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'The History Of The World': Reason In Historiography Of Sir Walter Raleigh
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'The History Of The World': Reason In Historiography Of Sir Walter Raleigh
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I This dissertation has been
I microfilmed exactly as received 6 8 -1 2 ,0 4 2
Î KABAT, Lillian Trena Gonan, 1927-
I THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD; REASON IN
I HISTORIOGRAPHY OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
I
Î ; U niversity of Southern California, Ph.D ., 1968
I Language and Literature, modern
I
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
Copyright (c) by
LILLIAN TRENA GONAN KABAT
1968
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THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD
REASON IN THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
by
Lillian Trena Gonan Kabat
A D issertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In P artial Fulfillm ent of the
Requirements for the Degree
D'OCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(English)
January 1968
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UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CA LIFORN IA
TH E G R A D U A TE S C H O O L
U N IV E R SIT Y PA R K
L O S A N G E L E S, C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, •written by
................ IJ,U ian..TxÊiîa..G Q m G .iia‘ hat.
under the direction of h&j:.... Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by the Graduate
School, in partial fulfillment of requirements
for the degree of
D O C T O R OF P H I L O S O P H Y
Date Jan.ua.r.y:,...1.9.6.8....
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
.......
Chairmû
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Table of Contents |
I
Chapter Page
I. Introduction.............................................................................................. I i
II. Ernest Strathmann's Opinion of the Influence of i
Ancient Skepticism on Raleigh's Mode of Reasoning . . 3 !
III. Ancient Skepticism 11 |
The Nature of Pyrrhonic and Academic
Skepticism ................................................................................ 11
The Extent of the Popularity of Skepticism in
the R en a issa n ce ................................................................................ 16
The Meaning of S k ep ticism .......................................................... 19
IV. Rationalistic Developments in History Writing in the
Renaissance ............................................................................................. 24
V. Conjecture and Rationality in The History of the
W o rld .................................................... 43
The Value for Truth and Conjecture in Seventeenth
Century H is to r ie s ..................................................... 43
Bacon's Theory of History . ................................................. 46
The Advancement of L e a r n in g ................................................. 57
Bacon's system of reasoning, and the resulting
confidence in the possibility of establishing
certainty ....................................................................... 57
Reflection of Bacon's attitudes in Raleigh .... 66
Probability in Bacon's w r itin g s........................................ 75
1 1
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Chapter Page
The Revival of C lassical H isto rio g ra p h y ...................... 78
Probability in Biblical C om m entaries............................... 104 ,
Further Evidence of the Quality of the Rationality
of Raleigh's T hought....................................... 117;
A llegory............................................................................................ 117 |
M a g ic ................................................................................................. 124 i
M iracle .............................................................. 132
M yth ....................................................................................... 136
VI. Raleigh's Method of R ea so n in g ..................................................... 151
Parallel Method in W illet's Hexapla in Gene sin . . 151
Difference from the Skeptical M ethod............................... 156
The Skeptical Content of Raleigh's Attack on
A ristotle in the Preface to The History of the
W orld................................................ . 162
History of the dispute surrounding A ristotle's
position on the eternity of form and matter , . 162
Raleigh's attack ................................................................... 165
A reading of Raleigh's attack .................. 168
B ib lio g ra p h y .................................................................................................................. 173
111
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R aleigh's C ell in the Tower
Here w rit was the World's History by his hand
Whose steps knew all the earth; albeit his world
In these few piteous paces then was furl'd.
Here,daily, hourly, have his proud feet spann'd
This sm aller speck than the receding land
Had ever shown his ships ; what tim e he hurl'd
Abroad o'er new-found regions spiced and pearl'd
His country's high dominion and command.
Here dwelt two spheres. The vast terrestrial zone
His spirit traversed; and that spirit was
Itself the zone celestial, round whose birth
The planets played within the zodiac's girth;
T ill hence, through unjust death unfeared, did pass
His spirit to the only land unknown.
1881 Dante Gabriel R ossetti
IV
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The first edition of The History of the World is dated Î 614. The
work was an intellectual occupation for Raleigh after his imprisonment
in the Tower in 1603. He had access to the library of Sir Robert
j
Cotton, and was free to converse with his friends, whose services he |
enlisted in the composition of the H istory. After his trial ("dogs do
2 I
always bark at those they know not") the tide of public opinion turned ;
3
in his favor. Throughout the seventeenth century the History was
admired and respected. But during the eighteenth century it lost
ground as its science became outmoded. There w ere eleven separate :
editions in the seventeenth century, but only one in the eighteenth, in !
4
1736, and two in the nineteenth, in 1820 and 1829. The biographical
^Louise Creighton, "Sir Walter Ralegh," Cambridge History of
English Literature, ed. A, W. Ward and A. Rl Waller (Cambridge,
England, 1909), IV, 59-60.
^Sir Walter Ralegh, Works (New York, 1964), II, ii. All
references w ill be to this edition by volume and page. This is a
reprint of the 1829 edition.
3
Ernest A. Strathmann, Sir Walter Ralegh: A Study in E liza
bethan Skepticism (New York] 1951), pp 58- 59.
^T. N. Brushfield, A Bibliography of Sir Walter Ralegh, Knt.
(Exeter, 1908), pp. 88- lOÙ.
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2
in terest in Raleigh, by contrast, is still very strong. Brushfield r e
corded forty-one principal biographies up to 1904 (Bibliography, pp.
3-14); the Biography Index records ten full-length biographies since
II9 4 6 . But the H istory, on which "the best w its of England w ere em -
iployed,"^ is no longer read except by those who have some special
interest. To us the sections on B iblical history, where the argumen
tation is heavy, may seem tedious; questions of interpretation w ere as
old as the church and the body of opinion had grown very large. Yet
I R aleigh's treatm ent is vigorous: he offered some new answers in the
light of a fresh examination and an historiography restored by the
c la ssic s and invigorated by the elevation of reason and the advance
ment of learning in his own tim e. It is easy to see why the History
should have been popular in the seventeenth century when the questions
w ere still important. The H istory is still interesting for its strong
reflection of the live intellectual currents in the R enaissance and the
enlightenment it affords about Raleigh him self and his relation to his
age.
5
W illiam Drummond recorded this rem ark of Ben Jons on. Their
conversations w ere marked by witty extravagance. See "Ben Jonson's
Conversations with Wm. Drummond of Hawthornden, " in Works, eds.
C. H. Herford and P ercy Simpson (Oxford, 1954), I, 138. A lso see
John Racin, J r ., "An A nalysis of Sir Walter Ralegh's The H istory of
the World," unpub. d iss. (Ohio State Univ. , 1961), pp. 12-20, for a
d iscu ssion of the possible ways Raleigh may have been a ssisted in the
com position of the H istory by Ben Jons on, Thomas Harriot, John
Hoskyns, and the scholarly Hebraist, the Rev. Robert Burhill. Mr.
Racin does not take seriously Jonson's rem ark, recorded by
Drummond, that he had contributed a section on the Punic War, though
Johson may have helped in other w ays. M r. Racin also covers the
story of the vagaries of popularity of the H istory in detail, pp. 21-33.
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CH APTER II
ERNEST STRATHMANN'S OPINION OF THE
INFLUENCE OF ANCIENT SKEPTICISM
ON RALEIGH'S MODE OF REASONING
Ernest A. Strathmann's book. Sir Walter Ralegh: A Study in
Elizabethan Skepticism , would be an important full-length interpre
tation of Raleigh's thought even if it did not happen to be the only one.
Strathmann attacked the difficult problem of clarifying R aleigh's
reputation as an atheist by defining atheism as the Elizabethans under
stood that term . His "essay in definition" showed, by bringing to
light information in many m anuscript sources, that the term was
levelled frequently to attack a multitude of sins in the struggle between
the Anglicans and the Catholic Church and in the many political rival
ries of the tim e. Since the targets w ere numerous, the attitudes
which the term im plied w ere also rather common. This very inter
esting discovery perm itted the charge of R aleigh's atheism to fade
readily into the background.
In Chapter VII of his book Strathmann presents R aleigh's opinions
on the nature of knowledge. He w rites that Raleigh was not skeptical,
in the popular sense of tending to rebel against the established ways,
in religious m atters or social custom (p. 2 1 9 ).
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N everth eless . . . we find in R alegh's utterances and w ritings sup- i
port for his m odest reputation in the seventeenth century as a philo
sophic skeptic, (pp. 219-220) I
Though he w as not system atically or consistently skeptical, there is a ;
I
recognizable connection between his reasoning and both the Pyrrhonic I
!
and Academ ic form s of ancient skepticism (p. 220). The Pyrrhonic
method of opposing argum ents to each other "left a durable im press
upon Ralegh's thought" (p. 223). The influence of Pyrrhonic skepti- |
cism is evident also in "notable p assages in the H istory which exalt ;
experience over reason" (p. 230). Strathmann gives only one example
of th is. It is one of three ideas in a "key" passage in the Preface
which he quotes in full (pp. 230-231). Later he calls this idea "the
occasional defeats of reason by experience" (p. 232), and still later
as the only exam ple of "thoroughgoing Pyrrhonism " in the H istory
(p. 2 73). He also thought that this "disparagement of reason and
learning" had only "the appearance of true skepticism " (p. 242).
In Strathmann's opinion, though the evidence of Pyrrhonic skepti
cism is apparent, "the evidence of the H istory is overwhelm ingly on
the side of a method which argues from reason and probability"
(p. 230); hence, Raleigh "inclines toward the skepticism of the
Academy rather than that of Pyrrho" (p. 230). A cadem ic skepticism
is "the form al system which his own loose methodology m ost clo sely
approximates" (p. 220), but usually R aleigh's skepticism "assum es
le s s technical form s, " as in his distru st of the authority of A ristotle
or the schoolm en and "his consideration of the problem of h istorical
method" (p. 220); or, as Strathmann says again later, Raleigh shows
his inclination toward Academ ic rather than Pyrrhonic skepticism in
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5
"his most definite statement of method" (p. 230). Strathmann charac
terizes Raleigh's historical method by its freedom to conjecture about
secondary causes even where there was uncertainty (pp.. 244-247), but
Strathmann finds the skepticism not in Raleigh's tolerance of specula
tion ("an attitude so tolerant of speculation hardly qualifies as I
'skeptical'"), but in the many "asides" in the History where Raleigh |
declines to conjecture because of the uncertainty of the question |
■ ' I
(pp. 247-248). Strathmann adds that Raleigh's method shows inde- |
pendence from the authority of previous historians, but not the "wrong
headed independence" of excessive originality (pp. 248-249), and that |
his practice was som etim es credulous in spite of his skeptical theory ;
I
(p. 220, pp. 249-253). ;
Strathmann considers at length an important passage in the P re
face in which Raleigh attacks the domination of the principles. This
passage is "a bridge between Ralegh's brief exercise in formal skepti
cism [his translation of The Skeptic] and his less systematic chal
lenges of intellectual authority" (p. 230). Here Raleigh gives his
argumentative method:
Where natural reason hath built anything so strong against itself as
the same reason can hardly assail it, much le ss batter it down, the
same in every question of nature and finite power may be approved
for a fundamental law of human knowledge.
The key passage as a whole is "the best single explanation of Ralegh's
philosophy" (p. 230), a "concise statement of his skeptical position"
(p. 243), and his "boldest statement of the skeptical position" (p. 272).
Yet
even though it has a counterpart in Pyrrhonic arguments, [it] differs
in language and objectives from that negative system . At this point.
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as commonly in the H istory, Ralegh appeals to reason, which the true
Skeptic d istru sts. As for objectives, he clearly b elieves in the p os
sib ility of extending the bounds of knowledge. . . . But apart from
scien ce, R alegh’s point of view inclines to the A cadem ic skeptical
position, which sees as possible at least a relative truth, (p. 235)
I feel it becom es apparent at this point that, in setting up a con-
(
nection and influence between ancient skepticism in its two form s and i
R aleigh's thought, Strathmann d iscovers too much difficulty in stating i
I
p recisely how that influence is to be seen. I expect to show that |
R aleigh's argumentation was according to m odes of thinking that w ere |
I
much m ore dispersed in his day than the skeptical mode. |
Strathmann tells us at the conclusion of his book that it is im por- !
I
tant to rem em ber that Raleigh was not a skeptic in religion, that if he :
used skeptical arguments in religious d iscu ssion s, it was to defend
faith (p. 272), "but in the realm of second causes Ralegh is indeed a
'free' thinker" (p. 272). (Strathmann here is consciously and w ittily
echoing his disagreem ent with som e twentieth century sch o la rs--lik e
M. C. Bradbrook, The School of Night (1936)--for attempting "to r e
establish Ralegh as the freethinker of his Elizabethan reputation, even :
to present him as m arkedly in advance of his tim e.") The realm of
second causes has to do with the private and obscure vanities of men
which affect the course of h istory. Raleigh knew that c la ssic a l h isto
rians had freely conjectured about such things; he quotes Sidney's idea
that this was one of the debts of history to poetry in his d igression on
"the liberty of using conjecture in histories" (IV, 612-617). I expect
to show that Raleigh was encouraged both by c la ssic a l historiography
and by Bacon's theory of history to conjecture about the hidden
m otives of men; in this case, again, R aleigh's method can be
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"i
!
explained very well by conventions of his tim e. j
I
I w ill be disputing one of Strathmann's concluding remarks:
It is possible to trace his ideas, both directly and indirectly, to the
skeptics of Greece and Rome, and to distinguish in them a partiality |
for the Academics, who were willing to reason from probabilities, |
rather than for the uncompromising position of the Pyrrhonists. . . .i
It would be an exaggeration to trace his respect for reason and his |
acceptance of probability directly to the formal philosophy of the |
Academy; the connection is interesting largely because it places his
thought in historical perspective; (pp. 272-273) |
1
and attempting to substitute alternative sources for Raleigh's mode of |
argumentation that can be defended more firmly, more clearly, and
more consistently. Strathmann speaks of the "religious orthodoxy" of
the History (p. 255); I have found that Raleigh's mode of arguing from |
i
probability was conventional, too, in that it is found frequently in the |
best and most influential classical histories, like those of Thucydides, |
Polybius, and Livy, whom Raleigh respected and emulated; very fre- I
I
quently in Bacon's history and science, both of which Raleigh studied
and admired, and in seventeenth century histories generally; and with !
astonishing frequency in the biblical commentaries of his day, which
were the sources on which Raleigh based all of the portions of the
History dealing with biblical tim es. I cannot agree that skepticism in
the History is to be found in the many "asides" where Raleigh declines
to conjecture. Strathmann says these are in the Pyrrhonic vein of the
Preface, but one finds the practice of relinquishing questions not
susceptible to solution in the famous classical histories and in seven
teenth century history and science; Raleigh w rites that he had prece
dent even in St. Augustine for this (III, 37).
Beyond this, I want to describe the quality of Raleigh's thinking
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8
that made him a modern man of his day, a man of the new reason so
w ell defined by Bacon for generations after his tim e. This is evident
in Raleigh's freedom from medieval limitations on learning, his em
phasis on experience and observation, his confidence in the possibility
of discovery, the opinions he held on the subjects of allegory, m agic,
m iracle, and myth, and in his susceptibility to the influence of the new
school of history in Italy, led by M achiavelli and Guicciardini.
One can establish immediately a distance between Raleigh and
ancient skepticism by showing that there is reason to doubt that the
partial translation of Sextus Empiricus entitled Sir Walter Raleigh's
Skeptic; or, Speculations was written by Raleigh at all. This work was|
first published posthumously in 1651 in a little volume, bound together j
1
with a few other short works by Raleigh. Two manuscripts of the I
essay exist, one in the Lansdowne collection in the British Museum,
the other, discovered by Richard H. Popkin, in the library of Trinity I
College Dublin. The second of these is anonymous. Both manu- |
scripts are very close to Raleigh's text in content, but differ from
each other and from the printed text in numerous minor ways. On the i
basis of a reference by Thomas Nashe in 1591 to a late translation of
Sextus, scholars speak of the "lost" translation of 1590 (Strathmann,
pp. 226-227). Perhaps other translations existed. There is no way
of knowing, at this tim e, whether Raleigh's essay is an original trans-l
lation from the Latin, or a copy of a translation. "It is certain that
^ "A Manuscript of Ralegh's 'The Scepticke', " Philological
Quarterly, 36:253-259, April 1957.
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his name appears on the title pages of some works that w ere known to i
2
have been written by others." This practice was followed for the
purpose of promoting sales. Popkin w rites that he and P ierre Lefranc]
a French scholar who has done work on a detailed biography of 1
Raleigh,
share a suspicion that Raleigh is not responsible for The Skepti eke. I
The work itself is just a series of passages from Sextus Em piricus, i
and there is no particular reason for suspecting that Raleigh trans- i
lated them. Lefranc . . . found that The Skepticke was originally i
included in the works of Raleigh because a manuscript of it was !
found among his papers after his death.^
Strathmann w rites that a fresh review of the Raleigh canon is badly |
needed (p. 12, n. 13). |
It seem s to me there are stylistic grounds for saying this work is
not Raleigh's. It lacks altogether the complex sentence structure
characteristic of his style, though it might w ell be argued that the
stylistic differences are due to the facts that it is a translation and is !
incom plete. One notices too that the essay avoids all the subtler and
m ore extended arguments. It seem s to be directed to the popular
imagination, for it consists alm ost entirely of the intriguing and
astonishing bits of information that Sextus used to support his case,
like the famous example of the dog who reasoned in a syllogism , and
others:
That very object which seem eth unto us White, unto them which have
the Jaundise, seem eth Pale, and Red unto those whose Eyes are
blood-shot. . . .
2
Brushfield, Bibliography,- Preface.-
^In a letter to m e dated March 19, 1963.
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10 |
I
There was an old woman about Arbeus, which drunk three drams of |
Cicuta . . . without hurt. . . . i
Demophon, which was Gentleman-Sewer to Alexander, was very cold
when he stood in the sun, or in a hot bath; and very hot when he stood ;
in the shadow. . . .
Lothericus a Chyrurgian, at the sm ell of a Sturgeon, would be for
the tim e mad. . . .
The work does not seem typical of Raleigh. The matter is of some
importance because The Skeptic, short as it is, has had a strong in
fluence in maintaining Raleigh's reputation as a skeptic, and in leading!
4 I
scholars like Ernest Strathmann (pp. 219-230), George T. Buckley |
and H erschel Baker ^ to seek for a skeptical influence on his thought I
and reason, Strathmann hirnself pointed out that the essay is isolated: !
* There is no comment, such as enlivens som e of the borrowed pas- ;
sages in the H istory; m ost significantly, there is no relationship
whatever between this exercise . . . and Ralegh's discourses on
religion, (p. 229)
!
But Strathmann does not doubt Raleigh's authorship of the essay.
There is sufficient reason for pause, I believe, before this frag
mentary translation is again made an unquestioned basis for assum p
tions about Raleigh's skepticism .
4
Rationalism in Sixteenth Century England (Chicago, 1933), pp.
146-149:
^The Wars of Truth (Cambridge, M a ss., 1952), pp. 151-152.
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CHAPTER III
ANCIENT SKEPTICISM
The Nature of Pyrrhonic and Academic Skepticism
1 want to discuss briefly the two ancient form s of skepticism in
order to understand p recisely what they claim ed. With this back
ground it w ill be easier to determine whether or not one may aptly
discover a sim ilarity to one or the other in Raleigh's thinking.
Pyrrhonic skepticism originated with Pyrrho of E lis, ca. 360-
275 B. C.^ Pyrrho's teachings were recorded by his follow ers, but
only one full text has survived: the Hypotyposes or Outlines of
Pyrrhonism of Sextus Em piricus (fl. 200 A. D.), a physician whose
writings w ere originally lectures which he delivered against the dog-
2
m atism of other m edical groups. His work consists of three books,
the first of which presents modes of argument, or Tropes, which
defend the Pyrrhonic position that no assertion can be made about the
absolute nature of things and that the way of wisdom is to suspend the
^My survey is based on B. A. G. Fuller, A History of Philosophy,
3rd ed. (New York, 1955), pp. 272-278; Richard H. Popkin, The H is
tory of Scepticism from Erasm us to D escartes (Assen, 1 960)1 pp. ix-
xi; Mary M ills Patrick, The Greek Sceptics (New York, 1929), pp.
153-162; and M iss P atrick's short volume, Sextus Em piricus and
Greek Scepticism (Cambridge, England, 1899).
2
Patrick, The Greek Sceptics, pp. xiii-x x i, and Popkin; p. xi.
11
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12
judgment. These Tropes are arranged in groups of ten, eight, five,
and two. The Ten Tropes of Book I are the m ost important summation
of ancient skepticism . Sir Walter Ralegh's Skeptic; or. Speculations
is a translation, with minor changes, of the first three and part of the
3
seventh tropes in the group of ten.
The position of the Pyrrhonic Skeptic was that nothing could be
known absolutely about phenomena or about intellectual ideas. P he
nomena could not be known absolutely because their appearance was
continually subject to innumerable factors of change, such as environ-
4
ment, position, or m aterial com position. The only statem ents that
could be made about them w ere from subjective im pressions of their
appearance under particular conditions. These individual subjective
im pressions of experiences of the phenomena could not be doubted,
though they told nothing about the absolute nature of phenomena; they
provided the basis on which the Skeptics could come to a working
1
5 ‘ , , !
arrangement with society. Intellectual ideas w ere as subject to doubt;
as phenomena because "the form in which they are expressed depends !
on the mind of the reader" {Sketches, p. 143). To those philosophers
who were interested in locating that part of man where ideas and
reasoning originated, the Skeptics said that such a faculty was not
3
Raleigh's changes, if he is the author, are noted by Strathmann, I
p. 224, n. 12. I
^The factors of change are treated in turn by Sextus Empiricus in
the first Nine Tropes of Book I of the Outlines of Pyrrhonism .
I
5
Sextus Em piricus, Pyrrhonic Sketches, Book I, trans. Mary I
M ills Patrick in Sextus Em piricus and Greek Scepticism , chaps, x-xi,
pp. 108-109. R eferences w ill be to this translation.
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131
!
trustworthy |
chiefly because its guides, the sen ses, make m istakes, and perhaps
it itself adds a certain special m ixture to those m essages communi
cated by the sen ses ; for in each place where the Dogm atics think that
the ruling faculty is situated, we see that certain humors are p re
sent. . . . (Sketches, p. 133)
The method of argument by which the Skeptics arrived at their ideal of
suspension of judgment was "to oppose every argument with another of
equal weight" (Sketches, p. 106, p. 111). They did not argue out of
belief in the opposing point of view, but only for the sake of establish
ing doubt. Every argument could be set in question in this way. Even
the Form ulae, or epigram m atic statem ents of Skeptic thought, "I
determ ine Nothing," "No m ore," "Perhaps," were subject to the com - |
prehensive doubt of the Skeptic (Sketches, pp. 106-107). , I
■ ~ j
The result of this manner of argument was to establish such a
condition of doubt, in consequence of the perfect equality of argument,
that the judgment was suspended. It was then that there followed, un
sought, a conditions of happiness and m oral perfection called "ataraxia"!
which represented the aim of Pyrrhonic teaching (Sketches, pp. 110-
111). Ataraxia was "repose and tranquillity of soul" (Sketches, p.
105). It was a state of equilibrium in which assent was given no m ore
to one thing than another. It was freedom from the struggles involved :
in a sense of good and evil. Pyrrhonism expressed the human d esire !
I
"to rise above and beyond the lim itations which pain and passion im
pose" (Patrick, Sextus E m piricus, p. 27).
In order to function in society the Skeptic accepted phenomena as |
if they w ere true, and he submitted to the observances of law and
custom. On the practical level, for exam ple, the Skeptic acted on the i
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14
assumption that piety was a goodj but on the philosophical level he
made no assertions about it whatever (Sketches, p. 109). His aim in j
practical life was moderation in all things and a dispassionate con
formity with the laws of his society. Sextus Empiricus described the
Pyrrhonean system as one which, following a certain line of reason^
ing,
shows how it is possible to apparently live rightly, not understand- i
ing "rightly" as referring to virtue only, but in a broader sense I
. . . to suspend the judgment . . . to live according to the habits, i
laws, and teachings of the fatherland, and our own feelings. j
(Sketches, p. 107) |
— j
Academic Skepticism can be distinguished clearly from Pyrrhon- !
I
ism by its criterion of Probability, developed in the Academy by
Carneades (ca. 213-129 B .C .). The Pyrrhonic Skeptics maintained
neither the possibility nor the im possibility of knowledge and they
accused the Academic Skeptics of holding the dogmatic position that
truth could not be found. In the opening lines of the first book of the
Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus Empiricus distinguished between three:
kinds of philosophical schools: those who claimed they had found the
truth were the Dogmatic philosophers, including the Epicureans, the
Stoics, and the followers of Aristotle; those who denied the possibility
of finding the truth were the Academicians; those who still sought it
6
were the true Skeptics (Sketches, p. 103). Technically the Academic
Skeptics did not deny the concept of truth and falsehood, but denied
that a criterion of truth existed in the human mind. Sense perceptions
6
Pyrrhonic Skepticism maintained "if not the im possibility of
knowledge, at least the im possibility of positively affirming its pos
sibility."--R . G. Bury, trans. Outlines of Pyrrhonism , by Sextus
Empiricus, Loeb ed. (London, 1933), I, xxix.
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15
were uncertain; hence, the reason could never be certain, since it
received all its m aterial through the sen ses. Starting from the p osi
tion that man had no means of knowledge which enabled him to distin
guish between the true and the false, the Academic Skeptics led by
Carneades held that some ideas were more probable than others and
they subjected each idea to system atic study in order to choose the
most probable one. They discovered the probable by subjecting their
perceptions to examination in every detail with reference especially
to the associations from past experience that accompanied perception
rather than, for example, the strength of sensation. Perceptions
were checked against the experience and observation of other people.
D egrees of probability were granted according to the results of the
examination; they related only to the practical conduct of life, not to
knowledge itself. The Academic Skeptic would yield practical assent
to perceptions that seemed sufficiently probable, and would conduct
him self accordingly.
For example, if I see a man, I perceive his face and his form at the
same tim e, and note his complexion, his clothes, his motions, his
manner of speech. I see also the things that surround him, namely, ;
his friends, the air, the light, the earth, the heavens. Again, if I ■
think that I see Socrates it must be because the circum stances are
the customary ones, his face, his form and his mantle. The phy
sician uses the same principles in his diagnosis, which depends on |
the harmony of the symptoms accompanying the disease.^
Both Academic and Pyrrhonic Skepticism became eclectic shortly :
after the deaths of their respective leaders, and disappeared with the
rise of Christianity and neo-Platonism (Patrick, The Greek Sceptics,
7
Quoted in Patrick, The Greek Sceptics, p. 160.
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I6j
p. 280). Their Influence revived in the R enaissance, when the h is- |
I
torical development of skepticism was resum ed. |
The Extent of the Popularity of Skepticism
in the R enaissance
Scholars do not report echoes or paraphrases of the Hypotyposes
in any m edieval w ritings. Only one m edieval m anuscript of the
8
Hypotyposes has survived. By contrast, skepticism had a decided
popularity in the R enaissance. An excellent explanation for this is
given by George T. Buckley, that the infinite variety that produced the
original doubt of the Pyrrhonists was strongly im pressed on the !
i
attention of the R enaissance when it took its long look backward into |
I
antiquity, and began to make its d iscoveries of new lands and new |
Q i
learnings. Scholars trace the adoption of the ideas, at least initially, |
to a fam iliarity with Cicero, whose Academ ica was a discussion,
i
through dialog, of the epistem ology of the Academy (Buckley, p. 117), |
or to restatem ents of skeptical ideas in the sixteenth century itself
I
(Bredvold, p. 28), such as the essay of G ian-F rancesco P ico della
Mirandola entitled Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium (1520), which
was derived from a manuscript of Sextus (Bredvold, p. 29), or the
strongly Pyrrhonic work of Henry Cornelius Agrippa, popular both in ;
Latin and in the vernacular languages (Bredvold, p. 29), the De
g
Louis I. Bredvold, The Intellectual M ilieu of John Dryden (Ann
Arbor, 1934), p. 20. Chapter II of this work, **ïhe Traditions of
Skepticism ," is a useful and interesting survey of the reappearance of
skepticism .
Q
A theism in the English R enaissance (Chicago, 1932), pp. 117-118,
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17:
incertitudine et vault ate scientiarum , later translated into E nglish by-
Jam es Sanford in 1568. |
Attacks on Pyrrhonism have also survived and testify to its popu- I
larity (Buckley, p. 118). The m ost important of these was L es j
dialogues contre les nouveaux académ iciens of Guy de Brues (1558),
which, even as it condemned the skeptical system , gave a good and
full representation of it, enlarged its reputation, and provided an
10 I
excellent source for skeptics to u se.
Then in 1562 appeared Henry Etienne's Latin translation of the i
H ypotyposes. This cam e to the attention of Montaigne, who produced |
in 1580 the culm inating summary of Pyrrhonism of the R enaissance, |
the Apology for Raymond Sebond.
Pyrrhonism seem s to have been m ost popular in France (Buckley,
p. 117).^^ But in England too we find a skeptical d isp raise of learning
in the opening lin es of N osce Teipsum (1598) of John D avies, and in
Fulke G reville's T reatise of Human Learning (published in 1633, but
w ritten earlier), a poem devoted entirely to the little value of learn
ing and the untrustw orthiness of the sen ses, the m em ory, and the
understanding. Like E rasm us, G reville showed that only the innocent
12
and untaught w ere truly w ise. G reville's poem has a strong enough
^^Ed. Panos Paul M orphos (Baltim ore, 1953), p. 3, pp. 6-7 .
^^See John Owen, The Skeptics of the French R enaissance
(London, 1893). This work contains d iscu ssion of Montaigne, Peter
Ramus, P ierre Charron, Frances Sanchez, Francois de la M othe-Le-
Vayer, and B la ise P a sca l. ■ '
12
See Buckley's d iscu ssion of this poem, pp. 114-116.
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1 8
sim ilarity to Agrippa's work to have its source there, though the u lti
m ate source for the ideas, of course, is the Hypotyposes (Buckley,
p. 120).
T hese are the larger strictly skeptical w orks. There are le ss e r
echoes and extracts, like the partial translation in R aleigh's papers,
the "lost" translation of 1590, a versification of a borrowing from
Sextus in Sum m er's last W ill and Testam ent (1600) by Thomas Nashe
and another in Samuel Rowlands' G reene's Ghost Haunting Cony-
catchers (1602), and perhaps others that have been lost or rem ain
unidentified (Strathmann, p. 226).
Though the original work of Sextus was known in the R enaissance
through translation, it seem s to me that one does better to check, as
p ossible sources for Raleigh, the much m ore popular c la ssic a l h is
tories and biblical com m entaries, and the much d iscu ssed theories of
history and scien ce in the R enaissance, in a ll of which a concept of
probability was im portant. It is one of George T. B uckley's firm
principles that it is sounder to look for sources among R enaissance
authors than d irectly among Greek and Roman originals.
It is contrary to everything we have learned about the spread of
ideas to suppose that any great part of English thought in the six
teenth century was drawn directly from the Greek m asters, and
certainly before concluding that any work was thus derived the
student should investigate thoroughly the literature of R enaissance
France and Italy, (A theism , p. 112)
I w ill be following this sen sib le principle in finding the sources for
R aleigh's argumentation in his own age.
