bad odor in which these sectarians were at that 
 time appears from the collocation of names in the following 
 epitaph written for Martin Mar -Prelate: 
 
 0! VOS Martinistae 
 Et VOS Brounistae 
 Et Famililovistae, 
 
 Et Anabaptistae, 
 
 Et Omnes sectistae 
 Et Machivelistae 
 Et Atheistae, 
 
 Quorum dux fuit iste 
 
 4 .V . Lugete singuli. 
 
 and Burial of Martin Mar - Prelate . Works of Nashe. ed.Grosart, 
 

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II 
 
 7l1 
 
 The Indifference of Queen Elizabeth 
 
 n any account of the enlightenment which came over 
 England in the sixteenth century, the influence of Queen Elizabeth 
 must find some place. To a remarkable degree she impressed her per- 
 sonality on the nation she ruled. She was a truly national monarch; 
 she won the affection of all her subjects; the court became the 
 center of the national life as it had never been before. Her 
 character lay open to all the world; and her attitude in matters of 
 religion cannot have been without profound influence, at first 
 chiefly on the court, but through the court on the educated and 
 enlightened people throughout the nation. For, though the Queen 
 was punctilious in her observance of the forms of religion, her 
 opinion of its substance must have been apparent to many of her 
 subjects who reflected on her policies in ecclesiastical matters. 
 
 The Queen tried to form, out of the discordant elements 
 bequeathed to her by the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary, 
 a truly national church. Her whole effort was animated, not by any 
 moral, religious or even ecclesiastical purpose, but by a purely 
 political purpose of uniting her people. She faced at the beginning 
 of her reign a problem that could only be solved by Machiavellian 
 statesmanship, though she managed to have her conduct attributed to 
 womanly weakness rather than to unprincipled politics. She flirted 
 with the factions on the Continent which regarded England only as 
 their legitimate prey; equally deftly she kept up the hopes, without 
 committing herself, of the extreme factions, both Protestant and 
 Catholic, among her subjects. And the foreign suitors who were kept 
 

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dangling so long were driven to no greater desperation than the 
 Queen's conscientious bishops, who whenever they sought to do their 
 duty towards church and state by harassing the non-conformists, 
 found their zeal checked by the Queen. 
 
 "This Machiavel government," wrote Parker to 
 Burghley himself, in 1572, "is strange to me, for 
 it bringeth forth strange fruits. As soon is the 
 papist favoured as is the true Protestant. And yet 
 forsooth my levity doth mar all. When the true 
 subject is not regarded but overthwarted, when the 
 ^ebel is borne with, a good commonwealth, scilicet. 
 
 When the faithful subject and officer hath spent 
 his wit to search, to find, to indict, to arraign, 
 and to condemn, yet must they be kept still for a’ 
 fair day to cut our ovm throats."! 
 
 In Burleigh the Queen found a minister who, though he had a leaning 
 
 towards the Puritan party, was as ready as herself to seek a purely 
 
 political settlement of the religious difficulties of the time. 
 
 Burleigh showed a ready talent for accommodation to changes in 
 
 power or in opinion. As Lloyd said of him: "He saw the interest 
 
 of the state changed six times, and died an honest man: the crown 
 
 put upon four heads, yet he continued a faithful subject: religion 
 
 changed, as to the public constitution of it, five times, yet he 
 
 kept the faith. 
 
 This purely political spirit in which the Queen and her 
 minister dealt with religious problems, led both to espouse the 
 principle of toleration. The Queen, in her reply to the Papal 
 Bull of Excommunication of 1570, declared that 
 
 "Her majesty would have all her loving subjects to 
 understand, that, as long as they shall openly con- 
 tinue in the observation of her laws, and shall not 
 
 Parker Correspondence . (Parker Societ y) No. ccxcvii, p. 391. 
 
 Cf. also No. cccxvi, p. 414. 
 
 Nares, Burghley . Ill, 326. Quoted in Klein, A.J., Intolerance in 
 th^ Reign Elizabeth, Boston (1917). p. 13. 
 

 
 
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73 
 
 wilfully and manifestly break them by their open 
 actions, her majesty's means is not to have any 
 of them molested by any inquisition or examina- 
 tion of their consciences in causes of religion; 
 but to accept and entreat them as her good and 
 obedient subjects. She meaneth not to enter into 
 the inquisition of any men's consciences as long 
 as they shall observe her laws in their open deeds. 
 
 And in 1583 Burleigh suggested a revision of the oath of supremacy 
 
 for the benefit of Catholics, so that it could not be construed to 
 
 involve anything but patriotic rallying to the support of the Queen 
 
 in time of national danger; for, he said, "of this commodity will 
 
 ensue that . . . such priests as would refuse that oath, then no 
 
 tongue could say, for shame, that they suffer for religion, if they 
 
 did suffer."^ 
 
 Elizabeth and her great minister, we feel, must have 
 understood, better than most, the rational and enlightening 
 tendencies which emerged during the sixteenth century and distin- 
 guish its end from its beginning, and which became so pervasive 
 under the first Stuarts. Though the Queen loved Catholic pomp and 
 ceremony, she was intellectually nearer Deism; during her reign her 
 favorite, Raleigh, reputed an atheist, was safe from persecution. 
 Her tolerance was due not only to political reasons, but as well 
 to her personal indifference in religious questions. And her 
 example was no doubt as effective, though in a more subtle manner, 
 among the educated men of England, as the dramatic "political" con- 
 version and subsequent religious indifference of Henry IV was among 
 the French. Froude has admirably described the sceptical tendency 
 
 gKlein, op. cit., pp. 57-8. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, Somers Tracts. 13 vols. London (1809). 1,165. 
 Quoted by Klein, op. cit., p. 61. 
 
 On the stimulus to Libertinism by the example of Henry IV see 
 Perrens, F.T., Les Libertins en France. Paris (1899). pp. 59-ff. 
 

74 
 
 
 evident in both these monarchs; both Elizabeth and Henry, he says, 
 
 ’’held at the bottom intrinsically the same views. 
 
 They believed generally in certain elementary truths 
 lying at the base of all religions; and the difference 
 in the outward expressions of those truths, and the 
 passionate animosities which those differences 
 engendred, were only not contemptible to them from 
 the practical mischief which they produced. 
 
 Neither of the two sovereigns shared the pro-^ound 
 horror of falsehood, which was at the heart of the 
 Protestant movement. They had the statesman's 
 temperament, to which all specific religions are 
 equally fictions of the imagination." ^ 
 
 Of course this religious indi"^f erence of the Queen is more 
 obvious to the modern student in his library than to the 
 Elizabethan country squire, for instance. Yet it is hard to believe 
 that about the Court and London, where gossip spread quickly and the 
 Queen’s sacred reputation was not always spared, no one but 
 Archbishop Parker should ever have whispered the word " Machiavellian!’ 
 in connection with the Queen and Burghley. We can hardly exneot 
 documents to prove the case directly; he would have been a rash 
 letter-writer or printer who risked his right hand or his life by 
 
 breathing any suspicion against the Queen. But Elizabeth was a 
 true daughter of the Renaissance, and the spirit of the Renaissance, 
 with its paganism and religious indifference, was permitted at her 
 Court. The century which had begun with Colet and More and their 
 Christian Humanism, closed with Marlowe and the young Donne, with 
 Raleigh and Shakespeare. 
 
 1 _ 
 
 Froude, History of England. N. Y. (1870). XII, 569-570. Cf. Green: 
 ^0 woman ever lived who was so totally destitute of the sentiment 
 of religion." Short History. Chap. VII, 3. 
 

 > 
 
 
 
 
 
Ill 
 
 Heresy as a Crime 
 
 Before leaving ecclesiastical history, we must look more 
 closely at a significant aspect of it, the persecutions for heresy. 
 A narrative of these persecutions will not only throw light on the 
 history of toleration, but it will explain the dangers attending a 
 liberal culture in the sixteenth century; it will throw into relief 
 the heroism of many of the sincere and fearless thinkers of the 
 Renaissance and Reformation. A study of the penal statutes will 
 help us to understand the incidents discussed later, in the lives 
 of Kyd, Marlowe and Raleigh. 
 
 In the earlier Middle Ages there were no statutes in 
 
 England making heresy a penal offense. But in the bitter conflict 
 with the Lollards three statutes were placed on the statute-book 
 and remained the authority for the persecutions up to the reign of 
 Elizabeth. The first of these, in 1382, merely gave the civil 
 authorities the right to hold heretics in prison until they satis- 
 fied the claims of the church. But on March 10, 1401, Parliament 
 
 passed an act declaring that such heretics as did not recant should 
 be publicly burned. In 1414 another act provided that trials for 
 heresy should be held in a bishop's court. ^ The burnings had 
 already begun a week before the act of 1401, for on March 2 a 
 William Sawtre was publicly burned by order of a writ 6 ^ haeretico 
 cpmburendo issued by the king on February 26. This illegal incident 
 
 Stubbs, Constitutional History. Oxford (1880). Chap. XIX, sec. 404 
 381-395. Stephen, Sir James F., A History of the Criminal Law 
 OX Enfgland. 3 vols. London(l883) . II, 437-469. " 
 
 
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76 
 
 seems to have given rise to the notion that the king by common law 
 could issue such a writ. 
 
 As the statutes did not define heresy, there were a laree 
 number of burnings for all sorts of variations from orthodoxy 
 throughout the fifteenth century and the reigns of Henry VII and 
 Henry VIII. The bishop’s courts had broad precedents, and the 
 accused no real legal basis for a defense. But the statutes were 
 originally intended and chiefly applied against the Lollards and 
 such later sects, as the Anabaptists, which resembled them. 
 
 Henry VIII, as we have seen, encouraged for his own pur- 
 poses the spread of mild heresy in England, and in 1534 the heresy 
 act of 1401 was annulled; in 1547 all other heresy acts on the 
 books were repealed. The results were immediately somewhat more 
 than the king and his advisers had looked for. Conservative 
 Protestants were frightened by the revelation of what real freedom 
 of opinion, real individualism in religion, so quickly led to. 
 
 ”How dangerously,” Hooper wrote to Bullinger in 
 1549, "England is afflicted with heresies, God only 
 knows. There are some who say the soul of man is 
 no better than the soul of a beast, and is mortal 
 and perishable. There are wretches who dare, in 
 their conventicles, not only to deny that Christ 
 is our Saviour, but to call that blessed Child a 
 mischief-maker and a deceiver. A great part of 
 the country is Popish, and sets at nought God and 
 the magistrates."! 
 
 Hooper had reason to complain; for he alludes in another letter to I 
 
 I 
 
 dated June 25, 1549, to some of his own personal 
 difficulties as he read public lectures twice a day in St, Pauls 
 to a crowded church. "The Anabaptists," he says, "flock to the 
 
 ^Quoted by Froude, History of England, N. Y. (1867) . V, 159. 
 

77 
 
 place, and give me much trouble with their opinions respecting the 
 incarnation of the Lord. 
 
 In this flowering period of heresy, it is especially 
 important to note the rapid and universal spread, or perhaps the 
 spontaneous rise, of a denial of the divinity of Christ, the old 
 heresy of the Arians. We have a full account of such tenets in a 
 letter from Martin Micronius to Henry Bullinger, August 14, 1551: 
 
 ”We, who are desirous to hand down to the churches 
 the sincere doctrine of God, are attacked on every 
 side. We have not only to contend with the papists 
 who are almost every where ashamed of their errors ’ 
 but much more with the sectaries and Epicureans and 
 pseudo-evangelicals. In addition to the ancient 
 errors respecting paedobaptism, the incarnation of 
 Christ, the authority of the magistrate, the (lawful- 
 oath, the property and community of goods , 
 and the like, new ones are rising up every day, with 
 which we have to oontend. The chief opponents, how- 
 ever, of Christ's divinity are the Arians, who are 
 now beginning to shake our churches with greater 
 violence than ever, as they deny the conception of 
 Christ by the Virgin. Their principal arguments may 
 be reduced under three heads: The first is respecting 
 
 the unity of God, as declared throughout the scriptures 
 both of the old and new Testament; and that the doctrine 
 as well as the name of the Trinity is a novel invention 
 as not being mentioned in any part of scripture. Their" 
 next argument is this: the scripture, they say, which 
 every where acknowledges one God, admits and professes 
 that this one God is the Father alone, (Joh. xvii . 3 . ) 
 who is also called one God by Paul (l. Cor . viii. S. ) . 
 
 Lastly, they so pervert the passages which seem to* 
 establish the divinity of Christ, as to say that none 
 of them refer intrinsically to Christ himself, but 
 that he has received all from another, namely, from 
 the Father; (Joh. v. Matt . xxviii . ) and they say that 
 God cannot receive from God; and that Christ was only 
 in this respect superior to any of m.ankind, that he 
 received more gifts from God the Father. 
 
 ,, Qr ig:inal Le -^rs ^lative ^ Eng^lish Reformation. ed. Robinson. 
 
 H., Cambridge (1847)T I, 65. ^ * 
 
 3 
 
 Original Letters, ed. cit. II, 574. 
 

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 In spi't6 of th. 0 S 8 dangerous "tendencies, freedom was 
 maintained until the end of the reign of Edward VI. But in the 
 first year of Mary's reign, 1555, the three acts against heresy 
 were revived and enforced not only against Arians but all 
 Protestants as well. As the Heresy Acts had not defined heresy, 
 what proportion of the heretics burned in the reign of Mary were 
 merely Protestants can only be guessed.^ To the Catholics they were 
 of course all heretics. And that there was some sort of affinity 
 between the English Protestants of the Puritan wing, and the 
 Lollards, the Anabaptists and the Arians, is apparent in that all 
 these parties flourished in the same section of England, the eastern 
 counties and London. Kent and Essex, wrote the Protestant Bishop 
 Hooper in 1550, "is troubled with the frenzy of the anabaptists 
 more than any other part of the kingdom."^ 
 
 In 1556 three Arians from three different parishes in Eastern 
 England confessed upon trial to practically identical tenets: they 
 Objected to the service in Latin, as unedifying; they denied the 
 
 Christ's body and the Trinity, and two of them 
 aaaed that it was wrong to put a man to death for the sake of con- 
 science. Like most of the heretics arraigned, they seem to have 
 abjured their heresies. See Strype Memorials . London (1731). Ill 
 ^03. On the same page Strype records that at Frankfort a Dr. 
 bartholomew Traherne lectured on the Gospel of St. John, "designedly 
 against the Arians . who began much to encrease in this times 
 ^.especially among Protestants) ..." 
 
 According to Strype, 288 were burned in those four years. 
 M|morials, ed. cit. Ill, Catalogue of Originals, pp. 291-3. 
 
 t e r 8 , ed. cit. I, 87. Of course the coast towns were 
 most likely to come in contact with new opinions from abroad. The 
 tlmulus of commerce upon liberal thought appears in the freedom 
 01 opinion allowed in Venice and the Netherlands, the two great 
 commercial nations of the time. On the role of the merchant in the 
 T Reformation, see Gairdner, Lollardv and the Reformation. 
 
 J., 009. Jewel mentions in a letter dated 1560, that in the French 
 enurch in London "there are some unquiet and turbulent men, who are 
 openly beginning to profess Arianism." Zurich Letters, p. 93. 
 
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 79 
 
 In 1558, on the accession of Q.ueen Elizabeth, the heresy 
 acts revived under Mary were formally repealed. But a curious sub- 
 stitution was made in the provision for a Court of High Commission 
 to try ecclesiastical offenses. At the same time heresy was defined 
 as that which was so adjudged ”by the authority of the canonical 
 scriptures, or by the first four general councils." This definition 
 exempted all differences in the Protestant-Catholic controversy, but 
 not the despised Anabaptists and Arians. The statute provided no 
 penalty apparently on the assumption that the royal writ de 
 haeretico comburendo was common law. In the whole reign of 
 Elizabeth this law resulted in only six executions.^ There were no 
 doubt many more recantations than executions. But in 1575 five 
 Dutch Anabaptists were indicted, two of whom, John Wielmacker and 
 Hendrick Ter Woort, were burned at Smithfield on July 32.^ Four 
 Arians were burned at various times at Norwich. Matthew Hamont, a 
 ploughwright, who was a "coarse kind of deist, holding the Gospel 
 to be a fable, Christ a sinner, and the Holy Ghost a nonentity," was 
 burned May 30, 1579. An obscure John Lewes was burned on 
 September 18, 1583. And Peter Cole, a tanner, met the same fate in 
 
 1587. More celebrated is the case of Francis Kett, a Cambridge 
 
 Master of Arts, who was condemned by Bishop Scambler of Norwich in 
 
 1588. 
 
 The last execution for heresy in England was in 1612, when 
 James I ordered two Arians, Legate and Wightman, to be burned. Coke 
 
 ^Stephen, Hi3_tory of Criminal Law. II, 463, says only two, 
 iting Hale and Froude as his authorities. They all overlooked the 
 orwich executions. 
 
 '^Strype, Annals. London (1725). II, 380. 
 
 ^ Dictionary of National Biography . ¥III, 1137, 
 

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raised objections to the legality of the process, denying that the 
 writ ^ haeretico comburnedo was common law. But James, for 
 political reasons, insisted that the executions should take place. 
 In 1618, however, a Portuguese ex-monk condemned to be burned, was 
 reprieved by the king, and since then no conviction for heresy has 
 ever been obtained.^ In 1677 all acts making heresy a crime, and 
 authorising punishment by death in ecclesiastical matters, were 
 formally repealed. 
 
 Although the law remained on the statute book so long, 
 the real progress in tolerance, it is clear from the above account, 
 was made in the sixteenth century. In comparison with the reign 
 of Henry VII and the first part of the reign of Henry VIII, the age 
 of Elizabeth is remarkable for its freedom of thought and speech 
 and its neglect of the Christian duty of prosecuting heresy. We 
 must credit some of this progress to the Queen and her advisers, and 
 some to the general movement of thought in Europe. But the world 
 
 owes a debt to those obscure and despised, but unyielding. 
 Anabaptists and Arians who were tortured to death under the pro- 
 vision of the act of 1401. Froude, speaking of the execution of 
 twelve Dutch Anabaptists in 1535, has commemorated them all and 
 given them their place in history; of these executions , he says, 
 
 "the details are gone, — the names are gone. Poor 
 Hollanders they were, and that is all. Scarcely the 
 fact seemed worth the mention, so shortly it is told 
 in a passing paragraph. For them no Europe was 
 agitated, no courts were ordered into mourning, no 
 papal hearts trembled with indignation. At their 
 deaths the world looked on complacent, indifferent 
 or exulting. Yet here, too, out of twenty— five 
 common men and women were found fourteen who, by 
 no terror of stake or torture, could be tempted 
 to say that they believed what they did not believe. 
 
 TP - History of the E^nglish Church in the Reigns of 
 ilajaai. L7 EohdoiT ( 1§U4) . pp737o‘~ff'. 
 

 
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81 
 
 History for them has no 'i^rord of praise; yet they, 
 too, were not giving their blood in vain. Their* 
 lives might have been as useless as the lives of 
 most of us. In their deaths they assisted to pay 
 the purchase money for England's freedom. 
 
 IV 
 
 The "Italian Danger” 
 
 Of all the foreign influences acting upon English life 
 and thought in the sixteenth century, the Italian was by far the 
 most powerful. This preeminence of Italy in the sixteenth century 
 was due to her early development, in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries, of the highest type of humanistic and pagan culture, 
 expressing itself in manners, learning, art and literature. Already 
 in the fifteenth century Englishmen went to Italy to study the New 
 Learning which was supplanting medievalism, and thither Colet went 
 to prepare for a career as teacher of the veritable religion of the 
 New Testament. Erasmus, as we have seen,^ was inspired by the 
 example of Valla. 
 
 But by the middle of the sixteenth century this splendor 
 of Italy was nothing but an afterglow. The Reformation had made 
 the Church turn hostile to the New Learning; in 1540 Paulus Jovius 
 lamented that scholarship had migrated from Italy to Germany. And 
 according to Jebb, the most learned Italian of the latter half of 
 the century. Cardinal Baronius (1538-1607), the author of Annales 
 Ecclesiastici. was unacquainted with Greek. ^ With this degradation 
 
 ^Froude, History of England, Vol.II, N.Y. (1868). Chap. IX, 359. 
 ^Chap. I, p. 57. 
 
 Jebb, in Cambridge Modern History . I, Chap, xvi, 568. 
 
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82 
 
 of Italian culture came of course a change in the character and 
 intentions of the travellers who flocked to Italy from all parts 
 of Europe.^ They no longer sought a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew; 
 they might study medicine at Padua; bat most of them went to Italy 
 to acquire something more popular and superficial than learning, 
 namely a courtly manner, Italian affectations, Italian oaths, an 
 audacious gallantry with the ladies, and an acquaintance with a 
 vernacular literature which was the most artistic in form and in 
 thought the most thoroughly emancipated in Europe. In short, Italy, 
 no longer the home of Humanism as Ficino, Erasmus, and Colet 
 understood it, had become the disseminator of Paganism, the school 
 of the Epicureans and Libertines. 
 
 Ascham has recorded with definiteness — — and, we may 
 
 believe, with substantial accuracy — the effect of Italian travel 
 
 on the average Englishman. These "Italianated Englishmen, « he says, 
 
 "have in more reverence the Triumphs of Petrarch than 
 the Genesis of Moses; they make more account of Tully’s 
 Offices than St. Paul's Epistles; of a tale in 
 Boccace, than a story of the Bible. Then they count 
 as fables the holy mysteries of Christian religion. 
 
 They make Christ and his gospel only serve civil 
 policy. Then neither religion cometh amiss to them: 
 in time they be promoters of both openly; in place 
 again mockers of both privily; . . . For when they 
 dare, in company where they like, they boldly laugh 
 to scorn both protestant and papist. They care for 
 no Scripture; they make no count of general councils; 
 they contemn the consent of the church; they pass for 
 no doctors; they mock the pope, they rail on Luther; 
 they allow neither side; they like none, but only 
 themselves. The mark they shoot at, the end they 
 look for, the heaven they desire, is only their 07m 
 present pleasure and private profit; whereby they 
 plainly declare of whose school, of what religion 
 they be; that is. Epicures in living, axi(X 
 in doctrine. This last word is no more unknown 
 now to plain Englishmen, than the person was uin- 
 
 ^Einstein, Lewis, Italian Renaissance in England, N.Y. (1902) . Chap. 
 
 Clare, English "Travellers ^ the Renaissance. London 
 
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83 
 
 known soiKOtimo in England, until some Englishnian 
 took pains to fetch that develish opinion out of 
 Italy. . . 
 
 "And yet these men, in matters of divinity, 
 openly pretend a great knowledge, and have 
 privately to themselves a very compendious 
 understanding of all; which nevertheless they 
 will utter, when and where they list. And that 
 is this: All the mysteries of Moses, the whole 
 
 law and ceremonies, the Psalms and Prophets, 
 
 Christ and his gospel, GOD, and the devil, heaven 
 and hell, faith, conscience, sin, death, and all, 
 they shortly wrap up, they quickly expound with 
 this one ^ half verse of Horace. Credat Judaeus 
 Apella . ~ 
 
 We smile today at Ascham’s fear of such innocuous authors 
 as Petrarch and Cicero. But we mis-read the passage if we do not 
 see in it a valuable document on the outward appearance of the 
 "Italian Danger." The men who brought it from Italy were cultivated 
 and enthusiastic students of literature . On their return, they did 
 not parade in public their irreligion and immorality; Ascham tells 
 us that they observed the law and went to church. Only in the 
 seclusion of a private library, perhaps, surrounded by intimate 
 friends who could be trusted, would the "Italianate Englishman" 
 bring out, in addition to Tully and Petrarch, those more dangerous 
 volumes of Machiavelli, Pomponatius, and others, and discuss those 
 hazardous doubts which were punishable at the stake. The severity 
 of the statutes made the dissemination of sceptical ideas perilous 
 and secret. And therefore the scepticism and indifference which 
 ffas at the heart of the Italian culture which English appropriated 
 in the reign of Elizabeth, was cloaked by a noble enthusiasm for 
 letters. 
 
 Ascham Schoolmaster. Works, ed. Giles, IV, 161-2. For oorrobora- 
 Ascham ' s account, see Feuillerat, John Lyly . Cambridge 
 U-IO; . pp. 51-5, and Einstein, op. cit. pp. 158-ff. 
 
i 
 
 ft 
 
 
 ; 
 
Aschara's protest was futile. Italian culture possessed 
 the Court. It dominated the drama, which was protected by the 
 Queen herself against the attacks of the English Puritan bourgeois; 
 from Marlowe to Ford the English drama is almost entirely free from 
 the theological preconceptions of the Reformation — even of 
 Christianity. Through the Court and the drama, the paganism of 
 Italy penetrated among the nobility and gentry, the universities 
 and the Inns of Court. Already in 1589, Thomas Cooper, Bishop of 
 Winchester, could say that there were in England "an infinite 
 number of Epicures and Atheists."^ In 1593 Thomas Nashe gave the 
 following advice to the University men that were called to preach 
 at Paul's Cross and the Court: 
 
 "Arme yourselues against nothing but Atheisme, 
 meddle not so much with Sects & forraine opinions 
 but let Atheisme be the onely string you beate on; 
 for there is no Sect now in England ^so scattered 
 as Atheisme. In vayne doe you preach, in vayne 
 doe you teach, if the roote that nourisheth all 
 the branches of security be not thorowly digd 
 up from the bottome. You are not halfe so wel 
 acquainted as them that lyue continually about 
 the Court and Citty, how many followers this damn- 
 able paradoxe hath: how many high wits it hath bewitcht.''^ 
 
 This diffusion of free thought was a part of that complete seculari- 
 zation of culture and thorough paganism which characterizes the 
 great literary outburst at the end of the sixteenth century. 
 
 But this development did not take place unchallenged. 
 
 Of course the foppish manners of some "Italianate" Englishmen 
 excited universal ridicule and contempt, but there was also an 
 
 Rep?int^hs95T^^p ^ ^ People of England . Arber's 
 
 %ashe, Christs Tears over Jerusalem . Works . ed.McKerrow, II, 121. 
 
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85 
 
 intellectual and spiritual resistance to the immoral and sceptical 
 nature of the Italian influence. Many open-minded men studied the 
 ”new thought” of the time with the greatest care, and rejected it. 
 Only by this supposition can we explain that almost total absence 
 of any trace in English literature of Giordano Bruno, which has 
 excited so much comment.^ Bruno was in England from the spring of 
 1583 until October 1585. He published seven works in England; two 
 of them he dedicated to Sidney. But Sidney seems not to have taken 
 the pantheistic enthusiasms of the Italian very seriously; on his 
 death in 1586 he left an incomplete translation of a quite different 
 work, the treatise ^ verite^ de la religion chrestienne by 
 Duplessis-Mornay, the Huguenot friend of Languet. Sidney was a 
 genuine Christian humanist, and he undoubtedly saw that the thought 
 of Bruno was inconsistent with his own tastes and principles. 
 Likewise Spenser, whose Cantos on Mutability are probably indebted 
 to Bruno, studied the novel ideas familiarised by the Italian 
 influence, and either rejected them or adapted them to harmonize 
 with a philosophy of life in many respects resembling that of Sidney, 
 In studying such men as Spenser and Sidney, men of firm 
 intellectual character as well as of philosophical comprehension, 
 who lived in a stimulating age of ferment and conflict of ideas, we 
 must consider carefully not only the sources, but the purposes of 
 their many borrowings from other writers. They did not read without 
 critical acumen, and their intimate knowledge of an author does not 
 always imply discipleship . This commonplace principle has been 
 
 ^McIntyre, J. Lewis, Giordano Bruno. London (1903). pn. 21-ff. 
 
 ^Iton, Oliver, Modern S~tudies. ~ London (1907). pp. 34-ff. 
 
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86 
 
 obscured in connection with Sidney and Spenser by even so dis- 
 tinguished a scholar as Professor Greenlaw. For instance, in a 
 remark on Sidney,^ he says that "Du Bartas paid tribute to Sidney, 
 who was greatly interested in the flood of Protestant literature 
 that was coming from France, and who seems to have been so well 
 acquainted with the author of La Sepmaine as he was with Bruno. 
 
 Thus the two contending forces met in this brilliant young 
 Englishman." Forces may meet in mortal combat, but it is clear 
 from the context that the meeting here meant, is an impossible 
 
 reconciliation. Similar is the tenor of Professor Greenlaw's 
 2 
 
 article in which he shows with great success that Spenser's concep- 
 tion of Mutability was indebted to Lucretius for descriptive 
 details and imagery. But he also implies that Spenser accepted the 
 Lucretian philosophy. "Spenser,"^ he says, "was like Plato in the 
 wide range of his interests and in his indifference to forming a 
 consistent philosophical system. The Lucretian element in his work 
 is only another bit of evidence of his intellectual curiosity." 
 Spenser, it is true, had intellectual curiosity. But to assume 
 that Spenser accepted the anarchistic atomism of Lucretius is to 
 assume that he was neutral in the conflict between Jove and the 
 Titans, a conflict in which even the serene Goethe declared himself 
 on the side of Jove. Spenser was not neutral. His cantos on 
 Mutability are his last, most philosophical grappling with the 
 terrible problem of Change which had haunted Spenser from his 
 
 ^ Studies in Philology . XVII, 324, note. 
 
 Greenlaw, A. E., Spenser and Lucretius, in Studies in Philology. 
 XVII, 439-ff. 
 
 2 
 
 Ibid. p. 464. 
 
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87 
 
 melancholy youth to the end of his career. He sought all his life 
 in anguish for a solid footing somewhere among the shifting sands, 
 something "eterne in Mutabilitie . ” We know moreover that Spenser 
 thought that he had conquered even that Lucretian philosophy which 
 Mutability presented as proof that it should have the supremacy over 
 Jove 5 for at the conclusion Jove was ” confirmed in his imperial 
 see." And the imperfect Faerie Queene ends appropriately with an 
 expression of the deepest longing in Spenser's intellectual and 
 spiritual life, rising at last to prayer: 
 
 "Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd, 
 
 Of that same time when no more Change shall be. 
 
 But stedfast rest of all things firmely stayd 
 Upon the pillours of Eternity, 
 
 That is contrayr to Mutabilitie : 
 
 For, all that moueth, doth in Change delight: 
 
 But thence-forth all shall rest eternally 
 With Him that is the God of Sabbaoth hight: 
 
 0 that great Sabbaoth God, graunt me that Sabaoths sight." 
 
 Sidney and Spenser were the most distinguished men of 
 letters with Puritan leanings. But there were a host of less 
 important writers and pamphleteers, Puritan Jeremiahs, who, in their 
 unenlightened diatribes against the infection of Italian paganism, 
 yet contrived to speak pretty much the mind of the average 
 Englishman on many questions; they were not lovers of art and 
 fastidiousness, but they had an English sense for soundness and 
 wholesomeness in character. And in one respect at least, in the 
 general indignation against what were believed to be the teachings 
 of Maohiavelli, the opposition to the Italian Renaissance in England 
 acquired a truly national character. 
 

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88 
 
 V 
 
 Machiavellism in England 
 
 Maohiavelli' s reputation in the Renaissance no doubt was 
 exaggerated and distorted; nevertheless, a man’s reputation is 
 always a guide as to the nature of his general influence. As was 
 noted in the previous chapter, the Frenchman Garasse placed 
 Machiavelli in the first rank in the library of the libertines. 
 
 And the Italian Vanini, whose mysterious career in England, France 
 and Italy, and whose sensational burning at Toulouse in 1619, 
 attracted the attention of Europe, referred to him as Nicolaus 
 Macchiavellus . Atheorum facile orinceps . ^ With this estimate of 
 Machiavelli all northern Europe agreed, and England was no excep- 
 tion. His cold and calculating selfishness, his absolute indiffer- 
 ence towards religious thought and feeling, and above all, his 
 avowed practice of dissimulation and deceit, these characteristics 
 of Machiavelli as popularly conceived in England, distinguished him 
 as the exemplar and champion of the most dangerous tendencies of 
 the Italian influence. And this moral indignation against the 
 , Florentine was combined in the average Englishman with a feeling 
 r of insulted patriotism, and often also with religious fanaticism, 
 so that the anti-Machiavellian animus became at times a fury. 
 
 The study of Machiavelli began early. If we may trust 
 Cardinal Pole, Thomas Cromwell regarded the Prince as the best 
 practical guide for statesmanship, and the career of Cromwell cer- 
 
 Vanini, Amphitheatrum aeternae provide nr iae . Lyon (1615) p.35. 
 
 Quoted by F. v.Bezold, Historische Zeltschrift . vol. 113 (1914) p.308, 
 
 n . . 
 
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89 
 
 tainly lends color to the accusation. A recent writer has tried 
 to trace the influence of Machiavelli in the state papers of 
 Burleigh, and to show a probability of the Queen's acquaintance 
 with the works of the Italian.^ He might have strengthened his 
 case by quoting from a sermon preached before the Queen by Edwin 
 Sandys, in which only three non-Christian writers on the state 
 are mentioned: Plato, Aristotle and Machiavelli. 
 
 "There is no policy," the divine warned the 
 Queen, "no wisdom, like the wisdom of God. The 
 commonv/ealths which Aristotle and Plato have 
 framed in their books, otherwise full of wisdom, 
 yet compared with divine policies, with that 
 city for whose sake and benefit the Lord doth 
 watch, what are they but fancies of foolish men? 
 
 As for Machiavel's inventions, they are but the 
 dreams of a brain-sick person, founded upon the 
 draft of man, and not upon godly wisdom, which 
 only hath good effect. "S 
 
 In this connection also we may recall Archbishop Parker's jocular, 
 but pointed imputation of Machiavellism in his confidential letter 
 to Burleigh, quoted earlier in this chapter. About the same time, 
 that is, in 1573 and 1574, we have evidence that Machiavelli was 
 read eagerly by the young men at Cambridge, and that Sidney was 
 acquainted with him. From that time on his works seem to have 
 circulated freely in Italian among educated men; Harvey declared 
 in 1579 that at Cambridge his works had supplanted all others.^ 
 
 ^Phillips, W. Alison, The Influence of Macchlavelli on the 
 Re f ormat i on in England . Nineteenth Century , vol. 40 (1896). 907-ff . 
 ^ Sermons of Edwin Sandys , ed. Ayre,John (Parker Society). p.l53. 
 ^Harvey, Gabriel, Letterbook , ed. Scott. (Camden Society) p.l74, 
 Meyer, Edward, Machiavelli and the Elizabethan Drama , Weimar (1897) 
 P|. 14-ff. 
 
 Harvey, Letterbook . p, 79. 
 

 
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90 
 
 We must conclude, however, that Machiavelli was not widely- 
 known at first hand in England in the sixteenth century. A transla- 
 tion of the Art of War appeared in 1573, and of the Florentine 
 History in 1595, but the Discorsi and ^l Princiue were apparently 
 considered too dangerous and ill-famed to be published in English 
 versions. The English reputation of Machiavelli was in fact not 
 derived primarily from a study of his own works, but from the attack 
 made on him in 1576 by a French Huguenot, Innocent Gentillet, who in 
 his Anti-Machiavel laid the Massacre of St. Bartholomew to the 
 influence of his works. ^ This treatise was very influential in 
 England; and Meyer has shown that even those writers who had read 
 Machiavelli, were unable to keep distinct the true Florentine as he 
 appears in his o-.m works, and the tradition built up in England on 
 the basis of the book of Gentillet. 
 
 The method of Gentillet was to systematize the ideas of 
 Machiavelli into fifty maxims, thus throwing into relief their 
 sceptical and immoral aspects, and devote a commentary to refuting 
 each maxim. ”These maxims,” says Burd, "were commonly accepted as 
 I an adequate summary, and it is impossible not to feel that they are 
 in a large degree, responsible for 'Maohiavellism. ' A few of 
 these maxims will sufficiently explain the religious and ethical 
 aspects of Machiavellism: 
 
 "A Prince above all things ought to wish and 
 desire to be esteemed Devout, although hee be not 
 so indeed. 
 
 ^Meyer, op. cit. pp. 19-ff. 
 
 ‘^ Il Princi-pe . ed. Burd. Oxford (1891). p.54. Gentillet ’s maxims 
 are reprinted by Meyer, op. cit . ,pp. 10-14; and the Elizabethan 
 translation by Patericke is included by Boyer, C. V., The Villain as 
 Hero in Elizabethan Trage dy , London (1914), pp. S41-5, from whom my 
 quotations are made . 
 
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91 
 
 "A Prince ought to sustaine and confirme that 
 which is false in Religion, if so he it turne to 
 the favour thereof. 
 
 "The Paynims Religion holds and lifts up their 
 hearts and makes them hardy to enterprise great 
 things: hut the Christian Religion, persuading 
 to Humilitie humbleth and too much weakeneth their 
 minds, and so makes them more ready to he iniured 
 and preyed upon. 
 
 "The great Doctors of the Christian Religion, 
 hy a great ostentation and stiffenesse have sought 
 to abolish the remembrance of all good letters and 
 antiquit ie . 
 
 "A Prince ought to follow the nature of the Lyon 
 and of the Foxe, yet not of the one without the 
 other. 
 
 "A Prince ought not to feare to be periured, to 
 deceive, and dissemblej for the deceiver alwaies 
 finds some that are fit to be deceived. 
 
 "A Prince ought to have his mind disposed to turn 
 after every wind and variation of Fortune, that he 
 may know to make use of a vice, when need is." 
 
 Such was the completely perverse and diabolical 
 Machiavelli of the popular English tradition, referred to hundreds 
 of times in Elizabethan literature as the incarnation of deceitful 
 wickedness.^ These references become especially frequent from 
 about 1588 on, as much on account of the popularity of Marlowe's 
 plays, as the political and religious situation to be discussed 
 presently. Marlowe made his great dramatic success with the 
 Machiavellian Tamburlaine, a magnificent hero without a conscience; 
 and he followed it with The Jew of Malta , even more popular, in 
 which Machiavelli appeared as the Prologue, unblushingly admitting 
 all the viciousness imputed to him — "I count religion but a 
 childish toy" — and asking that the hero of the play should "not 
 be entertained the worse because he favours me." Marlowe, who, 
 Drayton said, was "bathed in the Thespian springs," and 
 
 Meyer, op.cit., p. xi, says he collected 395 references to 
 Machiavelli and over 500 to Aretine. 
 
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98 
 
 "Had in him those brave translunary things 
 That the first poets had," 
 
 was able to glorify the Machiavellian hero; he succeeded in making 
 a large English public admire the splendor and virtli of a wicked 
 and pagan character. It is of course difficult to prove the bias 
 of an author from the hero of his play; one must always allow for 
 the necessities of the plot and emotional effect. But every one 
 feels, I think, that the gorgeous pageantry and rich poetic style 
 of Marlowe’s plays exceed the requirements of the drama; they are 
 the expression of the author's own pagan tastes and enthusiasms. 
 Marlowe was consequently under suspicion even in his own day. As 
 Courthope says, "Between him and the Puritanic element in the nation 
 the rupture was absolute and complete."^ That a dramatist so 
 frankly pagan in spirit as Marlowe in these two plays, should be so 
 popular, is indicative of the extent to which Italian culture, even 
 when frankly sceptical, was acceptable in the London of Elizabeth's 
 later years. Shakespeare bowed to the popular taste, and that 
 splendid sinner, the Machiavellian Richard III, dazed the groundlings 
 with his virtu, even though in the end his enemies, aided by "God 
 and our good cause," overcame him. 
 
 Nevertheless, the admiration for this Machiavellian stage 
 hero soon passed, and after Marlowe no dramatist tried to arouse it. 
 Outside of the drama Machiavelli seems to have had no champions 
 
 Courthope, History of English Poetry . II, 403-ff. The 
 Machiavellism of Marlowe has been much discussed. See: Ulrici, H. , 
 Christouher Marlowe und Shakespeare * s Verhaltniss zu ihm . Shakespeare 
 Jahrbuoh . Berlin (1865).!, 57-ff.; Simpson, Richard, Transactions . 
 I-Qw Shakespeare Society . (1874) , pp. 381 and 434; Storo;jenko, Life of 
 Greene . in Works of Greene, ed.Grosart, I. 46-ff.; Ward, A. W. , 
 English Dramatic Literature . London (1899). I, 339-ff . ; Creizenach, 
 English Drama in the Age of Shakespeare , Phila. (1916) . p.289. 
 
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93 
 
 whatever; Harvey, Nashe and Greene vied with one another in heaping 
 scurrility on him. The term Machiave Ilian was bandied frequently 
 with no other meaning than that of gross insult. The reason for 
 this animus was not only the Puritan hatred of the immorality and 
 infidelity of the Italianate Englishman, but also a complicated 
 religious and political situation which led the average patriotic 
 Englishman to regard both Papists and Libertines as disciples of 
 Machiavelli, secretly plotting to deliver England into the hands of 
 her Continental enemies. Therefore the legendary Machiavelli, con- 
 ceived as the type and master of the traitorous English Papist, 
 encountered English national feeling at its height after the defeat 
 of the Armada. Machiavellist, atheist, papist, and traitor, became 
 synonymous terms. 
 
 The reason for this development was, in the first place, 
 the illegal position of Catholics in England. Since the Queen had 
 been excommunicated in 1570 and the Catholics had been absolved 
 by the Pope from all allegiance to her, it had become difficult 
 even for the most loyal Catholic to prove that he was not a secret 
 enemy of his country. He could never be trusted. And the natural 
 tendency to suspicion was stimulated by the political activities 
 of the Catholics themselves, whose plots in and out of England were 
 constantly attracting attention. The national feeling aroused 
 thereby expressed itself in the constant readiness of Parliament to 
 vote measures for harassing the Papists. The Queen had in fact to 
 watch her legislators lest they should persecute, and thus alienate, 
 the large number of loyal Catholics who, she knew instinctively, 
 would in a crisis choose allegiance to their Queen rather than to 
 the Pope. 
 

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94 
 
 Yet in such a situation the most honest Catholic was 
 forced to dissimulate; technically he was living in a divided 
 allegiance. And his case was made all the worse by the return from 
 Italy every year of a stream of Italianate Englishmen who by their 
 conduct fastened on the papacy the blame for the atheism and 
 immorality imputed generally to Italian life. The shrewd and 
 accurate Ascham early in Elizabeth's reign described the conduct of 
 these travelled Englishmen on their return home. 
 
 "Though in Italy," he says, "they may freely 
 be of no religion, as they are in England in very 
 deed too; nevertheless returning home into England, 
 they must countenance the profession of the one or 
 the other, howsoever inwardly they laugh to scorn 
 both. And though for their private matters they 
 can follow, fawn, and flatter noble personages, 
 contrary to them in all respects; yet commonly 
 they ally themselves with the worst papists, to 
 whom they be wedded, and do well agree together 
 in three opinions; in open contempt of God's word, 
 in a secret security of sin, and in a bloody desire 
 to have all taken away by sword and burning, that 
 be not of their faction. They that do read with 
 indifferent judgment Pighius and Machiavel, two 
 indifferent patriarchs of these two religions, do 
 know full well that I say true."! 
 
 This pretence to religion for reasons of policy, whether 
 by a stateman or individual, was always thought to be a mark of 
 discipleship to the Florentine; and this "politic" simulation of 
 religion became a burning question, constantly discussed. Bishop 
 Cooper wrote in 1589 of "certaine worldly and godlesse Epicures, 
 which can pretend religion, and yet passe not which end there of 
 goe forwarde, so they may bee partakers of that spoyle, which in 
 this alteration is hoped for."^ Hooker also feels obliged to refute 
 
 ^Ascham, The Schoolmaster. Works . ed, Giles, IV, 162-3. 
 ‘^Cooper, Thomas, An Admonition , etc., ed. cit. p. 27. 
 

 
 
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95 
 
 those atheists who see that there is a ’•politic use of religion” 
 and by it ’’would also gather that religion itself is a mere 
 politic device, forged purposely to serve for that use”; as the 
 exponent of this theory he refers in a note to Machiavelli. 1 And 
 it was one of the characteristics of the Machiavellian dramatic 
 hero that he should pretend to religion in order to make himself 
 more secure in the practice of his villainy.^ 
 
 English feeling against these untrustworthy elements in 
 the country became more rather than less acute towards the end of 
 Elizabeth’s reign. Jesuit activities, the hostility of Philip II 
 of Spain, plots to attack England by way of Catholic Ireland, all 
 kept the English nervous and ready to strike in self-defense. Some 
 of the important developments of this situation, such as the 
 Gunpowder plot, would carry us beyond the limits of this chapter. 
 
 But the state of the English mind at the close of the reign of 
 Elizabeth, its paradoxical identification of Catholic and atheist, 
 and passionate hatred of both, is excellently indicated in The 
 Unmasking of the Politike Atheist , a little volume by one John Hull, 
 twice printed in 1603. In the preface to the reader he says: 
 
 ”The consideration therefore of these lamentable 
 times hath wroong from me this briefe Treatise. 
 
 Wherein thou maist behold the very map of Papistrie: 
 a doctrine turning the truth of God into a lye, and 
 religion into superstition: persuading men to all 
 ungodlinesse, and yet ouershadowing all with the shew 
 of religion: arming the subiect against the Prince, 
 
 ^Hooker E^cclesiastical Polity . Bk. V, ii, 3. Ed.cit.,II, 19-31. 
 
 In Marlows, ed. Tucker Brooke, see Jew of Malta. 11. 519-ff. and 
 1550-ff. ; Edward the Second , 3387 -f f. ; The Massacre at Paris. 130-ff . 
 ...Also Shakespeare's Richard III. Act I, sc.iii, 334-ff. These passages 
 are selected as typical of the many cited throughout the pages of 
 Meyer's monograph. 
 
 
1 
 
96 
 
 and yet defens it by the beastly bull of Popish 
 excotnauinication. Sowing sedition and treasons 
 in the land, yet dare appeare unto the Lords of 
 the Councell as men blame lease and religious,^ 
 as did that Machiuillian Turkish practiser (as 
 the Priests of his oi-me profession doe terme him) 
 
 Parsons that iugling Jesuits: whereas they meane 
 nothing else, but the utter subuersion of religion 
 and the State, as plainly appeareth by the workes 
 of Sir Francis Hastings and Sutliue . Thus are 
 they well practised in Machieuel, turning religion 
 into policie . . . Way then the end of this short 
 treatise, and let us be more thankefull unto God 
 for the riches of his reuealed truth. First it 
 unmaskes the Politicians, that sute religion after 
 the fashion of their policie. Secondly, it forewarnes 
 and so forearmes thee against these popish charmes 
 that now flie about the land, least unwittingly 
 thou be inchanted with them. Thirdly, it gives 
 thee a taste what benefits thou shalt receive by 
 entertaining Papistrie, namely heresie, policie, 
 superstition, Atheisme, and all ungodlinesse . 
 
 Fourthly, it desciphers unto thee the enuious, 
 murthering, and cruel nature of a right Papist, 
 that hangs his whole religion upon the Popes 
 sleeve. . . Lastly, it arraes thee with truth by 
 unfoulding of the contrary, which truth God 
 graunt us to embrace to his glorie, our health, 
 and the countries good ...” 
 
 In the last decade of the sixteenth century, then, 
 Machiavelli was not reputed in England as the exponent of a 
 scientific realpolitik : even the actual readers of his works had 
 
 their impressions colored by the current representation of him, 
 and could hardly have conceived of him as merely a scientist, who 
 was universally dreaded as the servant of the Spirits of Darkness. 
 ’’Machiavellism” in the English Renaissance stood first of all for 
 the corrupting influence of Italian paganism; then for the "atheism" 
 of the free thinkers of the period — mistakenly connected in this 
 ■way with Anabaptism and other similar sects of the Reformation; and 
 
 In margin: "See the Spanish Proclamation in Ireland." 
 
 i 
 

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97 
 
 finally, for the political treachery of the English papists. That 
 the Machiavellian type should for a moment become a hero in the 
 English drama, sho';7s how completely the theatre was sheltered at 
 that time from the attacks of the Puritan bourgeoisie. For nowhere 
 else in English life were the lines so clearly drawn in the some- 
 what confused conflict between the Renaissance and the Reformation.^ 
 
 VI 
 
 The "Atheism” of Marlowe and Raleigh 
 
 It must have been noticeable that all the evidence for a 
 sceptical development in the sixteenth century so far presented, 
 with the exception of the testimony at the trials of some luckless 
 Arians, and a few passages from Marlowe, has been gleaned from the 
 writings of the enemies of free thought. Our description of the 
 movement has been from the exterior. In many ways, therefore, it 
 has necessarily been vague. We have not been able to answer some 
 
 Therefore it seems to me to be a mistake to try to find in 
 Spenser a disciple of Machiavelli, as Professor Greenlaw does; see 
 his article on The Influence of Machiavelli on Spenser. Modern 
 Philology . VII (190971 187 -ff. , and especially page 194, where he 
 says that in the Veue Spenser was "trusting to the well-kno^m 
 popularity of Machiavelli ' s writings at court, as an element in his 
 favor, and incidentally seizing the opportunity of once more defend- 
 ing Lord Gray, this time on the unimpeachable authority of the 
 Italian thinker." This I believe is quite to misunderstand the 
 party alignments in the thought of the English Renaissance. 
 
 Professor H.S.V. Jones, in Spenser * s Defense of Lord Grey (1919), has 
 shown that Spenser's political thought is to be connected with the 
 Huguenot politioues . not with Machiavelli, and comes to the con- 
 clusion (p. 74) that in their political principles he "can find no 
 sharper antithesis than that between Spenser and Machiavelli." 
 

 
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98 
 
 questions as to the nature of the scepticism current in the latter 
 period of the century, such as, whether it was a serious and 
 scientific doubt, the result of careful study, or merely the 
 insouciance of the pleasure -lover; if the former, whether it was 
 concerned with theology, philosophy, or historical Christianity; 
 and to what extent this scepticism was destructive of the funda- 
 mental principles of religion and ethics. Further light will be 
 throTO on these problems in the two succeeding chapters, in con- 
 nection with the writings of John Donne and Sir John Davies. But 
 we possess also some quite definite information regarding the 
 speculations of two widely reputed "atheists” of the time, Marlowe 
 and Raleigh. It is noteworthy that they were connected with the 
 two chief avenues of the Italian influence, the theatre and the 
 Court. We may perhaps regard their opinions as typical of the 
 inner intellectual life of the "emancipated” Elizabethan. 
 
 Contemporary gossip about Marlowe is preserved in two 
 books printed within a few years of his death. In Thomas Beard's 
 of God's Judgements (1597) we have this account of his 
 opinions on religion: "hee denied God and his sonne Christ, and 
 
 not onely in word blasphemed the Trinit ie, but also (as it is 
 credibly reported) wrote bookes against it, affirming our Sauiour 
 to be but a deceiuer, and Moses to be but a coniurer and seducer 
 of the people, and the holy Bible to bee but vaine and idle stories 
 and all religion but a deuice of policie.”^ Sir William Vaughan, 
 in T]^ Golden Grove (1600), speaks of "one Christopher Marlowe, by 
 profession a play-maker, who, as it is reported, about 14 yeres 
 
 ^Quoted by Dyce, Works of Marlowe, London (1865). xxxi . 
 

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99 
 
 agoe ’/irrote a booke against the Trinitie.”! Thomas Warton's 
 attempt to minimize this accusation against Marlowe stimulated 
 modern investigation and discussion of the subject. 
 
 Marlowe's wit and sprightliness of conversation ” 
 he wrote in his History , "had often the unhappy 
 effect of tempting him to sport with sacred 
 subjects j more perhaps from the preposterous am- 
 bition of courting the casual applause of profli- 
 gate and unprincipled companions, than from any 
 systematic disbelief of religion. His scepticism 
 whatever it might be, was construed by the prejudiced 
 and peevish Puritans into absolute atheism. 
 
 In his ^^rvations on this History . Joseph Ritson took exception 
 to Warton's apologetic tone, and published from manuscript what he 
 thought was "the strongest (if not the whole)proof that now remains 
 of his (Marlowe's) diabolical tenets, and debauched morals," in 
 the testimony against him by one Richard Baines.^ The assertions 
 imputed to Marlowe by Baines are not marked by serious thought or 
 philosophical value; where they are not obscene, they are merely 
 scoffing. The following are among the more moderate in tone: 
 
 He affirmeth that Moyses was but a lugler, and 
 that one Heriots being Sir W. Raleighs man, can do 
 more than he.^ 
 
 "That the first beginning of Religion was only to 
 keep men in awe. 
 
 "That all protestantes are Hypocriticall asses. 
 
 "That if he were putt to write a new religion, he 
 would undertake both a more exellent and Admirable 
 methode. . . " 
 
 The tone of the more virulent remarks may be inferred 
 from the following, quoted from Ritson: 
 
 cit. xxxii. 
 
 gWarton, glstpry p^f English Poetr y, ed. Hazlitt, London(l87l) . IV,313 
 Observations, etc. London(l782) .pp. 39-ff. This testimony 
 was reprinted in expurgated form in Dyce ' s edition of Marlo 7 /e, 
 Appendix II; and, again in expurgated form, from the manuscript, by 
 i-.b.Boas, in his edition of Kyd, 0xford(l90l) , pp.cxiii-ff. My first 
 quotations are from Boas. 
 
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100 
 
 Christ had instituted the Sacraments 
 with more ceremonyall reverence, it would have been 
 had in more admiracicn, that it wolde have been much 
 better beinge administred in a Tobacco pype. 
 
 ”That Christ was a Bastard and his mother dishonest.” 
 
 Baine * 8 accusations against Marlowe, however, are doubtful 
 evidence. Malone long ago pointed out the following reasons for 
 questioning their veracity: Baines was himself hanged at Tyburn 
 
 on the 6th of December, 1594, about a year after he submitted 
 this testimony; the testim.ony was not upon oath; it contains 
 some incredible assertions; Baines was not confronted with the 
 accused, nor was he cross-examined; and finally, there was no 
 corroborative testimony presented.^ 
 
 Even more conclusive is the entirely different tone and 
 tenor of such other fragments of direct evidence as have come 
 down to us from Marlowe and the circle about Raleigh. In May^ 1593 
 a search was m.ade by the authorities of the rooms of the dramatist 
 Thomas Kyd, and among his papers was found a fragment of a 
 theological disputation which put him in danger of prosecution for 
 ”atheism.” A thorough investigation was planned, and Kyd was put 
 to the torture. He declared the papers were Marlowe’s, and had 
 been shuffled with his two years before, when the two dramatists 
 had been writing in the same room. Kyd denied any familiarity with 
 one so irreligious”; declared that he himself was not an atheist, 
 "which some will sweare he (Marlowe) was"; and said that "for more 
 assurance that I was not of that vile opinion, Lett it but please 
 your Lordship to enquire of such as he conversed withall, that is 
 
 ^Malone's manuscript notes. 
 Git., p. 389. 
 
 quoted by Dyce, V?orks of Mar 1 07 /e . 
 
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101 
 
 (as I am geven to understand) with Harriot. Warner. Hoyden and 
 some stationers in Paules churchyard.”^ The caution of Kyd's 
 language is to be contrasted with the downrightness of that of 
 Baines. And when we examine the disputation itself, which caused 
 all the investigation, we are struck not only with its moderation, 
 but its reverence in dealing with sacred matters, and its search 
 for the veritable truths of religion in Scripture, "to which 
 sacred fountain,” so the fragment concludes, 
 
 ”iust and right faith ought to cleaue & lean 
 in all controuersies touching religion chefly 
 in this point which seemeth to be the piller & 
 stay of our religion. Wher it is called in 
 question concerning the inuocation of sainctes 
 or expiation of sowles A man may err without 
 great danger in this point being the ground & 
 foundation of our faith we may not err without 
 dammage to owr religion. I call that true 
 religion which instructs th mans minde with 
 right faith & worthy opinion of God And I 
 call that right faith which doth creddit & 
 beleue that of God which the scriptures do 
 testify not in a few places & the same depraued 
 & detort to wrong sense But ...” 
 
 The "pillar and stay” of religion referred to was the conception of 
 the nature of God; and the opinion of the disputant was that 
 . .we therfor call God which onlie is worthie this name &c 
 appellation, Euer lasting, Inuisible, Incommutable Incomprehensible 
 Immortall &c.” Christ, he therefore held, could not be called God. 
 
 modern sense; but it was dangerous doctrine, and its author might 
 have been burned if he had been found. Marlowe was indeed sent for 
 and examined, but his violent death took place only a few days 
 
 This disputation is clearly not atheistical in the 
 
 later and no proceedings of the examination have been found to 
 
 1 
 
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indicate what his connection with this fragment really was.^' 
 
 It is probably not hisj internal evidence seems rather to indicate 
 that it is "from the pen of some heretical clergyman who was on 
 the eve of suffering some drastic penalty for his opinions."^ But 
 Marlowe must have been interested in the ideas expressed, and we 
 may assume that its serious tone made some appeal to the great 
 writer of tragedy. But whatever significance we attach to this 
 fragment, it tends to moderate the testimony of Baines. 
 
