013 Eliz. Picture of God, Man and Nature in 16th C.edited

7/29/2019 013 Eliz. Picture of God, Man and Nature in 16th C.edited

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Dr. D. Donahue Hum 212

Fall 2013 August 30, 2013

THE ELIZABETHAN CONCEPTIONOFTHE PLACEOF GOD, MANAND NATUREINTHE

UNIVERSE

ORDER is the sign of Gods design. Here are three important types of order in the

Elizabethan world: cosmological order (the fixed places of the planets and the heavens),

natural order (Man has a special place to enable him to know God through his works),and political order (certain people, both religious and lay people, have been put in place

to guide manso man must obey).

NATURAL ORDER

GOD. God is the highest being in the universe. In Aristotles Scale of Being, the

arrangement in order of importance of all people and things in the universe, he is at the

top, being pure spirit, pure essence, having no physical parts to decay and weaken.

Beneath him are the Angels, almost pure spirit, beneath the angels are god-like man(made in the image of god), beneath man are the animals (able to grow and move

around), plants (able to grow but not move) and matter, having existence but no abilityto grow or move.

Aristotles chart (the Great Scale (steps) of Being):

ESSENCE EXISTENCE

__

I GOD (Is pure essence or soul, has no matter, cannot change)II ANGELS (Have no matter, but are not quite of the essence of God)I

I MAN (Has matter, but also soul, and reason, is neither angel nor beast)I (ni ange, ni bte)I

ANIMALS (Mainly matter, but nutritive and sensitive soul)II PLANTS (Mainly matter but nutritive soul for growth)II MATTER (rocks, etc.-- pure matter, no essence)I ________________________________________________________________

Mans position is considered the strongest, besides that of God and the angels. Man hasthe same type of spirituality as God and the angels, but mans position has not been fixed

eternally. He must win his way back to God. Through his good works man can make upfor the sin of Adam and Eve, which removed man from paradise, the garden of Eden.

Man has but to study the Bible, the word of God, and examine the works of God around

him on Earth to know the nature of God, who created this world and all its beings andobjects. Hamlet captures the Elizabethan conception of man:


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What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, howinfinite in faculties, in form and moving how express andadmirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how likea god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. . (Act II, Sc.2, 327-33)

Hamlet is actually being ironic here, as you will learn next week, but this is the way the

medieval and Renaissance world felt about wonderful man. The world had been created forhim.

COSMOLOGICAL ORDER

THE UNIVERSEEarth is in the center. The Sun is the fourth rock in from Earth.

THE ELEMENTS: Earth, air, fire and water. Everything created contains all four elements,but in different quantities. The four elements correspond with the four seasons and the fourages of man: youth, mature man, older and wiser man, and old man.

The universe also had been created according to Gods plan. And so the Earth was at itscenter. This is the Ptolemaic view. Earth has to be the most wonderful place, for it was to


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Earth that Christ came to make it possible for man to save himself

www.luminarium.org

by making up for Mans original sin. The universe was a series of concentric circles, Earthwas the center with the moon and the planets above it and all held in place by three ultimaterings: the moveable stars, the heavens, and the circle of the unmoved mover, theprimummobile, which is the abode of God and the blessed. If man will just study this, he will seehow much God loves him and how much has been done to provide man with the tools toearn his redemption.

A REVIEW: Overall Elizabethan view: NATURE is Gods deputy, ORDER isnatures sergeant. Man has a kinship with God, but man has betrayed this relationship manytimes. Man must find and obey true order, which exists in three earthly forms: Cosmological,Natural and Political.