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19j
The Meaning of Skepticism |
According to Louis I. Bredvold, it is possible to speak of skepti- ,
cism as an historical force in the Renaissance only if it is understood '
I
in a broad sense, as a force that was made to have bearing on many j
different fields of knowledge and activity, even in opposite arguments, !
I
and that it might range from a mild to an extreme anti-rationalism . |
It was "protean in nature, .as much a group of tendencies as a system " I
(Intellectual M ilieu, p. 16). Throughout its long history it had "popu- !
I
lar as w ell as learned traditions, and it appealed to the most heter
ogeneous authorities" (p. 16). "We may therefore expect the skepti
cism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to be of innumerable |
I
kinds and shades; it was as complex and various as a climate" (pp. 16-
17). An historian of skepticism in the Italian Renaissance defines it as
"a large diversified composite movement of Free-thought" and chose
men as varied as Dante, Boccaccio, M achiavelli, and Bruno as rep-
13
resentative of one or another aspect of it. Nor was Pyrrhonism the ;
sole source for this more genera.1 skepticism (Bredvold, p. 16), Anti-
14
rationalism was alive in medieval philosophy and was stimulated in
the Renaissance by the complex of forces that made up the Counter-
Renaissance.
13
John Owen, The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance (London,
1893).
14
For a discussion of the skepticism of major philosophers of
the Middle Ages, introductory to a study of seventeenth century
skepticism, see Margaret Wiley, The Subtle Knot (London, 1952),
pp. 38-44.
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20
But such general definitions are not enough. Margaret W iley's
identification of the parts of skepticism provides a more useful point
of reference. She says that skepticism means, "a sense of the in
adequacy of human knowledge, a consequent sensitivity to dualisms
and contradictions, a concern with paradox as expressing the com
plexity of truth, a belief in the wholesome effect of doubt, and a
conviction that where knowledge falters, a right life can supply the
only legitim ate confidence known to man" (p. 59).
By checking these aspects of skepticism against Raleigh's prac
tice, I can begin to make generalizations that w ill be illustrated in
this paper. I find in the History that there is very little expression of
a sense of the inadequacy of human knowledge per se; the only tim e |
Raleigh em phasizes man's general--and hopeless--ignorance is in his |
attack on A ristotle on the doctrine of the eternity of the world. I do I
not find at all that Raleigh valued paradox as a vehicle for truth. Nor |
I
did he think of doubt as beneficial in itself: the History is full of very
positive judgments, based, to be sure, on exhaustive examination;
there is an extraordinary persistence in establishing historical truth,
and a recognition of the points where truth begins to fade into un
certainty that would seem just even to a very confident age.
But one does find a sensitivity to dualism s and contradictions.
This is the strongest skeptical element in Raleigh's thought. It is seen
from tim e to tim e as he tries to recover a long distant past about
which there were varying opinions or confusing evidence, or to ascer- ;
tain the secret human motives that lay behind large consequences; and ;
one can som etim es take his use of the term "fortune" to mean an
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21;
almost endlessly varied complex of forces that could not be compre
hended, an interpretation contributed by the sixteenth century Italian
school of history. A very clear statement on the confounding diver
sity of life appears in the Preface: i
Among those that were, of whom we read and hear, and among those
that are, whom we see and converse with, every one hath received a
several picture of face, and every one a diverse picture of mind;
every one a form apart, every one a fancy and cogitation differing;
there being nothing wherein nature so much triumpheth, as in d is
sim ilitude. (X I, iii)
This natural diversity was vastly complicated by the daily realities of I
i
craft, fear, and love of the world, which "teach every capacity, ac- :
cording to the compass it hath, to qualify and mask over their inward
deform ities for a time" (II, iv). Later on, in the midst of the History,;
Raleigh is again reminded of these difficulties, and repeats them in
words that are often quoted:
Informations are often false, records not always true, and notorious
actions commonly insufficient to discover the passions, which did set
them first on foot. . . . For the heart of man is unsearchable; and
princes, howsoever their intents be seldom hidden from some of
those many eyes which pry both into them and into such as live about
them, yet som etim es, either by their own close temper, or by some
subtle m ist, they conceal the truth from all reports. (IV, 613-614)
It is interesting that some rhetoricians and educational theorists were
providing or accepting a clear-cut psychology for discovering the
causes of action within the doers of action. But Raleigh had too vivid
a sense of man's com plexities and perversities to assume that every
thing about human nature could be explained (Racin, pp. 64-67).
In regard to the "conviction that where knowledge falters, a right
life can supply the only legitim ate confidence known to man, " it is dif
ficult to apply this to Raleigh, because in his view no essential know-
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22
ledge was lacking to man: scripture was infallible, the judgments of
God visible: "from [His revealed w ill], that his hidden purposes do
not vary, this story, by many great exam ples, gives m ost notable
proof" (IV, 613). Only the stubborn nature of man interfered with his
salvation.
Skepticism is a very useful weapon for all who are engaged in
conflict with authority or dogmatism, or with what seem s like poor
reasoning, or excessive rationality, in whatever connection these may
appear. Buckley has shown that one of the functions of the newly
revived skepticism of the R enaissance was to serve as a weapon
against the rationalistic atheism that made its appearance at that time.!
The combatant's strategy may w ell be to deny the power of reason, in j
I
the strict Pyrrhonic tradition. But there is another strategy available:
I
in the battle, and it is the one which Raleigh preferred: to give to I
i
reason a new role, a new freedom, another distinction, a strength |
concentrated and clarified by boundaries. This is the com prom ise of |
I
the double truth. In what sense "skeptic" shall be applied to the I
Baconians is a question that arises out of the difficulty created by
that com prom ise. When Raleigh was engaged in an impassioned pro- ^
tection of his religion from inquiry, he was, in one of its senses,
anti-rationalistic or skeptical. But my reading has im pressed me
with Raleigh's rationality in the new Baconian sense (with its own
elem ent of skepticism , to be sure), which I express in term s of his
fight against superstition, unsubstantiated fact, the dis engagement of
fact from experience, the distortion of the imagination. These w ill ;
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23
be illustrated in this paper. I think the critical attention to Raleigh so
far has not made enough of them.
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CHAPTER IV
RATIONALISTIC DEVELOPMENTS IN HISTORY
WRITING IN THE RENAISSANCE
It is safe to say that the m ost common im pression of The History
of the World is that it is a providential history devoted to illustrating
God's control over the affairs of men. This im pression is created
strongly by the Preface, which is all that is usually read, and perhaps
even by Lily B ess Campbell's well-known treatment of the P reface in I
her Shakespeare's "Histories"; M irrors of Elizabethan Policy,^ where
i
she calls the Preface "the culminating document of Renaissance h is
toriography" (p. 79) and sum m arizes Raleigh's list of the inexorable
visitations of God upon sinful English kings. It is certainly true that
there are providential features in the H istory. John Racin, Jr. , has
traced these in Chapter 1 1 of his dissertation, where he defines provi
dential history in term s of what is demonstrated in the h istories of
St. Augustine, De Civitate D ei; Bishop Otto of Freising, Chronicon
seu historia de duabus civitatibus; Eusebius of Caesaria; and Bos suet.
D iscours sur l'histoire universelle, which together show that univer
sal history is periodized, or subdivided in tim e; universal, covering
^(San Marino, 1963), pp. 79-84.
24
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25
all nations, races, and tim es; apocalyptic, looking forward to Christ
and back to Christ; and providential, showing God's w ill for man
through His control of all events, His punishment of sin, and the in-
fallibility of Scripture. But the category of "providential" underwent
change during the Renaissance; in the H istory there are affiliations
with another type of history that should be recognized for a correct
im pression of the work.
Leonard F. Dean and Lily B ess Campbell have pointed out that
Reformation or conventional history was not a pure form; as M r. Dean
has said, a reconciliation could be effected in that second causes w ere
3
understood ultim ately to carry out the w ill of God, and M iss Campbell
w rites that Reformation history was the result of the im position of the I
Christian schem e on the humanistic theories (Shakespeare's
"H istories", p. 35). Both scholars w ere thinking of Raleigh. M iss
Campbell speaks of the "two-fold inheritance" of The H istory of the
World,
To one who has read only the P reface, the contents of the H istory |
come as a surprise. For purposes of examination, the H istory can be
divided arbitrarily into three parts: Part I, from Creation to the
birth of M oses (II, l-III, 56); Part II, from the birth of M oses to the
2
Racin finds it significant that the H istory is periodized, univer
sal, and providential, but not apocalyptic--there is hardly a mention
of C hrist. Hence its p essim ism . The lack of "redemptive purpose"
leads Raciii to the conclusion-that for Raleigh the end of man, as
determ ined by God, was death.
Tudor Theories of H istory Writing,'' Univ. of M ich. Contribs.
in Mod. P hil. , 1:19, April 1947.
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26 ;
tim e of Darius (III, 56-V, 84); Part III, from the tim e of Darius to the |
conquest of Macedon by the Romans (V, 84-VII, 901). Part I con sists
alm ost entirely of argumentation and resolution of points of dispute in |
very early scriptural history and the early history of the A ssyrian and |
Egyptian nations ; it is an expansion of the thin biblical narrative, in
the tradition of the biblical com m entaries, such as those of P ereriu s
and M ersenne, rather than a dem onstration of God's providence. A
list of R aleigh's th eses w ill suggest the argum entative nature of the
work in this part: that P aradise was in fact located eastward in Eden, |
and that the names of two of the four rivers that flowed from Eden |
I
w ere Gehon and Pison, not Nilus and Ganges (II, 64f.) ; that the tree of ;
life was a real tree as w ell as an allegorical one; the correct identi
fication of it (II, 129f.); that the giants of which M oses wrote w ere real
(II, 159f.); that the universal flood actually occurred; that it was
supernatural, not natural (II, 187f.) ; that the ark was of proper and
sufficient, capacity (II, 2 12f.); that the ark came to rest in the moun
tains in the east near India, not in Arm enia (II, 217f.) ; that Japhet,
not Shem, was the eldest son of Noah (II, 247f.) ; that Gomer and
Tubal settled in A sia Minor, not in Italy or Spain (II, 253f.); that Noah
did not found Genoa (II, 268f.); that Javan was the ancestor of the
G reeks, contrary to their opinion (II, 274f.); that Cush settled Arabia,
not Ethiopia (II, 286f.); that Egyptian dynasties w ere not as old as was
claim ed (II, 296f.); that m ost of the world was peopled before the flood
(II, 300f.); that many of the descendants of Noah settled in different
areas than was supposed (II, 308f.); that Nimrod, not As sur, built
Ninevah (II, 358f.) ; that Zoroaster was not Cham, and not the inventor
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27
of m agic (II, 378f,); that Abraham was born in the year 292 after the
flood, not in 352 (III, If.}; that Abraham made only one journey into
Canaan, not two (III, 4 f.); that many opinions on the rulers, tim es,
and events of the A ssyrian Em pire w ere m istaken (III, 22f.) ; that
E llassar was located on the border of Arabia, not in the Hellespont
(III, 26f.); that Chedorlaomer was not the king of P ersia, but a petty
lord (III, 32f.); that the Egyptian Dynasties number the short su c
cession s of regents, not of kings (III, 40f.); that many opinions on the
genealogy of the Egyptian kings w ere doubtful (III, 43f.). The second
part of the H istory follows chronologically the biblical account of the
history of the Jews under M oses and later under the judges, and the I
I
concurrent history of other cities and nations established in those
tim es. Here the idea of Providence is strong; scripture itself showed
that God was controlling the destiny of the Jews, punishing them for
their defections and rewarding them for their faith (III, 62-71; III,
382-IV, 4 0 4 ;IV, 4 6 2 -4 8 9 ;IV, 55 6 -6 5 2 ;IV, 6 5 8 -6 6 5 ;IV, 718-725). In|
this part of the H istory argumentation declines somewhat as the bib
lical narrative becom es fuller, but it is still prominent. Some of
R aleigh's th eses are: that M oses was born while S esostris II ruled
Egypt, contrary to other opinions (III, 56f.) ; that the Red Sea did not
divide into tw elve parts (III, 82f.) ; that M oses crossed the Red Sea at
Migdol, not at Elena (III, 84-85); that the passage over the Red Sea
was m iraculous, not at low ebb (III, 85f.); that the A m alekites w ere
not a tribe of Edom (III, 178f.); that the Greeks received knowledge
from Egypt, not Egypt from Greece (III, 192f.) ; that Joshua can have
ruled only eighteen years (III, 214); that many opinions about the
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28
geography of biblical lands were doubtful (III, 2 l6 f.) ; that letters were
invented by Seth or Enos or someone else before the flood, not by the
Egyptians or Phoenicians or Gauls (III, 277f.)j that the Tyrians were
not descended from Esau and were not of the true religion of Abraham
(III, 284f.); that the rules of the judges probably extended 480 years,
not 300 or 450 (IV, 429f.): that there were 408 years between the de- I
, - I
struction of Troy and the F irst Olympiad (IV, 446f.); that Tharis was |
not located in Spain (IV, 546f.); that Solomon began to reign at nineteen!
years of age, not at eleven (IV, 551f.); that Joash was the youngest sonj
of Jehoram, not of Ahahiah (IV, 606); that there must have been a void
of eleven years between the reigns of Amaziah and Azariah in Judah |
!
(IV, 652f.); that Pul, king of the Assyrians, was the same person as |
Belosus of Babylonia, and Salmanassar the sam e as Nabonassar, con-|
trary to the opinion of Scaliger (IV, 667f.); that the Olympian games
were reinstated in the fifty-first year of the reign of King Uzziah of
Judah, not at any other time (IV, 685f.), Part III gives the history of j
the pagans (the Medes, Persians, Greeks, Macedonians, and Romans).
Here Raleigh follows his classical models in emphasizing human or
secondary causes rather than Providence. There are many references
to Fortune, which, as we shall see, echo the interpretation of Fortune
of the new Florentine history, inspired by the cla ssics. In this part
argumentation is slight because Raleigh relied on authoritative clas-
4
sical historians. In short, in addition to the influence of the com
m entaries, the History demonstrates features of Reformation history
4
Scholars
name his source
suspect his borrowings are heavy. He may or may not
:es. The only significant studies of Raleigh's direct
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29
chiefly in the second part and classical or humanistic history in the
third part. Thus the work as a whole is not at all as consistently prov
idential as the P reface is, where, one should rem ember, Raleigh
surveyed the fall of evil kings in order to strike, with angry irony, at
his own unjust king.
How does the History relate to the movements in Renaissance
historiography as a whole, especially to the appearance of the ration
alistic school in Italy?
Renaissance history was the result of developments away from the
5
tradition of the chronicles. From 1500-1580, when very few h is
tories were produced outside of the chronicles, the m oral instruction
provided by history w as considered its greatest m erit. It included a
m oral practical wisdom . The w riters assum ed that m orality was
present in the h istorical process. There was no desire to discover
borrowings are Arnold W illiams, "Commentaries on G enesis as a
B asis for H exaem eral M aterial in the Literature of the Late R enais
sance, " SP, 34:195, April 1937, on Raleigh's use of m aterial in com
mentaries" in the first four chapters in the H istory; and Nadja Kempner,
Raleghs Staatstheoretische Schriften (Leipzig, TTZS) on his borrowings
in the shorter tracts. Strathmann cites quotations from M achiavelli,
pp. 166-167, Though he relies on his sources, Raleigh maintains a
typically critical attitude. He corrects errors in geography (V, 328)
and exaggerations of battle lo sses (V, 103; V, 306-307); he may ex
p ress a preference where authorities disagree: "I like better in this
particular to believe with Herodotus" (V, 55); "Xenophon . . . doth
best in this case deserve credit" (V, 216); "Curtius . . . com es (I
think) nearer to the true number" (V, 332); he is critical of the foolish
ideas of le sser historians in the absence of any historical records by
the im partial Polybius (VI, 284-335).
5
This summary is based on the study of Owen Jenkins,' "The Art
of History in R enaissance England: A Chapter in the History of
Literary C riticism ," unpub. d iss. (Cornell Univ. , 1954), Chaps. II
and III.
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30!
the m orality of history through detailed fact, or to consider the pos
sibility of, im m oral uses of history. It was legitim ate for the historian
to exclude what did not lend itself to this concept.
A cla ssica l infusion into R enaissance rhetoric introduced the
"doctrine of circum stances" of cla ssica l rhetoric. This taught the |
i
R enaissance that an historian must give the manner, the cause, and all
the accompanying circum stances of any action. At that tim e the trans-l
lations of cla ssica l histories also began to appear, and English tran s
lations of Guicciardini's History of Italy (1579) and M achiavelli's
Florentine History (1595). The Society of Antiquaries became active
in pointing out errors in the work of the chroniclers ; Camden's
Britannia.showed that the truth could be discovered by diligence; and I
the cla ssic and Italian histories began to be praised for what was lack
ing in English history: truth, political judgment, and explanation of
cause. History was still a teacher, but the lesson had changed.
The process was greatly stimulated by the attack of the skeptics ;
on the value and truth of history at all. The m ost important work was
that of Agrippa, the De incertitudine scientiarum . The Tudors had
assum ed that m orality and truth always went together, and in fact the
truth of the action was not so important for them as the m oral lesson .
In the face of the startling notions of the skeptics and the defenders of :
poetry that historians were not n ecessarily upright, that men did not
care for m oral fame, but for fame itself, and that facts w ere so d is
puted that it was im possible to say what had really happened, an
enormous change took place in the thinking of historians: they a c
cepted Agrippa'8 idea that history should teach what did happen, and
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31g
poetry could teach what should happen. Bacon showed his agreement
by constructing a neat classification of history and relegating provi
dential history to a separate category; poetry too could demonstrate
providence: |
Since the su ccesses and issu es of actions as related in true history
are far from being agreeable to the m erits of virtue and vice. Poesy I
corrects it, exhibiting events and fortunes as according to m erit and ;
the law of providence. (Works, VIII, 440-441)
i
But instead of being defeatist about the chances of discovering truth,
historians became determined in this regard. This is a change to the
"modern idea of history as an account of the past which has been
I
authenticated by records" (Jenkins, p. 87, n. 53).
Several other scholars have described the types of history in that
6
tim e of change. One finds variations in their categories and lists of
characteristics, but this in part because, as Lily B ess Campbell has
said, "The history of R enaissance historiography has not yet been
written" (Shakespeare's "Histories", p. 42). But they agree that the
new history which appeared had a stronger em phasis on the truth of
reality and on cause and effect, especially psychological cause. It
was a history which provided information on achieving political con
trol, on the rise and fall of nations, the prognosis of events, and the
ways to rise above fortune. The w riters of new history did not believe
that an accurate history would demonstrate a just providence in opera
tion, and their purpose was not at all m oral or ethical. By contrast,
^Felix Gilbert, M achiavelli and Guicciardini (Princeton, 1965),
pp. 215-217; Douglas Bush, C lassical Influences in Renaissance
Literature (Cambridge, M ass. , 1952), pp. 14-17; Dean, "Tudor
Theories " ; Campbell, Shakespeare's "Histories", pp. 19-21, 33-41.
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32
conventional history or Reformation history was given to dem onstrate
I
God’s providential care of the good and punishment of the evil, and its j
purpose was distinctly moral; good and evil actions w ere described, |
and great deeds set forth and praised; feigned orations were used to
heighten the m oral power of the history. God was shown to be the
first cause, though these historians also studied second causes, or
human m otives, as w ell. The difference between the two h istories is
striking. Humanistic history was written on the prem ise that the m ore
realistic it w as, the le ss m oralistic it would be and the le ss it would
demonstrate a just providence. It was, in short, much m ore secular
I
than Reformation history. The cla ssics w ere the inspiration for the j
first; the City of God, according to M iss Campbell, for the second. |
Felix Gilbert has explained that in both kinds of histories the aim was ;
truth, but with the difference that Reformation history did not need to
be true in every detail, but true to man's experience in general that i
God was indeed the first cause, and that evil men w ere indeed ■
punished.
At the basis of the two histories lay differing concepts of man. In
providential history, man was an instrument who, even as he thought
he was doing as he wished, satisfying his passions and ambitions, was
always unwittingly carrying out God's w ill ("the corrupted affections
of men . . . accom plish nevertheless his hidden purpose" [History,
IV, 5 9 3 ]), The second cause historians did not have to refer events to;
a first cause or even n ecessarily predicate one, for causes were to be
found in man him self (Racin, p. 35f,).
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33
In the camp of the new history, Leonard Dean places Giacomo
7
Concio, Jean Bodin, M achiavelli, and Francis Bacon. According to
Felix Gilbert, M achiavelli's "basic approach is rationalistic" (p. 156), :
!
and it is interesting and certainly not surprising that Francis Bacon ;
approved very much M achiavelli's observation of m en's actual be- i
havior (Bush, C lassical Influences, pp. 10-11). Bacon was one of the :
first to think of history as a science which might be used to increase
man's power and promote his w elfare. He ranked M achiavelli and i
Tacitus highest among historians; he admired their realistic character
studies, their emphasis on cause, and their discovery of cause in
g
human action. Bacon believed in Providence, but set it aside because
9
it was not useful to study it. To M achiavelli history was not a dem
onstration of the working of Providence. As Joseph Anthony M azzeo
has said very clearly, his work is
7
One of the essays of Concio was translated by Thomas
Blundeville in The True Order and Methode of Wryting and Reading
H ystories (1 574). Bodin's work, Methodus ad facilem historiarum"
cognitionem, was a very influential and popular work on the theory of
history in the late sixteenth century (Campbell, Shakespeare's
"Histories", p. 3 0, 49).
g
One scholar believes that Bacon had the m ost respect for, and
borrowed the m ost from, Francesco Guicciardini, the contemporary
and compatriot of M achiavelli. "Guicciardini's history is distin
guished by its acute analysis of individual characters and interests
and by its interpretation of the m otives of princes . . . according to
utilitarian passions. . . ."--Vincent Luciani, "Bacon and Guicciardini, "
PM LA, 62:109, 1947,
9
Leonard F, Dean, "Sir Francis Bacon's Theory of Civil History-
Writing, " ^LH , 8:173-183, September 1941. Lily B ess Campbell
d isagrees that Bacon belongs with the Polybian and Florentine schools ;
she does not see any strong political intent in him (Shakespeare's
"Histories ", p. 79, n. 43).
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34|
a collection of finite exempla of human action determined by a con- |
stant psychological human nature. H istory is not the process in ;
which the intentions and irrationalities of men are subsumed by gracej
or a world spirit into great rational structures. . . . M achiavelli !
offers . ■ . only insight into the nature of human action. . . . ;
(R enaissance and Seventeenth Century Studies, p. 128)
While M achiavelli was thoroughly denounced, especially by the
Puritans, he was also admired. His m orals may have been con- I
demned, but his h istorical principles w ere accepted by the E liza- |
bethans.^^ Thomas Bedingfield translated M achiavelli in 1595 and
I
praised his work because he sought the truth and studied the important j
matter of cause and effect (Strathmann, p. 168). I
There are two direct references to M achiavelli in the H istory that
are im m ediately interesting. One notices Raleigh's approval in both
cases of M achiavelli's judgment. "The cause why the Macedonians
held so quietly the P ersian empire is w ell set down by M achiavel. . :
. ." (V, 476); "the extrem e danger growing from the employment of |
11
such sold iers is w ell observed by M achiavel. ..." (VI, 136). The i
following comment by Raleigh is close enough to M achiavelli’s think- !
in g to have been spoken by him:
It had otherw ise been far more expedient for Philip to have supported
the weaker of these two great cities against the m ore mighty. For by
so doing he should perhaps have brought them to peace upon som e
^^Lewis Einstein, The Italian R enaissance in England (New York,
.1905), pp. 308-309.
^ ^Strathmann tells us that the total borrowing from M achiavelli
in the first example con sists of alm ost all of Chap. IV of The P rin ce,
and in the second, that a brief portion of The P rin ce, Chap. XII, is
quoted (p. 166). Strathmann adds that Raleigh criticizes M achiavelli
in a short work called The Prince; or, M axims of State (p. 167), a
work "based on borrowed m aterials " (p. F64), though Strathmann
hesitates to call it a translation (p. 12).
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35j
equal term s; and thereby, as did Hiero, a far weaker prince, have
both secured his own estate, and caused each of them to be desirous
of chief place in his friendship, (VII, 566)
Strathmann says in summary that "much of Raleigh's commentary on
practical politics is in keeping with the spirit of M achiavelli's real
ism" (p. 168), though Raleigh is much more moral in spirit (p. 168).
The reflections in the History of the characteristics of the
Florentine school are most clearly discovered in the areas of the
definition of fortune and the importance given to second causes. In the
medieval view, fortune was an extension of divine providence, "For
Dante, fortune is purely an arm of providence, of divine intentionality"
(Mazzeo, p, 95), Then, Machiavelli, and the Renaissance generally, Î
!
revived the pagan concept of fortune; in doing so, i
j
M achiavelli indirectly attacked the medieval one, which equated it |
[fortune] with divine providence, or, on a cruder level, simply with I
the notion that whoever rises must fall, (Mazzeo, p, 155, n. 2) '
1
It is Joseph M azzeo's theory that the pagan concept of fortune was |
meaningful to the Renaissance because the world had become more |
indefinite and unknowable (p, 92), Felix Gilbert expresses the same I
idea when he says that fortune in the course of the sixteenth century
became "the embodiment of the uncontrollable forces determining the
course of events" (p, 269),
This view of Fortune was the outcome of the experience that no
single event has a clear beginning, and the investigation of causal j
connections only exposes the vista of an infinite number of further
relationships and interdependencies, (pp, 269-270)
This shift in the meaning of fortune is evident in the work of the im
portant Florentine historian Guicciardini, who at first believed that
events could be controlled; then, shocked by his fall from favor, con- !
ceived of fortune, not as a whim sical goddess, but as the forces
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36
which man could not understand or control (Gilbert, p. 291).
[G uicciardini] m ust be classed among the dual-sighted men . . . to
whom every subject of human contemplation presents, not a single
and uniform, but com plex and m ultiform aspect. (Owen, p. 179)
Perhaps the sensitivity to dualism s that I have remarked in Raleigh |
arose from, or was reinforced by, his own fall from favor.
This is not to say that rational explanations did not continue to be ;
essential; Guicciardini was interested above all in the study of cause
and effect and psychological analysis (Gilbert, pp. 291-292); man's
failures w ere explained w herever that was p ossible. This had been i
the method of the cla ssic a l historians. M achiavelli explained su ccess !
and failure very largely by the shrewdness and foresight with which a
man acted. We find the sam e resistance in Raleigh to the em ptiness
of the m edieval "fortuna, " the same wish to explain insofar as that was
possible. In one of the sections in the H istory devoted to the subject
of fortune, Raleigh sp ecifically rejects fortune as "nothing else but a
power imaginary,"
for when a m anifest cause could not be given, then was it attributed
to fortune, as if there w ere no cause of those things, of which m ost
men are ignorant. (II, 38-39)
Raleigh's correction of this error in understanding was twofold, in
cluding the traditional position of Aquinas, whom he quotes, that all
things occur ultim ately according to the intention of God, and the
M achiavellian answer to those who wondered why a good man should
be unfortunate, that those who had come into undeserved bad luck had
failed to fashion them selves shrewdly according to their tim es.
Raleigh's use of M achiavelli here is inevitably colored by his personal
situation and becom es a considerable personal defense;
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''I
W hosoever w ill live altogether out of him self, and study other m en ’s j
humors, and observe them, shall never be unfortunate; and on the i
contrary, that man which prizeth truth and virtue, (except the season!
wherein he liveth be of all these, and of all sorts of goodness, fru it
ful,) shall never prosper by the p ossession or profession thereof. .
. . W hosoever therefore w ill set before him M achiavel's two m arks
to shoot at, to wit, riches and glory, must set on and take off a back
of iron to a weak wooden bow. . . . (II, 41-42)
Here we find the continuing truth of the instability of things explained |
by m an's own failure to cope with the facts of the forces that surround |
I
him. At one point Raleigh criticizes the foolish pride of historians
who deny the greater sk ill of a victorious enemy and ascrib e the
victory to "blind fortune" (VI, 270-271). Elsew here he very plainly I
takes the explanation for a Roman battle lo ss away from fortune and |
lays it to lack of skill; "Such fortune attended on the Romans, or
!
rather, so far was their ability short of their en terp rises, ..." (VII, |
850). This idea is expressed again in connection with the account of a
foolish decision of the Athenians in their war against Syracuse: "But
where unsound advice, finding bad proof, is obstinately pursued,
neither P allas nor Fortune can be justly blamed for a m iserab le issue''
(V, 178). In a digression on the honor due to great m ilitary com
m anders, Raleigh complains that the victories w ere often unjustly
attributed to fortune (VII, 786). At one point Raleigh takes to task
those who neglected the reason that God had given them for their
preservation, acting "as men stupified in the opinion of fate or
destiny" (IV, 486). The following is a very M achiavellian comment
that replaces fortune with a hardheaded estim ate of power as a basis
for warfare, with little advantage afforded by virtue or fortune:
How they could have sped w ell in undertaking such a match, it is un
easy to find in d iscourse of human reason. It is true, that virtue
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38|
and fortune work wonders; but it is against cowardly fools, and the i
unfortunate: for whosoever contends with one too mighty for him, I
either must excel in these, as much as his enemy goes beyond him j
in power; or else must look to be overcome. . . . (VI, 3)
Here we find the idea that good fortune was available to man if he had
the skill to take advantage of it:
Yet was there good reason, why Perseus. him self might, at this I
tim e, think to speed better by a show of daring, than he was like to
do by any subm ission. . . . Wherefore he , , . was bold to set a
good countenance on a game not very bad, but subject (in appearance);
to fortune ; which might have been his had he known how to use it. I
(VII, 82 0)
But a m iscalculation could leave man helpless. Artabanus, uncle to
I
: , ^ ^ - j
X erxes, w isely advised him not to invade Greece because of the risks |
involved, especially considering the sm all size of the Greek ports and i
the possible occurrence of storms, "that in such a case of extremity |
men are left to the w ill and disposition of fortune, and not fortune to
the w ill and disposition of men" (V, 110). Raleigh's world was threat
ened by forces more complex and obscure than a w him sical goddess.
The sense of fortune as an unknown quantity that could not be cal
culated for seem s plain in the following:
[Achaeus] thought him self strong enough, if fortune were not too
much against him, to deal with Antiochus. Neither was he confident
without great reason: for besides his many victories, whereby he
had gotten all that belonged unto Antiochus on this side of Taurus, he
had also good success against Attains. . . . (VII, 655)
There follows an enumeration of the many strengths of Achaeus that
should have guaranteed his well-being, yet he fell, in tim e, upon the
inexplicable "calamities incident unto great fortunes" (VII, 661). In
another illustration, Raleigh considered Alexander "far inferior" as
a commander to Caesar, yet for unexplainable reasons,
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39
fortune and destinies (if we may use those term s) had found out and I
prepared for him, without any care of his own, both heaps of men
that w illingly offered their necks to the yoke, and kingdoms that in- j
vited and called in their own conquerors. (V, 381) |
Raleigh could hardly use the term s gracefully after his positive de
n ia ls--n o tice his parenthetical em barrassm ent--but there w ere no
!
others for the reality of com plexity. The perennially vivid personi-
I
fication of fortune continued to serve him also: "Fortune seem ed |
bountiful unto the king, and therefore he purposed to make what u se he 1
could of her friendly disposition while it lasted" (VII, 650); "Fortune |
was gracious to their courage" (V, 469); "But it was not long ere, |
fortune turning her back to these M em ertines, the Syracusians won |
fast upon them" (VI, 16); and there is one reference to her wheel: j
His fortune was as changeable as w ere his qualities: turning often !
round, like the picture of her wheel, till she had wound up the thread
of his life. . . . (V, 491)
In allowing a role to fortune, Raleigh was again echoing M achiavelli,
who calculated that fortune was in control of half of man's actions.