 We have other corroborative evidence against Baines in 
 the connection of Marlowe with the circle of Raleigh, referred to 
 in 1593 by the Jesuit Parsons as Raleigh's "school of atheism."® 
 
 A number of associates were mentioned at various times as members 
 -of this circle, but the most prominent or constant was the 
 mathematician Harriot. Anthony a Wood has sketched the beliefs of 
 Harriot, who, he says, 
 
 "had strange thought of the scripture, and always 
 undervalued the old story of the creation of the 
 world, and could never believe that trite 
 position, Ejc nihilo nihil fit . He made a 
 Philosophical Theology , wherein he cast off the OLD 
 TESTA!\ffiNT, so that consequently the NEW would have 
 no foundation. He was a Deist, and his doctrine he 
 did impart . . . to sir Walt. Raleigh when he was 
 compiling the History of the World, and would contro- 
 vert the matter with eminent divines of those times. 
 
 Marlowe's acquaintance with Harriot is clear from the testimony of 
 
 Baines quoted above, from Kyd's letter, as well as the oldest 
 
 tradition; and that Marlowe was admitted to the circle about 
 
 ^Boas, New Light on Marlowe and Kvd . Fortnightly Review . 
 February 1899. 
 
 r^Boas, Works of Kvd . p. Ixx. 
 
 Nicholas Storojenko ' s Life of Greene, in Greene's Works, ed. 
 Gjosart. I, 35-ff. 
 
 Anthony a Wood, Athenae Qxonienses. ed. Bliss, London (1815). 
 il, 300. Query, Was Harriot the author of the disputation? 
 
 
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103 
 
 Raleigh seems established by a letter of a government spy, in 
 
 which occurs the statement that Marlowe told a certain Cholmeley, 
 
 a revolutionist as well as "atheist," that "he hath read the 
 
 Atheist lecture to Sir Walter Raleigh and others."^ 
 
 Raleigh's thought on religious matters will therefore 
 
 help us to form a more accurate notion of the ideas and tone of 
 
 this "school of atheism," and incidentally also of Marlowe. 
 
 There is preserved in manuscript a record by Ralph Ironside, of a 
 
 theological discussion between himself and Carew and Walter Raleigh 
 
 in the summer of 1593.^ "From Ironside's account," says Boas,^ 
 
 "it is plain that Raleigh's reputation for atheism was gained by 
 
 his keen and critical analysis of primary religious conceptions 
 
 like 'God' and 'the soul.' These were doubtless the methods of 
 
 controversy employed in his 'school,' and daring speculation 
 
 on such lines may far more plausibly be attributed to Harriott 
 
 and Marlowe than the crude profanities alleged by Baines." Raleigh 
 
 the philosopher was certainly as adventurous as the courtier or 
 
 sea-farer. He was abreast of the new thought of his day. In his 
 
 History of the World he quotes from Charron, whose book De_ ^ 
 o . 4 
 
 Sagesse was first published in 1601. His posthumous essay 
 Sceptick is a fragmentary account of some of the tropes of the 
 
 1 _ 
 
 This letter, discovered by Boas, was published in part in the 
 Fortnightly Review. February, 1899, p. 233. The "Atheist lecture" 
 was probably the treatise against the Trinity, mentioned by 
 Vaughan in the passage quoted above. 
 
 ^Discussed by J. M. Stone in Month for June, 1894, and by 
 F. S. Boas in Literature . Nos. 147 and 148. 
 
 ^Boas, Works of Kyd . p. Ixxiii. 
 
 "^Jusserand, Literary History of the English People, N. Y. (1909) . 
 522, n. 2 . 
 
Greek sceptics, based directly on Sextus Empiricus.^ But his 
 study of these sceptical writers had no traceable influence on 
 his ethical ideals. There is nowhere in his work any such protest 
 against convention as Donne expressed in his early poetry; quite 
 the contrary, his orthodox feeling in matters of^morality and the 
 conduct of life is eloquent and, we must believe, sincere.^ And 
 whatever may have been his questionings in the days of Marlowe, he 
 showed himself at the end of his life capable of genuine religious 
 emotion and confessed himself a penitent Christian who faced death 
 courageously with the faith of a true believer as his support. On 
 account of his past reputation as an atheist, much abuse was 
 heaped on him during his trial both by Coke and Chief Justice 
 Popham; but against this must be balanced such first-hand informa- 
 tion as Sir John Harrington conveyed in a letter written in 1603 to 
 Dr. Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells; 
 
 Remains of Sir Walter Raleigh. London (1702) . pp. 93-105. 
 
 Jusserand, in his Literary History (III, 533, n.3;, speaks of this 
 paper as an original treatise. Upham ( French Influence in English 
 Literature . pp. 289-292) derives it from Montaigne. I here disagree 
 with these authorities; for the paper follows the argument of 
 Sextus too closely to be derived from Montaigne, and is too full 
 to be taken from Diogenes Laertius. Raleigh may have used the 
 edition of 1562 published by Henri Estienne; but there are traces 
 of an English translation, nov? lost, which may have been known to 
 him. In 1591 Nashe wrote: ”So that our opinion (as Sextus 
 E^mpiricus affirmeth) giues the name of good or ill to euery thing. 
 Out of whose works (late lie translated into English, for the bene- 
 fit of unlearned writers) a man might collect a whole booke of this 
 argument. . Works . ed. MoKerrow, III, 332. Cf. the reference to 
 the ’’Pironioks, ” II, 116, and McKerrow's discussion of other borrow- 
 ings from Sextus, IV, 428-ff. 
 
 “^The ethical spirit of the History of the World is discussed by 
 Edwards in his Life of Raleigh, I, 538-41. See also Raleigh's I 
 
 thorough disapproval of Machiavelli in his Maxims of State in I 
 
 Remains . ed. oit. 
 
 3 I 
 
 Edwards, Life of Haleigh, I, 432 and 436; and Jusserand, op. oit., 
 
 Ill, 518, n.2. ! 
 

 1 
 
105 
 
 ”I doubt not but sonio stato business is w^ell 
 nigh begun, or to be made out; but these matters 
 pertain not to me now, I much fear for my good lord 
 Grey and Raleigh, I hear the plot was well nigh 
 accomplished to disturb our peace and favor 
 Arabella Stuart, the prince's cousin. The Spaniards 
 bear no good will to Raleigh, and I doubt if some of 
 the English have much better affection toward him: 
 
 God deliver me from these designs] I have spoken 
 with Carew concerning the matter; he thinketh ill 
 of certain persons whom I know, and wisheth he 
 could gain knowledge and further inspection hereof 
 touching those who betrayed this business. Cecil 
 doth bear no love to Raleigh, as you well understand 
 in the matter of Essex. I wist not that he hath evii 
 design in matter of faith or religion. As he hath 
 often discoursed to me with much learning, wisdom 
 and freedom, I know he doth somewhat differ in 
 opinion from some others; but I think also his 
 heart is well fixed in every honest thing, as 
 far as I can look into him. He seemeth wondrously 
 fitted, both by art and nature to serve the state; 
 especially as he is versed in foreign matters, his 
 skill therein being always estimable and praise- 
 worthy. In religion he hath shown (in private talk) 
 great depth and good reading, as I once experienced 
 at his own house, before many learned men. In good 
 troth, I pity his state, and doubt the dice not 
 fairly thrown, if his life be the losino* stake . 
 
 ,,1 
 
 But though all this evidence has indicated a sobriety in 
 the thought of Marlowe and Raleigh which their enemies did not 
 credit them with, yet we can not reject the blasphemous remarks 
 recorded by Baines as entirely without foundation. There were 
 many irreligious witticisms in circulation at the time, and Marlowe 
 may have spoken them freely among his intimates during their carous- 
 als. The Bohemian! sm of the time was a serious enough danger to 
 attract attention. Hooker speaks of it as something new. 
 
 "Now because that judicious learning," he says, 
 in his discussion of atheism, "for which we commend 
 
 ^Nuga^ Anti quae . I, 340. Quoted in Aikin's Memoirs of the Court 
 ii James the First , London (1822). I, 240. 
 

 
 
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106 
 
 most worthily the ancient sages of the world, doth 
 not in this case serve the turn, these trencher- 
 mates (for such the most of them be) frame to 
 themselves a way more pleasant; a new method they 
 have of turning things that are serious into 
 mockery, an art of contradiction by way of scorn, 
 a learning wherewith we were long sithence fore- 
 warned that the miserable times where into we are 
 fallen should abound. This they study, this they 
 practise, this they grace with a wanton super- 
 fluity of wit, too much insulting over the patience 
 of more virtuously disposed minds. 
 
 And Bacon places among his four reasons for the spread of atheism, 
 the "custom of profane scoffing in holy matters, which doth, by 
 little and little, deface the reverence of religion.”^ The 
 Lucianic and Rabelaisian strain in the liberal culture of the 
 Renaissance was as conspicuous among the esprits forts of London 
 as of Paris, and Marlowe was probably not untouched by it. 
 
 But it is dangerous to rely too much on such irreverent 
 and blasphemous wit for our conceptions of the state of sceptical 
 thought in the sixteenth century; we must not look for the 
 intellectual milieu of the eighteenth century in the earlier age. 
 
 The reputed atheists turn out, on closer examination, to be anything 
 but atheists. Marlowe, we find, was interested in a discourse on 
 the nature of God, as revealed by Scripture; Raleigh's keen and 
 inquisitive mind faced all the intellectual problems of his day, 
 but was probably never even thoroughly Arian. Bacon said that 
 atheists are rare. In the sixteenth century, certainly, it was not 
 easy to doubt consistently and completely the doctrines of 
 
 Hooker, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Book 
 
 II, 18 . 
 
 3 
 
 Bacon, Essays , no. xvi. ed. West, p. 48. 
 
 V, 
 
 II, 2. ed. cit. 
 
 

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 Christianity; the hazard was far greater than today. The j 
 
 unbeliever of that tiine did not occupy such an impregnable citadel 
 as has been constructed for the modern sceptic by science and the 
 higher criticism. He was a wanderer in strange, uncharted lands, 
 an outlaw, the champion of a precarious cause. Many a man who set 
 out with a stout heart, had misgivings and turned back before he 
 had gone very far. Antecedent probability was against him. 
 
 Pascal's gamble, which to us seems merely insincere bargaining, 
 was to him a terrifying dilemma.^ 
 
 Moreover, the popular mind was still enveloped in 
 medieval superstition. Whatever his reason may have told him in 
 the security of good fellowship, the man of the sixteenth century 
 was instinctively and unavoidably afraid of the dark when alone. 
 
 He was ridden with the hagiclogy and thaumaturgy, the crudest 
 anthropomorphic conception of evil spirits, such as flourishes 
 among the ignorant, but which he believed on the learned authority 
 of the medieval Christian church.^ Even when his reason was free, 
 his instinctive, emotional and imaginative life was still in 
 
 I 
 
 bondage. This half-emancipation from medievalism explains many of I 
 
 ! 
 
 the sudden conversions of Arians after being arrested and threatened 
 with death. It is the paradox of Hamlet — the inconsistency 
 between the great soliloquy and the previous appearance of the 
 
 _ This explains partly the ludicrous ease with which Euphues, for 
 instance, is able to convert Atheos in Lyly's story ( Works, ed. I 
 291-ff.). Atheos is not convinced; he is terrified. j 
 
 Lecky, W. E. H. Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe . j 
 brd ed. , London (1866) . I, chap. i. On Magic and Witchcraft . 
 
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 ghost; also of Faustus, who argues with the devil against the ! 
 
 reality of hell. In no great creative work of northern Europe is I 
 the persistence of the Middle Ages in the imaginative life of the 
 Renaissance more powerfully depicted than in Marlowe's Faustus . | 
 The Faust legend has become, since Goethe, S 3 nrbolical of the j 
 
 meeting of Medievalism and the Renaissance; it has acquireda more I 
 philosophical significance than it could have had for Marlowe. 
 
 But Marlowe, like the Lutheran who wrote the earlier German prose 
 tale, regarded the conjuring of Faustus as a denial of the truths 
 of religion for the sake of indulgence in the aesthetic and 
 physical life of the senses; Faust was the popular, ignorant, 
 medieval conception of the educated, pagan type of the Renaissance. 
 Marlowe makes Faustus a sceptic and a pagan even before his con- 
 tract with the devil. 
 
 Fau . Did not my coniuring speeches raise thee? speake. 
 
 Me . That was the cause, but yet per accident. 
 
 For when we he are one racke the name of God, 
 
 Abiure the scriptures, and his Sauiour Christ, 
 
 Y^ee flye, in hope to get his glorious soule. 
 
 Nor will we come, vnlesse he vse such means s 
 Whereby he is in danger to be damnd: 
 
 Therefore the shortest cut for coniuring 
 Is stoutly to abiure the Trinitie, 
 
 And pray deuoutly to the prince of hell. 
 
 Fau . So Faustus hath 
 Already done, & holds this principle. 
 
 There is no chiefs but onely Belsibub. 
 
 To whom Faustus doth dedicate himselfe. 
 
 This word damnation terrifies not him. 
 
 For he confounds hell in Elizium . 
 
 His ghost be with the old Philosophers.^ 
 
 But if Faustus began as a sceptic, he died a firm believer, con- 
 verted by his terrified imagination. The moral of the play, as the 
 
 ^Wor^ of Marlowe , ed. Brooke, Tucker, Oxford (191C) . pp. 154-5. | 
 
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Chorus informs us, is not to wander beyond the prescribed bounds* I 
 and into the powerful conclusion, lit up here and there by flashes | 
 of insight which suggest even to the modern reader that the conflict 
 within Faustus involves something more than superstition — into 
 this conclusion Marlowe put the doubt, the terror, the sensitiveness 
 to the Medieval world as well as to the Renaissance, from which as 
 yet even the best minds were not free. 
 
 If we remember this hold of Medievalism on the intellect 
 and imagination of even the "emancipated" Englishman of the 
 Renaissance, we shall not make the error, in looking back over the 
 sceptical developments in the England of the sixteenth century, of 
 expecting to find the serene, hard, materialistic and sensual 
 unbelief of Italy. ^ Scepticism was too new, too foreign, and 
 encountered too much opposition in England to run its course so 
 quickly; its full development belongs to the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries. But we have found in the sixteenth century 
 a universal awakening of a moderate sceptical spirit. Early in the 
 century Arianism was wide-spread, a doubt as to the Trinity and the 
 divinity of Christ, combined with a devout belief in God; this 
 Arianism was repressed by the writ ^ haeretico comburendo. but it 
 could never be extinguished; and towards the end of the century it 
 was reinforced by the paganism of Italy, a new culture which tended 
 to liberate the imagination from Medievalism, and therefore often j 
 took the form of scoffing, even of blasphemy; finally, we have 
 
 Cf. Symonds, Shakespeare's Predecessors. London (190S). pp. 507-ff! 
 Lee, Vernon, Euphorion . London (1899). The Italv of the ! 
 
 Elizabethan Dramatists , pp. 55-108. 
 

 
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noted traces of a new philosophical activity, a study of Greek 
 scepticism in Sextus Empiricus. The study of these intellectual 
 forces and sceptical tendencies helps us to form a more definite 
 conception of the "atheism” of Marlowe and Raleigh. Although we 
 can probably never know precisely how far their scepticism dared to 
 go, the presumption must be, especially as regards Raleigh, that it 
 never became a complete atheism; Marlowe may have spoken without 
 restraint whatever irreverent thoughts occurred to him over his 
 cups, and in the hectic state of the time such remarks were likely 
 to assume an exaggerated importance; and as for the serious -minded 
 Raleigh, it is unlikely that his reputed "atheism" was more than 
 that Arianism which had so constantly kept reappearing and troubling 
 the ecclesiastics of the sixteenth century. Raleigh was one of the 
 most notable representatives of the enlightenment and emancipatory 
 spirit of his age; but this whole process of emancipation, as we 
 have seen, was related to the Reformation as well as to the 
 Renaissance; and liberal thought in England, from Golet to Raleigh 
 was in general marked by seriousness and an awareness of the ethical 
 and religious needs of human nature. In short, the sceptical || 
 
 tendencies in England in the sixteenth century partook of the 1 
 
 individualism of the Renaissance and Reformation, of the dissenting 
 spirit of the native of Britain, of his ethical temper, and of the 
 paganism of Italian culture. The sixteenth century was a period of 
 many and complex beginnings; and in these various manifestations 
 of the sceptical temper, we have the beginnings in English 
 literature and life, of the modern intellect and imagination. 
 
*T. 
 
 
 Bi'-*.- V \ ^ v:i:^v»pra 
 
 'v^ 
 
 
CHAPTER THREE 
 
 SCEPTICISM AND NATURALISM IN DONNE'S EARLY VERSE 
 
 I. The Sceptical Thought of Donne.- II. The Stoic Formula- 
 tion of the Law of Nature.- III. A Renaissance Discussion 
 of the Law of Nature.- IV. The "Libertine" Anpeal to Nature. 
 
 V. Scepticism and Naturalism in Montaigne.- VI . Continuations 
 in the Seventeenth Century. 
 
 Few subjects of biography are more fascinating than John 
 Donne. A man of the Renaissance, aristocratic, fastidious, distin- 
 guished not only for his great talents but for a unique and rare 
 poetic nature, and ambitious for a secular career, Donne closed the 
 doors to promotion by his secret marriage; and after years of 
 privation and anxiety, he took orders and became in his last years 
 one of England's greatest and most saintly divines. The apparent 
 inconsistency in the career of the man who wrote the Elegies as 
 well as the Hymn to God the Father, only entices one the more to 
 penetrate, if possible, into the innermost secret of his develop- 
 
 I! 
 
 ment. However elusive it may be, one feels that there must be |i 
 
 some principle of continuity in the intellectual and spiritual j 
 
 history of Donne, some deeper impulse or characteristic which | 
 
 manifested itself in diverse ways. The ten years before his 
 marriage, of London life. Continental travel and sea adventure, 
 years filled with "the queasy pain of being beloved and loving,"^ 
 as well as with "the worst voluptuousness, which is an hydrontic, 
 
 i 
 
 ^Donne, John, Tl^ Calm. 11. 40-41. 
 
112j 
 
 i; 
 
 n ! 
 
 immoderate desire of human learning and languages”, must have some 
 
 significance even in a study of the preacher and religious poet. To I 
 
 the solution of this difficult and delicate problem, ignored by | 
 
 his first biographer, Walton, modern scholarship has made imoortant 1 
 
 contributions. 
 
 The most striking quality of Donne’s earlier poems is 
 their scepticism. Courthope has noted in this connection the 
 "Pyrrhonism” of the Renaissance in general, and attempted to explain 
 by reference to it the peculiar style of the metaphysical poets. ^ 
 
 He devoted several pages also to showing that Donne was in his 
 youth a "sceptic in religion" and a "revolutionist in love."^ But 
 Courthope saw no connection between the scepticism of Donne’s youth 
 and his later career; he seems to regard Donne’s marriage as bring- 
 ing about a complete change of heart and a break with his mental 
 past. Grierson, however, thinks that "the truth is rather that, 
 owing to the fullness of Donne’s experience as a lover, the accident 
 that made of the earlier libertine a devoted lover and husband, and 
 from the play of hie restless and subtle mind on the phenomenon of 
 love conceived and realized in this less ideal fashion, there I 
 
 emerged in his poetry the suggestion of a new philosophy of love i 
 
 Jfhich, if less transcendental than that of Dante, rests on a juster, 
 because a less dualistic and ascetic, conception of the nature of I 
 the love of man and woman. Of Donne’s early scepticism, likewise, 
 
 T ' s letter to Sir H. Goodyer, in Gosse’s Life and Letters of I 
 
 J ohn Donne. London (1899). I, 191. j 
 
 gCourthope, Hist , of Eng . Poetry . Ill, 147-8. 
 
 ^Op. cit. Ill, 150-156. 
 
 Donne ’ s Poetical Works, ed. Grierson. II, xxxv. 
 

 
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Grierson finds a continued influence in his mature poetic effort, 
 represented hy the Anniversaries, and even in his manner of accept- 
 ing Anglicanism after he had taken orders.^ 
 
 Grierson's general conception of the life of Donne seems 
 to me to be the juster, and my own studies are in the main a 
 corroboration of it. In another chapter I shall discuss, more 
 fully than Grierson has done, the significance of the sceptical 
 strain in Donne's religious development. The present chapter will 
 be confined to a study of the youthful Donne as a "revolutionist 
 in love," to a more thorough analysis than has yet been presented 
 of his audacious and singularly modern philosophy of that subject, 
 and a discussion of some similar developments of thought in the 
 Renaissance with which Donne may have been acquainted. 
 
 I 
 
 The Sceptical Thought of Donne 
 
 A whole class of Donne's Songs and Sonnets is devoted to 
 witty exposition of the belief that inconstancy is the only constant 
 element in love. Paradox and hyperbole seem inexhaustible to this 
 adroit, gay and heart-whole cynic, and nowhere in Donne's work do 
 they seem more appropriate to the tone and subject of the verse. 
 
 As we open the volume we come almost at the beginning upon the 
 celebration of this idea in a Song. Search the world for its 
 wonders, runs the burden of this "song," and when you return you 
 
 ^Op. cit. II, 187-8 and 335-6. ! 
 
i 
 
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115 
 
 stancy in her lover are overheard by Venus, who indignantly 
 investigates and chastises these "poor heretics" 
 
 "Which thinke to stablish dangerous constancie . 
 
 That this inconstant love is mere ranging physical appetite, he 
 frankly recognizes in Loves Usury . ^ But Donne does not for that 
 reason condemn it; quite the contrary, his appeal is ever to Nature 
 for the justification of a frankly sensual conception of love. He 
 draws a frequent parallel between love and the other appetites, or 
 between the habits of mankind and beasts — or nature. Thus in 
 Confined Love he asks, 
 
 "Are Sunne, Moone, or Starres by law forbidden. 
 
 To smile where they list, or lend away their light? 
 
 Are birds divorc'd, or are they chidden 
 If they leave their mate, or lie abroad a night? 
 
 Beasts do no joyntures lose 
 Though they new lovers choose. 
 
 But we are made worse then those. 
 
 In the third Elegy, called Change . he develops the same idea with 
 less hyperbole and gayety. Donne is not here putting his clever- 
 ness to a test, but rather seriously examining the philosophy of 
 Change and pronouncing it true. 
 
 "Waters stincke soone, if in one place they bide, 
 
 And in the vast sea are more putrifi'd: 
 
 But when they kisse one banke, and leaving this 
 Never looke backe, but the next banke doe kisse, 
 
 Then are they purest; Change is the nursery 
 Of musicke, joy, life, and eternity."^ 
 
 To Donne, says Courthope, "love, in its infinite variety and incon- j 
 sistenoy, represented the principle of perpetual flux in Nature."^ 
 
 JDonne, ed. cit. I, 13. 
 gidem, I, 13. 
 
 ^Idem. I, 36. Cf. Communitie. p. 32; and Farewell to love.nt). 70-1. 
 gidem. I, 83. 
 
 Courthope, Hist . of Eng . Poetry . Ill, 154. 
 
But Courthope's statement of the theories of this 
 revolutionist is incomplete. For this conception of inconstancy- 
 in love as natural and normal is not alone an adequate statement 
 of Donne's thought, nor is it sufficient to indicate Donne's 
 relation to the currents of thought in the Renaissance. Donne's 
 Naturalism can not be understood apart from his Scepticism, which 
 makes it possible. His appeal to Nature as a guide and norm is a 
 substitute, as he himself makes very clear, for the authority of 
 society and its accepted code of morality, which he calls "Custom" 
 and "Opinion." He suggests humorously what we should call a 
 Nietzschean explanation of the social code: 
 
 "Some man unworthy to be possessor 
 Of old or new love, himselfe being false or weake. 
 
 Thought his paine and shame would be lesser. 
 
 If on womankind he might his anger wreake, 
 
 And thence a law did grow, 
 
 One might but one man know; 
 
 But are other creatures so?"^ 
 
 He repeats and amplifies this sceptical theory in Elegie XVII . 
 Variety : 
 
 ”How happy were our Syres in ancient times. 
 
 Who held plurality of loves no crime’ 
 
 With them it was accounted charity 
 To stirre up race of all indifferently; 
 
 Kindreds were not exempted from the bands: 
 
 Which with the Persian still in usage stands. 
 
 Women were then no sooner asked then won, 
 
 And what they did was honest and well done. 
 
 But since this title honour hath been us'd. 
 
 Our weake credulity hath been abus'd; 
 
 The golden laws of nature are repeal'd, 
 
 Wiich our first Fathers in such reverence held; 
 
 Our liberty's revers'd, our Charter’s gone. 
 
 And we're made servants to opinion, 
 
 A monster in no certain shape attir'd. 
 
 And whose originall is much desir'd, 
 
 Formlesse at first, but goeing on it fashions. 
 
 ^Donne, ed. cit. I, 36. 
 
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And doth prescribe manners and laws to nations. 
 
 Here love receiv'd immedicable harmes. 
 
 And was dispoiled of his daring armes . . 
 
 Only some few strong in themselves and free 
 Retain the seeds of antient liberty, 
 
 Following that part of Love although deprest, 
 
 And make a throne for him within their brest. 
 
 In spight of modern censures him avowing 
 Their Soveraigne, all service him allowing."^ 
 
 The whole thought of this passage is based on the contrast and 
 opposition between the "golden laws of Nature" and "opinion," which 
 "prescribes manners and laws to nations." Donne has somewhere come 
 in contact with a sceptical and relativist philosophy and been 
 profoundly impressed by it. He recurs to it at the conclusion 
 of his satire The Progresse of the Soule: 
 
 "There's nothing simply good, nor ill alone. 
 
 Of every quality comparison, 
 
 The onely measure is, and judge, opinion."^ 
 
 In these light and cynical poems of the young student 
 and courtier, what is significant for our purposes is not so much 
 their tone as their constantly recurring ideas — we may even say, 
 doctrines. Whether Donne would ever at any time have been willing 
 to write a learned defense of them is somewhat beside our purpose j 
 for whether he held them seriously or not, they certainly 
 fascinated him, and they give us a clue as to some unsuspected 
 lines of study and thinking of the young man who, according to 
 Walton, was reading Bellarmine in his preparation for a decision 
 between Catholicism and Anglicanism. For these poems, grave and 
 gay, are learned; their sceptical reflections are the fruit of stucfy 
 
 ^Idem. I, 114-5. Compare The Progresse of the Soule, stanzas 
 XX and xxi. 
 
 "^Idem. I, 316. 
 

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A re-statement of the principles involved will show 
 more clearly the doctrinal nature of this revolutionary poetry. 
 
 At least three such principles may be distinctly formulated: 
 First, love is a purely physical relation, an appetite; second, 
 its justification is Natural Law — not the universal Law of 
 Nature, Jus naturals , which was then usually understood to be the 
 basis of the moral code, but the "natural" condition of liberty, 
 of change, the "natural" freedom from the restraints of society; 
 third, the restraints of society have no justification; the 
 social code, which pretends to absolute validity and rightness, 
 is merely the result of custom, and its sacredness is merely 
 "opinion. " 
 
 John Donne was learned in the law, and he knew well 
 that he was reversing the theory of the Law of Nature, Jus 
 naturale . the fundamental and central doctrine of political 
 thought and social ethics in Europe from the Stoics and Cicero 
 through the Renaissance. And when Donne expressed his sceptical 
 ideas in verse, his readers must have been aware of his audacity; 
 no doubt they derived some degree of pleasure from observing the 
 ingenuity of Donne, precisely because they knew his attack was 
 .-directed against a great tradition. It must be part of our excuse 
 for a long examination of this tradition, that after our study we 
 shall better appreciate the play of John Donne’s wit. 
 

 
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119 
 
 II 
 
 The Stoic Formulation of the Law of Nature 
 
 It is impossible, and fortunately unnecessary, to give 
 here a history of the concept of Natural Law in the philosophy of 
 politics, of morals, and of religion. The literature on the sub- 
 ject is extensive.^ What is here attempted is merely a sketch of 
 some of the main developments of it in ancient and medieval thought, 
 so as to explain the importance and general application of the 
 theory of the Law of Nature in the Renaissance. At the same time, 
 
 I shall briefly discuss certain sceptical theories which appeared 
 both in antiquity and the Middle Ages, philosophies of revolt and 
 individualism, which, of little consequence perhaps in their own 
 day, produced a more plentiful crop in the fertile seed-bed of 
 the Renaissance. 
 
 Natural Law as the basis of ethics was first taught by 
 the Stoics. They felt the inadequacy of the theory of the 
 Epicureans, that pleasure, refined and temperate perhaps, but 
 nevertheless pleasure, voluptas . is the final and supreme value in 
 life. It is inadequate even to justify the moral conduct of 
 Epicurus himself, who died happy in spite of all his bodily pain.^ 
 
 Voigt, Moritz, Die Lehre vom jus naturals . aequum et bonum und 
 £g.pt ium der Rome r . 4 vols., Leipzig(1856) ; Janet, Paul.Histoire 
 ^ la Science P_qlitique, 4th ed. , Paris (1913) ; Gierke, Otto. Political 
 ihe pries of tM Middle Age, trans. Maitland, Cambridge (1900) ; 
 
 Figgis, J.N., From Person to Grotius. Cambridge (1907 f; Dunning, W. A . , 
 history pf^ Political Theories. Ancient and Medieval . N.Y. (1903); 
 
 \ ’ andA.J., History of Medieval Political Theory. n!y. 
 U903-16) ; Troeltsch, Ernst, Das stoischchr istliche Naturrecht und 
 mpderne profane Naturreoht. Historische Zeitschrift. voT TOfi 
 (1911), 237-367. 
 
 _^Cioero. Da. Finlbna. RonV n. 30. 
 

 
 
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 The Stoics could see in this doctrine of "pleasure” only caldalatinf 
 
 utilitarianism, selfish hedonism, and a dangerous and degrading 
 
 blunting of the moral sense. They charged the Epicureans with 
 
 reducing virtue to craftiness, and morality to skill in supplying 
 
 oneself with bodily satisfactions. The Stoics, to their merit, 
 
 kept themselves ever aware of the universal and imperative nature 
 
 of the ethical sense, and, scorning the moral anarchy which they 
 
 pointed out in Epicurean thought, tenaciously held that virtue is 
 
 its own justification and the chief aim of every wise man.^ 
 
 Virtue, then, the Stoics taught, is founded on such 
 
 principles as constitute the eternal and iirmutable Law of Nature. 
 
 All good men obey this Law, the wicked ignore it; but he who 
 
 violates it, violates his own nature and suffers inevitably the 
 
 most severe penalties, even though he escape unpunished by the 
 
 state. This Law is clear to all, — written in our own nature. It 
 
 needs no expositor or interpreter. No senate or people can 
 
 abrogate it; nor does it vary from one country to another, but in 
 
 Rome, in Athens, to-day and to-morrow and forever, this law remains, 
 
 2 
 
 one and eternal and immutable. Justice is but an expression of 
 this Law of Nature. The authority of law is therefore not derived 
 from the edict of the praetor or from the Twelve Tables, but is 
 that highest reason, innate in our nature, which prescribes what 
 we must do and warns us against the contrary.^ 
 
 On the one side, therefore, the Stoics defended the 
 validity of the moral judgment against the Epicureans; but they 
 
 elaborate refutation of Epicurean ethics in De Finibus. 
 Dgok II, is based on Stoic doctrine. 
 
 ^Lactantius, Div. Inst . VI, 8; Cicero, De Re Publica. III. 22. 
 Cicero, Legibus . Book I, 5-6. 
 
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121 
 
 also had to contend on the other with the Sceptics. Cicero, whom 
 we have been following in our exposition of these philosophical 
 conflicts of antiquity, shared with the Stoics their antipathy 
 for both schools. His comments on the Sceptics, although come 
 down to us in rather fragmentary form, are nevertheless sufficient 
 for our purpose. They make it clear enough that Cicero had little 
 regard for the philosophy which denied that truth is attainable, 
 and which above all, maintained that we can not be sure what virtue 
 and justice is, but can at best resignedly take custom for our 
 guide. There is no subject, he says, generally discussed by the 
 learned, more important to understand thoroughly than that we are 
 born for justice, and that law is established, not by "opinion," 
 but by "nature."^ To think that the difference between virtue and 
 vice resides in opinion only, and not in nature, is idiotic.^ It 
 is imperative that the "good” should be something praise vforthy in 
 itself. Goodness is not a matter of opinion, but of nature. For 
 it would be absurd to say that happiness is merely the effect of 
 opinion; ethical questions must be referred for solution to the 
 deepest and firmest principles, the Law of Nature.^ None of the 
 sceptical philosophers is mentioned more often by Cicero than 
 Carneades, who first brought the Greek sceptical philosophy to Rome 
 
 Cicero, Da Le gibus . I, 10. "Sed omnium, quae in hominum doctorum 
 disputations versantur, nihil est profecto praestabilius, quam 
 plane intellegi, nos ad iustitiam esse natos, neque opinions, sed 
 natura constitutum esse ius." 
 
 Dg_ Legibus . 1,16. Haec autem in opinions existimare, non in 
 
 T1 T*A *riPiGS+*. a noo m 4* S a 00 + 
 

122 
 
 with such hrillia .1106 and. scandal in the year 158, Cicero’s siumnary 
 of his philosophy has been preserved by Lactantius, and gives in a 
 paragraph the tone and doctrine of the Sceptics: Men have estab- 
 
 lished laws among themselves, Carneades said, merely because of 
 their utility, and therefore have varied them from time to time, 
 as well as from country to country. But no universal principle 
 underlies them — there is no Law of Nature. There is another 
 "nature” than the Stoics referred to, which guides all m.en and 
 other animals to their own advantage. But this "nature" does not 
 teach men that justice is the end and aim of life; for there is no 
 justice. If there were, a man might seek the welfare of others 
 to his own detriment, which would be the extremest folly. ^ 
 
 The Sceptics, therefore, agreed with the Epicureans in 
 denying the ethical sense, or moral judgment. But whereas the 
 Epicureans established the dogmatism of pleasure as an end, the 
 Sceptics taught that the final aim and value of life is unknowable, 
 and that we can at best accept an unphilosophical utilitarianism 
 or the custom of the country as our best guides in conduct. The 
 social code, said the Sceptics, has no basis in absolute right or 
 justice, or in Nature conceived as universal reason, but is the 
 varying creation of man, the sacredness of which is mere "opinion." 
 
 1 
 
 Carneades summa disputationis haec fuit: lura sibi homiines pro 
 
 utilitate sanxisse, scilicet varia pro moribes, et apud eosdem 
 pro temporibus saepe mutata; ius autem naturale esse nullum. 
 
 Omnes et homines et alias animantes ad utilitates suas natura 
 ducente ferri; proinde aut nullam. esse iustitiam., aut si sit 
 aliqua, summam esse stultitiam, quoniam sibi noceret, alienis 
 commodis consulent. Lactantius, Div. Inst. V. 16: Cicero. De Re 
 Publica. Ill, 12. 
 

 
 
 
 
123 
 
 1 *■ 
 
 j 
 
 In the philosophical debate which is briefly summarized 
 in these passages from Cicero, the theory of the Law of Nature 
 was developed and its terminology fixed for centuries.^ Certain 
 analogies are already observable with the ideas with which Donne 
 
 was occupied when he wrote his early verse. We have in ancient 
 
 I 
 
 J scepticism the same disrespect for the social code, the same 
 
 i reference to ^opinion." But we note also in Donne a difference in 
 
 I ] -■ the conception of Nature; he refers constantly to nature, not as a 
 
 I I source of such universal and rational principles as should check 
 i 
 
 , or guide desires, but as the justification of individual desires, 
 i J as the denial of all universal moral law. This degraded conception 
 ; of "nature" is only faintly foreshadowed in the use of the term 
 ' ; "nature" by Carneades in the passage cited above; it was not a 
 
 li 
 
 j ■ development of ancient thought. We shall find something similar 
 to it in the later Middle Ages, and several analogous developments 
 j , in the Renaissance. 
 
 B III 
 
 A Renaissance Discussion of the Law of Nature 
 
 Dissent from the doctrine of the Law of Nature became, 
 however, a far more difficult and serious matter in the Middle Ages 
 ; and the Renaissance than in the centuries between Plato and Cicero. 
 
 The ancient Sceptics had contended only with professional rivals, 
 i though even so they had a dubious reputation, especially amid the 
 
 
 ^For 
 
 cit. 
 
 an account of the .jus naturale before Cicero, 
 I, 76-212. 
 
 see 
 
 i 
 
 Voigt, op. 
 
p, ' v-y.ii ^ • ,:. i., 
 
 ■/■'• - % 
 
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 .«f^' «r ^ ■. .- • iiv',', , ii;-ji <J,»(i- «(!l.r j 
 

 134 I 
 
 f 
 
 unspeculative respectability of the Roman republic. But after 
 
 Cicero the theory of the Law of Nature was elaborated by Seneca, the I 
 
 I 
 
 Roman Jurists of the Empire, the early Christian Fathers, and St. j 
 
 j 
 
 Augustine, until at last the encyclopedic mind of Thomas Aquinas 
 combined the vague and often conflicting ideas of his many 
 predecessors into one all-embracing system which dominated specula- 
 tion on the subject in the following centuries. With all this dis- 
 cussion the idea grew in importance, until in the Renaissance it 
 was regularly appealed to as the basic principle in law, in ethics, 
 in natural theology, — in short, as the one philosophical defense 
 of the worthiest and most ideal elements of civilization. The Law 
 of Nature thus became a conservative and stabilizing doctrine in 
 Renaissance thought, a bulwark against excessive individualism, 
 whether in the form of tyranny on the one hand or of absolute an- 
 archy on the other. "It is not an accident," says Figgis, "that 
 men like Machiavelli, and Hobbes, whose aim is to remove all 
 restraints from the action of rulers except those of expediency, 
 should be agreed in denying all meaning to the idea of natural law."^ 
 Bodin, on the contrary, who was the greatest opponent in the 
 
 I 
 
 Renaissance of the political thought of Machiavelli, based his | 
 
 whole philosophy on the orthodox tradition.^ The relation of ! 
 
 natural law to political ethics was therefore an important crux in 
 the thought of the Renaissance, the meeting point of Machiavellianisa 
 
 gFiggis, op. oit., p.8. 
 
 Dunning, From Luther to Montesquieu , p.85. Also Baudri Hart, Henri, 
 J^ Bodin et son Temps , Paris (18^). pp. 222-ff. On the same differ^ 
 ence between Machiavelli and Grotius, see Figgis, op. oit., p.83. 
 
) 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
liFl 
 
 and other forms of "libertine” thought with tradition and conser- 
 vatism, reinforced by the general revival of Stoicism. As a 
 consequence, two camps were formed, those who adhered to traditional 
 thought and affirmed the existence of a Law of Nature, and those 
 who were sceptical and leaned towards various forms of anarchic 
 individualism. 
 
 With this brief statement of the situation in mind, we 
 may examine a aocument of the English Renaissance, which summarizes 
 the theory of the Law of Nature and defends it against sceptical 
 attacks, a passage in an imaginary dialog*ue between Cardinal Pole 
 and Sir Thomas Lupset, written about 1536 or 1538 by Thomas Starkey, 
 but unpublished until the nineteenth century.^ Starkey, who 
 occupied a position at court as chaplain and as confidential agent 
 of Henry VIII in his negotiations with Cardinal Pole, had acquired 
 a thorough humanistic education, having studied, according to his 
 own account, philosophy, Latin and Greek at Oxford, and "natural 
 Knowledge,” divinity and civil law for several years in Italy. ^ His 
 discussion of the Law of Nature is therefore to be accepted as 
 authoritative and representative, and both his ideas and terminology 
 are worth close scrutiny. 
 
 Lupset is mads the expositor of the ideas of the author, 
 whereas the Cardinal is given the ungrateful role of advooatus | 
 
 ^aboli, urging the objections that have to be met at each step. 
 
 The dialogue opens with Lupset advising Pole to apply his learning 
 andtalents to the assistance of the commonwealth. Pole first takes 
 
 _^En^aM in the Reign of King Henrv the Eighth, ed. J.M. Cowner. 
 E^E.T.S., London nSTS). 
 
 Letter to Cromwell, quoted in Introduction , p.x. 
 
 J 
 

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126 
 
 refuge in the theory that the contemplative life is higher than 
 the active; but Lupset confutes him by appealing to Aristotle, who 
 blamed the philosophers for not making better the lives of others. 
 Pole then draws an argument from the legend of the Golden Age, that 
 man is not born to a social and political life, society and its 
 duties being only the result of the corruption of mankind. Lupset 
 replies that it is the duty of such men as Pole to counteract this 
 corruption and help restore justice in the world. The real argument 
 then begins, over the problem of finding a philosophical conception 
 of a just civil life and political order. 
 
 The sceptical Pole fears that our political ideal is 
 merely ”as hyt were, a conspyracy in honesty and vertue, 
 stablyschyd by commyn assent.” For the Turk, the Jew, and the 
 Saracen, as well as the Christian, maintains that his own manner 
 of life is the most "agreabul to reson and nature as a thyng con- 
 fyrmyd by Goddys owne dyuynyte. So that by thys mean hyt apperyth 
 al stondyth in the jugement and opynyon of man, in so much that 
 wych ys the veray true polytyke and cyuyle lyfe, no man surely by 
 your dyffynytyon can affyrme wyth any certaynty. 
 
 Lupset acknowledges that ”thys ys no smal dowte to some 
 men." And in his further remarks, one suspects an allusion to 
 materialistic and sceptical tendencies which Starkey must have met 
 with in Italy, perhaps to the recent works of Machiavelli . For, 
 Lupset continues, 
 
 ”by cause suche ther be wych couertly take away al 
 C3Tuylyte, and wold bryng al to confusyon and 
 tyranny, saying ther ys no dyfference betwyn j 
 
 Op. cit. , p.ll. 
 
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127 
 
 vyce and vertue but strong opynyon, and that al 
 such thyngys hang of the folysch fansy and 
 jugement of man; I schal fyrst schow you how vertue 
 stondyth by nature and not only by the opynyon of 
 man; and second how and by what mean thvs folysch 
 opynyon cam in to thos lyght braynys."^ 
 
 In fulfilling his first promise, Lupset points to the 
 excellence and dignity of man, his mastery over beasts, and his 
 arts which reveal the divinity that is innate in him. But this 
 celestial and divine nature of man is expressed also in the 
 universal recognition of such virtues as temperance and courage, 
 and in the rooted reverence for God which is "in al men by nature, 
 wythout any other instructyon. ” 
 
 ”Thes vertues, and other lyke, whereby man, of 
 nature meke, gentyl, and ful of human yte, ys 
 inclynyd and sterryd to cyuyle ordur and louyng 
 company, wyth honeste behauyour both toward God 
 and m.an, are by the power of nature in the hart 
 of man rotyd and plant yd, and by no vayn opynyon 
 or fansy conceyuyed. 
 
 Many there are who live in disregard of this divine excellence of 
 their nature, but they suffer constant disapproval from their 
 conscience . 
 
 "For they have rotyd in theyr hartys a certain 
 rule, euer repugnyng to theyr maner of lyfyng, 
 wych they, by necligente incontynence , suffer to 
 be corrupt; the wych rule, so certayn and so stabul, 
 ys callyd of phylosopharys and wyse men, the 
 unyuersal and true law of nature, wych to al 
 natyonys ys commyn, no thyng hangyng of the opynyon 
 and folysch fansy of man. In so much that yf man, 
 by corrupt jugement, wold extyme vertue as vyce, no 
 thyng regardyng hys o'wne dygnyte, yet vertues, by 
 theyr owne nature, be no les vertues, nor mynyschyd 
 of theyr excellency, by any such frantyke fansy; no 
 more than yf al men togyder wold conspyre that there 
 were no God, who by that folysch opynyon schold no 
 thyng be mynysched of hys hye maiesty, or yf they 
 
 pOp. cit. p.ll. 
 ‘^Op. cit. p.l4. 
 

138 
 
 prouydence . 
 
 wold, say that he nother gouernyth nor rulyth thys 
 world, yet theyr opynyon makyth no les hys hye 
 
 After establishing, to his O’wn and the Cardinal's 
 
 satisfaction, the eternal and immutable character of the Law of 
 Nature, Lupset still has the variations in laws and customs and 
 ethical feeling to explain. He therefore distinguishes, as 
 political theory had done before him from the Romans down, between 
 the divine and absolute Law of Nature and the human and changeable 
 Civil Law. The natural impulses need the aid of man, the assistance 
 and protection of government and institutions. 
 
 "Wherfor amonge al men and al natyonys, as I 
 thynk, apon erth, ther be, and euer hathe byn, 
 other certayn custurays and manerys by long use 
 and tyme confyrmyd and approuydj other lawys wryten 
 and deuysyd by the polytyke wytte of man receyuyd 
 and stablyschyd for the mayntenaunce and settyng 
 forward of ther natural sedys and plantys of vertue; 
 wych custume and law by man so ordeynyd and deuysyd* 
 ys callyd the oyuyle law, for bycause they be as 
 meanys to bryng man to the perfectyon of the cyuyle 
 lyf e j wythout the ordynance of thes lawys, the other 
 sone wylbe corrupt, the wedys wyl sone ouergrow the 
 gud come. Thys law cyuyle is fer dyfferent from 
 the other; for in euery cuntrey hyt ys d 3 ruerse and 
 varyabul, ye almost in euery cyte and towne. Thys 
 law takyth effects of the opynyon of man, hyt 
 restyth holly in hys consent, and varyth acoordyng 
 to the place and tyme, in so much that in dyuerse'^ 
 tyme and place contrary lawys are both gud, and 
 both conuenyent to the polytyke lyf e . Wher as the 
 law of nature ys euer one, in al cuntreys fyrme and 
 stabul, and neuer for the tyme varyth; hyt ys neuer 
 chaungeabul; the consent of man doth no thyng therto; 
 hyt hangyth no th 3 mg of tyme nor place, but accordyng 
 as ryght reson ys euer one, so ys thys law, and neuer 
 varyth aftur the fansy of man."2 
 
 theorists before him when he begins to illustrate his general 
 
 Lupset encounters the old difficulty of the political 
 
 ^Op. cit. p. 14. 
 
 .^Op. Pit, nn. 15-16. 
 

 
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principles. For there was no unanimity of opinion as to the exact 
 line of demarcation between the Law of Nature and the Civil Law. 
 Lupset, in fact, is very tolerant and inclusive in selecting his 
 illustrations of such laws as are ” binding only on those who 
 receive them." 
 
 "As to absteyn from flesch apon the Fryday, " he 
 says, "wyth us hyt ys now reputyd a certayn vertue, 
 wyth the Turkys no thyng so; prestys to lyue chast, 
 wyth us hyt ys a certayn vertue and honesty, wyth 
 the Grekys hyt ys no thyng so; to mary but one wyfe, 
 wyth us hyt ys a certayn vertue also, wyth other 
 natyonys, as Turkys, Morys, and Sarasyns, hyt ys 
 no thyng so."l 
 
 In principle, however. Civil Law should always be based on the Law 
 
 of Nature, to which it is merely the aid. For, he says, 
 
 "thys law ys the ground and end of the other, to 
 the wych hyt must euer be referryd, non other wyse then 
 the conclusyonys of artys mathematical are euer 
 referryd to theyr pryncypullys . For cyuyle ordynance 
 ys but as a mean to bryng man to observe thys law of 
 nature, in so much that, yf ther be any cyuyle law 
 ordeynyd wych can not be resoluyd therto, hyt ys of no 
 value; for al gud cyuyle lawys spryng and yssue out 
 of the law of nature, as brokys and ryuerys out of 
 fountaynys and wellys."^ 
 
 In reading this brief Renaissance dialogue on political 
 ethics, we note the essential coincidence in ideas and terminology 
 with the discussions of the ancient Stoics, as represented by Cicero; | 
 except that the Stoics contended chiefly with the Epicureans, whereas I 
 
 I i 
 
 Starkey directs his polemics exclusively at scepticism and moral j 
 anarchy. This change of emphasis is significant; it indicates the I 
 
 gOp. cit. p.17. j 
 
 Op. cit. p.l6. Hooker discusses the distinction between the uni- 
 versality^ of the "Law of Nature and Reason" and the variety of cus- 
 tom and civil law in L aws of Ecclesiastica l Polity . Book I, viii 10 I 
 iie quotes Augustine's statement of the objections of the Sceptics 'i 
 

 , p:' 
 
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130 
 
 I 
 
 persist6nce of scsptical disssTif. And w© realize even from this 
 brief account of the conflict of scepticism with the theory of the 
 Law of Nature, from Cicero to the Renaissance, what definite 
 connotations and implications the apparently coinmonplace terms, 
 "Nature," "Opinion" and "Custom" must have had for John Donne and 
 his readers, interested and versed in one of the acutest problems 
 of thought of the time.^ We shall understand even better the 
 definiteness of this problem in Renaissance thought after examining 
 further the opposition to the doctrine of the Law of Nature. 
 
 IV 
 
 The "Libertine" Appeal to Nature 
 
 Besides the sceptical opposition to the Law of Nature, 
 the persistence of which through the centuries of European political 
 thought we have already sufficiently discussed, there was another 
 tradition, hitherto ignored by historians of literature and thought, 
 which developed from a reversal of the theory of the Golden Age. 
 
 The dream of a perfect life at the beginning of the world, when man- 
 kind as well as all other creatures retained the divine impress of 
 their origin, could not fail to attract those who sought in a 
 divine Law of Nature the one stable and saving element in a cor- 
 rupted human nature. Roman political theory appropriated this idea 
 
 ^Donne could not, of course, have read Starkey's unpublished 
 dialogue. But as a learned man, and especially as a student of 
 Civil Law, he must have been familiar with the philosouhy of Law 
 which Starkey expounded. 
 

 
 
 
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131 
 
 li 
 
 of a primitive state of nature, and in Patristic thought it was 
 
 accentuated by the parallel idea of the Garden of Eden. The Law 
 
 of Nature was then explained as a survival from an age of innocence 
 
 and perfection.^ But, as has been said, there grew up a tradition 
 
 which reversed this belief in primitive perfection, substituting: 
 
 for it an evolutionary theory of the gradual ascent of man from 
 
 barbarism, from a state of nature which was not far removed from 
 
 that of animals. And, as the notion of the Golden Age was congenial 
 
 to the thought of the Stoics, so the opposite theory was developed 
 
 by their adversaries, the Epicureans, and especially by Lucretius. 
 
 Other poets had before him described the earliest state of man as 
 2 
 
 savagery, but his distinction and his influence on thought, both 
 in antiquity and the Renaissance, give to his account an unusual 
 historical importance. 
 
 In the fifth book of his Renom Natura Lucretius 
 describes the evolution of the world in terms of a materialistic 
 atomism. In many ways his theory parallels such modern conceptions j 
 as that of a gradual change from the simple to the complex, from 
 the homogeneous to the heterogeneous . In the course of this change, I 
 blind and stumbling chance produced many failures, and out of the I 
 many combinations wrought by the "dance of atoms" only a few fittest 
 have survived. Lucretius applied this theory alike to the evolution 
 of the world and the evolution of human society. And, instead of a 
 Golden Age, he conceives of primitive man as a wild animal, free 
 from restraints and governed only by his desires. | 
 
 I 
 
 gCarlyle, op. cit. I, 4S-44, 117, 134, 144-146. 
 
 Benn, A. W., The Greek Philosophers, London (1882). II, 98-ff. 
 

 
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133 
 
 ”Nor could they look to the common weal, nor had 
 they knowledge to make mutual use of any customs or 
 laws.^ Whatever booty chance had offered to each, he 
 bore it off; for each was taught at his ovra will to 
 live and thrive for himself alone. And Venus would 
 unite lovers in the woods; for each woman was wooed 
 either by mutual passion, or by the man’s fierce 
 force and reckless lust, or by a price, acorns and 
 arbute-berries or choice pears.”! 
 
 One of the earliest civilizing influences was the institution of the 
 family and the home. 
 
 ’Then after they got themselves huts and skins and 
 fire, and woman yoked with man retired to a single 
 (home and the laws of marriage) were learnt, and 
 they saw children sprung from them, then first the 
 race of man began to soften. 
 
 Evolution, however, does not necessarily imply ameliora- 
 tion or progress, unless measured by some scale of moral and 
 spiritual values. Such values were foreign to the thought of 
 Lucretius. The establishment of the family, for instance, did not 
 signify to him the discovery of the sanctity or chivalry of conjugal 
 love. The family he regarded as a purely utilitarian institution; 
 and as for love, Lucretius advised against allowing any emotional 
 
 1 
 
 Translation by Cyril Bailey, Oxford (1910). p.218. 
 
 nec commune bonum poterant spectare neque ullis 
 moribus inter se scibant nec le gibus uti. 
 quod cuique obtulerat praedae fortuna, fere bat 
 sponte sua sibi quisque valere et vivere doctus. 
 et Venus in silvis iungebat corpora amantum; 
 conciliabat enim vel mutua quamque cup i do 
 
 vel violenta viri vis atque impensa libido \ 
 
 n pretium, glandes atque arbita vel pira lecta. 
 
 De Rerum Natura, Book V, 958-965. ed.Munro, 3rd ed. , Cambridge (1873) | 
 ‘^Translation cited, p.219. " p.333. | 
 
 Inde casas postquam ac pellis ignemque pararunt, I 
 
 et mulier coniuncta viro concessit in tmum 
 
 * * * * I 
 
 cognita sunt, prolemque ex se videre creatam, 
 turn genus humanum primum mollescere coepit. 
 
 £ook V. 1011-1014. Ed, cit. P.335. ^ 
 

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133 
 
 disturbance or inconvenient personal devotion to accompany its 
 physical satisfactions.^ "Lucr^oe," says Guyau, ”de meme que 
 Rousseau, montre quelque faible pour les hommes des premiers 
 temps. II admire leurs jouissances faciles, — vives quoique 
 grossieres. II a des rancunes centre notre civilisation. " ^ 
 Lucretius did not strengthen the moral and spiritual perceptions of 
 mankind. In conduct and political ethics, as elsevyhere, his 
 influence has been on the side of scepticism, materialism and 
 pessimism. 
 
 Down to the Renaissance, however, the conception of 
 primitive man which Seneca made a part of European political thought 
 was even more important historically than that of Lucretius. Seneca 
 lived in an eclectic age, and combined the two contrary ideas of 
 the Golden Age and of primitive sim.plicity and imperfect develop- 
 ment. In the earliest age, he said, men were happy and uncor- 
 rupted. But as they were ignorant, their happiness was due merely 
 to innocence and natural goodness, not to virtue, which is only 
 achieved bv effort and discipline. Neither could they be called 
 wise. In their perfect innocence, they had no need of institutions: 
 no government guarded private property, for they had all things in j 
 common. They followed without dissension the counsel of the best 
 and wisest men. But, as human nature deteriorated and developed — 
 such is the paradox of the theory — institutions had to be devised 
 and laws enacted to coerce mankind back to order and regularity, 
 
 ^De Re rum Natura . Book I^, 11. 1056-1074. i 
 
 Guyau, M., La Morale d'Epicure . 5th ed. , Paris (1910). p.l70. 
 
 "Ce stoicien nourri des id^es epicuriennes, ” Guyau says, calline 
 attention to Seneca's indebtedness to Lucretius. Op. cit. p.l67." 
 
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 though it is never possible to secure by these means the harmony 
 which existed without force in the Golden Age.^ 
 
 We need not here trace the influence of Seneca’s incon- 
 sistent discussion on Roman, Patristic, Medieval and Renaissance 
 political thought. It reappears everywhere, as Carlyle has shown 
 in his History of Medieval Political Thought . "We have here," 
 
 he says, 
 
 "a statement of that theory of the state of nature, 
 which was to exercise a great influence upon the 
 whole character of political thought for nearly 
 eighteen centuries. It is true that the concep- 
 tion of the state of nature in Seneca is not the 
 same as in some other writers; but the importance 
 of the theory for our inquiry lies not so much in 
 the particular forms in which men held it, as in 
 the fact that in all forms it assumed a distinction 
 between primitive and conventional institutions 
 which largely influenced the ideal and sometimes 
 even the practical tendency of men's thoughts."^ 
 
 Ideas reappear in unexpected places and often in unusual 
 guises. The confused conception of the Golden Age which in 
 political thought is derived from Seneca, is, I believe, the 
 explanation of some passages in the satirical continuation of the j 
 Romance o^ the Rose by Jean de Meung*. This learned and witty j 
 
 bourgeois poet treated with cynical contempt the ideals of courtly 
 love, as well as most of the other social and political institutiors 
 and modes of life of the Middle Ages; and the misery and injustice j 
 and hypocrisy of his time he attributed to the fall of man from the ! 
 state of nature. In his revolt he dreamed again the dream, of the i 
 
 Seneca, Epistolae . XIV, 2. Carlyle, op. cit. I, 23-ff. 
 
 |Carlyle op. cit. I, 23-24. 
 