Cosmological. God gave order to man.Nothing changes in the cosmos. It waspresent at the creation (see Genesis), and it still existed for the medieval and Elizabethanworlds. Everything has remained exactly the same as it was created by God: the orderpresent in the universe, the influence of the heavens on man, the correlation between thelarge world, the macro, and the inner world, the micro. All of these forms of order show
http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/medievalcosmology.htmhttp://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/medievalcosmology.htm


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Gods plan. The Earth is the center in this plan. Christ did not come to some secondaryplanet to save man; he came straight to the center, Earth. All things have been made forman. But man, through his capacity for sin, has corrupted the whole divine plan. Man needsconstant help. John Donnes Holy Sonnet No. 5 states this belief:

I am a little world made cunningly

Of elements and an angelic sprite (i.e. soul)But black sin has betrayed to endless night,My worlds both parts, and O, both parts must die.. . . . . . .. . . burn me, O Lord, with a fiery zealOf thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal.

Natural. The Scale of Being shows the order of things as they should beGod andthe Angels at the top, but man is close to the top. Man, made in the image of God, hassomething of the divine in him. Man is a ruler here; he has the animal, plant and materialthings to aid him. Man can know God by examining the Bible and the universe created byGod.

Political. The king is considered the ruler in the same way as God is the ruler of thecosmos and the head is the ruler of the body.

Therefore let the king recognize that such is the office which he undertakes, namely,that he is to be in the kingdom what the soul is in the body and what God is in theworld. De Regimine Principium, Bk. 1, Ch. 13. Cited by T. Spencer, Shakespeareand the Nature of Man, p. 17.

The king and the people are to create harmony in this world. Only man of the things createdby God has reason and a desire to have order, propriety, beauty, harmony. And so it ismans duty to have a sense of morality and to lead a balanced life. Man can discoveruniversal laws and live life in accordance with them. Gods deputies on Earth can help man

to achieve inner and outer peace. See Spencer, 3-5.

And it is no mean manifestation of Nature and Reason that manis the only animal that has a feeling for order, for propriety, for

moderation in word and deed. And so no other animal has a

sense of beauty, loveliness, harmony in the visible world; and

Nature and Reason, extending the analogy of this from theworld of sense to the world of spirit, find that beauty,

consistency, order are far more to be maintained in thought and

deed, and the same Nature and Reason are careful to donothing in an improper or unmanly fashion, and in every

thought and deed to do or think nothing capriciously. Cicero,

De Officiis, IV, 14.

These in a very general form are some important beliefs of people in the sixteenth century.Your job now is to discover if these three menMachiavelli, Montaigne, and Galileoareguilty of disturbing the orderly world into which they had been born. Read the materials thatfollow to determine the guilt or innocence of these three men.


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From Machiavelli, The Princehttp://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/prince/prince.html#CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CONCERNING THINGS FOR WHICH MEN, AND ESPECIALLY

PRINCES, ARE PRAISED OR BLAMED

IT REMAINS now to see what ought to be the rules of conduct for a prince towards

subject and friends. And as I know that many have written on this point, I expect I shall

be considered presumptuous in mentioning it again, especially as in discussing it I shall

depart from the methods of other people. But, it being my intention to write a thing whichshall be useful to him who apprehends it, it appears to me more appropriate to follow up

the real truth of a matter than the imagination of it; for many have pictured republics andprincipalities which in fact have never been known or seen, because how one lives is so

far distant from how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what ought

to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation; for a man who wishes to actentirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so

much that is evil.

Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and

to make use of it or not according to necessity. Therefore, putting on one side imaginary

things concerning a prince, and discussing those which are real, I say that all men whenthey are spoken of, and chiefly princes for being more highly placed, are remarkable for

some of those qualities which bring them either blame or praise; and thus it is that one isreputed liberal, another miserly, using a Tuscan term (because an avaricious person in our

language is still he who desires to possess by robbery, whilst we call one miserly who

deprives himself too much of the use of his own); one is reputed generous, one rapacious;

one cruel, one compassionate; one faithless, another faithful; one effeminate andcowardly, another bold and brave; one affable, another haughty; one lascivious, another

chaste; one sincere, another cunning; one hard, another easy; one grave, another

frivolous; one religious, another unbelieving, and the like. And I know that every one willconfess that it would be most praiseworthy in a prince to exhibit all the above qualities