I
In regard to the m edieval view that fortune was the arm of Providence,
nowhere in the H istory does Raleigh make fortune an instrument of
providence, though it is clear that he thought fortune was subject (like
everything else) to divine control (V, 106).
Another mark of the M achiavellian school was explanation by
psychological cause, another cause on the level of hard reality, and
this is amply illustrated in the H istory in many stories : the suspicion
of Darius of an assistant tyrant too capable for comfort, and the ruse
of the tyrant to raise difficulties in the provinces that he might escape
Darius' surveillance (V, 95-96); the offended pride of Darius at the
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40
rebellion of the Greeks, prompting him to take action against them
(V, 99); the defeat of the navy of Miletus
as much by threatenings as by force; many of their companions and
fellow -rebels forsaking them upon hope of pardon, and many being
daunted with the causeless flight of those that should have assisted
them. (V, 100)
I
The fate of Greece Raleigh attributes to the "envy of the better sort to |
each other, with their private factions, assisted by the unthankful and
w itless people" (V, 104); the insolence of Athens upon its success
aroused the dislike of other Greek states (V, 158); the progression of |
the relation among the-Greek states disclosed the tensions of envy, |
I
contempt, etc. ; the confederacy against Athens and Sparta was joined j
by "some incited by private respects, other thinking it the w isest way i
to do as the most did" (V, 168). And among the confederates them- |
selves, "the friendship . . . such as it was, had much diversity both
of sincerity and of continuance" (V, 169). Cyrus's ambition for the
throne was fed by the love which his mother bore him (V, 197).
Recognizing their weakness against the combined force of Athens and
Persia, the Spartans offered to break their country up into small units,
being "so carried with envy" of Athens that they preferred to "make
all alike weak" than risk domination by one of their own nation (V,
248). The extraordinary emotions that drove the members of the
royal family of Macedon are listed by Raleigh as he shows "how the
great ones did mutually stand affected, and by what passions they
were drawn into those courses which overthrew most of them" (V,
432). The personal natures of the great people of history were the
forces behind decisions and events, and the better they were tander-
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41
stood, the better for an understanding of history. This search for the
psychological realities is continued in chapter after chapter of pagan
history; the examples given here are very typical of that half of the
History devoted to pagan tim es.
A ll of these and countless other occurrences are related without
reference to the hand of God or Providence. Such references can be
found, however. I have noticed forty-three rem inders of God’s con
trol in what I have called Part III of the H istory, which amounts to
12
about half the work, or 1, 372 pages. But m ost of the rem inders are
brief, they tend to be lost in the long narrative, and they decline in
number from twenty-four in the 556 pages of Vol. V to eleven in the
533 pages of Vol. VI and eight in the 366 pages of Vol. VII. John j
I
Racin has offered an explanation for the decline: that it became i
increasingly difficult for Raleigh to see the hand of Providence in the |
events of cla ssica l history because he wrote without belief in the |
apocalyptic interpretation; that is, he was unable to refer the rise and |
fall of nations to the event of C hrist's coming, or any other final end ,
(pp. 147-159). This interesting idea may be correct. But we know
that providential history was on the decline in the Renaissance with
Bacon's separation of providential from human history, and Raleigh
may sim ply have been part of this m ore general trend. ;
Douglas Bush has said the seventeenth century was a tim e of
great acceleration: "In 1600 the educated Englishm an's mind and
^^The location of these is as follows: V, 132, 134, 179-180, 186,
197, 264, 288, 304, 305, 311, 314, 321, 326, 327, 338, 347, 401, 426,
437, 439, 452, 482, 489, 515; VI, 10, 11, 63, 136, 197, 205, 294, 340, j
362, 430, 526; VII, 645, 788, 793, 798, 857, 877, 896-897, 897.
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42
world w ere more than half medieval; in 1660 they w ere m ore than half |
13
modern." The affiliation of the History with the new history of the
Renaissance is a sign that the author was responsive to the ration
alistic stim uli of his own tim e ; this is evident even though he put his
reason to use, as we w ill see, in preserving a traditional faith in its
strict lines. One is led to suspect the entire accuracy of F. Smith
14
Fussner's evaluation that the History is "the end of an epoch."
Raleigh’s susceptibility to the new ideas of his own tim e r e sists such
a categorical d ism issal.
13
English Literature in the E arlier Seventeenth Century (Oxford,
1945), p. 1.
^^The H istorical Revolution; English H istorical Writing and
Thought 1580-1640 (New York, 1962), p! 193.
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CH APTER V
CONJECTURE AND RATIONALITY IN
THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD
The Value for Truth and Conjecture in
Seventeenth Century History
The value placed on truth has an esp ecially interesting bearing on
the role allotted to conjecture in any age. Mr, Owen Jenkins has
examined what was said about truth in some of the prefaces prefixed
to h istories published between 1600-1650, such as those written by
W illiam Camden, Thomas Hayward, Samuel Daniel, Walter Raleigh,
John Selden, Henry Spelman, Thomas Fuller, Thomas May, Lord
Herbert of Cherbury, and others.^ He concludes that the main con
cern of historians of that tim e was for truth; they wanted their h is
tories to be accepted as credible; they all especially shared Bacon's
value for factual truth (since they had discontinued claim ing that h is
tory was true as philosophy, teaching by example), and hence w ere
led to make a distinction between fact and conjecture. Fact was that
which could be ascertained from written record; conjecture was pro
duced by the ex ercise of judgment on the second causes or inner
^Chap. V, "Truth and History: C ritical Problem s and Strategies,"
in the dissertation already cited.
43
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44
m otives of men, or at any point where no written authority existed.
Conjectures w ere entirely acceptable insofar as they w ere strictly
controlled by the documentary evidence, and by wisdom of judgment
and caution on the part of the historian. Second causes, the doubtful
area, could be explained in term s of the psychology of the tim e or by
any man w ise and experienced in human nature, if he was fam iliar
with the circum stances of a case. It was thoroughly realized that
such explanations could not be absolutely certain, yet this kind of
explanation of cause was highly valued at that tim e as useful in future
decisions. R enaissance historians recognized that in any action based
on knowledge of past history, the estim ates w ere n ecessa rily un
certain and "at best only probable." The problem was to make their
arguments from analogy
as probable as possible, and the best h istories w ere those which
provided the reader with sufficient knowledge organized in a u se
ful way which would enable him to deliberate intelligently about the
future, (p. 53)
The truth which was sought might take the form of "internal
probability," to use M r. Jenkins' term (p. 232). Hobbes' translation
of Thucydides' history, printed in 1629, was preceded by two p re
faces in which Hobbes praised Thucydides' conjectures about inward
m otions because they w ere justified by the narration, or other c ir
cum stances that had been made clear.
Hobbes explicitly argues that history is, after all, only a probable
account of the events of the past. The best h istories were sim ply
those which, like those of Thucydides, are the m ost probable.
(p. 233)
M r. Jenkins considers Hobbes' historiography representative of the
developm ents in history during the preceding half century.
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45
It may be surprising that feigned orations were permitted by h is
torians, including Raleigh, who sought the truth. Orations served as |
a device for setting forth the historian’s interpretation of the probable
nature of the deliberations of historical characters, and strict
standards were set for their sense, credibility, and fitness (p. 206),
We are told that there was no "feeling of tension between the feigning
of an oration, the conjectures of motives, and the truthfulness of the
particular facts of the narrative" (p. 207), even in the work of Samuel
Daniel, whom Mr. Jenkins considers profoundly devoted to truth. In
spite of the persistence of the feigned oration, the search for truth is
shown also in the avoidance of "style" as such in seventeenth-century
histories. It was a typical defense of history as it clashed with poetry!
I
that it was concerned with plain truth, while poetry was an em bellish- i
ment and exaggeration. Raleigh surely had the new distinction
between history and poetry in mind when he said that the historian
"doth not feign" in offering probable conjectures (IV, 617).
Behind all of this lies the tremendous influence of Bacon. Mr. [
Jenkins has found that Jacobean historians generally accepted Bacon's i
teachings on the classifications of history, as w ell as his conviction
that historical fact was among the requirements for the advancement
of learning, and that diligence could discover it. We w ill see later
that conjecture had a significant part to play in his program. His
influence on Raleigh w ill justify a closer examination of his theories.
But before we proceed to that, we must ask what Raleigh him self ;
says about the truth of second cause conjectures. In a digression
devoted to this subject (IV, 612-617), he says he w ill want above all
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46
to be sure to show first cause in full, instead of being blind to it and
ignoring it as men have usually done. As for second causes, he is
sure they are probably not given fully and exactly anywhere, even
when an historian tries to do well, simply because the straws on which
great events hang are so subtle, so unthinkable, that they may w ell
escape detection. The good historian is forced to be satisfied to have
given "apparent cause enough." Yet it is certainly true that great
1
matters have developed from just such petty trifles as we cannot |
,|
imagine, for the best men are governed by vanities, not reason. The |
first cause teaches us what we need to know most urgently, but second
causes are real, and any historian may seek to ascertain them as long
as he does not forget to ascribe the ultimate power to God. Raleigh
was sure he was not guilty of this mistake. Other historians may
have made less of first cause then he did, but aside from this, there
is no apparent difference between his view of the degree of truth of
conjecture and the value of it because of the reality of second cause,
and that of other historians of his time.
Bacon’s Theory of History
Raleigh and Francis Bacon had great admiration and respect for
2
each other. Bacon's biographer, his chaplain William Rawley, re
called hearing Raleigh speak words of praise for Bacon;
But for the fourth, his elocution, I w ill only set down what I heard
Sir Walter Raleigh once speak of him by way of comparison (whose
judgment may w ell be trusted). That the Earl of Salisbury was an
^William Stebbing, Sir Walter Ralegh (Oxford, 1891), pp. 389-390.
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471
I
excellent speaker, but no good penman; that the Earl of Northampton |
(the Lord Henry Howard) was an excellent penman, but no good
speaker; but that Sir Francis Bacon was eminent in both.3
Raleigh spoke approvingly of Bacon's demonstration in The Advance
ment of Learning of Caesar Augustus's love of learning (V, 380), and
of his interpretation of the fable of Briareus (IV, 575), and in the
Preface showed him self to have been a student of Bacon's ideas of
history:
I am not altogether ignorant of the laws of history, and of the kinds.
The same hath been taught by many, but by no man better, and with
greater brevity, than by that excellent learned gentleman. Sir
Francis Bacon. (II, Ixi)
In view of this, some sim ilarity in the use of conjecture by these two
historians should be evident.
F. Smith Fussner has commented that in Bacon's historiography
probability was "more than a critical tool. . . . It became the basis
4
for many of his historical explanations." Fussner's comment is
couched in a complaint that Bacon was not scientific enough in his
history; that he, like his contemporaries, did not always distinguish
w ell between probability and proof; that Bacon was a shrewd observer
of human nature and had a highly developed sense of what was prob
able, but in using probability as the basis of his invented speeches,
Bacon "depended too much on the accuracy of his insights into men's
"The Life of the Right Honorable Francis Bacon," in The Works
of Francis Bacon, ed. James Spedding, Robert L eslie Ellis^ and
Douglas Denon Heath (Boston, 1860-64), I, 46-47. R eferences w ill
be to this edition.
^Historical Revolution, p. 268.
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48
5
characters,"
Such objections w ere opposed beforehand by Bacon's sympathetic
editor, James Spedding, He pointed out that Bacon wrote The History
of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh during his imprisonment in
1621; without access to original documents, he was forced to depend !
on earlier h istories and perpetuated their inaccuracies, yet his work |
i
"in all its main features," that is, in its interpretation of the directionj
6
of events and in its portrait of Henry, was remarkably accurate, |
The annotations in Spedding's edition refer many of Bacon's errors to I
7 _ I
earlier historians, especially Polydore V ergil. Spedding has con- |
fidence that Bacon did not invent any part of the narrative, as he did I
the imaginary speeches, but had access to evidence which is no longer j
extant;^ Bacon would not have expressed positively what was only an !
inference from a previous account (p. 176, n, 1). Spedding admits,
however, that it is im possible to say for certain how Bacon may have i
I
added to those sources which are not known {p. 158, n, 2), or whether|
the conclusions he drew from those sources were based on sufficient
5
A sim ilar, m ore detailed attack on Bacon's reliability was con
ducted by Wilhelm Busch, England Under the Tudors (London, 1895),
pp. 416-423,
^"Preface to the History of the Reign of Henry VII," in Works, XI,
14-16. Douglas Bush also refers to the work as one which contains
erroneous details, but which was superior to anything done before for
its picture of events and analysis of Henry's policy, --E nglish L iter-
ature in the E arlier Seventeenth Century, pp, 212-213l
7
Cf. p. 73, n. l; p . 86, n. 2, n, 3; p. 87, n. l; p . 96, n. 2;
p. 109, n. 1 ; p. 117, n. 1; p. 118, n. 1; p. 128, n, 1.
8 ,
P. 102, n, 1; p. 116, n, 1; p. 214, n, 1.
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49
evidence (p. 165, n. 2), In one case, in dealing with the wording of a
proclamation by a notorious pretender to the throne, one Perkin
Warbeck, Bacon carefully repeated verbatim the excerpts he found
recorded by Speed; he then supplemented this from memory, seeking
to give a correct im pression of the spirit of the document (p. 250,
n. 2). But in this practice, Spedding adds, his m em ory som etim es
deceived him (p. 252, n, 2).
Bacon does not say that the m aterial available to him was not
accurate, but in his fragmentary history of the reign of Henry VIII,
he complained of his great disadvantage in not having a decent chrono
logical record at his disposal. "Freshness of memory" and "the acts,
instrum ents, and negotiations of state" were "the best originals and
instructions out of which to write an history, " but the task was '
facilitated by the availability of good previous accounts (XI, 35). One
of his suggestions to King James in The Advancement of Learning was
that events be recorded as they happened; from this a greater, m ore
unified, m ore ornamented history could be developed (VIII, 429-430).
"Above all things (for this is the ornament and life of Civil
History), I w ish events to be coupled with their causes" (VIII, 419).
It is significant that sufficiently probable causes w ere acceptable to
Bacon. Leonard F. Dean's studies, sustained by Owen Jenkins,
showed that "it was enough for Bacon and other theorists if the causes
9
and m otives adduced were probable"; that it was part of conventional
Tudor historiography that secondary information should be tested in
^"Sir Francis Bacon's Theory of Civil History-W riting," p. 183.
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50!
the light of what was probable, that part of the job of the historian was |
to fill out his account with what was probable.^^ Bacon fully accepted |
conjecture as an historical necessity:
The story of a tim e (especially if it be of a period much before the j
age of the writer) is sure to m eet with many gaps in the records, |
and to contain empty spaces which must be filled up and supplied at |
pleasure by wit and conjecture. (VIII, 425) |
i
Raleigh advised that it was better to accept probable conjectures about I
I
the past than to believe nothing at all (IV, 684-685). Furthermore, |
"probability, it was felt, could be secured m ost surely through |
practical experience rather than through research. That is to say, |
the man of affairs was best fitted to form good conjectures. \
It was up to the historian to make the proper inferences, to explain
or interpret the facts in term s of what was m ost probably true. i
The test of truth, in this case, was the historian's judgment, en
lightened by his political and philosophical experience. (Fussner,
p. 271)
It w ill be interesting now to note the specific uses of conjecture
and probability in Bacon's History of the Reign of King Henry the
Seventh to discover m ore about their quality. One conjecture was in
connection with the appearance of an im poster early in the king's reign
(XI, 69-74). The story was bare, and without the amplification of
conjecture it did not carry weight:
whereof the relations which we have are so naked, as they leave it
scare credible. . . . Therefore we shall make our judgment upon
the things them selves, as they give light one to another, and (as we
can) dig truth out of the m ine. (XI, 69-70)
The justification for the conjecture was the steady attention to the
^^Dean, "Tudor Theories," pp. 3-4.
^^Dean, "Sir Francis Bacon's Theory," p. 183.
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51|
j
facts, "the things them selves, " and the careful study of the relation
among them. In the story, the two young sons of Edward had been j
im prisoned in the Tower and m urdered there, but the rumor p ersisted
that one had escaped. A "subtile priest" set about training a baker's
son to im personate one of the princes. It was not likely that the p riest
would attempt this without the assistan ce of someone who had been at
court.
That which is m ost probable, out of the precedent and subsequent
acts, is, that it was the Queen Dowager from whom this action had |
the principal source and motion, (p. 72) I
That which doth chiefly fortify this conjecture is, that as soon as the ;
m atter brake forth in any strength, it was one of the King's first actsj
to cloister the Queen Dowager in the nunnery of Berm ondsey, and to ;
take away all her lands and estate, (p. 73)
The King took this action on som e very minor pretext. :
Which proceeding being even at that tim e taxed for rigorous and un
due, both in m atter and manner, m akes it very probable there was !
som e greater m atter against her. . . . (p. 74) I
i
Later on during King Henry's reign another im poster, Perkin Warbeck,!
em erged; in tim e he was im prisoned, but he managed to escape to a
sanctuary, and placed h im self in the hands of a P rior, who appealed
to the king for Perkin's life. A rumor circulated that the prisoner had
been perm itted to escape that he might be put to death. In Bacon's
thinking, this was "not probable; for that the sam e instrum ents who
observed him in his flight might have kept him from getting into sane- !
tuary" (XI, 302). In another instance, the King of Aragon becam e
suspicious that Henry might be seeking control of C astile, in com pe
tition with other powerful nobles of Spain, through the m arriage of his !
daughter with the Prince of C astile. Bacon doubted that the King
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52
entertained an idea so inconsistent with his habits.
But this purpose of the King's seem eth to m e (considering the King's
safe courses, never found to be enterprising or adventurous,) not i
greatly probable; except he should have had a d esire to breathe
warm er, because he had ill lungs. (XI, 350) I
I
To establish the House of Lancaster m ore firm ly. King Henry sought, |
unsuccessfully, the canonization of Henry VI. j
The general opinion was, that Pope Julius was too dear, and that the |
King would not come to his rates. But it is m ore probable, that the |
Pope, who was extrem ely jealous of the dignity of the see of Rome
and of the acts thereof, knowing that King Henry Sixth was reputed
in the world abroad but for a sim ple man, was afraid it would but
dim inish the estim ation of that kind of honour, if there were not a
distance kept between innocents and saints. (XI, 348-349)
A nobleman named Robert Clifford was first a partisan of the im
poster Warbeck in Flanders and then the betrayer of one of W arbeck's |
supporters. Sir W illiam Stanley, the King's Lord Chamberlain, A
rumor held that Robert Clifford had been a spy of Henry's from the
I
beginning. |
But this is not probable; both because he never recovered that de
gree of grace which he had with the King before his going over; and
chiefly for that the discovery which he had made touching the Lord
Chamberlain (which was his great service) grew not from anything ,
he learned abroad, for that he knew it w ell before he went. (XI, 230)
These interesting and convincing conjectures are stated con
fidently, quite as if they settled the questions. They are the opinions i
of a man of experience, and that, in the R enaissance, conferred
credit upon them. One notices a sim ilarity to the conjectures of
Raleigh in the solidity and sophistication of judgment and in the ap
preciation of the weight of accompanying circum stances. One notices
in Raleigh the sam e demand for freedom of conjecture to be allowed
the man of experience.
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53
Some of Bacon's remarks on the laws and kinds of history, which
Raleigh spoke of with admiration and fam iliarity, have an interesting
bearing on the cautious and rational spirit with which Raleigh ap
proached his work. The major part of Bacon's exposition occurs in
the Second Book of The Advancement of Learning. He w rites that all
learning could be classified with reference to the three faculties of
man; poesy corresponded with imagination, philosophy with reason,
and history with mem ory. History was the least harmful learning
because it contained least of the author's mind and had the closest
connection with action, and because memory was the faculty least
subject to fault (XI, 33-34). In the intellectual process, the senses
received direct im pressions which became fixed in the memory, and
there they were subject to review. It was this review which con
stituted history, as against "fanciful imitation" which made poetry, or
analysis and classification which made philosophy. "For I consider
history and experience to be the same thing" (VIII, 408); that is to say,
history was a matter of "concrete, individual instances," or the raw
m aterial for the increase of learning (Fussner, pp. 255-256).
Bacon divided history into Natural History (the deeds of Nature)
and Civil History (the deeds of Men); the latter was subdivided into
E cclesiastical History and Literary History (a history of learning)
(VIII, 409). Civil History, "which is a kind of image of events and
tim es," was of three kinds: M em orials, or Preparatory History, the
bare accounts of events without causes, pretexts, counsels, orations,
etc., or the bare records of public acts without continuous narrative;
Antiquities, such as genealogies, annals, titles, monuments, coins.
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54
etc. , which w ill yield information to the diligent historian (VIII, 422-
424); and last, Perfect History (one infers it could use the m aterial of
the other two), of which again there were three types: the History of
Times, which dealt with great public actions; the History of Lives,
which took a single person, as the subject; and the History of Narration,
which centered about a single important action, such as a war (VIII,
424-426), The History of Times fell into two types, the Universal and
the Particular, the former giving the history of the world from the
beginning, the latter the history of a kingdom. Universal History ran
the danger of violating the strict laws of history;
For the writer who has such a variety of things on all sides to attend
to, w ill become gradually less scrupulous on the point of information]
his diligence, grasping at so many subjects, will slacken in each; he
w ill take up with rumors and popular reports, and thus construct his
history from relations which are not authentic, or other frivolous
m aterials of the kind. (VIII, 431)
Bacon generalized that the History of Times, of which, of course,
Raleigh's was one, was defective in its truthfulness in that it tended to I
omit "the sm aller passages and motions of men and matters," and I
tended to dramatize and enlarge human actions:
But such being the workmanship of God, that he hangs the greatest
weights upon the sm allest w ires, it comes commonly to pass that
such a history, pursuing the greater things alone, rather sets forth
the pomp and solemnity of business than the true and inward springs
and resorts thereof. Moreover, when it does add and insert the
counsels and motives, yet from its love of grandeur it introduces
into human actions more gravity and prudence than they really have;
so that a truer picture of human life may be found in a satire than in
some histories of this kind. (VIII, 425)
By contrast, the History of Lives, in mixing both the small and large i
actions, "certainly contain a more lively and faithful representation of
i
things, and one which you may more safely and happily take for ex
ample in another case" ; and the History of Narratives also are "more !
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55!
purely and exactly true" because they deal with a limited tim e about I
i
12
which complete and certain information could be had.
Thus Bacon pointed out the dangers of universal history. Raleigh,!
perhaps alerted by the very passage quoted, made the effort to m eet I
the disadvantages: his probing argumentation is maintained per
sistently, the sober spirit of the work holds off the indulgence of love
of grandeur, and Raleigh makes a great deal of psychological m otives, |
or the "inward springs," in his pagan history. Surely Raleigh was |
thinking of Bacon's warning to the universal historian that the "smalleij
wires" could be of the greatest significance, when he wrote, |
I think it not impertinent som etim es to relate such accidents as may ;
seem no better than m ere trifles; for even by trifles are the qualitiesj
of great persons as w ell disclosed as by their great actions. (V,490)l
He is persistently critical of the unreliability of one or another h is
torian, and the point may be made here that, in spite of an apparent
contradiction, his large borrowings from the extant histories of
Greece and Rome were not a violation of this. Bacon him self sug
gested that those works be combined in a unified whole, as if Greek
and Roman history had been written for all time:
In which sequences of story the text of Thucydides and Xenophon in
the one, and the texts of Livius, Polybius, Sallustius, Caesar,
Appianus, Tacitus, Herodianus in the other, to be kept entire with
out any diminution at all, and only to be supplied and continued.
(VI, 192)
Other historians of Bacon's tim e w ere willing to accept earlier works
12 .
The conventional Tudor theory was that history should be
limited, not the m edieval universal type (Dean, "Tudor Theories, "
p. 3). Mr. Dean believes Raleigh made his history the universal
kind, not because he was medieval, but because he wished to take a
very broad view of history ("Tudor Theories," pp. 17-18).
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56
as authoritative (Fussner, p. 266),
Bacon was one of the first to say that history was a science, that
it was susceptible to inductive study, that it could lead to a scientific
understanding of man in society (Fussner, pp. 263-264), Bacon con
sidered w riters of history and poets to be the best doctors of the
knowledge of the affections ; they showed how the affections are incited,
how they grow, how they work, how they con flict-- all this was very
useful in m oral and civil m atters because it would lead to the control
of the emotions for civil ends (VI, 337-338). A knowledge of m en's
natures with special regard "to those differences which are most
radical in being the fountains and causes of the rest, or m ost frequent ;
in concurrence or commixture," was very important to m orality and I
policy (VI, 332-333). History, poetry, and daily experience could i
supply m aterial for this study (VI, 334), and history better than poetry
1
because of its greater truthfulness. Bacon would have had this 1
1
m aterial develop inductively into a science of man. This study of the |
mind and the affections, and the rem edies thereof, for the alleviation
of suffering, was advocated in The Advancement of Learning. "Far
the best provision and m aterial for this treatise is to be gained from
the w iser sort of historians" for their way of presenting the whole
character in the m idst of events, "Wherefore out of these m aterials
^ (which are surely rich and abundant) let a full and careful treatise be
constructed" (IX, 217). The m aterial provided by history would be
analysed into "the several features and sim ple lineaments" of the
individuals,
and by the various combinations and arrangem ents of which all
characters whatever are made up, showing how many, and of what
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"I
nature these are, and how connected and subordinate one to another; |
that so we may have a scientific and accurate dis section of minds and I
characters, and the secret dispositions of particular men may be |
revealed. (IX, 218) i
It is perfectly apparent from Bacon's own practice that conjecture
contributed a good part to the base on which this inductive science
I
would be built. Probable conjecture was operative in Bacon's own j
historiography, and respected enough by Bacon to contribute to a
structure of scientific understanding. This is much m ore trust in
probability than could have been accorded by Academic Skepticism .
The spirit of doubt of form al skepticism was contrary to Bacon's
i
thought. This becom es very clear if we examine Bacon's position in \
relation to A ristotelianism . The whole movement for the advancement,'
i
i
of learning and the roles given therein to conjecture and the possibility!
of certainty in knowledge, remove both Bacon and Raleigh from the
influence of form al skepticism .
!
The Advancement of Learning |
Bacon's system of reasoning, and the resulting
confidence in the possibility of establishing certainty
The introduction of A ristotle in the west in the twelfth and thir
teenth centuries had im m easurable consequences. As Douglas Bush
has said, it made both rational theology and scientific rationalism
possible, and "these two movements, especially the latter, may be
13
said to have given the modern mind its direction." Later he says.
When the su ccessors of Aquinas exposed the contradictions latent
in Thomism, separated reason and faith, and transferred theology
13
The R enaissance and English Humanism (Toronto, 1939), p. 30,
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58
to the province of the "irrational," they opened the way for that
scep tical rationalism which was to grow stronger every day. (p. 53)
!
This separation of reason and faith, this rem oval of theology to a |
separate province, was adopted as a basic prem ise by Bacon in his
w ritings throughout his life . ^^ He held that the mixture of scien ce and
theology had been harmful to both d iscip lin es. In his own clearly
structured phrases:
The prejudice hath been infinite that both divine and human know
ledge hath received by the interm ingling and tem pering of the one
with the other ; as that which hath filled the one full of h eresies, and
the other full of speculative fictions and vanities. (VI, 29)
It was quite proper for man to philosophize and to see the general
I
character of G od--H is goodness and p ow er--in His works, but man
lacked the ability without the aid of revelation to know anything about |
God's hidden purposes or His way of working. It was im possible to
!
learn anything about God from a study of nature because "God is only |
self-lik e, having nothing in common with any creature" (VI, 29). The j
world was not the image of God, "but only the work of his hands"
(VIII, 478). It was equally im possible to learn anything about nature
Fulton Anderson, The Philosophy of Francis Bacon (Chicago,
1948), p. 53; Howard Schultz, Milton and Forbidden Knowledge (New
York, 1955), p. 35. Fernand Van Steenberghen w rites in A ristotle in
the West (Louvain, 1955), that the relation between reason and faith
had not been considered by the Greeks and Romans, but becam e a
n ecessary problem for the Christian as w ell as for the M oslem and
Jewish thinker (p. 17). St. Augustine had maintained that the reason
was deficient and required the light of faith to prevent it from going
astray. This doctrine was orthodox in the thirteenth century and even
later (pp. 30-31; p. 151; p. 151, n. 3). But with the introduction of
A ristotle, and by about 1230, an attitude had begun to develop in the t
Faculty of Arts in P aris which can be called the first expression of
"naturalistic and rationalist tendencies " which soon led to an em phasis
on the autonomy of the scien ces open to the charge of the double truth
(pp. 98-99).
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591
i
from Scripture: |
To seek heaven and earth in the word of God . . . is to seek tern- i
porary things amongst eternal. . . . The scope or purpose of the ;
Spirit of God is not to express m atters of nature in the Scripture. |
(VI, 405)
It was p recisely A ristotle's error that he proposed to explain God with
his usual logical tools. He passed from the causes in nature to a
F irst Cause. But God was altogether outside the realm of natural
causation. In this respect the natural philosophy of D em ocritus and
others was superior to A ristotle's in that they
!
removed God and Mind from the structure of things, and attributed j
the form thereof to infinite essays and proofs of nature . . . and a s- |
signed the causes of particular things to the n ecessity of m atter,
without any interm ixture of final causes. . . . (VIII, 509-510)
This search for final causes in nature had diverted the student away |
from the study of actual physical causes (VIII, 508-509), "whereas if
m en's w its be shut out of that port, it turneth them again to discover,
and so to seek reason of reason m ore deeply" (VI, 75).
Bacon seem s to have set up this two-fold truth le ss for the sake of
15
religion than for science, though at the sam e tim e he supplied scien
tists with a means of reconciling the two by arguing that the study of
nature was helpful to faith and a religious duty (W illey, pp. 33-37).^^
All knowledge and specially that of natural philosophy tendeth highly
to the magnifying of the glory of G od--his power, providence, and
benefits; appearing and engraven in his works, which without that
knowledge are beheld but as through a veil. (VI, 423)
15
B asil W illey, The Seventeenth Century Background (London,
1949), pp. 29-30.
16
B asil W illey points out the interesting fact that before the
middle of the eighteenth century nature had becom e not the support of
revelation but the test of it (Seventeenth Century Background, p. 75).
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Far from causing disbelief, a true knowledge of the works of nature |
(the second causes of God) would bring men around to a deeper r e
ligion: "he w ill easily believe that the highest link of m en's chain
m ust needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair" (VI, 97). God had
set two books before us to secure us from error; these w ere Scripture
and the book of nature; "that latter book w ill certify us that nothing
which the first teacheth shall be thought im possible" (VI, 33).