 Although these ideas are expressed by characters in the story, thev 
 are generally imputed to the author, as by Gustave Lanson, Un 
 Naturaliste du ^Ile Siecle, in Revue Bleue, July 14. 1894. nn. 35-41 J 
 
 I 
 
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135 
 
 Golden Age, of its freedom from coercive government, of its facile 
 
 life, its coranrunisni without work or responsibility, but especially 
 
 of its free love and absence of family ties.^ This "naturalist” 
 
 did not think of Nature as the Stoics had done, as the revelation 
 
 of Universal Reason, but as the deification of the physical and 
 
 2 
 
 instinctive life, in the way of which stand our conventional 
 institutions and conventional morality. The Old Lady put the matter 
 bluntly in the following speech to the Lover, a speech which serves 
 as a chorus to her satirical narratives; she is speaking of wives: 
 
 "D‘ autre part, el sunt f ranches nees; 
 
 Loi les a condicionnees, 
 
 Qui les oste de lor franchises 
 Ob Nature les avait mises: 
 
 Car Nature n’est pas si sote 
 Qu'ele feist nest re Marote 
 Tant solement por Robichon, 
 
 Se 1’ entendement i fichon, 
 
 Ne Robichon por Mariete, 
 
 Ne por Agnbs, ne por Perrete: 
 
 Ains nous a fait, biau filz, n'en doutes, 
 
 Toutes por tous et tous por toutes, 
 
 Chascune por chascun commune, 
 
 Et chascun commijin por chascune. 
 
 Si que quant eus sunt affixes. 
 
 Par loi prises et marines, 
 
 Por oster dissolucions, | 
 
 Et contens, et occisions, 
 
 Et por aidier les norretures 
 
 Dont il ont ensemble les cures, || 
 
 Si s'efforcent en toutes guises | 
 
 De retorner "a lor franchises !| 
 
 Les dames et les damoiseles, 
 
 Quiex qu'el soient, ledes ou beles."^ ! 
 
 ! 
 
 What makes this appeal to Nature on behalf of free love 
 particularly significant is that, in the passages referred to above, 
 Jean de Meung associates the family with all the political institu- 
 
 ! 
 
 1 I 
 
 Le_ Roman de la Rose . ed. Marteau, Pierre. Orleans (1878) . II, 276-ff. 
 11. 8671-8772; pp. 354-ff., 11. 9927-10008. 
 
 Knowlton, E. C. , The Goddess Nature in Early Periods . Journal of 
 English and Germanic Philology , vol. XIX (l920) . 
 
 ^ Roman de la Rose , ed.cit. Ill, 270. 11. 14477-14500. ! 
 
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tions and arts of civil! izat ion as interfering with primitive and 
 free life according to Nature in the Golden Age. Our human 
 institutions have therefore merely the sanction of custom; and they 
 violate Nature — not the Nature of the Stoics, but a degraded | 
 
 Nature, personifying the irrational elements of life. The Golden 
 Age, which to the Stoics had been an ideal of order and reason, 
 became with Jean de Meung the dream of ease and unlimited freedom 
 and indulgence . 
 
 Where did Jean find this revolutionary thought? One might 
 answer that he found it along with his other rebellious ideas in 
 his own cynical nature. They are indeed expressed with a vigor 
 and sincerity which give them an original sound. But Jean in each 
 case refers to ancient and learned authorities — no doubt feeling 
 that such ideas needed the patronage of authority; 
 
 ”Si cum la letre le tesnioigne. 
 
 Par qui nous savons la be soigne 
 Furent amors loiaus et fines. 
 
 Sans covoitise et sans rapines."^ 
 
 and in another passage he says: | 
 
 "De la Vint li commencemens | 
 
 As rois, as princes terriens, | 
 
 Selonc I’escript as anciens; 
 
 Car par I'escript que nous avons, } 
 
 Les fais des anciens savons; 
 
 Si les en devons raercier, 
 
 Et loer et regracier."^ 
 
 Langlois, in his study of the sources of The Romance of the Rose . 
 was unable to identify these "ancient writers." Ovid, as he pointed 
 out, does not allude to the origin of government in his description 
 
 ^Rpman, ed. cit. II, 278. 11. 8673-6. 
 ^ Roman . ed. cit. II, 358. 11. 9974-9980. 
 

 
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137 \ 
 
 of the changes from the Golden Age to our o^to. Lucretius was 
 not read in the Middle Ages, and therefore the parallelism with 
 the fifth book of De Rerum Natura explains nothing.^ Langlois 
 therefore makes the rather vague suggestion that "sa theorie sur 
 I'origine des pouvoirs publics e'^tait sans doute une opinion 
 courante dans les e'coles de son temps, et qu'on attribuait aux 
 anciens,” and quotes a passage from Isodore of Seville on the 
 first election of princes and kings. ^ But the early election of 
 rulers, the idea of the social contract, was only a part of the | 
 legal tradition which provides a much broader and completer 
 parallel than Langlois thought, to the ideas of Jean, and, as we 
 have seen, it was actually derived from antiquity. The old 
 tradition of political thought was only given a new turn and 
 significance by the sceptical, cynical and somewhat gross tempera- 
 ment of the medieval satirist. 
 
 Jean's naturalistic theories were disseminated by the 
 wide circulation of The Romance of the Rose , not only in the Middle 
 Ages, but even into the Renaissance. French poets imitated his 
 protest against the conventions of the political order of his day 
 
 I 
 
 as well as his denunciation of the bonds of marriage.^ Chaucer, in 
 the true English manner, stopped short of the violent revolt of his 
 
 I 
 
 1 { 
 
 Scholars disagree, however, on the question of the accessibility j 
 of Lucretius in the Middle Ages. See discussion and references in 
 Sandys, J.E., History of Classical Scholarshir) . 2nd ed. , Cambridge 
 (1906). I, 631-3; and in Merrill’s edition of Lucretius, New York 
 (1907), Introduction , pp. 50-1. 
 
 , Langlois, Ernest, Orieines et Sources du Roman de la Rose. Paris 
 (1891). pp. 125-7. 
 
 Wood, Mary Morton, The Spirit of Pr otest in Old French Literature j 
 New York (1917). See especially the poems on free love as the state! 
 of Nature, pp. 161-ff. Dr. Wood, who ignored the development of ! 
 
138 
 
 "emancipated” Continental predecessor. "Tte English poet , ” says 
 one student of him, "was philosopher and economist enough to 
 recognize and to insist on the instituion of marriage as the great 
 steadier of society. He is not at one with the French poet when 
 Jean makes serious attacks on marriage and paints in glowing colors 
 a world of unrestraint and free love.”^ But there is perhaps a 
 recollection of Jean in the impatient reflections of the lover on 
 St. Valentine's day in Lydgate's Flower of Courtesy : 
 
 "The sely wrenne, the titmose also, 
 
 The litel redbrest, have free eleccioun 
 To flyen y-fere and to gider go 
 Wher-as hem liste, abouten enviroun, 
 
 As they of kynde have inclinacioun, 
 
 And as Nature, emperesse and gyde. 
 
 Of every thing, liste to provyde; 
 
 But man aloon, alas.' the harde stounde.' 
 
 Ful cruelly, by kynde s ordinaunce, 
 
 Constrayned is, and by statut bounde. 
 
 And debarred from alle such plesaunce. 
 
 What meneth this? What is this purveyaunce 
 Of god above, agayn al right of kynde, 
 
 Withoute cause, so narowe man to bynde?"^ 
 
 It is more difficult to trace any direct influence of 
 Jean de Meung in the Renaissance. Such successors as Rabelais and 
 Montaigne owed more to classical writers and to the paganism which 
 tinged the revival of learning. The spirit of the age fostered 
 audacious action and thought, and the "libertine" worship of Nature 
 was soon so widely spread as to become a commonplace. The pert and 
 uncontrollable young Euphues in Lyly's novel thus replies to the 
 admonitions of the sage old Neapolitan, that he is following the 
 
 political theory outside of poetry, mistakenly refers the political 
 Ideas of Jean de Meung to Ovid's account of the Four Ag-es. See 
 PP. 15, 42, 52. 
 
 1 
 
 Chaucer and the Roman de la Rose . N. Y. (1914). 
 
 2 
 
 Skeat, W. W., Chaucerian and Other Pieces . Oxford (18S7) .pp. 287-8. 
 

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139 "'] 
 
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 - 
 
 best philosophers, Cicero and Aristotle, and taking Nature as his 
 only guide; the inconsequential reasoning and inaccurate scholar- 
 ship are in character, and may possibly represent the platitudinous 
 generalizations which must have passed current as philosophy in 
 wide circles. And in the chorus to the first Act of Aminta, Tasso 
 laments the passing of the Age of Gold, not because the earth then 
 provided sustenance without the labor of man, or because life was 
 free from the misery of war or the burdens of traffic, 
 
 ”Ma sol perch's quel vano 
 Nome senza soggetto. 
 
 Quell* idolo d'errori, idol d’inganno, 
 
 Quel che dal volgo insane 
 Onor poscia fu detto, 
 
 (Che di nostra natura *1 feo tiranno) 
 
 Non mischiava il suo affanno 
 Fra le liete dolcezze 
 Dell* amoroso gregge; 
 
 Ne fu sua dura legge 
 
 Nota a quell’ alme in libertate avvezze: 
 
 Ma legge aurea e f slice, 
 
 Che Natura scolpi *S'ei piace, ei lice. '**2 
 
 Giordano Bruno, also, refers to "quella legge naturals, per la 
 quale e licito a ciascun maschio di aver tante mogli, quante ne 
 puo nutrire et impregnare . " The Libertines of the Renaissance 
 appropriated Nature as their goddess and the Golden Age as their 
 ideal, identifying with both conceptions exactly the freedom and 
 
 Lyly, Works, ed. Bond. I, 191-2. 
 
 ^Tasso, Ope re . Pisa (1821). II, 37. Cf.with Donne’s passage on 
 the "golden laws of nature," quoted above. 
 
 Bruno, Giordano, Ope re . ed. Wagner. Leipzig (1830) . II, 126. But 
 Bruno begins the third dialogue of the Spac c i o with a criticism of 
 the Golden Age of Tasso and other Italian posts. See ed. cit.,II, 
 199-ff. He says, for example,^ "Ne I'eta dunque de I’oro per 
 I’ozio gli uoraini non erano piu virtuosi, che sin al presents le 
 beetle son virtuose, e forse erano piu stupidi, che molte di 
 quests." Bruno was a man of contradictions. Though certain 
 passages display a "libertine" strain, many others show that he 
 was imbued with a vigorous ethical feeling. 
 

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140 
 
 vidu3.1i sni wliicli 'the Stioics held, scugchij "to coMhaij hy ‘their means. 
 Like Euphues, they mis-read their Cicero and Aristotle; hence the 
 apparently paradoxical remark of Du Vair,^ that we must choose 
 between the two irreconcilable philosophies of Nature and Stoicism. 
 But this sceptical philosophy of Nature resulted in the Renaissance 
 from the confluence of many currents of thought, medieval and 
 classical, and in its more popular form was vague and unformulated, 
 highly important though it be for an understanding of the temper 
 of the age. Unless accompanied by other specific ideas and doc- 
 trines, it can hardly be traced from one writer to another. 
 
 As in his scepticism, so also in his naturalistic concep- 
 tion of the Golden Age, Donne's thought resembled the current 
 "libertine" ideas of the Renaissance. He repeatedly refers to the 
 free love of the Golden Age: 
 
 "How happy were our Syres in ancient times. 
 
 Who held plurality of loves no crime." 
 
 Like other poets of the libertine tradition of the Golden Age, 
 
 , Donne worshipped in Nature the Aphrodite Pandemos, and appealed to 
 
 ; other Natural La-ws for justification of the liberties forbidden by 
 
 , the orthodox principle of the Law of Nature. 
 
 All the elements, then^of Donne's Pyrrhonism were 
 , current before him; we have discussed already the similarities 
 and differences between his ideas and the sceptical attack on the 
 legal tradition of the La-w of Nature. What was lacking there, 
 namely a rival philosophy of Nature opposed to the Stoic and legal 
 tradition, we have found in this degraded form of the legend of the 
 
 ^Quoted in Chapter I, p. 58. 
 
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141 
 
 Golden Age. Donne combined this Naturalism with Scepticism. But 
 here he had a predecessor in Montaigne. 
 
 V 
 
 Scepticism and Naturalism in Montaigne 
 
 How Montaigne arrived at his philosophy blended of 
 scepticism and naturalism, has been admirably set forth by M. Villey, 
 to whose work all discussions of Montaigne must henceforth be 
 indebted.^ Montaigne began as an adherent of Stoicism, which, with 
 Platonism, had been interwoven with Christian thought and become a 
 part of Renaissance idealism in both personal and political ethics. 
 But Stoicism was not long to his taste. His nature was too supple 
 for its restraints, and too easy and tolerant to submit long to its 
 discipline or to feel long the attractiveness of its elevation. 
 Montaigne had a generous sympathy with all human impulses; he ab- 
 horred life cut to a pattern. It is probable therefore that his 
 development would have been what it was, though perhaps slower and 
 less distinct, had he never gone through a definite intellectual 
 crisis. But his apostacy from Stoicism was hastened when about 
 1575 he became enthusiastic over Greek scepticism, as expounded 
 Hypotvooses of Sextus Empiricus. Early in 1576 he had a 
 medal struck in honor of Sextus, with his o> 7 n image on the reverse 
 side. Ten of the inscriptions in his library he took from the 
 Hypotyposes; from the same source he makes more than a score of 
 
 1 r I 
 
 ^ Villey, Pierre, Les Sources et 1 'Evolution des Essais de MontaisneJ 
 2 vols. Paris (ISOST — 
 

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borrowings for his most philosophical essay, the Apology . The 
 Sceptics he called "le plus sage parti des philosophes. 
 
 For a short period, Montaigne, under the influence of the 
 philosophy of Sextus, regarded custom and tradition as his best 
 guide. But such a philosophy is a worse tyranny than Stoicism, and 
 contains in itself the acid of dissolution; Montaigne soon passed 
 'through it, to his third and mature philosophy of individualism 
 based on "Nature." Nature then meant to him primarily his o\m 
 nature, which he le garde d as his own unique lawgiver. Therefore 
 he studied himself more than any philosophy, his desires, his 
 tastes, the needs of his oto individuality, and his essays are the 
 observations he made of his own physiology and psychology. Dis- 
 trustful of all speculation in ethical idealism, thoroughly 
 sceptical regarding conventions and traditions, he followed nature 
 in everything, and in case of doubt, "nature" meant to him his own 
 nature. "I cheerefully and thankefully, " he says in the last 
 pages of his last essay, "and with a good heart, accept what 
 nature hath created for me; and am there with well pleased, and 
 am proud of it . . . temperance is a moderatrix, and not an adver- 
 sary of sensualities. Nature is a gentle guide: Yet not more 
 
 gentle, then prudent and just."^ Nature is gentle I That is, the 
 nature of Montaigne, a man devoid of aspirations and spiritual 
 reaches, is gentle. "I study my selfe more than any other subject. 
 It is my supernatural! Metaphisike, it is my naturall Philosophy... 
 Oh how soft, how gentle, and how sound a pillow is ignorance and 
 
 ^Villey, op. cit. I, 218. 
 
 2 
 
 Trans. Florio, Tudor Translations. London (1893). Ill, 391. 
 
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 incuriosity to rest a well composed head upon. I had rather under- 
 stand my selfe well in my selfe, then in Cicero.”^ 
 
 The greatest and most influential sceptic of the 
 Renaissance, Montaigne gave classic expression to all the libertine 
 thought of his age, intellectualized it, and elevated it to the 
 level of a serious philosophy which educated men could not ignore. 
 
 It would indeed be strange if Donne, who beyond most Englishmen I 
 
 of his time was eager for new ideas, such as the science of 
 Galileo and Kepler, should not in his youth have read a work so 
 congenial to his tastes and so well known as the Essays .^ A refer- 
 ence to Montaigne in a letter dated by Gosse about 1603 or 1604 
 seems to imply that Donne had read him some time before.^ But the 
 youth of Donne is veiled in obscurity, and only a very few facts 
 are known regarding his very extensive early reading, We can at 
 best make certain inferences. A University man, an avid student 
 of the Humanities as well as Law, probably knew the treatises of 
 Cicero ^ ^ Publica and ^ Legibus : as his interest lay more in 
 controversial studies than in poetry and belles-lettres, it is 
 unlikely that Donne read so thoroughly as to be acquainted with 
 T^ Romance of the Rose . and he may not have read Lucret ius;possibly; 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 gFlorio, ed. cit. Ill, 338-S. 
 
 1595 a translation of the Essays was licensed for pub- 
 lication, and Florio’s was licensed in 1600. The real popularity 
 of Montaigne is indicated by early imitations, by Bacon in 1597 and 
 by Cornwallis in 1600. The latter knew Montaigne only through manu-| 
 script translations which evidently circulated widely before the 
 publication of Florio's translation in 1603. Lee, Sidney, The 
 Frengh pnaissance in England , N.Y. (1910). pp. 165-ff. John Donne 
 could of course read the original. 
 
 . .Michel Montaigne says he hath seen (as I remem.ber) 400 
 volumes of Italian letters.” Gosse. Life and Letters of John 
 Donne. I, 122. 
 
 Grierson, op. cit. II, 1-6. 
 
i 
 
 
 ■..IV 
 
he had read Tasso's Aminta . inasmuch as he knew Dante, Aretino and | 
 Ariosto. But none of these possible sources of Donne’s " Liber tiniari’l 
 offer so complete a parallel to Donne's thought as Montainge, nor [ 
 did any of them lie more directly in his path. Such conjectures, | 
 however, are slender evidence, and Donne’s discipleship to Montaigne 
 must remain a probability only, each reader forming his own opinion. 
 As to the similarity of their ideas, although it has never been 
 pointed out, there can be no question. 
 
 In the first place, Montaigne's study of Sextus had com- 
 pletely emancipated him from rational idealism, from belief in any 
 universal moral truth ascertainable by reason. His scepticism is 
 definitely expounded in his early essay on Custom , where he says, 
 for example, that 
 
 "the lawes of conscience, which we say to proceed 
 from nature, rise and proceed of custome: every man 
 holding in special regard, and inward veneration 
 the opinions approved, and customes received about 
 him, cannot without remorse leave them, nor without 
 applause applie himselfe unto thera."^ 
 
 In his Apoloaie of Raymond Sebpnd, he submits all m.ethods and means 
 
 of knowledge to a systematic criticism based on principles drawn 
 
 from the Hypotyuoses : his remarks on the theory of the Law of 
 
 Nature are especially scathing: 
 
 "What goodness is that," he asks, "which but 
 yesterday I saw in sredit and esteerae, and to 
 morrow, to have lost all reputation, and that the 
 crossing of a River, is made a crime? What truth 
 is that, which these Mountains s bound, 
 and is a lie in the World beyond them? But they 
 are pleasant, when to allo7\r the Laws some certailiet ie , 
 they say, that there be some firms, perpetuall and 
 immoveable, which they call naturall, and by the con- 
 dition of their proper essence, are imprinted in 
 mankind: of which some make three in number, some 
 

 
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145 
 
 foure, some more, some lesse: an evident token, 
 that it is a marke as douhtfull as the rest."^ 
 
 A few pages further on he presents the Sceptical explanation of the 
 
 supposedly sacred laws of society, with a pertinent illustration: 
 
 "Lawes take their authoritie from possession and 
 customer It is dangerous to reduce them to their 
 beginning: In rov/ling on, they swell, and grow greater 
 
 and greater, as doe our rivers: follow the’m upward, 
 
 unto their source, and you shall find them but a 
 bubble of water, scarce to be discerned, which in 
 gliding on swelleth so proud, and gathers so much 
 strength. Behold the ancient considerations, 
 which have given the first motion to this fam.ous 
 torrent, so full of dignitie, of honour and rever- 
 ence, you shall find them so light and weake, that 
 these men which will weigh all, and complaine of 
 reason, and who receive nothing upon trust and 
 authoritie, it is no wonder if their judgements 
 are often far-distant from common judgement. Men 
 that take Natures first image for a patterns, it 
 is no marvaile, if in most of their opinions, they 
 misse the common-beaten path. As for example; few 
 amongst them would have approved the forced con- 
 ditions of our marriages and most of them would 
 have had women in community, and without any 
 private respect. "2 
 
 But as a substitute for the Law of Nature, Montaigne, 
 like Donne, developed another philosophy of Nature. "I have taken 
 for my regard this ancient precept, very rawly and simply: That 
 
 'We cannot erre in following Nature': and that the soveraigne 
 document is, for a man to conforme himselfe to her.”^ He was in 
 
 I 
 
 ^Florio, ed. cit. II, 305. 
 
 '^Florio, ed. cit. II, 307. With this passage compare especially 
 the following lines from Donne's Elegy XVII : 
 
 "Our liberty's revers'd, our Charter's gone. 
 
 And we're made servants to opinion, 
 
 A monster in no certain shape attir'd. 
 
 And whose originall is much desir'd, 
 
 Formlesse at first, but goeing on it fashions. 
 
 And doth prescribe manners and laws to nations. 
 
 Here love receiv'd immedicable harms ..." 
 
 ^^Florio, ed. cit. I II, 323 . 
 

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accord with the libertine tradition, and with John Donne, too, 
 in finding this simple and uncorrupted Nature in the Golden Age, 
 in what he regarded as a survival of that blissful period, the 
 savage state. The laws of civilization are too numerous and 
 artificial. "I believe it were better to have none at all, then 
 so infinite a number as we have. Nature gives them ever more 
 happy, then those we give our selves. Witnesse the image of the 
 golden age that poets faine; and the state wherein we see divers 
 nations to live, which have no other. His famous essay on 
 Cannibals is an apotheosis of primitive life, at the expense of 
 civilization. 
 
 "Those nations seeme therefore so barbarous to me," 
 he says, "because they have received very little 
 fashion from humane wit, and are yet nee re their 
 originall naturalitie. The lawes of nature doe 
 yet command them, which are but little bastardized 
 by ours, and that with such pur i tie, as I am some- 
 times grieved the knowledge of it came no sooner 
 to light, at what time there were men, that better 
 than we could have judged of it. I am sorie, 
 
 Lycurgus and Plato had it not: for me seemeth 
 that what in those nations we see by experience, 
 doth not only exceed all the pictures wherewith 
 licentious Poesie hath proudly imbellished the 
 golden age, and all her quaint inventions to faine 
 a happy condition of man, but also the conception 
 and desire of Philosophy. They could not imagine 
 a genuitie so pure and simple, as we see it by 
 experience; nor ever beleeve our societie might 
 be maintained with so little art and humane com- 
 bination. It is a nation, would I answer Plato, 
 that hath no kinds of traffike, no knowledge of 
 Letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of 
 magistrate, nor of politike superioritie ; no use 
 of service, of riches or of povertie; no contracts, 
 no successions, no partitions, no occupations but 
 idle; no respect of kindred, but common, no 
 apparell but naturall, no manuring of lands, 
 no use of wine, corne, or mettel. The very 
 
 ^Florio, ed. cit. Ill, 329. 
 
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147 
 
 ■firords that import lying, falshood, treason, 
 dissimulations, covetousness, envie, detraction, 
 and pardon, were never heard of amongst them. 
 
 How dissonant would hee finde his imaginarie 
 commonwealth from this perfection!”^ 
 
 Montaigne does not fail to give warm praise, too, to primitive 
 matrimonial arrangements. 
 
 "Their men have many wives, and by how much 
 more they are reputed valiant, so much the greater 
 is their number. The manner and beaut ie of their 
 marriages is wondrous strange and remarkable: For, 
 the same jealousie our wives have to keeps us from 
 the love and affection of other women, the same 
 have theirs to procure it. Being more carefull 
 for their husbands honour and content, than of 
 any thing else: They endevour and apply all their 
 industrie, to have as many rivals as possibly, 
 they can, forasmuch as it is a testimonie of 
 their husbands vertue. Our women would count 
 it a wonder, but it is not so: It is a vertue 
 
 properly Matrimoniall . 
 
 The Nature which guided Montaigne, ’we suspect, was excessively 
 gentle. And there may be disadvantages in understanding oneself 
 in oneself rather than in Cicero! 
 
 Thus Montaigne had, before Donne, brought together the 
 two philosophies. Scepticism and Naturalism, which characterized 
 the "Libertine" tradition. To this tradition or school, John Donne 
 for a time belonged, and Montaigne seems most likely to have been 
 his master. Perhaps he never was a perfect disciple. His "queasy 
 pain of being beloved and loving" was a sign of a restlessness, a 
 dissatisfaction, which would of itself have led him beyond the 
 
 Florio, ed. cit. I, 222. Shakespeare borrows this Rousseauistic 
 passage, but, significantly, only for the purposes of comedy; 
 
 Gonzalo plays with the idea a moment and then flings it aside as 
 "merry fooling." Tempest , II, i. 
 
 Florio, ed. cit. Ill, 329. 
 
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148 
 
 boundaries of the ./yorld of Montaigne; he had deep needs that 
 Montaigne could never have understood; his intellectual and 
 spiritual life began at the place where Montaigne’s ended. But 
 whatever his later development, it is clear that the ideas which 
 fascinated the youthful Donne are identical with the thought of 
 Montaigne's maturity. 
 
 VI 
 
 Continuations in the Seventeenth Century 
 
 Montaigne became the ”livre de chevet" of the "libertines" 
 in France as well as in England. From him, and from his disciple 
 Charron, they drew a light and superficial philosophy, sufficient 
 to give the spice of a cynical sophistication to their pleasures 
 and poetry. Like their great master, they questioned all moral 
 idealism and would follow only "gentle" Nature. The foremost of 
 them, The^'ophile, imitated perfectly both the temper and ideas of 
 Montaigne : 
 
 "J'approuve qu'un chacun suive en tout la nature; 
 
 Son empire est plaisant et sa loi n'est pas dure.... 
 
 Je pense que chacun auroit assez d' esprit 
 Suivant le libre train que nature prescrit.... 
 
 Ne t ' oppose jamais aux droits de la nature. 
 
 Garasse was therefore correct in his formulation of the ideas of 
 the beaux-e snrits : 
 
 "II n'y a point d' autre divinite"" ny puissance 
 souveraine au monde que la NATURE, laquelle il 
 faut contenter en toutes choses, sans rien refuser 
 
 Thd^ophile, Oeuvres Completes , ed. Alleaume. Paris (1866). 
 Notice . Ixvi . 
 
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 Ideas usually lose some of their definiteness in crossing 
 the channel into England, and libertine Naturalism is not so easily 
 disengaged for purposes of historical treatment from the English 
 poetry of the seventeenth century. Nevertheless it was there, and | 
 gave, as in France, the air of philosophical sagacity to the 
 sophistication and scepticism which the gay and licentious courts 
 of the Stuarts especially affected. The verse of Theophile was not 
 unknown in England, where he spent his two years of exile. ^ And 
 Montaigne was of course as popular there as in France. The immense 
 prestige of Donne up to the Restoration familiarized poets with his 
 audacious verse, some of which they directly imitated. 
 
 A few quotations will illustrate how scepticism in ethics 
 combined with Naturalistic conceptions of love, was a quite defin- 
 ite tradition in certain circles of seventeenth century England, 
 
 In Daniel's Ulysses and the Siren (1605), the Siren replies to the 
 argument of Ulysses, that "pleasure leaves a touch at last to show 
 that it was ill": ! 
 
 Theophile, ed. cit. Notice . xl. A sufficient number of pieces 
 lustif icatives c^an be foun^ in the verse of the e sprits libre s 
 published by Frederic Lachevre, in Proces du Pobte Theophile 
 de Viau . Paris (1909). II, 305-419. Perrens has sho.’m, in his work 
 previously referred to, the pervasiveness of libertine thought in 
 France in the seventeenth century; and in his concliision he quotes 
 two apt illustrations from Voltaire and Diderot. Op. cit. p.495. 
 
 2 
 
 Cotton imitated him. See Sembower, C. J., Life and Poetry of 
 Charles Cotton. N. Y. (1911) . pp. 88-94. 
 
 For instance, Francis Beaumont's The Indifferent and Love ' s 
 Ere e dome : Goe catch a star , in 7/its Recreations (l640) ; and Carew's 
 Rapture . 
 
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 "That doth opinion only cause 
 That's out of custom bred, 
 
 Which makes us many other laws 
 Than ever Nature did." 
 
 Milton's Comus has no skill in sceptical dialect is, but he shares 
 the Naturalistic hedonism of some of Milton’s contemporaries. 
 "Imposter," cries the Lady in reply to him, 
 
 "do not charge most innocent Nature 
 As if she would her children should be riotous 
 With her abundance." 
 
 In the drama, John Ford is distinguished for his sympathy with 
 
 libertine ethics, which he combined with a sentimental and attenu- 
 1 
 
 ated Platonism. Thomas Carew, to his credit, sensibly objects 
 in two poems to a naturalistic code of morals for mankindj his 
 objection is of course additional proof that the idea was current.^ 
 And in Dryden's Sigismonda and Guisoardo the heroine defends her 
 conduct by distinguishing between man-made laws and the primitive 
 
 Sherman, S. P. , Ford' s ' Tis Pity and the Broken He art. Boston 
 
 . Introduction . Of. Lee, Vernon, The Italy of the Elizabethan 
 dramatists . in Euphorion , London (1899) . Professor Sherman points 
 out the analogy between Ford's 'Tis Pity and Canaoe "e Macareo. a 
 tragedy of incest by Sperone Speroni, and thinks the Italian play 
 may have been Ford's source. His summary of Speroni 's defence of 
 nis play is worth quoting here, as showing in conjunction all the 
 traditions discussed in this chapter: 
 
 "Speroni reminds his hearers of two arguments urged 
 by Dejopeja, wife of Eolo. The children did not deserve 
 death, she maintained, first, because they had merely 
 done per forza what the gods do per volonta in heaven; 
 second, because they had done that in the Iron Age which 
 was permitted in the innocent Age of Gold. This position 
 is supported by a multitude of references to the poets. 
 
 Then glancing at the customs of the ancient Persians and 
 Egyptians, Speroni comes to a point of distinct coinci- 
 dence with Ford, namely, that the union of brother and 
 sister is forbidden, not by nature but by the laws, and 
 ^ not even by all laws." Introduction , li-lii. 
 
 Carew, Poems . Muses ' Library . pp. 160,163. 
 

 
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 151 j 
 
 In the light of this libertine tradition which existed 
 before and after Donne, we can appreciate something of what went on 
 in the mind of the young student of law who, as Courthope said, 
 was a sceptic in religion and a revolutionist in love. The origi- 
 nality of his singularly modern ideas is only apparent; they were 
 in fact the current thought of a definite Renaissance school of 
 Scepticism and Naturalism. We have traced briefly the origins and 
 development of this school, and suggested how large a part it 
 played in making the tone and temper of the Renaissance and seven- 
 teenth century. With this school the learned Donne in some way 
 came in contact, very likely in Montaigne as well as elsewhere. 
 
 With these "libertine” ideas he played, at times gayly and lightly, 
 at times more seriously and cynically. From them he was converted, 
 biographers seem to agree, chiefly by his marriage; but his own 
 nature must have been too deeu, too susceptible to idealism, to 
 have long remained a worshipper of the earthly Aphrodite. Yet his 
 youthful scepticism profoundly influenced him. The saint was 
 a different saint for having passed through his youthful period of 
 hard living and hard thinking. He must have acquired some of 
 Pascal's sense of ”les grandeurs et mi seres de I'homme.” And 
 as Pascal appropriated the scepticism and cynicism of the French 
 libertine movement and turned them to the uses of a profound and 
 noble religious feeling, one asks if this saintly divine, too, 
 had learned in his early years of doubt and groping some of his 
 passionate awareness of his miserableness and his need of divine 
 support. If our historical study has made Donne more clearly a 
 

 
 
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 man of his o'm time, a typical Renaissance sceptic, yet the 
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 in giving us an insight into some of the workings of human nature, 
 
 and a measure of the adequacy of the naturalistic philosophy which 
 is widely current even in our awn day. 
 

 
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1 
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 DAVIES' NQSCE TEIPSUM AND THE IDEALISTIC TRADITION 
 
 I. Suggested Sources of Nosce Teiosum . - II. Precursors of 
 Davies.- III. Parallels from Primaudaye and Others.- IV. 
 
 The Obsolete Rationalism of Davies. 
 
 In the last decade of the sixteenth century, while Donne 
 was living his somewhat turbulent youth and writing his Songs and 
 Elegies, another member of the Inns of Court, John Davies, was like- 
 wise leading the free and reckless life of a gallant and winning 
 for himself, by his caustic and free-spoken epigrams, the title of 
 the "English Martial."^ About 1594 he had also performed the feat 
 of writing Orchestra in fifteen days, a long fantastic poem in 
 praise of dancing, a "suddaine, rash, half-capreol of my wit," 
 rem.arkable chiefly for its ease and mastery of versification. It 
 was dedicated to a friend, Richard Martin. But for some reason 
 the two friends fell out, and Davies broke a bastinado over the head 
 of Martin while the latter was seated at dinner at the Barristers' 
 Table. In February, 1598, Davies was disbarred by unanimous sen- 
 tence, and withdrew to Oxford. His disgrace seems to have weighed 
 heavily on him,. But he soon produced a poem, Nosce Telnsum. pub- 
 lished in 1599 with a dedication to the Queen, which not only gave 
 him a legal career of distinction by bringing him to the attention 
 
 1 
 
 See an epigram by Guilpin, E., in Skialetheia (1598). Quoted by 
 
 Grosart in The Complete Poems of Sir John Davies , London (1876) . 
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 154 
 
 of James I, but made his name famous in English literature. His 
 ' error and disgrace proved to be his good fortune. 
 
 Nosce Teipsum is philosophy in verse. It consists of two 
 ; distinct parts: the first, comparatively brief and apparently 
 ' introductory, discusses the limitations of human knowledge; the 
 j second and main section is a demonstration of the immortality of 
 j the soul from, the immateriality of its nature and functions. In 
 5 his exposition Davies proceeds systematically and logically. He 
 i begins with a discussion of the nature of the soul and its connec- 
 : ^ tion with the body, the object being to distinguish the soul from. 
 
 : j the material substance with which it is so intimately combined. In 
 i; regard to the origin of the soul he discusses the two theories 
 
 f 
 
 ^ I debated in his day, whether each soul is created successively by 
 
 , I God or whether it is the offspring of the parental souls. In the 
 
 I f description of each sense and faculty he never misses an opportunity 
 I i to point out the supra-sensual elements of knowledge. After he has 
 in this way described the soul, he passes to argument, elaborating 
 
 1 ' 
 
 ; .. on six reasons for believing the soul immortal. Five objections 
 
 ; by the sceptics are then refuted, and the poem closes with a trium- 
 
 I 
 
 j phant acclamation, a warning to make our lives worthy of the 
 i [; marvellous nature with which we are endowed. The whole poem is 
 
 I 
 
 thus in effect an argument, a defense of one of the central ideas 
 j I' of religious thought. As such, what is its originality and intrin- 
 I sic value? And how is it related to the thought of the sixteenth 
 |: ; century? Was Davies engaged in stemming the tide of scepticism 
 
 which was sweeping over the world? Was he aware of the nature and I 
 strength of that opposition which was gathering in the camps of the | 
 libertines and materialists? The answer must be sought in a study 
 

 
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liil: 
 
 of Renaissance thought as well as of the tone and structure of 
 the poem itself. And, as in the case of the sceptical Donne, a 
 study of the intellectual conflict in which Davies was involved 
 may not only illuminate his o^wn powem, but also make clear another 
 phase of the work of scepticism as a liberating force in the 
 Renaissance, in the transition from Medieval to Modern thought. 
 
 Suggested Sources of Nosce Teipsum 
 
 As philosophical poetry is usually derivative, a number 
 of scholars have looked for the sources of the ideas which Davies 
 wove into his popular poem. The earliest suggestion was made in 
 1786, in a private letter, by a certain Alexander Dalrymple, Esq., 
 who had picked up Wither' s translation of Nemesius D^ Natura 
 Hominis . "by which I find," he wrote, "Sir John Davies's poem on 
 the Immortality of the Soul is chiefly taken from Nemesius."^ 
 Grosart, on behalf of the author he edited, denied this charge as 
 "absolutely untrue, an utter delusion," and claimed for Davies the 
 
 p 
 
 merit of "deep and original thought." But only a few years after 
 Grosart 's edition, another scholar, Mary A. Ward, expressed doubts 
 as to the originality of Nosce Te ipsum . 
 
 "Some handbook of Christian philosophy," she 
 thought, "seems to have fallen in the author's way 
 during a year of retirement at Oxford, — possibly 
 the De_ Natura Hominis of Nemesius, of which Wither 
 
 Nichols, John, Illustrations of the Literary History of the 
 Eighteenth Century , London (1822). IV, 54S-550. 
 
 ^Davies, ed. cit. Memorial - Introduction , pp. lix-ff. 
 

 
 
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156 
 
 published an English translation in 1636, — 
 and the text suited a sobered mood, while it 
 offered an opportunity for rehabilitating a reputa- 
 tion shaken by youthful folly and extravagance.”-^ 
 
 More recently Courthope also concluded that there could be no 
 
 doubt 
 
 ”that, before setting to work on his poem, Davies 
 had deeply studied the subject as a whole in the 
 most authoritative text-books of philosophy and 
 theology, nor that in some of these, notably 
 Nemesius' De_ Matura Hominis . he found the sugges- 
 tion of the organic ideas on which his composition 
 is built. On the other hand, the order and method 
 of the argument, the beauty of the illustrations, 
 and the harmony and dignity of the versification 
 are his own, and in view of the profundity and 
 difficulty of his subject, it will be generally 
 allowed that the poet's mastery of his materials 
 raises Nosce Te insum , as far at least as the art 
 is concerned, to the same rank as the ^ Rer-um 
 Natura : in imagination, of course, neither 
 Davies nor any other didactic poet can compare 
 with Lucretius.”^ 
 
 In a volume devoted exclusively to a study of the poem, Mr. E. H. 
 Sneath maintained that Davies was influenced by four thinkers, — 
 ■Aristotle, Cicero, Nemesius and Calvin.^ The latest student of 
 Davies agrees with Grosart in denying any influence of Nemesius, 
 but thinks that the ideas of Davies were derived from a study of 
 Aristotle's D^ Anima and modified by a reading of religious 
 - commentators, especially Thomas Aquinas."^ Her statement of these 
 conclusions is worth quoting for a revealing passage in it: 
 
 pWard, The English Poets . I, 549. 
 
 ^Courthope, Hist . of Eng . Poetry . Ill, 57-8. 
 
 ^Sneath, E. Hershey, Philosophy in Poetry. New York (1903) . 
 Seemann, Margarete, Sir John Davies . Sein Leben und Seine Werke . 
 Wiener Beitr^ge . Vol. XLI TIM'S ) . pp 23-24. 
 

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157 
 
 "Tats^chlich finden wir in ' Nosc e Teipsum * einen 
 deutlichen Anschlusz an Aristotles und mit den 
 Ausspr-fichen dieses Philosophen verflochten die 
 religios-philosophischen Ansichten der Aristoteles- 
 forscher, namentlich des Thomas von Aquino. 
 
 Uebrigens waren es nicht allgemein bekannte philoso - 
 phisohe Aussp ruche , die Davies in seinem Gediohte 
 aneinanderreihte (my italics) . vielmehr hat ihm ein 
 besonderes Werk des groszen Griechen als Vorlage 
 fur sein philosophisches Gedicht gedient, und er 
 hat es in origineller Weise als Gerippe fur sein 
 Werk benutzt. Es waren zweifellos 'Die" drei Bucher 
 uber die Seele,' die-Davies seinem ' Nosce Teipsum ' 
 zugrunde ge le gt hat . " 
 
 With such wide divergence of views, it can not be said 
 that the derivation of the philosophical ideas of Davies has been 
 established. The researches of scholars have been fruitful and 
 suggestive, but not definitive; and the reason for this failure 
 is, I think, in an erroneous conception of the problem and the 
 method of attacking it. To say, for instance, that Davies took 
 Aristotle as the basis for his discussion of the immortality of 
 the soul, merely modifying here and there in the light of the 
 Christian philosophy of Aquinas, is to ignore sixteen centuries of 
 discussion and development; it is to ignore at once Davies' relation 
 to tradition and to his own time. And it is because students have 
 neglected the extensive previous literature on immortality and 
 studied Nosce Te ipsum abstracted from the intellectual conflict of 
 the time, that they have failed to emphasize its partisan and 
 polemical nature. It is impossible within the limits of a chapter 
 to make a complete study of its sources; but a consideration of the 
 poem in its Renaissance setting will at least show in what way its 
 
 Seemann, op. cit. p. S4. 
 
 

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158 
 
 spiritualistic philosophy is related to Medieval thought and 
 consciously opposed to the rising tide of scepticism which finally 
 conquered in the seventeenth century. 
 
 II 
 
 Precursors of Davies 
 
 In his introductory poem Davies speaks of the futility of 
 the knowledge of the material world, which most people seek most 
 earnestly. Preoccupied with our surroundings, we remain strangers 
 to ourselves. But in taking for his motto the ancient oracle, 
 
 "Know thyself," Davies does not mean a knowledge of the frailties 
 and inclinations of his nature, after the manner of Montaigne, nor 
 even of such spiritual aspirations as Pascal added to Montaigne's 
 anatomy of man. Davies speaks as a metaphysician. His whole pur- 
 pose is to demonstrate the necessity of a rationalistic idealism. 
 
 He sought to know in himself the rational powers of the soul, to 
 set them forth so clearly that his readers could see the inadequacy 
 of a materialistic explanation of them, and thereby to prove the 
 necessity of assuming the survival of the rational soul after the 
 
 death of the body. With all its wealth of imagery and its multitude || 
 
 ! 
 
 of introspective observations, Hosce Teiosum is essentially a piece 
 of reasoning, a demonstration of a metaphysical doctrine. In 
 studying the relation of Davies to the history of thought, we must 
 guard against overemphasizing similarities in details and even in I 
 figures of speech such as were common property of all writers on the 
 subject, and keep firmly in mind his fundamental idea and purpose. 
 

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159 
 
 1 
 
 I This tradition of spiritual psychology did not originate 
 
 I p 
 
 j “with Aristotle; on the contrary, as we shall see, his attitude 
 
 r- 
 
 ' towards it was hesitating and uncertain. Plato was its first 
 * ' great champion and formulator and the Platonic spirit always con- 
 ^ tinned to permeate it. Asserting that only the rational was truly 
 real, Plato established a sharp dualism between mind and matter. 
 
 ! This dualism appeared in his theory of knowledge as a distinction 
 between those elements which come through sensation and those 
 •. rational and self-evident principles which the soul recognizes at 
 i first sight, or, as it were, remembers from a previous existence. 
 
 I. By means of the reason, therefore, man is enabled to participate 
 I in the perfect and eternal world of Ideas, This supra-sensual 
 nature of the reason Plato regarded as a revelation of the eternal 
 ^ life of the soul; and he believed in its separate existence both 
 ; before birth and after death. Plato therefore indicated the Preb- 
 le lem and showed the way for the later attacks on materialism, 
 
 ; although he left much for his successors to do, both in the way of 
 r developing the implications of his doctrine and of enriching it by 
 more thorough observation of the processes of thought. 
 
 An illustration may be given of the persistence of his I 
 -influence even do'wn to Davies. In The Republic . Book X, Plato 
 I raises the question whether the soul, like all natural objects, can 
 be destroyed by its own appropriate evil. The evils of the soul 
 i are injustice, intemperance, cowardice, and ignorance, but though 
 they mar the soul they can not destroy it. Since it persists in 
 spite of them, it must be indestructible and immortal. Augustine 
 
 See especially Plato's Meno, Phaedo and Phaedrus, and The RepublicJ 
 Book X. * 
 

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160 
 
 uses the same argument, but with the omission of the ethical 
 element. Ferraz thus summarizes his discussion: 
 
 "Si la verite'”, dit-il, fait la vie de l'|,rae, de 
 telle sorte que le sage differe de 1’ insense en ce 
 qu'il possede la vie avec plus de plenitude, n*est-il 
 pas a craindre que la vie, qu’elle tient de la 
 verite, lui soit otee par 1‘erreur qui est son 
 contraire? Nullement. L'erreur ne peut avoir 
 sur l‘ame d' autre effet que de la faire errer; 
 or le fait d' errer est si loin de de'^truire la vie 
 de I’ame, qu'il la suppose; car pour errer, il 
 faut^vivre. Si done la vie, que I'ame tient de 
 la verite, ne peut lui etre otee par l'erreur 
 qui est son contraire, qu'est-ce qui peut la lui 
 ravir? 
 
 And Davies condenses the argument into a quatrain: 
 
 "Perhaps some thing repugnant to her kind, 
 
 By strong antipathy, the Soule may kill; 
 
 But what can be contrary to the minde, « 
 
 Which holds all contraries in concord still?"^ 
 
 Aristotle made a great advance on Plato in that he 
 sought by scientific method and empirical observation to place 
 psychology on a scientific foundation. His discussion of the 
 senses and his description of the faculties of the mind became 
 models for later treatises dovm to the Renaissance, and it is only 
 to be expected that Davies should in his poem make use of an analy- 
 
 Augustine, D^ Immortalitate Animae . Chap. XI. Summarized by 
 Ferraz, M. , De La Psvcholosie de Saint Aueuistin. 2nd ed. . Paris 
 
 (J869). p.434. 
 
 Davies, ed.cit. 1,97. — In citing parallels in this section of my 
 chapter, I am not pretending to have found Davies' direct sources. 
 Quite the contrary, I am conscious of the very great complexity of 
 the problem of finding them, ^ust because the tradition of which he | 
 was an exponent was the result of ages of growth, by development 
 and accretion. My main object is to see what it meant to Davies, 
 and to his readers, to hold certain ideas in preference to others 
 current at the same time; and since, in the Renaissance, tradition 
 still conferred weight and authority, it is helpful to know who ! 
 were Davies* predecessors. | 
 


 61 
 
 ^ sis which had remained standard for so long. But when we come to 
 
 i* 
 
 the main problem, and ask what Aristotle thought about the nature 
 : of the soul and its immortality, we find that Davies was by no 
 means Aristotelian. For Aristotle seems to have doubted whether 
 the soul survives after death; at any rate, his influence, when not 
 modified by the Platonic preconceptions of his students, was against 
 ; the belief. 
 
 I His conception of the soul is an application of his gener- 
 
 " al metaphysics of form and matter. The soul, he said, is the form. 
 
 ' or entelechia . of a natural body furnished with organs. By virtue 
 , of this soul, the organism can exist as organism, and function. 
 
 Thus axeity would be the soul of an axe, if an axe were an organism; 
 
 ^ and if the eye were an animal, eyesight would be its soul.^ This 
 j metaphysical theory of the soul was practically a denial of any 
 1 individual immortality. And, as an eminent French translator of 
 Aristotle has pointed out, the tendency among his most faithful dis- 
 ciples has been materialistic. 
 
 ”Pour saisir la vraie pensee d'Aristote, il 
 convient aussi d'interroger ses disciples, ses 
 successeurs, ses commentateurs les plus autorise's: 
 
 Aristoxene, Dicearque, Straton, Alexandre d’Aphrodise, 
 auxquels vous pouvez joindre Averroes, Pomponat et 
 leurs partisans. Tous repondront unanimement que 
 I'ame est mortelle, et ne survit point au corps, 
 
 Aj^outez que o' est la une consequence evident e et 
 ne'cessaire de cette theorie qui fait de I'ame la- 
 forme du corps. 
 
 gPe Anima. II, 6-9. Ed. Hicks, R.D., Cambridge (1907). p.51. 
 "Earthelemy-Saint-Kilaire , Psvchologie d'Aristote . Paris (1846). 
 Preface . xli. — Davies follows the Patristic tradition in defining 
 the soul as an immaterial substance: 
 
 "The soule a substance, and a spirit is.... 
 
 She is a substance, and a reall thing. 
 
 Which hath it selfe an actuall working might." 
 Davies, ed. cit. I, 29. 
 

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 li' 
 
 I But Aristotle also approached the problem of the nature 
 
 I I of the soul from the side of psychology. In the first place, the 
 1 soul of man has powers that distinguish him from other living 
 : beings or organisms. Plants have merely vegetative souls; animals 
 : have in addition souls whose distinctive characteristics are motion 
 
 ^ V 1 
 
 ^ and sensation. But man has also a rational soul which employs 
 those pov’sers in the realisation of the "form” peculiar to man. 
 
 ^ Aristotle em.phasized the dependence of this rational soul on the 
 senses. It is true, he drew a distinction between passive reason. 
 the material of perceptions arising from the senses, and the active 
 ’ reason , or pure reason, which contributes from its own nature the 
 ■: supra-sensual element of knowledge. In this "active reason" 
 
 r; Aristotle made a concession to idealism, and one might have expected 
 his disciples to develop from it a spiritualistic psychology.^ 
 
 . But the influence of Aristotle here, also, was on the side of 
 : ; materialism. He denied the possibility of the separate existence 
 of the active reason. For, he says, 
 
 "since, apart from sensible magnitudes there is nothing, | 
 as it would seem, independently existent, it is in the 
 sensible forms that the intelligible forms exist, both 
 I the abstractions of mathematics, as they are called, I 
 
 and all the qualities and attributes of sensible things. 
 
 And for this reason, as without sensation a man would 
 , not learn or understand anything, so at the very time 
 
 v7hen he is actually thinking he must have an im.age 
 before him. 
 
 ; idealists borrowed this, as they did any other Aristotelian 
 
 !j dictum they could harmonize with their Platonism. Of. Davies: 
 
 ! "From thence this power (understanding) the shapes of 
 
 things abstracts. 
 
 And them within her passiue part receiues; 
 
 Which are enlightened by that part which acts. 
 
 And so the forms of single things perceiues." 
 
 Davies, op. cit. I, 76. 
 
 2 * 
 
 Aristotle, De Anima . Ill, 8, 3. Translation by Hicks. Ed. cit. 
 p. 145. 
 
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 Aristotle's immediate disciples therefore relegated the theory of 
 ^ the active reason to the realm of speculation, and tended towards 
 a materialistic explanation of the rational powers.^ And again 
 in the Renaissance, Pomponatius maintained that Aristotle did not 
 teach the immortality of the soul, inasmuch as he had denied the 
 ^possibility of the separate existence of the active reason.^ 
 
 Therefore, although Aristotle in places recognized the 
 I’ dualism on which the "spiritualistic" psychology was based, his 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 163 
 
 empiricism tended to obscure it or explain it away. And it was 
 only because his ideas were later modified and interpreted by Neo- 
 Platonism that they could be harmonized with Christian thought. 
 Immortality was, in fact, historically as well as logically, a 
 Platonic idea, and its champions before the Middle Ages were all men 
 of the Platonic tradition, — Plotinus, Porphyry, Gregory of Nyssa, 
 Nemesius and Augustine. 
 
 "Every mediaeval and every later Alexandrian 
 interpretation of Aristotle,” says Douglas, "had been 
 coloured by Neo-Platonism. The idea of the individual 
 soul as a substance, separate and self -existent, which 
 prevailed with practical uniformity in the orthodox 
 
 Ravaisson, Metaphysique ^ d'Aristote , 11,50-51: "Dans The'ophraste 
 
 dans see contemporains Glearque, Aristoxene, et Dice'arque, dans 
 btrat^on, ^une double tendance se manifeste de plus en plus, d'une 
 part a^delaisser dans sa solitude le principe hyperphysique de I'acte 
 
 et de la pensee pure, unique objet de la philosophie^premi^re ; de 
 
 unir intimement la pensee, I'Eme, la 
 
 1 autre, dans la physique, a x a 
 
 lorme intelligible avec le mouvement, la mati^re, la puissance." 
 woted by Douglas, A.H., Pietro Pomponazzi . Cambridge (1910). p.ll. 
 
 L., La Psicologia di Pietro Pomponazzi. Rome (1876). pp.63- 
 (b. Among the passages Ferri quotes is the following from De 
 Immorta litate Animae : "....ad inseparabilitatem concludendam sufficit 
 secundum Aristotelem quod sit vel virtus organica, vel si non 
 organica, saltern quod sine objecto corporal! non possit exire in 
 opus; dicit enim lex. 12 lib, 1 De Anima, quod sive intellectus sit 
 pnantasia, sive non sit sine phantasia, non contingit ipsum 
 separari." p.65, n. 
 

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164 ] 
 
 I 
 
 schools from patristic 6 . 07 m to modern times, can be 
 traced historically through the theology of Augustine 
 back to the influence of the Alexandrian thinkers who 
 first expressed Platonic conceptions in the forms of 
 the Aristotelian logic. ”1 
 
 It is surprising that so eminent and influential a 
 
 champion of spiritualistic psychology as Augustine should never 
 
 have been mentioned by students of Davies. 
 
 ! Augustine, says Ferraz, "est peut-etre de tous 
 
 les Peres celui qui I'a developpee avec le plus 
 I d'ampleur et qui I'a discutee de la maniere la plus 
 
 I forte et la plus rat ionnelle , . . II faut remonter 
 
 jusqu' \ Plotin et descendre^ jusqu''k Descartes pour 
 trouver ce redoubtable probleme de la spiritualite 
 de I'ame souleve par un esprit aussi net et aussi 
 vigoureux, et envisage sous^toutes ses faces avec 
 une attention aussi opinionatre et aussi penetrante . 
 
 I Like Davies, Augustine based his spiritual philosophy on the 
 ^ immediate observation of his conscious processes. The author of 
 I Nosce Teipsum, though too much a man of the world to share all the 
 j "spiritual longings of Augustine, did share his conception of the 
 \ method and problem of philosophy: "Noli foras ire; in te ipsum 
 
 I 2 
 
 redi: in interiore homine habitat veritas." With what dialectical 
 
 i Douglas, op. cit. pp.6-7. 
 
 j Cf.: "Ein deutlicher Ausdruck f{Ir die Tendenzen der spatpatristi- 
 « schen Psychologic sind die Lehren Nemesius', des Bischofs von Emesa | 
 I (urn 430) . Gegen den Materialismus und gegen die ar istotelische I 
 j Entelechienlehre verficht dieser einen ausgesprochenen Dualismus vonl 
 [ Leib und Seele, der sich mit der Definition der Seele als einer 1 
 I unkorper lichen, fur sich bestehenden Substanz zufrieden gibt." 
 
 Klemm, Otto, Geschichte der Psvchologie . Leipzig (1911) . p. 31, 
 
 I ^Ferraz, op. cit. pp. 42, 69. [ 
 
 j Windelband, History of Philosophy , trans. Tufts, N.Y. (1893). 
 
 p. 276. Elsewhere Augustine expressed as the aim of his philosoohy: 
 Meum et animam scire cupio." Max Dessoir. Geschichte der Neueren 
 Deutschen Psvcholog-ie . Berlin (1902). I, ll"; 
 
• ■ ■ I > y ^-■ 
 
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165 
 
 skill Augustine applied the introspective method is apparent from 
 the following remarkable passage, which anticipates even Descartes: 
 
 "Since we treat of the nature of the mind, let 
 us remove from our consideration all knowledge which 
 is received from without, through the senses of the 
 body; and attend more carefully' to the position which 
 we have laid dovim, that all minds know and are certain 
 concerning themselves. For men certainly have doubted 
 whether the power of living, of remembering, of under- 
 standing, of willing, of thinking, of knowing, of 
 judging, be of air, or of fire, or of the brain, or 
 of the blood, or of atoms, or besides the usual four 
 elements of a fifth kind of body, I know not what; 
 or whether the combining or tempering together of 
 this our flesh itself has power to accomplish these 
 things. And one has attempted to establish this, 
 and another to establish that. Yet who ever doubts 
 that he himself lives, and remembers, and understands, 
 and wills, and thinks, and knows, and judges; if he 
 doubts, he remembers why he doubts; if he doubts, he 
 understands that he doubts; if he doubts, he wishes 
 to be certain; if he doubts, he thinks; if he doubts, 
 he knows that he doss not know; if he doubts, he 
 judges that he ought not to assent rashly. V/hoso- 
 ever therefore doubts about anything else, ought 
 not to doubt of all these things; which if they 
 were not, he would not be able to doubt of anything."^ 
 
 Although he never wrote a systematic treatise on the 
 soul, Augustine discussed in various places all phases of mental 
 life, and from his writings a complete psychology can be gathered. 
 Naturally, he used much of the terminology which Aristotle had con- 
 
 ^Augustine, On the Trinity . Book X, Chap. X. Trans. Haddan. 
 Edinburgh (1873). p.256. — Cf. Davies; 
 
 "And though some impious wits do questions moue. 
 
 And doubt if Soules immortall be, or no; 
 
 That doubt their immortalitie doth proue, 
 
 Because they seeme immortall things to know.... 
 
 So, when the Soule mounts with so high a wing, 
 
 As of eternall things she doubts can moue; 
 
 Shee proofes of her eternitie doth bring, 
 
 Euen when she striues the contrary to proue." 
 
 Davies, op. cit. 1,95-96. 
 
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 tribute! to the science. But he was no Aristotelian. Siebeck, 
 the most eminent historian of psychology, calls him, in contrast to 
 Aristotle, the "first modern man." 
 