that are considered good; but because they can neither be entirely possessed norobserved, for human conditions do not permit it, it is necessary for him to be sufficientlyprudent that he may know how to avoid the reproach of those vices which would lose him

his state; and also to keep himself, if it be possible, from those which would not lose him

it; but this not being possible, he may with less hesitation abandon himself to them. Andagain, he need not make himself uneasy at incurring a reproach for those vices without

which the state can only be saved with difficulty, for if everything is considered carefully,

it will be found that something which looks like virtue, if followed, would be his ruin;
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/prince/prince.html#CHAPTER%20XIVhttp://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/prince/prince.html#CHAPTER%20XIV


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whilst something else, which looks like vice, yet followed brings him security and

prosperity.

CHAPTER XVI

CONCERNING LIBERALITY AND MEANNESS

COMMENCING then with the first of the above-named characteristics, I say that it

would be well to be reputed liberal. Nevertheless, liberality exercised in a way that doesnot bring you the reputation for it, injures you; for if one exercises it honestly and as it

should be exercised, it may not become known, and you will not avoid the reproach of its

opposite. Therefore, any one wishing to maintain among men the name of liberal isobliged to avoid no attribute of magnificence; so that a prince thus inclined will consume

in such acts all his property, and will be compelled in the end, if he wish to maintain the

name of liberal, to unduly weigh down his people, and tax them, and do everything he

can to get money. This will soon make him odious to his subjects, and becoming poor hewill be little valued by any one; thus, with his liberality, having offended many and

rewarded few, he is affected by the very first trouble and imperiled by whatever may be

the first danger; recognizing this himself, and wishing to draw back from it, he runs atonce into the reproach of being miserly.

Therefore, a prince, not being able to exercise this virtue of liberality in such a way that it

is recognized, except to his cost, if he is wise he ought not to fear the reputation of being

mean, for in time he will come to be more considered than if liberal, seeing that with hiseconomy his revenues are enough, that he can defend himself against all attacks, and is

able to engage in enterprises without burdening his people; thus it comes to pass that he

exercises liberality towards all from whom he does not take, who are numberless, andmeanness towards those to whom he does not give, who are few. We have not seen great

things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean; the rest have

failed. Pope Julius the Second was assisted in reaching the papacy by a reputation forliberality, yet he did not strive afterwards to keep it up, when he made war on the King of

France; and he made many wars without imposing any extraordinary tax on his subjects,

for he supplied his additional expenses out of his long thriftiness. The present King of

Spain would not have undertaken or conquered in so many enterprises if he had beenreputed liberal. A prince, therefore, provided that he has not to rob his subjects, that he

can defend himself, that he does not become poor and abject, that he is not forced to

become rapacious, ought to hold of little account a reputation for being mean, for it is one

of those vices which will enable him to govern.

And if any one should say: Caesar obtained empire by liberality, and many others have

reached the highest positions by having been liberal, and by being considered so, I

answer: Either you are a prince in fact, or in a way to become one. In the first case thisliberality is dangerous, in the second it is very necessary to be considered liberal; and

Caesar was one of those who wished to become pre-eminent in Rome; but if he had

survived after becoming so, and had not moderated his expenses, he would have


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destroyed his government. And if any one should reply: Many have been princes, and

have done great things with armies, who have been considered very liberal, I reply: Either

a prince spends that which is his own or his subjects' or else that of others. In the firstcase he ought to be sparing, in the second he ought not to neglect any opportunity for

liberality. And to the price who goes forth with his army, supporting it by pillage, sack,

and extortion, handling that which belongs to others, this liberality is necessary,otherwise he would not be followed by soldiers. And of that which is neither yours nor

your subjects' you can be a ready giver, as were Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander; because it

does not take away your reputation if you squander that of others, but adds to it; it is onlysquandering your own that injures you. And there is nothing wastes so rapidly as

liberality, for even whilst you exercise it you lose the power to do so, and so become

either poor or despised, or else, in avoiding poverty, rapacious and hated. And a prince

should guard himself, above all things, against being despised and hated; and liberalityleads you to both. Therefore it is wiser to have a reputation for meanness which brings

reproach without hatred, than to be compelled through seeking a reputation for liberality

to incur a name for rapacity which begets reproach with hatred.