There are but two fountains of h eresy, not knowing the w ill of God
revealed in the Scriptures, and not knowing the power of God r e
vealed or at least made m ost sensible in his creatures. (VI, 424)
The book of nature was to be examined by Bacon's newly and very
clearly defined method. During the preceding four centuries, after
the renaissance of science in the twelfth century, study was devoted to
17
the "double procedure, " which originated with A ristotle, and in
volved the use of both observation and hypothesis. In the A ristotelian ^
system , deductive reasoning received the greater em phasis. It is
true that the scien tist was to begin with the observation of facts and
experience and ascend to generalizations, but the latter w ere taken to i
be the cause of experience, and "therefore prior in the order of
nature" (Crombie, p. 25). A ristotle said, "Knowledge of the fact
differs from knowledge of the reason for the fact, and scien ce was
not considered to have begun, in the A ristotelian system , until the
reasons for the facts w ere formulated; it was this which constituted
1 7
A. C, Crombie, Robert G rosseteste and the Origins of E xperi
m ental Science 1100-1700 (Oxford, 1953), p ^ 3Ù1.
1 8
Quoted in Crombie, pp. 25-26.
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scientific knowledge. Experimentation did not play a large part in the
A ristotelian system . Abelard, expounder of A ristotle in the early
twelfth century, "maintained that causes w ere to be investigated m ore
by reason than by sensory experience, and he concentrated on the d e
ductive side of science" (Crombie, p. 30). It was later in the second
half of the twelfth century that a shift toward em piricism developed
I
with the translation of many other scientific works of a m ore practical I
than theoretical nature; "this new learning . . . brought about an in
crease in practical, observational science, usually with som e useful
purpose in view" (Crombie, p. 36). Robert G rosseteste, m aster at
Oxford from 1230-1235, was the first to adapt the "double procedure" |
to experim ent with increased em phasis on induction (Crombie, p. 132,
p. 291). G rosseteste's work was carried on by Roger Bacon (1214-
19
1292 ). The experim ental approach becam e characteristic of Oxford i
scholarship during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and then
spread throughout the w est (Crombie, p. 189). The in terests of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are sim ply continuations of this
theory of science, with intensified interest in experimentation
(Crombie, pp. 295-296).
Bacon's new logic continued the shift of em phasis just described.
Knowledge would begin with an investigation of particulars, and upon
19
G rosseteste makes an appearance in English literature in
Gower's C onfessio A m antis, IV, 11. 234 seqq. (cited in Crombie,
p. 187, n. 3), and Roger Bacon, of course, in G reene's Friar Bacon
and Friar Bungay. Apart from the popular opinions and fears, hoth
men w ere very highly regarded in the sixteenth century by serious
scien tists (Crombie, pp. 278-279).
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62i
th ese would be built m ore and m ore general principles,A large I
body of m aterial would be collected from natural history and experi- |
mentation; this m aterial would be reduced to order, and gen eraliza
tions would then be developed (Anderson, p. 32). P rogression toward
the principles would be extrem ely cautious and thorough. At no point
was the mind to fly up to the principles, and proceed from them de
ductively, in the old way (Anderson, p. 130). "The understanding
m ust not therefore be supplied with w ings, but rather hung with
w eights, to keep it from leaping and flying, " w rote Bacon (VIII, 138).
It was im perative to start on the level of fact. The sen ses would
a ssist in the collection of data: "The evidence of the sense, helped
I
and guarded by a certain p rocess of correction, I retain" (VIII, 60).
In supplying the w eakness of the sen ses, Bacon was consciously re-
I
moving the skeptical im passe to the advancement of learning. His
difference with the Skeptics is stated plainly in The Advancement of
Learning (IX, 70-71) and in the Novum Organum (VIII, 158). He felt I
the skeptical argum ents w ere not without good reason, since the
sen ses w ere indeed defective: hence the sight would be aided by in
strum ents, such as the m icroscope, and by rules of observation; the
m em ory by w ritten tables; the intellect by correct rules of induction
I
(Anderson, pp. 86-87, 224-241); "the in tellect is not qualified to judge:
except by m eans of induction, and induction in its legitim ate form"
(VIII, 45). The observer would begin his task by gathering, not
20
Anderson, The Philosophy of F rancis Bacon, p. 85. My sum
m ary of Bacon's inductive method is based on this one-volum e
explanation.
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63
indiscriminate facts, but instances of the occurrences of the nature
under investigation, then instances of the absence of the nature which
had some relation to the affirmative instances, and finally instances
in which the nature occurred in differing degrees. Distortions and
m arvels would also be noted. This information would be recorded in
tables which could be pondered over. After this the first affirmation
or generalization could be made (Anderson, pp. 219-222). Thereafter
the inductive process continued under the control of rules and safe
guards, ascending to principles and descending to works (Anderson,
pp. 224 f .). It was Bacon’s conviction that the inductive method was
the only tool that had ever been effective for the advancement of know
ledge (Anderson, p. 182), that unless man turned his mind to the
particulars in the world around him, his science would always be
mistaken (Anderson, p. 184). Inductive science provided for a union
of sense and understanding, of the experimental and the rational
(Anderson, p. 290).
I have established for ever a true and lawful marriage between the
em pirical and the rational faculty, the unkind and ill-starred divorce
and separation of which has thrown into confusion all the affairs of
the human family. (VIII, 34)
In the past, thinkers had failed to check their theories by observation:
Men have withdrawn them selves too much from the contemplation of
nature and the observations of experience, and have tumbled up and
down in their own reason and conceits. (VI, 132)
All that men have accepted on authority should be submitted to exam i
nation, and all received opinions and generalizations should be set
aside (Anderson, p. 182). Men should "betake them selves seriously
to experiment and bid farew ell to sophistical doctrines. ..." (VIII,
93). The new knowledge would be put to no other use than that which
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64
God intended, "which is the benefit and relief of the state and society
I
of man" (VI, 33-34). The new method would be tested not by abstrac- i
tions, but by the degree of its productiveness of works (Anderson,
pp. 81-82).
Both the system and the philosophy which lay behind it were ac
companied by a tremendous confidence in the powers of man and the
possibility of certain knowledge. "Applied science," writes Douglas
21
Bush, "offered a m essage of infinite optimism." Richard Foster
Jones, in his Ancients and Moderns: A Study of the R ise of the Scien-
22
tific Movement in Seventeenth Century England, speaks of the new
faith in the possibility of progress. To Bacon antiquity was the in- |
fancy, not the mature age of the world (VIII, 116). Feelings of |
confidence grew steadily in this regard during the seventeenth century,|
I
and by the end of that tim e most men were sure that the moderns had i
23
surpassed the ancients. For Bacon the achievements of the ancients |
were certainly not to be belittled, but a more certain way to the
deeper secrets of nature was possible (VIII, 32-33), which he ex
pressed in this way:
Now what the sciences stand in need of is a form of induction which
shall analyse experience and take it to pieces, and by a due process
of exclusion and rejection lead to an inevitable conclusion, (VIII, 42) '
His method of science was intended to put an end to error: "I
21
Renaissance and English Humanism, p. 93.
77
(Berkeley, 1965), pp. 42-43.
23
Richard S. Westfall, Science and Religion in Seventeenth-
Century England (New Haven] 1958), pp. 8-9.
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propose," he wrote, "to establish progressive stages of certainty" |
(VIII, 60), and in the Preface to the Novum Organum he invited all who!
sought "certain and demonstrable knowledge . . . to join them selves,
I
as true sons of knowledge, with me ..." (VIII, 63-64). One of j
Bacon's objections to the skeptical philosophy was that "when the
human mind has once despaired of finding truth, its interest in all
things grows fainter . . ." (VIII, 98). The greatest obstacle to know
ledge was "that men despair and think things impossible" (VIII, 128).
"If a man w ill begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he j
w ill be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties" (VI, '
133). Bacon's great certainty was modified by subsequent scientists,
24
though he was still greatly admired by the Royal Society.
Certainly an element of skepticism is inseparable from scientific
caution. But Bacon "taught philosophers to observe moderation even
in doubt, to suspend judgment, but not foolishly or in d e fin ite ly .^
Neither Bacon, whom I have taken as representative of the new
science, nor Raleigh, who was sympathetic with the movement, would ^
in principle have settled for probabilities where certainty was p o ssi
ble. Compare these passages, the first by Bacon, the second and
third by Raleigh:
To seek, not pretty and probable conjectures, but certain and de
monstrable knowledge. (Novum Organum, Works, VIII, 64)
^^Henry Van Leeuwen, The Problem of Certainty in English
Thought 1630-1690 (The Hague, 1963), pp. 1 -11.
25
Schultz, Milton and Forbidden Knowledge, p. 34.
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66 i
i
These are the arguments of that noble and learned w riter Joseph |
Scaliger, who, not contented to follow the common opinion, founded |
upon likelihood of conjectures, hath drawn his proofs from matter |
of more n ecessary inference. (History, IV, 676) |
Such conjectures, being entertained without examination, find credit |
by tradition, whereby, also, many tim es, their fashion is amended,
and made m ore historical than was conceived by the author. But it
cannot be safe to let our faith (which ought to stand firm upon a sure I
foundation) lean over-hardly on a w ell painted, yet rotten, post. |
(History, VII, 767) |
Yet conjecture, as we have seen, had an inevitable and necessary part |
to play in the search for knowledge. The term "probable" was freely
used in the new science, but in a different sense from the Skeptical
one ; it meant not that which enabled man to have a working arrange
ment with society, but that which had a good possibility of ascertain
able truth, or that which was so far reasonable, in the view of a man ;
of experience and judgment, that it could be used as the basis for
further thought. The search for certainty and the expectation of find- ;
ing it is the essential difference between Raleigh and Bacon, on the
one hand, and the Academic Skeptics on the other, and this philosophic
difference makes it advisable to take the new science as a better
source for Raleigh's arguments from probability than form al skepti
cism .
R eflection of Bacon's attitudes in Raleigh
There is a strong reflection in Raleigh of the new attitudes of his
tim e expressed so firm ly by Bacon. There are no instances in the
History of the application of Bacon's specific inductive process, but
we find all the marks and consequences of the thinking that lay behind
it: the same fear of presumption, the same careful exclusion of the
properties of God from his discussion, the sam e faith in experiment.
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67;
the sam e confidence in the possibility of discovery. He, like Bacon, |
stated that we could know a little of God's nature--H is power, wisdom,;
j
goodness--through His works: "By these potent effects we approach to;
i
the knowledge of the omnipotent Cause, and by th ese m otions, their |
almighty Mover" (II, 2). But it was very dangerous to try to under
stand the manner of God's workings. |
To be over-curious in searching how the all-pow erful word of God I
wrought in the creation of the world . . . is a labour and search like |
unto his, who, not contented with a known and safe ford, w ill pre- j
sume to pass over the greatest river in all parts, where he is |
ignorant of their depths: for so doth the one lose his life, and the
other his understanding. We behold the sun, and enjoy his light, as
long as we look towards it but tenderly, and circum spectly; we warm
ourselves safely, while we stand near the fire: but if we seek to out-j
face the one, or enter into the other, we forthwith becom e blind or |
burnt. (II, 12)
The portion of the Preface in which A ristotle is attacked exp resses |
R aleigh's horror at A ristotle's presumption in d iscu ssin g God's
manner of creation.
What reason of man (whom the curse of presumption hath not stu-
pified) hath doubted, that infinite power . . . hath any thing wanting
in itself either for matter or form; yea, for as many w orlds (if such
had been God's w ill) as the sea hath sands? . . . Yea reason itself
finds it m ore easy for infinite power to deliver from itself a finite
world, without the help of matter prepared; than for a finite man, a
fool and dust, to change the form of m atter made to his hands.
(II, xlix)
Later, in the text of the H istory, Raleigh repeats, in his arresting and
powerful way, "I dare not think, that any su p ercelestial heaven, or
whatever else (not him self) was increate and eternal" (II, 7). This
fear goes so far in one section of the H istory as to cause Raleigh to
despair of discovering about God's creations "the manner how God
worketh in them, or they in or with each other" (II, 24-26), But
Bacon, too, had doubted that what he called "the summary law of
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26 I
nature" could be discovered. For confirmation of Raleigh's essen- j
tial optimism we have, first, his powerful Baconian attack on ancient
philosophers:
I shall never be persuaded . , . that God hath given invention but to
the heathen, and that they only have invaded nature, and found the |
strength and bottom thereof; the same nature having consumed all
her store, and left nothing of price to after-ages. (II, xlv) |
Second, we know that Raleigh was greatly interested in expérimenta- I
tion. William Stebbing's biography. Sir Walter Raleigh, names some ;
of Raleigh's many experiments and scientific accomplishments, notably
his confirmed and now lost discovery of the method of condensing
27
fresh water from salt. During the first years of his imprisonment,
his chief pastime was chemistry. He was given garden space which |
he converted into a laboratory. There he built a furnace for the i
assaying of ores, samples of which were sent to him by friends. He
became famous for his experiments in his day. As a scientist he had ;
the respect of Bacon. In a personal notebook written in Bacon's own
hand there is a passage in which Raleigh is named as one whose
services should be procured for the furtherance of the Great Instaura- ,
tion. The passage, an abbreviated note, reads, "The setting on work
my Lord of Northumberland and Ralegh, and therefore Haryott, them-
28
selves being already inclined to experiments" (Works, VII, 63).
Paul H. Kocher, Science and Religion in Elizabethan England
(San Marino, 1953), p. 7F!
^^(Oxford, 1891), pp. 265-267.
28
Thomas Harriot was the outstanding scientist and mathematician
of his day. He sailed to Virginia in 1585 with the expedition Raleigh
had planned. He and Raleigh were close friends. Later Harriot
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69;
There are innumerable examples in the History of the use Raleigh
makes of new discoveries and the evidence of new observation and
experiment in settling disputed questions. Perhaps the most interest- j
i
ing concerns the changes reported in Greek myth in the shape of the |
planet Venus. To prove that these changes were not fabulous, Raleigh!
I
adduces the recent discoveries of Galileo: I
I
Galilaeus, a worthy astrologer now living, who, by the help of per- ^
spective glasses, hath found in the stars many things unknown to the |
ancients, affirmeth so much to have been discovered in Venus by his
late observations. . . . Sure I am, that the discovery of a truth for
m erly unknown, doth rather convince man of ignorance, than nature
of error. (II, 193)^9
Some other examples are in order. It had been claimed that Paradise
(the Garden of Eden) could not be located near the equinoctial line
because of the excessive heat there which would have made it un
pleasant. Paradise was certainly far from the equinox, argued
Raleigh, but the error on the climate of the tropics arose from in
sufficient experience:
For hereof experience hath informed reason, and time hath made
those things apparent which were hidden, and could not by any con
templation be discovered. . . , (For those places which m yself have
seen, near the line and under it) I know no other part of the world
of better, or equal temper. (II, 88-89)
Another interesting example illustrates Raleigh's knowledge of the
movement of waters. Raleigh held it was possible to state the
became a member of Northumberland's retinue. Henry Percy, Lord
of Northumberland, the "Wizard Earl," was a fellow -pris oner of
Raleigh's in the Tower.--W . M. Wallace, Sir Walter Raleigh (P rince
ton, 1959), pp. 38-39, 82.
29
Galileo's discernment of the complete cycle of the phases of
Venus was crucial in confirming the Coper ni can theory.
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70
longitude of Paradise quite p recisely by "learning out" the Tigris or
Euphrates, and following other marks that remained after the flood.
The flood had not defaced the land, as some supposed, for the w aters
could not have been very violent.
For what descent of waters could there be in a spherical and round
body, wherein there is nor high nor low? seeing that all violent
force of w aters is either by the strength of wind, by descent from
a higher to a lower, or by the ebb or flood of the sea. . . . And this
we know by experience, that all downright rains do everm ore d is
sever the violence of outrageous winds, and beat down and level the
swelling and mountainous billows of the sea; for any ebbs and floods
there could be none, when the waters were equal, and of one height,
over all the face of the earth; and when there w ere no indraughts,
bays, or gulfs to receive a flood. . . . (II, 79-80)
The mountains of Armenia w ere not the highest in the world, "for the
best cosm ographers, with others that have seen the mountains of
Armenia, find them far inferior, and underset to divers other moun
tains . . ." (II, 238). The Red Sea had been supposed to have taken
its name from a Greek king whose name in translation signified "red."
But it seem eth to me by the view of a discovery of that sea in the ’
year 1544, performed lay Stephen Gama, viceroy of the East India
for the king of Portugal, that this sea was so called from a reflec
tion of redness, both from the banks, clifts, and sands of many
islands, and part of the continent bordering it. (Ill, 83)
In proving that civilization had its origin in the East, Raleigh used
recent testim onies of Spanish and Portuguese traders and of Paulus
Venetus to illustrate the antiquity of those parts (II, 222-223). In
another argument, Josephus was certainly in error in settling Dedan,
one of the descendants of Noah, in West Ethiopia, since scripture said
that those of Dedan traded in precious cloths, "and these w estern
Ethiopians never saw cloth, till the Portugais seeking those coasts
traded with them" (II, 318). Repeatedly we find that Raleigh credits
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71 I
him self and others who had made direct observation of distant parts |
through travel (II, 80, 109-110, 230-231; III, 95-96; VI, 29). It should,
be noted that in the History new learnings were necessarily confirma- '
I
tions of scripture, and Raleigh's interpretation of them was guided by |
I
30 !
this fact. In proving the perfect possibility that the ark contained all;
the creatures of the earth, Raleigh writes: j
And whereas by discovering of strange lands, wherein there are •
found divers beasts and birds, differing in colour and stature from *
those of these northern parts, it may be supposed by a superficial .
consideration, that all those which wear red and pied skins, or {
feathers, are differing from those that are le ss painted, and wear
plain russet or black; they are much mistaken that so think. (II, 214)
This opinion is then supported by examples of the basic sim ilarity of
birds and animals seen in various parts of the world, A few tim es
Raleigh uses general observations of England to help prove or disprove
some interpretation of scriptural history. To show that the earth 130
years after the flood must have been too overgrown to permit d is
orderly colonization, he suggests to the imagination the rapidity with
which England with its cold climate would be overgrown "either with
woods or with other offensive thickets and bushments" (II, 252). In
another discussion, he argues there can have been no habitation of
Italy by the Hebrews since there was no trace of the Hebrew tongue in
Italian,
We see by a true experience, that the British language hath re
mained among us above 2000 years, and the English speech ever
since the invasion of the Angles; and the same continuance have all
30
Whether the biblical commentators of the Renaissance were
Aristotelians or up-to-date scientists like Marin M ersenne, their task
was to accommodate science and scripture, and they derived a variety
of means for doing so. - - Arnold W illiams, The Common Expositor
(Chapel Hill, 1948), pp. 174-180.
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72
i
nations observed among th em selves, though with some corruption |
and alteration. (II, 269) i
And to enforce the argument that there w ere certainly enough people :
on the earth not long after Creation to settle m ost of the world, he I
' I
refers to his own age for an analogy:
1
For let us now reckon the date of our lives in this age of the world;
wherein if one exceed fifty years, ten for one are cut off in that I
passage, and yet we find no want of people; nay, we know the m ulti - |
tude such, as if by wars or pestilence they w ere not som etim es
taken off by many thousands, the earth with all the industry of man !
could not give them food. What strange heaps then of souls had the
first ages, who enjoyed eight hundred or nine hundred years as |
aforesaid! (II, 3 03-304) |
Many interesting exam ples can be given to show that R aleigh's know
ledge and love of geography, his soldiery, his fam iliarity with naviga- |
!
tion, all contributed to the soundness of his interpretations. He |
explains that the T igris and Euphrates w ere not to be confused with
the far distant N ile or Ganges (II, 128). He rejected the reading of
Ethiopia for Arabia in the chief translations of the Bible because it did
not square geographically with scripture in à number of ways (II, 286-
287). He quarreled with the translations that named Tirhakah king of
the Ethiopians. Tirhakah's army had approached to attack Sennacherib
at Pelusium by way of the d esert. An Arabian arm y would indeed have
had to cross the desert to come to Pelusium :
But that there is any desert between Pelusium and the south part of
Egypt, hath never yet been heard of or described by any cosm o-
grapher or historian. . . . Indeed, how such an army and those
chariots should pass through a ll Egypt, (the kings of Egypt being
mighty kings,) let all men that know how these regions are seated,
and how far distant, judge. For princes do not easily perm it arm ies
of a m illion to run through them. . , . But the word Chush being first
so converted for Ethiopia, the rest of the interpreters (not looking
into the seats of kingdoms, or the p ossib ilities of attempts, or in
vasions), followed one another in the form er m istakings. (II, 295)
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73
His soldiery conditions his judgment in his d iscu ssion s of the battles
of Greek and Roman tim es, or provides confirming analogies.
It is very strange, and hardly credible, which yet good authors tell i
us, that one city should be able to furnish five hundred sail of ships, |
and two hundred galleys . , . and m ore strange it is, that in a battle |
at sea, without any great artillery or m usket-shot, twenty thousand |
should be slain in one fight. In all our fights against the Turks, of
which that at Lepanto was the m ost notable, we hear of no such |
number lost; nor in any other fight at sea that ever happened in our
age, nor before us. (VI, 53) j
I
From his knowledge of the kinds of decisions that are made in m ilitary
affairs, he thought it was not "likely" that Hazael, king of Aram, }
would have proceeded against the m ore powerful kingdom of Judah w ith
out assistan ce (IV, 625), or that Chedorlaomer would have travelled I
very far to subdue five petty towns, "leaving Tyrus and Sidon, and the I
great city of Dam asco, with many other places of much importance,
and far nearer to him, unsubdued" (III, 33). He interprets an am big
uous passage of scripture on the war of David against the Syrians in
the light of m ilitary sense;
But the ancient and m ost received opinion . . . is m ore probable.
For if David had intended any such enterprise towards Euphrates,
he was in far better case to have proceeded after his victory than
before; seeing that (Adadezer being taken) he had now left no enemy
on his back, either to pursue him, to take victuals and supplies
from him, or to stop the passages of the mountains upon him at his
return. (IV, 509)
And on the length of certain wars conducted by Lehabim, called
H ercules, he wrote:
Krentzhemius hereupon infers, that six years may be allowed to the
wars which H ercules made in so many countries. . . . I think that
Krentzhemius was a greater scholar than soldier: for surely in
those days, when com m erce was not such as now, but all navigation
made by coasting, a far longer tim e would have been required to the
subduing of so many countries. (Ill, 45)
R aleigh's conclusions based on his experience as a sailor have a
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74|
special interest. He argued that the ships of Solomon probably got as |
I
far as the Philippines, but could not have reached Am erica from the
Red Sea, even though the journey took three years.
We m ust consider, that they everm ore kept the coast, and crept by |
the shores, which made the way exceeding long. For before the use I
of the com pass was known, it was im possible to navigate athwart the |
ocean. (II, 335) i
He argues that Thar sis should not have been translated Carthage in
I
Aufrica : |
!
Where it is written, that the ships of Solomon went every three yearsj
to Thar sis, and brought thence gold, silver, elephants' teeth, etc. . !
. . It had been a strange navigation to have spent three years in the |
passage between Judea and Carthage, or any other part of A frica, j
which might have been sailed in six or ten days. (II, 282) I
The H istory of the World is looked at so little that very few are aware |
I
that phrases so strong and so characteristic of the man are hidden
away in its depths,
One would be hard put to find any seed of doubt in the m ajority of i
opinions Raleigh ex p resses. Where scripture was plain, in his
opinion, he could say, "Out of those testim onies therefore which de
ceive not, we may confidently determine" (II, 279), and where he had
to exercise his judgment on a chain of supplementary information, as
in the question whether A ssur, father of the A ssyrians, had separated
from Nimrod, the founder of Babylon, and built Ninevah to rival
Babylon, he could w rite with perfect assuredness, "But we shall in
due place disprove that opinion" (II, 324).
Thus we find in R aleigh a reflection of the Baconian separation of
theology and scien ce with its differing attitudes towards each: an
enormous fear of questioning too far and presum ing too much and an
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7 5 1
unquestioning acceptance of scripture, combined with a confidence
that on the earthly level, man's reason, properly enlightened and
informed, could establish the truth of things.
Probability in Bacon's writings
It w ill be interesting now to examine the role of probability and
conjecture in the scientific writings of Bacon on that level on which
investigation was legitimate. Bacon him self realized, for all his
emphasis on experimentation, that not every detail could be referred
to experimentation, that sound conjecture had an important part to
play in scientific thought. Though he might have wished to reason
strictly from the tables, in practice he found it necessary to use
31
hypothesis.
I candidly admit that some of the propositions here laid down have
not been proved by experience (for my course of life permits not of
that), but are only derived, with what appears to me the best reason,
from my principles and hypotheses. (X, 81)
Experimental observations, he warned, might too hastily be made the
basis for new concepts.
Nor do I say this because I would have any relaxation of industry in
observation and history, which I say should be sharpened and
strengthened in all ways, but only that prudence and a perfect and
settled maturity of judgment may be employed in rejecting or alter
ing hypotheses. (X, 477-478)
A study of Bacon's works shows a free though consciously responsible
use of conjecture and a very frequent use of the term "probable." The
contexts of some of the following examples suggest near certainty;
31
C. J. Ducasse, "Francis Bacon's Philosophy of Science," in
Structure Method and Meaning, ed. Paul Henle, Horace M. Kallen,
and Suzanne K. Langer (New York, 1951), pp. 141-144.
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76i
others suggest what Bacon thought was likely to be borne out byexperi-j
ment. In the Preparative Toward a Natural and Experim ental H istory |
i
one finds the idea that "stories of prodigies, when the report appears I
to be faithful and probable" are to be retained as scientific evidence j
I
(VIII, 360). In The Advancement of Learning, on the subject of "de- j
j
generate" natural m agic, |
• i
It is a thing m ore probable, that he that knoweth w ell the natures of |
Weight, of Colour, of Pliant and Fragile in respect of the hammer,
of Volatile and Fixed in respect of the fire, and the rest, may super
induce upon som e m etal the nature and form of gold by such m ech-
anique as belongeth to the production of the natures afore rehearsed,
than that som e grains of the m edicine projected should in a few
moments of tim e turn a sea of quicksilver or other m aterial into
gold. (VI, 229-230) j
I
In A D escription of the Intellectual Globe, j
If the earth m oves, the stars may be either stationary, as Copernicus
thought, or, as is far m ore probable, and has been suggested by
Gilbert, they may revolve each round its own centre in its own place.!
. . . (X, 424)
For that they [dusky spots in the antarctic sky] are caused by the
heaven in those places being rare and as it w ere perforated, is not
probable; because such a diminution and as it w ere privation of a '
visib le object could not affect our sight at so great a distance; since
the rest of the body of ether is itself invisible. . . . (X, 449)
In the Novum Organum,
A ristotle's fiction of a comet being tied to or following som e par
ticular star has long been exploded, not only because the reason for
it is not probable, but because we have m anifest experience of the
d iscu rsive and irregular motion of com ets through various parts of
the sky. (VIII, 2 50)
In rays of light indeed, and sounds, and heat, and certain other
things acting at a distance, it is probable that the interm ediate bodies
are disposed and altered; the m ore so, because they require a m e d i-;
um qualified for carrying on the operation. (VIII, 269)
And in the Sylva Sylvarum, "it is very probable that the motion of
gravity worketh weakly both far from the earth and also within the
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77
j
earth" (IV, 180); "it is very probable . . . that that which w ill turn I
water into ice, w ill likew ise turn air som e degree nearer unto water" |
(IV, 209); "and it is the m ore probable that sound is without any local |
j
motion of the air ..." (IV, 2.3% "the opinion of som e of the ancients,j
that blown airs do preserve bodies longer than other airs, seem eth to '
me probable" (IV, 326); a prescription of som e of the ancients, on
bringing trees to an early blossom "seem eth to have no great prob- |
I
ability" (IV, 369).^^ ' I
One could point to the occurrence of the term "probable" in many |
and varied cases where Bacon passed his judgment with a high degree I
of conviction. In the V alerius Terminus one reads: !
If you w ill judge of them [very ancient peoples] by the last traces !
that rem ain to us, you w ill conclude . . . reasonably and probably
thus, that it was with them in m atter of knowledge but as the dawn- ;
ing or break of day. (VI, 38-39) I
In defense of learning, in The Advancement of Learning, he wrote,
"And for m atter of policy and government, that learning should rather I
j
hurt than enable thereunto, is a thing very improbable" (VI, 99).
It is a significant and enlightening fact that the thirteenth century
experim ental scien tists of Oxford and Europe, in whose tradition
Bacon belongs (Crombie, G rosseteste, p. 3), held that scientific
dem onstrations could only be probable, and this for such reasons as
that a complete enumeration of cases was not p ossible, that principles j
32
For further exam ples, see The Advancement of Learning, VI,
256; Vlll, 440, 497, 503; A D escription of the Intellectual Globe, X,
426, 435, 441, 446, 447, 476; Novum Organum, Vlll, 154, 318, 334;
Sylva Sylvarum, IV, 51, 77, 87, 93, 156, 571, 373-374, 378, 389,
3 9 3 , 400, 410, 412, 416, 435; A H istory of D ense and Rare, X, 196-
19 7 .
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" I
of greater generality w ere not strictly tied logically to the em pirical |
I
generalization, and so on; as a result, theories could not be taken as
final truths. M athem atical dem onstrations, on the other hand, could |
be com pletely certain, and m etaphysics could be certain only with the
aid of divine illum ination (Crombie, pp. 59-61, p. 293). That is to
say, we find the crucial term "probable" used quite apart from any
connection with ancient form al skepticism ; we are told by Richard
Popkin that ancient skepticism was not at all influential during the
Middle Ages, that Pyrrhonic Skepticism w as in com plete abeyance and
Academic Skepticism known chiefly through St. Augustine's refutation
of it in his Contra Academ icos (History of Skepticism , pp. x-xi).
The Revival of C lassical Historiography
33
The study of history was highly regarded by all Elizabethans.
In his D efense of P oesy Sidney had used A ristotle's argument that
poetry was fundamentally m ore true and m ore illuminating than h is
tory, even if it did not record actual occurrences, because it dealt
with what was m ost probable according to human nature and human
event s .
Truely A ristotle him selfe in his discourse of P o esie, plainly deter-
mineth this question, saying, that P oetrie . . . is m ore P hilo-
sophicall and m ore then H istory. His reason is, because P o esie
dealeth . . . with the univeral consideration, and the H istorié with
. . . the particular
33
Louis B. Wright, M iddle-C lass Culture in Elizabethan England
(Chapel H ill, 1935), pp. 297-302.
34
The D efence of P o esie (London, 1904), pp. 27-28. See David
D aiches, C ritical Approaches to Literature (Englewood Cliffs, 1956),
pp. 37-391
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79
But Thucydides had searched into probabilities in another way, by
discovering from actual occurrences what was so probable in the
nature, of things that it was likely to happen again.
But he that d esires to look into the truth of things done and which
(according to the condition of humanity) may be done again, or at
least their like, he shall find enough herein to make him think it
profitable. j
The sp ecial w isdom history could bestow particularly recom m ended it j
I
to the Tudor hum anists, who, both id ealistically and practically, w ere |
36 !
interested in maintaining a stable state. The study of history held
an important place in the educational program of the hum anists ; Sir
Thomas Elyot esp ecially recomm ended Livy, Xenophon, Quintus
37
Curtius, C aesar, Sallust, and T acitus. Many translations of c la s s
ical h isto ries w ere made. H. B. Lathrop in his Translations from
38
the C la ssics into E nglish from Caxton to Chapman 1477-1620 cites
translations of fifteen different c la ssic a l h istories, som e of which
underwent many editions and m ore than one translation. There w ere
thirteen editions of John Brende's translation of Quintus Curtius '
H istory of the A cts of Alexander, one of the best translations.