 "Unter den bedeutenden Personlichkeiten des 
 Altertums," he says, "durften kaum zwei so 
 entgegengesetzte Charaktere zu finden sein, wie 
 Aristoteles und Augustin.... Fur Aristoteles, den 
 Hellenen, ist das Seelenleben nur soweit interessant, 
 als es sich nach auszen kehrt, und dazu dient, die 
 Welt theoretisch und praktisch zu umspannen; fur 
 Augustin, den ersten modernen Menschen, hat die 
 Betrachtung desselben nur Wert, sofern aus ihn 
 sich die Innerlichkeit des pers6nlichen Lebens 
 als etwas von der^^Auszenwelt im Grunde Unabhangiges 
 begreifen l^szt." 
 
 In the later Middle Ages Augustine was widely read among 
 the Nominalists and the Mystics, who had in common an aversion to 
 the inte llectualism of Thomas Aquinas. He stimulated their tendency 
 towards a spiritual mode of thought, based on a very distinct dual- 
 ism of mind and body; he confirmed their belief that the moral life 
 depends more on the will of man than on his intellect; and he taught 
 them the art of observing the processes of the inner life, on which 
 especially the mystics concentrated their attention.^ With the 
 Reformation there was a general revival of Augustine as well as 
 of other Patristic writers. And in a little manual on metaphysics, 
 Richard Crakanthorp, who was an Oxford fellow in 1598, at the same 
 time as Davies was writing his poem there, refers to Augustine, 
 along with Aristotle and Aquinas, as an authority on metaphysics.^ 
 One might therefore reasonably have expected to see Augustine 
 
 . Siebeck, H., Die Anf^nge der neueren Psychologic in der Scholastik 
 in ^itschrift filr Philosophic und phil. Kritik. vol . 39n"l888) . 
 
 Pg. 188, 191. “ 
 
 gSiebeck, op. cit. 
 
 Crakanthorp, R. , Introductio in Metaphvsicam . Oxford (1619) . 
 
, J,: - ;((»v '%f-' 
 
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167 
 
 mentioned among those whose works Davies had consulted before 
 ; writing Nosoe Teiosum . 
 
 :v It was no accident that Augustine, who formed such a 
 
 ' 1 . 
 
 ^ direct contrast to Aristotle, should in the Middle Ages have 
 
 5^ inspired some of the opposition to Aquinas, the "Christian 
 
 [ Aristotle." The Thomistio doctrine of the soul was a revival of 
 r 
 
 I Aristotle's theory of Form and Matter, modified by Neo-Platonism 
 ;■ and developed by the medieval conflict with Arabian philosophy. 
 
 Thomas defined the soul as the Form of the body, united with the 
 1 body and making of it a living organism. But there are several kinds 
 
 f' 
 
 of forms; the forms of the lower organisms, plants and animals, can 
 ■: exist only with the bodies; higher forms, the "subsistent 
 ■ intelligences," may exist without bodies; the subsistent intelli- 
 genes of man is united with the body in this life, but will exist 
 without it in a future life. As forma separata the soul is by 
 definition immaterial, simple, indestructible and immortal.'^ 
 
 This doctrine of the forms appears in only one stanza in 
 Nosce Te iosum ; 
 
 "Yet of the formes, she holds the first degree, 
 
 That are to grosse mater iall bodies knit; 
 
 Yet shee her selfe is bodilesse and free; 
 
 And though confin'd, is almost infinite."^ 
 
 'Even there it has no logical relation to the context, and its force 
 is more that of a metaphor than of a doctrine. Davies defined the 
 soul, as we have seen, as a spiritual substance, and in following 
 
 Rickaby, J., God and His Creatures . London (1906). pp. 109-182. 
 Frohschammer , J.. Die Philosophie des Thomas von Aquino. Leiozie 
 
 (1889). pp. 349-379“ 
 
 3 „ 
 
 Davies, op. cit. I, 41. 
 
• ■-• .' . '• / "' '■•* '* '/Vjv t4’ 
 
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168™] 
 
 this somewhat crude conception of the Church Fathers, he escaped 
 the equally difficult and untenable subtleties of Aquinas. He was, 
 in fact, no Thomist. Though a rationalist rather than a mystic, 
 he seems to have had little taste for the Thomist ic dialectic from 
 first principles.^ 
 
 The exhaustion of Medieval philosophy, discussed in the 
 first chapter, led to an age of eclecticism in the fifteenth and 
 sixteenth centuries. The Aristotelian and Thomistic theory of the 
 soul as Form became the subject of a fierce controversy in Italy 
 between the Averroists and the Alexanlrists, the most important 
 result of which was the eminence of the notorious Pomponatius, who 
 denied the immortality of the soul as a philosopher, but as a 
 Christian gave it lip-service. But the psychology of the 
 Renaissance ignored, on the whole, this metaphysical theory, and 
 especially in Northern Europe preferred the introspective method 
 of Augustine, which had been continued by the Nominalists and 
 Mystics. In matters of detail it laid all the past under contribu- 
 tion, even Aristotle and Aquinas; and out of manifold sources was 
 developed a stereotyped treatment of the problem of the nature of 
 the soul and its immortality, which for two centuries was repeated 
 with greater or less elaboration, but with no important modification 
 As an early illustration of this Renaissance spiritual- 
 istic psychology we may quote Nicolas of Cusa (1401-1464) . Nicolas, 
 
 ^Cf., for instance, on the origin of the soul: Davies, I, 47-ff. 
 and Rickaby, pp. 166-ff.; or Davies' replies to objections against 1 
 immortality, with Rickaby, 155-ff. I 
 
 3 S 
 
 Douglas, op. cit. Chaps. II-IV. 
 
 Charbonnel, J. R. , La Pensee Italienne au XVIe Sieole et le 
 Durant Libert in , Paris (1919). Chap. III. 
 

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the author of Docta Ipmorantia . imbued with the scepticism of 
 the Nominalists, and in some ways more modern than medieval, was 
 no disciple of Aquinas. His definition of the soul, like that of 
 Davies, was Patristic. 
 
 "Die Seele," he says, "ist eine unkSrperliche 
 Substanz und die Kraft zu verschiedenen Fahigkeiten, 
 
 Sie ist die Sinnenwahrnehmung (sensualitas) , sie ist 
 das Einbildungsvermogen (ipsa est imaginatio) , sie 
 ist Verstand und Vernunft (ratio et intelligentia) . 
 Sinnenwahrnehm\ing und Einbildung ubt sie im Kdrper 
 aus, Verstand und Vernunft auszerhalb dem Korper. 
 Sinnenwahrnehmxmg, Einbildungskraf t , Verstand und 
 Vernunft haben Eine und dieselbe Substanz, wiewohl 
 der Sinn nicht Einbildung, Verstand Oder Vernuft ist. 
 Ebenso ist die Einbildungskraf t nicht Verstand und 
 Vernunft Oder eines der andern Vermogen. Es sind 
 verschiedene Auf fassungsweisen in der Seele, von 
 denen die eine nicht auch die andere sein kann."^ 
 
 The Cardinal’s proof of the immateriality of the soul recalls 
 passages in Nosc e Teipsum ; 
 
 "Die Fahigkeit fiir Weisheit und Unsterblichkeit 
 ersehen wir daraus, weil der Geist sich zu dem 
 hinneigt, was unzerstorlich ist, und es erfasst, 
 wie wir es an den Kiinsten sehen; er fasst die 
 unsterbliche Fahigkeit in sich, zu^zahlen und 
 zu messen. Das konnte er nicht, hatte er nicht eine 
 Seele, welche sich aus dem particularen und zerst&r- 
 lichen Erfahrungsmaszigen zu dem universellen 
 Verstandniss desselben erheben und so sich eine 
 Kunst erwerben kann. Diese Fahigkeit der Seele 
 aber ist ein Beweis, dass sie nicht an das zerstorliche 
 Instrument des Kbrpers imd an die Organs der Sinne 
 gebunden ist. Sie ist daher fahig fur Wissenschaft 
 und Kiinste und Weisheit, Dinge, die von allem 
 
 Scharpff, F. A., Des Cardinals und Bisc hofs Nicolas von Cusa 
 wichtigste Schriften in deutschen "Oebersetzunp; . Freiburg ( 1862) . 
 p. 223. Cf. Davies (ed. cit. p.6371 " 
 
 "So in our little World: this soule of ours, 
 
 Being onely one, and to one body tyed. 
 
 Doth use, on diuers obiects diuers powers. 
 
 And so are her effects diuersif ied. " 
 
Particularen und Zerstorlichen frei sind. Die 
 Seele zergeht desshalb nicht, wenn auch der Kdrper 
 zergeht, da sie nicht von ihm abh^ngt, wie das Sehen 
 vom Auge, das aufh'ort, wenn das Auge, an welches es 
 gebunden war, zerstort ist. Da die Sehkraft in der 
 Seele bleibt, so kbnnte sie wie der sehen, sobald 
 das Auge wieder hergestellt ist. Wir erkennen auch 
 in der Einbildungskraft eine hbhere Art von Sinn, 
 weil unser Einbilden bei Abwesenheit eines Gegenstandes 
 genauer ist, als die Sinnenerkenntniss . Indessen 
 irrt die Einbildung oft, hinsichtlich der Wahrheit, 
 wie wenn wir uns einbilden, die Gegenfussler fallen. 
 
 Es gibt desshalb eine genauere Kraft, welche die 
 Einbildung corrigirt — der Verstand, welcher uns 
 sagt, ;jenes Fallen wM,re ein in die Hbhe Steigen des 
 Schweren, woraus er Schliesst, dass jene eben so 
 wenig fallen kbnnen, als wir in die H6he steigen. . .etc. 
 
 As this citation of parallel passages cannot be complete, one more, 
 
 on the relation of the soul to the senses, must suffice: 
 
 Scharpff , 
 Cf. Davies: 
 
 op. cit. pp. 462-2 
 
 I 
 
 C 
 
 "When she from sundry acts, one skill doth draw. 
 
 Gathering from diuers fights one art of warre. 
 
 From many cases like, one rule of Law; 
 
 These her collections, not the Senses are. "(p. 30). 
 
 "When she defines, argues, diuides, compounds. 
 
 Considers vertue, vice, and gsnerall things, 
 
 And marrying diuers principles and grounds, 
 
 Out of their match a true conclusion brings. 
 
 These actions in her closet all alone, 
 
 (Retir'd within her selfe) she doth fulfill; 
 
 Use of her bodie ' s organs she hath none, 
 
 When she doth use the powers of Wit and Will. " (pp. 31-2). 
 
 "But when she sits to iudge the good and ill. 
 
 And to discerne betwixt the false and true; 
 
 She is not guided by the Senses' skill. 
 
 But doth each thing in her own mirrour view. 
 
 Then she the Senses checks, which oft do erre. 
 
 And euen against their false reports decrees; 
 
 And oft she doth condemne what they preferre. 
 
 For with a power aboue the Sense, she sees. " (p. 34) . 
 
 
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"Wenn der Geist die sinnliche Erkenritnisskraft 
 ins Auge fasst, so findet er, dass dieselbe zwar, 
 s of erne sie von einem mange lhaf ten Organe abhangt, 
 mangelhaft ist, nicht aber als Seelenvermogen, weil 
 sie nacii Herstellung des Organs wieder so gut wie 
 frdher (ehe dasselbe krankhaft geworden) wahrnimmt, 
 ohne dass eine neue F^higkeit, ein neues 
 Wahrnehmungsvermogen geschaffen worden ware. Ebenso 
 verh^lt es sich rait der Einbildungskraft : bei einem 
 minder guten Organe sind die Bidder der verniinftigen 
 Seele minder lebendig; auf eine Zeit dang kann der 
 Mensch, wenn das Organ gehemmt ist, das Ged^chtniss 
 verdieren, und dann wieder erhadten. Es bdeibt adso 
 in der Seede die GedRchtnisskraf t , wiewohl ihre 
 Wirksamkeit cessirt, die sie ohne ein gesundes Organ 
 nicht ausuben kann. Wie der Sohreibende ohne Feder 
 nicht schreiben kann, so ist^^auch die Verstandesthatig- 
 keit mange dhaft, wenn die Thatigkeit des Organs deidet, 
 obwohd jene im, Geiste fortbesteht. Wahrend die 
 Vernunft bei ihrer Anschauung des vernunftig Erkennbaren 
 keines sinndichen Organs bedarf, so ist dagegen der 
 Geist bei der Erkenntniss der sinndichen Binge an ein 
 Organ gebunden, dessgdeichen bei der Einbiddung, da 
 diese sinndicher Natur ist. Auch der discursive 
 Verstand bedarf, da er das denkend durchgeht, was 
 er aus der Sinnenwedt geschopft hat, der Sinnenorgane , 
 die das Mehr Oder Weniger genau auffassen und zum 
 Gebrauche geubt sind. Kfur bei der Anschauung des 
 vernunftig Erkennbaren, das durch keinen sinndichen 
 Gegenstand zu fixiren ist, weid seine Einfaohheit 
 und das Unconcrete seiner absoduten Natur iiber das 
 Gebiet der Sinnenwedt hinausgeht, bedarf der Geist 
 kein Sinnenorgan, sondern nur seine innere, der 
 Natur des zu Erkennenden conforme Einfachheit. ^ 
 
 ^Scharpff, op. cit. p.464. 
 
 Cf. Davies: 
 
 "These questions make a subtidd argument, 
 
 To such as thinke both sense and reason one; 
 
 To whom nor agent, from the instrument. 
 
 Nor power of working from the work is known. . . . 
 
 For, if that region of the tender braine. 
 
 Where th' inward sense of Fantasie shoudd sit. 
 
 And the outward senses gatherings shoudd retain, 
 By Nature, or by chance, become unfit; 
 
 Either at first uncapabde it is. 
 
 And so few things, or none at add receiues; 
 
 Or mard by accident, which haps amisse 
 And so amisse it euery thing perceiues. . . . 
 
 But purge the humors, and the rage appease, 
 
 Which this distemper in the fansie wrought; 
 

 
 
 
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 172 
 
 Nicolas of Cusa 7;as, however, quite certainly not the 
 
 [source of Nosce Teipsum . These passages have been cited merely to 
 ^ illustrate the tradition to which Davies was indebted. In the 
 .sixteenth century this tradition was turned to polemical uses 
 against the general sceptical movement. Unbelief was imperilling 
 all the chief doctrines of Christianity, and the denial of any sur- 
 vival after death was one of the most dangerous tenets of the 
 "Epicureans" and "Libertines." Philosophy was called from her aca- 
 demic seclusion to confound their impieties. A new species of 
 popular treatise accordingly began to come from the press, the 
 nature of which was usually indicated in title or sub-title. Two 
 such French treatises had an especially wide circulation in England 
 as well as in France. Philippe de Mornay's De_ la ver ite de la 
 religion Ghrest ienne . Contre les Athees. Epicuriens. Payens , Juif s, 
 Mahume dan i s t e s . et autres Inf i deles , published at Antwerp in 1581, 
 
 Then shall the Wit, which never had disease, 
 
 Discourse, and iudge discreetly, as it ought ." (pp. 100-2) 
 
 "Doubtlesse the bodie’s death when once it dies. 
 
 The instruments of sense and life doth kill; 
 
 So that she cannot use those faculties. 
 
 Although their root rest in her substance still. 
 
 But (as the body liuing) Wit and Will 
 
 Can iudge and chuse, without the bodie • s ayde ; 
 
 Though on such obiects they are working still. 
 
 As through the bodie ' s organs are conuayde: 
 
 So, when the body serues her turne no more. 
 
 And all her Senses are extinct and gone. 
 
 She can discourse of what she learn' d before. 
 
 In heauenly contemplations, all alone. 
 
 So, if one man well on a lute doth play. 
 
 And haue good horsemanship, and Learning's skill 
 Though both his lute and horse we take away^ 
 
 Doth he not keep his former learning still?" (p.l05) 
 

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173 
 
 1 
 
 » was reprinted in 1582, 1583 and 1590; a Latin translation appeared 
 » in 1583 and was frequently reprinted; an English translation by 
 \ Sir Philip Sidney was published in 1587, and reprinted in 1592 and 
 
 I 
 
 1604. The Second Part of the French Academic . by Peter de la 
 Primaudaye, dealing particularly with the nature and immortality of 
 ^ the soul, was translated in 1594 by '’T.B.” Only a few years after 
 Davies' poem. Dr. John Dove published a small volume. Atheism 
 ; Defined and confuted by undeniable arguments (London, 1605), in 
 which he gave fourteen arguments "alleaged by naturall Philosophers 
 to prove the immortality of the soul."^ And at least twice before 
 Davies wrote his poem, immortality had been made the argument of 
 well-kno7m Latin verse. Marcellus Palingenius, in Zodiacus Vitae. 
 
 .. published about 1531, devoted one of the twelve books to the nature 
 of the soul and its immortality. It was the powers of the soul 
 that convinced him of its divine nature: 
 
 Colligitur tamen ex dictis, ao perspicitur, quod 
 Est anima aethereurn quiddam, sine corpore vivens. 
 
 Omnia vivificans, cognoscens omnia 
 
 Nam si anima et sentit, et cuncta intellegit, ergo 
 Non est corporea, aut corpus: quia corpora nulla 
 Non terra, unda, aer, ignis, neque condita ab istis. 
 Has per se vires retinent. Non est dubitandum 
 Esse animam semen quoddam caeleste, lovisque 
 Progenium aeternam, qui tantum cognitionis 
 Cessit, ut immensum valeat comprendere mundum.'^ 
 
 This whole poem had a considerable vogue in England; in 
 
 it was used as a text-book in English secondary schools 
 
 the original 
 in the 
 
 i See abstract in Appendix to chapter. For a list of other trans- 
 ! lations and original works of similar nature which appeared in 
 
 I England in the sixteenth century, see Robertson. John M. , A Short 
 I History of Freethought . 2nd ed. , New York (19065. II, 27. 
 
 I ^Palingenius, Zodiacus Vitae , Lib. VII, 855-868. Ed. Weise, 
 
 : Leipzig (1832). pp. 178-9. 
 
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174 
 
 I sixteenth century,^ and it was available to a larger public in the 
 translation by Barnabe Googe. The Italian humanist, Aonius 
 'Palearius, published in 1536 a Latin poem, Immortalitate 
 1 Animarum. which was often reprinted at the end of Lucretius, as an 
 antidote to the "atheism” of the Epicurean poet. 
 
 The learned historian of English philosophy, De Remusat, 
 i once complained of a difficulty, "une difficulte que nous retrouvons 
 souvent en ^tudiant les philosophes, surtout ceux d'un ordre 
 secondaire. II faudrait une Erudition et une memoire incomparables 
 'pour reconnaitre les rares moments ou ils sont originaux. One 
 
 I ' must conclude from this sketch of the history of spiritual 
 
 psychology from Plato to Davies, that the research necessary to 
 
 identify all his direct or ultimate sources would be too great to 
 
 be justifiable; only a Dante or Goethe is worth so much learning. 
 
 Mevertheless our study has given us a positive result in indicating 
 
 the continued vitality as well as the antiquity of the argument 
 
 against materialism. Davies could certainly not have pretended to 
 
 the merit of novelty; but there are other merits. Bossuet defined 
 
 a heretic as a man who has formed an opinion. It was the 
 
 I materialists, the scoffers, the sceptics of the Renaissance who 
 
 had formed an opinion, who had departed from the true tradition. 
 
 Davies himself has described what he conceived to be their 
 
 intellectual and moral character: 
 
 "How sense lesse then, and dead a soule hath hee. 
 
 Which thinks his soule doth with his body die) 
 
 Or thinkes not so, but so would haue it bee, 
 
 That he might sinne with more securitie. 
 
 ^Watson, Foster, The English Grammar Schools to 1660 . Cambridge 
 (1908). pp. 378-9. 
 
 ^De Re'musat, Ch., La Philosophie en Angleterre . Paris(l875). 1,115. 
 
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175 
 
 For though these light and vicious persons say, 
 
 Our Soule is but a smoake, or ayrie blast; 
 
 Which, during life, doth in our nostrils play. 
 
 And when we die, doth turne to wind at last; 
 
 Although they say, 'Come let us eat and drinke ' ; 
 
 Our life is but a sparke, which quickly dies; 
 Though thus they say, they know not what to think. 
 But in their minds ten thousand doubts arise. 
 
 Therefore no heretikes desire to spread 
 Their light opinions, like these Epicures; 
 
 For so the staggering thoughts are comforted. 
 
 And other men’s assent their doubt assures.”^ 
 
 Davies sought to express with clearness and force those old truths 
 which were doubted by an increasingly large number of his con- 
 temporaries. He had communed with the saints of thought; therefore 
 he championed their tradition before an unbelieving age. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Parallels from Primaudaye and others 
 
 I If it is correct in this way to interpret Nosoe Teipsum 
 
 C as a re-statement of the traditional argument against materialism, 
 I there ought to be marked similarities between it and other 
 j' treatises contemporary with it. Primaudaye 's volume should be 
 ~ especially valuable for such a comparison. His Second Part of the 
 French Aoademie is, in the English translation, a rambling ill- 
 digested discussion in six hundred pages of the physiology and 
 psychology of man. But its special purpose is to demonstrate the 
 
 Davies, ed. cit. pp.83-3. Elsewhere he calls them "these light 
 vaine persons" (p.93), "impious wits" (p.95), "these Epicures" (p.99] 
 "this crue" (p.108), "these vaine spirits" (p.llO). 
 
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 immortality of the soul, to refute the atheists. ”My companions,” 
 so begins the first page of the book,” I greatly bewayle the misery 
 of our age, wherein so many Epicures and Atheists liue, as are 
 dayly discouered amongst us in all estates and callings.” And we 
 are apprised very soon as to what kind of knowledge is most valuable 
 both to refute atheists and secure our ovm salvation. 
 
 . .that sentence which saith, Knowe thy selfe . 
 was not without good reason so much praised and 
 renowned amongst al the ancient Greeke and Latin 
 Philosophers, as that which is worthy to be taken 
 for a heauenly oracle, & a sentence pronounced by 
 the mouth of God. For whosoeuer shall know 
 himselfe well, cannot faile to know God his creator, 
 and to honour him as he ought, if he follow the 
 chiefe end for which man was created, as well as 
 the residue of the creatures . . . For although 
 the knowledge of the rest of the creatures that 
 are in this great visible worlde, will greatly 
 helpe to leade him to the knowledge of God the 
 Creatour, neuerthelesse he shall neuer be able 
 to know him well, if withall he know not himselfe. 
 Yea these two knowledges are so ioyned togither, 
 that it is a very hard matter to seuer them. For 
 as a man can not know himselfe if he know not God, 
 so he cannot know God wel, if in like sort he know 
 not himselfe. So that I take this for most certain, 
 that neither Astronomy, Geometry, Geography, or 
 Cosmography, nor any other Mathematical science is 
 so necessary for man, as that wherby he may learne 
 to know himselfe wel, & to measure himselfe wel by 
 the measure of his owne nature, that he may thereby 
 know how to contayne himselfe within the limits 
 thereof. ” ^ 
 
 Ir. . 
 
 Primaudaye, ed. cit. pp. 10-12. Of. Davies: 
 
 "All things without, which round about we see. 
 
 We seeke to knowe, and how therewith to doe; 
 
 But that whereby we reason, liue and be, 
 
 Within our selues, we strangers are thereto. 
 
 We seeke to know the mouing of each spheare, 
 
 And the strange cause of th'ebs and flouds of Nile; 
 
 But of that clocke within our breasts we beare. 
 
 The subtill motions we forget the while 
 
 I know my life's a paine and but a span, 
 
 I know my sense is mockt with euery thing: 
 
 And to conclude, I know my selfe a MAN, 
 
 Which is a proud, and yet a wretched thing, (pp.30,24). 
 
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177 
 
 I 
 
 IKBoth in its purpose and in its method the volume of Primaudaye is 
 ' I therefore a predecessor of Davies' poem. I 
 
 In details, there are noteworthy differences as well as 
 similarities. Some of the latter will be presented first, in 
 parallel passages. 
 
 { Sight. 
 
 l 
 
 "Let us knowe therefore, that the eies were 
 giuen of God to men to cause them to see, and to be 
 as it were their watch-towers & sentinels, the guides 
 & leaders of the whole body: as also they are as it 
 were the chief e windows s of the body, or rather of 
 the soule, which is lodged within it.... Therefore 
 by good right they bears rule among the senses, and 
 all^the other members of the body, as being their 
 guides. For they are giuen to man chiefly to guide 
 i and leads him to the knowledge of God, by xhe con- 
 
 : templation of his goodly works, which appears 
 
 principally in the heauens and in al the order 
 thereof, and whereof we can haue no true knowledge 
 I and instruction by any other sense but by the eies. 
 
 1 For without them who could euer haue noted the diuers 
 
 j course and motions of the celestiall bodies? yea wee 
 
 see by experience, that the Mathematical! sciences, 
 among which Astronomy is one of the chisfest, cannot 
 be well and rightly shewed and taught, as many others 
 may, without the helps of the eies; because a man 
 I must make their demonstrations by figures, which are 
 
 their letters and images. I passe ouer many other 
 Sciences, as that of the Anatomy of mans body and 
 such like.... Wherefore seeing the bodily senses are 
 I the chiefest masters of man, in whose house the 
 
 spirits and understanding is lodged and enclosed, 
 the greatest and first honour is by good right to 
 be giuen to the eies and sight. Likewise it is 
 the first mistresse that prouoked men forward to 
 the studie and searching out of science and wisdoms 
 .... His (God's) spirituall light hee hath infused 
 into spirituall creatures, and bodily light into 
 bodily creatures, to the ends that by this benefits 
 the spirites might haue understanding, and the eies 
 sight. So that Angelles and the spirites of men, 
 which are spirituall and inuisible creatures, are 
 illuminated by the means s of understanding, with 
 that spirituall and heauenly light whereof God hath 
 made them partakers: as the bodies of lining creatures, 
 and chiefly of man are illuminated with the corporall 
 light of the Sunne by meanes of the eies." 
 
 Primaudaye, pp. 68-69. 
 
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178 
 
 "First, the two eyes that haue the seeing power. 
 Stand as one watchman, spy, or sentinell; 
 
 Being plac’d aloft, within the head's high tower; 
 And though both see, yet both but one thing tell. 
 
 These mirrors take into their little space 
 
 The formes of moone and sun, and euery starre; 
 
 Of euery body and of euery place, 
 
 Which with the World's wide armes embraced are: 
 
 Yet their best obiect, and their noblest use. 
 Hereafter in another World will be; 
 
 When God in them shall heauenly light infuse. 
 
 That face to face they may their Maker see. 
 
 Here are they guides, which doe the body lead. 
 
 Which else would stumble in eternal night; 
 
 Here in this world they do much knowledge read, 
 And are the casements which admit most light.” 
 
 Davies, pp.65-6. 
 
 Hearing. 
 
 "For this cause the eares are not pierced outright, 
 but their holes are made winding in, like the shell 
 of a snayle, whose forme they represent, so that one 
 cannot thrust straight foorth so much as a litle 
 threede.... ouer great soundes would marre the 
 instrument of hearing, if they were not distributed 
 and compassed according to the capacity therof. For 
 there must alwaies be an answerable and apt proportion 
 between the sense, the thing subiect to sense, and the 
 meane by which the sense is made. Hereupon it 
 falleth out often, that many become deafe by hearing 
 ouer great soundes, whereof wee haue experience in 
 Smithes, amongest whome many are thicke of hearing, 
 because their eares are continually dulled with the 
 noyse and sound of their hammers and anuiles.... 
 Therefore as the eies are iudge of light and colours, 
 and by that meane s bring great pleasure and profite 
 to men, so the eares iudge of sounds and of the 
 voyce, of notes, harmony, and of melodies, whereby 
 man receiueth commoditie and delight.... how many 
 instruments are there of most excellent and melodious 
 musicke, what voices and pleasant songs, frarried very 
 cunningly, and with great grace and harmonie by the 
 arte of musicke?.,.. But aboue all, the chiefest 
 profite that the eares bring to men, is by the meanes 
 of speeche, whereby they comm.\onicate one with another 
 all their conceipts, imaginations, thoughtes and 
 counsailes, so that without them the whole life 
 of man would bee not onely deafe, but dumbe also 
 

 
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and very unperfect, as if man had neyther tongue, 
 mouth nor speeche. And on the other side, seeing 
 man hath alwayes neede of doctrine and instruction, 
 albeit all the other senses helpe him therein, 
 neuerthelesse , none is so fitte or more seruicable 
 to this purpose, next to the eyes, then the eares. . . . 
 After the knowledge of things is found out, and artes 
 begunne by raeanes of the sight, ....then the sense of 
 hearing teacheth a great deale more, both greater 
 matters and sooner...." etc. 
 
 Primaudaye, pp. 81-83. 
 
 "These wickets of the Soule are plac't on hie 
 Because all sounds doe lightly mount aloft; 
 
 And that they may not pierce too violently, 
 
 They are delaied with turnes, and windings oft. 
 
 For should the voice directly strike the braine. 
 
 It would astonish and confuse it much; 
 
 Therfore these plaits and folds the sound restrains. 
 That it the organ may more gently touch.... 
 
 And though this sense first gentle Musicke found. 
 
 Her proper obiect is the speech of men; 
 
 But that speech chiefely which God’s heraulds sound. 
 When their tongs utter what His Spirit did pen.... 
 
 Thus by the organs of the Eye and Eare, 
 
 The Soule with knowledge doth her selfe endue; 
 
 Thus she her prison, may with pleasure beare, 
 
 Hauing such prospects, all the world to view. 
 
 These conduit-pipes of knowledge feed the mind, 
 
 But th’ other three attend the body still; 
 
 For by their seruices the Soule doth find, 
 
 What things are to the body, good or ill." 
 
 Davies, pp. 67-68. 
 
 Taste . 
 
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 between good & bad meat, and between good and bad 
 drinkes, to the end, that whatsoeuer is good for 
 the nourishment of the body, may be kept and that 
 which is bad, reiected. ... But wee are to know this 
 thing further, that men iudge by their taste, not 
 onely of such things as may serue to nourish them, 
 but also of medicines.... Nowe as hee cannot liue 
 without eating and drinking, so it is requisite 
 

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 that he eate and drinke with that moderation, 
 that he take in no more meate and drinke then he 
 ought to doe. For .... if hee take too much, in 
 stead of being satisfied, he shal be burdened, 
 and in stead of preseruing his life, hee will 
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 in eating and drinking too much then to little,” 
 
 Primaudaye, pp. 103, 109, 116. 
 
 ’’The bodie’s life with raeates and ayre is fed, 
 
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 In veinee, which through the tongue and palate spred, 
 Distinguish euery relish, sweet and sower. 
 
 This is the bodie ' s nurse; but since man's wit 
 Found th'art of cookery, to delight his sense; 
 
 More bodies are consumed and kild wixh it. 
 
 Then with the sword, famine, or pestilence." 
 
 Davie s , pp . 68-69 . 
 
 Smell. 
 
 "Neyther doe those thinges which serue for 
 delectation, alwayes bring profits, but sometimes 
 the contrarie, principally through their fault 
 that knows not howe to use them moderately. For 
 they are so subiect to their pleasures, that they 
 can neuer keepe measure in anything, as wee see by 
 experience, especially in these two senses of taste 
 and smell. For as the ordinary meates satisfie not 
 the delicate appetites of men, but they must haue 
 new dainties daily inuented to prouoke their 
 appetite further, and to cause them to eate and 
 drinke more then is needefull, to their great hurt: 
 so men are not contented with naturall odours which 
 nature bringeth foorth of it selfe, but nowe they 
 must haue muskes and perfumes, with infinite varietie 
 of distilled waters and artificial smelles, in 
 regard of which, naturall sauors are nothing set 
 by. And yet if they were used with sobrietie, 
 there were no cause of reprehension. . . , Not to 
 seeke far offe for examples, we haue the testimonies 
 of the holy Euange lists, as our Lord lesus Christ 
 himselfe, who was neither nice nor voluptuous, but 
 the perfect paterne of al sobrietie and temperance, 
 did not reiect nor condemne pretious ointments and 
 sweete odours, but sometime permitted the use of 
 

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them upon his owne person. Moreouer, it is 
 certaine, that the animal spirites of the braine 
 are greatly relieued and recreated by those good 
 and naturall smels that are conueyed unto them by 
 means of the nose, and of the sense of smelling 
 placed therein: ...For the spirits of the head 
 are subtile, pure, and very neate, so that sweete 
 smelles are good for them, and stinking sauors 
 contrary unto them." 
 
 Priraaudaye, pp. 120-121. 
 
 "This sense is also mistresse of an Art, 
 
 Which to soft people sweete perfumes doth sell; 
 Though this deare Art doth little good impart, 
 Sith they smell best, that doe of nothing smell. 
 
 And yet good sents doe purifie the braine, 
 
 Awake the fancie, and the wits refine; 
 
 Hence old Deuotion, incense did ordaine 
 
 To m.ake mens' spirits apt for thoughts diuine . " 
 
 Davies, p. 69. 
 
 The Common Sense. 
 
 "The Common sense is so called, because it is 
 the first of all the internall senses of which we 
 are to speake, as also the Price & Lord of all the 
 externall senses, who are his messengers and 
 seruants to minister and make relation unto him of 
 things in common. For it receiueth all the images 
 and shapes that are offered and brought unto it by 
 them, yea all the kindes and resemblances of 
 materiall things, which they haue receiued only 
 from without, as a glasse doth: and al this for 
 no other cause, but that they should discerns and 
 seuer euery thing according to its o’wne nature & 
 propertie, and afterward communicate them to the 
 internall senses. For although all the knowledge 
 that is in the minde ox man prcceedeth not from 
 the outward senses, as we shewed in the beginning 
 of our speech, neuertheles they are created of 
 God, to the end they should send to the understanding 
 the similitudes of things without, and be the 
 messengers of the minde, and witnesses of exper- 
 ience: and also to the ende they should awaken 
 and stirre up the minde to behold and marke the 
 things that are without it, that by considering 
 of them, it may iudge of, and correct the faultes. 
 
 V/ee must then obserue, that the externall senses 
 

 
 
 
 
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haue no iudgement of that which they outwardly 
 receiue but by meanes of the coinmon sense, unto 
 which they make relation, and then that iudgeth: 
 so that they ende where that beginneth.” 
 
 Primaudaye, pp. 154-5. 
 
 "These are the outward instruments of Sense, 
 
 These are the guards which euery thing must passe 
 Ere it approch the mind's intelligence, 
 
 Or touch the Fantasie, Wit's look ing-glasse . 
 
 And yet these porters, which all things admit, 
 
 Themselues perceiue not, nor discerns the things: 
 
 One common power doth in the forehead sit. 
 
 Which all their proper formes together brings. 
 
 For all those nerues, which spirits of Sence doe beare 
 And to those outward organs spreading goe; 
 
 United are, as in a center there. 
 
 And there this power those sundry formes doth know. 
 
 Those outward organs present things receiue. 
 
 This inward Sense doth absent things retains; 
 
 Yet straight transmits all formes shee doth perceiue 
 Unto a higher region of the braine . 
 
 Davies, pp. 70-71 
 
 The Fantasy. 
 
 "This faculty therefore and vertue of the soule 
 is called Fantasie, because the visions, kindes,and 
 images of such things as it receiue th, are diuersly 
 fr.amed therein, according to the formes and shapes 
 that are brought to the Common Sense.... Moreouer 
 this facultie of the fantasie is sudden & so farre 
 from stayednes, that euen in the time of sleep it 
 hardly taketh any rest, but is alwaies occupied in 
 dreaming & doting, yea euen about those things 
 which neuer haue bin, shalbe, or can be. For it 
 staieth not in that which is shewed unto it by the 
 senses that serue it, but taketh what pleaseth it, 
 and addeth thereunto or diminisheth, changeth and 
 re change th, mingle th and unmingleth, so that it 
 cutteth asunder and seweth up againe as it listeth. 
 So that there is nothing but the fantasie will 
 imagine and counterfaite , if it haue any matter 
 and foundation to worke upon. ..." 
 
 Primaudaye, p.l55. 
 
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" , . . .Fantasie, neere hand-maid to the mind, 
 
 Sits and beholds, and doth discerne them all; 
 Compounds in one, things diuers in their kind; 
 Compares the black and white, the great and small. 
 
 This busie power is working day and night; 
 
 For when the outward senses rest doe take, 
 
 A thousand dreames, fantasticall and light, 
 
 With fluttring wings doe keepe her still awake.” 
 
 Davies, pp.71-2. 
 
 The Sensitive Memory. 
 
 "Forasmuch as the memory is as it were the 
 Register and Chancery Court of all the other senses, 
 the images of all things brought and committed unto 
 it by them, are to be imprinted therein.... There- 
 fore it is not without the great wisdome & 
 prouidence of God, that the seate & shop thereof 
 is in the hindermost part of the head, because it 
 must looke to the things that are past. So that 
 we haue in that part as it were a spirituall eye, 
 which is much more excellent and profitable, then 
 if wee had bodily eyes there, as we haue before, 
 or else a face before and an other behinde, as 
 the Poets fained that lanus had. 
 
 Primaudaye, pp. 161-2. 
 
 "Yet alwayes all may not afore her bee; 
 
 Successiuely, she this and that intends; 
 Therefore such formes as she doth cease to see. 
 To Memorie's large volume shee commends. 
 
 The lidger-booke lies in the braine behinde. 
 
 Like lanus' eye, which in his poll was set; 
 
 The lay-man's tables, store-house of the mind. 
 Which doth remember much, and much forget.” 
 
 Davies, p. 72. 
 
 reason and Understanding. 
 
 "In the rninde of man there shineth alwaies this 
 naturall light that is giuen unto him aboue that 
 which beasts haue, I mean Reason, which serueth to 
 guide the soule and spirits amidst the darknesse 
 of errour and ignorance, to the ende they may be 
 
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able to discerns trueth from falsehood, and the 
 true Good from the false, as wee see the light 
 serueth the eyes to keeps us, and to cause us to 
 see in darkenesse. Therefore we sayde before, 
 that there was a double discourse of reason in man; 
 whereof the one is Theoricall and Speculatiue, which 
 hath Trueth for his ends, and hauing found it goeth 
 no farther. The other is Practical, hauing Good 
 for his end, which being found it stayeth not there, 
 but passeth forward to the Will, which God hath 
 ioyned unto it, to the end it should loue, desire 
 and follow after the Good, and contrariwise hate, 
 eschew and turns away from euill. Therefore when 
 the question ariseth of contemplation, reason hath 
 Trueth for her utmost bounds, and when she is to 
 come into action, she draweth towardes Good, and 
 hauing conferred together that which is true and 
 good, she pronounceth iudgement. So that reason 
 considereth of thinges with great deliberation, 
 and beeing sometimes in doubt which way to take, 
 shee stayeth and returneth as it were to her selfe, 
 and maketh many discourses before shee iudge and 
 conclude.... Imagination and fantasie, being neerer 
 to the corporall senses, draw the soule to those 
 thinges that are bodily: but the reason and the 
 spirits pricke it forwards, and cause it to lift 
 up it selfe to more excellent things. For the 
 spirits (which the Philosophers expresse by 
 Understanding) mounteth up unto those things that 
 cannot be knowen nor comprehended of imagination 
 and fantasie, nor of any other sense.” 
 
 Primaudaye, pp. 171-3. 
 
 "The Wit, the pupill of the Soule’s clears eye. 
 
 And in man's world, the onely shining starre; 
 
 Looks s in the mirror of the Fantasie, 
 
 Where all the gatherings of the Senses are.... 
 
 But after, by discoursing to and fro, 
 
 Anticipating, and comparing things; 
 
 She doth all universall natures know, 
 
 And all effects into their causes brings. 
 
 When she rates things and moues from ground to ground, 
 The name of Reason she obtains s by this; 
 
 But when by Reason she the truth hath found. 
 
 And standeth fixt, she IWDERSTANDING is. 
 
 Davies, pp. 75-6. 
 
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Wit and Will. 
 
 "Nowe although we saide before, that reason helde 
 the soueraignty amongst the powers, vertues and office 
 of the soule, yet wee must know, that reason raigneth 
 not ouer Vifill as Lady and Prince sse, but onely as 
 Mistresse to teach and shew it, what it ought to 
 followe, and what to flie from. For the will hath 
 no light of it selfe, but is lightened by the minde, 
 that is to say, by reason and iudgement, which are 
 ioyned with it, not to gouerne and turne it from 
 one side to another by commandement and author i tie, 
 either by force or violence, as a Prince or Magistrate 
 but as a couneailer or director, to admonish and to 
 conduct it. And so the will desireth or refuse th 
 nothing, which reason hath not first shewed that 
 it is to be desired or disdayned. Therefore the 
 act of Will proceedeth indeede from Will, but it 
 is iudged of and counselled by reason: ...And as 
 concerning the naturall disposition of the Will, 
 it is to will that good which is truely good, or 
 that which seemeth to bee so: and to shunne euill, 
 eyther that which is euill in deede, or that which 
 it thinketh to bee so. Nowe if shee choose and 
 followe euill for good, it followeth not therefore, 
 but that shee would alwayes followe the good, as 
 that which properly appertayneth unto her, and 
 reiect euill as her enemie. But the reason why 
 shee maketh choyce of euill for good, is because 
 shee is deceiued, taking one for another, which 
 commeth to passe through the ignorance and corrup- 
 tion that is in the nature of man.... Whereupon it 
 followeth, that our Will is at libertie and free, 
 and cannot bee constrayned: yea God the Creatour 
 and Lorde thereof woulde haue it so, otherwise it 
 shoulde not bee a Will. It is verie true, that it 
 followeth reason alwayes, because the Will hath no 
 light of it selfe, but onely so farre forth as it 
 receiueth the same from, reason, which guideth and 
 directeth it. And therefore it neuer applieth it 
 selfe to any thing whatsoeuer, but hath reason 
 alwayes for a guide, whome it followeth. Neuerthe- 
 lesse it is not so subiect thereunto as that it may 
 compell it to followe all the reasons that are 
 propounded unto it by reason, or tye it to any 
 of them, but that alwayes shee hath her libertie 
 to make choyse of which reason shee please, out 
 of all those that are set before her." 
 
 Primaudaye, pp. 204-6. 
 

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186 
 
 "And as this wit should goodnesse truely know, 
 
 We haue a Will, which that true good should chuse; 
 Though V/il do oft (’when wit false formes doth show) 
 Take ill for good, and good for ill refuse. 
 
 Will puts in practice what the Wit deuiseth: 
 
 Will euer acts, and Wit contemplates still; 
 
 And as from Wit, the power of wisedome riseth, 
 
 All other vertues daughters are of Will. 
 
 Will is the prince, and Wit the counseller. 
 
 Which doth for common good in Counsell sit; 
 
 And when lit is resolu'd. Will lends her power 
 To execute what is aduis'd by Wit. 
 
 Wit is the mind's chief iudge, which doth controule 
 Of Fancie's Court the iudgements, false and vaine; 
 Will holds the royall septer in the soule 
 And on the passions of the heart doth raigne. 
 
 Will is as free as any emperour. 
 
 Naught can restrains her gentle libertie; 
 
 No tyrant, nor no torment, hath the power. 
 
 To make us will, when we unwilling bee." 
 
 Davies, pp. 78-9. 
 
 These passages have been quoted to this tedious length 
 because they show conclusively that Primaudaye and Davies had a 
 common purpose of popularizing and Christianizing psychology, 
 and used for the purpose identical figures of speech, illustrations, 
 and moral turns. It would be unprofitable to cite further, from 
 their restatement of the time-worn arguments for immortality. Only 
 very great minds can be original on that theme, and similarities 
 in thought are only to be expected. But it is worthy of notice 
 when some of Davies' more striking and elaborate similes are found, 
 not only in Primaudaye but, before him, in De Mornay. The three 
 following parallels were not coincidences. 
 

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187 
 
 I. 
 
 "Water in conduit pipes, can rise no higher 
 
 Then the wel-head, from whence it first doth spring: 
 Thensith to eternall God shee (the soul) doth aspire, 
 Shee cannot be but an eternall thing. 
 
 Davies, p. 85. 
 
 "And so that may bee saide of our soule, which 
 is spoken of a spring of water, namely, that it 
 ascendeth as much upwards as it descendeth downeward, 
 but can goe no higher. For when a man woulde oarie 
 the water of a spring any whither, and would haue 
 it mount upwards, it will be an easie matter to 
 bring it as high as the spring-head from whence it 
 floweth: but no higher, except it bee forced by_some 
 other means then by its o'wne course and natural! 
 vertue. Notwithstanding it will easily descend 
 lower. And so it fareth with our spirits. For 
 as it came from God, so it is able to mount againe 
 to the knowledge of him, and no higher: but it 
 descendeth a great deale lower." 
 
 Primaudaye, p.538. 
 
 II. 
 
 An answer to the objection that no witness has returned 
 from beyond the grave; 
 
 "Fond men I If we beleeue that men doe liue 
 Under the Zenith of both frozen Poles, 
 
 Though none come thence aduertisement to giue; 
 
 Why bears we not the like faith of our soules?" 
 
 Davies, p.l09. 
 
 "Nowe before wee make answers to so friuolous and 
 false an argument, I would gladly demaund of them, 
 whether there were nothing at all of those new-found 
 Hands, (which were lately found in our time) before 
 they were discouered by them who not only were neuer 
 there, but did not so much as once hears of them before. 
 For no body went thither from hence, neither did any 
 come hither from thence: so that there was no more 
 intelligence betweene them and us, then betweene the 
 lining and the dead, or betweene them that are 
 altogether of another world: therefore also their 
 countrey is called the New world. Nowe then shall 
 it be thought, that this people were not at all, 
 because they were not knowne of us, nor their manners 
 and 'kinds of life? 
 
 Primaudaye, p. 533. 
 

 
 sjMP ■ .w liiini'T 
 
 wfH-- Is S3P’ -:-.lpi 
 
”Un autre dit. Si les ames viuent, que ne le 
 nous viennent elles dire? & pense bien auoir 
 rencontre'', ie ne sgay quoy de bien subtil. Mais 
 quelle consequence, Nul n’est venu depuis tant 
 d’ann/es des Indes \ nous, il n‘y a donq point 
 d’Indes? Ains par mesme argument ne serions nous 
 point, nous qui n*y alii ons point . " 
 
 De Mornay, ^ 1^ Ver ite de la Religion 
 Chrestienne . Leyden (165IT. p. 316. 
 
 III. 
 
 "See how man’s Soule against it selfe doth striue: 
 
 Why should we not haue other meanes to know? 
 
 As children while within the wombe they liue. 
 
 Feed by the nauill: here they feed not so. 
 
 These children, if they had some use of sense. 
 
 And should by chance their mothers' talking heare; 
 That in short time they shall come forth from thence 
 Would feare their birth more then our death we feare 
 
 They would cry out, 'If we this place shall leaue. 
 
 Then shall we breaks our tender nauill strings; 
 
 How shall we then our nourishment receiue, 
 
 Sith our sweet food no other conduit brings? 
 
 Davies, pp. 107-8. 
 
 "Moreouer, as a childe commeth out when hee is 
 borne, so doth a man when he dieth. And in comming 
 forth both of them enter into a new and unacquainted 
 light, & into a place where they finds all things 
 much altered and farre differing from those which 
 they used to haue in their other kind of liuing. 
 
 For which cause both the one & the other being 
 troubled and scared with this nouelty, are unwilling 
 to come forth of their clapper & to forsake their 
 closet, were it not that they are urged and constrained 
 thereunto by the arte, lawes, & rights of nature, 
 whereby God hath better prouided for our affaires 
 then wee ourselues could conceiue or comprehend, 
 both in our natiuity & life, & also in our death. 
 
 The ignorance whereof oauseth our spirit to abhor re 
 the departure out of this life, in regard of this 
 great change that is therein, because it knoweth 
 not what good is brought to it thereby, no more then 
 the little child knoweth wherefore he is borne into 
 the world, or what he shall finds there. And there- 
 fore albeit nature presseth to come foorth neuerthe- 
 
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189 
 
 lesse according to that sense which it can haue, 
 it weepeth by and by after it is borne, as if it 
 were fallen into some great inoonuenience , and 
 that some great euil were fallen unto it; as we 
 doe also at our death, for the cause before alleged, 
 not considering that it is our second and better birth.” 
 
 Primaudaye, pp. 403-4. 
 
 "Comrae I'homme a este'’ prepare'^ en la matrice pour 
 estre mis en ce Monde, qu'aussi est il comme prepare' 
 en ce corps & en oe Monde pour viure en I’autre. 
 
 Nous apprehendonsquand nature Heme nt il faut sortir 
 de ce Monde. Et qui est 1' enfant, si nature par 
 son artifice ne I'en chassoit, qui voulust sortir 
 de son cachot, qui n'en sorte comme pasrne & perdu; 
 qui, s’il auoit la cognoissance lore & la parolle, 
 n'appellast mort ce que nous appellons naissance; 
 sortir de sa vie, ce que nous disons y entrer?” 
 
 De Mornay, p.309. 
 
 In the interpretation of such parallels, which could be 
 extended to cover more than half of Davies’ poem, we must proceed 
 warily. Even such a large number of similarities do not prove 
 conclusively that Davies had used Primaudaye and De Mornay in the 
 composition of his own work. The discussion of the subject was so 
 general in the Renaissance, and followed so faithfully the ancient 
 arguments of an old tradition, that only the most minute study could 
 ever determine the indebtedness of one writer to another. Moreover, 
 there are important differences between The French Academje and 
 Hosce Teiosum . Whereas Primaudaye, for instance, discusses both 
 sides of the controversy about the origin of the soul, without him- 
 self deciding for either, Davies proves by "clear demonstrations” 
 that souls are successively created by God. Davies’ distinction 
 between the sensitive and the intellectual memory is not in 
 Primaudaye. Such differences are numerous enough to show that Davies 
 if he ever read The French Academic at all, had studied it critically 
 
 , ■ 
 

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190 
 
 and in the light of other works on the siahject. And they strengthen 
 the suspicion that the parallels cited may have their explanation 
 in some common source. Nevertheless these parallels leave no doubt 
 as to the relation of N osoe Teipsum to the general idealistic 
 tradition of his own time, and effectively dispose of the theory 
 that it was an isolated re-working of the ideas of Aristotle, 
 
 Nemesius or Thomas Aquinas. 
 
 Since the poem was so thoroughly derivative, on what 
 grounds was its contemporary reputation based? Certainly not on 
 any originality in thought. On such a subject James I, at least, 
 preferred orthodoxy. But Nosce Teinsum is distinguished above the 
 forgotten treatise of Primaudaye, because of its vigor and con- 
 sistency of thought, its thorough rationalism, and its remarkable 
 combination of clearness and condensation. Only a keen intellect 
 could at that time have sifted these kernels from the chaff of 
 Primaudaye. The originality of Nosce Teipsum lay in its strength 
 of conception, in the steady march of its argument, in its direct 
 and triumphant manner of meeting the enemies of idealism, without 
 asking any concessions, on their own ground of experience and reason. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Obsolete Rationalism of Davies 
 
 Davies, therefore, belonged to the school of rational 
 Idealism; he affirmed the spiritual nature of man. But within this 
 school there had been two methods of procedure, the empirical and 
 the dialectical. The latter, of which Aquinas may be regarded as 
 

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191 
 
 representative, began with metaphysical principles and tried to 
 deduce from them a necessary and consistent theory of the soul. The 
 empiricists, represented by Augustine, began with direct observation 
 of their oito inner life, and assumed a spiritualistic explanation of 
 those phenomena which could not be accounted for by the materialistic 
 hypothesis. Davies was an empiricist, partly no doubt because he 
 was an Englishman; but also, and chiefly, because, in the 
 Renaissance, the Thomistic philosophy, though studied everywhere 
 and in some schools partly accepted, had long ceased to dominate 
 intellectual Europe. 
 
 For in the Renaissance the spirit of scepticism had under- 
 mined all the preconceptions of Medievalism as it was formulated by 
 Aquinas. Scepticism had made necessary a rational, non-Biblical 
 defense of the Christian religion, and thus stimulated the formula- 
 tion of rational theology, of which Aquinas himself was one of the 
 founders, and which developed into Deism. But scepticism had gone 
 even deeper, and denied the possibility of any rational knowledge; 
 Nominalism, in its opposition to the theory of Universals, had, as 
 we have seen,^ anticipated even the sensationalism of Hobbes; early 
 in the sixteenth century Agrippa of Netesheim had popularized a 
 superficial scepticism; and the revival of Sextus Empiricus provided 
 unbelief with a more systematic and thorough method of criticism. 
 Scholastic method had by the time of Davies completely lost its hold 
 on the Renaissance, and pious Christian Humanists were among the 
 first in their scorn of it. Therefore, as the Bible had lost its 
 authority in the sphere of rational theology, so in philosophy the 
 
 ^Chapter I. p. 36, n.l. 
 

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192 
 
 champions of idealism could no longer rest their argument on the 
 metaphysics of Aquinas. 
 
 In beginning with an assumed doubt and in examining his 
 ovm nature, Davies was therefore in the spirit of his age. His 
 method, as old as Augustine and Plato, was also as modern as 
 Descartes. For Descartes owed much to the same tradition as Davies. 
 Eossuet, who himself wrote for his pupil the Dauphin a Traite de la 
 Connaissanoe de Dieu et de soi-meme. had said as much. "Descartes," 
 he wrote in a letter to Bishop Huet, 
 
 "a dit d'autres choses, que je crois utiles centre 
 les athd'es et les libertins, et, pour celles-1^, 
 comme je les ai trouv^es dans Platon, et, ce que 
 3 'estime beaucoup plus, dans saint Augustin, dans 
 saint Anselme, que 1 que s -une s meme dans saint Thomas 
 et dans les autres auteurs orthodoxes, aussi bien 
 ou mieux expliqu^s que dans Descartes, je ne crois 
 pas qu’elles soient de venues mauvaises depuis que 
 ce philosophe s'en est servi: au contraire, je les 
 
 soutiens de tout mon coeur, et je ne crois pas qu'on 
 les puisse combattre sans quelque peril. 
 
 But as a defender of the faith of idealism, Davies looked 
 too much towards the past, the Middle Ages. He was too completely 
 rational. He wrote passages of deep feeling, of humility and 
 reverence, but in his study of himself he never found his soul. He 
 made the error of seeking it only in his reason, and he wrote an 
 anatomy of the mind. The immortality he wrote about, the highest 
 bliss, is the repose of the understanding in perfect truth, in a 
 knowledge of God. But such a conception is either profoundly mysti- 
 cal, as in Dante and Aquinas, or it is a mere abstraction. With 
 Davies it remained an abstraction. He never discovered those springs 
 
 ^Quoted by Brunet ie re. La Philosonhie de Bos suet, in Etudes 
 ^itiQues. vol. 5, ParisTieGS) . pp.48-9. 
 
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193 
 
 in the hman heart which are the true source of philosophical as 
 well as of religious idealism. In his poem the modern reader finds 
 no comfort or solace. 
 
 An illuminating contrast to Davies is afforded by his 
 contemporary John Donne, who was so deeply affected by the 
 Pyrrhonism of his time, and learned in his sceptical youth that all 
 Divinity is Love and Wonder.^ Both wrote of the assurance of the 
 soul at the approach of death. Davies is contemplative: 
 
 ”0 ignorant poor man! what dost thou be are 
 Lockt up within the casket of thy brest? 
 
 What iewels, and what riches hast thou there! 
 
 What heauenly treasure in so weake a chest! . . . 
 
 And when thou think 'st of her eternitie, 
 
 Thinke not that Death against her nature is, 
 
 Thinke it a birth; and when thou goest to die. 
 
 Sing like a swan, as if thou went'st to blisse. 
 
 And if thou, like a child, didst feare before. 
 
 Being in the darke, where thou didst nothing see; 
 
 Now I haue broght thee torch-light, feare no more; 
 
 Now when thou diest, thou canst'^not hud-winkt be. . . 
 
 Cast downe thy selfe, and onely striue to raise 
 The glory of thy Maker's sacred Name; 
 
 Use all they powers, that Blessed Power to praise. 
 Which giues thee power to bee, and use the same." ^ 
 
 There is an almost complete obliteration of the self as a personal- 
 ity in these lines, whereas Donne's poem, Hymne to God mv God in mv 
 sicknesse . satisfies deep longings and releases hidden spiritual 
 energies such as are necessary to any real and living conviction of 
 immortality: 
 
 "Since I am comming to that Holy roome. 
 
 Where, with thy Quire of Saints for evermore, 
 
 I shall be made thy Musique; As I come 
 I tune the Instriiment here at the dore. 
 
 And what I must doe then, thinke here before. . . . 
 
 gDonne, Poetical Works, ed. cit. I, 30. Cf.pp.81 and 246. 
 Davies, ed. cit. I, 114-116. 
 
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194 
 
 So, in his purple wrapp'd receive mee Lord, 
 
 By these his thornes give me his other Growne; 
 
 And as to others soules I preach'd thy word, 
 
 Be this my Text, my Sermon to mine owne, 
 
 Therfore that he may raise the Lord throws do’wn."^ 
 
 Davies' conception of the world and of man lacks poetry. He could 
 not express, because he could not see or appreciate, all the 
 passions, intuitions, paradoxes, mysteries of human nature. The 
 author of Nosce Teinsum never read the secrets of the heart of man. 
 