CHAPTER XVII

CONCERNING CRUELTY AND CLEMENCY, AND WHETHER IT IS

BETTER TO BE LOVED THAN FEARED

COMING now to the other qualities mentioned above, I say that every prince ought to

desire to be considered clement and not cruel. Nevertheless he ought to take care not to

misuse this clemency. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; notwithstanding, his crueltyreconciled the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. And if this be

rightly considered, he will be seen to have been much more merciful than the Florentinepeople, who, to avoid a reputation for cruelty, permitted Pistoia to be destroyed.

Therefore a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mindthe reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those

who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or

robberies; for these are wont to injure the whole people, whilst those executions whichoriginate with a prince offend the individual only.

And of all princes, it is impossible for the new prince to avoid the imputation of cruelty,

owing to new states being full of dangers. Hence Virgil, through the mouth of Dido,

excuses the inhumanity of her reign owing to its being new, saying:

Res dura, et regni novitas me talia cogunt

Moliri, et late fines custode tueri.*


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* ...against my will, my fate,

A throne unsettled, and an infant state,

Bid me defend my realms with all my pow'rs,

And guard with these severities my shores.

Nevertheless he ought to be slow to believe and to act, nor should he himself show fear,

but proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much

confidence may not make him incautious and too much distrust render him intolerable.Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than

loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to

unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, eithermust be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are

ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours

entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above,

when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And thatprince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined;

because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of

mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot berelied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is

feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of

men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread

of punishment which never fails.

Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he

avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which

will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects andfrom their women. But when it is necessary for him to proceed against the life of

someone, he must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause, but above all

things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quicklyforget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony. Besides, pretexts for

taking away the property are never wanting; for he who has once begun to live by

robbery will always find pretexts for seizing what belongs to others; but reasons for

taking life, on the contrary, are more difficult to find and sooner lapse. But when a princeis with his army, and has under control a multitude of soldiers, then it is quite necessary

for him to disregard the reputation of cruelty, for without it he would never hold his army

united or disposed to its duties.

Among the wonderful deeds of Hannibal this one is enumerated: that having led anenormous army, composed of many various races of men, to fight in foreign lands, no

dissensions arose either among them or against the prince, whether in his bad or in his


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good fortune. This arose from nothing else than his inhuman cruelty, which, with his

boundless valour, made him revered and terrible in the sight of his soldiers, but without

that cruelty, his other virtues were not sufficient to produce this effect. And shortsightedwriters admire his deeds from one point of view and from another condemn the principal

cause of them. That it is true his other virtues would not have been sufficient for him may

be proved by the case of Scipio, that most excellent man, not of his own times but withinthe memory of man, against whom, nevertheless, his army rebelled in Spain; this arose

from nothing but his too great forbearance, which gave his soldiers more license than is

consistent with military discipline. For this he was upbraided in the Senate by FabiusMaximus, and called the corrupter of the Roman soldiery. The Locrians were laid waste

by a legate of Scipio, yet they were not avenged by him, nor was the insolence of the

legate punished, owing entirely to his easy nature. Insomuch that someone in the Senate,

wishing to excuse him, said there were many men who knew much better how not to errthan to correct the errors of others. This disposition, if he had been continued in the

command, would have destroyed in time the fame and glory of Scipio; but, he being

under the control of the Senate, this injurious characteristic not only concealed itself, but

contributed to his glory.

Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I come to the conclusion that, men

loving according to their own will and fearing according to that of the prince, a wise

prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that ofothers; he must endeavour only to avoid hatred, as is noted.