35
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans. Thomas Hobbes,
ed. David Grene (Ann Arbor), L 14. The Hobbes translation was
first published in 1628.
36
Fritz Caspari, Humanism and the Social Order in Tudor
England (Chicago, 1954), pp. 1-10.
IT
The Boke Named The Governour (London, 1907), pp. 45-47.
See C aspari, pp. 89-90.
38
Univ. of W is. Stud, in Lang, and Lit. , No. 35 (Madison, 1933),
pp. 311-318.
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80
according to Lathrop (p, 86), and one which Raleigh used in his
account of A lexander. There w ere six editions of partial translations
of L ivy's H istory of Rom e, a com plete translation of Livy in 1600 by
39
Philem on Holland, and an abridgem ent in 1618. Thucydides'
Peloponnesian War was translated from the French in 1550, Diodorus |
' I
Siculus' A H istory of the S u ccessors of Alexander in 1564, Polybius' |
I
H istory in 1568, to mention a few which Raleigh cite s. It is surely
not surprising, in view of the resp ect and popularity accorded the
c la ss ic s, to find signs of the rriethodology of the c la ssic a l historian in
R aleigh's H istory.
The scien tific accuracy, im partiality, and devotion to truth of j
Thucydides are w ell known. During the fourth and third centuries |
i
B. C. , following his death, there was a decline in the quality of h is-
40
to rica l w riting. A taste developed for history that was entertaining, \
fanciful, and dram atic, due to the influence of the rhetorical sch ools. |
In the second century B .C . Thucydides' standards w ere adopted by
Polybius in even stricter m easu re. Raleigh aligns h im self with th ese
m ore scien tific historians. He did not w rite in the rhetorical tradi
tion. He speaks of Thucydides as "an historian of unquestionable
sincerity" (VI, 27); his regard for Polybius is just as high. Livy,
"that notable historian" (VI, 434), had borrowed heavily from
39
Livy was known also through the D iscou rses by M achiavelli in
which M achiavelli illustrated his th eories oi statecraft with incidents
taken from the first ten books of L ivy's H istory of R om e.
40
P . G. Walsh, Livy: His H istorical A im s and Methods
(Cambridge, 1961), pp. 20-30.
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8 1
Polybius (Walsh, pp. 133-135); on those few points where the two
authors disagreed, Raleigh usually sided with Polybius because of his |
greater impartiality. Livy sometimes exaggerated out of under
standable patriotism (VI, 269-271; 283; 293; 309-311); Polybius was
"an historian of sincerity less questionable" (VI, 219). Raleigh's
1
distinction between these two great historians is a good indication of {
the value he placed on truth and reason. A passage in which Raleigh
praises Polybius is an excellent statement of his own values and
method: I
Not without good cause doth Polybius reprehend those two historians, |
Fabius the Roman, and Philinus the Carthaginian; who regarding |
more the pleasure of them unto whose honour they consecrated their !
travails, than the truth of things, and information of posterity, m a g -!
nified . . . all actions and proceedings. . . . No man of sound judg
ment w ill condemn this liberty of censure which Polybius hath used. ;
For to recompense his juniority, (such as it was,) he produceth sub- !
stantial arguments to justify his own relation, and confuteth the |
vanity of those former authors, out of their own writings, by con
ference of places ill cohering. . . , (VI, 284) |
Some examples of the admired arguments of Polybius are in order!
here. The annalist Fabius had written that the ambition of Hannibal
was the cause of the Carthaginian War, that Hannibal fought without
the approval of Carthage and set him self up as a separate power in
Spain. In refutation, Polybius points to the fact that the Carthaginians,
instead of agreeing to yield Hannibal to Roman demands, continued to
41
fight for seventeen more years. The historian Philinus was guilty
of poor coherence when he wrote, first, that the Carthaginians were
The H istories of Polybius, trans. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh
(Bloomington, 1962), iii, 8l Quotations are from this edition by book
and section. Raleigh satirizes the absurdities of Fabius "and others
of the like stamp" in VI, 311-335.
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82;
I
victorious over the Romans in an engagement at M essene, and then,
that the Carthaginians were so demoralized imm ediately after this
successful battle that they evacuated the area and dispersed, and were
then pursued by the Romans. Polybius points out this inconsistency
with much vigor, and then gives the true facts of the action (i, 15).
Philinus had spoken of a treaty between the Carthaginians and Romans
by which each country agreed to restrain itself within certain bounds.
Polybius examined all treaties made by the Romans and found none to
that effect at all (iii, 26). Polybius refutes other historians for their
inconsistency and disregard for the truth in the same way (ii, 56-63;
iii, 47-48; xvi, 14-20); his most famous and m ost sustained criticism
is of Timaeus (Book xii). I
I
Though the contexts of their arguments differ, Raleigh was as |
j
critical of bad reasoning, as dedicated to ascertaining the truth of |
historical occurrences, as concerned with "substantial arguments" as |
Polybius was. Two examples from the History w ill illustrate this.
They w ill show that he argued closely from reason, factual informa
tion, authoritative sources, common sense, and above all from
scripture and the coherence of one scriptural passage with another.
Internal inconsistency disqualified an argument: "the contrariety of
falsehood cannot be hidden, though disguised" (II, 299).
In the course of his argument that Paradise was located eastward
in the land of Eden, in accordance with a literal interpretation of
scripture, Raleigh took up the question of the disputed identity of two
of the four branches of the river that flowed through Eden (II, 111-
126). Josephus, "(whose fields, though they be fertile, yet are they '
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83
exceeding full of weeds)" (II, 116), had identified one as the Ganges
(Augustine, Jerome, and others had accepted his opinion without
examination), and the Seventy had identified the other as the Nile
o- 42
River.
Could there be a stranger fancy in the world, than when we find both
these, namely, Tigris and Euphrates, in A ssyria and Mesopotamia,
to seek the other two in India and Egypt, making the one Ganges, and j
the other Nilus? (II, 112) j
In refutation, Raleigh mentioned first the enormous stretch of land |
which lay between Mesopotamia and the Ganges. Second, if the Ganges
and the Nile were the two branches, they would proceed from the same
source, which was im possible, since the Ganges ran south, and the
Nile north. Third, Cush and his sons settled as near to one another
43
as they could, as other colonizers did; hence, the land of Havilah
(named for one of the sons of Cush), through which the Pison flowed,
and the land of Cush, through which the Gehon flowed, could not have
been far distant one from another. Moreover, scripture read that |
Saul "smote the Amalekites from Havilah to Sur"; Saul was "no such
traveller" as to have gone as far as India. Scripture read that Zerah, i
the Chus it e king, led a very large army against Asa, king of Judah:
42
Raleigh explains that the error was caused in the one case by a
sim ilarity of names: Havilah on the Ganges in India had been confused;
with Havilah on the Tigris in Babylonia. In the other case, it was a
compounding of error: the Septuagint gave an erroneous translation of
Ethiopia for Cush; one of the rivers was known to have watered the
land of Cush; hence, it was taken as the Nile.
43
Raleigh argued for the principle of neighborhood in the settle
ment of the world--that the settlers moved slowly and by degrees,
always into the next area from the first one. Explicit statements of
this principle occur in II, 251-253; 270-271; 292; 327-328.
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841
Which army came not out of Ethiopia beyond Egypt; for that had been |
a strange progress for such a multitude as ten hundred thousand, |
having so mighty a king as the king of Egypt, between Palestine and i
Ethiopia. (II, 118-119) |
After the battle A sa took some of the cities of Zerah, including Gerar; j
: I
a number of scriptural references to Gerar showed that it was located |
in Arabia. The geographer Pliny gave detailed descriptions of an east
and w est Ethiopia, both of which he placed in Africa; the commentator
Pererius agreed that the translation of N ile for Gehon was mistaken.
Finally, as "a m anifest and unanswerable argument," M oses m arried
a woman of the country of Midian, which was without doubt in Arabia;
scripture referred to the M idianites, Chusites, and other tribes by
various names, and interchangeably, because they lived "confusedly
with one another"; hence, it was clear that they were all Arabians.
Raleigh found the error astonishing, "the scriptures making it so
plain . . . and with the scriptures, nature, reason, and experience
bearing w itness " (II, 112).
Berosus and Annius, two scriptural commentators Raleigh found
frequent reason to attack, had written that Gomer and Tubal, grand
sons of Noah, left Babylonia and settled in Spain and Italy in the years
140 and 142 (II, 254-260), Berosus him self and many others agreed
that the Hebrews had come to Shinar in the year 130; according to
scripture, the children of Noah did not separate them selves before
the confusion of tongues, which occurred when the tower was nearly
completed.
Now to think that this work in the newness of the world (wanting all
instruments and m aterials) could be performed in ten years, and
that Tubal and Gomer in the same year could creep through 3000
m iles of desert, with women, children, and cattle let those light
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8 5
b elievers, that neither tie them selves to the scripture nor to reason, ;
approve it, for I do not. (II, 255-256)
Raleigh dem olished B erosus' opinion of the speedy sequence of those
events with half a dozen arguments from common sense and bits of |
factual information; for instance, that the m igrants travelled without
a guide, which the Spaniards in the West Indies found very slow and I
difficult to do; that it was farther from Shinar to Spain and Italy than |
it had been from the east to Shinar, which took many years, and which
trip M oses might have sim plified by his previous knowledge of that |
country; that they could not have hastened their trip by travelling by |
i
sea because navigation was not developed then ("we never read of any |
I
navigation in those days"), or if they had succeeded in the enormous
venture of transporting an army of people by sea, navigation would not i
have been dead for so long after. Even Jason's galley, "if the tale be I
true," carried only fifty-four p assen gers.
Leaving therefore the fabulous to their fables, and all men else to
their fancies, who have cast nations into countries far off, I know
not how, I w ill follow herein the relation of M oses and the prophets;
to which truth there is joined both nature, reason, policy, and
n ecessity; and to the rest, neither probability nor possibility.
(II, 259-260)
Such arguments m erited the adjective "substantial. "
Raleigh shared with the cla ssic a l historians a conviction that the
aim of history was truth. Polybius expressed it thus:
For as a living creature is rendered wholly u se le ss if deprived of
its eyes, so if you take truth from H istory what is left is but an idle
unprofitable tale, (i, 14)
He says later that the essen tial character of history, in contrast to
drama, was its truth (ii, 56). Thucydides claim ed that his history
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86j
44 . . . 45 j
was "an everlasting possession" for the truth which it contained. i
Men do not discriminate, and are too ready to receive ancient tra
ditions about their own as well as about other countries. . . . So
little trouble do men take in the search after truth; so readily do
they accept whatever comes first to hand, (i, 20)
Livy followed Cicero's dictum that history should be both truthful and
I
eloquent (Walsh, pp. 33-34). The rhetorical influence is for the most |
part rejected by Raleigh, but there is no doubt the truth was his aim. |
He would discover it by a fresh and independent examination:
For m yself, I have no other end herein, than to manifest the truth |
: of the world's story; I reverence the judgments of the fathers, but j
I know they were mistaken in particulars. (Ill, 19)
And at the end of his long account of the resettlem ent of the world he
wrote:
This plantation of the world after the flood doth best agree, as to me
it seem s, with all the places of scripture compared together. And
these be the reports of reason and probable conjecture; the guides
which I have followed herein, and which I have chosen to go after,
making no valuation of the opinions of men, conducted by their own
fancies, be they ancient or modern. Neither have I any end herein,
private or public, other than the discovery of truth. (II, 338)
In pursuing the end of truth, the classical historians followed a
more rational, more thorough, more scientific method than other
historians had used. Certainly the scientific historian w ill acknow
ledge that there are some things which cannot be known. The dif
ficulties were aggravated for Thucydides, Livy, and Raleigh for the
reason that they began their histories from a very early point in tim e--
Thucydides with the first inhabitants of Greece, Livy with the arrival
44
Thucydides, trans. Benjamin Jowett (Oxford, 1900), i, 22.
Quotations henceforth w ill be from this edition, by book and section.
45
James T. Shotwell, An Introduction to the History of History
(New York, 1922), p. 168.
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871
i
of Aeneas in Italy, and Raleigh with the Creation. Thucydides wrote:
The early history of Hellas is of a kind which forbids im plicit re
liance on every particular of the evidence. . . . At such a distance
of tim e [the historian] must make up his mind to be satisfied with
conclusions resting upon the.clearest evidence which can be had.
(i, 20-21)
However, by eschewing the dramatized or poetic versions of history,
an historian might not be far wrong. One technique of proof which
Thucydides used was to reason inversely from the known to the un
known. Actually, Thucydides' work contains little matter of doubt
or dispute. The section on ancient history is very short (i, 1-19); as
Thucydides understood the term, history had not really begun until
his own tim e (Shotwell, p. 174), His work was a contemporary |
record. On those few occasions when it was necessary to record an
uncertainty, he used the device of the passive voice--"he was thought
to have been bribed" (ii, 21), "he is said to have held back" (ii, 18)-- i
or an expression like "such was the report" (vi, 86).
Liivy was very hesitant about making assertions in questions of
remote antiquity. Particularly in the first five books such expressions
as "it is generally admitted" (i, 1), "the tradition goes" (i, 4), "it is
said" (i, 5), "it is reported" (ii, 32), appear frequently to express the
47
doubtful or legendary nature of the m aterial. In the Preface Livy
46
James W estfall Thompson, A History of H istorical Writing
(New York, 1942), I, 29. Thucydides w rites, for example, that the
increase in population in Attica by immigration indicated that it was
long free of civil wars (i, 2).
^^All quotations w ill be from Titus Livius, The History of Rome,
trans. Rev. Canon Roberts (London, 1926), with reference to book
and section.
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88
wrote that he had no intention of either affirming or refuting the early ^
traditions because they were of a poetic rather than historic nature i
(i, 1).^®
The subject matter is enveloped in obscurity; partly from its great
antiquity, like remote objects which are hardly discernible through
the vastness of the distance; partly owing to the fact that written
records which form the only trustworthy mem orials of events, were
in those tim es few and scanty, (vi, 1)49
However, even in this uncertainty, exaggerated tales were unaccept
able: "In questions of such remote antiquity I should count it sufficient
if what bears the stamp of probability be taken as true" (v, 21),
Throughout his work Livy depended entirely on written records, and
applied almost no other techniques for discovering the truth (Walsh,
p. 20). Thus, for the most part, when his sources disagreed, he
simply reported variant opinions without comment or commitment,
and left the question unsettled: "It is difficult to decide which account
or which authority to prefer" (viii, 40),^*^ The impossibility of cer
tainty might be caused not only by the contradictory reports in written i
records, but by other com plexities. For example, all authorities ,
agreed that A, Cornelius Cossus was a m ilitary tribune when he
placed the spoils taken from King Tolumnius in the temple of Jupiter. :
But the inscription on the spoils identified Cossus as a consul.
48
One of the Formulae of the Pyrrhonic Skeptics was "I neither
affirm nor deny." The sim ilarity to Livy's words have no implication
of influence. Raleigh uses the same words in connection with the
question of the form of the Hebrew calendar (III, 78), and with the
dynasties of the Egyptian kings (III, 40), also without implication.
49cf. i, 3; iii, 5; iv, 23.
50
Cf. vii, 42; viii, 5; viii, 19; xxii, 36; xxix, 25; xxxviii, 56.
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according to Augustus Caesar, who saw it first-hand. Yet the annals
did not speak of Cossus as consul until ten years later (iv, 20). In his
undogmatic manner Livy wrote, "Everyone is at liberty to form his
own conjecture; these doubtful points, in my belief, can be made to
support any opinion."
For Raleigh the writing of ancient history was sim plified in a
sense by the fact of the absolute truth of scripture. Many questions
of interest beyond the text itself could be answered with virtual ce r
tainty by careful inverse reasoning from the "known" of scripture to
the unknown. Where certainty was not p ossible--th e lim its of this
varied with each com m entator--Raleigh's attitude was free of dog
matism; expressions such as the following are frequent: "I rather
think" (II, 155), "as far as we can know" (II, 253), "it may w ell
enough be" (II, 263), "I rather incline to this" (II, 307), "it rather
appeareth" (II, 353); he uses the words "probable" and "reasonable"
sim ilarly, modified in expressions like "it is m ore probable" (II,
265), " I find this conjecture reasonable enough" (II, 275), "it seemeth
more probable" (II, 283), Some of the problems w ere extrem ely dif
ficult, like the accordance of events in A ssyrian and scriptural
history. In sixteen pages devoted to that knotty question, the word
"probable" occurs nine tim es (III, 22-36). The chronology of the
judges was very difficult because relevant passages in scripture
seem ed to be contradictory (IV, 429-440). Again Raleigh applied the
work "probable" to his conclusion (IV, 432), though he offered it as
no more than "as a borrowed knowledge, or at least a private opinion,
which I submit to better judgments" (III, 387). The chronology of the
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90
Egyptian kings (III, 36-47) was "to be confirmed by probabilities and
conjectures, because in such obscurity m anifest and resistle ss truth
cannot be found" (III, 37). It was difficult even to know what the
Dynasties were, whether successions of kings or of regents: "In
restitutions of decayed antiquities, it is more easy to deny than to
affirm" (III, 40). Raleigh reasoned as strongly as he could, with
i
reference to scripture wherever possible, but was not at all insistent:
I freely grant, that all these proofs are no other than such as may be
gathered out of authors not w ell agreeing, nor to be reconciled in
such obscurity, otherwise than by likelihoods, answerable to the
holy text. (Ill, 47) j
He concluded his discussion of the settlem ent of Egypt by "leaving |
these antiquities to other men's judgments, and every man to his own |
reason" (II, 307), Again like the classical historians, Raleigh made !
a distinction between fact and tradition. The reports of Berosus and
Josephus on the location of the resting-place of the ark w ere of little
weight:
It is reported by neither from any certain knowledge, nor from any
approved author; for one of them useth the word fertur, the other
dicitur; the one, that so it is reported; the other, that so it is said;
and both but by hearsay^ and therefore of no authority nor credit.
For common bruit is so infamous an historian, as w ise men neither
report after it, nor give credit to any thing they receive from it.
(II, 237)
The term "probable," so important in the epistem ology of the
Academic Skeptics, was used by the classic historians and Raleigh to
convey also a narrow range of a high degree of certainty, to signify
what was convincing to a rational, logical, and informed mind. It is
used thus by Livy in a number of contexts. For example, the capture
of New Carthage occurred in one year rather than another because it
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was improbable that Scipio would have spent a whole year in Spain
doing nothing (xxvii, 7). It was not probable that Fabius had been
made M aster of the H orse because a man of his age and rank would not
have been placed in a subordinate position (x, 3). It was "highly im
probable " that Hannibal forded the Po because so violent a river would
have done damage to his horses and arm s (xxi, 47). Creditable
authorities told of the friendly surrender of the city of Neapolis to the
Romans; this was made "all the m ore probable" by the fact that the
Romans made a treaty with that city (viii, 26). Some authorities
attempted to excuse King Tolumnius of the murder of several Roman
envoys, but their explanation was "incredible" and "impossible to
believe"; it was "much m ore probable" that the murder was a de-
51
liberate political m ove on the part of Tolumnius (iv, 17),
Polybius too u ses the term a number of tim es. After examining
the contradictory accounts of A ristotle and Timaeus on the coloniza
tion of L ocri in the light of evidence from his own personal experience
a number of facts, and his realistic knowledge of human nature, he
concludes that "the balance of probability" was on the side of
A ristotle, though it was in fact im possible in such a m atter to be
positive and definite (xii, 5-7). Historians who w ere guilty of ex
aggeration and inconsistency w ere like bad tragedians who began with
"improbable and im possible plots" (iii, 48); their superstitious tales
w ere "only fit to amuse children, when they transgress not only the
lim its of probability but even of possibility" (xvi, 12). The confusion
51
Other exam ples occur in ii, 14; ii, 41; ix, 36; x, 26; xxi, 38;
xxxviii, 55. |
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92 i
I
of cause and pretext in war led to statem ents that w ere neither prob
able nor true (iii, 6), (Polybius' association of these term s appears i
frequently in Raleigh's H istory.) In his beautiful eulogy of Scipio |
Africanus (x, 2-9) Polybius maintained that that great m an's accom - |
plishm ent was the result of his good conduct and high intelligence, not |
the favor of fortune, and after feelingly illustrating from Scipio's life I
the workings of these qualities, he concludes, with som e indignation, |
Although historians agree in attributing these calculations to him;
yet, when they come to narrate their issu e, they somehow or
another attribute the su ccess obtained not to the man and his fo re
sight, but to the gods and to Fortune, and that, in spite of all
probability, and the evidence of those who lived with him. . . .
For Raleigh probability at its strongest was a clearly inevitable
inference from scripture itself. The grounds of Raleigh's arguments
throughout the History w ere the scriptures, "and with the scriptures,
nature, reason, and experience bearing w itness " (II, 112), He a s
sociates these repeatedly, together with the term "probable." At the
beginning of his argument that the ark had not come to rest in Armenia!
after the flood, he wrote:
And I am not led so to think out of any humour or newness of opinion,
or singularity; but do herein ground m yself on the original and first
truth, which is the word of God; and after that, .upon reason, and the
m ost probable circum stances thereon depending. (II, 218)
Later in the sam e argument:
It is n ecessary to see and consider what part of scripture and what
reason may be found out to make it true or probable, that the ark of
Noah was forsaken by the w aters on the mountains of Arm enia.
(II, 235)
Abraham did not make two journeys into Canaan, one before and one
after his father's death. Scripture spoke of only one journey; the way
was very hard to travel; he took everything with him on his trip,
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93j
which made it "not probable that he meant to walk it back again for his |
pleasure, in so warm, dangerous, and barren a country as that was"
(III, 6), certainly not after many years when he was no longer known }
there ; that if he had returned he would h im self have sought a w ife for
Isaac, instead of sending a m essen ger; and other sim ilar argum ents;
Against which place [of scripture] so direct and plain, what force !
hath any m an's fancy or supposition . . . no such thing being found
in the scriptures, nor any circum stance, probability, or reason to
induce it? (Ill, 5)
Raleigh argued em phatically that Noah did not accompany his sons in j
I
the recolonization of the world, but settled down in his old age and I
like the husbandman he w as, in the place where the ark landed; for if
he had gone to the V alley of Shinar, he would never have perm itted
"that unbelieving, presumptuous work of Babel" (II, 226-22 7); hence,
that ever Noah h im self came out of the east, as there is no scripture ;
or authority to prove it, so all probable conjecture and reason itself ;
denies it. (II, 301)
Raleigh was interested in the question of the restin g-p lace of the ark
after the flood, because upon that depended the trem endously in terest
ing question of the order of "plantation" or settlem ent of the world.
The com m only held theory was that the ark had rested in the moun
tains of G reater A rm enia. "I find neither scripture nor reason which
teacheth any such thing" (II, 219).
If then the ark had first found land in A rm enia, it is very im prob
able that the children of Noah, which cam e into that valley [the
V alley of Shinar where the Tower of Babel was built], could have
spent so many years in so short a passage; seeing the region of
M esopotam ia was only interjacent, which might by easy journeys
have been passed over in twenty days. . . . (II, 220-221)
In arguing that Eden was a place on earth, and that all signs of it could
not have been rem oved by the flood, he wrote:
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94|
As there is no likelihood that the place could be so altered, as future |
ages knew it not; so is there no probability that either these rivers ;
were turned out of their courses, or new rivers created. . . . (II, 79)|
since Paradise did not contain high and low places that would cause j
violent descent of water; since there was, according to scripture, no j
wind; and since there could have been no tides or ebbs when the waters!
stood equal all over the face of the earth. |
I
And therefore it seemeth most agreeable to reason, that the waters
rather stood in a quiet calm, than that they moved with any raging
or overbearing violence. (II, 80) |
I
In the course of his argument that Noah built the ark in the east near I
India and settled there after the flood, Raleigh quoted Gen. 8:1, which ;
1
reads, "God made a wind to pass upon the earth, and the waters ;
ceased." Hence,
because it is not probable that during these continual and downright
rains there were any winds at all, therefore was the ark little moved
from the place where it was fashioned. . . . (II, 209)
This was made "the more probable" by the likely truth of an ancient
opinion that the ark was a flat-bottomed boat, "not raised in form of
a ship with a sharpness forward, to cut the waves for the better
speed." Josephus had written that the followers of Tubal dispersed
directly from the Valley of Shinar in Mesopotamia to Spain, which was
very much at odds, according to Raleigh, with scripture, and with
Raleigh's idea that the migrants moved west in a slow and orderly
manner. A colony might have arrived in later tim es, or Spain might
have been peopled by the Africans. "And either of these opinions are
more probable, than that in the twelfth year of Nimrod's reign Tubal
passed into Spain" (II, 265).
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95
This convincing good sense takes on an even greater persuasive
ness when Raleigh argues from his great personal knowledge of
geography and navigation. Here again he had classical models to
confirm his faith in experience and observation, Thucydides'
Peloponnesian War was begun at the onset of the war, and its m a
terials were drawn entirely from direct observation: |
I have described nothing but what I either saw m yself or learned \
from others of whom I made the most careful and particular enquiry. I
(i, 22) I
I
Polybius set up the requirement that an historian must be a man of |
action, widely travelled and experienced in political and m ilitary I
affairs. The insights of experience were necessary to produce history|
that was vital and true (xii, 25); observation was the best corrective
of error.
I shall be especially anxious to give the curious a full knowledge on
these points, because it was with that express object that I con
fronted the dangers and fatigues of my travels in Libya, Iberia, and |
Gaul . . . that I might correct the im perfect knowledge of former
w riters. . . . (iii, 59)^2
Raleigh met Polybius' requirements, and used his own observa
tion with perfect confidence to corroborate or contradict the reports
of other historians, as in Raleigh's dispute with Tostatus:
Tostatus addeth this, "That those people which dwell near those falls
of waters are deaf from their infancy, like those that dwell near the
Catadupae, or overfalls of Nilus." But this I hold as feigned. For I
have seen in the Indies far greater waterfalls than those of Nilus,
and yet the people dwelling near them are not deaf at all. (II, 86)
52
For Polybius' statements of his theory, and claim s and cor
rections based on his observations, see iii, 4, 33, 48; iv, 2; ix, 39;
xvi, 18-20. C. N. Cochrane w rites that Polybius had great respect
for experience and scientific investigation (Thucydides and the Science
of History [London, 1929], p. 152-153).
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961
I
Goropius Becanus had presumed that the Indian fig tree, which he had |
falsely identified with the tree of knowledge, was a rare plant,
Raleigh comments; ,
i
But many parts of the world have them, and I m yself have seen !
twenty thousand of them in one valley, not far from Paria in Am erica.
(II, 132)
I
Thomas Aquinas had objected that Paradise could not have been located
I
near the equator because of the intemperate heat. His error was
i
understandable, but "hereof experience hath informed reason, and
tim e hath made those things apparent which were hidden, and could I
not by any contemplation be discovered" (II, 88).
i
Now we find that these hottest regions of the world seated under the
equinoctial line, or near it, are so refreshed with a daily gale of
easterly wind , . . that doth everm ore blow strongest in the heat of !
the day, as the downright beams of the sun cannot so much m aster
it, that there is any inconvenience or distem perate heat found there
by, Secondly, the nights are so cold, fresh, and equal, by reason
of the entire interposition of the earth, as (for those places which
m yself have seen, near the line and under it) I know no other part
of the world of better, or equal temper. , , . (II, 89)
The first-hand reports of others were convincing, but Raleigh
took pains, like Thucydides, to examine their credentials, A canon
named Matthias a Michon, who was more travelled in Sarmatia
Asiatica than any other man, had buried an "ancient and received
opinion," by virtue of his great experience, that the Tanais and Volga
Rivers sprang out of the Riphaei Mountains, "proving by unanswerable
experience, that there are no such mountains in rerum natura" (II-
232), Concerning the Amazon women, during his voyage to Guiana,
according to his report in The Discovery of Guiana, Raleigh had "made
inquiry amongst the m ost ancient and best travelled of the
Orenoqueponi, " and had been assured by a casique, or leader, that the
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97;
i
reports of their custom s w ere true (VIII, 408-409). R aleigh's story |
I
was doubted, and in the H istory itself he confirmed it with the w itness I
of three sixteenth century explorers, one of whom, Fran. Lopez,
"both saw those women and fought with them, where they sought to
impeach his passage" (V, 352). Goropius Becanus had "strained his
brains to prove," by a "superlative straining of words, and the m ean
ing of them, " that there never w ere any giants on the earth, which was
against scripture and common experience (II, 159-162). Raleigh ac
cepted the R enaissance notion that the virtue of all things was nearly
53
depleted: in scriptural tim es the size of all men "exceeded the
bulks and bodies of men which are now born in the withered quarter
and winter of the world" (II, 162). But in prim itive countries giants
might yet be seen: "Yea, Vesputius, in his second navigation into
A m erica, hath reported, that him self hath seen the like men in those
parts" (VI, 29).
The m ost vital parts of the section on pagan history are the many
d igression s and comm ents from R aleigh's wide experience: on the
folly of princes (V, 320, 358, 368-369; VI, 248-249); the strategy of
battle (VI, 87-88, 108-109, 210-211, 242, 363-364); the defense of
m aritim e countries (VI, 98-105); the treatm ent of am bassadors (VI,
201-202); and with particular personal meaning, the unprosperous lot
of men of war (VII, 785-790).
The cla ssic a l influence on Raleigh continues to be confirmed by
the rem arkably strong reflection of two other aspects of the method
53
Hiram Haydn, The C ounter-R enaissance (New York, 1950),
pp. 525-529.
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98:
I
of the classical historians in Raleigh's H istory: their independent |
attitude to authority and the validity of explanation by second causes.
Livy's attitude to his sources was conditioned by the fact that he de
pended entirely on written records (Walsh, p. 20). This tended to |
i
prevent the development of a highly critical or dogmatic attitude. For
the most part, the agreement of all or most authorities was convinc-
54
ing, and their disagreement created doubt. Livy was not uncritical, :
55 56
however. He sought to follow the most reliable authorities. He
rejected exaggerated statements: "I refuse to indulge in the idle I
exaggerations to which w riters are far too much given" (xxii, 7). The |
opinions of older annalists or those in more direct connection with
57
events carried more weight. Nor did he hesitate to correct error
58
or express flat disagreement. In all of these there are parallels in
Raleigh, though Raleigh's tone is more sim ilar to that of the irritable
Polybius, whose critical and independent attitude to authority I have
already noted.
‘ S4
Cf. i, 24; xxi, 46; xxv, 11; xxvii, 27.
55
C lassical scholars disagree on this point. A vigorous defense
of Livy has been written by M. L. W. Laistner, The Greater Roman
Historians (Berkeley, 1963), pp. 83-87. Cf. Walsh, Livy, chap. vi.
56
Cf. viii, 26; xxxiii, 10.
^^Cf. iii, 23; vii, 9; viii, 40; xxi, 38.
^^Cf. i, 18; iv, 35; v, 33; ix, 5; xxxix, 52.