 The style is the man. Clarity, the chief merit of Davies* 
 poem, may almost be said to be its chief defect. The most difficult 
 and abstract concepts are illustrated and, as it were, made concrete 
 by a series of parallel physical images. The soul 
 
 " . . . is a vine, which doth no propping need, 
 
 To make her spread her selfe or spring upright; 
 
 She is a starre, whose beames doe not proceed 
 From any sunne, but from a natiue light. 
 
 Such images are delightful in a metaphysical treatise, perhaps, but 
 they are feeble in poetry; they are vague in outline and colorless. 
 Under the influence of the abstract thought which the poem is 
 primarily intended to express, they become half generalized, lest 
 the interest of the reader should be diverted from the idea to the 
 image. To use psychological terms, they are concepts rather than 
 images. We do not see either the stream or the branch in this 
 stanza: 
 
 "When in th' effects she doth the causes know. 
 
 And seeing the stream, thinks wher the spring doth rise; 
 And seeing the branch, conceiues the root below; 
 
 These things she views without the bodie's eyes."^ 
 
 jDonne, ed. cit. I, 368-9. 
 gDavies, ed. cit. I, 30. 
 Davies, ed.cit. I. ^1. 
 
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195 
 
 The style of Davies is perfectly adapted to express his thought, but 
 neither is imaginative or poetical. 
 
 On the whole, Davies* defense of idealism was too facile. 
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 day, and he paid the penalty of growing obsolete in the next age. 
 
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 ing and destructive criticism. Against their doctrine of the 
 spirituality of the rational processes, the seventeenth century 
 boldly revived the peripatetic axiom: Nihil est in intellectu quod 
 
 non prius fuerit in sensu. The soul, which Davies "distinguished 
 plainly" as a "substance and a spirit," was discarded as both 
 unknowable and a contradiction in terms. Thus the realities of 
 which Davies and his contemporaries were so certain, melted away 
 under critical examination. Not only psychology and philosophy, 
 but science, as we shall see in the next chapter, was modified in a 
 similar manner and under the same influence. Medieval notions and 
 preconceptions were examined and either re-defined or discarded. 
 European thought was transformed by the critical effort of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries. It was the triumph of scepticism. 
 
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 ..7A" r/ 
 
Appendix to Chapter IV. 
 
 196”" I 
 
 John Dove's fourteen arguments^ for the immortality of the 
 soul were published in 1605, six years after Nosce Teinsum. but 
 their resemblance to the poem makes them worth quoting, especially 
 as the volume is scarce. My abstract is made from the London 
 edition of 1656, pages 167 to 176. 
 
 "I will produce these arguments which are alleaged by 
 naturall Philosophers to prove the immortality of the soule. . 
 
 I. "The First is drawne from the understanding of man, for 
 man's soule is of infinite capacity, the more it understandeth 
 the more it is able to understand. . . But, for as much as it 
 is infinitly capable in this life, and cannot be satisfied in 
 this life, therefore it must be satisfied in the life to come." 
 
 2. "The object of mans understanding is truth. . . And 
 for as much as this cannot be attained unto in this life, there- 
 fore it is reserved unto a better life." 
 
 2. "The object of mans understanding is ENS, everything 
 that is, but because there are some things mater iall, & some 
 spirituall, it must conceive them both, and as for the things 
 which be immaterial! and without bodies, it cannot distinctly 
 conceive them in this fraile body, therefore the conceiving of 
 them belongeth to the soule when it is separated from the body." 
 
 4. "All men by nature desire Knowledge as the Philosopher 
 speaketh, but scire est rem per causas cognoscere . to know a thing 
 is to judge and discerns of the causes of it. . . And that cannot"^ 
 be in this life, because the essence of God is not conceived by 
 discoursing of him, but by perfectly seeing of him, & beholding 
 of him face to face, even as he is." 
 
 II. "My second reason is drawne from the will of man. That 
 also is infinite . . . Man may desire that which is infinitely 
 good. . . 
 
 2, The liberty also and freedoms of mans will ... is 
 of an inf ini t power. . . 
 
 3. The object of the will is that whatsoever is good. . . 
 and therefore never resteth. . . untill it come to perfect fruition 
 of God . . . 
 
 ^See page 175. 
 
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 4. The will of man moveth it selfe to one thing and an 
 other, and is not moved by any naturall agent, and as the will is, 
 so is the essence it selfe, and therefore not subject to corruption.” 
 
 III. ”A third reason, the very appetite of man is also infin- 
 ite, it findeth no contentment among all the things which are under 
 the Sunne ...” 
 
 IV. ”A fourth, the very operation of the soule it selfe 
 without any reference unto the body.” 
 
 V. ”A fifth, nothing can be destroyed by that wherin the 
 perfection of it doth consist, but the very perfection of the soule 
 doth consist in the abstraction and separation of it from the 
 body. , .” 
 
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 and all the faculties thereof, above it selfe, the understanding 
 understandeth that it doth understand, the will willeth that it 
 shall be willing, the memory remembreth that it doth remember, so 
 it understandeth that it doth remember, so it understandeth that 
 it willeth and doth remember, which no bodily nor mortall thing 
 can performe, it is therefore spirituall and immortall.” 
 
 VII. ”The soul can attain unto a more divine knowledge by 
 revelations, but only when it is abstracted from the body. 
 
 VIII. "The soul, as it is not produced by any natural cause, 
 so it cannot be destroyed by any natural cause. 
 
 IX. "The soul subsisteth by it selfe, and therefore it 
 
 cannot dye by any accident: The antecedent I prove, because 
 
 it hath operations proper to it selfe, as I have shewed." 
 
 X. Everything destroyed is destroyed by its contra.ry; 
 the soul has no contrary. 
 
 XI. Understanding increases with the aging of the body. 
 
 XII. The soul is like God and the Angels, spiritual, 
 immaterial and simple. 
 
 XIII. Proper distribution of justice requires an after life. 
 
 XIV. "There cannot be conscience without immortality of soul." 
 
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CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 THE NEW PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 
 
 I. The Medieval Cosmology.- II. The Development of the 
 Mechanistic Theory.- III. The Position of Bacon.- IV. The 
 Materialism of Hobbes.- V. The Opposition to Hobbes: 
 
 Carte siani era and Scepticism. 
 
 The idealism and the spiritualistic psychology of the 
 Middle Ages and the Renaissance were intimately bound up with a 
 scientific conception of the world and the relation of man to it. 
 Such a close connection between philosophy, psychology, physiology, 
 and even physics and astronomy is of course sought in every age, 
 inasmuch as men always generalize, legitimately or not, from what- 
 ever data they have. But in the Middle Ages this union was pre- 
 scribed; none of the sciences had as yet attained their autonomy, 
 and their ends and methods were both determined by the dominant ' 
 theological interest. To organize all knowledge into a harmonious 
 and complete system, was the Medieval ideal; and assuming this 
 interrelationship and union of all branches of kno?/ledge, men 
 imbued with the Medieval spirit reasoned in science from the same 
 assumptions and by the same methods as in philosophy. They regarded 
 apriori principles as valid in astronomy as in theology. In fact, 
 what they desired was not science at all, but theosophy. 
 
 This closed completeness of the universe as it appeared in 
 the Middle Ages is extremely difficult for us to comprehend, 
 especially when it led to modes of reasoning which we, with the 
 advantage of centuries of remarkable progress, regard as ridicu- 
 
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199 
 
 lously erratic and fantastic. For instance, reasoning by analogy 
 was a frequent and favorite method of clinching a scientific 
 argument. A typical instance is recorded from the advanced and 
 liberal university of Padua in the seventeenth century. The 
 principal professor of philosophy, refusing to look through 
 Galileo's telescope at the Satellites of Jupiter, argued that they 
 could not possibly exist. For 
 
 "there are seven windows," he said to the Grand 
 Duke, "given to animals in the domicile of the head, 
 through which the air is admitted to the tabernacle 
 of the body, to enlighten, to warm, and to nourish 
 it. What are these parts of the microcosmos? Two 
 nostrils, two eyes, two ears, and a mouth. So in 
 the heavens, as in a macrocosmos, there are two 
 favorable stars, two unpropitious, two luminaries, 
 and Mercury undecided and indifferent. From this 
 and many other similarities in nature, such as the 
 seven metals, etc., which it were tedious to 
 enumerate, we gather that the number of planets 
 is necessarily seven. Moreover, these satellites 
 of Jupiter are invisible to the naked eye, and 
 therefore can exercise no influence on the earth, 
 and therefore would be useless, and therefore do 
 not exist. Besides, the Jews and other ancient 
 nations, as well as modern Europeans, have adopted 
 the division of the week into seven days, and have 
 named them after the seven planets. Now, if we 
 increase the number of the planets, this whole 
 and beautiful system falls to the ground."^ 
 
 But in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the natural 
 sciences developed a new method, which had phenomenal success; and 
 this new method involved a new philosophy of science which at 
 almost every point contradicted Medievalism. Science declared it- 
 self independent, and became a law unto itself. It proceeded on 
 assumptions that traditional philosophy and theology had to regard 
 
 ^Quoted by Sedgwick and Tyler, Short History of Science . N.Y. (1917), 
 pp. 233-3. Of. another example on pp. 233-4. 
 
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 as absolute heresy. Thus science destroyed the Medieval unity and 
 order of knowledge; it subjected to a re-examination, from a new 
 point of view, the whole idealistic and constructive effort of the 
 Middle Ages. The world which had been thought of as a rational 
 unity, was resolved into atoms; man, who had regarded himself as 
 created a little lower than the angels, was now explained as a 
 machine, a part of a mechanistic nature. John Donne, in The First 
 Anniversary (1611), expressed the dejection produced by this new 
 science. Describing the melancholy state of the world, he says 
 that the 
 
 "new Philosophy calls all in doubt. 
 
 The Element of fire is quite put out; 
 
 The Sun is lost, and th‘ Earth, and no mans wit 
 Can well direct him where to looks for it. 
 
 And freely men confesse that this world's spent. 
 
 When in the Planets, and the Firmament 
 They seeks so many new; they see that this 
 Is crumbled out againe to his Atomies. 
 
 'Tis all in pieces, all cohaerence ^one; 
 
 All just supply, and all Relation."^ 
 
 In the scientific effort of the Renaissance, therefore, 
 we have one of the most important conflicts between the old thought 
 and the new. Although the full implications of it were not at once 
 understood, the new philosophy was a denial of all the idealism the 
 Middle Ages had comprehended; it appeared to the older school as a 
 restoration of the atheistic materialism of Democritus, Epicurus 
 and Lucretius. This new philosophy of science, as it profoundly 
 challenged the old conception of man as well as of the world, merits 
 a chapter in a study of the disintegration of Medievalism.^ 
 
 gDonne, ed. cit. I, 237. 11. 205-214. 
 
 I am deeply indebted in this chapter to T. C. Allbutt, Science and 
 Medieval Thought , London(l90l) and to Hoffding, History of Modern 
 
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201 
 
 I 
 
 The Medieval Cosmology 
 
 As the scientific theory of the Middle Ages was a branch 
 of its philosophy, it was, like philosophy, dominated by Neo- 
 Platonic idealism and Aristotelian logic. From Neo-Platonism came 
 the deeply-rooted belief that the supra-sensual world of Ideas is 
 the real world. True knowledge is abstract knowledge, and the 
 highest felicity of man is to know the most universal of all imi- 
 versals, that is God, or Ens . No scientific method is useful which 
 does not lead the mind upward on a gradual scale of generalizations, 
 from individual to species, from species to genus. The scientific 
 effort of the Middle Ages was therefore primarily one of classifi- 
 cation, systematization, and abstraction of concepts. The highest 
 aim of knowledge was to understand Jehovah's reply to Moses: "I am 
 
 that I am." 
 
 This idealistic impulse found its method and materials in 
 Aristotle. From him was derived the maxim: "Vere scire est per 
 
 causas scire." But the word cause has suffered a change in meaning 
 in modern times, so profound that most of its Aristotelian signifi- 
 
 Philosophy , London (1900) . The Short History by Sedgwick and Tyler 
 is not philosophical, but is full of useful illustrative material. 
 Whewell’s books referred to below axe a mine of information. The 
 influence of the new science on English thought in the seventeenth 
 century still awaits thorough treatment; C. S. Duncan, The New 
 Science and English Literature in the Classical Period (Chicago 
 Diss. 19137, practically ignores the serious aspect of the new 
 science, concerning himself rather with those comic excesses and 
 peculiarities of the gentlemen virtuosi which made them material 
 for comedy and satire. My own discussion is, I am aware, sketchy; 
 the subject merits a volume. 
 
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203 
 
 cance has disappeared. Aristotle distinguished four kinds of 
 causes. The first two, "formal" cause and "material" cause, were 
 part of his metaphysics, which explained every entity in the world 
 as a union of passive matter with an active form. Form and matter, 
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 object. In the Middle Ages Thomas Aquinas regarded both form and 
 matter as universals, and found himself confronted with the insol- 
 uble problem of individuation; that is, given two universals, ho?/ 
 can they be combined into an individual? We have also seen how 
 this greatest Doctor of the Middle Ages identified "forms" with the 
 spiritual element of man, and maintained that the "forms" of men 
 and angels are capable of a separate existence, free from any matter 
 whatsoever.^ No clearer example could be adduced of the Neo- 
 Platonic transformation of Aristotle in Medieval thought. The 
 Aristotelian "form" persists as a pure Neo-Platonic Idea even with 
 the somewhat sceptical Nicolas of Cusa, who says in his work On 
 Conjectures : 
 
 "Conjectures must proceed from our mind, as the 
 real world proceeds from the infinite Divine Reason. 
 
 For since the human mind, the lofty likeness of God, 
 participates, as it may, in the fruitfulness of the 
 creative nature, it doth from itself, as the im.age 
 of the Omnipotent Form, bring forth reasonable 
 thoughts which have a similitude to real existences. 
 
 Thus the Human Mind exists as a conjectural formpof 
 the world, as the Divine Mind is its real form.""^ 
 
 Knowledge of the formal and material causes of anything was, there- 
 fore, a knowledge of the universals under which it might be sub- 
 
 ^See above. Chap. IV, p. 167. 
 
 Quoted by Whewell, William, The Philosophy of the Inductive 
 Sciences . London (1847). II, 181. 
 
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203 
 
 Burned — in other words, a knowledge of its classification. 
 
 Aristotle's third, the efficient or producing cause, 
 corresponds somewhat to the modern conception, but without the 
 modern mechanical and mathematical implications. The efficient 
 and the formal causes of an object might even be the same; as, when 
 a sculptor designs a statue, he is the efficient cause of the 
 statue, but only because in his mind he has an idea of the statue. 
 And both the formal and efficient causes might be identical with 
 the fourth, or final cause, the aim of the sculptor, or the pur- 
 posiveness in the statue.^ 
 
 It is not difficult to understand that this kind of know- 
 ledge of causes W3.s combined with Neo-Platonic idealism. The 
 result of the union was an attempt to know things by getting at 
 their inwardness, or essence, or whatever element in them would 
 submit to the highest degree of generalization. It is because our 
 whole method of understanding the world is different from that of 
 the Medieval thinkers, that we regard their efforts as merely arid 
 classification . 
 
 When this method was applied to the materials of science, 
 
 one could not expect science in the modern sense. In the study and 
 
 classification of forms in order to get at the essence of things, 
 
 the mystical and spiritual purpose triumphed over exact observation; 
 
 and therefore, says Whewell, 
 
 "instead of referring the events of the external 
 world to space and time, to sensible connection and 
 causation, men attempted to reduce such occurrences 
 under spiritual and supersensual relations and 
 dependencies; they referred them to superior intelli- 
 
 ^Erdmann, Hist , of Phil . , ed. cit. I, 146-ff. 
 

204 
 
 gencies, to theological conditions, to past and 
 future events in the moral world, to states of 
 mind and feelings, to the creatures of an 
 imaginary mythology or demonology. And thus 
 their physical Science became Magic, their 
 Astronomy became Astrology, the study of the 
 Composition of bodies became Alchemy, Mathematics 
 became the contemplation of the Spiritual Rela- 
 tions of number and figure, and Philosophy became 
 Theosophy. " ^ 
 
 In many respects the Medieval cosmology was indebted to 
 
 Aristotle. In his Metaphysics (Book XII, Chap, viii) he had said 
 
 that the stars and planets must be eternal essences, for they move 
 
 in perfect circles, and a body which moves in a perfect circle must 
 
 be eternal and unresting. From the planetary spheres he derived 
 
 the animal heat and motion in the living beings found on earth. He 
 
 saves himself from hylozoism by assuming prior to these spheres a 
 
 mover which is itself unmoveable and eternal. Apart from the fact 
 
 that Aristotle in this way made himself one of the authorities of 
 
 the Medieval superstitious astrology, his theory is illuminating to 
 
 us by showing the futility of the science of "forms" as applied to 
 
 motion. To take another example, Aristotle explained the phenomena 
 
 of gravitation by saying that the various substances or elements 
 
 have their allotted places, to which it is their nature to return 
 
 when removed. Such explanations are difficult to distinguish from 
 
 animism, and in the Middle Ages the parallel of the macrocosm and 
 
 the microcosm often suggested an animated universe. Pomponatius 
 
 called the world an animal. Aristotle’s fifth element, the quintes- 
 
 2 
 
 sence, became in the early Renaissance a spiritus mundi . 
 
 1 211 . 
 Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences , 3rd ed. , N.Y. (1884) . I,^ 
 ^Lasswitz, Kurd, Geschichte ler Atomistik. Hatnburg(l890) . 1,293. 
 
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205 
 
 The insoluble problems of the soul and motion were there- 
 fore closely related throughout Medieval thought, and uniformly 
 given spiritualistic or animistic solutions. In the general indis- 
 tinctness of thought, and the aspiration after universals and 
 essences and forms, the difference between mind and matter was 
 seriously obscured. The pitfall was unavoidable in the state of 
 thought at that time; even the scientists who contributed most to 
 the new philosophy of science, frequently used the language of the 
 old. Gilbert described the magnetic force he had discovered as ”of 
 the nature of soul, surpassing the soul of man.” Harvey refused to 
 accept the theory of the "natural, vital and animal spirits"; but 
 he believed that the motion of the heart and blood is due to "innate 
 heat," which is not fire nor derived from fire; and the blood, he 
 said, is not occupied by a spirit, but is a spirit, "celestial in 
 nature, the soul, that which answers to the essence of the stars.... 
 is something analogous to heaven, the instrument of heaven."^ Even 
 Kepler retained for a long time such animistic conceptions of force 
 and motion. In his Epitome of the Cope rnican Astronomy (1618-21) 
 he expresses himself thus: 
 
 "There is therefore a conflict between the carry- 
 ing power of the sun and the impotence or material 
 sluggishness (inertia) of the planet; each enjoys 
 some measure of victory, for the former moves the 
 planet from its position and the latter frees the 
 planet's body to some extent from the bonds in which 
 it is held. . . but only to be captured again by 
 another portion of this rotary virtue." Elsewhere 
 he sa 3 '‘s: "We must suppose one of two things: either 
 that the moving spirits, in proportion as they are 
 removed from the sun, are more feeble; or that there 
 is one moving spirit in the centre of all the orbits, 
 namely, in the sun, which urges each body the more 
 vehemently in proportion as it is nearer; but in 
 
 ^Albutt. op. cit. pp. 41-ff. 
 
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206 
 
 more distant spaces languishes in consequence of 
 the remoteness and attenuation of its virtue.”^ 
 
 This vitalistic and animistic conception of force and 
 motion was one of the most important of Medieval ideas, and one of 
 the most fertile sources of Medieval superstition. But to ridicule 
 it would be unintelligent; we have not yet found out the secret of 
 what force and motion are : we have only learned a ne-w method of 
 describing their effects. In the Middle Ages, men sought for the 
 essence of motion, and conceived of it in terms of the analogous 
 will and effort of their own experience; this will and effort we 
 have rejected, not because we know better the ’’essence" of force and 
 motion, but because we have found it possible to hypothesize an 
 unanimated physical world. This transformation of the philosophy 
 of motion is due to the application of mathematics to science. 
 
 II 
 
 The Development of the Mechanistic Theory 
 
 The new philosophy of science was gradually developed in 
 connection with the discoveries of the remarkable group of astrono- 
 mers from Copernicus to Newton. But in its essential principles it 
 was already understood by that universal genius, Leonardo da Vinci, 
 half a century before the theory of Copernicus was first given to 
 the world. Although his work remained in manuscript until the nine- 
 teenth century and was therefore without influence in the Renaissance 
 
 ^Quoted by Brewster and Tyler, op. cit. p. 214. 
 
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207 
 
 yet his ideas were so clear and definite and anticipated so 
 
 strikingly two hundred years of scientific progress, that a brief 
 
 account of them will clarify our sketch of the later discoveries. 
 
 Leonardo frequently declares himself in opposition to the 
 
 scholastic methods, which employed authority and a priori reasoning; 
 
 science, he said, can only be derived from experience.^ He does not 
 
 disdain reasoning: "Non e da biasimare lo mostrare, in fra I'ordine 
 
 del processo della scienza, alcuna regola generale, nata dell' 
 
 antidetta conclusione . " But he understood the futility of seeking 
 
 to know the essences of things: "Che cosa sia elemento. la 
 
 diffi^izione di nessuna quiddita delli element! non 'fe in podest'h, 
 
 2 
 
 dell’ omo, ma gran parte de ' loro effetti son noti." Final causes, 
 also, are unknowable: "0 speculatore delle cose, non ti laudare di 
 
 conoscere le cose, che ordinariamente, per s'e medesima la natura, 
 per sua ordini, naturalmente conduce; ma rallegrati di conoscere il 
 fine di quelle cose, che son disegnate dalla mente tua!"® Science 
 meant to him primarily the application of mathematics: "Nessuna 
 
 certezza e dove non si pub applicare una delle scienze matematiche, 
 
 4 
 
 over che non sono unite con esse matematiche." Mechanics he there- 
 fore called the paradise of the sciences: "La Meccanlca ^e il 
 
 paradise delle scienze matematiche, perche con quella si viene al 
 frutto raatematico." The object of such a science must be a uni- 
 verse of law, and Leonardo struggled to express this conception: 
 
 ^Leonardo da Vinci, Frammenti . ed. Solmi, Florence (ISIS) . 
 pp. 81, 83, 87, etc. 
 
 ^Ibid. p.97 
 ^Ibid. p.99 
 ^Ibid. p.86 
 Ibid, p.86 
 
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 ”La necessity e maestra e tutrice della natura. . . La natura 'e 
 costretta dalla ragione della sua legge, che in lei infusamente 
 vive,"^ His definition of force is very modern, though with one or 
 two Medieval expressions: ”Forza dico essere una virtu spirituals, 
 
 una potenza invisibile, la quale, per accidentals esterna violenza, 
 e oausata dal moto e collocata e infusa ne ’ corpi, i quali sono dal 
 loro naturals uso ritratti, dando a quelli vita attiva di 
 maravigliosa potenza."^ His freedom from animistic ideas appears 
 more clearly in his statements of the principle of inertia: 
 
 "Nessuna cosa insensata per s^ si move, ma il suo moto 'b fatto da 
 altri”; and "ogni moto naturals e continue desidera conservare suo 
 corso per la linia del suo principio, cioe, in qualunque loco esso 
 si varia, domando principio.”^ 
 
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 his note-books, and were only slowly discovered a second time by 
 later men. It was not by chance that they reappeared in connection 
 with astronomy. The Copernican system raised new and more intricate 
 problems of calculation, and by a more precise application of 
 mathematics to the phenomena of motion, led to the development of 
 astronomical physics. 
 
 Only those expert in mathematics and astronomy (as the 
 present writer is not) can fully appreciate the amount of exact 
 observation, calculation, and experiment which went to the formula- 
 tion and justification of the Copernican astronomy, and the new 
 science of motion involved in it. For a quarter of a century 
 
 ^Ibid. pn.llS, 113. 
 
 ?Ibid. p. 125 
 
 '^Ibid. pp.125, 136. 
 
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 Tycho Brahe gathered exact observations at his remarkable observa- 
 tory, Uraniborg; and although Tycho opposed the Copernican system, 
 it was with his data that Kepler labored to perfect that system and 
 by their study he was compelled to abandon the animistic conception 
 of nature. Kepler said of Tycho that he ’’possessed riches which he, 
 like so many rich men, did not put to a right use.” 
 
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 patient mathematical calculations. He began his astronomical study 
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 verse in terms of geometrical figures. The difficulties he 
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 brilliant discoveries. His first work, the Mvsterium cosmographicum 
 (1597), proceeds, says Hbffding, 
 
 ’’from theological and Pythagorean presuppositions. 
 
 He conceives the universe as an image of the Trinity: 
 the centre corresponds to the Father, the surrounding 
 sphere to the Son, and the relation of the two to one 
 another, expressed by the geometrical relations be- 
 tween the different spheres in which the planets move, 
 to the Spirit; for the divine Spirit reveals Himself 
 in the harmonious relation of magnitudes throughout 
 the universe. Kepler attempted to show that the 
 five regular bodies postulated by Pythagoras, i.e. 
 bodies all of whose surfaces, sides, and angles are 
 equal, may be situated in the different spheres in 
 which the planets move. Thus the fundamental forms 
 of geometry and the distribution of the heavenly 
 bodies in space exactly correspond with one another. 
 This is the cosmographical mystery over which Kepler 
 waxed so enthusiastic, and which he retained as the 
 leading idea which partly furthered, partly checked, 
 his subsequent investigations. This idea was an 
 expression of the conviction which he never abandoned 
 that it must be possible to point to definite 
 mathematical relations in the universe, and which 
 incited him to ever new inquiries. It caused him 
 endless trouble, however, on account of the presup- 
 position accepted by him as well as the whole of 
 
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210 
 
 antiquity and the Middle Ages, viz. that the 
 heavenly bodies must move in circles because 
 the circle is the most perfect figure."^ 
 
 These a priori geometrical conceptions he had to abandon when he 
 discovered by calculations that planets move in ellipses, not in 
 perfect circles. In a similar manner he was led to reject the idea 
 expressed in the Mysterium cosmographicum. that planets have souls. 
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 expression ’’moving souls” ( animae motrices ) the observation; ”In my 
 treatise on Mars^ I showed that there are no such things,” and sug- 
 gests ”force” as a substitute for the word ”soul.” The reason for 
 the change was an observation in celestial mechanics; ’’Formerly I 
 believed that the force which moves the planets was really a soul. 
 But when I reflected that this moving force decreases at a greater 
 distance, I concluded it must be corporeal.” These changes in 
 Kepler’s thought typify the whole transformation of thought by the 
 new science; instead of souls and essences and forms, the new 
 science investigated the laws of motion, especially by subjecting 
 it to measurement; speculation gave way to experiment and mathe- 
 matical calculation; instead of assuming that the world is a living 
 being, the new science seemed to demonstrate that it is a lifeless 
 machine . 
 
 Contemporaneous with Kepler, Galileo was contributing to 
 the new science both by his discovery of the telescope, which 
 brought so much new data to the confirmation of the new astronomical 
 theories, and by his researches into the laws of motion. He dis- 
 
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 ■ '^HSffding. og.c?t^ 
 
 I, 
 
 168 - 9 . 
 
 171 - 2 . 
 

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 Cartesian dualism. But there were many vfho accepted the mechanical 
 theory without adding to it this idealistic superstructure which 
 contradicted it. There was a general feeling that this spectacular 
 new science was affiliated with old atheistic philosophies. And the 
 increasing popularity of the atomistic philosophy of Democritus, 
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 Descartes and the foundation of the modern atomistic science. 
 Voltaire, in his Elements of the Philosophy of Newton , pointed out, 
 no doubt with great satisfaction, this obligation of Newton to the 
 despised atheists: 
 
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 d'Epicure^^et d’une foule de philosophes rectifiees par 
 notre celebre Gassendi. Newton a dit plusieurs fois 
 a quelques franpois qui vivent encore, qu'il regardait 
 Gassendi comme un esprit tres juste et tres sage, et 
 qu’il ferait gloire d’etre enti^rement de son avis 
 dans toutes les choses dont on vient de parler."^ 
 
 The new science, therefore, revived all the old problems 
 of philosophy in a more acute and difficult form, and put the 
 idealistic and spiritualistic tradition on the defensive. It pre- 
 cipitated a crisis in the history of thought. A re investigation 
 became necessary of the nature of the soul, its connection with the 
 body, the freedom of the will, as well as of such wider questions as 
 the nature of God and his relation to the universe. Many and diverse 
 
 Quoted by Lange, History of Materialism. Boston (1881). I, 267, n. 12. 
 
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213 
 
 have been the solutions to these problems, from the seventeenth 
 century to this day. The purpose of this chapter, however, is 
 merely to make clear that this new philosophy of science was 
 developed in the seventeenth century, and to investigate to what 
 extent English thought at that time was conscious of the new problem 
 and influenced by it. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Position of Bacon 
 
 In England as elsewhere the theological opposition to the 
 Copernican system was successful until far into the seventeenth 
 century, and the Ptolemaic astronomy ruled the popular imagination. 
 But a few liberal and curious students followed the new discoveries 
 with genuine scientific interest and thoroughness. Among these was 
 John Donne, who in the passage from The First Anniversary quoted 
 above, shows that he appreciated something of the revolutionary 
 significance of the new astronomy. Donne apparently did not get his 
 information at second hand. In 1611, the year in which he wrote 
 this poem, he also published his Conclave Ignatii . which indicates 
 an enthusiastic study of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe and a knowledge 
 of the publications of Galileo and Kepler as recent as that year 
 and the preceding, — with such eagerness did he follow the latest 
 researches.^ It needs to be frequently repeated that Donne was one 
 of the most modern minds of his age. 
 
 ^Gosse, Life and Letters of John Donne . I, 257. 
 

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314 
 
 Fulke Greville, Sidney’s friend, who took a despondent 
 view of most things in the world, knew something of the new science 
 and was apparently a reader of Bacon's Advancement of Learning . 
 
 But he had little of Bacon's confidence in scientific effort, except 
 for some practical purposes, and he was sceptical towards the new 
 science : 
 
 "Nay we doe bring the influence of starres, 
 
 Yea God Himself e euen, under moulds of Arts; 
 
 Yet all our Arts cannot preuaile so farre, 
 
 As to confirms our eyes, resolue our hearts, 
 
 Whether the heauens doe stand still or moue, 
 
 Were fram'd by Chance, Antipathie, or Loue. 
 
 Then what is our high-prais'd Philosophie , ^ 
 
 But bookes of poesie, in prose compil'd?" 
 
 Especially remarkable is the attitude of Bacon towards the 
 new science. Bacon was the most illustrious and most successful 
 of the many theorizers of the Renaissance who sought a new method 
 of knowledge. He declared that he was the trumpeter, announcing 
 the victorious entry of a new age.^ In this role he was accepted, 
 and his prestige in the seventeenth century as the founder of 
 inductive science was European.^ His influence on modern thought 
 has been immeasurable; he has come to typify the modern spirit of 
 progress based on a scientific study of nature. His unfinished 
 romance, The New Atlantis . was continued in real life by the Royal 
 Society. And yet, when we ask, not what his influence was, what 
 part of his work inspired a later age, but what was his philosophy 
 
 Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, A Treatise of Human Learning . Works , 
 ed. Grosart. II, 17. 
 
 *^ Adv . of Learning. IV, i. Works, ed. Spedding, Boston (1882). IX, 
 13-T4. ~~^f. Novum Organum. I, xxxv. Works . VIII, 75. 
 
 ^See De Remusat, Bacon . Sa Vie . Son Temus . Sa Philosonhie . Paris 
 (1857). pp. 400-430. 
 

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215 
 
 as a whole as Bacon himself expounded it, he appears strangely 
 medieval. He stood on the threshold of modern times, but hesitated 
 to enter. He looked forward, but he was in many ways a member of 
 the past tradition. And to understand Bacon himself, as well as his 
 time, we must study these antiquated aspects of his philosophy. 
 
 Like Descartes and the other "moderns” of the seventeenth 
 century. Bacon regarded the past somewhat contemptuously, and 
 desired to break violently with it. Plato and Aristotle as well as 
 the schoolmen had followed wrong methods; Bacon valued Democritus 
 more. What he criticized most was the metaphysical tendency which 
 in the Middle Ages became Realism: 
 
 "The human understanding," he said, "is of its 
 own nature prone to abstractions and gives a sub- 
 stance and reality to things which are fleeting. 
 
 But to resolve nature into abstractions is less 
 to our purpose than to dissect her into parts; 
 as did the school of Democritus, which went further 
 into nature than the rest. Matter rather than 
 forms should be the object of our attention, its 
 configurations and changes of configuration, and 
 simple action, and law of action or motion; for 
 forms are figments of the human mind, unless you 
 will call those laws of action forms. 
 
 Strangely enough, in the second book of the Novum Organim 
 Bacon used throughout the term Form to express the object of true 
 scientific knowledge. He adopts it only after a criticism of the 
 Aristotelian four causes, and wants to give the old term a new 
 significance; 
 
 "In what an ill condition human knowledge is at 
 the present time, is apparent even from the commonly 
 received maxims. It is a correct position that 'true 
 knowledge is knowledge by causes.' And causes again 
 are not improperly distributed into four kinds; the 
 
 Novum Qrganum . I, 51. Ed. cit. VIII, 83. 
 
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216 
 
 material, the formal, the efficient, and the final. 
 But of these the final cause rather corrupts than 
 advances the sciences, except such as have to do 
 with human action. The discovery of the formal is 
 despaired of. The efficient and the material (as 
 they are investigated and received, that is, as 
 remote causes, without reference to the latent 
 process leading to the form) are hut slight and 
 superficial, and contribute little, if anything, 
 to true and active science. Nor have I forgotten 
 that in a former passage I noted and corrected as 
 an error of the human mind the opinion that Forms 
 give existence. For though in nature nothing really 
 exists beside individual bodies, performing pure 
 individual acts according to a fixed law, yet in 
 philosophy this very law, and the investigation, 
 discovery, and explanation of it, is the foundation 
 as well of knowledge as of operation. And it is 
 this law, with its clauses, that I mean when I 
 speak of Forms : a name which I the rather adopt . 
 because it has grown into use and become fam.iliar . 
 
 But over these Forms Bacon stumbled. For, though he in 
 some places spoke of Forms as the laws of action, in other places 
 he slipped into language difficult to distinguish from the 
 scholasticism he despised. For instance, he says that "the Form of 
 a thing is the very thing itself, and the thing differs from the 
 form no otherwise than as the apparent differs from the real, or 
 the external from the internal, or the thing in reference to man 
 from the thing in reference to the universe."^ By certain "Shining 
 Instances," or as we should say, crucial experiments, he hopes to 
 "exhibit the nature in question naked and standing by itself, and 
 also in its exaltation or highest degree of power." Therefore, 
 although he warns against conceiving the Forms in the accustomed 
 sense, and declares that "the Form of Heat or the Form of Light is 
 
 ^ Novum Organum. II, 2. Ed.cit. VIII, 168. 
 
 o Novum Organum. 11,13. Ed.cit. VIII, 193. 
 
 Nov. Org. II, 24. Ed.cit. VIII, 223. 
 

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217 
 
 the same thing as the Law of Heat or the Law of Light, still the 
 "Law of Heat” which he gives as an illustration of his method is 
 not a law, but a definition. His ’’First Vintage” leads him to the 
 conclusion that, 
 
 ’’from a survey of the instances, all and each, the 
 nature of which Heat is a particular case appears 
 to be Motion. . . When I say of Motion that it is 
 as the genus of which heat is a species, I would 
 be understood to mean, not that heat generates 
 motion or that motion generates heat Tthough both 
 are true in certain oases), but that Heat itself, 
 its essence and quiddity, is Motion and nothing 
 e Ise . ”2 
 
 Bacon wished, as he said, to dissect nature into parts; by 
 a sort of analysis, he wanted to isolate the elements, or as he 
 called them. Simple Forms, and arrange them in some significant 
 classification. This is intelligible. But he was searching also 
 for the laws of nature, the secrets of her transformations; here he 
 was baffled, and mysteriously identified laws and forms. In the 
 confusion the essential idea of law, namely the dependence of one 
 phenomenon on another, tended to get obscured, and the idea of form 
 as the essence or quiddity of a thing came into the foreground as 
 the aim of scientific research. 
 
 In working out his theories Bacon was of course hampered 
 by the imperfect development of science in his day, as well as by 
 his own ignorance. His aim was to resolve the physical world into 
 qualitative differences; but qualitative differences are not suf- 
 ficient to explain processes. Modern science has also accepted 
 
 hoz. 0^. II, 17. Ed. cit. VIII, 205-6. 
 ^Nov. 0^. II, 20. Ed. cit. VIII, 211. 
 
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218 
 
 Bacon’s striking hypothesis that heat is a form of motion. But the 
 laws of heat are arrived at by measurement, not by deductions from 
 a definition. As Hoff ding has said, because Bacon was unable to 
 resolve qualitative differences into quantitative, he could not 
 reconcile his two conceptions of Forms as elements and as laws.^ 
 Preoccupied in this blind-alley. Bacon ignored the 
 scientific work of his famous contemporaries, Galileo and Kepler. 
 Mathematics he had little taste for. He therefore occupies a 
 position paradoxical for the ”fo\mder of modern science," of not 
 understanding those fruitful discoveries in his own time on which 
 the modern philosophy of science is based. He never conceived of 
 a mechanical universe in which the laws of motion could be expressed 
 in mathematical terms. It is because the principles of mechanics 
 are absent from his conception of law, that it is clouded with 
 difficulties for modern readers. No one familiar with the laws 
 of motion could use the bewildering term "Form" to signify a law 
 of nature. 
 
 Bacon was therefore never troubled by the problem of 
 materialism as stated by the new science. In some places he seem.s 
 indeed to lean towards materialism. He objected, notablyj to final 
 causes, that great mainstay of rational theology, because they 
 belong, he said, to Metaphysics, not to Physics. Their introduction 
 into physics has been "a great misfortune to philosophy." 
 
 "For the handling of final causes in physics 
 has driven away and overthrown the diligent inquiry 
 of physical causes, and made men to stay upon these 
 specious and shadowy causes, without actively pressing 
 
 ^H6ffding, op. cit. I, 202. 
 
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219 
 
 the inquiry of those which are are really and 
 truly physical; to the great arrest and prejudice 
 of science. For this I find done, not only by 
 Plato, who ever anchors upon that shore, but also 
 by Aristotle, Galen, and others, who also very 
 frequently strike upon these shallows. . . 
 
 And therefore the natural philosophy of Democritus 
 and others who removed God and Mind from the 
 structure of things, and attributed the form 
 thereof to infinite essays and proofs of nature 
 (which they termed by one name. Fate or Fortune), 
 and assigned the causes of particular things to 
 the necessity of matter, without any intermixture 
 of final causes, seems to me . . .to have been, 
 as regards physical causes, much more solid and 
 to have penetrated further into nature than that 
 of Aristotle and Plato; for this single reason, 
 that the former never wasted time on final causes, 
 while the latter were ever inculcating them."^ 
 
 But he goes on to say on the next page that the study of physical 
 
 causes, so far from being atheistical, leads inevitably to God at 
 
 the last. His criticism of final causes is therefore not to be 
 
 taken as a sign of materialistic leanings. Enlightened men before 
 
 Bacon had ridiculed the superstition of reading the will of God in 
 
 all the movements of nature, after the manner, as Gabriel Harvey 
 
 2 
 
 wrote Spenser, "of women Philosophers, and Divines." Already in 
 the Renaissance men could doubt the profitableness of seeking final 
 causes, without necessarily drawing upon themselves the suspicion 
 of atheism or materialism. 
 
 In his belief in the continuity and system of knowledge 
 Bacon manifests a distinct affinity with m.edieval idealism rather 
 than with the new science. Bacon believed in a gradation of ideas 
 
 ^ De Augrmentis. Book III, Ed.cit. VIII, 508-510. 
 
 %arvey‘s letters to Spenser in 1580 are a witty attack on the 
 superstitious interpretations of the recent earthquake. 
 
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220 
 
 which reminds one of that medieval scale of universals called the 
 Tree of Porphyry.^ 
 
 "For,” he says, "Knowledges are as pyramids, 
 whereof history and experience are the basis. And 
 so of Natural Philosophy the basis is Natural History; 
 the stage next the basis is Physic; the stage next 
 the vertical point is Metaphysic. As for the cone 
 and vertical point (’the work which God worketh 
 from the beginning to the end, ’2 namely, the 
 summary law of nature) it may fairly be doubted 
 whether man’s inquiry can attain to it. ”3 
 
 In another passage, under the figure of the horns of Pan, he applies 
 the pyramidal idea to nature itself, reaching upwards continuously 
 to the divine; 
 
 "For all nature rises to a point like a pyramid. 
 Individuals, which lie at the base of nature, are 
 infinite in number; these are collected into Species, 
 which are themselves manifold; the Species rise 
 again into Genera; which also by continual gradations 
 are contracted into more universal generalities, so 
 that at last nature seems to end as it were in unity; 
 as is signified by the pyramidal form of the horns of 
 Pan. Nor need we wonder if the horns of Pan reach 
 even to the heaven, seeing that the transcendentals of 
 nature, or universal ideas do in a manner reach up to 
 divinity. And hence the famous chain of Homer (that 
 is, the chain of natural causes) was said to be 
 fastened to the foot of Jupiter’s throne; and we 
 see that no one has handled metaphysics and the 
 eternal and immovable in nature, and withdrawn his 
 mind for awhile from the variable succession of things, 
 without falling at once on Natural Theology; so easy 
 and near a passage is it from the top of the pyramid 
 to matters divine.’’^ 
 
 See above. Chap. I, p. 4. 
 
 ? Ecoles . iii, 11. 
 
 De Augment is. Book III. Ed. cit. VIII, 507. 
 *^ 00 Augment is . Book II. Ed. cit. VIII, 449. 
 
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221 
 
 How knowledge of matter can lead to spiritual knowledge Bacon does 
 not make clear; his faith in this continuity was in fact a confusion 
 of inductive science with the old scholastic philosophy. It was 
 the same Medieval faith which Milton made Gabriel expound to Adam, 
 who replied: 
 
 "0 favourable spirit, propitious guest. 
 
 Well hast thou taught the way that might direct 
 Our knowledge, and the scale of Nature set 
 From centre to circumference, whereon 
 In contemplation of created things 
 By steps we may ascend to God."l 
 
 This faith the new mechanical science destroyed, when it forced 
 upon the seventeenth century a troublesome dualism of mind and 
 matter, of spirit and motion. Bacon contributed nothing to this 
 great metaphysical discussion of the next age; in his first 
 principles he belonged too much to the past. 
 
 In so far as he touched on the traditional metaphysical 
 questions, such as the nature of the soul and of God, he was 
 inclined, as in the passages quoted, to doubt the power of the 
 human reason to understand them. This doubt did not imply any 
 break in the continuity of nature; it was the humility of human 
 reason recognizing its limitations. Though Bacon therefore had a 
 firm belief in the power of man to know the material world and 
 master it, he left open the problems of the spiritual world and 
 frankly admitted that their solution must be sought in faith and 
 revelation. He accepted the distinction currently made in his time 
 between the ’’sensible soul” and the ’’rational soul,” or spirit. The 
 
 ^ Paradise Lost, Book V, 11. 507-512. 
 

 
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former, the "soul of brutes, must clearly be regarded as a corporeal 
 substance," and he thought that a more diligent inquiry might 
 profitably be made into it.^ But as regards the rational soul we 
 can only know certainly its faculties or functions; its substance 
 and nature must remain a mystery to philosophy. 
 
 the considerations of the original of the 
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 far it is exempted from laws of matter, and of the 
 immortality thereof, and many other points .... 
 have not been more laboriously enquired than 
 variously reported; so as the travail therein taken 
 seemeth to have been rather in a maze than in a way. 
 
 But although I am of opinion that this knowledge 
 may be more really and soundly enquired, even in 
 nature, than it hath been; yet I hold that in the 
 end it must be bounded by religion, or else it 
 will be subject to deceit and delusion; for as 
 the substance of the soul in the creation was 
 not extracted out of the mass of heaven and earth 
 by the benediction of a oroducat . but was immedi- 
 ately inspired from God; so it is not possible 
 that it should be (otherwise than by accident) 
 subject to the laws of heaven and earth, which 
 are the subject of ohilosophv ; and therefore the 
 true knowledge of the nature and state of the 
 soul, must come by the same inspiration that gave 
 the substance. "2 
 
 Bacon was likewise careful not to let his science encroach upon the 
 territory of Divinity. For, although "the use of reason in 
 spiritual things, and the latitude thereof, is very great and 
 general: for it is not for nothing that the apostle calleth 
 
 religion our reasonable service of God. " yet he does not believe 
 that religion can be founded on "the light of nature." "For it is 
 written, Coeli enarrant glor iam Dei . but it is not written, Coeli 
 
 ^ De Augment is. Book IV. Ed. cit. IX, 48-51. 
 •"Advancement of Learning. Book II. Ed. cit. VI, 254. 
 
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 enarrant . voluntatem De i . ” ^ On the "true limits and use of reason 
 in spiritual things" Bacon felt there was a need of much more 
 study and discussion. But he was not among those who cultivated 
 "natural theology"; the study of the physical universe points to 
 the existence of God, but he can be kno'jra only by revelation. 
 
 In the eighteenth century, the Encyclopedists, who uni- 
 formly praised Bacon as the founder of science, as the greatest, 
 most universal and most eloquent of philosophers, referred to Bacon’s 
 concessions to religion as a weakness of his character, sometimes 
 
 even as an intentional insincerity, a disgu.ise adopted to escape 
 2 
 
 persecution. But the eighteenth century always saw insincerity in 
 ideas which it could not understand. No doubt there was much dis- 
 simulation of religion in the Renaissance, when persecution was rife. 
 The doctrine of the "double truth" undoubtedly served Pomponatius 
 merely as a disguise. But Bacon never suggests that what may be 
 true for philosophy can be false in religion; he seems on the con- 
 trary always to imply that all truth is of one texture, but that, 
 as human reason cannot grasp the truths of Divinity, philosophy 
 adumbrates into mystery. Bacon had too genuine a sense of the 
 necessity of religion to have been a materialist. And granting the 
 necessity of religion, in Bacon’s time one had to accept as the 
 basis and support of it, either revelation or rational theology. 
 Bacon had to speak in the language of his day. There is no good 
 reason for thinking that it was insincere merely because it was 
 antiquated. Bacon, the "founder of modern science," belongs 
 
 ^ Adv . ^of Learning. Book II. Ed.cit. VI, 394-5. 
 
 ^De Remusat, Bacon , pp. 424-ff. 
 
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324 
 
 philosophically to the age before Kepler and Galileo, to the 
 sixteenth rather than the seventeenth century. And therefore not 
 only was he not a materialist himself, but he did not think through 
 the problem of materialism in its modern terms. This problem was 
 attacked only after his time, by Hobbes, who accepted the material- 
 istic solution, and by the Cambridge Platonists, who rejected it. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Materialism of Hobbes 
 
 The mental history of Hobbes is typical of the mathemat- 
 ical and physical preoccupations of the seventeenth century. His 
 philosophical awakening came, according- to the gossipy Aubrey, at 
 the age of forty, when he accidentally opened a book of Euclid and 
 became enchanted by the certainty of mathematical demonstration. 
 Along with Euclid he studied Galileo, from whom, there is ample 
 evidence, both internal and external, he derived his fundamental 
 mechanical theory which he applied both to the world and to man.^ 
 His first work, A Short Tract on First Princinles (oa.l630), shows 
 him in the process of adjusting himself to the new philosophy. 
 
 "It shows the author,” says Sorley, ”so much 
 impressed by his reading of Euclid as to adopt the 
 geometrical form (soon afterwards used by Descartes) 
 for the expression of his argument. It shows 
 further that he had already fixed on the conception 
 of motion as fundamental for the explanation of things, 
 but also that he had not yet relinquished the 
 scholastic doctrine of species in explaining 
 action and perception. 
 
 JSorley, W.R. , History of English Philosophy, Cambridge (1920) . p.49. 
 “^Sorley, op. cit. p. WO . 
 
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 Motion became with Hobbes the first principle of 
 philosophy, and he applied the idea not only to the physical world, 
 but to man and society. Of Aristotle's four causes, he recognized 
 only the material and efficient as real; the term "formal cause" 
 he regarded as a mere juggling of words, and the final cause, he 
 said, is always reducible to efficient cause. ^ All cases are there- 
 fore ultimately reducible to motion. A complete science should 
 begin with a study of simple motions, then proceed to more complex 
 motions in geometry, thence to physics, until we reach the most 
 complex motions in "moral philosophy, in which we are to consider 
 the motions of the mind . . . what causes they have, and of what 
 they be causes."^ The soul is thus ass-umed to be a part of the 
 mechanical world, a sort of thin, filmy substance. 
 
 "By the name of spirit . " he says, "we understand 
 a body natural, but of such subtiltv . that it worketh 
 not upon the senses; but that filleth up the place 
 which the image of a visible body might fill up. Our 
 conception therefore of spirit consisteth of f igure 
 without colour ; and in figure is understood dimension, 
 and consequently, to conceive a spirit, is to conceive 
 something that hath dimension. But spirits supernatural 
 commonly signify some substance without dim.ension ; 
 which two words do flatly contradict one another. "3 
 
 Hobbes declared himself willing to accept on faith the 
 existence of such incomprehensible beings as God and the Angels, 
 though he suggested maliciously that "the Scripture favoureth them 
 more, that hold angels and spirits corporeal, than them that hold 
 
 ^Hobbes, Elements of Philosophy . Part II, Chap. 10, sec. 7. English 
 Works, ed. Molesworth, I, 131-2. 
 
 ^ E laments of Philosophy, Part I, Chap. 6, especially sections 5 and 
 6^ Ed.cit. I, 65-ff. 
 
 Hobbes, Human Hature , Chap. XI, sec. 4. Ed.cit., IV, 60-61. 
 
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 the contrary."^ The ironical intention of the argument is 
 undeniable. Under his outward acceptance of Christianity in such 
 form as the king or the regular establishment might please to pre- 
 scribe, Hobbes concealed a nature in which the religious instincts 
 remained undeveloped. He had neither the religious nor the 
 philosophic nor the scientific imagination of Bacon. His nature 
 was put to a crucial test in his mid-career when he was asked for 
 comments on Descartes’ Discours . His o?m mechanical and material- 
 istic philosophy was already definitely formulated, and he 
 inevitably opposed it to the idealism of Descartes. But his manner 
 was as tart as his objections were keen; in a paragraph he reduced 
 the whole spiritualistic philosophy to corporeal motion: 
 
 ”Que dirons-nous maintenant,” Hobbes wrote to 
 Descartes, ”si peut-etre le raisonnement n’est 
 rien autre chose qu'un assemblage et un enchainement 
 de noms par ce mot est ? D’ou il s'ensuivrait que 
 par la raison nous ne ooncluons rien du tout 
 touchant la nature des chose s, mais seulement 
 touchant leurs appellations; c'est-a-dire que 
 par elle nous voyons simplement si nous assemblons 
 bien ou mal les noms des choses, selon les con- 
 ventions que nous avons faites ^a notre fantaisie 
 touchant leurs significations. Si cela est ainsi, 
 comme il peut etre, le raisonnement d^pendra des 
 noms de 1' imagination, et 1' imagination peut-Stre 
 (et ceci selon mon sentiment) du mouvem.ent des 
 organes corporels, et ainsi 1’ esprit ne sera 
 rien autre chose qu'un mouvement en certaines 
 parties du corps organique . "S 
 
 Both men were irritated by the lack of sympathy of the other, and 
 their relations never passed beyond an acquaintance. 
 
 ^ Hurnan Nature , Chap. XI, sec. 2 and 5. Id.cit. IV, 59-62. 
 
 ‘^Descartes, Troisiemes Objections Centre les Meditations . Oeuvres , 
 ed. Simon, pp, 198-9. 
 

 V ■31 
 
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227 
 
 The coolness between Descartes and Hobbes was natural, 
 in view of their fundamental difference in aims. Hobbes was the 
 first who extended the new philosophy of science into a complete 
 philosophy of man and society. Descartes limited the mechanical 
 theory to the inanimate world and to animals, and constructed on 
 another basis an idealistic and spiritualistic philosophy which 
 had much in common with Plato, Augustine and Anselm. The English 
 opponents of Hobbes therefore found their best support in Descartes; 
 for half a century Cartesian dualism was in England the generally 
 accepted solution of the problem of materialism, not only among 
 the apologists for religion, but even among the scientists of the 
 Royal Society. 
 
 V 
 
 The Opposition to Hobbes: Cartesianism and Scepticism 
 
 About the middle of the century there appeared at 
 Cambridge a group of remarkable men, nourished on Platonism, hig;h- 
 bred and sweetly reasonable amid the tumult and fanaticism of the 
 Puritan upheaval, and distinguished from the rationalism and indif- 
 ference of the Restoration by their sincere reverence for the 
 Christian religion ”as a doctrine sent from God both to elevate and 
 sweeten human nature.” In a period of episcopal degeneracy, the 
 English Church would have ’’quite lost her esteem over the nation,” 
 wrote Gilbert Burnet, in his History of His Own Times, had it not 
 been for the appearance of this ”new set of men of another stamp. 
 
 ^ Camb . Hist . of Eng. Lit . . VIII, 311. 
 
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238 
 
 Open-minded in religion and theology, these men were quick to grasp 
 
 the philosophical problem raised by the new science, and in defense 
 
 of their religious feeling and Platonic thought, threw themselves 
 
 into the new conflict with materialism. 
 
 Of these men, the most distinguished were Ralph Cudworth 
 
 and Henry More. Both accepted the new science and the new 
 
 astronomy. More declares that "it is plain to any man that is not 
 
 prejudic'd" that Galileo's "System of the world is more naturall & 
 
 genuine than that of Tycho's."^ Cudworth did not dispute the new 
 
 science, but objected to a materialistic interpretation of it. 
 
 Imbued with the older notion that truth is purest at its source 
 
 in antiquity, he distinguished in his learned work, The True 
 
 Intellectual System of the Universe (16?8), between the ancient 
 
 atheistic and theistic atomism, the latter of which he believed to 
 
 2 
 
 be derived from Moses. From such heights of learning he felt him- 
 self able easily to weigh and estimate the atomistic science of his 
 contemporaries, who were merely reviving ancient doctrine , "and that 
 with no small pomp and ostentation of wisdom and philosophy." 
 
 Both More and Cudworth directed their polemics especially 
 against Hobbes, and both approved of Descartes, though with some 
 reservations. In the preface to the treatise on The Immortality 
 of the Soul, a treatise refuting Hobbes' doctrine that the soul 
 
 3 
 
 is material. More declares that he thinks "it is the most sober 
 
 ^More, Philosophical Poems. Cambridge (1647) . p.390. 
 ^Intellectual System. Book I, Chap. 1, sec. 10. Ed. London (1743) 
 
 Ig 12. 
 
 More, Immortality of the Soul. London(l662) . Chaps. VIII-XII. 
 pp. 34-49. 
 
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829 
 
 and faithful advice that can be offered to the 
 Christian World, that they would encourage the 
 reading of Des-Cartes in all publick Schools 
 and Universities. That the Students of Philosophy 
 may be thoroughly exercised in the just extent of 
 the Mechanical powers of Matter, how farre they 
 will reach, and where they fall short. Which will . 
 be the best assistance to Religion that Reason and 
 the Knowledge of Nature can afford. For by this 
 means such as are intended to serve the Church 
 will be armed betimes with sufficient strength 
 to grapple with their proudest Deriders or Opposers. 
 Whenas for want of this, we see how liable they are 
 to be contemned and born down by every bold, though 
 weak, pretender to the Meohanick Philosophy."^ 
 
 Cudworth gives Descartes the high praise of having revived the right 
 kind, the theistic atoinism of Moschus, whom Cudworth identified with 
 Moses: 
 
 "For Ren at us Cartesius first revived and 
 restored the atomick philosophy, agreeably, for 
 the most part, to that ancient Moschical and 
 Pythagoriok form; acknowledging besides extended 
 substance and corporeal atoms, another cogitative 
 incorporeal substance, and joyning metaphysicks 
 or theology, together with physiology, to make 
 up one entire system of philosophy."^ 
 
 After some strictures on Descartes, he unreservedly condemns Hobbes, 
 though not naming him: 
 
 "But shortly after this Cartesian restitution 
 of the primitive atomology, that acknowledgeth 
 incorporeal substance, we have had our Leucippus 
 and Democritus too, who also revived and brought 
 upon the stage that other atheistick atomology, 
 that makes sensless and lifeless at oms to be the 
 only principles of all things in the uniyerse : 
 thereby necessarily excluding, besides incorporeal 
 substance and immortality of souls, a Deity and 
 natural morality; as also making all actions and 
 events materially and mechanically necessary."*^ 
 
 Jibid. Preface . 
 
 ^CudwortE^i op. cit . Book I, Chap. 3, sec. 38. Ed.cit. I, 174-5. 
 Ibid. I. 175. 
 