Montaigne, An Apology for Raymond Sebond.

Presumption is our natural and original disease. The most wretched and frail of all

creatures is man, and withal the proudest. He feels and sees himself lodged here in thedirt and filth of the world, nailed and riveted to the worst and deadest part of the universe,in the lowest story of the house, and most remote from the heavenly arch, with animals of

the worst condition of the three, and yet in his imagination will be placing himself above

the circle of the moon, and bringing heaven under his feet. Tis by the vanity of the sameimagination that he equals himself to God, attributes to himself divine qualities,

withdraws and separates himself from the crowd of other creatures, cuts out the shares of

animals his fellows and companions, and distributes to them portions of faculties andforce as himself thinks fit. How does he know, by the strength of his understanding, the

secret and internal motions of animals? and from what comparison betwixt them and us

does he conclude the stupidity he attributes to them? When I play with my cat, who

knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me? we mutually divert oneanother with our monkey tricks: if I have my hour to begin or to refuse, she also has hers.

Plato, in his picture of the Golden Age under Saturn, reckons, amongst the chief

advantages that a man then had, his communication with beasts, of whom inquiring andinforming himself he knew the true qualities and differences of them all, by which he

acquired a very perfect intelligence and prudence, and led his life far more happily than

we could do: need we a better proof to condemn human impudence in the concern ofbeasts? This great author was of opinion that nature, for the most part, in the corporal


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form she gave them had only regard to the use of prognostics that were in his time thence

derived. The defect that hinders communication betwixt them and us, why may it not be

on our part as well as theirs? Tis yet to determine where the fault lies that we understandnot one another; for we understand them no more than they do us; by the same reason

they may think us to be beasts as we think them. Tis no great wonder if we understand

not them when we do not understand a Basque or the Troglodytes; and yet some haveboasted that they understood these, as Apollonius Tyaneus, Melampus, Tiresias, Thales,

and others. And seeing that, as cosmographers report, there are nations that receive a dog

for their king, they must of necessity be able to give some interpretation of his voice andmotions. We must observe the parity betwixt us: we have some tolerable apprehension of

their sense: and so have beasts of ours, and much in the same proportion. They caress us,

they threaten us, and they beg of us, and we do the same to them. As to the rest, we

manifestly discover that they have a full and absolute communication amongstthemselves, and that they perfectly understand one another, not only those of the same,

but of divers kinds:

The tame herds, and the wilder sorts of brutes, utter dissimilar and various sounds, asfear, or pain, or pleasure influences them.

By one kind of barking the horse knows a dog is angry; of another sort of a bark he is not

afraid. Even in the very beasts that have no voice at all, we easily conclude, from the

social offices we observe amongst them, some other sort of communication; their very

motions converse and consult:

From no far different reason the want of language in children seems to induce them to

have recourse to gestures.

And why not, as well as our mutes, dispute, contest, and tell stories by signs? of whom I

have seen some, by practice, so supple and active in that way that, in earnest, they wantednothing of the perfection of making themselves understood. Lovers are angry, reconciled,

intreat, thank, appoint, and, in short, speak all things by their eyes:

Even silence in a lover can express entreaty.

What of the hands? We require, promise, call, dismiss, threaten, pray, supplicate, deny,

refuse, interrogate, admire, number, confess, repent, fear, confound, blush, doubt,

instruct, command, incite, encourage, swear, testify, accuse, condemn, absolve, abuse,

despise, defy, despite, flatter, applaud, bless, humiliate, mock, reconcile, recommend,exalt, entertain, congratulate, complain, grieve, despair, wonder, exclaim, and what not,

with a variation and multiplication to the emulation of speech. With the head we invite,

demur, confess, deny, give the lie, welcome, honor, reverence, disdain, demand, turn out,rejoice, lament, reject, caress, rebuke, submit, huff, encourage, threaten, assure, inquire.