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9 9
James Westfall Thompson has written that Raleigh did not ap-
59
proach his sources in a critical spirit. It is difficult to understand
this judgment. At one point Raleigh names as one of the causes of
false opinion the too uncritical acceptance of previous authorities: ;
Those w riters which gave them selves to follow and imitate others,
were in all things so observant sectators of those m asters, whom
they admired and believed in, as they thought it safer to condemn
their own understanding, than to examine theirs. . . . And it is true, |
that many of the fathers were far wide from the understanding of
this place. I speak it not, that I m yself dare presume to censure
them, for I reverence both their learning and their piety, and yet i
not bound to follow them any further than they are guided by truth. . :
. . (11, 64-65) I
i
Far from being uncritical, Raleigh carries on a vigorous running
evaluation of his sources, accepting or rejecting their ideas in whole
60
or in part with perfect freedom. Authorities were m erely tools in the
search for truth. There is almost no authority whom Raleigh does
not dispute at one point or another, including even the most eminent
church fathers, as in this delightfully proud passage: "Josephus, St.
Augustine, Beda, Isidore, and many of the ancient Hebrews before
them; authorities, (while they are slightly looked over) seeming of
great weight" (111, 3), though this passage is too disrespectful to be
typical. Like Livy, he followed only reliable authorities (IV, 446);
the consent of all or many writers carried a great deal of weight.
^^History of Historical Writing, 1, 611.
^°Cf. in Vol. 11, 260-273, 281-285, 315-322, 354-365, 399-405,
408-410; Vol. Ill, 6-7, 26-28, 43-44, 47-50, 240-241, 273-274, 285-
286.
^^Cf. II, 275, 293; III, 2, 38 (Section II); IV, 436, 492, 493, 494;
V, 75.
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100
But Raleigh was not afraid of walking "aside, and in a way apart from
the multitude" (III, 3). On the question of the resting-place of the ark,
he wrote, " I am resolved, without any presumption, that therein the
most w riters were utterly mistaken" (II, 218). On another question
about which he had equally strong convictions; |
i
Now although many learned and reverend men have formed (I know {
not whereby led) a plantation of the world, which also hath been and
is received; yet I hope I may be excused, if I differ altogether from I
them in many particulars. Certainly, that great learned man of |
this latter age. Arias Montanus, was also in some things much m is- |
taken. . . . (II, 260)
No authority was rejected on every point. Livy had accepted a contri
bution from the unreliable annalist Antias (xxxvii, 48). In a sim ilar
spirit, in Raleigh's opinion it was possible that Friar Annias, whom
he attacked more frequently than any other authority, might offer a
more acceptable idea than the learned Scaliger (IV, 685). Authorities
who w ere otherwise not too dependable might be credible for having
lived contemporaneously with a given event:
Josephus . . . of whom, although there be no cause to believe all
that he wrote, yet that which he avouched of his own time cannot
(without great derogation) be called in question. (II, 80)
This eclecticism , grounded on a preference for the m ost reliable
authorities and a rejection of exaggerated and unsupported statements,
had been expressed, though in a milder way, by Raleigh's classica l
predecessor, Livy.
Thucydides explained all human events in term s of human motiva-
é ) 2
tion or psychological causes. He was followed in this by Polybius,
f)2.
Cochrane, Thucydides, pp. 17-25, and G. F. Abbott,
Thucydides: A Study in H istorical Reality (London, 1925), pp. 78-92.
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101
who made a valuable distinction between the "pretexts" and the
"causes" of occurrences;
I shall look for "causes" in the motives which suggested such action
and the policy which dictated it; for it is by these and the calculations
to which they give rise, that men are led to decide upon a particular
line of conduct, (iii, 6)
In Raleigh's term s the psychological causes were the "second"
6 3
causes. They did not play an important part in the biblical version
of history, nor do they in parallel portions of the History which cover
biblical history. But at one point, in a very interesting exception,
Raleigh discusses a scriptural passage which was difficult to recon
cile with human behavior (IV, 606-612). Scripture read that Joash,
the son of Ahaziah and the only successor to the throne of Judah, was
murdered by his grandmother Athaliah. Why should she have done
this, since his succession would have kept her in a position of power
and would have helped to protect her from her enem ies? Moreover,
"the love of grandmothers to their nephews is little less than that of
mothers to their children."
This argument is very strong; for it may seem incredible that all
natural affection should be cast aside, when as neither necessity
urgeth, nor any commodity thereby gotten requireth it; yea, when
all human policy doth teach one the same, which nature without
reason would have persuaded. (IV, 607)
Second causes were an acceptable basis of interpretation, though it
was im possible to know for certain what they w ere. Raleigh's digres
sion was in defense of the liberty he used. Profane history might
properly treat of second causes, as long as it did not "derogate from
63
In a larger sense, the second causes included, besides man
him self, the influence of the angels, the devil, the sun, stars, nature--
all the instruments that had been set in motion by God. See II, 25.
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102
the first cause by ascribing to the second ihore than was due." In !
Raleigh's sections on pagan history, all hesitancy disappears, and
I
second causes are as prominent as they were in his classical sources. |
One can find still other resem blances in Raleigh's History to {
i
classic history: the use of direct discourse, the large life -siz e rep
resentation of the chief personages of history, the importance given to
topography, the emphasis on actions of war. These are unrelated to |
the question of reason, but they tend to confirm the influence I have
been suggesting.
Matthew Arnold in his essay "On the Modern Element in L itera
ture" contrasts the classical and the modern age with the Elizabethan
age on the points of tolerance, manner of dress, and then on the
critical spirit:
Let us pass to what we said was the supreme characteristic of a
highly developed, a modern age--the manifestation of a critical
spirit, the endeavour after a rational arrangement and appreciation
of facts
As illustration he compares the opening of Thucydides' Peloponnesian
War and the early chapters of Raleigh's H istory. What was
Thucydides' purpose in his section on very ancient history?
To strip these facts of their exaggeration, to examine them criti
cally. . . . He labours to correct popular errors, to assign their
true character to facts, complaining, as he does so, of men's habit
of uncritical reception of current stories, (pp. 25-26)
Raleigh, instead, d igresses, and concerns him self with subjects like
64
Matthew Arnold, On the C lassical Tradition, ed. R. H. Super
(Ann Arbor, I960), p. 231 Arnold's judgment is quoted with apparent
approval by the historian Charles Beebe Martin in his lecture
"Thucydides" in Martin C lassical Lectures (Cambridge, 1931), I, 51.
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103
the firmament, fate, the location of Paradise, and the trees of
65
Paradise.
Which has a rational appreciation and control of his facts? Which
wanders among them helplessly and without a clue? Is it our own
countryman, or is it the Greek? And the language of Raleigh affords
a fair sample of the critical power, of the point of view, possessed I
by the majority of intelligent men of his day, , , . (pp. 27-28)
It does not do to read only the opening pages of works, and it
seem s odd that Arnold should not have suspected an influence of the I
cla ssics in an age when they were received m ore enthusiastically than |
at any other tim e in history. The parallels I have cited show that it j
would be much closer to the truth to say that in many ways Raleigh's ,
History is in the Thucydidean tradition than contrary to it, even while |
he was working with biblical m aterial. !
The examples of Raleigh's use of the term "probable" which I
have given might be multiplied many tim es. They have a greater af
finity with the classical than with the skeptical definition, accounted
for by the sim ilar objective of truth. In some m atters there could be
no doubt of the truth: "I think it folly to make doubt, whereas histo
rians and mathematical observations do so throughly [sic] concur"
(IV, 717); in other m atters the truth could never be known: " I w ill
no longer dispute about this matter, seeing that the truth cannot be
discovered" (IV, 764). But the discovery of truth was the persistent
aim, and this difference in objective makes Raleigh's reasoning
65
Arnold forgets that digressions appeared in classical histories
(cf. Polybius, H istories, iv, 20-22, and xviii, 13-15); Raleigh's open
ing chapters, of course, are reflections on creation and do not contain
stories of man.
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104;
irreconcilable with philosophic skepticism on any point. The Academic!
Skeptic defined probabilities only to enable him to function in society, I
Raleigh to denote fine distinctions and degrees of truth that becam e |
I
part of a defensible body of belief; the Skeptic disputed to show the j
im possibility of truth, Raleigh to state it m ore accurately and clearly.
Probability in Biblical Commentaries |
For further confirmation of my notion that argument from prob- !
ability was a widely used convention of the Renaissance, for the use |
of which Raleigh needed no suggestion from ancient skepticism , I turn |
to the biblical com m entaries so popular in that day. ;
Between 1525 and 1633 forty com m entaries on Genesis alone were I
66 ^
printed in England and Europe. After 1590 the production of these
works increased greatly.They w ere both popular and influential;
much of the m aterial contained in them can be found in the poetry and
prose of Milton, Raleigh, Browne, and Burton, in whose writings what!
at first seem s like fantastic scholarship was a case of borrowing or
lifting from the commentaries.^^ Some acquaintance with the com
m entaries seem s to have been expected of the educated man of that
tim e (Common Expositor, p. 256),
W illiam s, The Common Expositor, p. 6.
6 7
W illiam s, "Commentaries in G enesis," p. 195.
^^It has been Arnold W illiams' contribution to rediscover the
extent of the influence of the com m entaries in the R enaissance,
esp ecially on Milton. After they lost their scientific validity, the
com m entaries were totally for gotten by scholars of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.
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105
If one exam ines the work of the greatest commentator of the six
teenth century, the Commentariorum et disputationum in Gene sin, by
Benedictus P ereriu s, a Spanish Jesuit, one finds sum m aries of the
explanations of previous authors on various questions on G enesis, with
considerable quotation, followed by a com parison and final evaluation
by P ereriu s (W illiams, "Commentaries in G enesis," p. 196), or, as
Mr. W illiam s has put it elsew here:
The great com m entaries like that of P ereriu s attempt to gather up
all the interpretations of any special verse or phrase in G enesis and
then, appraising each, work out the best interpretation. The process
then involves analysis, com parison, weighing of evidence, distinc- |
tion, harmony of conflicting opinions when they are capable of har
mony, and synthesis. (Common E xpositor, p. 15) |
Varying methods of organization might be used, but the works re- |
mained highly derivative (Common E xpositor, pp. 14-15, pp. 206-
207), and though Raleigh preferred to present his m aterial in straight :
prose, without the special arrangem ents, subdivisions, e tc ., of som e ;
of his p red ecessors, it is established, and cannot be disputed, that hisi
work, too, is derivative (Common E xpositor, p. 36, 140); the enor
mous number of citations am idst the detailed treatm ent of questions
commonly found in the com m entaries confirm s this. In fact, The
H istory of the World is in so many ways in the tradition of the com
m entaries that in the sections on biblical history, it can very w ell be
considered a com mentary itself. We know that Raleigh read the com
m entaries of Benedictus P ereriu s, first published in 1589, Johannes
M ercerus, 1598, Hieronymus Zanchius, 1591, John Calvin, 1563,
69
Eugubinus, 1535, and others, for these are cited in his H istory.
6 9
Common Expositor, p. 36. W illiam s traces Raleigh's specific
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106
B esides settling many questions about m an's origin, history, and
relations with God, the com m entaries reflected many secular interests;
of the R enaissance. Mr. W illiam s w rites, "The major com m entaries |
are syntheses of the intellectual culture of the sixteenth century" |
; j
(Common E xpositor, p. 257); he notes that this characteristic d is- j
appeared from biblical interpretation at the end of the century in favor |
of study aimed m ore strictly at the text (Common E xpositor, pp. 259- |
260). One recognizes im m ediately the parallel between the wide j
i
I
in terests reflected in P ereriu s' com m entary and those in Raleigh's
H istory:
A commentator like P ereriu s thought it his business not to narrow ■
down the meaning of the text, nor to place it in its h istorical and
social setting. Rather he sought to expand it, so that a v erse of
G enesis would yield ten pages of comment, which might em brace
c la ssic a l poetry, contemporary p olitics, or the latest d iscoveries
of the Spanish navigators. (Common E xpositor, p. 38)
In a number of other ways, too. The H istory of the World is very like
the com m entaries. Among the points of sim ilarity are the references
to a great many authorities in the course of argumentation, including
contem porary authorities (Common E xpositor, p. 14), the quotation of
the c la ssic s (Common Expositor, pp. 199-201), the preference for a
literal rather than allegorical reading of scripture (C om m onExpositor,
p. 20, 45), and the freedom to differ in opinion; that is to say, the
com m entators before Raleigh as w ell as Raleigh him self, made it
their business to evaluate--and freely to doubt and to disagree with- -
the view of previous w riters. Mr. W illiam s' book presents sum-
indebtedness to P ereriu s on the location of P aradise (pp. 96-102),
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10 7i
m aries of the stands taken by a number of the chief commentators on
the many questions they considered. One is im pressed with the
variety and freedom of their opinions. j
I
On occasion they chose not to take any stand at all for lack of |
I
sufficient basis, or to leave an issue in uncertainty. M ercerus "gave :
up the task" of identifying the four rivers named in the book of Genesis!
(Common Expositor, p. 100); concerning the motive of Satan, Par eus j
"drops the question with a quotation from Augustine that it is better to j
remain in doubt about hidden things than to contend about uncertain- i
!
ties" (p. 119); Pererius remained uncertain about the species of the |
serpent (p. 116); Mercerus was satisfied that there was no way of i
knowing on which day the angels were created (p. 62); and most com-
i
mentators agreed that we could not know where or how Enoch now
lives (p. 150). Thus, examples of abstention from commitment are
to be found in the commentaries; Williams reports that many fabulous J
stories were met with reserve and skepticism . "The commentators
were restrained by the text and by the sense of caution which seem s
to have operated on the best exegetes" (pp. 159-160).
A sim ilarity between Raleigh's work and the commentators' which
is of special interest here is their method of reasoning from proba
bility. I w ill quote from Pererius and Zanchius, and then refer more
briefly to a few English commentators contemporary with Raleigh to
show the extreme frequency of appearance of this kind of argument.
Nor w ill it require further proof than an examination of these texts
to conclude that these are a far more likely source for Raleigh's
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1081
70 i
arguments from probability than ancient skepticism , {
In the first quotation from Pererius, the question is whether or :
not there was a cultured language and a literature among the Hebrews |
before Moses: |
- ^ I
Quin ut linguam, it a quoque literas Hebraicas ante Mosem fuisse
cens et. Augustin! sententia fit Joseph! auctoritate probabilior; in |
primo enim libro Judaicorum originum scribit. . . . i
What he [Augustine] thinks in regard to language, so too does he
believe of Hebrew literature prior to M oses. This opinion of
Augustine is made m ore probable by the authority of Josephus; for |
in the first book on the Antiquities of the Jews, he w rites. . . . |
(p. 2, col. 2) I
Here the question is whether it is necessary to appeal always to m ira- |
d e s and the omnipotence of God to account for the events of Genesis:
Hanc [secundam] regulam ut satis per se manifestam, et cuius
sanae mentis probabilem, non aliter confirmabo, quam unico
Augustino testim onio.
This [second] rule, as being clear in itself, and probable to anyone '
of sound mind, I w ill confirm by nothing but the sole testimony of
Augustine, (p. 8, col. 1)
Here the discussion is concerned with the method of computing the
year in the Egyptian calendar:
70
For the translation of all passages from P ererius and Zanchius
I am very much indebted to Dr. Raymund F. Wood, P rofessor in the
School of Library Science at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Dr. Wood sought to make the translation quite literal without being too
pedestrian about it. In his transcription all abbreviations are spelled
in full, the correct letter for v or u is given where that was indicated,
and the punctuation is almost entirely undisturbed. The translations
w ere made from the 1601 edition of P ereriu s. At my request Dr.
Arnold Williams generously supplied his personal copy of the book for
xeroxing by the University Printing and Mimeographing Services of
Michigan State University. The translation of Zanchius is taken from
excerpts from Hieron. Zanchii, De Operibus Dei intra Spacuum sex
dierum creatis (Hanover, 1597); perm ission to quote has been granted
by the Huntington Library.
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1 0 9 j
Non tacebo hie aliam quorumdam. m inim e ineruditam , nec im proba- |
bilem conjecturam , Aegyptios et Chaldaeos, ut syderalis doctrinae
studio m axim e deditos, uniuscuiusque planetae conversionem pro
anno com putasse. |
I w ill mention here another conjecture of certain persons, a con- |
jecture extrem ely scholarly and not at all improbable, nam ely, that j
the Egyptians and Chaldeans, being dedicated with great zeal to the |
study of the stars, made use of the conjunctions of each of the planets!
for computing the calendar, (p. 12, col, 1) |
The d iscu ssion concerns the teaching of Thomas Aquinas concerning
prim e m atter and form:
Nec est probabile, m ateriam prim am a form is accipere existentiam , |
qua est actu in mundo, sed eam, cum sit per se ingenerabilis et |
: incorruptibilis, habere quoque existentiam naturae suae con- !
venientem , ne, cum m illies quotidie form as induat et exuat n ecesse |
sit eam m illies etiam quotidie existentiam suam deperdere, et denuo j
acquirere: quo nihil im probabilius dici potest.
Nor is it probable that prim e m atter takes its existence from form s, ;
so as to actually exist in the world; but rather, since it is of itself
som ething spiritual and incorruptible, it has also an existence con
form able to its own nature; otherw ise, since it daily puts on and puts ;
off form s a thousand tim es, it would have to lo se its existence and
once again acquire existence a thousand tim es a day; and nothing can
be said to be m ore improbable than this. (p. 20, col. 1)
Here the d iscu ssion concerns the position of the sun and the planets in i
the firm am ent of the ancients;
Sol enim et luna ceterique planetae non sunt positi in octavo caelo,
sed sub ipso cursus et circuitus suos peragunt. Ilia igitur proba
bilior est solutio, vel quod dicantur posita in firm am ento caeli, quia
per ipsum firmamentum , id est aerem , sint hominum oculis exposita
et aspectabilia.
For the sun and the moon and the rest of the planets are not placed
in the eighth heaven, but they make their cou rses and circuits be
neath it. This therefore is the m ore probable solution, that they
are said to be placed in the firm am ent because it is through this very
firm am ent, that is, the air, that they becom e v isib le and exposed to
the eyes of men. (p. 40, col. 2)
The question is why, since the rivers run into the ocean, it does not
overflow. Hugo of St, V ictor suggests that originally the world was
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110
made up of immense caverns and hollow spaces, which have slowly I
filled with water :
Sed probabilius est, a principio condita esse elementa secundum
naturalem suam constitutionem convenientem ipsis, ut sunt partes !
universi, hoc est, ut essent sphaericae figurae, et unum con- j
tineretur ab alio. !
But it is more probable that from the beginning the elements were :
constructed according to a natural constitution that was conformable |
to them, as are the various parts of the universe, that is to say, |
that they were of spherical shape, and that one was contained in the
other, (p. 48, col. 1)
The discussion is whether the world waSTnade'tn^six days, or whether
it was made, complete, in one instant of time;
Verum enim vero inter Theologos, huius opinion!s princeps et auctorj
fuit Augustinus; qui cum aliis locis, tum d isertissim e libro quarto de:
Gene si ad litteram, capite 21 et sequentibus aliquot capitibus usque
ad finem eius libri, sim ilius vero ac multo probabilius, et tam
ration! quam divinae Scripturae congruentius, omnes mundi partes
simul esse perfectas . . . arbitratur.
But truly, among the Theologians the leader and author of this
opinion was Augustine; who expresses his opinion in several places,
but particularly in his fourth book of commentary on Genesis, in
Chapter 21 and in a few other places right through to the end of the
volume, an opinion that is closer to the truth and much more prob
able, as w ell as being more consonant with reason and with divine
Scripture, namely that all the parts of the world were made in a
perfect state at the same tim e. (p. 79, col. 2)
The question is whether the stars move with a motion of their own,
like birds, or whether they move as parts of the whole heavens.
Beatus Augustinus, in libro secundo de Genes! ad litteram, capite
10, licet probe novisset eiusmodi opinionem a doctoribus Philos phis
et Mathematicis sine dubitatione ulla reprobari, non adeo tam en
judicavit improbabilem et absurdam, ut ea, siquidem opus fuerit,
non possit defend!.
Granted that B lessed Augustine in his second book of explanation of
Genesis, chapter 10, rightly makes known that an opinion of this
kind would be disavowed by scholarly Philosophers and Mathema
ticians, still he did not judge it to be so improbable and absurd that,
if necessity arose, it could not be defended, (p. 101, col. 1)
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I l l
The argument is whether the stars have any influence on human beings;
at this point Pererius adduces his seventh argument, that if the doc
trine w ere sound, all the ancient w ise men would have embraced it;
At cum ea doctrina omni tempore a preastantissim is quibusque |
Philo sophis, quin etiam A strologis, contempt a, derisa et damnata
fuerit; maximum profecto argumentum est, eam fulilem et inanem,
et ab omni ratione, fide ac probabilitate vacuam, ab illis esse I
judicatam.
But since this doctrine has been, at all tim es and by all of the
Philosophers, and no le ss by A strologers them selves, held to be
contemptible, in derision, and condemned. Indeed it is a very sig- |
nificant argument that this opinion has been judged to be futile and
inane, and void of all reason, trust, and probability, (p. 115, |
col. 1) j
The discussion is concerned with the location of paradise in the firma-j
ment :
Sed haec Tostati opinio nihilo m agis probabilis est prioribus iam
confutatis.
But this opinion of Tostatus [that paradise is located above the third
region of the air] is not by any means more probable than those
earlier opinions which have already been refuted, (p. 130, col. 1)
The discussion is whether or not paradise presently exists anywhere;
Nobis tamen visum est multo probabilissimum terrestrem ilium
Paradisum generali diluvio destructum, hoc tempore nullum esse.
To us, however, it seem s by far the most probable that the former
earthly Paradise was destroyed in the general Flood, and at the
present tim e no longer exists.
The question is whether man is truly lord of all creation, including
such large sea creatures as dolphins and whales:
Negare autem, cetos et feras esse propter hominem, cum M oses
Deut. 4. dicat etiam solem et lunam, omniaque sydera in m in is-
terium et servitium hominis esse a Deo creata, et cum non raro
videamus cetos et feras ab homine capi et domari, et ad usus eius
accomodar, nullo modo probabile est.
But to deny that whales and wild beasts exist for the sake of man is
by no means probable, since M oses, in the fourth Book of
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112
Deuteronomy, states that even the sun and the moon and all the stars
w ere created by God for the m inistry and service of man, and espe- :
cially since we som etim es see that whales and wild beasts have been I
captured and tamed by man, and made to adapt them selves to his
u ses. (p. 171, col. 1)
Here the question is whether the command not to eat of the forbidden
fruit was given to Adam only or to both Adam and Eve:
Contra vero, peccante Adamo, licet Eva non pecasset, eadem tamen :
mala quae utrisque peccantibus evenerunt, nihilominus tamen j
posteris eorum accidissent. Uterque igitur modus probabilis est, i
m ihi tamen secundus m agis probatur. |
But on the other hand, with Adam alone sinning, even though Eve had I
not sinned, the sam e evils which came as a result of both sinning |
would nevertheless have fallen upon their posterity. Therefore
either situation is probable, but to me the second is more readily
proven, (p. 194, col. 2) |
The question is how an entire woman could be formed from the rib of
Adam :
Verum hanc opinionem m erito confutat et reijcit Sanctus Thomas in
Prim a Parte, Quaestione 92, non ut improbabilem modo, sed etiam
ut m inim e intelligibilem secumque pugnantem.
But this opinion St. Thomas rightly refutes and rejects in the F irst
Part [of his Summa T heologica], Question 92, as being not only
improbable but even scarcely intelligible and self contradictory.
(p. 209, col. 1)
The question is whether, in the state of innocence, more grace was
given to mankind than in a state of observance of the Gospels:
Tertia propositio: Si Adam non pecasset, et Filius Dei non fuis set
in status innocentiae incarnatus, ut placet Beato Thomae, equidem
probabili conjectura arbitrer plus gratiae dari hominibus in statu
legis Evangelicae propter Christi adventum ac meritum quam in
statu innocentiae fuis set datum :
Third proposition: If Adam had not sinned, and if the Son of God had
not been born in a state of innocence, as B lessed Thomas is pleased
to write, I still think it a probable conjecture that more grace is
given to men who are in a state of [com plete obedience to] the law of
the Gospel, on account of the coming and the m erit of Christ, than
was given to man in the sta ^ of [original] innocence: (p. 257,
col. 2)
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113:
The question is whether Adam spent more than one day in Paradise, i
and if so, how many days: |
Alii, per quadraginta dies: totidem enim dies Christus jejunavit in j
solitudine, ut hoc jejunii remedio, intemperantiae illorum peccatum
sanaret: verum neque hoc speciem probabilitatis aliquam habet.
Others believe that Adam and Eve remained in Paradise for forty |
days: for this is the same number of days that Christ fasted in the j
desert, that by the remedy of this fasting he might atone for their |
sin of intemperance: but this argument does not have even a token
of probability, (p. 322, col. 2) I
I
Hieronymus Zanchius, a professor of divinity and a very influen- |
I
tial and responsible Protestant commentator, provides in his De i
Operibus Dei exam ples of the very same kind of reasoning. In the
I
first example taken from his work, his subject is the hierarchies and
I
the orders of the angels:
T am etssi Angeli natura, naturalique dignitate, pares omnes esse
creduntur: d iverssis tame officiorum generibus, eos et esse, et in
finem usque mindi futures esse im pares, eoque distinctes inter illos
esse ordines, distinctasque dignitates: non solum v erissim ile est
sed etiam escripturis probabile.
Even though the Angels, by nature and natural dignity, are believed
to be all equal, still the opinion that, by reason of their different
kinds of duties, they are now and w ill be until the end of the world
unequal, and the opinion that there are among them different orders
and dignities, is not only m ost probable in itself, but is also prob
able from scripture, (p. 124)
Here the subject is how an angel understands :
Singulos Angelos, praeterquam quod et Deum vident et reliquos tam
m alos, quam bonos spiritus nos se creduntur ; omnia etiam rerum
conditarum genera, naturas et vires novisse, credere fas est;
singula autem rerum individua illis esse nota, probabile est. . , .
It is believed that the individual angels, besides the fact that they
see God, can also know the other spirits, both good and evil; and it
is correct to believe that they know all sorts of other created ob
jects, as w ell as natures and forces; and it is probable that every
individual object in creation is known to them. . , . (p. 157)
On the physical nature of Heaven:
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114;
Hinc etiam efficitur, probabile esse, Caelum neque proprie solidum |
esse , uti est terra: neque fluidum, ut Aquam vel Aerem, vel ignem j
e sse videm us.
Hence it com es about, as a probability, that the Heaven is not prop- |
erly speaking solid, as is the Earth; nor do we see it to be fluid, like I
Water or Air, nor fire. (p. 369) !
On burning m eteorites : I
Ex consequenti vero, et valde probabiliter, per hosce Cometas,
significantur terrae sterilitas, annonaeque penuria; a cuti morbi, et |
pestilentiae plerunque etiam be 11a, et principum m ortes, reg- j
norumque mutationes.
But from the following, and with great probability, by these Comets
are foretold drought, crop failure, much acute d isease and p esti
lence, and even war, and the death of princes and the overthrow of
kingdoms, (p. 431)
On the origin of souls:
Singulorum hominum animas et novas et ex nihilo creari, a Deo:
probabilius est, et cum sacris literis m agis cSsentaneum: quam
unam ex alia, per traducem deriuari. Confirme hanc thesim i primu
scripturis, rationibusque; ex ea deductis: deinde testim oniis tum
Patrum, tum etiam Philosophorum, postrem o physicis rationibus.
Illud in prim is admodum probabile est: Deum initio docuisse, quç
sit omniu animorum nostrorum origo: cum in Ad ami formatum iam
e terra corpus, animam inspiravit.
It is very probable that the souls of individual men are created new,
and from nothing, by God, and this is m ore in agreement with sacred
scripture, than the opinion that one soul is derived from another, as
by parentage. I confirm this th esis, first by scripture and by rea
sons deduced from it; then by testim ony both of the Fathers as w ell
as of the Philosophers; and last of all by physical reasons. The
form er is first of all m ost probable; we w ere taught by God in the
beginning what was the origin of all of our souls; since he breathed a
soul into the body of Adam which he had just made from the earth.
(p. 765)
The excerpts from P ereriu s w ere chosen from one hundred and thirty
p ossib ilities, discovered by a scanning of his work. The work of
Zanchius, I feel sure, would yield as much. In his sum m aries of the
different opinions of the chief com mentators, Arnold W illiams in The
Common Expositor uses the word "probable, " which suggests to me
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115
that it appeared in the prim ary work. For example, "Both P ereriu s
and Parens find the opinion of IV Esdras probable" (p. 196);
"Pererius, following Augustine, thinks it m ost probable that Adam
relayed the command to Eve" (p. 114); the com mentators believed "it
is . . , probably true that th istles w ere vastly m ultiplied after the
fall" (p. 181).
I have examined three English com m entaries in addition to those
of P ereriu s and Zanchius: Hexapla in Genes in (Cambridge, 1605) by
Andrew Willet, Questions and Disputations Concerning the Holy
Scripture (London, 1 601) by N icholas Gibbons, and Annotations Upon
the first book of M oses called G enesis ( [n. p.] , 1621) by Henry
Ainsworth. I have found no evidence that Raleigh used the works of
W illet or Gibbons as sources, and Ainsworth, of course, wrote too
late, but it is of in terest that argument from probability can be found
so frequently on the pages of these works that the number of exam ples |
can hardly be cited. None of these men, and certainly not P ereriu s or
Zanchius, was accused of or involved in skepticism , as far as I have
been able to d iscover. Andrew Willet, indeed, was an eminent and
learned Anglican who made a great reputation as a controversialist
71
against the papists and puritans, and was one of F u ller's "worthies."
I have noticed in N icholas Gibbons' work especially that the words
of scripture are constantly corroborated by reason, nature, and
experience, exactly as in the case of Raleigh; for example. Gibbons
"Andrew W illet, " Dictionary of National Biography, LXI, 288-
29 2 .
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116:
i
w rites: !
The upholding of the w aters in the firm am ent is no le s s m arvelous,
yet it is not m iraculous, and this with it hath equal proof, both in
reason, in use, and in the scriptures, (p. 12)
"The authority of Scripture," he w rites, "which agreeth ever with the
truth of reason" (p. 291). We know that it was R aleigh's purpose to |
I
prove that scripture was perfectly in harmony with reason, nature, I
and common sen se. If we go back to Zanchius, we find the following i
passage repeating the same overlapping, reinforcing testim ony made
fam iliar to us by Raleigh, and including as he did the authority of the
Fathers and the philosophers:
Quo vero non extra corpus, sed incorpore creetu r: et scriptura
docet: et firm is confirm ari rationibus potest, ut de multo rum
Patrum testim oniis taceam .
That [the soul] is not created outside of the body, but within the
body, is the teaching of scripture, and is also confirmed by strong
reasons, to say nothing of the testim ony of many of the Fathers.
(p. 787)
Nunc si argumenta e sacris literis collecta: si Patrum auctoritas,
si testim onia deniq; Philo sophorum parum nos movent: agamus
rationibus a natura p etitis: atq; inprim is a natura anim ae.