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Whatever influence the Cambridge Platonists may have had 
 on the tone of English life, they were unsuccessful in checking 
 materialism. ” The modern Atheists. " wrote Glanvill, "are pretenders 
 to the me chan i ok principles . . . the modern Sadduce pretends that 
 all things we dOj are performed by meer matter, and motion, and 
 consequently that there is no such thing as an immaterial being. 
 
 But inasmuch as the new science, which was generally accepted, 
 logically led to materialism, the idealistic philosophy as well as 
 the Christian religion could find a place in human life only be' 
 restricting the limits of science. The apologists for the Royal 
 Society therefore carefully distinguished between atheistic science, 
 which dogmatically defined everything in materialistic terms and 
 pretended to know the ultimate secrets of the universe, and their 
 O'vvn more humble, but more accurate, work of ascertaining the 
 characteristics and laws of the material world. "The Royal Society, 
 is abundantly cautious," wrote Sprat, its historian, "not to inter- 
 meddle in Spiritual Things . " It is idle to suppose that they 
 solved a question which is still debated. Our concern here is 
 merely historical, to show how this problem forced a critique of 
 science and of the human reason. 
 
 The first consequence of this new problem was a divorce of 
 science and theology. So long as science and theology remained 
 intimately united, as in the Aristotelianism of the Middle Ages, 
 scientific progress seemed inconceivable. But already in the Middle 
 Ages we have seen philosophy struggling for independence, under the 
 theory of the "double truth." With the secularization of learning 
 in the Renaissance which further liberated philosophy and science. 
 
 ^Glanvill, Joseph, Philosoohia Pia, London (1671) . pp. 35, 33. 
 

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 the idea of progress in knowledge heoame quite general. The thought 
 of Bacon’s aphorism, Antiouitas saeculi .iuventus mundi . so often 
 quoted in the seventeenth century, had occurred also to Gilbert, 
 to Galileo, to Giordano Bruno, and to Gampanella.^ To safeguard 
 religion, in which of course no progress could be admitted, it 
 became customary to contrast Divinity with other studies. In the 
 sixteenth century, the Huguenot De Mornay admitted this distinction. 
 "Car les doctrines humaines," he said, "plus le mond s’auance, & 
 plus s 'esclaircissent . Celle cy (la Divinite) au contraire, plus 
 elle s'esloigne de ces premiers siecles, plus elle se trouue 
 obscurcie, <3c n’est en aucune part plus claire que pres de la source, 
 iusques a ce que par la naissance du vray Soleil elle a receu plus 
 grande clarte que iamais."^ In his Newes to the Universitie 
 (1614), Thomas Overbury informs the learned that "the newest 
 nhilosonhie is soundest, the eldest Divinltie . Francis Osborn, 
 in his Advice to a Son (1656), declares that "though my single 
 •Judgment is still ready to determine for Antiquity : which I would 
 have you reverence, but not conclude infallible; yet I should take 
 her word sooner in Divinity than any other Learning , because that 
 is clearest at the beginning, all Studies else more muddy, receiving 
 clarification from experience."^ This well-established distinction 
 became all the more serviceable and pronounced with the acceptance 
 of the new science. 
 
 J^Bacon, Works , ed. cit. . II, 136, n.2. 
 
 ^^De Mornav, De la Verite de la Religion Chre stienne . Leyden (1651). 
 p. 88. 
 
 ^Overbury, Works, ed. Rimbault. London (1890). p. 179. 
 
 Osborne, Works . 8th ed. London (1683). p. 98. 
 

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 ”In Theology. " said Glanvill, ”I put as great 
 a difference between our New Lights and the Antient 
 Truths , as between the Sun, and an unconcocted 
 evanid Meteor . Though I confess that in Philosophy 
 I'm a Seeker : yet cannot believe, that a Sceptick 
 in Philosophy must be one in Divinity . Gospel-light 
 began in its Zenith ; and, as some say the Sun, was 
 created in its Meridian strength and lustre. But 
 the beginnings of Philosophy were in a Crepusculous 
 obscurity ; and It's yet scarce past the Dawn ."^ 
 
 But such a distinction was hardly philosophical; the 
 spheres of science and religion might coincide and contradictions 
 might arise which would necessitate a choice between them. 
 Materialism was in fact the extension of science into a complete 
 philosophy of life, a substitute for religion. And therefore 
 nothing less than a critique of science on its own ground could 
 prevent it from completely excluding religion from life. This 
 critique, however, was not accomplished by theologians, but by the 
 apologists for science, who, to defend science against the charge 
 of atheism, had to rescue it from the philosophical ambitions of 
 Hobbes and his followers. Of these apologists the most eminent was 
 Joseph Glanvill. 
 
 Glanvill' s most important book is summarized in its 
 title. The Vanity of Dogmatizing or Confidence in Opinions mani- 
 fested in a Discourse of the Shortness and Uncertainty of our 
 Knowledge and its causes , etc. (1661), republished as Scepsis 
 Soientif ica . or Confest Ignorance the wav of Science (1665) . 
 Glanvill dedicated the latter volume to the Royal Society, which 
 immediately elected him a fellow. He everywhere speaks with 
 admiration of the achievements of science, but constantly censures 
 
 ^Glanvill, Scepsis Scient if ica. London (1665). pp. 139-40. 
 

 
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233 
 
 also the presuniption of the ”Mechanick Philosophers” who too 
 
 hastily pass from hypothesis to dogmatism. In this criticism of 
 
 science Glanvill was a true disciple of the sceptical philosophy, 
 
 in which he was thoroughly at home. That he knew and used the 
 
 Hvnotvposes of Sextus Empiricus has been noticed by his biographer, 
 
 Mr. Greenslet.^ It is worth adding that he knew, and cited as 
 
 authorities on scepticism and open-mindedness in science, both 
 
 2 
 
 Montaigne and Charron. Glanvill was therefore, like the scientists 
 of his time, keenly aware of the limitations of scientific knowledge. 
 The nature of the soul, the nature of bodies, the union of the soul 
 with the body, — all such ultimate knowledge he admitted was 
 beyond the possibility of science finding out. Even causality, he 
 said, since it is insensible, cannot be directly known; it must 
 remain a mystery. We can conclude causality only from concomitancy, 
 but ”to argue from concomitancy to causality, is not infallibly con- 
 clusive; Yea in this way lies notorious delusion.”*^ But the most 
 dangerous error of all is the tendency to assume that those working 
 principles which science must constantly be formulating, are an 
 ultimate and true knowledge of the processes of nature. Glanvill 
 called them hypotheses. For such caution he found a precedent in 
 the admired Descartes: 
 
 ’’Though the Grand Secretary of Nature, the 
 miraculous Des-Cartes hath here infinitely out-done 
 all the Philosophers (who) went before him, in 
 giving a particular and Analytical account of the 
 
 ^Greenslet, Ferris, Joseph Glanvill, N.Y. (1900). pp. 95-ff. 
 ^ Scepsis Scientifica. London (1665). pp. 114, 172. 
 
 ^Ibid. p. 142. 
 
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234 
 
 Universal Fabrick: yet he intends his Principles 
 
 but for Hypotheses , and never pretends that things 
 are really or necessarily, as he hath supposed 
 them: but that they may be admitted pertinently 
 to solve the Phaenomena , and are convenient 
 supposals for the u^ of life . Nor can any 
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 them out of that confused mass . For to say, 
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 as our Philosophy makes them, is to set bounds 
 to Omnipotence , and to confine infinite power 
 and wisdom to our shallow mode Is . ” 
 
 By such thorough-going critique Glanvill sought to counteract the 
 high pretension of materialistic science to an absolute dominion 
 over all life. The methods of science were at best uncertain, and 
 applicable only to a small section of the universe; beyond science 
 there was the vast infinity of the unknowable, where the reason 
 could only wander astray, and faith and revelation alone could guide 
 men up to God. 
 
 In this scepticism regarding the philosophical value of 
 scientific hypothesis, Glanvill was not alone; he was in fact 
 representative of the orthodox and conservative thought of his time, 
 wherever it was combatting "Hobbisra." The Royal Society indicated 
 their approval by electing Glanvill to membership. One of its most 
 distinguished members, Boyle, the founder of modern chemistry, was 
 especially active in opposition to the materialistic philosophy. In 
 one of his many philosophical tracts, A Free Inquiry, into the Vulgar 
 Notion of Nature . written in 1666 but not published until 1682, he 
 attempted to show what dangers lurked in the popular use of the word 
 
 ^Ibid. pp. 155-6. 
 

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235 
 
 «nature"; it always tended to signify something more than processes, 
 the mythologizing imagination was always making of it an explanation 
 of the world; whereas the scientist, strictly limiting himself to 
 demonstrable facts, was forced to conclude that the only possible 
 explanation of the visible world is in God.^ So general was this 
 sceptical attitude towards scientific hypotheses that even under- 
 graduates at Cambridge were nursed in it. In 1688 Matthew Prior, 
 then at St. John's College, wrote a gpindiose ode On Exod. Ill, 14 — 
 I_ ^ That I_ a^, the theme of which is the inadequacy of reason to 
 understand the world and the necessity of exercising faith and 
 reverence to reach the high abode of the mysterious God who revealed 
 himself to Moses. A stanza will show how definitely Prior applied 
 his critique to materialistic science: 
 
 
 "Man does with dangerous curiosity 
 These unfathora'd wonders try: 
 
 With fancied rules and arbitrary laws 
 Matter and motion he restrsAns; 
 
 And studied lines and fictions circles draws: 
 
 Then with imagin'd sovereignty 
 Lord of his new hypothesis he reigns. 
 
 He reigns: how long? till some usurper rise; 
 
 And he too, mighty thoughtful, mighty wise. 
 
 Studies new lines, and other circles feigns. 
 
 From this last toil again what knowledge flows? 
 
 Just as much, perhaps, as shows. 
 
 That all his predecessor's rules 
 Were empty cant, all jargon of the schools; 
 
 That he on t’ other's ruin rears his throne; 
 
 And shows his friend's mistake, and thence confirms his 
 
 ov/n."2 
 
 Boyle, Robert, Philosonhical Works . London (1725) . II, 108-149. — 
 Cf. a sympathetic study of Boyle by Nourrisson, Philosophies d^ ^ 
 Nature . Paris (1887) . pp. 43-84. 
 
 ^Prior , Poetical Works, ed. Johnson, R.B., London (1907). I, 23-27. 
 Cf, Prior's sceptical attitude in maturer poems: Alma , or the 
 Progress of the Mind , and Solomon on the Vanity of the World , 
 
 Book I, On Knowledge . 
 
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 Nor should we be surprised to find in John Dryden, a man unusually 
 sensitive to the veering: of the winds of doctrine of his time, 
 essentially the same ideas as Glanvill's on the relation of 
 science and religion. He admired the practical achievements of 
 English science and was ready to give the Royal Society unstinted 
 praise.^ But, though he knew well the work of Hobbes, he was 
 certainly not a disciple; the dogmatic temper of Hobbes he referred 
 to as "magisterial authority" and he even suspected the sage of 
 Malmesbury of insincerity.^ Nor could a man so convinced as Dryden 
 of the limitations of h\man reason, well be content with a 
 materialistic philosophy of science. Both of his poems on religion, 
 though one defended Catholicism and the other Anglicanism, agree in 
 this distrust of the reason. 
 
 "Dim as the borrowed beams of moon and stars 
 To lonely, weary, wandering travellers 
 Is Reason to the soul," 
 
 this was the text of Religio Laici . And in The Hind and the Panther 
 he echoes: 
 
 "Let Reason then at her own quarry fly, 
 
 But how can finite grasp infinity? . . . 
 
 Rest then, my soul, from endless anguish freed: 
 
 Nor sciences' thy guide, nor sense thy creed. 
 
 Faith is the best insurer of thy bliss ..." 
 
 This reconciliation of science and religion by assigning 
 limits to the former, was of course far from final, and the 
 criticism of the human reason has since reached far greater pro- 
 
 ^Epistle To. D^ Char let on. and Annus Mirabilis. stanzas 155-166. 
 
 ^Dryden, Essays, ed. W.P.Ker, Oxford (1900) . I, 259. Cf. I, 153 
 and II, 248, 252. 
 
 ^ The Hind and the Panther . Part i, n. 104-5, 146-8. 
 

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 fundity. But we have seen hoy? rapidly the problem in its modern 
 form was evolved from the spiritual cosmology of the sixteenth 
 century, and how religion, which in the older philosophy, as in 
 Sir John Davies, had sought its support in a demonstrative ration- 
 alism, allied itself in the seventeenth century with scepticism. If, 
 as Donne said, all Divinity is Love and Wonder, the scepticism of 
 the English scientists stimulated at least the sentiment of wonder, 
 a sentiment neglected by the dry materialism of the school of 
 Hobbes. The imaginative Glanvill conveyed in rhythms that recall 
 Bro'wne, a sense of the mystery of the world both in its vastness and 
 its infinite minuteness, and of the miracle of man among all these 
 unexplainable wonders: 
 
 "Whatever I look upon within the amplitude 
 of heaven and earth, is evidence of humane ignorance; 
 For all things are a great darkness to us, and we are 
 so unto our selves: The plainest things are as 
 
 obscure, as the most confessedly mysterious; and 
 the Plants we tread on, are as much above us, as 
 the Stars and Heavens. The things that touch us 
 are as distant from us, as the Pole; and we are 
 as much strangers to our selves, as to the inhab- 
 itants of America."^ 
 
 Had Glanvill been of a religious nature, his scientific wonder 
 might have led him to a sense of the mystery of faith. But he 
 and his fellow apologists for science fell upon an age prosaic 
 in religion. The poetry of Glanvill is confined to his scientific 
 writings; in religion he shared the temper and the doctrines of the 
 Deists. Perhaps the deepest, certainly the most frequent, religious 
 
 ^ Addre ss to the Royal Society , in Scepsis Scientif ica . Ed.cit. 
 ^He gives a Deistic statement of the essentials of religion in 
 The Friendly Agreement between Reason and Re 1 i gi on , published with 
 Philosophia Pia , ed. cit. pp. 156-7. 
 

 
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238 
 
 sentiment in the writings of the scientists is their admiration of 
 God as the artificer of a marvellous universe. Their scepticism 
 made a place for religion, but they were too rationalistic in 
 temper to need more than the mildness of Deism. No Pascal appeared 
 among them. And yet, so fundamental and modern was their thought, 
 that the scepsis scientifica survived the Age of Reason and has 
 become an important conception even in the discussions of the 
 present century.^ 
 
 See for instance. More, P.Ej,, Huxley , in The Drift Roman t ic i sm _, 
 Boston (1913); and Boutroux, Emile, La Religion e^ les. Limit e s ^ 
 la Science , in Science et Religion , Paris (1908) . 
 

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CHAPTER SIX 
 
 DIFFUSION OF SCEPTICAL THOUGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 I. Critical Temper of the Seventeenth Century.- II. Sceptical 
 Tendency in the Thought of the Liberal Churchmen.- III. Sir 
 Thomas Browne: Scepticism and Religious Wonder.- IV. Francis 
 Osborn: Scepticism and the New Courtier Type. 
 
 In the preceding chapters vje have already traced some of 
 the effects of Renaissance scepticism on the thought of the seven- 
 teenth century, especially in connection with naturalism in ethics 
 and the philosophical crisis precipitated by the new science. In 
 those studies we have seen how the sceptical tendencies of the 
 sixteenth century contributed to the more modern thought of the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth. But after establishing this continuity 
 of certain phases, one is led further to inquire what iiriportance 
 scepticism had in the whole of seventeenth century thought, and 
 whether it was cultivated only by a small group of intellectual 
 rebels and social pariahs, or whether it permeated the educated 
 class. In the present chapter some representative and widely 
 popular writers will be studied together, with a view to estimating 
 the diffusion of the sceptical tendency of the age in various 
 intellectual and social groups. It may appear at first paradoxical 
 to discuss together men of such diverse minds and temperaments as 
 Baxter and Osborn, Falkland and Bro-wne, Hales and Milton. But by 
 such a consideration of one phase of writers not otherwise associ- 
 ated together by students of English literature, we may be able to 
 

 
 
 
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240 
 
 arrive at a more thorough appreciation of the importance of the 
 sceptical impulse in the seventeenth century. 
 
 I 
 
 The Critical Temper of the Seventeenth Century 
 
 Almost immediately the English spirit of the seventeenth 
 century manifested itself as a reaction against the exuberance of 
 the Renaissance. Fundamentally this reaction was undoubtedly due 
 to the exhaustion of energies in the expansiveness of the preceding 
 period, but it expressed itself in a multiplicity of ways determined 
 often by accident. It is everywhere evident in the political con- 
 flicts which dominated the age. Instead of the generous enthusiasm 
 and national unity of the days of the great Queen, the division into 
 parties now produced a genera.! irritability; and quite by accident 
 England at the same time had a king who of all her monarchs irritated 
 the nation most and was least concerned about conciliating popular 
 opinion. The pretension of James I to absolute monarchy and his 
 high-handed treatment of Parliament, a policy which his son inherited 
 from him, cost the country the distress of civil war and Charles I 
 his head. But before this crisis, in fact immediately upon his 
 accession, James drew upon himself criticism for a multitude of more 
 or less serious errors, all of which alienated the country from the 
 crown and made patriotic Englishmen sigh for the palmy days of 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 James humiliated the English by surrounding himself with 
 Scotch courtiers. This was of course in itself injudicious, but it 
 
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241 
 
 became dangerous in a monarch ruled, as James V7as, by favorites who 
 pandered skilfully to the king’s weaknesses. Lord Howard advised 
 Sir John Harrington on how to succeed at the new court: he must 
 
 dress to the king's taste, for many gallants have "failed in their 
 suits for want of due observance of these matters." Nothing, of 
 course, can be done except through the favorites. "Robert Carr is 
 now most likely to win the prince’s affection, and doth it wonder- 
 ously in a little time." Success depended then on such secrets as 
 this: "Do not of yourself say, 'This is good, or bad'; but, 'If it 
 
 were your majesty’s good opinion, I myself should think so and so.’" 
 The lord was unable to repress a scornful plaint: "You have lived 
 
 to see the trim of old times, and what passed in the queen's days. 
 These things are no more the same." 
 
 Morals and conduct at the court of the new monarch were 
 inconceivably vulgar and unrestrained. Sir John Harrington, who 
 in the good days of yore had been disciplined by the Queen herself 
 for circulating among her maids a translation of an obnoxious canto 
 from Ariosto, was shocked and grieved by the degradation he saw. A 
 witty letter of his, describing the revels in 1606 in honor of the 
 King of Denmark, conveys the tone of the court: 
 
 "The sports began each day," he says, "in such manner and 
 such sort as had well-nigh persuaded me of Mahomet’s paradise . . . 
 
 I think the Dane hath strangely wrought on our good English nobles; 
 for those whom I never could get to taste liquor, now follow the 
 fashion and wallow in beastly delights. The ladies abandon their 
 sobriety, and are seen to roll about in intoxication." At a great 
 
 ^Aikin. Lucv. Memoirs of the Court of King James the First, London 
 (1822). I, 326-330. 
 
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feast several ladies were to come into the presence of the royal 
 guest, representing such Christian and Royal attributes as Faith, 
 Hope, Charity, Victory and Peace. But, though "the entertainment 
 and show went forward," says Harrington, "most of the presenters 
 went backward, or fell down; wine did so occupy their upper 
 chambers. " 
 
 "Now did appear in rich dress. Faith, Hope and 
 Charity: Hope did essay to speak, but wine rendered 
 her endeavours so feeble that she withdrew, and hoped 
 the king would excuse her brevity: Faith was then 
 
 alone, for I am certain she was not joined with good 
 works, and left the court in a staggering condition: 
 Charity came to the king’s feet, and seemed to cover 
 the multitude of sins her sisters had committed; in 
 some sort she made obeisance and brought gifts, but 
 said she would return home again, as there was no 
 gift which heaven had not already given his majesty. 
 
 She then returned to Faith and Hope, who were both 
 sick . . . in the lower hall. Next came Victory in 
 bright armour, and by a strange medley of versifica- 
 tion did endeavour to make suit to the king. But • 
 Victory did not triumph long; for, after a much 
 lamentable utterance, she was led away like a silly 
 captive, and laid to sleep in the outer steps of the 
 antichamber. Now Peace did make entry, and strive 
 to get foremost to the king; but I grieve to tell 
 how great wrath she did discover unto those of her 
 attendants; and much contrary to her semblance, most 
 rudely made war with her olive branch, and laid on 
 the pates of those who did oppose her coming. 
 
 "I have much marvelled at these strange 
 pageantries," continues Harrington, "and they do 
 bring to my remembrance what passed of this sort 
 in our queen's days; of which I was sometimes an 
 humble presenter and assistant: but I did ne'er 
 see such lack of good order, discretion and sobriety, 
 as I have now done . " 1 
 
 At such a court it is to be expected that the course of events will 
 be determined by low intrigue. The murder of Overbury, the execu- 
 tion of Raleigh, the ascendency of the Catholic faction in the 
 
 ^ Nufsrae Antiquae . I, 348. Quoted by Aikin, op. cit. I, 278-381. 
 
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243 
 
 foreign policy, and the ignominious attempt to form an alliance 
 hetvveen Prince Charles and the Infanta of Spain, are only a few of 
 the incidents which more and more alienj^^ted king and country, and 
 are sufficient to remind us how completely James was out of touch 
 with his people. 
 
 After the high national spirit which had united all 
 factions in the time of Elizabeth, there succeeded a period of 
 dejection and disillusionment. The glories of England were visibly 
 in decline. In a passage in the second book of Britannia* s 
 Pastorals (1616), Bro^e indignantly describes the decay in Plymouth 
 harbor of that great English fleet, 
 
 "whose hot alarms 
 
 Have made Iberia tremble, and her towers 
 Prostrate themselves before our iron showers; 
 
 While their proud builders' hearts have been inclin'd 
 To shake, as our brave ensigns, with the wind .... 
 
 But now our leaders want; those vessels lie 
 Rotting, like houses through ill husbandry; 
 
 And on their masts, where oft the ship-boy stood. 
 
 Or silver trumpets charm'd the brackish flood. 
 
 Some wearied crow is set; and daily seen 
 
 Their sides instead of pitch caulk'd o'er with green. 
 
 Not only was the navy neglected, but the army was decayed and dis- 
 banded and the former soldiers wandered over England as paupers. 
 
 "Can I behold a man that in the field 
 Or at a breach hath taken on his shield 
 More darts than ever Roman; that hath spent 
 Many a cold December in no tent 
 
 But such as earth and heaven make; that hath been 
 Except in iron plates not long time seen; 
 
 Upon whose body may be plainly told 
 
 More wounds than his lank purse doth almsdeeds hold; 
 01 can I see this man, advent 'ring all. 
 
 Be only grac'd with some poor hospital, 
 
 ^Bro'wne, William, Britannia' s Pastorals , Book 2, Song 4, 11. 51-96. 
 ed. Goodwin, I, 313-315. 
 
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244 
 
 Or may be worse, entreating at his door 
 For some relief whom he secur’d before. 
 
 And yet not show my grief? First may I learn 
 To see, and yet forget how to discern; 
 
 My hands neglectful be at any need, 
 
 Or to defend my body, or to feed. 
 
 Ere I respect those times that rather give him 
 Hundreds to punish than one to relieve him.”T 
 
 In departing from his pastoral style to write these stinging 
 arraignments of his time, Browne voiced the indignation of the great 
 mass of Englishmen who felt deeply the disappointment of England’s 
 splendid promise in the time of Sidney, Spenser, Drake and the great 
 Queen. 
 
 Perhaps no one felt more keenly the change which had come 
 over England than Fulke Greville, who survived for so many years his 
 youthfyl friend Sidney. He who had felt the pulse of the greater 
 age, was disconsolate amid the ignobility which ensued. ”He doubt- 
 less felt,” says a recent student of him,^ that his opinions were 
 those of the age of Elizabeth, and he certainly believed them to be 
 in contrast with those of the age of James and Charles.” He felt 
 baffled in trying to bring into active life that spirit of idealism 
 on which he had been nourished in his youth, and withdrew to live 
 over again in contemplation, the age which he had found more con- 
 genial. 
 
 ^Bro'wne, ed. cit. I, 315-6. — Lucy Hutchinson prises her father, 
 who held important positions under James, such as Victualler of the 
 Navy and Lieutenant of the Tower, for his liberality and kindness, 
 and she says, ’’when, through the ingratitude and vice of that age, 
 many of the wives and children of Queen Elizabeth’s glorious 
 captains were reduced to poverty, his purse was their common 
 treasurVr” Memoirs of the Life of Colons 1 Hutchinson , London (1848). 
 p. 13. 
 
 ^Croll, Morris W. , The Works of Fulke Greville . Philadelphia (1903) . 
 p. 58. 
 
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345 
 
 "The difference which I have found between times," 
 so he began his Life of Sidney. "and consequently 
 the changes of life into which their naturall 
 vicissitudes doe violently carry men, as they 
 have made deep furrowes of impressions into my 
 heart, so the same heavy wheeles caused me to 
 retire my thoughts from free traffique with the 
 world, and rather seek comfortable ease or employ- 
 ment in the safe memory of dead men, than disquiet 
 in a doubtfull conversation amongst the living."^ 
 
 And in hie sombre conclusion to the same work he declares that he 
 had written his plays only for those on whose foot the Black Oxe of 
 Care had already trod, "to those only," he continues, "that are 
 weather-beaten in the sea of this World, such as having lost the 
 sight of their gardens and groves, study to saile on a right course 
 
 Q 
 
 among rocks and quick-sands." 
 
 It is of course easily possible to exaggerate the impor- 
 tance of the Stuarts in the intellectual history of the seventeenth 
 century; their influence was provocative more than creative or even 
 directive. After every era of expansion comes an era of concentra- 
 tion, an era primarily of criticism and painful readjustment; the 
 seventeenth century was such an age of concentration. But James 
 gave form and focus to the current tendencies which were beyond his 
 comprehension and control. He may be said to have dominated his 
 age, in a perverse sense, by provoking dissension, just as truly 
 as Elizabeth dominated hers by promoting national unity and good 
 feeling. It was his arrogant and dogmatic assumption of the divine 
 right of kings, his complete lack of political sagacity, which 
 precipitated the struggle for political and religious liberty, and 
 
 ^Greville, Fulke, Works , ed. Grosart, London (1870). IV, 5. 
 
 ^Ibid. p. 223. 
 
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246 
 
 thus defined the course of events even under his successor. For 
 Charles, though the moral tone of his court was vastly better than 
 that of his father's, pursued the policy of J.ames in church and 
 state, the policy of Buckingham and Laud. In both spheres the 
 Stuart policy was coercive and tyrannical and provoked a powerful 
 resistance, manifested not only in Parliament and the Parliamentary 
 army, but in political thought and in the development of new 
 theories of religious liberty and tolerance. Such men as Falkland, 
 Hales, Chillingworth and Taylor, driven to investigate the preten- 
 sions to infallibility on the part of church or individual, were 
 led thereby to a more searching and somewhat sceptical examination 
 of the human reason. The political crisis in church and state 
 forced them to consider the problem of knowledge, the great 
 philosophical preoccupation of the century, both in England and 
 France. Even in scholarship, which in the sixteenth century had 
 been largely cumulative and assidmilat ive , the new critical spirit is 
 evident and does not shrink from an independent examination of 
 political and ecclesiastical pretensions. Selden's History of 
 Tithes (1618), written in the moderate spirit of a seeker only after 
 truth, nevertheless disclosed the spuriousness of the claim of the 
 church to a divine right to impose taxes. Selden was forced to 
 retract this book; but that he retained the independence of thought 
 of the critical scholar, is apparent everywhere in his Table -Talk . 
 "The clergy," he says, "would have us believe them against our own 
 Reason, as the Wom.an would have had her Husband against his own 
 Eyes: What! will you believe your own Eyes before your O’wn sweet 
 
 Wife?"^ All pretension to infallibility or divine right of king or 
 
 ^Selden, Table-Talk, ed. Gollanz (Temple Classics), p. 29. 
 
 

 
 
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247 
 
 bishop was swept away by his great learning and sound sense. "A King 
 is a thing Men have made for their awn Sakes, for quietness' sake," 
 he declared, "just as in a Family one Man is appointed to buy the 
 Meat."^ And Selden knew, what many Englishmen learned in the turbu- 
 lence of the first half of the seventeenth century, that truth was 
 not to be reached by party affiliation, and that quiet and peace were 
 necessary before the critical spirit could dissolve the fierce fanat- 
 icism and dogmatism which blinded the contending factions. "In 
 troubled Water you can scarce see your Face, or see it very little, 
 till the Water be quiet and stand still. So in troubled times you 
 can see little Truth; when times are quiet and settled, then Truth 
 appears."^ 
 
 Falkland and the liberal churchmen already mentioned, 
 Selden' s contemporaries, withdrew from the turmoil in order to find 
 truth in the quiet of their libraries. But they all became more and 
 more impressed by the great likelihood of error in human thought. 
 
 They learned, among other things, an intellectual humility which, 
 though they were themselves perhaps unaware of the fact^ was tinged 
 with philosophical scepticism. They prepared the way for the 
 modern theory of toleration, for Locke's Letter on Toleration and 
 for the Toleration Act of 1689. 
 
 II 
 
 Sceptical Tendency in the Thought of the Liberal Churchmen 
 
 No sooner had the individualistic spirit of the 
 Reformation clearly manifested itself in the continual secession of 
 
 ^Ibid. p. 64. 
 
 p. 145 . 
 
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248 
 
 sects, in the audacious rejection of \what had been regarded as 
 essential doctrine, than the leaders began to check it. Calvin 
 maintained strict discipline in Geneva, denouncing the freer sect 
 called the Libertines, and even burning Servetus in 1553 for anti- 
 Trinitarian teachings. Luther allied himself with German princes, 
 and Lutheranism became a state religion. In the England of 
 
 I 
 
 Elizabeth three religious factions, the Catholics, the Anglicans 
 and the Puritans, were all ambitious of supremacy. Protestantism, 
 which had destroyed the Medieval unity of the European church, in 
 its turn sought to enforce by political power a uniformity of 
 creed and ceremonial within its own territorial limits. It ridiculed 
 the pretended infallibility of the Pope, and then acted on the 
 assumption of its own infallibility. The earliest Protestant leaders 
 were as zealous as Catholics for unity and uniformity, each believing 
 that his o’wn sect alone held the one verifiable and unpolluted truth. 
 
 But Protestantism nevertheless had something more than 
 fanatical zeal; it 7 /as anim.ated by a spirit of liberty which, checke 
 as it was by the political control of opinion by state churches, 
 could never be suppressed. Arians, Anabaptists, Brownists, Familist 
 these sects of the sixteenth century were only the beginning. In the 
 seventeenth century the spirit of independence produced numerous 
 others: Antinomians, Millenaries or Ghiliasts, Seekers, Anti- 
 Sabbatarians, Traskites, Soul-Sleepers or Moralists, Divorcers, Anti 
 Scripturists, Socinians, even some called Sceptics or Questionists. 
 
 ^Masson, David, Life of Milton, London (1873) . Ill, 136-ff . 
 
 Numerous pamphlets were directed against these sects. Thomas 
 Edwards, in a treatise entitled Gangraena i or , a Catalogue and Dis- 
 covery of many of the Errors . Heresie.s . Blasphemies , and Pernicious 
 Practices of the Sectaries of this time ( 1645) , made a list of 176 
 
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 :.a^l s j 7 -{if .1 & iizTzzt : ■■ t : 
 
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 -•VI .1.1 3C^S . 
 
249 
 
 This multiplication of sects was inevitable in such a 
 secessionist movement as Protestantism. And though its leaders had 
 at first been blind to this fact, English churchmen of the seven- 
 teenth century began to see more and more clearly that the attempt 
 to enforce uniformity was not only futile, but wrong. They came to 
 the conclusion that only by hazarding wide diversity of opinion, 
 only by seeking by many paths, even though most must be erroneous, 
 could truth ever be found. They therefore placed themselves 
 philosophically at the opposite pole from Medievalism, with its 
 insistence on uniformity and unity not only within nations but 
 throughout the world. Bossuet defined a heretic as a man who had 
 
 formed an opinion; there spoke the Medievalist, the Catholic, who 
 
 / 
 
 wrote his Hist oire des Variations des Eglises Protes tantes to show 
 the absurdity and self-destructiveness of the Protestant spirit. But 
 
 his views had already been answered by an English champion of liberty. 
 "Where there is much desire to learn, " Milton wrote in his 
 Areonagitica . "there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, 
 many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the 
 making. 
 
 "errors, heresies, and blasphemies," among which were the following: 
 
 "That the Scriptures are a dead letter, and no more to 
 be credited than the writings of men." 
 
 "That right Reason is the rule of Faith." 
 
 "That the magistrate may not punish for blasphemies, nor for 
 denying the Scriptures, nor for denying that there is a God." 
 
 "That the soul dies with the body, and all things shall 
 have an end, but God only." 
 
 "That Jesus Christ is not very God: no otherwise may he 
 be called the Son of God but as he was man." 
 
 "That, in ooint of Religion, even in the Articles of Faith 
 and principles of Religion, there’s nothing certainly to be 
 believed and built on; only that all men ought to have 
 liberty of conscience and liberty of prophesying." 
 
 Mg.sson, III, 143-5. , . 
 
 ‘Milton, ^ Education , etc. Ed. Lockwood, Boston (1911). p. 130. 
 

 
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350 
 
 Falkland and the other liberal thinkers of the seventeenth 
 century church found themselves in the midst of conflicting 
 dogmatisms, all seeking to enforce their conceptions of truth upon 
 others. The Catholics believed in the infallibility of the Church 
 of Rome, the Puritans in the absolute correctness of the Puritans 
 in creed and ceremonial, the Anglicans in the divine right of King 
 and Bishop. Religious certainty was the burning question, with 
 which all parties were most deeply concerned. Falkland subjected 
 the idea of infallibility to a rigorous criticism, with the con- 
 clusion that no man can escape from the responsibility and necessity 
 of depending on his own reason, weak and untutored though it be. For 
 infallibility itself must be proved to the reason before it can be 
 accepted as a principle of religious authority; next, it must be 
 demonstrated to the reason that this infallibility belongs to one 
 church and to no other; and finally, suppose the Church of Rome to 
 be infallible, yet the individual must understand her teachings by 
 means of his own corrupt reason, and thus we return again to the 
 individualism from which we expressly sought to escape. But Falkland 
 had no regrets; he preferred erring sincerity to that external uni- 
 formity v?hich he thought was all that an infallible church could 
 secure . 
 
 ’’Grant the Church," he says, "to be infallible, 
 yet methinks he that denies it, and employs his 
 reason to seek if it be true, should be in as good 
 case as he that believeth it, and searcheth not at 
 all the truth of the proposition he receives. For 
 I cannot see why he should be saved because by 
 reason of his parents' belief, or the religion of 
 the country, or some such accident, the truth was 
 offered to his understanding, when, had the contrary 
 been offered, he would have received that. And the 
 other damned that believes falsehood upon as good 
 
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251 
 
 ground as the other doth truth, unless the Church 
 be like a conjuror's circle, that will keep a man 
 from the devil, though he came into it by chance.” 
 
 Falkland kept open house at Great Tew, his estate near 
 Oxford, in the generous manner of the great gentlemen of that time. 
 And from the group which frequented his home in the thirties, sprang 
 the liberal party within the Anglican Church. Although Falkland had 
 many friendships with poets and men of letters as well as with 
 theologians,^ his own interests tended, with those of his time, more 
 and more towards Divinity. Clarendon has described the life at Tew: 
 
 Falkland's house, he says, "being within ten or 
 twe-lve miles of the university, looked like the 
 university itself, by the company that was always 
 found there. There were Dr. Sheldon, Dr. Morley, 
 
 Dr. Hammond, Dr. Earles, Mr. Chillingworth, and 
 indeed all mien of eminent parts and faculties in 
 Oxford, besides those who resorted thither from 
 London; who all found their lodgings there, as 
 ready as in the colleges; nor did the lord of the 
 house know of their coming or going, nor who were 
 in his house, till he came to dinner, or supper, 
 where all still met; otherwise, there was no 
 troublesome ceremony or constraint, to forbid men 
 to come to the house, or to make them weary of 
 staying there; so that many came thither to study 
 in a better air, finding all the books they could 
 desire in his library, and all the persons together, 
 whose company they could wish, and not find in any 
 other society. Here Mr. Chillingworth wrote, and 
 
 ^Quoted by Tulloch, John, Rational Theology and Chr i s t ian Ph i los qph jr 
 in England in the Seventeenth Century , 2nd ed., Edinburgh (1874). 
 
 I, 164-5. I have had to rely on Tulloch for my information on 
 Falkland and Hales; Tulloch had no special interest in the sceptical 
 tendency in these men, nor even called it by that name, b'ut his 
 liberal quotations have been serviceable for my purpose. 
 
 ^See Suckling's famous A^ Sessions of the Poets , written probably 
 in 1637. Falkland is represented as 
 
 "of late so gone with Divinity 
 
 That he had almost forgot his Poetry, 
 
 Though to say the truth (and Apollo did know it) 
 
 He might have been both his Priest and his Poet.” 193. 
 Spingarn, Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, 0xford(l908) . I, 
 

 
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 fornisd, sincL niod,6ll®ci, liis sxcsllsn'b "book a.ga.ins't 
 the learned Jesuit Mr. Nott, after frequent debates 
 upon the most important particulars; in many of 
 which he suffered himself to be overruled by the 
 judgment of his friends, though in others he still 
 adhered to his own fancy, which was sceptical enough, 
 even in the highest points.” 
 
 The reply to Knott was Chillingworth’ s Tl^ Religion of Protestant ^ 
 
 [1637), one of the most potent works of the time in fostering the 
 
 liberal spirit. John Hales is not mentioned by Clarendon as one of 
 
 the group, but he is included in Suckling’s poem, and is said by his 
 
 eighteenth century biographer to have frequented the society of 
 
 2 
 
 Falkland, Suckling and Ben Jonson. 
 
 Hales and Chillingworth, like Falkland, sought the 
 media ; they rejected the Catholic doctrine of infallibility, pursued 
 it through the labyrinths of theological argument to its last 
 retreat; but though they were individualists in philosophy and 
 admitted that in the last analysis each man must be his own judge of 
 truth, they sought to encourage and preserve Christian unity. They 
 accepted, as the basis of all doctrine, the inspiration of the Bible; 
 and inasmuch as the interpretations of the Bible varied, they sought 
 concord by eliminating the dark places and disputable doctrines as 
 not essential to salvation. On the important doctrines, they 
 thought, all Christians could agree, and as for the other points, 
 free discussion, conducted in a charitable and reasonable spirit, 
 should be permitted to the curious. But let no one pretend to 
 
 ^ Life of Clarendon , Oxford (1857). I, 39-40. 
 
 ^An Historical and Critical Account, of. the_ L ife . and ^ ^ 
 
 Ever - Memorable Mr . John Hale s , by P. Des Maizeaux, published in 171 
 
 See Tulloch, op. cit. I, 193. 
 

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 certitude where the best thought of Christendom is divided. 
 
 Such a position was of course a compromise, but it was in 
 its time very liberal. Hales and Chillingworth were vigorous and 
 effective champions of liberty of thought, and all the more effec- 
 tive because they were within the church, not attacking it. They 
 understood that the pathway out of ignorance and error is steep and 
 rugged and tortuous, and that often it leads, not to certain know- 
 ledge, but only to doubt. They denounced the Medieval doctrine that 
 intellectual error is a crime; they denied the justice, the right, 
 the desirability of that intellectual unity to which the Church in 
 the Middle Ages, and to a large extent also in the Renaissance, had 
 aspired. "It is not the variety of opinions,” said Hales in one of 
 his sermons, ”but our own perverse wills, who think it meet that 
 all should be conceited as ourselves are, which hath so incon- 
 venienced the Church.”^ Their charity and tolerance taught them 
 that differences of opinion are not always a sign of moral depravity, 
 that doubt is not necessarily sin. They restricted the meaning of 
 the terrible word "heresy." 
 
 "For heresy," said Hales, "is an act of will, 
 not of reason, and is indeed a lie, not a mistake, 
 else how could that kno'wn speech of Austin go for 
 t rue , Errare possum , haeret icus esse nolo? . . . 
 
 But can any man avouch that Arius and Nestorius, 
 and others that taught erroneously concerning the 
 Trinity, or the person of our Saviour, did 
 maliciously invent what they taught, and not rather 
 1 fall upon it by error and mistake? Till that be 
 
 done, and that upon good evidence, we will think 
 no worse of all parties than needs we must, and 
 take these rents in the Church to be at the worst 
 but schisms upon matter of opinion." 
 
 ^Quoted by Tulloch, op. cit. I, 224. 
 
 ^Quoted by Tulloch, op. cit. I, 228. 
 

 
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254 
 
 Q^illins^worth likewise maintained everywhere in his famous treatise 
 that the differences between sects were in regard to points not 
 fundamental, where the resolution of doubts was unnecessary or even 
 impossible . 
 
 This liberalism was not confined to the group gathered 
 about Falkland. Jeremy Taylor, in his Discourse on Li . b . e _ r - ^ of 
 Prophesying (1647), admitted the impossibility of intellectual unity 
 
 in the church. 
 
 "The infinite variety of opinions in matters of 
 religion," he says, "as they have troubled 
 Christendom with interests, factions, and 
 partialities, so have they caused great divisions 
 of the heart and variety of thoughts and designs 
 among pious and prudent men. For they all, seeing 
 the inconveniences which the disunion of persuasions 
 and opinions have produced directly or accidentally, 
 have thought themselves obliged to stop this inunda- 
 tion of mischiefs, and have made attempts accordingly 
 . . . All men resolved upon this, that though they 
 had not hit upon the right, yet some way must be 
 thought upon to reconcile differences in opinion, 
 thinking so long as this variety should last, 
 
 Christ's kingdom was not advanced, and the work 
 of the gospel went on but slowly. Few men in the 
 mean time considered that so long as men had such 
 variety of principles, such several constitutions, 
 educations, tempers and distempers, hopes, inter- 
 ests, and weaknesses, degrees of light and degrees 
 of understanding, it was impossible all should be 
 of one mind; and what is impossible to be done, is 
 not necessary it should be done." 
 
 Taylor repeats the distinction quoted above from Hales, between the 
 sin of heresy and intellectual error. "For heresy is not an error 
 of the understanding, but an error of the will." He emphasized 
 more the agreement which he found on a few things, than the multi- 
 tude of disagreements. 
 
 oTaylor, Jeremy, Works , London (1849). V, 365-6. 
 ^Ibid. V. 383. 
 
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255 
 
 Why, he asks, "should I hate such persons 
 whom God loves and who love God, who are partakers 
 of Christ and Christ hath a title to them, who 
 dwell in Christ and Christ in them, because their 
 understandings have not been brought up like mine, 
 have not had the same masters, they have not met 
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 are wiser; that is, for some reason or other which 
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 not the same opinions that I have, and do not 
 determine their school— Questions to the sense of 
 my sect or interest?" ^ 
 
 These expressions of tolerance, of lat itudinarianism, were 
 a sign of the reaction against the dogmatism of the Reformed as well 
 as of the Catholic church. The zeal for conquest which had inspired 
 the powerful Protestant sects, was gradually exhausted in the long 
 and wearisome conflict of the seventeenth century. Richard Baxter, 
 in looking back over his long career, noted the change which had 
 come over himself. 
 
 "In my youth," he says, in that intelleotuaj. 
 autobiography written in the wisdom and mellow- 
 ness of years, "in my youth I was quickly past 
 my Fundamentals, and was running up into a multi- 
 tude of Controversies, and greatly delighted with 
 metaphysical and scholastick Writings . . . But 
 
 the elder I grew the smaller stress I laid upon 
 these Controversies and Curiosities (though still 
 my intellect abhorreth Confusion), as finding far 
 greater Uncertainties in them, than I at first 
 discerned, and finding less Usefulness compara- 
 tively, even where there is the greatest 
 Certainty . . . And thus I observed it was," he 
 continues, "with old bishop Ushe r , and with many 
 other Men."^ 
 
 The fierce fanaticism of the first half of the century had been suc- 
 ceeded by tolerance and mild scepticism, even among the leaders of 
 the factions. 
 
 ilbid. V, 346. no- 
 
 ^ Reliquiae Eaxterianae . London (1696} . p. 13 d. 
 
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 individualism, their rationalistic method and spirit, their emphasis 
 on simplification of doctrine, all tended towards natural theology. 
 Even Richard Baxter experienced, after his youthful confidence, such 
 strong doubts "that had I been void of internal Experience, and the 
 Adhesion of Love, and the special help of God, and had not discerned 
 more Reason for my Religion than I did when I was younger, I had 
 certainly Apostatized to Infidelity."^ As all truths are not 
 equally certain, therefore, he said, 
 
 "I do more of late than ever discern a necessity of 
 a methodical procedure in maintaining the Doctrine 
 of Christianity, and of beginning at Natural 
 Verities, as presupposed fundamentally to super- 
 natural ... My certainty that I am a Man, is 
 before my certainty that there is a God ... 
 
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 my certainty that he requireth love and holiness 
 of his Creature: My certainty of this is greater 
 
 than my certainty of the Life of Reward and 
 Punishment hereafter: My certainty of that 
 
 is greater than my certainty of the endless 
 duration of it, and of the immortality of 
 individuate souls: My certainty of the Deity 
 
 is greater than my certainty of the Christian 
 Faith: My certainty of the Christian Faith in 
 its Essentials, is greater than my certainty 
 of the Perfection and Infallibility of all the 
 Holy Scriptures: My certainty of that is greater 
 than my certainty of the meaning of many par- 
 ticular Texts, and so of the truth of many 
 particular Doctrines, or of the Canonicalness 
 of some certain Books. "2 
 
 Baxter was not a Deist. But as so often has happened in the 
 history of thought, Baxter found it was good tactics to occupy some 
 of the enemy territory. 
 
 Finally, all these liberal churchmen learned a humiility of 
 the reason, a keen sense of the limitations of the power of know- 
 
 ^ Reliquiae Baxterianae . p. 127. 
 Reliquiae Baxterianae , p. 138 . 
 

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 !.ed^6, which was at least edged with scepticism. Aubrey s story of 
 Qjiillingworth reading Sextus Empiricus, whether authentic or not, 
 has its significance 5 it indicates ths.t somebody at that time saw 
 the sceptical trend in the thought of the churchman. ’’Although I 
 be as desirous to know what I should and what I should not,” said 
 Jeremy Taylor, ” as a-ny of my brethren the sons of Adam; yet I find 
 ■jhat the more I search, the further I am from being satisfied, and 
 make but few discoveries save of my own ignorance."^ The constant 
 text of all of them was the vanity of dogmatizing. They effectively 
 criticized the Medieval ideal of the intellectual unity of 
 Christendom, and laid the foundations for a theory of tolerance 
 within the church. And therefore, though they remained orthodox in 
 their creed, their spirit and principles liberalized English rexi— 
 gious thought from within by such an extension of religious and 
 philosophical individualism, as only dissenters attempted in the 
 sixteenth century. They carried one step further the disintegrating 
 movement of the Ref orm.ation. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne: Scepticism and Religious Wonder 
 
 In 1643 a physician at Norwich was forced, by the previous 
 unauthorized printings from an imperfect manuscript copy, to give to 
 the world his Re ligi o Medici . a private confession of faith written 
 some eight years earlier. It was, he explained in the preface, ”a 
 private Exercise directed to my self” and "what is delivered therein, 
 
 ^Taylor, ed. cit. V. 563. — 
 
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 was rather a memorial unto me , than an Example or Rule unto any 
 other.” The book immediately had a great vogue, not only in England, 
 but on the Continent, where it was appreciated for its substance 
 rather than style in a Latin translation. It was no nine days 
 wonder; twenty years later a friend of Pepys declared that in all 
 his life these three books were the most esteemed and generally 
 cried up for wit in the world — Religip Medici., Osborne's Advice to 
 a Son, and Hudibras .”^ Thus launched auspiciously on his career of 
 authorship, Thomas Browne published more willingly his later works, 
 the most ambitious of which was Pseudodoxia Epidemica,, a massive 
 attack on the superstitions of the science and learning of the time. 
 These superstitious errors Browne attributed to four causes, first, 
 the common infirmiity of human nature, so painfully exhibited by our 
 ancestors in the Garden of Eden; second the ignorance and inclina- 
 tion to error among the uneducated; third, credulity, supinity, and 
 adherence to authority; and fourth, that "invisible Agent, and secret 
 promoter without us, whose activity is undiscerned, and plays in the 
 dark upon us," namely, the Devil. ^ Browne's four sources of error 
 have suggested to some of his critics a comparison with Bacon s four 
 kinds of Idols, but if Bro'wne had read Bacon, it must have been 
 superficially. He was not fitted to understand the plodding method 
 of his predecessor, and Bacon would have spurned as puerile Browne s 
 solemn refutation of fabulous natural history. In intellect and 
 tem.per the two men were opposite: Bacon, dogmatic, affirmative, 
 
 systematic, confident of human progress by means of scientific 
 
 JPepys, Samuel, Diary . Jan. 27, 1664. ed. Globe, p. 241. 
 
 ^Browne, Sir Thomas, Works , ed.Sayle, London (1904;. I, 182. 
 
 ^For instance. More, P.E., She Iburne Essays , Sixth Series, N.Y. 
 (1909). p. 163. ■ 
 
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 knowledge, always concerned with practical achievement; Browne, on 
 the contrary, questioning, hesitating, possessed of a profound 
 intellectual humility, an obscure reader of old folios who nourished 
 his emotions and imagination chiefly upon the wonder and mystery of 
 this world and the invisible which transcends it, whose thirty years 
 of commonplace life seemed to him nothing less than a miracle. 
 
 Browne ?/as in fact not related intellectually to Bacon but 
 to Montaigne. It is not in the superficial criticism of super- 
 stitions in the Pseudodoxia En idemioa, but in the more profound 
 scepticism of Re ligio Medici that we find the real Brov?ne, and this 
 scepticism, like Browne’s informal manner, he owed partly to the 
 Essays .^ He had the easy tolerance, the distrust of reasoning, the 
 sense of the fluidity of opinion, which characterized the author of 
 the Apologle de Raimond Sebond . He is content with his own religion, 
 and content to let others retain theirs. ”I could never divide 
 myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry 
 with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that from which per- 
 haps within a fe'W days I should dissent myself.”^ One is reminded 
 of Montaigne's description of his own nature as divers e_t pndoya.n'^ . 
 Disputes and arguments, Browne thought, are no more reliable than 
 pitched battles in settling doubtful points. "A man may be in as 
 just possession of Truth as of a City, and yet be forced to sur- 
 render; 'tis therefore far better to enjoy her with peace than to 
 hazard her on a battle.”^ This unheroic attitude was due not to 
 timidity, but to a conviction that truth had little to do with 
 
 ^Cf . Texte, Joseph, La De s c e ndan c e de_ Montaigne in Etude_s de_ 
 Litte'^rature Eur ooeenne . Paris , (.1S9S1 . pp^ 51 -9o . 
 
 ~^Browne ] ^d. cit, I, 12. ^Ibid. I, 12. 
 

 
 
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— - 261 
 
 r©6LSon. H© would, tisiv© 8.§r©sd. wHiti P3,sc3.1 'tliji'tj d.oiib'b is 1^11© ‘truss't 
 philosophy. 
 
 ”We do but l©arn to-day, what our better 
 advanced ^udgesients will unteach to— morrowj and 
 Aristotle doth but instruct us, as Plato did himj 
 that is, to confute himself. I have run through 
 all sorts, yet find no rest in any: though our 
 first studies and junior endeavours may style us 
 Peripateticks, Stoicks, or Academicks, yet I per- 
 ceive the wisest heads prove, at last, almost all 
 Scepticks, and stand like Janus in the field of 
 knowledge. 
 
 Our life is bounded on every side by the unknowable. The wisest 
 
 2 ^ 
 
 understandings are tormented by unanswerable doubts, and we are 
 unable to know one another, nay even ourselves. "No man can justly 
 censure or condemn another, because indeed no man truly knows 
 another. This I perceive in myself; for I am in the dark to all the 
 world and my nearest friends behold me but in a cloud. " "Our ends 
 are as obscure as our beginnings; the line of our days is drawn by 
 night, and the various effects therein by a pencil that is 
 invisible . 
 
 But as the Greek Sceptics had taught that custom and 
 tradition is the safest guide, as Montaigne and Pascal used 
 scepticism as a defense of their Catholic faith, so Browne dis- 
 ciplines and humiliates his insubordinate reason by means of a 
 thorough Pyrrhonism, but only that Faith may rise triumphant. Within 
 his own nature he observes a constant feud between passion, reason 
 and faith. "As the Propositions of Faith seem absurd unto Reason, 
 so the Theorems of Reason unto Passion, and both unto Faith." Reason 
 
 : 
 
 ’I; 
 
 3lbid! i; 9i; 62. 
 
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362 
 
 is constantly raising objections, demanding explanations: perhaps 
 
 the combustion of Gomorrah was due to "an asphaltic and bituminous 
 nature" of the lake; manna is now plentiful in Calabria, and where 
 then was the miracle of the days of Moses? But these attempts to 
 rationalize our knowledge, by seducing our reason, weaken our faith. 
 It is better to remain in our ignorance and believe, than to strive 
 for that knowledge which makes belief unnecessary, "The Devil 
 played at Chess with me, and yielding a Pavwn, thought to gain a 
 Queen of me, taking advantage of my honest endeavours; and whilst 
 I laboured to raise the structure of my Reason, he strived to 
 undermine the edifice of my Faith. Browne countered his artful 
 adversary; he undermined his O’wn reason, so that he might raise 
 freely the structure of his faith. 
 
 "Since I was of understanding to know we knew 
 nothing," he says, "my reason hath been more 
 pliable to the will of Faith; I am now content 
 to understand a mystery without a rigid definition, 
 in an easie and Platonick description. That 
 allegorical description of He rme s . pleaseth me 
 beyond all the Metaphysical definitions of 
 Divines; where I cannot satisfie my reason, 
 
 I love to humour my fancy . . . Where there 
 is an obscurity too deep for our Reason, ’tis 
 good to sit down with a description, periphrasis, 
 or adumbration; for by acquainting our Reason how 
 unable it is to display the visible and obvious 
 effects of nature, it becomes more humble and 
 submissive unto the subtleties of Faith; and 
 thus I teach my haggard and unreclaimed reason 
 to stoop unto the lure of Faith . . . And this 
 I think" is no vulgar part of Faith, to believe 
 a thing not only above, but contrary to Reason, 
 and against the Arguments of our proper Senses." 
 
 In this state of mind, faith becomes easy, it surmounts every dif- 
 ficulty. "Methinks there be not impossibilities enough in Religion 
 
 ilbid. 
 
 ‘^Ibid. 
 
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263 
 
 for an active faith ... I love to lose my self in a mystery, 
 to pursue my Reason to an 0 altitudpr Scornfully Brovme says that 
 "'tis an easy and necessary belief to credit what our eye and sense 
 hath examined."^ 
 
 If we ask at how many points this paradoxical thought of 
 
 Browne touched upon his age, the answer is not simple. His 
 scepticism is of course of the lineage of Sextus Empiricus and 
 Montaigne. Montaigne also defended Pyrrhonism as an induction into 
 religious faith, and Pascal was soon to do the same thing more 
 powerfully and more sincerely. Thus the essential elements of 
 Browne's thought were connected, by means of all those obscure 
 origins, sympathies, interrelations and parallelisms which have 
 marked Eurooean movements since the Renaissance, with Pascal and 
 the Jansenists as well as with some of the religious poets of 
 England. The apparent spontaneity of similar developments in 
 England and France, neither one aware of the other, is a proof of 
 their historical necessity and inevitableness. Human nature makes 
 its philosobhies as its poetry, to satisfy its needs. 
 
 But although Browne came so close to the central problem 
 of his century, he failed to become one of its great thinkers. It 
 seems to me misleading to say of him that his significance "lies in 
 the fact that he was at once by intellect a force in the forward 
 movement and by temperament a reactionary." His intellect lacked 
 independence, keenness, accuracy and critical poise. It is diffi- 
 cult to distinguish from his temperament, so completely is it led, 
 turned, directed into devious ways by the demands of his imagination 
 
 ilbid. I, 16-17. 
 '^More, P. E., op. cit. 
 
 161. 
 
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and emotion. This is why Browne is no longer read for his insight 
 and wisdom, as Pascal is, but only for the charming naivete of hie 
 genial self-revelation, the splendor and even sublimity of his 
 imagination, and the quaint beauty of his style. He is for us 
 pre-eminently a humourist , in the older sense of the word. 
 
 If Browne was not forward-looking in intellect, it was 
 not because he misunderstood the spirit of his century. In an 
 interesting passage in his Christ ian Morals he refers to the 
 enlightenment of his time. 
 