What of the eyebrows? What of the shoulders? There is not a motion that does not speak,

and in an intelligible language without discipline, and a public language that every oneunderstands: whence it should follow, the variety and use distinguished from those of


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others, that this should rather be judged the special property of human nature. I omit what

particular necessity on the sudden suggests to those who are in need; the alphabets upon

the fingers, grammars in gesture, and the sciences which are only by them exercised andexpressed, and the nations that Pliny reports to have no other language. An ambassador of

the city of Abdera, after a long harangue to Agis, king of Sparta, demanded of him,

Well, sir, what answer must I return to my fellow-citizens? That I have given theeleave, said he, to say what thou wouldst, and as much as thou wouldst, without ever

speaking a word. Is not this a silent speaking, and very easy to be understood?

As to the rest, what is there in our intelligence that we do not see in the operations of

animals? Is there a polity better ordered, the offices better distributed, and moreinviolably observed and maintained, than that of bees? Can we imagine that such and so

regular a distribution of employments can be carried on without reason and prudence?

Judging from these signs and following these cases, they have said that bees possess a

tincture of the divine mind and ethereal breath.

The swallows that we see at the return of the spring, searching all the corners of our

houses for the most commodious places wherein to build their nests, do they seek without

judgment, and, amongst a thousand, choose out the most proper for their purpose, without

discretion? In that elegant and admirable contexture of their buildings, can birds rathermake choice of a square figure than a round, of an obtuse than of a right angle, without

knowing their properties and effects? Do they bring water and then clay without knowing

that the hardness of the latter grows softer by being wet? Do they mat their palace withmoss or down, without foreseeing that their tender young will lie more safe and easy? Do

they secure themselves from the rainy winds, and place their lodgings towards the east,

without knowing the different qualities of those winds, and considering that one is more

wholesome than the other? Why does the spider make her web tighter in one place andslacker in another? Why now make one sort of knot and then another, if she has not

deliberation, thought, and conclusion? We sufficiently discover in most of their works

how much animals excel us, and how weak our art is to imitate them. We see,nevertheless, in our ruder performances that we there employ all our faculties and apply

the utmost power of our souls; why do we not conclude the same of them? Why should

we attribute to I know not what natural and servile inclination the works that surpass allwe can do by nature and art? Wherein, before we are aware, we give them a mighty

advantage over us, in making nature, with a maternal sweetness, to accompany and lead

them, as it were, by the hand, to all the actions and commodities of their life, whilst sheleaves us to chance and fortune, and to seek out, by art, the things that are necessary to

our conservation; at the same time denying us the means of being able, by any instructionor contention of understanding, to arrive at the natural sufficiency of beasts; so that their

brutish stupidity surpasses in all conveniences all that our divine intelligence can do.Really, at this rate, we might with great reason call her an unjust stepmother: but it is

nothing so: our polity is not so irregular and deformed.

Nature has been universally kind to all her creatures, and there is not one she has notamply furnished with all means necessary for the conservation of its being; for the


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common complaints that I hear men make (as the license of their opinions one while lifts

them up to the clouds, and then again depresses them to the Antipodes), that we are the

only animal abandoned, naked upon the bare earth, tied and bound, not havingwherewithal to arm and clothe us, but by the spoil of others; whereas nature has covered

all other creatures with shells, husks, bark, hair, wool, prickles, leather, down, feathers,

scales, silk, according to the necessities of their being; has armed them with talons, teeth,horns, wherewith to assault and defend, and has herself taught them that which is most

proper for them, to swim, to run, to fly, and to sing, whereas man neither knows how to

walk, speak, eat, or do anything but weep, without teaching:

Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two chief World Systems. Classics of WesternThought, Vol. 3, The Modern World. 4th edition. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich,

1988. 1-9. This is your textbook, Read as much of this first selection as you have time.

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013 Eliz. Picture of God, Man and Nature in 16th C.edited