Now if the arguments drawn from sacred scripture, and if the au
thority of the Fathers, and if finally the testim ony of the P h iloso
phers should equally persuade us, let us act on reasons drawn from
nature, and esp ecially from the nature of the soul. (p. 773)
The presence of arguments from probability in the English com
m entaries can in part be explained by the fact that those works w ere
undoubtedly derivative: Willet w rites in his P reface headed "Certain
D irections to the Reader to be observed in the reading of this book,"
"In this work I have abridged the learned com m entaries of M ercerus
and P ereriu s and of others, that have w ritten upon G enesis." Argu
ment from probability was an established technique in biblical
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117
exegesis, and it is hardly surprising that R aleigh's work, which was
also exegetical and derivative, should display the technique as fr e
quently as it does. ;
Further Evidence of the Quality of the Rationality
of R aleigh's Thought i
The particular quality of Raleigh's rationality can be described in ■
part by considering what he had to say in four different a r e a s --
allegory, m agic, m iracle, and m yth--w hich consistently show his |
I
d esire to protect knowledge from error and superstition, and to re- |
sist any gross play of the imagination over the literal facts of history i
and scien ce. {
A llegory ;
A llegory a rises when a people d esire a synthesis between their
past traditions and their present standards, between philosophy and
72
religion, or reason and revelation. For exam ple, the Stoic philoso
phers used allegory when it becam e difficult to take the Greek myths
73
literally, and in order to find support for their own Stoic view;
Philo, the H ellenized Jew ish allegorist of the first century, was seek-
74
ing through allegory a synthesis between his religion and Platonism ;
B eryl Sm alley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages
(Oxford, 1952), p. 2; Robert M. Grant, A Short H istory of the Inter
pretation of the B ible, rev. ed. (New York, 1^63), pp. 12Ô-121.
73
Frederic W. Farrar, H istory of Interpretation (London, 1886),
pp. 135-136; R, P. C. Hanson, A llegory and Event (Richmond, 1959),
p. 56.
74
Smalley, p. 3; Farrar, p. 137.
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1 1 8
and for the Christians, allegory was a means of synthesis of the Old
with the New Testament (Farrar, pp. 166-167), and also a means of
defense of the Old Testament in that it enabled the fathers to explain
away trivial or ridiculous elements (Farrar, pp. 191-192). St. Paul
used the word "allegory" in Gal, 4:21-24; "which things are an
allegory.St. Augustine, whose conflict was resolved by St. |
Ambrose's teaching on the allegorical method, cast his tremendous |
influence behind the development of allegory by his close examination |
of symbol in the De Doctrina Christiana. Two schools of thought on |
allegory conflicted in the fourth century: one at Alexandria, which,
under the conviction that God had given man hidden truths to awaken
man's mind, developed the fourfold meaning; the other at Antioch,
which was much more literal and grammatical. Though difference of
opinion may be traced throughout the Middle Ages, the victory of the
school of Alexandria was complete, an unfortunate development,
according to some church historians, because it led to many alle-
77
gorical absurdities. The influence of the school of Antioch was
quite lost; the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had to rediscover
75
Quoted by Robert M. Grant, "Ancient Period--H istory of the
Interpretation of the Bible," in The Interpreter's Bible (New York,
1952), I, 107.
7 é >
Joseph Anthony Mazzeo, Renaissance and Seventeenth-Century
Studies (New York and London, 1964), p. 2. Mazzeo traces to
Augustine the beginnings of a medieval sensibility that took pleasure
in obscurity (p. 17).
77
James D. Wood, The Interpretation of the Bible (London, 1958),
chap. v; Grant, Short History, chaps, vi and vii; Farrar, Lecture IV;
Willey, Seventeenth Century Background, pp. 61-67.
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1 1 9 :
"the spiritual value of 'the letter'" (Smalley, pp. 19-20). It was then |
that St. Thomas Aquinas gave a much larger significance to a literal ;
reading of scripture than had been traditional by arguing that the ■
literal sense was the whole meaning, the whole intention, of the human;
: ■ i
author and the foundation of any sense or argument to be drawn from
it. Aquinas united spirit and letter, making it possible to come to the
78 * !
true meaning of the text via a study of the letter. This new value forj
the literal and, immediately after, for the historic m eanings--the
first real change in medieval interpretation--culminated in the work
of Col et and Erasmus, and fed the spirit of the Reformation. The
fourfold interpretation disappeared with the work of the Reformers.
The literal sense, if it was true, became that which was entirely !
identical with the spiritual sense, or the sense which came by the
revelation of the spirit. Textual studies had helped to prepare the way:
for Luther's inspiration-, and he continued this kind of study because
79
only the true text could be one with the spiritual sense.
The Protestant Reformers vehemently attacked the traditional
allegorical interpretations. Luther called uninspired the Church
Fathers who had used allegory (Schwarz, pp. 185-186). It seemed to
him that allegory was m erely an exercise in ingenuity, not to be com-
80
pared with the illumination of the spirit. There is very little that is
78
Grant, Short History, pp. 122-124, and Smalley, pp. 292-293.
79
W. Schwarz, Principles and Problems of Biblical Translation:
Some Reformation Controversies and Their Background (Cambridge,
Eng. , 1955), pp. 173-174, 193-194.
8 0
E. C. Blackman, Biblical Interpretation (London, 1957), pp.
120 - 121 .
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120
favorable in Luther's frequent references to allegory in his com
mentary on Genesis. He accepted only the allegories given by Christ
and the apostles, or in other places in scripture. As for those un
authorized by scripture, in his words, "An interpreter must as much |
as possible avoid allegory; that he may not wander in idle dreams,"
"Origen's allegories are not worth so much dirt, " and "Allegories are |
81 ;
empty speculations, and as it were the scum of Holy Scripture." !
Calvin said of Origen in a sim ilarly brusque manner, that
seeking everywhere to make allegories, he corrupteth the whole I
scripture, and others too greedily following his example, have de
livered smoke out of the light.82
William Tyndale attacked allegory with equal vigor; he argued for the :
single sense in his Obedience of a Christian Man by taking literal to
mean "the most important sense"; after that had been established, he ;
83
allowed that allegory might be used for illustration. The Reformers
succeeded in altering the emphasis given to allegory in the reading of
scripture.
Among the learned humanists no consistency of opinion can be
found. Erasmus, probably because of his conviction that the skills
required for reading sacred and profane literature were the same.
81
Quoted in Farrar, p. 328. Luther has an interesting digression
on allegory in his Lectures on G enesis. See Luther's Works, ed.
Jaroslav Pelikan (Saint Louis, I960), II, 150-164.
82
Calvin's Commentary on G enesis, trans. Thomas Tymne
(London] 1578), p. 458.
83
Joshua McClennen, On the Meaning and Function of Allegory
in the English Renaissance, Univ. of Mich, Contributions in Modern
Philology, No. 6 (Ann Arbor, 1947), pp. 23-24.
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121;
and his wish to achieve a synthesis between theology and humanism, I
84
favored the many sen ses. His friend Colet differed with him on this
point (Schwarz, p. 121). Colet said emphatically that the Testament |
I
has the sense that appears on the surface, nor is one thing said and
another meant, but the very thing which is meant is said, and the
sense is wholly l i t e r a l . j
i
Sir Thomas More allowed the double meaning, but held that the plain
sense was more important (McClennen, p. 25). Joshua McClennen
found in his study that opinion seemed to be fairly evenly divided in the!
I
Renaissance (pp. 37-38), B asil Willey w rites of Milton that he read ;
I
the Bible literally, !
yet he agreed so far with Philo and the allegorists as to believe that |
in the Old Testament, at any rate, the sense is 'som etim es a com
pound of the historical and the typical. ' " (Seventeenth Century Back- ;
ground, pp. 237-23 8)
Raleigh's tendency was strongly in favor of the literal reading, ^
but like the Reform ers, he did not absolutely reject allegory. Arnold ;
Williams tells us that the Protestant commentators generally disliked
allegory (Common Expositor, p. 174), though Pererius som etim es
allowed an allegorical reading (p. 255). The section in which Raleigh
84
Schwarz, pp. 122-123, pp. 129-130, p. 138; and Smalley, p.
327. Farrar seem s to be mistaken in saying that Erasmus was among
those who favored the single sense (p. 328, n. 1), if we follow other
authorities, but he may have had evidence for this: Erasmus was
vacillatory in many of his opinions (Johan Huizinga, Erasmus and the
Age of the Reformation [New York, 1957], p. 106, and Schwarz, p. 95).
85
Quoted in Grant, Short History, p. 143, and in Farrar, p. 300,
n. 3, and in J. H. Lupton, Life of Dean Colet (London, 1887), p. 106.
The words are from Colet's "Treatise on the Hierarchies." Bush
w rites that in Colet's lectures on the epistles at Oxford, "he treated
the epistles, not as parts of an anonymous and tim eless (and a lle
gorical) Bible, but as letters written by a certain man in a certain
historical m ilieu. - C lassical Influences, p. 14.
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1 2 2 ;
{
!
enumerates some purely allegorical interpretations of Paradise is
entitled "A recital of strange opinions touching Paradise" (II, 65), all :
i
of which he d ism isses with these plain and forceful words: j
That such a place there was upon the earth, the words of M oses make;'
it m anifest, where it is written, And the Lord God planted a garden
eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had made. (II,
■58) I
I
However the allegorists may have rendered the word, "it is m anifest,
I
that in this place Eden is the proper name of a region" (II, 68). One !
of the cornerstones of his long and interesting argument on the I
I
location of Paradise was that "east" really meant, geographically, |
"east." The word "Nod" cannot have meant "wandering," and Cain |
cannot have been a wanderer except in his thoughts:
That Nod, or Naid, was a region wherein Cain inhabited, appeareth
by the word dwelt, for dwelling signifieth an abiding: and we call
those people wanderers and vagabonds that have no dwelling place.
(II, 140)
Yet Raleigh did not w ish to exclude the allegorical sense: as there
were figures of Christ, so Eden should be taken both as a real place
and as an allegory (II, 75); the tree of life was given allegorical inter
pretation by scripture itself (II, 130), where it was taken to mean
wisdom or Christ, and Raleigh was sufficiently satisfied with St.
86
Augustine's solution, "that the one doth not exclude the other." But
he much preferred to read scripture on the plain level, with reference
to experience and observation.
It is interesting that Raleigh found no contradiction between the
^^Raleigh was pleased with Becanus' "witty" allegory of the tree
and devoted a section to it (II, 134-136).
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123
single true meaning and the m etaphorical expression of it: I
I find no other m ystery in the words catarractae coeli, than that the ;
clouds w ere meant thereby, , . , W hosoever hath seen those fallings
of water which som etim es happen in the Indies, which are called the
spouts, (where clouds do not break into drops, but fall with a r e
sistle ss violence in one body, ) may properly use that manner of
speech which M oses did, that the windows or floodgates of heaven
opened. . . . (II, 2 05)
This was the position of the R eform ers. Tyndale held that it was
p erm issib le to use figurative language to render the true meaning
m ore vivid (McClennen, pp. 23-24).
There is only one qualification of the litera l interpretation in the
H istory, touched on parenthetically in this passage:
Surely where the sense is plain, (and being so understood, it brin g eth
with it no subsequent inconvenience or contrariety,) we ought to be |
wary how we fancy to ourselves any new or strange exposition.
(II, 244)
There was little occasion for it, but it was one of the tasks of true
reason to interpret the "plain" meaning if it produced difficulties.
Thus Raleigh was absolutely forced to interpret "Elam" as meaning
something other than "Persia" (III, 32-34), and to take "son" in the
sense of "successor" (IV, 606-607).
R aleigh's resistan ce to allegory is explained by his alinement with
the Protestant com m entators, and also by the scientific and critical
bent of his mind. It has been said that allegory creates an atmosphere
87
in which the question of credulity does not a rise. The scientist
John Dee had pointed out that allegory discouraged a proper worship
of God through His wonderful works because it was not in keeping with
87
Robert M. Grant, M iracle and Natural Law (Amsterdam, 1952),
p. 186,
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124;
the true nature of the physical universe (McClennen, p. 27). Sim i- |
larly, Raleigh, in insisting on "the proof of this place [the location of |
i
Eden on earth ], and that this story of mankind was not allegorical, "
I
(II, 72) said that unscientific absurdities, such as placing Eden in the |
air above the earth or confusing the course of its rivers, would under
mine religious belief (II, 75-76).
Magic i
It may be said that Francis Bacon's intention in the scientific j
movement of the early seventeenth century was to restore the sciencesi
I
to their true dignity. One of the branches of science which had fallen
greatly in repute was m agic. " I here stipulate," wrote Bacon, "that
m agic, which has long been used in a bad sen se, be again restored to
its ancient and honourable meaning" (VIII, 513). Among the P ersian s
it had been "a sublime wisdom," "a knowledge of the universal con
sents of things"; "I, however, understand it as the scien ce which
applies the knowledge of hidden form s to the production of wonderful
operations" (VIII, 513-514); that is to say, the theories of speculative
88
science could be used to produce wonderful m agical effects. Magic
"in a purer sense of the word" (VIII, 178) was evidence of a true
knowledge of n atu re--it differed in truth from popular m agic as much
as C aesar's Commentaries differed from the story of King A rthur--
w hereas popular m agic had a drugging effect on m en's m inds.
It lays the understanding asleep by singing of sp ecific properties and
hidden virtues, sent as from heaven and only to be learned from the
88
Anderson, Philosophy of Francis Bacon, p. 154.
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125|
whispers of tradition; which makes men no longer alive and awake |
for the pursuit and inquiry of real causes, but to rest content with
these slothful and credulous opinions; and then it insinuates in
numerable fictions, pleasant to the mind, and such as one would
most desire, - - like so many dreams. (VIII, 514-515)
Thus Bacon made a distinction between "the true kind " of magic and
"the false and ignoble" kind (VIII, 516). Elsewhere he offered some ;
scientific conjectures of his own on the causes behind so-called
magical effects (VIII, 346-347). |
Raleigh, too, in one of his lengthy digressions (II, 378-405) de- |
fended the reputation of magic. Many men abhor ed magic, he argued, |
because of the evil of Simon Magus, who was indeed familiar with evil
89
spirits, and who had wrongly usurped the name Magus, "For magic,!
conjuring, and witchery are far differing arts . . ." (II, 381).
King James in his Demonology had made a distinction between magic
and "necromancy, witchcraft, and the rest. . . . For the magic i
!
which his majesty condemneth, is of that kind whereof the Devil is a !
Q 0 I
party" (II, 383). In Scripture itself could be found a reference to
91
the m alefic!. Some of these, without any knowledge of magic,
89
Simon Magus was a Samaritan sorcerer of great power who was
put down by Peter for his wickedness. - -Lynn Thorndike, A History of
Magic and Experimental Science (New York, 1958), I, 415-427).
90
Demonology, published in 1597, is a superstitious attack on
witchcraft, though for its time it is, according to Thorndike, "a
serious piece of reasoned argument without any of the indecent and
incredible stories that fill so many of the books on witchcraft" (VI,
548-549). Raleigh praises the king's work (II, 383).
91
It was understood that the good or evil of magic lay in the will
of the magician. The beneficium was the ethical will, the maleficium
the evil w ill. - -C. Grant Loomis, White Magic (Cambridge, M ass.,
1948), p. 4.
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126:
assisted the Devil in doing m ischief (II, 383). It was such lower types |
of magic which had blackened the name of the noble art. In contrast
to this was a type of magic which !
I
containeth the whole philosophy of nature; not the brabblings of the j
A ristotelians, but that which bringeth to light the inmost virtues, j
and draweth them out of nature's hidden bosom to human use. . . .
(II, 384-385)
Raleigh assigned the name magic to the discipline of such great men ;
as Albertus Magnus, Raymond Lull, Arnoldus de Villa Nova, and j
Roger Bacon (all figures in the revival of learning in the thirteenth
century), Zoroaster him self, and many others in different countries,
• i
for all of whom the definition of magic was this : j
Magic is the connexion of natural agents and patients, answerable
each to other, wrought by a w ise man to the bringing forth of such
effects as are wonderful to those that know not their causes. (II,
385)
With the assistance of many references Raleigh came to this con
clusion:
By this therefore it appeareth that there is a great difference between
the doctrine of a magician, and the abuse of the word. . . . For the
art of magic is of the wisdom of nature; other arts which undergo
that title were invented by the falsehood, subtilty, and envy of the
Devil. In the latter there is no other doctrine, than the use of cer
tain cerem onies, per malam fidem , "by an evil faith;" in the former,
no other ill, than the investigation of those virtues and hidden prop
erties which God hath given to his creatures, and how fitly to apply
things that work to things that suffer. (II, 388-389)
The art of natural magic to Raleigh was "the absolute perfection
of natural philosophy" (II, 390). Certainly such "lawful and p raise
worthy knowledge" was not to be confused with the damnable parts of
magic which were the work of the Devil: "the abuse of the thing takes
not away the art ..." (II, 391).
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127
Concerning the activity of the Devil, Raleigh fully believed that
the D evil assisted w itches and corrupted many good arts for the pur
pose of m isleading men. Thus in the study of natural m agic, the
D evil had "shuffled in" various superstitions to enhance his own glory;
he had even copied God's use of dream s to warn or direct men in their ;
actions (II, 391-393). But it was also his device to give correct |
92 i
information occasionally to insinuate h im self into m en's tru sts.
Certainly w ise men w ere not deterred by the abuses of learning of the i
D evil from studying the virtues and influences which God had given to i
: . I
his creations, and from applying them to the good of mankind. |
For if we confound arts with the abuse of them . . . we shall in a
short tim e bury in forgetfulness a ll excellent knowledge and all i
learning, or obscure and cover it over with a m ost scornful and !
beggarly ignorance. (II, 395)
Not all m arvellous works w ere n ecessa rily the work of the D evil.
And yet, on the contrary, every work which surmount eth the wisdom
of m ost men, is not to be condemned, as perform ed by the help or
m inistry of ill sp irits. For the properties and powers which God
hath given to natural things, are such, as w here he also bestoweth
the knowledge to understand their hidden and best virtues, many
things by them are brought to pass, which seem altogether im p o ssi
ble, and above nature or art. (Ill, 198)
Lawful m agic could actually a ssist faith by proving that the m iracles
93
of C hrist w ere altogether outside the lim its of nature (II, 389-390).
92
One im plication of this was given m ore specifically by Francis
Bacon when he said that m agical effects should be investigated for the
truths which might be hidden in them . - - The New Organon, ed. Fulton
H. Anderson (New York, 1960), p. 182 (Bk. II, sec. 31)
93
Here Raleigh quotes P ico della M irandola. The th esis that
m agic could help to confirm faith in Christ was one of the nine hundred
posted by Pico; it was condemned as h eretical by a papal com m ission
appointed to consider his th eses. P ico resisted the condemnation,
fled Rome, and was arrested before peace w as restored (Thorndike,
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128
R aleigh's essay reduces the irapressiveness of the power of the |
D evil. Some apparent m arvels could certainly be effected by sim ple, ;
natural m eans. Beyond this, the D evil might work wonders in any of
three ways: by moving the affections of men, by an exquisite know- i
ledge of nature, and by illusion (II, 399). In connection with the
second of these, Raleigh was convinced with Aquinas that the frogs
i
i
which the Pharoah's sorcerers produced w ere real, for it was p os
sible that the D evil had m erely quickened the natural process of ;
generation by his knowledge of "the utterm ost of nature." A lso, if the !
D evil could foretell the future, it was hardly surprising, in view of \
his experience and m obility. "For we see that w ise and learned men
do oftentim es, by comparing like causes, conceive rightly of like
94
effects, before they happen" (II, 402). Other works, like raising
souls from the dead and making them speak, or drawing good angels
IV, 487-488, 493-498). Raleigh quotes P ico several tim es in this d i
gression . P ico had w ritten on m agic in several works; he was part of
the slow development of a skeptical attitude toward m agic (Thorndike,
II, 970). Though p o ssessed with a taste for the m arvellous, he
separated natural m agic from diabolical, and defended the form er as
practical and noble (Thorndike, IV, 494-495).
94
One finds exactly the sam e thought in Zanchius, De Operibus
D ei, which Dr. Wood has translated for m e as follows: One [of the
reasons for the su ccess of D evils in predicting events] is that they
know many things from their causes, either as certain or as probable,
as has already been said : It is not therefore to be wondered at that
they predict many things through their own agencies, which do in fact
turn out. For they very diligently observe natural causes and their
effects. To this also should be added their long and continuous expe
rience, by which they know what custom arily happens, and what does
not happen, from any given disposition of causes. . . .
Una est, quoniam mult a no runt in ipsorum cau ssis, vel certo, v el
probabiliter, si cut iam dictum est: Mi rum igitur non est, quod mult a
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129
out of heaven, w ere absolutely outside the D evil's power, and were
always a deception (II, 396, 398).
This digression concludes with a beautifully expressed and
strongly felt assertion of the absolute superiority of the power of God
;
and the ultim ate impotence of the Devil (II, 402-405),
The history of magic prepares us for Raleigh's position; there is
nothing surprising in anything Raleigh said, but he is beyond much of
the superstition of his tim e. In the earliest tradition of Christian |
thought, magic was crim inal, and involved the work of demons. The
evidence of a very ancient and important work called The Recognitions
shows that very early in the Christian era demons w ere assumed to be
available to man as servants (Thorndike, I, 400-416). The church
fathers dealt seriously and very unfavorably with m agic, St,
Augustine strongly censured it, never doubting it, and attributed its
success to demons; he distinguished m agical from divine or Christian
m iracles, which early was a standard distinction (Thorndike, I, 505-
507), Isidore too wrote a very unfavorable history of magic, based on
the works of earlier church fathers, which was very influential in the
Q 5
Middle Ages (Thorndike, I, 628-630), Then in the Arabic writings
predicant per suos m inistres futur a, quae certo eveniant, Diligen-
tissim e enim observant causas naturales, et earum effecta. Cum vero
et iam accedat tam longa et perpétua experientia, qua norunt, quid
solitum sit ex tali caussarum dispositione provenire, et quid non
solitû sit, , , , (p, 237)
95
See also A. D, White, A History of the Warfare of Science with
Theology (New York, 1903), I~ 382-385), This is an especially
interesting and readable account of the opposition of the church to
m agic.
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130
translated in the twelfth century a connection was established between
magic and experiment (Thorndike, I, 644), In the thirteenth century
Albertus Magnus, of whom Lynn Thorndike has the highest opinion for
the history of experimental science, made the same association.
Albert's emphasis was to reduce the degree of the marvellous in the
work of demons to "an exquisite knowledge of nature, " to use Raleigh's
words. He named the Magi as practitioners of a good type of magic,
thus distinguishing good from evil magic. Albert helped to remove
the element of the marvellous from the former by saying that it made
no use of demons (Thorndike, II, 548-555).
Two other men of the thirteenth century offer an excellent illu s
tration of the lines of thinking that converged in the late sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries. St. Thomas Aquinas held the traditional
view: magic and witchcraft were real, the work of demons; and
magicians were generally bad, m alefici (Thorndike, II, 602-605).
The majority of Christian w riters held magic to be both real and evil
throughout the Middle Ages (Thorndike, II, 975). As Aquinas rep
resents traditional thought, so Roger Bacon, his conternporary,
represents the advanced thought of the Middle Ages on this subject
(Thorndike, II, 618-619). For Roger Bacon magic was to be scorned
because it was a delusion and a fraud. He speaks of "the great
advantage to be gained from the pursuit of that experimental science
96
which was to disprove and blot out all magical nonsense." He
96
Lynn Thorndike, The Place of Magic in the Intellectual History
of Europe (New York, 1905), p. T S T My other quotations from
Thorndike have been from his multi-volume History of Magic and
Experimental Science.
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131
complained that many useful scien ces w ere condemned along with
m agic, and resisted the idea of demonic intervention, preferring to
explain effects by natural causes (White, I, 388). This is not to say
that he did not believe in the p ossibility of m arvels or in demons, or
that there is not a large m ixture of magic in his experim ental scien ce, |
The two, Thorndike tells us, have been clo sely connected in their '
history. Yet Roger Bacon was trying to m ake a distinction between |
the two. In his mind, the work of science was to attack m agic by
showing its own superior power. As Thorndike has said. Bacon
sounded "a rational and scientific attack" on m agic in a tim e when
m agic was very prevalent (II, 659-663).
Thorndike em phasizes the extrem e slow ness of the development
of skepticism about m agic. M edieval works on m agic w ere reproduced
continually throughout the sixteenth century and continued to exert
their influence; the witchcraft phobia intensified. It was not really
until the eighteenth century, or even alm ost to our own tim e, that
skepticism about m agic became, dominant (Thorndike, II, 969-970;
White, I, 405-406). In the sixteenth century m agic still flourished
(Thorndike, V, 13); the scientific and the m agical w ere s till mixed;
the idea of the universality of scientific law w as opposed as leaving
no room either for divine providence or the work of demons
(Thorndike, V, vi); "to many the fantastic world of demons and w itches
was m ore real and actual than the pretensions of physical or chem ical
97
Thorndike d iscu sses individual works on m agic which appeared
in the sixteenth century in Vol. VI of his work.
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132
9 8
experimentation" (Thorndike, V, 10). Yet the reputation of magic :
slowly rose; the line between natural and diabolical magic became !
more and more recognized, and the name of magic was increasingly ;
applied to the former (Thorndike, V, 13). I
j
It is apparent from Raleigh's words that, unscientific as he may
sound to modern ears, he was among those who were advancing a
more rational approach in the understanding of the world and nature.
!
M iracle
Though there are only a few illustrations in the History to draw |
from, the subject of m iracles provides another example of the scien- !
tific bent of Raleigh's mind. The history of m iracle shows that m ira
cles were widely accepted in Elizabethan tim es, that scientists were
only beginning at that time to seek rational explanations of the causes
99
of m iracles. We find that Raleigh approved the effort of the scien
tists ; indeed, for their "sapping and mining" activities, Paul Kocher
places Raleigh and other "free-thinking intellectuals" immediately
alongside the scientists as "true precursers of the revolution to come"
(p. 117).
In both the Old and the New Testament it was assumed that God
98
Ernest Strathmann w rites that "the still common identification
of experimental science with black magic" was a great obstacle to the
Elizabethan experimenter (p. 174). In 1583 John Dee, eminent
scientist, lost his fine library and other possessions in an attack on
his home by a London mob, which believed he was in league with the
Devil. - - J. W. Ashton, "The Fall of Icarus " in PQ, 20:348, July 1941.
118.
99
Kocher, Science and Religion in Elizabethan England, pp. 104-
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133;
I
[
continued to govern the world and to reveal H im self by m iracles when-,
ever He wished.^ The Judaic belief in the miraculous received new ,
impetus with the eschatology of the early Christians, which involved
the expectation that m iracles would occur in the last days (Grant, pp.
I
169-172). The credulous view of m iracles persisted for many
101
centuries, certainly w ell into the sixteenth century. The possibility
of new m iracles was accepted by the Elizabethans as part of the
Christian concept of the power and freedom of God. |
The difficulty for the Elizabethan scientist was that "there was a |
great temptation among laity and clergy alike to call every unexplained!
natural phenomenon a miracle" (Kocher, p. 105, pp. 110-111). ,
According to Paul Kocher, the Elizabethan scientist as much as the !
theologian favored the doctrine of Providence, but in the matter of
m iracles, the scientist would have much preferred to see a physical
n ecessity (pp. 100-103). "The only real clash between religious and
scientific ideas of causation was upon the question of m iracles"
(p. 114). But Kocher warns us that it would be a m istake to suppose
that the clash was strong (p. 115). Elizabethans were beginning only
tentatively to claim the field of causation for science. Reports of new
m iracles were som etim es a source of em barrassm ent to scientists,
for it was a delicate matter to determine whether occurrences had a
natural cause or w ere really outside the natural order (Kocher, pp.
^*^^Grant, M iracle and Natural Law, pp. 153-154.
White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, II,
23; 237-238.
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134
110-114), These men did not dispute the m iracles of Christ or other
scriptural m iracles, but they pushed forward the work of seriously
limiting the number of actual m iracles and substituting natural
explanations. The area accorded to m iracle was lessened, allowing
more room for explanation by natural cause (Kocher, p. 115).
Francis Bacon emphasized the rarity of m iracles in these words: ;
Whensoever God doth break the law of Nature by m iracles, (which
are ever new creations,) he never com eth to that point or pass, but I
in regard to the work of redemption. (Works, XIV, 50-51)102 j
I
Some Protestant theologians too became somewhat skeptical in re- !
sistance to Catholic claim s of new m iracles (Kocher, p. 107). Arnold |
W illiams w rites that many commentators allowed m iracle in their j
exegesis only where n ecessary (Common Expositor, p. 174).
In Raleigh we see this convergence of credulity and rationality,
the beginnings of a resistance that was to grow so large. Of course,
it was inconceivable for Raleigh to dispute scriptural m iracle:
The m iracles which God wrought during this war were exceeding
admirable; as, the stay of the river of Jordan at the springs, so as
the army of Israel passed it with a dry foot ; the fall of Jericho by the
sound of the horns; the shower of hailstones which fell upon the
Am orites. . . . Again, the arrest of the sun in the firmament . . .
a wonder of wonders, and work only proper to the all-powerful God.
(Ill, 209)
We notice too that the following un scriptural m iracle is reported
by Raleigh with apparent acceptance:
In the year after Christ 363, that m onster Julian Apostata caused
that worthy monument [of Christ healing a woman] to be cast down
and defaced, setting up the like of his own in the same place; which
102
By "new creations" Bacon meant that they w ere "not according
to the law of the first creation," from which God had rested (Works,
XIV, 82).
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135i
image of his was with fire from heaven broken into fitters; the head, I
body, and other parts sundered and scattered, to the great admira- ;
tion of the people at that tim e living. The truth of this accident is |
also confirmed by Sozomenus Salaminius, in his 5th book and 20th i
I chapter. (Ill, 247)
N evertheless, Raleigh was on his guard against possible exaggerations
The Spaniard Pineda had written that the whale which carried Jonas .
travelled twelve thousand m iles in three days before casting up Jonas. ^
I
For this long voyage of the whale finished in three days, is a greater |
m iracle than the very preservation of Jonas in the belly of the whale: i
and therefore seeing there is no n ecessity of this m iracle, we find it
back unto him, . . . "Miracles are not to be m ultiplied without
necessity, nor delivered without cause, nor feigned at pleasure. "
(IV, 548)
In spite of his occasional excessive credulity, these words express i
Raleigh's thought well: "miracles are not to be multiplied without
necessity." He scornfully dism issed the "pretty ta le s " of the
Spaniards, "telling how they have been assisted in battle by the
presence of our Lady, and by angels riding on white horses, with the
like Romish m iracles" (V, 328). He was not able to reject com pletely
the possibility that God protected A lexander's army in the desert by
causing it to rain (V, 327), yet the many superstitions surrounding
Alexander's life he promptly called "feigned" (V, 300; V, 327-328).
The eye-w itness testim ony of Herodotus concerning the rem ains of
two rocks said to have fallen suddenly upon the P ersians, tended to
keep Raleigh from labelling the story a superstition; instead he sug
gested the incident was brought about by the devil, with the perm ission
of God, to punish the impiety of X erxes (V, 116-117). Of another
"enlargement" by Josephus of a great earthquake that clove the tem ple
of a wicked king, and a sunbeam that lighted the king’s face and
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1361
i
infected it with leprosy, Raleigh wrote that it may have been true, but |
all that could be known with assurance was what was recorded in
scripture (IV, 664-665).