 ’’Let thy Studies,” he writes, ”be free as thy 
 Thoughts and Contemplations: but fly not only upon 
 the wings of Imagination; Joyn Sense unto Reason, 
 and Experiment unto Speculation, and so give life 
 unto Embryon Truths, and Verities yet in their 
 Chaos. There is nothing more acceptable unto 
 the Ingenious World, than this noble Eluctation 
 of Truth; wherein, against the tenacity of 
 Prejudice and Prescription, this Century now pre- 
 vaileth. What Libraries of new Volumes aftertimes 
 will behold, and in what a new World of Knowledge 
 the eyes of our posterity may be happy, a few Ages 
 roa-y joyfully declare.”^ 
 
 But his own studies flew upon the wings of the imagination, and his 
 haggard and unreclaimed reason followed in servility. He passed 
 lightly and easily from conjecture to conjecture, arriving at his 
 conclusion merely by the aid of a ” surely” or a ”no doubt.” When 
 he had observed how generally the ancients planted their gardens 
 in the pattern of the quincunx, he had a great desire to pursue 
 the antiquity of this mystical design to its origin, perhaps in 
 the first Paradise. Observe the successive stages of his argument: 
 
 ”That the first Plantations not long after the 
 Floud were disposed after this manner, the generality 
 
 ^Browne, ed. cit. Ill, 470. 
 
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265 
 
 and antiauity of this order observed in Vineyards, 
 and Wine Plantations, affordeth some conjecture. 
 
 And since from judicious enquiry, Saturn who 
 divided the world between his three sonnes, who 
 beareth a Sickle in his hand, who taught the 
 Plantations of Vines, the setting, grafting of 
 trees, and the best part of Agriculture, is dis- 
 covered to be Noah, whether this early dispersed 
 Husbandry in Vineyards, had not its Original in 
 that Patriarch, is no such Paralogical doubt. 
 
 ’’And if it were clear that this was used by 
 Noah after the Floud, I could easily beleeve it 
 was in use before it; Not willing to fix 
 ancient inventions no higher original then Noah; 
 
 Nor readily conceiving those aged Heroes. , whose 
 diet was vegetable, and only, or chiefly consisted 
 in the fruits of the earth, were much deficient in 
 their splendid cultivations; or after the experience 
 of fifteen hundred years, left much for future dis- 
 covery in Botanical Agriculture.” 
 
 Such scholarship was whimsical even in the seventeenth century, the 
 age of Casaubon and Selden. And in philosophy and divinity as well, 
 Browne’s intellect but served his predilections. His belief in 
 immortality, he said, had been "instructed" by the "smattering I 
 have of the Philosophers Stone" and by "those strange and mystical 
 transmigrations that I have observed in Silk -worms. He believed 
 in the resurrection because without a belief in a futiire life he was 
 unable to withstand temptation.^ His way of thinking was that 
 ancient one which in our time has been given the name Pragmatic. 
 
 truths were such proposition^as he found it advantageous to believe. 
 
 7 
 
 "In Bivious Theorems and Janus - faced Doctrines," he writes in 
 Christian Morals, "let Virtuous considerations state the determina- 
 
 tion. Look upon Opinions as thou dost upon the Moon, and ohuse not 
 
 ^Ibid. 
 
 ^Ibid. 
 
 ^Ibid. 
 
 Ill, 153-4. 
 I, 58. 
 
 I, 67. 
 
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266 
 
 the dark hemisphere for thy contemplation. Embrace not the opacous 
 and blind side of Opinions, but that which looks most Luciferously 
 or influentially unto Goodness."^ From amons; the many illustrations 
 of this method in his works, we may select that passage in Religio 
 [ Medici . where, beginning with confessed doubt and ignorance, he is 
 [yet able to satisfy himself not only regarding the existence of 
 spirits, but even to give a scholastic definition of their nature. 
 
 "For Spirits," he says, "I am so far from denying 
 their existence, that I could easily believe, that 
 not onely whole Countries, but particular pepons 
 have their Tutelary and Guardian Angels: It is not 
 a new opinion of the Church of Rome. , but an old one 
 of Pythagoras and Plato ; there is no heresie in it; 
 and if not manifestly defin'd in Scripture, yet is 
 it an oninion of a good and wholesome use in the 
 course and actions of a mans life, and would serve as 
 an Hvoothesis to salve many doubts, whereof common ^ 
 Philosophy affordeth no solution. Now if you demand 
 my opinion and Metaphysicks of their natures, I con- 
 fess them very shallow, most of them in a negative 
 way like that of God; or in a comparative, between 
 our selves and fellow— creatures; for there is in 
 this Universe a Stair, or manifest Scale of 
 creatures, rising not disorderly, or in confusion, 
 but with a comely method and proportion. . . . 
 
 Having therefore no certain knowledge of their 
 Natures, 'tis no bad method of the Schools, whatso- 
 ever perfection we find obscurely in our selves, in 
 a more compleat and absolute way to ascribe unto 
 them I believe they have an extemporary knowledge, 
 and upon the first motion of their reason do what we 
 cannot without study or deliberation; that they know 
 things by their forms, and define speoifical differ- 
 ence what we describe by accidents and properties; 
 and therefore probabilities to us may be demonstra- 
 tions unto them: that they have knowledge not onely 
 of the speoifical, but numerical forms of individuals, 
 and understand by what reserved difference each 
 single Hypostasis (besides the relation to its 
 species) becomes its numerical self . . . I cannot 
 with those in that great Father securely interpret 
 the work of the first day. Fiat lux, to the creation 
 of Angels, though I confess there is not any 
 
 Ibid. Ill, 483. 
 

 
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267 
 
 creature that hath so neer a glympse of their 
 nature, as light in the Sun and Elements. We 
 stile it a bare accident, but where it subsists 
 alone, 'tis a spiritual Substance, and may be 
 an Angel: in brief, conceive light invisible, 
 and that is a Spirit. 
 
 With his reason bound in servitude, Browne thus let his 
 faith and imagination build him a universe to live in, a universe 
 filled primarily with the wonderful. It was constructed to satisfy 
 the longings, whimsicalities, even weaknesses, of the heart and 
 soul of Browne. Without scepticism no one may enter into it, but 
 once past the charmed portal and one must be all credulity. It is 
 the world of the imagination, with something of the fascination and 
 mreality of a fairy story. A strange religion, indeed, for a 
 scientist or for any enlightened modern man! Yet we cannot question 
 the sincerity of Bro^'wne, who lived in a credulous age, when the 
 gravest and most thoughtful men believed not only in tutelar spirits 
 and the resurrection, but in witches. Brovyne sought to keep the 
 straight path in divinity — he wanted to believe what his contem- 
 poraries believed. But his distinction was that he saw all things 
 with the eyes of wonder. Glanville, who in his best passages echoes 
 the cadence of Browne, and who was his kin in his scepticism, 
 probably learned from him also the sense of the mystery of the world 
 and of ourselves. If, as Donne said, all divinity is love and 
 wonder, Browne knew half of divinity; all the world to him was 
 wonder. But it is not so certain that he understood all that Donne 
 meant by love. For with all his faith and imagination and charity, ^ 
 Browne lacked intensity in his personal life. He had no "hydroptic. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 I. 48-50 . 
 

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268 
 
 immoderate desires” after learning or wisdom; he did not risk his 
 soul in adventure and recover it through anguish; he had never eaten 
 his bread in tears and bitterness, and therefore, as the harper 
 sang in Wilhelm Meister . he could not know God. Bro'wne never had 
 any such revealing spiritual crisis as Pascal, who knew so much 
 better ”les grandeurs et miseres de 1‘homme." Such intensity of 
 feeling, a longing for the comfort of finding one's weary and 
 broken soul precious in the sight of God, is implied in Donne's 
 definition of divinity as love and wonder. Browne's religion was 
 free from this strain and effort; he solved his problems by the 
 gentle method of dreaming meditation. He played his game with the 
 Devil and won by a paradox. And as he rose to bow adieu, he must 
 have imagined that he saw in the features of his bewildered adver- 
 sary an involuntary smile of surprise and admiration. 
 
 IV 
 
 Francis Osborn: Scepticism and the New Courtier Type 
 
 It is not surprising that a work so fascinating to the 
 imagination as Religio Medici should be one of the most popular 
 books of its day, but the vogue of Osborn's Advice to a Son requires 
 explanation. It lacks the preservative quality of a style, except 
 for some strongly flavored figures and a constant straining after 
 aphorism. Moreover, its thought is to us platitudinous and mediocre. 
 And yet immediately upon its publication in 1656 it gained for its 
 author a wide reputation. It was, in fact, a succes de scan dale : 
 it was read chiefly by the younger generation, which in every age, 
 as it emerges from youth to manhood, delights to express its inde- 
 
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269 
 
 pendence with a cynical turn. At Oxford the "godly ministers" 
 detected in the book the "principles of atheism," and on July 27, 
 1658, the vice-chancellor. Dr. John Conant, summoned the Oxford 
 book-sellers before him and forbade them to sell the book; but 
 according t^ Wood, this only caused the Advice to sell the better. 
 The sort of reputation Osborn acquired is perhaps indicated also by 
 the dedication to him of a translation of Bernardino Ochino's 
 ^ Dialogue on Polygamy, published in London, 1657, a volume 7/hich 
 has sometimes, apparently in error, been credited to Osborn himself.^ 
 Osborn was a distinctly seventeenth-century type, one of 
 the courtiers who, too emancipated to continue the tradition of the 
 great Elizabethans, prepared by their disillusionment and scepticism ’ 
 for the tone of court and country during the Restoration. Born in 
 1593, he had spent his youth and early manhood at court, as master 
 of the horse to William Herbert, third earl of Pembroke, and in the 
 office of the lord treasurer's remembrancer. In the great political 
 conflict his sympathies were with the popular party, but he took no 
 active part in affairs. His later years were devoted primarily to 
 the education of his son, whom the Advice was to guide to success 
 in public life. Like the pelican, Osborn says in the preface to 
 his son, he dissected himself, he "ripped up his own bowels," to 
 show the defects of humanity. But, though the book is a study in 
 frankness, it is in no sense a spiritual confession; all the revela- 
 tions are merely to instruct an ingenuous young man in the difference 
 between the exterior manner and the inner thought of an accomplished 
 man of the world. 
 
 liyg^fj*.^^ Sidney Lee,^inDictio^ of Nation^ 
 
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370 
 
 Although there is nothing to indicate that Osborn had 
 read Sagesse. hie purpose and temper had much in common with 
 
 Pierre Charron, whose volume had become the handbook of the Bohemian 
 libertines of Paris. Charron, no more than Osborn, had intended his 
 work for either Bohemians or libertines. Both writers tried to 
 formulate the principles of a prudent worldly wisdom, the secrets 
 of success in a polite society, the chief of which is never to be 
 duped. The wise man will avoid being a slave to his passions, but 
 he will also free himself from ignorance and prejudice. Charron was 
 therefore significantly at the same time a disciple of Du Vair and 
 Montaigne, a Stoic and a Sceptic. On his title page he inscribed 
 two mottoes: Paix et Peu and ne soav . His sagesse was at heart 
 a scepticism, ”une pleine, entiere, genereuse & seigneuriale libert^ 
 d* esprit," which must, however, remain a private matter, lest it 
 hinder one's fortime and advancement. 
 
 "Or iouyssant ainsi le sage de ce droit sien a 
 iuger & examiner toutes chose s, il aduiendra souuent 
 que le iugement & la main, 1' esprit & le corps se 
 contrediront , qu'il fera au dehors d'une fapon & 
 iugera autrement au dedans, iouera un roelle deuant 
 le monde, & un autre en son esprit, il le doit faire 
 ainsi pour garder Justice par tout . . . Il doit 
 faire & se porter au dehors pour la reuerence publique 
 & n'offenser personne, selon que la loy, la coustume 
 & ceremonie du pays porte & requiert: Et au dedans 
 iuger au vray oe qui en est, selon la raison 
 universelle, selon laquelle souuent il aduiendra 
 qu'il condamnera ce qu'au dehors il fait."^ 
 
 Osborn, likewise, wants his son to preserve this lordly freedom of 
 mind, but not thereby to prejudice his career. Writing in the time 
 of the Commonwealth, he declares that "it is observable in the 
 
 ^Charron, Sagesse, Book II, Chap.ii. e d. Paris (1646) . 
 

 
 
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 present humour that those who carry an Impress of the wildest 
 errours. have a safer Pass-port to travel by, and a nearer step to 
 Preferment than such as retain the Tenets our Fathers kept in gross 
 during the flames of the ancient Persecutions.” In this period of 
 confusion, he says, "in these Aporetick times,” he is unable to 
 give "better counsel, than to keep your compliance so loose, as, if 
 possible, you may fix it to the best advantage of your profit and 
 honour.” He would, however, caution against zeal, which was just 
 then in such high estimation; for, he says, it is 
 
 ”not likely to hold longer in tune, than a Harmony 
 can be made among all Parties, now possibly at odds, 
 or under a jealous aspect: Therefore I advise you to 
 put no more of it on, than with decency you may 
 devest, in case the fashion should alter, and the 
 rich die the Wars have dipped it in, be rubbed 
 off; since all customs rise or fall proportionable 
 to the exchange they make for the Preferments in 
 the State; to which in discretion you are bound 
 to suit your Obedience, though not your Conscience.”^ 
 
 Manners, good breeding, the art of success, these are the 
 subjects of Osborn's Advice . And Osborn was not thinking of an 
 ideal world, but of the court in which he had lived. He laid bare 
 its sordid aspects without any word of censure, merely appraising 
 the conditions of getting on in it. His remarks betray everywhere 
 a cynical hardness and outspoken selfishness which a Sidney or a 
 Spenser would have considered the marks of the lowest breeding. 
 " Gallop not through a Town, for fear of hurting your self or others: 
 Besides the undecency of it . . . Swimming may save a man, in case of 
 necessity; though it loseth many, when practised in wantonness, by 
 increasing their confidence; Therefore, for Pleasure exceed not your 
 
 ^Osborn, Francis, Y/orks , 8th ed. , London (1682). pp. 87-8. 
 
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273 
 
 depth; and ^ seeking: to save another , beware of drowning your 
 self . " ^ Sometimes he spices an epigram with vulgarity. "To make 
 love to married women doth not only multiply the Sin, but the 
 danger . . . Fly, with Joseph , the Embraces of great Ladies : lest 
 you lose your liberty, and see your legs rot in the stocks of the 
 Physician."'^ Even where he appears most generous, he brings himself 
 up sharply with a qualification dictated by prudent selfishness. 
 "Despise none," he says, "for meanness of Blood, yet do not 
 ordinarily make them your Companions, for debasing your own; unless 
 you find them clarified by excellent Parts, or gilded by Fortune or 
 Power."'' Osborn studied the art of living in much the same spirit 
 as Machiavelli studied politics. He was, indeed, one of the earliest 
 apologists for Machiavelli. In a brief Discourse he says that, 
 though Machiavelli deserves some of the blame laid upon him, yet, 
 
 "considering he was not only an Italian but a 
 Courtier , few can do less than admire his bad 
 fortune to see one man inherit, in particular 
 the mass of Reproaches due to all Princes and 
 Statesmen in general ... A Body Politick is 
 like that of a Man, which when it is altogether, 
 shews outwardly a beautiful and comely sight; but 
 search into the Entrals from whence the true 
 Nourishment proceeds, and little is to be found 
 but Blood, Filth and Stench: The truth is, 
 
 Machiave 1 is observed to have raked deeper in this, 
 than his Predecessors, which makes him smell, as he 
 doth, in the nostrils of the nice and ignorant; 
 whereas those of more Prudence and Experience, know 
 it is the most natural savour of the Court. 
 
 Like the Florentine, Osborn had more respect for facts than for 
 Ideals; and his acquaintance with the motives of men had blunted his 
 
 ilbid. p. 12. 
 gfbid. 24. 
 
 bid: fe.^291, 301-3. 
 
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273 
 
 moral sense. 
 
 No doubt the young bloods at Oxford read with special 
 interest Osborn's outspoken and vulgar cynicism regarding women and 
 marriage. Osborn was here the inheritor of the libertine thought 
 of the Renaissance, the naturalism of Montaigne and of Donne's early 
 verse. He, also, believed that marriage is an unnatural institution, 
 imposed only by custom, and enforced by the false sanctimoniousness 
 of the church. 
 
 " Love . like a Burning-glass, contracts the dilated 
 lines of Lust, and fixeth them upon one object; 
 bestowed by our fellow Creatures, (the exacter 
 Observers of the Dictates of Nature) promiscuously, 
 without partiality in affection, on every distinct 
 Female of their respective snecies : whereas Man, 
 being restrained to a particular Choice, by the 
 severity of Law, Custom and his own more stupendous 
 Folly ... is hurried away with the first apparition 
 of an imaginary Beauty ... It may be strongly pre- 
 sumed, that the hand of Policy (which first or last 
 brings all things, expedient to humane society, 
 under the imperious notion of Religion) hung this 
 padlock upon the liberty of men, and after Custom 
 had lost the Key, the Church, according to her 
 wonted Subtilty, took upon her to protect it; 
 delivering in her Charge to the people, that single 
 wedlock was by divine right, making the contrary, 
 in diverse places. Death, and where she proceeded 
 with the greatest moderation, Excommunication: con- 
 demning thereby (besides four fifths parts of the 
 world) the holy Patriarchs , who among their so 
 frequent Dialogues held with their Maker, were 
 never reproved for multiplying Wives and Concubines : 
 reckoned to David as a Blessing, and to Solomon 
 for a mark of Magnificence."^ 
 
 As to religion, Osborn's advice is ambiguous; for the 
 future of religious parties in England was not entirely clear, and 
 Osborn was in religious matters strictly opportunist. He desired his 
 son above all things to be prudent. An outward conformity he com- 
 
 1 
 
 Ibid. pp. 27-32. Cf. above. Chapter III, pp. 111-ff. 
 

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374 
 
 mended, as we have seen. When travelling abroad, he says, ’’let not 
 the Irreligion of any Place breed in you a neglect of Divine Duties 
 But he would not have his son take his religious tenets too 
 seriously, and defend them against all contenders. 
 
 ”Shun all Disputes. " he advises, ’’but concerning 
 Religion especially; because that which commands in 
 chief, though false and erroneous, will, like a 
 Cock on's own dunghill, line her Arguments with 
 force, and drive the Stranger out of the Pit with 
 insignificant clamours. All Opinions, not made 
 natural by complexion, or imperious Education, 
 being equally ridiculous to those of contrary Tenets." 
 
 Osborn had no desire that his son should entertain ambitions of an 
 intellectual career; he advised taking truth, like women, lightly. 
 The wisdom of a courtier consists in a compliance with whatever 
 element is in power, in being a hanger-on rather than a leader. 
 Therefore make no enemies who can injure you; conciliate any one who 
 can aid you; make such profitable alliances as you can, and have the 
 prudence to keep your own opinions to yourself. 
 
 "Denounce no enmity against the Clergy . ’* he 
 says, "for supported by Prayers or Policy, they 
 cannot long want an opportunity to revenge themselves. 
 Neither oppose any Religion you find established , how 
 ridiculous soever you apprehend it; For though like 
 Da-vid . you may bring unavoidable Arguments to stagger 
 a popular error. None but the monsters own Sword, 
 can cut off the head of one universally received. 
 
 Osborn was himself a man of the enlightenment, a rationalist. "In 
 this wilderness of contention," he says, "we have no better guide 
 to follow than Reason, found the same for many thousands of years, 
 though Belief hath been observed to vary every Age." He thought the 
 
 ilbid. pp. 45-6. 
 ‘^Ibid. pp. 97-8. 
 
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275 
 
 Socinians were "the most Chymical and Rational part of our many 
 Divisions." But these were mental reservations only; prudence 
 dictates an outward agreement with whatever faction happens to be 
 in authority. "For he that herds with the Congregation, though in 
 an Errour, hath Obedience to stand by him, whereas a Truth in the 
 other may be rendred more peccant through a solitary obstinacy. 
 
 Such was Osborn, author of one of the three most popular 
 boohs of the Restoration. To readers who might pick up his Advic e, 
 without considering its relation to its age, this popularity would 
 be difficult to comprehend. The petty time-serving of Osborn is 
 too unpleasantly obvious; he appears a man without either intellec- 
 tual or moral character. He sneers at the world, but yields to it 
 weakly and hypocritically, and is chiefly concerned with getting 
 himself on in it. He is a disillusioned man, grasping at the satis- 
 faction of wordly success. But his popularity is to be explained by 
 this very fact, that in his time many young men were being disil- 
 lusioned in the same manner as Osborn, that they cultivated disil- 
 lusionment, but yet desired to be well-manner gentlemen, competent 
 to make their way in a sophisticated society. He appealed to the 
 new courtier type of the seventeenth century, who had laid aside 
 Plato, Plutarch, Aristotle and Seneca, for Montaigne, Lucretius and 
 the ancient and modern satirists. Osborn was not great enough to 
 be original; he represents a large class who did not take philosophy 
 very seriously, and whose scepticism is manifested chiefly in their 
 cynical attitude towards ideals of morality and conduct. Osborn is 
 of unique value to the student of seventeenth century thought and 
 
 ^Ibid. pp. 92, 85, 83. 
 
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 V 
 
276 
 
 manners precisely because he reflects so well the tone of the court 
 under the first Stuarts, in which men were rapidly emancipated from 
 everything but wit, adaptable manners, and a skill in turning to 
 
 one's own account the weaknesses of others. 
 
 These brief studies of Osborn and other men representative 
 
 of seventeenth century thought serve to emphasize one of the most 
 important distinctions between the seventeenth and the sixteenth 
 centuries: the scepticism which in the sixteenth century had been 
 cultivated only by groups or almost isolated individuals, and at 
 the danger of social ostracism, even of death, such scepticism was 
 in the seventeenth century widely diffused in English society. The 
 Latitudinarians were sufficiently sceptical to deny the possibility 
 of intellectual unity in the Church. In Thoms Bro’wne, a man bred 
 in the scientific thought of the late Renaissance, scepticism 
 became for the moment all powerful and reduced to ruins the con- 
 structions of presumptuous reason. Francis Osborn, the new type 
 of courtly gentleman, was more concerned with manners than with 
 either intellect or character; but scepticism is everywhere in 
 solution in his work, and, although like a gentleman he disdained 
 to be either a scholar or a philosopher, he was indubitably of the 
 tribe of Montaigne. Thus in various ways, and colored by various 
 personalities, the critical and sceptical temper of the century was 
 manifested. Except for the principle of toleration, perhaps, nothing 
 new, nothing of any philosophical value was added by the men we 
 have considered to the sceptical thought of the Renaissance; but 
 they show how rapidly and how completely the disintegrating forces 
 of Renaissance thought had permeated the society of the seventeenth 
 cenxury and affected its intellectual and moral tone. 
 

 
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277 
 
 
 Numerous other names might of course have been included 
 in this chapter; but the aim has not been completeness, but a 
 selection of representative men, especially such as were influential 
 after their own day. I have tried to present, not only the scep- 
 tical element in early seventeenth century thought, but also some 
 suggestions as to the continuity of this element from the Renaissancej 
 to the end of the seventeenth century. With this general account as 
 a background, I shall give more special treatment to two important 
 developments from Renaissance scepticism: the rise of Deism and the 
 sceptical thought of some of the English religious poets. 
 
1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
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CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 SCEPTICISM AND THE ORIGINS OF DEISM 
 
 I. Two Tendencies in Deism. - 
 among Renaissance Sceptics. - 
 Scepticism. 
 
 II. The Development of Deism 
 
 III. Deism Dissolved in Complete 
 
 The well-known story related by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 
 that he printed his book De Veritate only after receiving a sign 
 from heaven, may perhaps be taken also symbolically, as signifying 
 that he felt the time was ripe for printed circulation of ideas 
 which, as he himself said, were so "different from any thing which 
 had been written heretofore." Though his book had received the com- 
 mendation of so great a man as Grotius, "yet as I knew it would meet 
 with much opposition, I did consider whether it was not better for 
 me a while to suppress it."^ The sign, however, was vouchsafed him, 
 and for the first time, an avowed Deist ic treatise appeared in print. 
 
 But though Herbert escaped the persecution which his book 
 undoubtedly would have drawn upon him a quarter or half a century 
 earlier, the time proved not yet ripe for any widespread Deistic 
 movement in England. The Arianism of the sixteenth century had done 
 much to prepare for it, but we must distinguish between this 
 Arianism, which admitted the Bible as inspired revelation, and 
 
 Deism, which based religion immediately on the reason of man, 
 
 The 
 
 ^Th^ Autobio^ranhy of Edwa^ Lord |er^ of Cher^, ed. Lee, 
 Sidney, wnd ed. , London (n.d.). p. 1-3 . 
 
 ^The Arianism of the sixteenth century has been discu ssed above , 
 Chapter II. 
 
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379 
 
 real predecessors of Herbert we shall find on the Continent, among 
 the obscure, suppressed developments of the Renaissance. But Deism 
 as a force in English thought belongs to the later seventeenth and 
 earlier eighteenth centuries. The discussion of it and its 
 Renaissance origins has therefore been postponed to this latter part 
 
 of our study. 
 
 Two Tendencies in Deism 
 
 In a study of the connection between scepticism and the 
 orisrin of the Deistic movement, one may consider Deism in two 
 aspects. In the first place. Deism involved a criticism of the 
 special beliefs of every religious faith, whether Christianity or 
 Judaism or Mohammedanism. The Deists were adepts, considering the 
 state of scholarship of that time, in higher criticism. They aimed 
 to destroy what they thought the falsifications of essential 
 religion. But though they showed themselves sceptical towards the 
 historical religions, they had at first also a different aim very 
 closely at heart, to purify universal religion from the corruptions 
 of organizations and priesthoods. True religion, they all held, is 
 natural religion, universally revealed to all men and sufficienx unt 
 them for salvation. Religion was in this way based on universal 
 reason, and we may therefore characterize Deism as a religious 
 rationalism. 
 
 Scepticism regarding the peculiar tenets of Christianity 
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 280 
 
 able already in the so-called founder of English Deism, Lord Herbert 
 of Cherbury, though his criticism of Christianity was rather 
 unmistakably implied than definitely expressed. In his De_ Veritate . 
 published in Paris, 1624, a remarkable critique of the method of 
 knowledge leads to a statement of five common notions, not itiae 
 c ommune s . which constitute a criterion of truth in religion.^ These 
 five propositions, which he considered undeniable, which all mankind 
 must needs acknowledge by unaided reason, were: 
 
 1. That there is one supreme God. 
 
 2. That he ought to be worshipped. 
 
 3. That virtue and piety are the chief parts of divine worship. 
 
 4. That we ought to be sorry for our sins and repent of them. 
 
 5. That Divine Goodness dispenses rewards and punishments 
 both in this life and after it.^ 
 
 The D£ Veritate established these propositions on a 
 philosophical basis; the De_ Religione Gent ilium, published in 
 Amsterdam, 1663, after Herbert's death, attempts to show that they 
 were present in the pagan religions of Greece and Rome, but that 
 they had been obscured by the superstitions fostered by the priest- 
 hood. Herbert here often betrays an animus against the clerical 
 profession which must have had a nearer object than the Greek and 
 Roman priests of whom he is apparently speaking. 
 
 "When the Heathens . " he says, "had receiv'd 
 the Notion of the Attributes of the Sup re am GOD 
 mention'd before, there sprung up a Race of Crafty 
 Priests . who not thinking it sufficient there 
 
 ^Herbert, De Veritate . London (1645). p. 222: "Hae autem sunt 
 omnino Notitiae Communes, ex quibus vera Ecclesia Catholioa sive 
 universalis constat." 
 
 ^Ibid. 208-222. 
 

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281 
 
 should be but one GOD in all this Universe , judg'd 
 it would conduce much to their Interest . to join 
 and associate some others to this Sup re am Deity ; 
 and that it would be no obstacle, but that the 
 one Most Good and Great GOD should have the Pre- 
 eminence over all others. Their Design of 
 Introducing other Gods . drove farther: they 
 thought they could embarass the Minds of the People 
 more with the Notion of Pl\irality of Deities . than 
 by the Worship of One only, tho' never so Great ; 
 especially after they had invented and dispersed 
 a different way of Worship for each of them. They 
 also expected to reap more Profit, and have larger 
 Stipends from the various Rites . Ceremonies and 
 Sacred Mysteries which they contriv'd and divulg'd 
 than if Men of all Ages should continue to perform 
 the same Duties of Piety and Virtue . 
 
 But, though obscured, these five principles have remained a part of 
 all religions, and we must suppose that Herbert considered them the 
 only true tenets in Christianity as well as in other cults. 
 Certainly there is nothing in his language to prevent this 
 application. For, he says, 
 
 "tho' Thousands of Errors should be heaped upon their 
 Basis; the Reason of Divine Worship is so supported 
 by these five Columns joined together, that no 
 Height whatever that is built upon them, will be 
 able to damage or endanger the Building. These 
 therefore are those Firmaments of Universal Divine 
 Providence and pure Religion, which never were or 
 ever can be concealed from any Age or Country; 
 therefore whatever was Promulgated by the Priest 
 formerly in unintelligible Words, mysterious Fables, 
 fictitious Revelations, and ambiguous Rites and 
 Cerenionies, imposed upon the credulous People and 
 had but a sandy Foundation. The greatest Men in 
 all Parts of the World could never add any thing 
 to these five Articles, which could more promote 
 that true Virtue, (which makes Men like God and 
 renders them fit for his Society) or Piety, Purity 
 and Sanctity of Life."2 
 
 ^Herbert, The Antient Religion of the Gentiles . English translation, 
 London (l?0^ p. 271. 
 
 Ibid. pp. 354-5. 
 
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383 
 
 Herbert therefore presents both the sceptical and the 
 rationalistic aspects of Deism. He also shared the aim which, as we 
 shall see, motivated the earlier Deists before him, of rescuing true 
 religion from the scepticism which did not distinguish between 
 essentials and superstitions. Having discussed the harmful effects 
 of the additions of the priests to the five fundamental propositions, 
 he says: "But what is still worse, by this Means the Parts of true 
 
 Religion being; abdicated or rejected. Men for the most part became 
 Atheists , and Contemners of Divine Justice and Providence; or if 
 they did embrace the whole of Religion with those Superstitions 
 which attended it, they imposed upon themselves and that internal 
 Court within them, and deserted Right Reason, which is the best 
 Rule of Life."l Herbert tried to avoid the errors in each direction 
 and restore to religion the integrity and purity of its pristine 
 state . 
 
 Deism, which to its contemporary opponents seemed itself 
 to be the essence of scepticism, was therefore yet an attempt to 
 check extreme scepticism, and its origin must be sought in connecticn 
 with the sceptical thought of the later Middle Ages and Renaissance. 
 This origin, I believe, will contribute to the explanation of the 
 peculiar nature of Deism, its general tendency, and its dissolution 
 in the eighteenth century.^ 
 
 ^Ibid. p. 355. 
 
 ^Inasmuch as the existence of Deists in the sixteenth century has 
 been well kncwn ever since Bayle and Leland, it seems strange that so 
 little has been said about the predecessors of Lord Herbert of 
 Cherbury. H3ffding, in his History of Modern Philosophy . I, 59-68, 
 discusses Bodin as well as Herbert, but does not notice any earlier 
 development. Dilthey, in his We Itanschauung imd Analyse des Menschen 
 seit Renaissance \ind Ref ormatioiT i Leipzig (1914), pp. 45-ff. , discusses 
 a somewhat wider conception which he calls "der religios universal- 
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II 
 
 283 
 
 The Development of Deism among Renaissance Sceptics 
 
 Already in the thirteenth century, with the new contact 
 with Mohammedanism and Arabian culture, a spirit of tolerance 
 towards non-Christian religions began to manifest itself. As we 
 have seen, ^Crispin and Abelard wrote dialogues in which the various 
 religions were represented fairly and in a conciliatory spirit, even 
 though the intention of the compositions was manifestly Christian, 
 
 We have seen also that Aquinas himself wrote a treatise on religion 
 in the light of reason, expressly for the benefit of those who did 
 
 p 
 
 not admit, to begin with, the truth of Christian revelation. Out 
 of the problem of religious truth which was thus raised in a new 
 form for Christian Europe in the thirteenth century, developed a 
 new comparative study of religions, for which Christianity, Judaism 
 and Mohammedanism were equally divine in what they had in common, and 
 equally false in their peculiarities. The gradual broadening of 
 sympathy was most strikingly shown in the change which came over the 
 celebrated Tale of the Three Rings. In the Renaissance the critical 
 discussion of Christian doctrines was often hidden in ambiguous 
 dialogues, in which the characters were allowed full freedom of 
 
 den verschiedenen Religionen und Philosophen gleichesweise wirksam 
 gewesen sei und noch heute wirke.” He names Erasmus and Reuchlin 
 among the adherents of this Theism. I think the Deists must be dis- 
 tinguished from these milder "Theists” as more sceptical in their 
 rejection of the peculiar tenets of Christianity, Islamism, or any 
 other historical religion, and also as more rationalistic, in their 
 insistence on the universal revelation and self-evident truth of 
 natural religion. 
 
 pin Chapter I, pp. 45-ff. 
 
 ^See above, p. 39. 
 
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284 
 
 thought and sometimes licence of expression. But although these 
 attacks on the Bible or the church resorted to ridicule or even 
 blasphemy, they were directed only against what their authors con- 
 sidered the corruptions of Christianity and the other creeds. 
 
 Religion in its pure and primitive and universal form, as it is 
 constantly being revealed to the universal reason of mankind in all 
 ages and lands, such religion the sceptical treatises of the 
 Renaissance sought to affirm. Their criticism of Christianity was 
 intended to help purify it into this universal and rational religion. 
 
 In the enlightenment of the earlier Renaissance, before the 
 fierce conflicts of the Reformation brought more rigid discipline 
 into intellectual and ecclesiastical ranks, there was observable a 
 tolerant and liberal spirit among intelligent men. In England Sir 
 Thomas More championed freedom and sweetness and light, and in his 
 island of Utopia the religion of ”the most and wisest part" of the 
 people was apparently a form of Deism. They believed, he said "that 
 there is a certayne godlie powre unknowen, everlastings, incompre- 
 hensible, inexplicable, farre above the capacitie and retohe of mans 
 Witte, dispersed throughoute all the worlde, not in bignes, but in 
 vertue and power. Him they call the father of al. To him alone they 
 attribute the beginninges, the encreasinges, the procedinges, the 
 chaunges and the endes of al thinges."^ Though the tolerance of the 
 island permitted a great variety of religious beliefs to spring up, 
 yet, "they all begyn by litle and litle to forsake and fall from this 
 varietie of superstitions, and to agre togethers in that religion 
 whiche seme the by reason to passe and excell the residewe."^ In the 
 
 pMore, Utopia, ed. Lumby, Cambridge (1913) . p. 144. 
 
 Ibid, p. i44. — =--===========^^ 
 
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285 
 
 imaginary dialogue between Lupset and Cardinal Pole, discussed in 
 an earlier chapter,^ Thomas Starkey, a contemporary of More, makes 
 the learned and pious Lupset present a Deistio conception of 
 religion as based explicitly on the Stoic notion of the Law of 
 
 Nature . 
 
 win so much ” Lupset is made to say, "that » 
 
 Sarasvn toke and Lre, so long as they obserue theyr 
 oyuyle ordynance and stai;utys, deuysyd by - 
 
 fatherys in euery sects, dyrectyng them to the law o 
 nature- so long, I say, ther be men wych ernystely 
 affyrme them tf lyue wel, and euery one in 
 to le sauyd, and non to perysch utturly; 
 infynyte ^dnes of God hathe no les made them aftur 
 hys O'wne ymage and forme, then he 
 cLystun manT and the most parte of 
 
 oerauentur hard of the law of Chryst. Wherfor, so 
 lonHf tS^y lyue aftur the law of nature, obseruyng 
 also theyr oyuyle ordynance, as mean 
 to the end o"f" the same, they sohal not be damnyd. 
 
 Thys I haue hard the opynyon of grete wyse men, wel 
 ■Donderyno- the gudnes of God and of nature; but 
 whStherSyrbe so or not, let us, aftur the mynd 
 of Sayn Poule, leue thys to the secrete 3 ugement 
 of God. "3 
 
 But Deistical tendencies are not Deism, though they helped 
 to prepare for it. For its origin we must look to Italy, where the 
 court of Frederick II had early fostered liberalism and unbelief, 
 where the Tale of the Three Rings had undoubtedly received its 
 Deistio transformation, and where Pomponatius soon after 1500 oast 
 the horoscope of Christianity and presaged its early decline and 
 dissolution.® From Italy in the middle of the sixteenth century 
 came the Immensely influential Sooinians, whose Unitarian leanings 
 for a century and a half troubled the orthodox of northern Europe. 
 And from Italy, according to the contemporary Swiss, Vlret, came a 
 
 ^ t . T , London (1878) . pp. (1810) pp. 300-ff. 
 
 Douglas, A. H. , Pietro Pomponaz.zl, Cambridge PP — 
 
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sect which applied to themselves the new name of ’’Deists.” 
 
 286 
 
 
 ’’The name of Deists,” says the first English 
 historian of the movement, ”as applied to those 
 who are no friends to revealed religion, is 
 have been first assumed about the middle ox the 
 sixteenth century, by some Gentlemen in Erang g. and 
 Italv. who were willing to cover their opposition 
 to the Christian revelation by a more honourable 
 name than that of Atheists. One of the first 
 authors, as far as I can find, that makes express 
 mention of them is Viret, a divine of 
 amons the first Reformers; who in the epistle dedica 
 torv prefixed to the second tome of his Instruction 
 Chre'tienne, which was published in 1563, speaks of 
 some persons in that time who called themselves by 
 a new name, that of Deists. These, he tells us, 
 professed to believe a God, but shewed no regard 
 to Jesus Christ, and considered the doctrine of 
 the apostles and evangelists as fables and dre^s. 
 
 He adds, that they laugh'd at all religion, notwith- 
 standing they conformed themselves, with regard to 
 the outward appearance, to the religion Ox those 
 with whom they were obliged to live, or whom they 
 were desirous of pleasing, or whom they feared. 
 
 Some of them, as he observes, professed to believe 
 the immortality of the soul; others were of the 
 Epicurean opinion in this point, as well as about 
 the providence of God with respect to mankind, as 
 if he did not concern himself in the government 
 of human affairs. He adds, that many among them 
 set up for learning and philosophy, and were looked 
 upon to be persons of an acute and subtil genius; 
 and that not content to perish alone in their 
 error, they took pains to spread the poison, and 
 to infect and corrupt others ^y their impious 
 discourses and bad examples." 
 
 Although the widespread Arianism in Europe in the 
 sixteenth century must often have been in fact Deistic, yet it is of 
 importance that those who called themselves Deists were seexing 
 religion in its most universal form and distinguished themselves irom 
 
 Heland, John, A Vie® of m 5ei|ii2y. 
 
 I, 3-5. Leland gives Bayle's dictionary as l^jf^juthorlty for the 
 
 account in this paragraph. See Dictionaip Historiqg e. g — , 
 
 5th ed., Amsterdam (1740). IV, 453. Sub Viret, note D. 
 
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287 
 
 
 Christians. Viret has left us an account of them from the point of 
 view of the opposition. But we have other more sympathetic 
 contemporary accounts of the temper and doctrines of the sixteenth 
 century Deists, in the famous dialogue by Jean Bodin and in a 
 
 hitherto neglected anonymous treatise. 
 
 Bodin’ s Heptanlomeres has been discussed by several writers 
 
 in the last century, and its contents are well kno’wn. The sev^n 
 
 characters of the dialogue represent seven distinct types of 
 
 religious thought known to Bodin; Roman Catholicism, Zwinglianism, 
 
 Lutheranism, Mohammedanism, Islamisra, Deism and sceptical naturalism. 
 
 The examination of the doctrines of Christianity from various points 
 
 of view is free and even at times irreverent, exempting nothing from 
 
 argument or ridicule. At the conclusion every disputant leaves with 
 
 his ideas unchanged, and the author of the dialogue expresses no 
 
 preference for the opinions of any one of his characters. Yet it 
 
 seems clear, both from the conduct and spirit of the discussion, as 
 
 well as from a comparison with Bodin' s other works, that the Deist 
 
 2 
 
 comes nearer than any other to the real opinions of the author. 
 However that may be, the Deist, though he is not so called, is here 
 a Renaissance type drawn by a contemporary. He contends for natural 
 religion. "Si la veritable religion est la nature lie," he says, 
 "laquelle se fait assez connattre d'elle-meme, qu'est-il be so in de 
 Jupiter, de Christ, de Mahom.et, et de se feindre des dieux qui ont 
 e'^te mortels comme nous?"^ His ideas are thus summarized by 
 
 ^It was edited from manuscript by G.E.Guhrauer, Da^ Hep^^plome^^ 
 ides Jean Bodin Berlin (1841). See also Baudrillart, Henri, J. Bo din 
 
 ISS'd'ai'r'Ttfeisinus des 16. Jahrhunderts , in Hlstorisohe Zeitsohr ift, 
 Ivols. 113-114; Hjffding, op. oit. I, 59-63.^ 
 
 Hart . op. cit. p.300. 
 
 'Ibid. P.200. 
 

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288 
 
 r 
 
 Baudrillart : 
 
 ”Le salut de tous ceux qui ont ^cru en un Dieu 
 unique, spirituel, qui I'ont adore en esprit et 
 en v^rite, qui ont v^cu conformement a la morale 
 naturelle, laquelle enseigne le bien et la justice, 
 le salut et la beatitude de ces hommes, qu'ils 
 soient d'ailleurs des sages de I'antiquit^, ou 
 des patriarches de la Bible, ou des sectateurs 
 des diverses religic;ns, voila la these favorite 
 de Toralba; il aime a y revenir, b, s'y 4tendre 
 avec un accent de conviction."^ 
 
 More conclusive than Bodin’ s dialogue is a treatise 
 
 published in 1836 from a sixteenth century manuscript, and since 
 
 2 
 
 neglected and apparently forgotten. The complexion of this 
 anonymous work is indicated somewhat by the fact that in the same 
 manuscript with it was a copy of the Liber de Tribus Impost or ibus . 
 It consists of four parts, of which the first, third and fourth are 
 a criticism of Christian doctrines and Biblical history. The 
 second part, under the caption Vera, divina . antiquissima et 
 perfectissima doctrina de Deo et voluntate eius. is a systematic 
 statement of the Deist ic creed. The first paragraph, with its 
 definition of God as Creator or First Cause, and its somewhat 
 utilitarian estimate of the value of God for man, gives us at once 
 the atmosphere of the later period of the enlightenment; 
 
 "Cum coelum, maximum et splendidissimum hoc opus, 
 contemplamur , praeterea solem, limam et Stellas, quae 
 in coelo sunt, et conside ramus, quam pulcherrimo, 
 certisBimo et constanti ordine et motu moveantur: 
 oportet nos fateri, esse aliquid et quidem optimum. 
 
 ^Ibid. p. 212. 
 
 ^ Origo et fundament a religionie Christ ianae . ed. Gfrorer, August. 
 Zeitschrift fur die historische Theologie . Leipzig (1836) . 
 
 VI, 180-258. I am indebted to Dr. Joseph W. Swain for calling 
 ray attention to this treatise. 
 
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289 
 
 potent issimura et sapientissimum, quod tanta et tam 
 splendida opera oondidit, eaque in tair. pulcherrimo, 
 certo et constant! ordine et motu conservat, id 
 quod Deum appellamus. 
 
 "Deinde cum consideramus, ad cuius utilitatem 
 et usum mundus et quaecunque sunt in mundo condita ^ 
 
 Sint, reperimus, propter hominem omnia condita esse, 
 etc. ^ 
 
 Such a God is knowable by unaided reason; all his essential 
 attributes are demonstrable. 
 
 ”11 docet nos ratio,” so the author summ^izes 
 his own argument, ”Deum esse essentiam infinitam, 
 aeternam, optimam,* potentissimam, sapientissim^ et 
 iustissimam, quae non tantum omnia creavit, sed 
 eadem etiam nunc sustentat, regit et conservat, 
 atque adeo etiam cogitationes omnium hominum 
 novit, qui bona et iusta araat et praemiis ornat, 
 iniusta vero aversatur et punit.” 
 
 As the attributes of God are discoverable in nature, so the moral 
 law is identical with the universal and rational Law of Nature, the 
 Stoic conception which exercised such a profound and powerful 
 influence on Renaissance thought. ”Nos natur a et rati . q docet, quid 
 et qualis sit Deus, et quae sit eius voluntas, item quid sit iustum, 
 quid iniustum, quid Deo, quid hoffiinibus debeamus.”^ This revelation 
 of God by means of nature and reason was obscured in man because of 
 his depraved morals and customs, and therefore it had to be repeated 
 through Moses and the prophets; but these holy men did not add any- 
 thing to what had already been revealed from the beginning. 
 
 "Cuod vero Moses de Deo et voluntate Dei 
 alia neque plura docuerit, quam nos natura et ratio 
 
 )id. p. 235. 
 )id. p. 336. 
 )id. p. 341. 
 
4 
 
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290 
 
 docet, id manifestum est ex Decalog;o , qui est 
 nobis natura notus et insitus, atque ideo omnes 
 homines omnibus temporibus obligavit et obligat, 
 et est praecipuum et summa doctrinae Mosaicae, 
 ita ut tota doctrina Mosis de Deo et voluntate 
 Dei in Decalogo comprehendatur . 
 
 The most primitive religion is also the truest in another respect, 
 in its freedom from ceremonial or sacrament, such as baptism and 
 circumcision. ” Atque ita redibim_us ad statum primorum hominum, qui 
 etiam hunc naturalem et rationalem cultum Dei habuerunt, nec ullo 
 init ia.t ionis signo usi sunt.”^ 
 
 This anonymous treatise is of special interest in giving a 
 doctrinaire statement of religious opinion ivhich at that time was 
 not permitted in print, and which has therefore not been sufficiently 
 recognized in the history of thought. As we read it, we can over- 
 
 hear those many discussions behind closed doors, both in England 
 and on the Continent during the Renaissance, when, within small 
 groups of trusted friends, ne?^ ideas were exchanged at the peril of 
 the stake. With the gradual extension of freedom of thought, these 
 Deistic ideas must have acquired a wider and more open circulation. 
 It seems indeed highly probable that Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 
 during his long residence in Paris, should have taken part in such 
 discussions and thus become indebted to a Deistic tradition which, 
 owing to the intolerance of the age, had long been transmitted 
 
 orally.^ 
 
 ^Ibid. p. 241. 
 
 2 
 
 Sstro-isfi disiusees the delstio leanings in Charron in et. 
 
 son Temns, Paris (1909). I, 184-ff. The eminent scholar MF^ 
 
 Laohevre, recently discovered a P°®“ in 
 
 called rAntihivot ou ^ Ona tra^ du delete, and pubrished it in 
 
 his Vol-ha^rft Paris ^1908). 
 

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 Deism Dissolved in Complete Scepticism 
 
 In its beginnings, Deism was therefore sceptical 
 primarily regarding the pretence of each religion to a direct 
 revelation from God, a divinely guided history and a divinely 
 ordained mode of worship. Its scepticism was higher criticism. On 
 the philosophical side. Deism was rationalistic and dogmatic, affirm- 
 ing the knowableness of religious truth and associating it with the 
 rationalistic Stoic doctrine of the Law of Nature. The true 
 religion must be universally evident to those who would seek it, 
 without the assistance of any revelation or tradition; it must 
 therefore also be manifested universally in all good and upright 
 men. Herbert only went farther than previous Deists in investigating: 
 the problem of knowledge; he inquired critically into what they had 
 assumed. But Herbert was at one with his predecessors in founding 
 
 his religion on reason. 
 
 The sceptical spirit, nevertheless, pervaded the whole 
 Deistic movement. Deism may be regarded as a stage in the develop- 
 ment of modern scepticism; it was scepticism in an arrested 
 development, the attempt of Renaissance enlightenment to find a 
 via media between superstition and atheism. On its critical side 
 it was modern, on its positive side it was a continuation of the 
 tradition of the rational Law of Nature, which, as we have seen, was 
 so important in the thought of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. 
 This rationalism of the Deists, like the Platonic rationalism of 
 Davies, evokes no response in modern readers, because the modern 
 
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 mind is more deeply sceptical than these Renaissance and seventeenth 
 century rationalists; their whole conception of the reason and the 
 spiritual life has been subjected to a searching and destructive 
 criticism. The Deistic movement dissolved in the eighteenth 
 century, partly because it was too superficial, because it tapped 
 too few of the springs of spiritual life, but partly also because 
 its reliance on reason was shaken by the scepticism of such men as 
 Hume . ^ 
 
 Isayous, Lea De-lste^ Angl^ of 
 
 ChapLr VITT7 Silpipse. Pierre, 
 
 philosophical scepticism les Deistes 
 
 L’ Influence de Montaigne Chpl^ s B^o — "T90-219. 392-443 . 
 
 In^ is/ iH -R^r ^du Seizi^ Sie^e_, Vol. I 
 
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 •* <#■ 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 SCEPTICISM AND MYSTICISM IN JOHN DONNE 
 
 I. Donne's Intellectual Development: Growing Dualism of Reason 
 and Faith.- II. The August ini an ism of Donne.- III. ihe 
 ’’Metaphysical" Style as an Expression of Donne s Mind. 
 
 The name of Donne has frequently recurred in this study. 
 
 In an earlier chapter^ I have referred to the statement of Courthope 
 that Donne in his youth was a "sceptic in religion" and a 
 "revolutionist in love," and discussed at length the intellectual 
 and moral milieu of Donne’s early verse. I suggested at the end of 
 that chapter, and also later in a comparison of Donne with Sir John 
 Davies,^ that these early sceptical preoccupations of Donne had an 
 important effect on his religious development. Courthope thought 
 Donne was reclaimed from his youthful errors by his marriage, and 
 made no attempt to show any influence of these early experiences on 
 Donne the divine.^ Grierson, however, believed that "owing to the 
 fullness of Donne's experience as a lover . . . there emerged in his 
 poetry the suggestion of a new philosophy of love. And he noted 
 the traces of scepticism in the Anniversaries ,, and in Donne's 
 tolerant acceptance of all sects of Christianity and his quasi- 
 political preference for the Anglican church.^ The purpose of this 
 
 ^Chapter III. See above, pp. 111-ff. 
 ^See page 193. 
 
 '"See Courthope, Hist ., of Eng. Poetry . 
 p Donne ' s Poetical Works . ed. Grierson. 
 ^Ibid. II, 187-8 and 23 5-6. 
 
 III, 147-ff. 
 II, XXXV. 
 

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 chapter is to study more precisely than Grierson and Courthope have 
 done the extent to which Donne may have been sceptical in philosophy 
 and religion, and the effect of this scepticism on the ’’Metaphysical 
 style which distinguished Donne from his contemporaries and made him 
 the founder of a school of poetry. 
 
 Donne's Intellectual Development: Growing Dualism 
 
 of Faith and Reason 
 
 In a very thorough and learned treatise on the relation of 
 Donne to Medieval philosophical doctrines, Miss Mary Paton Ramsay has 
 incidentally taken issue with Courthope and sought to minimize the 
 scepticism of Donne. Her main purpose was to show how thoroughly 
 Donne was imbued with the Plotinian tradition which permeated 
 Medieval thought. 
 
 "Chez lui," she says of Donne, "on decouvre, 
 en e'tudiant \ fond.ses e^crits en prose^and en vers, 
 un penseur profondement religieux en meme temps que 
 fermement convaincu de la valeur de la raison 
 humaine . . . Dans les haute s regions de la 
 speculation me'taphysique dont les docteurs du moyen 
 age lui montraient le chemin, il n'y avait pas de 
 place pour les doutes. Des doutes pouvaient tour- 
 menter Donne devant des questions ecclesiastiques 
 melees "a des conceptions politiques, ou devant ^ son 
 propre coeur consoient de faiblesse et de peche . 
 
 Mais non quand son esprit s'^l^ve a ces hauteurs. 
 
 Alors I'idee cree 1' expression qui lui convient 
 et nous yoyons ce que Donne est capable de produire 
 comme poete."^ 
 
 Ramsay, Mary Paton, I^ Doctrines Medievales chez. Donne , Pp . et g- 
 M^aphysicien de 1' Angleterre , Oxford (1917). p. 18^ 
 
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 But we must object that this conception simplifies beyond recognitiai 
 the complex and enigmatic personality of Donne and removes from his 
 life that element of dramatic uncertainty and suspense which mahes 
 his biography so fascinating. Miss Ramsay's remarks are far more 
 applicable to Sir John Davies. For Donne cannot be explained by 
 any systematization of his ideas j his riddle must be read by a 
 sympathetic appreciation of his personality, his greed for knowledge 
 and experience, his difficulties, disappointments and dissatisfac- 
 tions, and the increasing depth and intensity of his religious 
 feeling; the final study of Donne must be biographical. 
 
 We must, to begin with, try to see life as it appeared to 
 the young law student and courtier in London. He would have been 
 greatly astonished had he heard predicted his future failure at 
 court and his subsequent greatness as a divine. The young Donne was 
 ambitious for a secular career and with reason felt himself the 
 
 master of his fate. He was conscious from the first of very dis- 
 tinguished powers. Educated a Catholic, and anxious to make his way 
 at a Protestant court, he decided to settle for himself the truth 
 about the ecclesiastical question with which he was faced. In his 
 OT/n words, he avoided "any violent and sudden determination till I 
 had, to the measure of my power and judgment, surveyed and digested 
 the whole body of divinity, controverted between ours and the 
 Roman Church."^ This extended study, however, did not lead him to 
 

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 of great intellectual and personal distinction, he was winning the 
 friendship and confidence of important men. But Donne was at this 
 time more than a successful lawyer and courtier and a student of 
 "controverted divinity." In a letter, written probably in 1608, 
 he complains that his early study of law was interfered with "by 
 the worst voluptuousness, which is an hydroptic, immoderate desire 
 of human learning and languages — beautiful ornaments to great 
 fortunes; but mine needed an occupation."^ In a very interesting 
 passage of Calme , a passage which must perhaps not be taken as 
 too literal autobiography, he suggests three reasons for his joining 
 the Cadiz expedition of 1596: 
 
 "Whether a rotten state, and hope of gaine, 
 
 Or to disuse mee from the queasie paine 
 Of being be lov'd, and loving, or the thirst 
 Of honour, or faire death, out pusht mee first, 
 
 he will not say, letting the reader suppose that all three motives 
 may have contributed to his decision. ^ This allusion to love as a 
 I "queasie paine," in a poem written already in 1597, is significant 
 in the light of Donne's interest in the "libertine" naturalism of 
 the Renaissance, which ha.s been studied in an earlier chapter. Avid 
 of experience and knowledge, filled with the Renaissance spirit of 
 sounding the depths of life and truth, Donne had found no peace in 
 that philosophy of life which gave such complete satisfaction to 
 Montaigne. His intellectual and spiritual life began at the place 
 where Montaigne's ended. In passing through this stage of natural- 
 istic ethics, Donne came to know himself better. And this experience 
 
 Joosse, op. cit. I, 191. 
 ^Grierson. I. i?9. 
 
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 could not but contribute to the inwardness, the passionate humility, 
 the deep feeling of dependence on some source of spiritual power 
 outside of himself, which marked the saintly divine of later years. 
 
 During these early years Donne had come in contact also, 
 as we have seen, with the current philosophical scepticism, the 
 denial of any standards of truth and goodness. The cynical 
 Progresse of the Soule, written in 1601, closes with an allusion to 
 this mode of thought: 
 
 ’’Ther's nothing simply good, nor ill alone, 
 
 Of every quality comparison, ^ 
 
 The onely measure is, and judge , opinion. 
 
 j He probably never doubted the powers of the reason so completely as 
 Montalaae, and in his Essays in Divinity , written in 1614, he speaks 
 in a tone of sarcasm of the philosophy of Sextus Empiricus. But 
 philosophers may exert a powerful influence even on men who are not 
 their complete disciples, and Donne, who was fascinated in his youth 
 by Pyrrhonism, owed to it some of his freedom from the rationalism 
 and the scholastic theology which he frequently referred to with 
 scorn as the doctrines of the Schools. And there are passages in 
 his letters and sermons in which he reflects some of that dissatis- 
 faction with the results of reason which marks philosophical sceptic 
 In a letter written in 1613 he says: ’’Except demonstrations,” that 
 
 is, mathematical proofs, ’’(and perchance there are very few of them) 
 I find nothing without perplexities. I am grown more sensible of it 
 by busying myself a little in the search of the eastern tongues. 
 
 gGrierson. I, 316. 
 Ramsay, op. cit. p 
 
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 where a perpetual perplexity in the words cannot choose but cast a 
 perplexity upon the things."^ The criticism implied is perhaps more 
 one of language than of reason itself, but it indicates a mind dis- 
 posed to scepticism. And Honne did not look to philosophy to 
 illuminate the path of life with such confidence as, for instance, 
 Spenser; the pure of heart, he said in a sermon, get by their 
 purity ”this main purchase, that which all the books of all the 
 philosophers could never teach them so much as what it was, that is 
 true blessedness."^ To appreciate what these passages mean we must 
 relate them to the tendencies among Donne's contemporaries; they 
 signify that Donne, one of the most intellectual of men, was too 
 deeply critical of the reason ever to content himself in such 
 rationalistic shallows as satisfied his contemporaries. Sir John 
 Davies and Edward Herbert. 
 
 But Donne had early undertaken to find the true religion. 
 In his satire, Kinde nitty chokes my. spleene , ^ he rebukes those who 
 adhere to any sect without studying and thinking the problem through 
 for themselves: Mirreus the Catholic, Grants the Calvinist, Graius 
 the Anglican, are sketched with a few strong, uncomplimentary 
 strokes. Then there are others: 
 
 "Carelesse Phrygius doth abhorre 
 All, because all cannot be good, as one 
 Knowing some women whores, dares marry none. 
 
 Gracous loves all as one, and thinkes that so 
 
 As women do in divers countries goe 
 
 Ixi divers habits, yet are still one kinde. 
 
 So doth, so is Religion; and this blind- 
 nesse too much light breeds." 
 
 jGosse, op. cit. II, 16. 
 
 ^Donne, Works, ed. Alford, Henry, London vlS^SK 
 
 ^Griersoru T, 154-8. 
 
 I, 191, 
 
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299 
 
 Donne is confident that truth can be found by earnest effort, 
 provided one goes back far enough to the original sources and culti 
 vates an open mind. And one cannot escape the obligation of making 
 
 a choice: 
 
 ” unmoved thou 
 
 Of force must one, and forc’d but one allo^ir; 
 
 And the right; aske thy father which shee 
 Let him aske his; though truth and falshood bee 
 Neare twins, yet truth a little elder is, 
 
 Be busie to seeke her, beleeve mee this, 
 
 Hee's not of none, nor worst, that seeke s the best. 
 
 To adore, or scorne an image, or protest. 
 
 May all be bad; doubt wisely; in strange way 
 To stand inquiring right, is not to stray; 
 
 To sleepe, or sunne wrong, is.” 
 
 But unceasing labor is necessary. 
 
 "On a huge hill, 
 
 Cragged, and steep. Truth stands, and hee^that will 
 Reach her, about must, and about must goe, 
 
 And what the hills suddennes resists, winne so; 
 
 Yet strive so, that before age, deaths twilight, 
 
 Thy Soule rest, for none can worke in that night. 
 
 An interesting commentary on this satire, which was 
 probably written between 1594 and 1597, is to be found in several 
 letters, from about 1607 to Donne's entry into orders. All sects 
 he says in the first, dated by Gosse 1607, need to be purged of 
 
 false doctrines: 
 
 begin to think that as litigious men tired 
 with suits admit any arbitrament, and princes 
 travailed with long and wasteful war descend to 
 such conditions of peace as 
 
 ashamed to have embraced; so philosophers, ana 
 tfall sects of Christians, after long disputation, 
 and controversies, have allowed many things o 
 positive and dogmatical truths which are not worthy 
 
 'Grierson. II, 
 
 103 
 
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300 
 
 of that dignity; and so many doctrines have gro'/m 
 to be ordinary diet and food of our spirits, and 
 have place in the pap of catechisms, which were 
 admitted but as physic in that present distemper, 
 or accepted in a lazy weariness, when men so they 
 might have something to rely upon, and to excuse 
 themselves from more painful inquisition, never 
 examined what that was.”i 
 
 In a later letter, impossible to date exactly, Donne expresses a 
 broad tolerance towards all sects as containing some truth. 
 
 "You know," he says, "I never fettered nor 
 imprisoned Religion, not straightening it 
 friarly ad Religiones factitias (as the Romans call 
 well their orders of Re ligion) , nor immuring it in a 
 Rome, or a Wittemberg, or a Geneva; they are all 
 virtual beams of one Sun, and wheresoever they find 
 clav hearts, they harden them and moulder them into 
 dust; and they entender and mollify waxen. They are 
 not so contrary as the North and South Poles, and 
 that (?) they are co-natural pieces of one circle. 
 
 Religion is Christianity, which being too spiritual 
 to be seen by us, doth therefore take an apparent 
 body of good life and works, so salvation requires 
 an honest Christian."^ 
 
 But in a letter written in 1615 he goes even further, and suggests 
 that the merits of the various religions or sects within 
 Christianity may not be absolute, and that violent conversions from 
 one to another may be dangerous, irrespective of the relative degre 
 of ascertainable truth in each. 
 
 "As some bodies," he says, "are as wholesomely 
 nourished as ours with acorns, and endure nakedness, 
 both which would be dangerous to us, 
 should leave our former habits, though theirs were 
 the primitive diet and custom; so are many souls 
 well fed with such forms and dressings of religion, 
 as would distemper and misbecome us, and make us 
 corrupt towards God, if any human circmstance 
 moved it, and in the opinion of men, though none. 
 
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301 
 
 You shall seldom see a coin, upon which the stamp 
 were removed, though to imprint it better, but it 
 looks awry and s^iuint. And so, for the most part, 
 do minds which have received divers impressions. 
 
 "I will not, nor need to you, compare the 
 religions. The channels of God's mercies run 
 through both fields; and they are sister teats 
 of His graces, yet bpth diseased and infected, 
 but not both alike. ”-‘- 
 
 Donne never found the one true church which he had sought for. Even 
 in the Holy Sonnets , written after 1617, when he was eminent as an 
 Anglican divine, he is still seeking, now no longer in "controverted 
 theology," but in prayer, for a church to which he can give 
 undivided, uncritical allegiance. 
 
 "Show me deare Christ, thy Spouse, so bright and cleare.' 
 
 In his brave search after truth amid the controversies of religious 
 factions, he had suffered defeat and disillusionment. 
 
 Donne had, moreover, experienced to a greater degree than 
 most Englishmen of his time the disquieting effect of the new 
 astronomy. He was an eager student of the books of Galileo and 
 Kepler as soon as they appeared.^ And in Anniversar y^ 
 
 1611, occurs the frequently quoted passage beginning: 
 
 4 
 
 "And new Philosophy calls all in doubt. 
 
 "Copernicism in the mathematics," he says in a letter in 1615, "hath 
 
 if '330. — This sonnet was 
 
 in seventeenth century editions, and was first printed in Gosse s 
 Life , II, 371. 
 
 ^See above, pp. 200, 213 
 
 '"See above, pp. < 3 x 0 . 
 
 ^Grierson. I, 237. Of. letter to Countess of Bedford, Ibid. p.l., 6 . 
 
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302 
 
 carried earth farther up, from the stupid centre; and yet not 
 honoured it, nor advantaged it, because for the necessity of 
 
 towards the end of his life, in a sermon preached in 1626, he 
 reproaches his age with the slowness with which the new science is 
 accepted. 
 
 "What one thing," he asks, "do we know 
 perfectly? Whether we consider arts, or sciences, 
 the servant knows but according to the proportion 
 of his master's knowledge in that art, and the 
 scholar knows but according to the proportion of 
 his master’s knowledge in that science; young men 
 mend not their sight by using old men's spectacles; 
 and yet we look upon nature, but with Aristotle's 
 spectacles, and upon the body of man, but with 
 Galen's, and upon the frame of the world, but 
 with Ptolemy's spectacles."^ 
 
 He makes two pointed uses of this reference to science. In the 
 first place, he manifests the full force of his scepticism towards 
 the philosophical and scientific knowledge handed down by tradition 
 
 "Almost all knowledge," he says, "is rather like 
 a child that is embalmed to make mummy, than that is 
 nursed to make a man; rather conserved in the stature 
 of the first age, than grown to be greater; and if 
 there be any addition to knowledge, it is rather a 
 new knowledge, than a greater knowledge; rather a 
 singularity in a desire of proposing something that 
 was not kno’wn at all before, than an improving, an 
 advancing, a multiplying of former inceptions; and 
 by that means, no knowledge comes to be perfect. 
 
 One philosopher thinks he has dived to the bottom, 
 when he says, he knows nothing but this, that he 
 knows nothing; and yet another thinks, that he 
 hath expressed more knowledge than he, in saying. 
 
 appearances, it hath carried heaven so m.uch higher from it."^ 
 
 Even 
 
 that he knows not so much as that, that he knows 
 
 nothing. " 
 
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304 
 
 head, but restlessness and pain and endless labor and search. 
 
 Donne had, however, in the meantime found a new source of 
 spiritual strength and comfort. It seems probable, as Courthope 
 says,^ that his happy marriage had a redeeming influence upon him 
 and inspired his nobler love poems. But he had a religious 
 awakening also. In. one of his love poems, A Valedi c t i ,on , occurs a 
 striking statement that ’’all Divinity is love or wonder,” an idea 
 which Donne repeated years afterwards in The_ Firs t Anniversary.* 
 
 ’’The world contains s 
 
 Princes for armes, and Counsellors for braines, 
 
 Lawyers for tongues. Divines for hearts, and more, 
 
 The Rich for stomackes, and for baokes, the Poore; 
 
 The Officers for hands. Merchants for feet, 
 
 By which, remote and distant Countries meet. 
 
 But those fine spirits which do tune, and set 
 This Organ, are those peeces which beget 
 Wonder and love; and these were shee.”’^ 
 
 The thought was deeply imbedded in his mind that the soul of the 
 world was not knowable to reason, that the true theology appeals in 
 some other way; in some personal experience or crisis he had had a 
 flash of insight into a mystery not explained by ’’controverted 
 divinity” and become a mystic. From that time reason began to lose 
 its preeminence, his spiritual life gained power and intensity, and 
 his prayer became 
 
 ”Looke to mee faith, and looke to my faith, God.” 
 
 The relation between reason and faith is frequently dis- 
 cussed or alluded to by Donne. He begins a verse letter to the 
 
 sermons. 
 
 ICourthope, Hist, of Eng. Poet^. HI, Ibb. 
 
 ^Ih 1 d^!°l 46 ^Cf‘:''•’All love is wonder," In The Anagram, ed.olt. 1,81^ 
 
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Countess of Bedford, written some time between 1608 and 1614, with 
 the statement: 
 
 ^Reason is our Soules left hand, Faith her right. 
 
 By these wee reach divinity." 
 
 But he would, 
 
 "not to encrease, but to expresse 
 My faith, as I beleeve, so understand." 
 
 He labored always to understand. "No one may doubt," he wrote in a 
 letter, in 1612, "but that that religion is certainly best which is 
 reasonablest. And in his Elegy on Princ e Henr^, 1613, he almost 
 identifies the spheres of reason and faith. 
 
 "Looke to mee faith, and looke to my faith, God; 
 
 For both my centers feele this period. 
 
 Of waight one center, one of greatnesse is; 
 
 And Reason is that center, Faith is this; 
 
 For into 'our reason flow, and there do end 
 All, that this naturall world doth comprehend: 
 
 Quotidian things, and equidistant hence. 
 
 Shut in, for man, in one circumference. 
 
 But for th' enormous greatnesses, which are 
 So disproportion' d, and so angulare. 
 
 As is Gods essence, place and providence. 
 
 Where, how, when, what soules do, departed hence. 
 
 These things (eccentrique else) on faith do strike; 
 
 Yet neither all, nor upon all, alike. 
 
 For reason, put to 'her best extension, 3 
 
 Almost meetes faith, and makes both centers one. 
 
 The reason, too, might become a valuable defender of the faith 
 against rationalistic attacks. "It is not enough for you," Donne 
 said in a sermon, 1623, "to rest in imaginary faith, and easiness in 
 believing, except you know also what, and why, and how you come to 
 that belief. Implicit believers, ignorant believers. 
 
 icrierson. I, 189. 
 
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306 
 
 the adversary may swallow; but the understanding believer, he must 
 chaw, and pick bones, before he come to assimilate him, and make 
 him like himself."^ Nevertheless Donne was troubled by the 
 consciousness of a contradiction between reason and faith. In his 
 Litany, written about 1609 or 1610, he had already formulated for 
 himself the prayer: 
 
 "Let not my minde be blinder by more light « 
 
 Nor Faith, by Reason added, lose her sight.” 
 
 From the numerous passages on this subject in the sermons I select 
 one, preached on Christmas Day, 1621, on the text, "He was not that 
 Light, but was sent to bear 7 fitness of that Light” ( John, i.8.). 
 
 "In all ohilosophy," he said, "there is not so 
 dark a thing* as light; as the sun, which is fans 
 lucis natural! 8., the beginning of natural light, 
 is the most evident thing to be seen, and yet the 
 hardest to be looked upon, so is natural light to 
 our reason and understanding. Nothing clearer, for 
 it is clearness itself, nothing darker, it is 
 enwrapped in so many scruples. Nothing nearer, 
 for it is around about us, nothing more remote, 
 for we know neither entrance, nor limits of it. 
 Nothing more easy, for a child discerns it, nothing 
 more hard, for no man understands it. It is 
 apprehensible by sense, and not comprehensible 
 by reason. If we wink, we cannot choose but see 
 it, if we stare, we know it never the better. No 
 man is yet got so near to the knowledge of the 
 qualities of light, as to know whether light 
 itself be a quality, or a substance. If then 
 this natural lis'ht be so dark to our natural 
 reason, if we shall offer to pierce so far into 
 the light of this text, the essential light 
 Christ Jesus, (in his nature, or but in his 
 offices) or the supernatural light of faith and 
 grace, ... if we search farther into these 
 points, than the Scripture hath opened us a way, 
 how shall we hope to unentangle, or extricate 
 themselves? They had a precious composition 
 for lamps, amongst the ancients, reserved 
 
 jAlford. 
 
 '^Grierson 
 
 
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307 
 
 especially for tombs, which kept light for many 
 hundreds of years; we have had in our age exper- 
 ience, in some casual openings of ancient vaults, 
 of finding such lights, as were kindled, (as 
 appeared by their inscriptions) fifteen or 
 sixteen hundred years before; but, as soon as 
 that light comes to our light, it vanishes. So 
 this eternal, and this supernatural light, Christ 
 and faith, enlightens, warms, purges, and does 
 all the profitable offices of fire, and light, 
 if we keep it in the right sphere, in the proper 
 place, (that is, if we consist in points necessary 
 to salvation, and revealed in the Scripture) but 
 when we bring this light to the common light of 
 reason, to our inferences, and consequences, it 
 may be in danger to vanish itself, and perchance 
 extinguish our reason too; we may search so far, 
 and reason so long of faith and grace, as that 
 we may lose not only them, but even our reason 
 too, and sooner become mad than good.” 
 
 Only the most salient features of the mental biography of 
 Donne can be touched on in so brief a sketch as this. But perhaps 
 what has been said may afford an insight into those permanent 
 impulses and their conflicts which dominated his enigmatical life. 
 Gifted with a profound intellect, he sought from the beginning to 
 unravel the mysteries of all knowledge, including divinity. But 
 though he felt himself far more successful than most men about 
 him, whose easy acquiescence in tradition he lashed with scorn, he 
 was forced to confess that he was in some measure defeated, that 
 knowledge is difficult and uncertain even to the best minds, and 
 that much philosophizing is often a vanity of the spirit. But while 
 he was suffering this disillusionment he was also discovering a new 
 source of spiritual power, faith. The student, lawyer and courtier 
 became a mystic. He had, however, no sudden revelation of his 
 spiritual powers. He had to pass through years of privation, dis- 
 
 ^Alford. V. 55. - — 
 
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appointment, doubt, years of the "agony and exercise of sense and 
 spirit,"^ before he yielded his life and soul fully to the guidance 
 of faith. And even then his reason was ever seeking to equal faith 
 in power and authority, but ever falling back unequal. This defeat 
 of the reason was therefore a spiritual gain; for only by it could 
 Donne's mysticism have developed so fully and intensely, free from 
 the inhibitions of rationalism. The darkening of the understanding 
 Donne has said himself, is one of those afflictions by which God 
 turns the soul to himself. 
 
 Those helps, he said in a sermon, which are 
 "deduced from philosophy and natural reason, are 
 strong enough against afflictions of this world, 
 as long as we can use them, as long as these 
 helps of reason and learning are alive, and awake, 
 and actuated in us, they are able to sustain us 
 from sinking under the afflictions of this world, 
 for, they have sustained many a Plato, and a 
 Socrates, and Seneca in such cases. But when 
 part of the affliction shall be, that God worketh 
 upon the spirit itself, and damps that, that he casts 
 a sooty cloud upon the understanding, and darkens 
 that, that he doth exuere hominem, divest, strip 
 the man of the man, eximere hominem , take the man 
 out of the man, and withdraw and frustrate his 
 natural understanding so, as that, to this purpose, 
 he is no man, yet even in this case, God may mend 
 thee, in marring thee, he may build thee up in 
 dejecting thee, he may infuse another, ego vir , 
 another manhood into thee, and though thou canst 
 not say ego vir , !_ am that moral man , safe in my 
 natural reason and philosophy, that is spent, yet 
 Ego vir , I am that Christian man, who have seen 
 this affliction in the cause thereof, so far off, 
 as in my sin in Adam, and the remedy of this 
 affliction, so far off, as in the death of Christ 
 Jesus I am the m.an, that cannot repine, nor murmur, 
 since I am the cause; I am the man that cannot 
 despair, since Christ is the remedy."^ 
 
 icosse. I, 190. 
 "^Alford. V, 330. 
 
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309 
 
 II 
 
 ^ The August inianism of Donne 
 
 Throughout her study of Donne, Miss Ramsay has repeated 
 that he was peculiarly the disciple of Augustine,^ but in her 
 eagerness to prove Donne a Plotinian she has missed the significance 
 of this discipleship. For it has a double significance, first 
 regarding Donne's relation to Medieval thought, and second regarding 
 the nature of his religious experience. 
 
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 influence of Augustine among the nominalists and Mystics of the 
 
 p 
 
 Middle Ages, counteracting the intellectualism of Aquinas. With 
 the Reformation this opposition of Thomism and Augustinianism was 
 continued and intensified. Both Calvinism and Lutheranism were 
 distinctly Augustinian in spirit, though Anglicanism here as else- 
 where was compromising. In the Catholic church the revival of 
 Augustinianism by the Jansenists encountered powerful and determined 
 opposition, and was at last suppressed and declared heretical. 
 Although it was a conflict of temperaments, of modes of religious 
 experience rather than of philosophical schools, this opposition of 
 Thomism and Augustinianism is of great importance in understanding 
 some of the religious leaders of the Reformation and Renaissance, 
 
 3 
 
 and especially Donne. A passage quoted earlier from the beginning 
 of the Summa Contra Gentiles will recall the spirit of Aquinas. 
 
 Ramsay, op.cit. pp. 17S, 181-3, 330, 325, 252-3, 257, etc. 
 |see above, pp. 166-7. 
 
 '^See above, p. 39. 
 
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310 
 
 ” Th.6 prini6 autlior and movar of the universe,” thought Ac^uinas, 
 
 ”is intelligence. Therefore the last end of the universe must he 
 the good of the intelligence, and that is truth. Truth then must 
 be the final end of the whole universe.” Happiness consists in the 
 perfect activity of the intellect, and the end of all "subsistent 
 intelligences” is to know the highest universal, Ens . Being, God. 
 
 We can understand how Donne must have been attracted by this 
 intellectual doctrine; in his Essays igi Divinity he even places 
 Aquinas beside Augustine, calling him, as he addresses himself to 
 God, "that other instrument and engine of thine, whom Thou hadst 
 so enabled that nothing was too mineral and centrick for the search 
 and reach of his wit."^ But Donne learned in the school of 
 affliction and anguish, which he so often refers to as the best 
 school for the soul, that he needed another blessedness than truth 
 and knowledge. Thomism, in its intellectualistic interpretation 
 of the world, was an exposition, under Neo-Platonic and 
 Aristotelian terms, of .the Logos. But both Augu.stine and Donne 
 were dissatisfied with the impersonal and intellectual conception 
 of God in the Platonic tradition. In Plato we may find God, said 
 Donne, but "without a Christ."^ The Word become flesh and living 
 among us, partaking of our miseries and frailties and sins, giving 
 us the inexpressible consolation and comfort of a personal love 
 and sacrifice for us, this was the religion of Augustine and Donne.' 
 
 ^Quoted by Ramsay, op.cit. p. 286, n.5. 
 
 "Alford. Ill, 47. ^ ^ 
 
 "Miss Ramsay has noticed this similarity between Donne and 
 Augustine, and quotes an eloquent passage on the latter from Gaston 
 Boissier. op. cit. p. 252. 
 
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311 
 
 They desired, not primarily to know God, but to rest their souls 
 in the bosom of God, in the bosom of Christ, who was God become 
 humanity and therefore full of the sympathy they craved. This sense 
 of the living personality of God and of Christ, and the dependence 
 of his o’.m soul upon its preciousness in the sight of Christ, is the 
 essence of Donne's religious experience. 
 
 Humility is therefore the beginning of wisdom; the 
 consciousness of his weakness and sin and misery overwhelmed Donne, 
 but he desired and cultivated this feeling in order to intensify 
 his religious longing. Already in The First Anniversary he had 
 expressed the need of some transcendental power to save humanity 
 from itself. His anatomy of the world was to teach, he said, 
 
 "that except thou feed (not banquet) on 
 The supernatural! food. Religion, 
 
 Thy better Growth growes withered, and scant; 
 
 Be more then man, or thou'rt lesse then an Ant."-^ 
 
 Therefore he was ever contemplating death in its most repugnant 
 aspects, that he might realize how poor a thing is m.an, how 
 entirely dependent on divine power. And therefore, too, the 
 humiliation of the intellect was necessary, lest the feeble light 
 of the reason make us blind to the greater light of faith. In a 
 sermon preached in 1684, on the conversion of St. Paul, he speaks 
 of the light which struck Paul blind. 
 
 "This blindness of which we speak," he says, 
 
 "which is a sober and temperate abstinence from the 
 immoderate study, and curious knowledges of this 
 
 ^Grierson. I, 237. — Was 
 recollecting tne last page 
 
 Donne, when he wrote this passage 
 f the Apology of Raymond Sebond r 
 
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312 
 
 world, this holy simplicity of the soul, is not a | 
 
 darkness, a dimness, a stupidity of the understanding, I 
 
 contracted by living in a corner, it is not an idle 
 
 retiring into a monastery, or into a village, or a 
 
 country solitude, it is not a lazy affectation of 
 
 ignorance; not darkness, but a greater light, must 
 
 make us blind . . . There are birds, that when their 
 
 eyes are sealed, still soar up, and up, till they 
 
 have spent all their strength. Men blinded with 
 
 the lights of this world, soar still into higher 
 
 places, or higher knowledges, or higher opinions; 
 
 but the light"^of heaven humbles us, and lays flat 
 
 that soul, which the leaven of this world had 
 
 puffed and swelled up.”^ 
 
 Donne's religious experience, then, was a mystical one, 
 the sense of his dependence on the love and grace of God in Christ. 
 It was not a rational experience, and, though he sought always to 
 make it reasonable and even comprehensible, he had to recognize 
 that his spiritual life was beyond the power of reason and weakened 
 by a rationalistic mode of thought. He belonged to the anti- 
 intellectual tradition of Augustine. And it is perhaps partly due 
 to Donne's influence on the religious and poetical development of 
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 in a poem called Divinitie he says: 
 
 "As men, for fear the starres should sleep and nod. 
 And trip at night, have spheres suppli'd; 
 
 As if a starre were duller then a clod. 
 
 Which knows his way without a guide: 
 
 Just so the other heav'n they also serve, 
 Divinities transcendent skie: 
 
 Which with the edge of wit they out and carve . 
 
 Reason triumphs, and faith lies by ... . 
 
 ^Alford. II, 307-8 
 

 
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313 
 
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 H 1 
 
 But Vaughan, in a poem with the sceptical title Vanity gfl Spirit , 
 has explained how his repeated attempts to know the secrets of the 
 world and of himself had failed, one after another, until, his 
 intellect exhausted, he gave himself up to the mystical experience 
 which can be complete only in another world. 
 
 "Quite spent with thoughts, I left my cell, and lay 
 Where a shrill spring tun'd to the early day. 
 
 I begg'd here long, and groan'd to know 
 Who gave the clouds so brave a bow. 
 
 Who bent the spheres, and circled in 
 Corruption with this glorious ring; 
 
 What is His name, and how I might 
 Descry some part of His great light. 
 
 I summon'd Nature; pierc'd through all her store; 
 
 Broke up some seals, which none had touch'd before 
 Her womb, her bosom, and her head. 
 
 Where all her secrets lay abed, 
 
 I rifled quite; and having past 
 Through all the creatures, came at last 
 To search myself, where I did find 
 Traces, and sounds of a strange kind. 
 
 Here of this mighty spring I found some drills. 
 
 With echoes beaten from th' eternal hills. 
 
 Weak beams and fires flash'd to my sight. 
 
 Like a young East, or moonshine night. 
 
 Which show'd me in a nook cast by 
 A piece of much antiquity. 
 
 And hieroglyphics quite dismember'd 
 And broken letters scarce remember'd. 
 
 much joy'd 
 
 — went 
 out 
 
 I took them up, and - 
 T' unite those pieces, hoping to find 
 The mystery; but this ne'er done. 
 
 That little light I had was gone. 
 
 It griev'd me much. At last, said I, 
 'Since in these veils my eclips'd eye 
 May not approach Thee — for at night 
 Who can have commerce with the light? 
 I'll disapparel, and to buy 
 But one half-glance, most gladly die. 
 
 about 
 
 n2 
 
 jThe English Works qf Gegrge Herbert , ed. Palmer. Ill, 97. 
 
 Vaughan. Henry. Z oen^. ed. Chambers. I, 57. 
 
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 III 
 
 The Metaphysical" Style as an Expression of Donne's Mind 
 
 We have seen in the Introduction to this study how 
 criticism of the style of the "Metaphysical" poets has progressed 
 from the theory that this peculiar style was a literary fad or 
 affectation, an intellectual gymnastic, to the serious attempt to 
 relate it in some way to the manner in which these poets understood 
 the world. Johnson and Hallam represent the earlier theory, and 
 Courthope, Grierson and Palmer have made the most suggestive con- 
 tributions to the later method.^ These later students have all 
 insisted that the "Metaphysical" style was in some way connected 
 with the disintegration of Medieval thought. Courthope says this 
 style is characterized by three Medieval modes of expression: 
 paradox, hyperbole and excess of metaphor; elsewhere he says that in 
 the Renaissance there arose "a new kind of Pyrrhonism" which made 
 Medieval philosophy obsolete, but that "many poets, in their ideal 
 representations of Nature, seized upon the rich materials of the 
 old and ruined philosophy to decorate the structures which they 
 built out of their lawless fancy. On such foundations rose the 
 school of metaphysical wit, of which the earliest and most remarkable 
 example is furnished in the poetry of John Donne. Palmer, on the 
 other hand, emphasizes the modern quality of the "Metaphysical" 
 style, and finds its explanation in the new Renaissance spirit, its 
 
 Jsee above, pp. 15-35. 
 
 ‘^Courthope, Hist , of Eng. Poetry . Ill, 147-8. 
 

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315 
 
 individualism, its spirit of rebellion against authority, its 
 introspection; for the term "metaphysical" he jfould substitute as 
 more accurate and illuminating, the term "psychological." 
 
 Grierson, following in the main Courthope, sees however also in this 
 poetry a surprising modern quality, without explaining very 
 definitely the relation between thought and style. Admirable as 
 these suggestions are, therefore, they remain apparently contra- 
 dictory and inconclusive. 
 
 I do not intend here to give any complete account, from 
 either the historical or the esthetic point of view, of the 
 "conceit" in Renaissance poetry; its origins were too remote and 
 the explanation of its popularity is too complex. My one purpose 
 is to glance briefly at Donne’s use of it, to see in what way the 
 "conceit" was made expressive of his complex nature, and thus not 
 only to appreciate better the sincerity of his mode of expression, 
 but, perhaps, to come to a more definite conception of what is 
 medieval and what is modern in his style, both in prose and poetry. 
 
 The "conceit," everyone knows, was common in English 
 poetry before Donne. He appropriated it and gave it that peculiar 
 quality and power which was his own, but which influenced his 
 
 admiring successors to the extent of forming a poetical school. 
 Professor Alden has given a definition of the "conceit," based on an 
 analysis of it in Sidney and Shakespeare; "a conceit is the 
 elaboration of a verbal or an imaginative figure, or the substitutic 
 of a logical for an imaginative figure, with so considerable a use 
 of an intellectual process as to take precedence, at least for the 
 
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316 
 
 moment, of the normal poetic process."^ This definition expresses 
 
 admirably also that dualism of Donne's nature which heightened 
 
 the disharmony between his intellect and that poetic and mystical 
 
 experience out of which his poetry was made. His constant return 
 
 upon himself, his study of his own feelings and emotions, and his 
 
 attempts to state them in intellectual terms, all this introspection 
 
 and analysis is as apparent in his sermons as in his verse. It is 
 
 especially marked in Donne because of the imperfect harmony between 
 
 the intellectual and poetic sides of his nature. Schelling coined 
 
 an illuminating phrase when he said that "no one, excepting 
 
 Shakespeare. . . has done so much to develop intellectualized 
 
 2 
 
 emotion in the Elizabethan lyric as John Donne." 
 
 This intellectuality, or "wit," as it was then called, of 
 Donne's poetry and prose appears in other ways than the "conceit"; 
 it is sometimes paradox, sometimes hyperbole, sometimes a plain and 
 straightforward reasoning about his subject. But in its most 
 characteristic form it is a 83 rmbolism, a rendering of spiritual or 
 emotional experience in terms apprehensible, not to sense or 
 imagination primarily, but to the intellect. We may quote one of 
 his most daring, yet successful, conceits in his early verse, the 
 familiar one of the compass. It expresses a transcendental con- 
 'ception of the unity of two souls in love: 
 
 "But we by a love, so much refin'd. 
 
 That our selves know not what it is. 
 
 Inter-assured of the mind. 
 
 Care lesse, eyes, lips, and hands to misse. 
 
 ^Alden, Raymond Macdonald, The Lyrical Conceit of the Elizabethans,, 
 in Studies in Philology . Vol. XlV (I9l7) ^ 1J7~. 
 
 ^Schelling, A Book of Elizabethan Lyrics. Boston (1895). Intro,- 
 
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317 
 
 Our two soules therefore, which are one, 
 Though I must goe, endure not yet 
 
 A breach, but an expansion. 
 
 Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate. 
 
 If they be two, they are two so 
 As stiffs twin compasses are two, 
 
 Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show 
 To move, but doth, if the 'other doe. 
 
 And though it in the center sit. 
 
 Yet when the other far doth rome. 
 
 It leanes, and hearkens after it. 
 
 And grows s erect, as that comes home. 
 
 Such wilt thou be to mes, who must 
 Like th' other foot, obliquely runne; 
 
 Thy firmnes makes my circle just. 
 
 And makes me end, where I begunne.”^ 
 
 By using the "conceit," an intellectual and impersonal 
 mode of expression, to communicate his most intensely personal, 
 inward and mystical feelings, Donne gave it imaginative and poetic 
 power. The concepts of the intellect became the symbols of 
 inexpressible spiritual experience. The recent editor of Donne's 
 prose, Mr. Logan Pearsall Smith, after reading and re-reading his 
 volumes of sermons, speaks of this mysticism, this "something 
 baffling which still eludes our last analysis. Reading these old 
 hortatory and dogmatic pages, the thought suggests itself that 
 Donne is often saying something else, something poignant and 
 personal, and yet, in the end, incommunicable to us."^ Only long 
 reading, perhaps, can give us the full sense of this incommunicable 
 feeling beneath some of the apparently arid discussions in the ser- 
 
 duction. xxiii. 
 iorierson. I, 50. 
 
 '^Smith, Logan Pearsall, Donne ' s Sermons. Oxford (1920) . 
 Introduction , xxxv. 
 

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318 
 
 mens. In his labor to express it he draws upon all life and all 
 knowledge, upon the most homely matters of daily experience as well 
 as upon the distinctions of the Scholastic philosophy. It is a 
 great error to represent Donne’s mind as always preoccupied with 
 the subtleties of Medieval thought. He was really preoccupied with 
 the subtleties of his own soul. Donne preached out of his own 
 experience, as he had startled his contemporaries, and all his 
 understanding readers since, by the sincerity of his poetry written 
 out of his own experience. No one has looked more directly upon 
 the realities of life, no one has had his vision of reality less 
 impeded by tradition, than Donne. But in the expression of even 
 the most subtle, evanescent or mystical phases of his experience, 
 he put it into intellectual terms, into’ "conceits. ” There is a 
 truth, in spite of its perverse and unsympathetic statement, in the 
 comment of Macdonald: "The central thought of Dr. Donne is nearly 
 
 sure to be just: the subordinate thoughts by means of which he 
 unfolds it are often grotesque, and so wildly associated as to 
 remind one of the lawlessness of a dream, wherein mere suggestion 
 without choice or fitness rules the sequence."^ 
 
 To illustrate this symbolical value of the "conceit" in 
 Donne’s sermons I shall quote first a passage in which the "conceits" 
 are called "images," and in which there is no borrowing from 
 Medieval philosophy; the real subject is transcendental, but is 
 evoked by a succession of not unfamiliar metaphors and symbols. 
 
 "No image, but the image of God, can fit our 
 soul; every other seal is too narrow, too shallow 
 
 Macdonald, George, England’s Antiphon, N.Y. (n.d.). p.ll4. 
 

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319 
 
 for it. The magistrate is sealed with the Lion : 
 the Wolf will not fit that seal: the magistrate 
 hath a power in his hand, hut not oppression . 
 
 Princes are sealed with the Crown : the Mitre 
 will not fit that seal. Powerfully, and 
 graciously they protect the Church, and are 
 supream heads of the Church; hut they minister 
 not the Sacraments of the Church; they give 
 preferments; hut they give not the capacitie 
 of preferments: they give order who shall have, 
 hut they have not Orders hy which they are 
 enabled to have that they have. Men of inferior 
 and laborious callings in the world are sealed 
 with the Crosse : a Rose . or a hunch of Grape s 
 will not answer that seal: ease and plentie in 
 age must not he looked for without crosses, and 
 labour, and Industrie in youth. All men. Prince, 
 and people; Clergie, and Magistrate, are sealed 
 with the image of God, with a conformitie to 
 him; and worldly seals will not answer that, 
 nor fill up that seal. We should wonder to see 
 a mother in the midst of many sweet children, passing 
 her time in making babies and puppets for her own 
 delight. We should wonder to see a man, whose 
 chambers and galleries were full of curious master- 
 pieces, thrust in a village fayre, to look upon 
 sixpenie pictures, & three -farthing prints. We 
 have all the image of God at home; and we all make 
 babies, fancies of honour in our ambitions. The 
 masterpiece is our own, in our o’wn bosome; and we 
 thTust in countrey fayre s, that is, we endure the 
 distempers of any unseasonable weather, in night- 
 journeys and watchings; we endure the oppositions, 
 and scorns, and triumphs of a rivall, and competitour, 
 that seeks with us, and shares with us. We endure 
 the guiltinesse and reproach of having deceived the 
 trust which a confident friend reposes in us, and 
 solicit his wife or daughter. We endure the decay 
 of fortune of bodie, of soul, of honour, to possesse 
 lovers pictures; pictures that are not originals, 
 not made by that hand of God, Nature; but artificial! 
 beauties: and for that bodie we give a soul; and for 
 that drug, which might have been bought where they 
 bought it, for a shilling, we give an estate. The 
 image of God is more worth then all substances; and 
 we give it for colours, for dreams, for shadows. 
 
 We may compare the method of this passage, which seems to the modern 
 
 ^ Donne * s Se rmons . ed. Smith. p.l53. 
 
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 reader comparatively simple and natural, with another, in which 
 Donne uses in a similar manner symbols which are antiquated to us: 
 
 "One of the most convenient Hieroglyphicks of 
 God, is a Circle; and a Circle is endlesse; whom 
 God loves, hee loves to the end: and not onely to 
 their own end, to their death, but to his end, and 
 his end is, that he might love them still. His 
 hailestones, and his thunderbolts, and his showres 
 of bloud (emblemes and instruments of his Judgements) 
 fall downe in a direct line, and affect and strike 
 some one person, or place: His Sun, and Moone, and 
 
 Starres, (Emblemes and Instruments of his Blessings) 
 move circularly, and communicate themselves to all. 
 His Church is his chariot; in that, he moves more 
 gloriously, then in the Sun; as much more, as his 
 begotten Son exceeds hie created Sun, and his Son 
 of glory, and of his right hand, the Sun of the 
 firmament; and this Church, his chariot, moves in 
 that communicable motion, circularly; It began in 
 the East, it came to us, and is passing new, shining 
 out no?/, in the farthest West."^ 
 
 Donne’s experience in the second passage is as comprehensible to us 
 as that in the first, but the imagery gives it a Medieval flavor. 
 
 In conclusion I shall quote two characteristic passages 
 from his Divine Poems . both illustrating his feeling of dependence 
 on God for forgiveness, strength and blessedness. We know how deep 
 that feeling was in Donne, and we cannot doubt the sincerity of even 
 such "conceited" verse as the beginning of The Litanie : 
 
 "Father of Heaven, and him, by whom 
 It, and us for it, and all else, for us 
 Thou madest, and govern ’st ever, come 
 And re-create mee, now growne ruinous: 
 
 My heart is by dejection, clay. 
 
 And by se If e -murder , red. 
 
 From this red earth, 0 Father, purge away 
 All vicious tinctures, that new fashioned 
 I may rise up from death, before I ’am dead."^ 
 
 Jlbid. p. 134. 
 ‘^Grierson. I, 338. 
 
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 In the concluding stanzas of his Hymne to God, mv God, in my 
 sicknesse . the ”conceit” is raised almost to sublimity by its 
 intenseness: 
 
 ”We thinke that Paradise and Calyarie, 
 
 Christs Crosse, and Adams tree, stood in one place; 
 Looks Lord, and finds both Adams mst in ms; 
 
 As ths first Adams sweat surrounds my face, 
 
 May the last Adams blood my soule embrace. 
 
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 By these his thornes give me his other Crowne; 
 
 And as to others soules I preach'd thy word. 
 
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 Therfore that he may raise the Lord Thro'ws down."l 
 
 The style of Donne, then, was an expression of his mind. 
 
 He was a "psychological" poet in the sense that he found his 
 poetical material in his oto experience; his poetry, like his ser- 
 mons, is introspective. The old term "metaphysical" is more diffi- 
 cult to justify. If it is intended to signify a poet expounding: 
 Medieval philosophy, or any philosophy, it is not applicable to 
 Donne; he expounded no system, he was not a philosophical poet in 
 the sense that Lucretius was, or Sir John Davies, his contemporary. 
 If by the epithet we mean only that Donne used, in his "conceits," 
 some of the terms and distinctions of Medieval thought, it may be 
 admitted to be partially applicable, though misleading in its 
 emphasis. Donne took his imagery wherever he found it — from 
 Renaissance science, from daily life, or from the Church Fathers or 
 the disquisitions of the Schools. He used imagery understood by the 
 learned man of his time. But his purpose was to express his inner 
 
 ^Ibid. I, 368. 
 

 
 
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333 
 
 self, his moods, whims, emotions, aspirations, in their infinite 
 complexity and subtlety. The genuineness of his poetic and 
 religious nature shines through the crabbed verse and tortured 
 "conceits.” He is therefore modern, because he is the contemporary 
 with whomsoever can understand and share his experiences. But he 
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333 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 The purpose of these chapters has been to study the 
 scepticism which accompanied the individualistic spirit of the 
 Renaissance. But scepticism is a dissolvent. Our attention has 
 throughout been called away from the creative energy which made the 
 period so astonishingly full of great achievements in literature and 
 art, and of great personalities in action. The splendor of the 
 Renaissance is not reflected in the pages of this study. And yet 
 it may be serviceable to remember that, for all its splendor and 
 greatness of imagination, the Renaissance v?as truly alive with 
 intellectual conflict, that it was full of new thought and 
 audacious theorizing, that traditions had to defend their ground 
 inch by inch. It is an error to see in the Renaissance merely a 
 great wave of enthusiasm and power, which united all men in common 
 ideals and purposes. A closer view reveals a multiplicity of 
 factions, adherents of opposing traditions, sharp clashes of ideals 
 and temperaments. This is no doubt to some extent true of every 
 age, and literary history should recognize more fully than it has 
 done this dramatic element in the history of thought. But it is 
 especially true of the Renaissance, an era of individualism, marked 
 by constant new discovery both of the physical world and of the 
 history and nature of man himself. And the Renaissance was an age 
 of intellectual readjustment as well as of conflict. For 
 individualism means precisely that tradition has lost its authority, 
 and that it must constantly be modified by the individual to accord 
 with his new experience and knowledge. The importance of this 
 

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324 
 
 intellectual conflict and readjustment is being recognized more and 
 more by students of the English Renaissance. The application of it 
 to the greatest English poet of the seventeenth century has been 
 suggested in a new essay just from the press. 
 
 ’•Milton's case was not unique,” writes 
 Professor C. A. Moore. "Disturbed, like many other 
 thoughtful men of the seventeenth century, by the 
 new train of ideas growing out of scientific dis- 
 covery, by the liberal doctrines of neo-Platonic 
 philosophy, by various forms of mysticism, and by 
 other teaching that either openly contradicted 
 the Christian dogma or at least required compromise 
 and adjustment, he endeavored to satisfy the demands 
 of his own intellectual conscience by harmonizing 
 the ancient creed with various liberal doctrines, 
 some of which in the end gave rise to the skepticism 
 of the eighteenth century. His endeavor to pour the 
 new wine into the old bottle did not succeed."^ 
 
 Whether or not one agrees with the conclusions of Mr. Moore, his 
 emphasis on the intellectual conflict in the period is one of the 
 symptoms of a general tendency among students of literature. 
 
 As Medievalism affirmed in its constructive effort an 
 ideal exactly opposite to the general spirit of the Renaissance, it 
 forms the proper point of departure in a study of the disintegrating 
 and sceptical element in the later period. The Renaissance was in 
 many respects consciously hostile towards the Middle Ages, in spite 
 of its great indebtedness to it. The conflict between individualism 
 and the universal ideals of Medievalism had, in fact, already 
 reached its height in the Middle Ages; the Renaissance began in the 
 thirteenth century. In studying the opposition between the 
 Medieval and the Renaissance spirit, therefore, we must not seek to 
 
 ^Moore, C.A., The Conclusion of Paradise Lost , PMLA (March, 1921) . 
 p. 12. 
 

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335 
 
 confine each within chronological limits, hut study them as they co- 
 existed from the Middle Ages down through the seventeenth century, 
 and even later. For as the Renaissance did not begin in 1453 or 
 1492 or at any other ascertainable date, so neither has Medievalism 
 ever completely disappeared. 
 
 The great constructive effort of the Middle Ages is per- 
 haps not sufficiently appreciated in our day; we see it through the 
 eyes of the Renaissance, as a great heresy. But it was a noble 
 attempt to organize civilization in a permanent, universal and 
 final manner. The dreams of a universal church, of a universal 
 empire, and of a final formulation of truth in a series of numbered 
 chapters, sections and paragraphs, were all expressions of the 
 desire of human nature for something which shall endure, something 
 in which it may find stability and order and rest and peace. This 
 impulse and desire of the individual to seek the over-individual or 
 universal expresses itself in all the idealistic movements, whether 
 in philosophy or in religion or in the social order. But the 
 Medieval attempt to satisfy this desire failed, partly because it 
 was too rigid and recognized too little that other demand of human 
 nature for liberty of action and thought, and partly because it was 
 too exclusively rational. To apply the old military maxim, reason 
 has constructed nothing which reason cannot destroy. Therefore the 
 revival of individualism and the disintegration of Medievalism was 
 marked by extensive sceptical movements. 
 
 In looking back over this survey of scepticism in the 
 Renaissance, we may perhaps roughly classify three kinds, directed 
 against the church and the historical element in the Christian 
 
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336 
 
 religion, the traditional philosophy of the social order, and the 
 philosophical conception of a demonstrable absolute truth. These 
 three kinds of scepticism appear sometimes together reinforcing one 
 another, sometimes even in conflict with one another, sometimes 
 unrelated to one another. They appear in varying degrees, from 
 moderate caution to outspoken defiance of authority. But they have 
 all contributed something to modern thought. 
 
 The attack on historical Christianity was first stimulated 
 by the new contact with the Jews and the Mohammedans in the 
 thirteenth century. From that time on, especially in Italy, unbelief 
 constantly increased, and in the sixteenth century spread over 
 Europe. Deism was a reconstructive effort, intended to base 
 essential religion more solidly on reason instead of on revelation. 
 It had its period of success, when it served, no doubt, a useful 
 and valuable purpose, but in its turn it succumbed later to a more 
 thorough-going philosophical scepticism. Another extremely impor- 
 tant aspect of this religious dissent is the surprisingly strong 
 development of Arianism in northern Europe in the sixteenth century, 
 a development which was forcibly suppressed by the powerful 
 Protestant sects and has been somewhat obscured in history ever 
 since. We can only surmise what the intellectual history of Europe 
 would have been had there been real freedom of thought in Protestant 
 Europe in the sixteenth century. Finally, the sectarianism of the 
 Protestant movement, the exhaustion of fanaticism in religious and 
 semi-religious wars, led to a recognition of the necessity of 
 tolerance. But the new conception of tolerance owed something also, 
 as we have seen in the case of the liberal English churchmen of the 
 seventeenth century, to that weakening of confidence in the reason 
 
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327 
 
 which was one general result of Renaissance philosophical 
 scepticism. 
 
 Perhaps the Medieval ideal of a universal empire received 
 its final blow in the rise of national feeling at the time of the 
 Renaissance. That subject lies outside of this thesis. But the 
 ideal of an ethical and political order based on a universal and 
 rational Law of Nature was widely questioned in the Renaissance. It 
 was disregarded and contradicted in the real - politilc of Machiavelli. 
 It was directly attacked by the sceptical "libertines," who opposed 
 to its rationalism another "nature" of impulse and appetite. 
 
 Philosophical scepticism, that is, the doubt whether 
 reason can know the final truth, appeared in various forms through- 
 out the period we have studied. In the Middle Ages it took the form 
 of Nominalism in opposition to Realism. And, very significantly, 
 this Nominalistic school showed a ready tendency towards mysticism. 
 In the Renaissance, with the revival of Sextus Em.piricus and Greek 
 scepticism, the criticism of the methods of knowledge began anew on 
 a new basis and with the most far-reaching results on modern 
 thought. The general scepticism made the problem of knowledge the 
 foremost philosophical problem in the seventeenth century, from 
 Bacon and Descartes to Locke. But it had also a m.ore direct 
 influence on literature and popular thought, especially through 
 Montaigne. For Montaigne was the great master of the sceptical 
 naturalists of the Renaissance and seventeenth century, both in 
 France and England. At the same time there were those who in 
 spiritual insight went beyond him, but whose youthful experience as 
 his disciples nevertheless profoundly influenced their religious 
 life later. Of these were Pascal and, I believe, John Donne. Thus 
 

 
 
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328 
 
 we have again in the seventeenth century that approach of mysticism 
 and scepticism which we noted in the Middle Ages; it appears not 
 only in Donne, hut in a sense also in Sir Thomas Browne and 
 Glanvill. Glanvill and his fellows in the Royal Society were there- 
 fore continuing an earlier development when they met the full force 
 of the dogmatic materialism of the new science by a recourse to 
 philosophical scepticism. 
 
 Thus in the Renaissance was prepared for us that world of 
 tolerance and doubt which we regard as peculiarly modern. The 
 audacities of sixteenth century heresy have become the commonplaces 
 of our speech. We have made a platitude of Tennyson's summary of 
 the history of thought: 
 
 Our little systems have their day. 
 
 They have their day and cease to be. 
 
 We are not astonished at the paradox of a critic, who is by this 
 dualism of his own thought an especially sympathetic critic of the 
 seventeenth century, when he says that "insight and scepticism are 
 the two arms, the positive and negative aspects, so to speak, of 
 truth. Not only in its philosophy and religion, but in its 
 esthetics and poetry, this reaction against rationalism is one of 
 the fundamental characteristics of the modern mind. The rationalism 
 of Neo-classicism was intimately connected with that philosophical 
 and religious rationalism which continued from the Middle Ages into 
 the Renaissance and seventeenth century. "Rien n'est beau que le 
 vrai," wrote Boileau. 
 
 ^More, Paul Elmer, The Drift of Romanticism , Boston (1S13) . p. 272. 
 
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 ’’Aimez done la raison: que toujours vos ecrits 
 Empruntent d'elle seule et leur lustre et leur prix.” 
 
 We are so far removed from this conception of art that we cannot 
 even understand it justly, exactly as we consider Thomas Aquinas an 
 antiquated and unprofitable theologian and philosopher. In the late 
 Middle Ages it became customary to call the philosophy of Aquinas 
 the via anti qua and the more sceptical thought of Occam the via 
 mode rna . The terms are still applicable. As the modern way to 
 religion, according to Carlyle, lies through the "centre of indif- 
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 than the Nominalists understood, through doubt. Along that darkened 
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 330 
 
 It is manifestly impossible to give an exhaustive list of 
 either primary or secondary sources on this subject. This list is 
 rather a bibliography of bibliographies, being restricted to the 
 more valuable works which give a survey of the thought of the 
 Renaissance and seventeenth century, and to such other works as 
 have valuable bibliographical information. 
 
 Allbutt, Thomas Clifford, Science and Medieval Thought . London(1901) 
 Bibliography, pp. 10-13. 
 
 British Museum, Subject Index of Modern Works , 1881-1900, London 
 (1902). 3 vols. Continuations to 1915, 3 vols. 
 
 Burckhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. 
 trans. Middlemore, London (1909) . 
 
 Bury, J.B., A H istory of Freedom of Thought . New York (1913) . Brief 
 bibliography, p.253. 
 
 Cairns, John, Unbelief in the Eighteenth Century, Edinburgh (1881) . 
 Lecture II deals with "Unbelief in the Seventeenth 
 Century. " 
 
 Carriers, Moritz, Die nhilosonhische We Itanschauung der Re format ion - 
 zeit . 2nd ed., Leipzig (1887)^ 2 vols. The work of a 
 Hegelian; no bibliographical information. 
 
 Charbonnel, J. Roger, La Pensee Italienne au XVIe Siecle et le 
 
 C our ant Libertin , Paris (1919) . Extensive bibliography, 
 pp.O-UU. 
 
 Courthope, W.J., A History of English Poetry. London (1895-1910) . 
 
 Dilthey, Wilhelm, Weltanschauung und Analyse des Menschen Seit 
 
 Renaissance und Reformation . Leipzig (1914). Republica- 
 tion of valuable articles contributed to Archiv fur 
 Geschichte der Philosophie between 1890 and 1900. 
 
 De Rerausat, Charles, Histolre de la Philosouhie en Angleterre deouis 
 Bacon .iusqu*a Locke . 2nd ed., Paris (T87 5). 2 vols. The 
 most complete survey of English philosophy in the seven- 
 teenth century. 
 
 De Wulf , M. , Histoire de la Philosophie M^di^vale . 4th ed. , Paris 
 (1912) . Be*st guide to the period; extensive bibliogra- 
 phies throughout. 
 
^ TJl ^ . 
 
 a TH<?AH50I i€I3 
 
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331 
 
 Flint, Robert, Antl-Thelstic Theories. Edinburgh (1879) . 
 
 Farrar, Adam Storey, A Critical History of Free Thought in Reference 
 to the Christian Religion. New York (l866) . 
 
 Hunt, John, Religious Thought in England from the Reformation to the 
 End of Last Century. London (IS'To) . 
 
 Hallam, Henry, Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 
 
 Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries . 2nd ed. , 
 London (1843) . 3 vols. 
 
 Hurst, John F., History of Rationalism. N.Y.(1865). Deals only 
 
 slightly with Reformation period. Bibliography, pp.590- 
 600. 
 
 Klein, Arthur Jay, Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth Queen of 
 England, Boston (1917) . Very valuable and complete 
 ”Bibliographical Appendix,” pp. 193-211. 
 
 Lanson, Gustave, Manuel Bibliographioue de la Litte'rature Francaise 
 Mode me. 1500-1900. Pari s ( 1909 - 19 lIT. 
 
 Leland, J. , A_ View of the Principal Deistical Writers , London (1754) . 
 
 Lecky,W.E.H. , History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of 
 Rationalism in Europe. 3rd ed. , London (1866) . 2 vols. 
 
 Nourisson, Philosophies de la Nature, Paris (1887) . Studies of Bacon 
 and Boyle from the point of view of idealism. The intro- 
 duction of a hundred pages gives a survey of the history 
 of the philosophy of science. 
 
 Owen, John, The Skeptics of the French Renaissance . London (1893) . 
 
 The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance . 3rd el., London 
 
 (1908) . Scholarly, and valuable for references and 
 bibliography. 
 
 Perrens, F.T. , Les Libertins en France au XVIIe Sieole . Par is (1896). 
 
 In a new edition (1899) all the references were for some 
 reason omitted. 
 
 Picavet, Frai^ois, Esquisse d'une Histoire Gene rale et Comparee des 
 Phflosophtes Me^’dievales . Paris (1905) . 
 
 Essais sur l*Kistoire Gd^nb^rale et Comparee des Philosophie s 
 
 . M^di^vales, Paris (1913 )■. 
 
 Picavet emphasizes the Plotinian tradition in the 
 thought of the Middle Ages. 
 
 Pringle-Pattison, Andrew Seth, Articles and Bibliographies on 
 Scepticism and Scholasticism in the Encyclopedia 
 Britannica . 11th ed. 
 
333 
 
 Punjer, Bernhard, History of the Christian Philosophy of Religion 
 from the Reformation to Kant . trans. Hast ie , Edinburgh 
 (1887) . 
 
 Ramsay, Mary Paton, Les Doctrines Me^'die vales chez Donne . le Po^ete 
 Me^taphysiolen de 1* Angleterre . Oxf ord(l917) . A study of 
 the thought of Donne by a disciple of Picavet. 
 
 Renan, Ernest, Averroes et 1* Averrolsme, Paris(l852). 
 
 Robertson, J.M. , A Short History of Free-Thought , Ancient and Modern , 
 
 N.Y.(1906). 2nd ed. 2 vols. Valuable bibliographical manual 
 for original sources. 
 
 Sayous, Edouard, Les De"istes Anglais et le Christ ianisme orincipale - 
 ment depuis To land iusqu'h, Chubb , Paris ( 1882) . 
 
 Schaff, Philip, The Progress of Religious Freedom , N.Y.(1889). Deals 
 briefly with the Renaissance. 
 
 Sorley, W.R., A History of English Philosophy . Cambridge ( 1920) . 
 
 Bibliography, pp. 322-373. A republication of the chapters 
 and bibliographies on English philosophy in the Cambridge 
 History of English Literature . 
 
 Stephen, Sir Leslie, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth 
 Century . 3rd ed.,Hew York(1902) . 2 vols. 
 
 Strowski, Fortunat, Pascal et son Temps : vol.I, De. Montaigne ~a 
 
 Pascal , 4th ed. , Paris (1909) . A study of the "libertines," 
 Stoics, and other types of the time from a Catholic point 
 of view. 
 
 Tulloch, John, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England 
 in the Seventeenth Century . 2nd ed. , Edinburgh (1874) 2 vols. 
 
 /■ 
 
 Villey, Pierre, Les Sources et I'Evoluxion des Essais de Montaigne . 
 Paris (l908ir 2 vols . 
 
 L 'Influence de Montaigne sur Charles Blount et sur les 
 
 Delates Anglais , in Revue du Seiziem'e Siecle , vol.I (1913) . 
 
 Montaigne en Angleterre . in Re vue des Deux Monde s . 1913. 
 
 Wallace, R. , Anti-Trinitarian Biography . London ( 1850) . 3 vols. 
 
 White, A.D., A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in 
 Christendom . N.Y. (1896). 2 vols. 
 
 Windelband, W., A History of Philosophy , trans. Tufts, K.Y.(1895). 
 
 Very serviceable bibliographies throughout, with additions 
 by the translator. 
 
1 
 
 
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 - ft.-> 
 
VITA 
 
 Born, July 30, 1888, in Springfield, Minnesota. 
 
 Schools attended: 
 
 Luther College, 1903-7. 
 
 University of Minnesota, 1907-10. B. A., 1909; M. A., 1910. 
 Fellow in English, University of Chicago, 1913-14. 
 
 Summer Session, University of Chicago, 1915. 
 
 Summer Session, Columbia University, 1916. 
 
 University of Illinois, 1916-17. 
 
 University of Paris (France^, March-June, 1919. 
 
 University of Illinois, 1919-21. 
 
 Fellow in English, University of Illinois, 1920-21. 
 
 Teaching career: 
 
 Bristol (S.Dak.) high school, 1910-11. 
 
 New Ulm (Minn.) high school, 1911-12. 
 
 Fargo (N.Dak.) high school, 1912-13. 
 
 Instructor in English, Iowa Stats College, 1914-16. 
 
 Assistant in English, University of Illinois, 1916-17, 1919-2C 
 
 Publications: 
 
 Articles in The Dial. 1912-17. 
 
 Essays for College English (Heath), joint editor. 
 
,1