The Sibylline books had been credited by very early Christian I
fathers with containing prophecies of Christ. Whatever faith people
held in the books Raleigh attributed to the work of the devil, if it was |
not "extremity of fea r" producing "vehemency of superstition" (VI,
250; VI, 292). John Racin says that R aleigh's rejection of the books
was "advanced for his time" (pp. 128-129). In fact, we are told by |
Raleigh h im self that at one tim e he had had respect for the Sibylline
predictions, "following the common belief and good authority, " but his
instinct and other evidence had convinced him they w ere fraudulent
(VII, 766).
Myth
I have been able to point out many sim ilarities in the thought of
Bacon and Raleigh, but I must say now that they differed com pletely
in their views on myth. The interpretation of myth had been of two
103
kinds: the allegorical and the historical. Bacon had been sympa
thetic to the first, Raleigh to the second; that is. Bacon saw the myths
as philosophical sym bols, Raleigh as elaborations behind which lay
some historical fact.^The system attractive to Bacon appears in
103
Charles W. Lemmi, The C lassical D eities in Bacon
(Baltim ore, 1933), p. 27.
^^^Bacon's Of the Wisdom of the A ncients, published in 1609, was
a set of interpretations of thirty-one ancient m yths. Summaries of
several of these may be found in two works by Fulton Anderson,
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137;
I
numerous works of interpretation of cla ssica l myths produced in Italy |
in the sixteenth century; the Platonic interest of the Florentine hu
m anists led them to think of myths as sym bols containing hidden
truths, a great storehouse from which Greek philosophers and scien
tists had taken hints for their ideas. In general the church was hostilej
105
to this tendency. A Christian m oral or ethical reading of myth was |
acceptable, however, and widely followed during the R enaissance.^^^ |
The historical exegesis of myth was much m ore acceptable to the
church than the symbolic one. This type had its origin in the work of
Euhemerus, who in 280 B. C. wrote a Greek tale in which he said that
Francis Bacon: His Career and Thought (New York, 1962), pp. 280-
285, and The Philosophy of Francis Bacon (Chicago, 1948), pp. 56-69.
Bacon found the myths highly suitable vehicles for his scientific and
m oralistic thoughts, and excellent as a means of instruction (Preface,
Of the Wisdom of the Ancients in Works, XIII, 75-81). For instance,
in the myth of Pan, the figure of Pan was human in the upper part,
brute in the lower part, and with horns that reached heaven. "A noble
fable this, if there be any such, " w rites Bacon, "cind big alm ost to
bursting with the secrets and m ysteries of Nature." Pan signified the
world, or Nature; his biform body, the m ixed nature of all species.
His shape had reference to the fact that the fram e of nature rose to a
point like a pyramid. At the base were the infinite particulars; upon
these rose succeeding sp ecies, or generalizations; the final law of
nature was at the apex (XIII, 92-101). At the basis of this admiration
for fable was a belief that the earliest thinkers had looked at nature
directly, and set forth what they saw in fables without abstract ideas
or arguments (Anderson, Philosophy, p. 57). Bacon claim s in a
charming way that his readings w ere the very first to reveal the true
significance of the fables (Preface, Of the Wisdom of the Ancients,
XIII, 75-76, 80-81). But Charles Lem m i's study of Bacon's sources
indicates that m ost of his interpretations w ere adaptations or com pi
lations of previous ones.
105
See the survey in Lem m i's work, Intro. , pp. 1-45,
^^^Douglas Bush, Mythology and the R enaissance Tradition in
English Poetry (New York, 1963), p. iZ.
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138
he had discovered a pillar on which Zeus had recorded his deeds.
This clearly meant that Zeus had been a human being, a beneficent
ruler who had been deified by his people. Euhemerus' idea reduced
the gods to the level of very early monarchs. His tale became re
markably influential; it was transmitted to the Christians by a Latin
1 07
translation of Ennius preserved by Lactantius. Euhemerism
became a system widely adopted by the Christian fathers, for it was
useful in replacing pagan belief with Christianity. "The Fathers j
generally accepted the rationalistic interpretation of the gods given j
108 I
by Euhemerus." St. Augustine cited Euhemerus as his authority
that the pagan gods were once men.^
One of the strongest arguments that Augustine used in proving the
futility of worshipping pagan divinities was the rationalistic view of
the divinities held by eminent pagan w riters, who maintained that
the pagan gods were originally men. (Madden, p. 127)
In Lodovicus V ives' commentary on St. Augustine, dated 1522, we
find the same euhemeristic idea: "Neptune was m erely a cunning
seaman and was made admiral by Jove, 'for which posterity deified
him. ' " ^ Long before Augustine, Clement wrote in his Exhortation
107
"Euhemerism, " Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, V, 572-
573; "Euhemerus, " Encyclopedia Britannica, VIII, 818-819.
108
Sister Mary Daniel Madden, The Pagan Divinities and Their
Worship as Depicted in the World of Saint AugustïnëTExclusive of The
City of God (Washington, D. C ., 193Ô), p. 15, n. 22.
109
Madden, p. 15, pp. 78-79.
^Quoted in George Wesley Whiting, Milton's Literary Milieu
(New York, 1964), p. 193.
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139
to the Heathen,
The native countries of your gods, and their arts and lives, and
besides especially their sepulchres, demonstrate them to have been
men. Mars . . , was a Spartan.HI
J. D. Cooke has traced the long life of the euhem eristic idea, from
the earliest fathers through Isidore of Seville and beyond, through the
112
Middle Ages. Other w riters speak of the euhem eristic theory not
only as a common m edieval notion, but a common sixteenth and seven
teenth century notion as w ell, to be found in the works of Milton and
113
Spenser. In a beautiful book by Jean Seznec entitled The Survival
of the Pagan Gods: The M ythological Tradition and Its Place in
114
Renaissance Humanism and Art, one reads, as Seznec describes
the place given to the gods in history.
In this regard no break is discernible between the Middle Ages and
the Renaissance; the same considerations which have protected the
gods continue to assure their survival, {pp. 20-21)
We find Raleigh repeating the euhem eristic idea:
A lso St. Augustine not eth, that from the tim e that M oses left Egypt
to the death of Joshua, divers other famous men lived in the world,
who after their deaths, for their eminent virtues and inventions,
w ere numbered among the gods; as Dionysius, otherwise Liber
Pater, who taught the Grecians the use of the vine in Attica. {Ill,
198 )
^^^The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. A. Cleveland Coxe (New York,
1910), II, 179.
112
"Euhemerism: A M edieval Interpretation of C lassical Pagan
ism , " ^peculum, 2:396-410, 1927.
113
Charles Grosvenor Osgood, The C lassical Mythology of
M ilton's English Poem s (New York, 1900), p. xlvii, n. T !
114
Trans. Barbara F. Sessions (New York, 1953).
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140:
There lived also in this age . . . Aesculapius, which after his death |
became the god of physicians, being the brother of Mercurius, as I
Vives thinks in his commentary upon Augustine. . . , (III, 197)
I
Here it is evident that the church accepted euhemerism so far as to
I
integrate heathen or profane history of very early ages with sacred |
history. In the biblical commentaries "chronology involved the har- I
monizing of the events of Genesis with those in Greek and Egyptian
myth and early history" (Williams, Common Expositor, p. 14). In j
the History the story of the Israelites is followed by an account of
other nations of that time.
And in this age of the world, and while Moses yet lived, Deucalion I
reigned in Thessaly, Grot opus then ruling the Argives. This
Deucalion was the son of Prometheus. . . . (Ill, 190)
In this age also Xanthus ravished Europa. . . . In this time also
while Moses wandered in the deserts, Dardanus built Dardania
[Troy]. (Ill, 199)
Raleigh gives a brief history of Joshua, and then adds.
There lived at once with Joshua, Erichthonius in Attica, who taught
that nation to yoke beasts together , . . and about the same time the
fifty daughters of Danaus (as it is said) slew the fifty sons of
Aegyptus, all but Dyne eus, who succeeded Danaus, if the tale be
true. There lived also with Joshua, Phoenix and Cadmus, and near
the end of Joshua's life, Jupiter is said to have ravished Europa. .
. . But St. Augustine reports this ravishment to be committed by
Xanthus. . . . (Ill, 215)
Raleigh continues to deal in alternating order with the Israelites and
with their contemporaries. "There lived in this age of Othoniel,
Pandion. . . . His daughters were Progne and Philomela, so greatly
mentioned in fables" (III, 385). After the death of Othoniel, in the
time of Ehud, and later of Deborah, Gideon, Jair, and Jephta, mytho
logical occurrences became more notable, and the accounts of them
occupy a good deal of space in the History (III, 387-401; IV, 401-440).
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1 4 1
He devotes a whole chapter to the Trojan War (IV, 441-462) and.then
returns to the history of Samson, Eli, and Samuel. This mixture |
tends to give the im pression that myth and scriptural history were on |
: ' I
115
much the same plane of historical reality. It is easy to see from
Raleigh’s references that he had the highest authority for accepting
myth as history;
That the story of Prometheus was not altogether a fiction, and that
he lived about this tim e, the most approved historians and anti
quaries, and among them Eusebius and St. Augustine, have not
doubted. (Ill, 189-190)
Yet Raleigh was not altogether happy in submitting to tradition.
In classical mythology there appears a remarkable parallel to the |
story of Noah. Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha survived a universal |
flood by boarding a boat; they were notified of the fall of the waters by i
a dove, and after the flood they replenished the earth. Some fathers ;
thought the two floods were the same; others, among them the in
fluential Augustine, thought they were separate floods (W illiams,
Common Expositor, p. 213). Raleigh would have dism issed the story
as à rank imitation of scripture by the Greeks, but was impeded by
the approval of the story of ”St. Augustine, with others of the fathers,
and reverend writers" (III, 191). As we shall see in a moment,
TIC
B asil Willey has taken note of E. M. W. Tillyard's idea that
Milton speaks of the tale of Psyche and of G enesis in the same tone and
as if they w ere equally true. - - The Seventeenth Century Background,
p. 238; see Tillyard, Milton (London, 1949), 223. Douglas Bush
also remarks that Milton often speaks of the myths without skepticism .
--Mythology and the Renaissance Tradition, pp. 286-287. This was
possible because of the long work of the church in dealing with myth,
exactly as in the case of Raleigh. Douglas Bush w rites that Raleigh's
view of myth was not at all behind his tim es (Mythology and the Ren-
aissance Tradition, p. 253).
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142
Raleigh felt a good deal of scorn for myth. He recounted the stories
because form er authorities had done so, but his own rationality was in
conflict with his respect. M oreover, he recognized in these m atters
that he had nothing to contribute, no suggestions to make because of
the great antiquity of the events, the likelihood of fabulous invention,
and the lack of the certain aid of scripture. There is a diffidence herej
!
that is not present in his scriptural disputes. On the identity of the |
multiple Jupiters and other gods of mythology, he says,
I w ill not greatly trouble m yself, with making any narrow search into
fabulous antiquities, but set down the pedigree according to the
general fame. (IV, 444)
I
Concerning a suggestion offered by Annius on the genealogy and life of I
i
Dardanus, the founder of Troy, he says.
The obscurity of history gives leave to Annius of saying what he list.
I that love not to use such liberty, w ill forbear to determine any
thing herein. (IV, 444)
On the dates of Homer,
For m yself, I am not much troubled when this poet lived; neither
would I offend the reader with these opinions, but only to shew the
uncertainty and disagreem ent of historians, as w ell in this particular
as in all other questions of disputes of tim e. (IV, 497)
This indifference was not characteristic of Raleigh in his treatment of
scriptural genealogy. He asks,
If the age wherein Homer lived hath so painfully been sought without
reprehension, how can he be taxed, which offers to search out the
antiquity of these holy prophets? (IV, 665)
If we turn to the biblical com m entaries of the Renaissance, we
find another view of mythology very different from the euhem eristic
one just described, and one which Raleigh could agree to rationally
and emotionally without reserve. To the commentators the obvious
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143
parallels between myth and scripture meant either that myth was a
fiction or that it was a corrupt and adulterated borrowing from scrip- ;
ture (Williams, Common Expositor, pp. 208-209). Arnold Williams |
summarized their attitude in this way: |
i
Most frequently the commentators find in the fables of the poets only ;
bare fictions, pure inventions. Not uncommonly they use the paral- |
lei story in Genesis to prove the essential untrustworthiness of the |
heathen accounts. . . . A favorite variation of this theme is to show '
that the origin of some things in the G enesis account is much earlier
than in the corresponding classical account, , . , This attitude to
ward Greek myth is particularly noticeable in Pareus, who seldom
m isses a chance to point out by a comparison of classical fable with
: the truth of Genesis what liars and scoundrels the classic poets
w ere. This explanation is one of the commoner refuges of R enais
sance scholars when confronted with the problems of comparative
mythology, (p. 209) |
Very cautiously the commentators allowed that if the myths contained
some truth, it had derived from a dim fam iliarity with the Pentateuch |
through a very ancient translation (W illiams, pp, 210-211), Pagans
and Christians engaged in angry argument over the matter of pre
cedence of the versions of the story. Lom eier in 1681 wrote a great
tome to show that myths were "little more than a reflection of the
Hebrew patriarchs in a cracked and dusty mi rr or, I n Douglas
Bush's words.
Tradition permitted, indeed encouraged, the habit of seeing cla ssica l
myth and Biblical history as a single body of material, the form er a
distorted version of the latter. . . , (Mythology and Renaissance
Tradition, pp. 288-289)
Many passages in the History show Raleigh's scorn for the d is
tortions of the Greek mythrnakers. He recorded the explanation of
^^^Don Cameron Allen, The Legend of Noah, 111. Stud, in Lang,
and L it., Nos. 3-4 (Urbana, 1949), XXXIII, 84.
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1 4 4
I
I
the Greeks, "according to their fabulous inventions of all things else" |
(II, 143), concerning the obscure history of the descendants of Enoch
and the possible locations of their city. The word "Heniochi" meant ;
carts or coachmen; because of this the Greeks traced the ancestry of j
the Heniochians to the waggoners of Castor and Pollux, who w ere |
picked up by Jason in an open boat off the coast of A sia Minor and {
participated in his adventures., |
Yet no man doubteth but that the tale of the golden fleece was for the I
m ost part poetical; and withal that in such an open boat, which could i
hardly carry their own rowers, being fifty-four, there was no place, |
and le ss use for coachhorses or waggoners. (II, 144) |
Raleigh believed firm ly, on grounds of scripture and the w itness of
profane history, that giants had once existed on the earth. The Greek
poets had gotten their conception of giants from scripture and even
suggestions for some of their acts, and then had devised incredible
stories about them.
Cyrillus reproves the Grecian poets for their monstrous fictions ;
who affirm, sham elessly, that the giants have in elder tim es not only
cast up mountains upon mountains, but removed islands out of the
sea, with like fooleries. (II, 159)
The Greeks and other ancient peoples had, in fact, plagiarized from
scripture, with deliberate intention to pass the works off as entirely
their own. A whole chapter of the History is devoted to showing, with
the support of "very learned men," that the stories of Greek heroes
w ere only reflections of scripture (II, 163-187). Raleigh claim ed that
inscriptions which remained after the flood informed the Egyptians of
the first ages, and from this information the first fables were in
vented; also, that M izraim , the son of Cham and grandson of Noah,
had passed on som e information orally (II, 165-166).
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145 I
So did the fable of the dividing of the world between the three breth
ren, the sons of Saturn, arise from the true story of the dividing of
the earth between the three brethren the sons of Noah: so also was
the fiction of those golden apples kept by a dragon taken from the
serpent which tempted Evah: so was paradise itself transported out i
of A sia into A frica, and made the garden of the H esperides. . . . i
(II, 167) I
Raleigh wrote, with positive force, "It cannot be doubted, but that
Homer had read over all the books of M oses, as by places stolen
thence alm ost word for word may appear. . (II, 179). In their
myths the Greeks claim ed there was no flood preceding the flood of
Ogyges; this was "but the vanity of the G reeks, the corrupters of all I
truth . . . who without all ground of certainty vaunt their antiquity" |
(II, 189). Raleigh, as we have seen before, w as unable to agree with
the idea that Noah had led his people over the earth from Arm enia to
A frica, Spain, and Italy; it was m ore reasonable to suppose that he
turned the leadership of the tribes over to younger men. The elabo
rated and m istaken versions of the story w ere "but the fancies of
B erosus Annianus, a plain im itation of the Grecian fables" (II, 226).
If any profane account of ancient tim es was to be accepted at all, "the
same m ust be with this caution, that they take their beginning where
the scriptures end" (II, 2 50). No other book was equal to scripture in
age or authority. As Eusebius in his Chronology had pointed out, the
oldest Jupiter mentioned by C icero was born in Athens when Cecrops
was king; M oses delivered the children of Isra el out of Egypt at the
end of C ecrop's reign. Plainly scripture dealt with much older
history than pagan legend.
And not to hearken to fabulous authors, who have no other end than
to flatter princes, (as V irgil did Augustus in the fiction of A eneas,)
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146,
or else to glorify their own nations; let us build upon the scriptures
' them selves, and after them upon reason and nature. (II, 251)
It IS interesting that Raleigh follows his derogation of myth with a !
contribution to the Renaissance effort to prove that the very greatest
of the pagans had Christian beliefs (II, 178-184). Some of the ancients!
were so w ise that they borrowed true beliefs from scripture, which ,
antedated both their wisdom and their legends. Orpheus, for example,!
"every where expressed the infinite and sole power of one God, though|
he uses the name of Jupiter, thereby to avoid the envy and danger of • |
I
the tim e . . . " (II, 181), and Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato w ere |
also held back by fear of their time from expressing their Christian
beliefs (II, 181).
With some reservation Raleigh could use evidence from pagan
legend to bolster a Christian interpretation which he favored, though
he had heaped scorn upon the reliability of legend in other passages.
To strengthen his argument on the subject of the year of the settlement
of Italy and Spain, which Raleigh felt had been placed too early by
Aunius, he added a reference to the tale of the Argonauts; he held that
the migrants travelled slowly by land, not by sea, because
before the journey of the Argonautae, there w ere scarce any v essels
that durst cross the seas in that part of the world; and yet that which
Jason had, if the tale be true, was but a galley, and a poor one, God
knows, and perchance such as they use this day in Ireland; which a l
though it carried but four and fifty passengers, yet was it far greater
than any of the former tim es. . . . (II, .258)
Frequently Raleigh suggested facts which lay behind the "poetical
conversions" of myth; this aspect of his view of myth clearly illu s
trates the undeceived, unromantic rationality that was characteristic
of him. The story of the riddle of the Sphinx simply signified an
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147:
armed battle which had occurred between Sphinx, "a great robber b y-
sea and land, " and the Corinthian army led by Oedipus. :
That which was written of her propounding of riddles to those whom '
she m astered, was meant by the rocky and inaccessible mountain |
near Thebes which she defended, and by Oedipus dissolving her |
problem, his victory over her. (IV, 407) I
Of the Trojan horse he wrote, |
It may w ell be, that with some wooden engine which they called a |
horse, they either did batter the w alls, as the Romans in after-tim esj
used to do with the ram; or scaled the w alls upon the sudden, and so :
took the city. (IV, 459)
Another interesting example of this kind appears in the tragedy of the |
house of Theseus. Hippolytus was supposed to have been torn to ;
pieces in the sea,
after which it is feigned, that Diana entreated Aesculapius to set
Hippolytus's pieces together, and to restore him to life; which done,
because he was chaste, she led him with her into Italy, to accompany
her in her hunting and field sports.
It is probable that Hippolytus, when his father sought his life,
thinking to escape by sea . . . received many wounds in forcing his
passage and escape, which wounds Aesculapius, to wit, some skilful
physician or chirurgeon, healed again; after which he passed into
Italy, where he lived with Diana, that is, the life of a hunter, in
which he m ost delighted. (IV, 418)
This passage is followed by an explicit comment by Raleigh on the
little value of the fables.
But of those ancient profane stories, Plutarch saith well, that as
cosmographers in their descriptions of the world, where they find
many vast places, whereof they knew nothing, fill the same with
strange beasts, birds, and fishes, and with mathematical lines; so
do the Grecian historians and poets embroider and intermix the tales
of ancient tim es with a world of fictions and fabulous discourses.
(IV, 418-419)
No doubt it was a difficult task to separate history from the fan
cies of the poets. Whatever was fanciful Raleigh usually marked with
such phrases as "as the poets feigned" (III, 390), "as the poets please"
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(III, 391), "as the fable goeth" (III, 395), or "as som e of the fablers
say" (IV, 413). These words take on a m ore scornful note at tim es;
"that there might want no incredible thing in this fable " (IV, 412). |
The great Scythian expedition against the Babylonians, M edians, and |
Lydians, which Raleigh considered a great and important action, had
been unreliably reported by Herodotus because of his adm ission of ;
fable:
Of the Scythian people in general, Herodotus m akes very large d is- |
course, but interlaced, as of m atter ill known, with many fables ; of |
this expedition he tells many particulars, but ill agreeing with con- |
sent of tim e. (IV, 797) |
Raleigh rejected extravagant stories attendant on fables: Plutarch had
confirm ed a report that a body m ore than sixty cubits long had been
found by Sertorius the Roman in Libya, where H ercules slew Antaeus
the giant, "yet for m yself, " w rites Raleigh, "I think it but a loud lie"
117
(IV, 408).^^'
R aleigh's objection to poetical version s of history was that they
exaggerated history and hence degraded it.
Yet so it is, that w hilst these w riters have with strange fables, or
(to speak the best of them) with allegories far strained, gone about
to enlarge the commendations of those noble undertakers; they have
both drawn into suspicion that great virtue which they sought to adorn,
and filled after-ages with alm ost as much ignorance of the history as
admiration of the p erson s. (IV, 448)
117
One finds the sam e values among the cla ssic a l historians.
Homer was the only source for the history of the Trojan War, and the
war w as accepted as historic fact, but Thucydides wrote of Homer,
"He was a poet and therefore may be expected to exaggerate"
(Peloponnesian War, i, 10), and warned that m ost of the facts of those
tim es had "passed into the region of romance" (i, 21). Polybius also
recognized the m ixture of fact and fiction in the Hom eric epics
(H istories, XXXIV, 2), and Livy, we know, refused either to confirm
or deny the myths of early G reece.
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N evertheless, though the facts of historic actions w ere to be gathered |
I
from history itself, poetry might contribute to an understanding of the '
characters of the great historic figures, provided it was read with ;
caution: j
1
Wherefore it is expedient that we seek for the knowledge of such
actions in histories; learning their qualities who did manage them, |
of poets, in whose works are both profit and delight, yet sm all profit
to those which are delighted overmuch, but such as can either inter
pret their fables, or separate them from the naked truth, shall find
matter in poems not unworthy to be regarded of historians. (IV,
448) I
I
Such passages as these help to explain the popularity of the History |
with the Puritans. I
Raleigh could also see the value of the fables as Christian para
bles or allegories. In the History the story of Bellerophon's attempt
to fly up to heaven signified that God helps those in adversity, but
casts down the proud (III, 395-396). In another example, there w ere
many accounts of a war between the Griffins, who defended a country
rich in gold, and a one-eyed people called the Arim aspi. The story
might receive this moral;
that if those men, which fight against so many dangerous passages
for gold, or other riches of this world, had their perfect sen ses,
and w ere not deprived of half their eyesight, (at least of the eye of
right reason and under standing, ) they would content them selves with
a quiet and moderate estate. . . . (II, 336)
Raleigh divests this fable too of its fancifulness by pointing out that
much rich land was indeed protected by wild anim als, but only for the
reason that it was their natural habitat.
On the whole one finds that Raleigh preferred the literal to the
m oral interpretation of these fables. Consider this absorbing passage
on the expedition of Jason and the Argonauts after the Golden Fleece:
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Some there are, that by this journey of Jason understand the m ystery
of the philosopher's stone. . . . Others would signify by Jason, w is- i
dom and moderation, which overcometh all perils; but that which is |
m ost probable is the opinion of D ercilus, that the story of such a
passage was true, and that Jason with the rest went indeed to rob j
C olchis, to which they might arrive by boat. For not far from |
Caucasus there are certain steep falling torrents, which wash down i
many grains of gold, as in many other parts of the world; and the I
people there inhabiting use to set many flee ces of wool in those de- I
scents of w aters, in which the grains of gold rem ain, and the water i
passeth through; which Strabo w itnesseth to be true. (IV, 413-414)
I
H istorical fact satisfied Raleigh as a sym bolic or a m oralistic reading |
I
of the past did not. Setting aside for a moment the force of the con-
I
tem porary scorn for myth, even "rationalistic" Euhem erism , with its I
factual air, was not truly satisfying because it was com pletely hypo
thetical about a past that could not be checked. Interpretations of
incidents of the past had to have some basis either in other h istorical i
evidence, scripture, or experience, to be worthy of history.
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CHAPTER VI I
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RALEIGH'S METHOD OF REASONING |
P arallel Method in W illet's Hexapla in Gene sin.
i
It may be generalized about R aleigh's method, though he does not j
always proceed in the same orderly way, that he w ill begin with a
statem ent of one or m ore false opinions, express his disagreem ent as |
he w ishes, proceed through a fuller examination of aspects and dif- |
ficu lties of the erroneous opinions, frequently making clear his guid
ing principles, and m ove finally to the positive side, his own position, ;
with its full array of evidence. On the way he w ill name a great many
authorities, agreeing or disagreeing with them and utilizing them as
they serve him best. In short, in the first part of his argument his
method is to refu te--h e is in confrontation with an error he rejects.
In the latter part he is vigorously arguing for the truth, piling up every
bit of evidence from a concatenation of scripture, experience, author
ity, science, and logical thinking.
It does not seem to me that there is sufficient reason to say that
his opposition to error represents the skeptical method. That method,
one rem em bers, was to oppose each argument with one of equal
weight so as to cast all ideas in doubt. R aleigh's purpose was to r e
m ove or destroy the incorrect opinion to clear the way for his own.
151
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This system has been too widely used for too long to be ascribed to |
skepticism. One sees precisely the same movement of thought in
W illet's Hexapla in Genesin, which was, as we know, derived from
M ercerus and Pererius. On the text, "And the earth brought forth the j
I
bud of herb, " hinged the question of the season of the year when the !
earth was created. Willet begins thus: "Some would prove by this ;
that the world was made in autumn, . . . Mercator thinketh, that the |
world was made in July . , etc. (p. 8). He discusses these ideas, ;
names and develops his objections, and concludes with his own |
opinion: "I think it therefore more probable that the world was created
I
in the spring ..." (p. 9), followed by a numbered summary of his
reasons. A more extensive illustration from W illet's work w ill make
the pattern clear:
V. 9 God said again let the waters under heaven be gathered together
into one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so. Out of |
these words divers questions are moved, not unnecessary to be
known, nor unprofitable to be handled, which shall be touched in their
order.
First it is inquired how the waters, and whether they were gathered
together [sic ], which before covered the face of the whole earth.
1. Some think, that the earth was this second day created, and by the
earth mentioned v. 1. that matter is understood, whereof the world
was afterward made : Of this opinion is the Master of Sentences, and
Hugo lib. 1 de sacram entis; but we refuse it, because the Lord saith
not, let there be earth, as when he maketh other things, but only let
the dry land appear, whereby it is evident, that the earth was made
before, but now severed from the waters.
2, Some think that the earth was equal and plain without hills and
mountains, that the waters might more speedily run together, and
that this inequality that now is of the ground, begun after the flood:
but this conceit is contrary to the scriptures, Gen. 7.10. The waters
prevailed fifteen cubits above the mountains. Prov. 8.25. Wisdom
was begotten before the mountains and hills: therefore in the
beginning there were both mountains and hills.
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3. Others imagine, that the waters were dried up by the fervent heat j
of the sun, and that the northern parts of the earth began to appear !
first, as the higher ground, and the rest of the earth by little and |
little. Eugubinus in Cosmopeia.
4. Others, that the earth was dried by a mighty wind, as it was after
the deluge: see Tostatus. But neither of these two opinions are
probable; for the dry earth appearing all at once, was so prepared
by a greater power, than either of the sun or wind, which could not
work it at once, and hardly in continuance of long tim e. |
5. Some think, that the waters did run together, and cover the other I
part of the earth, opposite to this where we dwell, as Augustine i
seemeth to think, lib. 16. de ci vit at. d e i., c. 9. But the experience j
of skilful Navigators, as of Sir Francis Drake, Master Candish, with |
others, (who by their famous travels have compassed the wide ocean)|
hath found that part of the world to be habitable as ours is, and not toj
be under the water. |
6. Paulus Burgens. hath a strange device of this matter; he thinketh |
that the water maketh a globe by itself, and hath his proper center,
and so likew ise the earth, and this is the cause why the earth ap
peared dry, because the water did forsake the land, and was gathered
to his own center; in addition, ad. post il. Nycol. de Lyra. But this
opinion is very false and absurd; First, for that the text saith, that
the water at the first covered the earth, v. 1 and so made but one
globe with the earth, pressing to the same center: unless he w ill
say, that God made a new kind of water the second day, and indued
it with new qualities, which cannot be affirmed. Secondly, Isay,
40.22. The Lord is said to sit upon the circle of the earth: the word
is chugh, a sphere or circle; as Job, 22,14. He walketh in the
circle of heaven: But experience showeth, that the earth without the
sea maketh not a round globe or circle.
7. Some think that the sea is much higher than the land, and so the
waters were gathered as it w ere to a great heap, that the dry land
might appear. Thus B asil thinketh, and Ambrose in his Hexemeron,
1.3.C.2, but that this is not so, it shall be showed in the next question.
8. Wherefore leaving these uncertain opinions, I rather incline to
think that these might be the means and causes of the appearing of
the dry land, and separation of the w aters. F irst the water while it
compassed the earth, being of a lighter and thinner matter, might
be coagulate together and thickened, as we see the sea water is of a
grosser substance than the fresh water, and so be contained in a
less compass than before: so Augustine lib. 1. de Genes, ad liter am.
C.12. and Beda in his Hexamer. Secondly the clouds being made this
second day, and the region or stretching forth of the air called the
Firmament brought into fashion, it is no otherlike, but that a great
part of the water was extenuate and evaporate into the air and clouds,
a daily experiment whereof we have by the conversion of the m ists
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154;
and clouds into water. Thirdly, the earth being much greater and !
deeper than the circum ference of the water, which com passed the |
earth, might easily receive the water into the concavities and hollow ^
places thereof, which w ere appointed of God to be receptacles for |
the water. And that the earth is of a greater depth than the water,
that did at the first cover it, thus it may appear, by taking the just
: m easure of the compass of the earth, and so of the diam eter, that
is, the through m easure thereof, |
Then for the compass and circuit of the earth, A ristotle affirmeth |
it to contain 50000 Italian m iles: lib. 2 de co elo : Hypparchus as |
Pliny w itnesseth, 34625 m iles: Eratosthenes 31500 m iles: Ptolomy |
22500 whom B asil followeth: Alphraganus 21500: Pharnelius 24514, ;
But of late they which have com passed the whole ocean, do find the
circuit of the earth to be but 19080 ninteen thousand and fourscore .
m iles. And the diameter thereof is found to be 7000 m iles, the |
sem idiam eter or space from the center of the earth to the circum - I
ference 3500 m iles. Now what the depth of the water was above the |
earth, may be conjectured by the height of the middle region of the ;
air, which is found by m athem aticians not to exceed 60 m iles, as !
they gather both by the twilights which extend no further, and by the !
distance of m eteors and exhalations, which appear in the air.
Now the earth so far exceeding the water in depth, might easily
receive it into the hollow places and concavities thereof, which also
is insinuated by the hebrew word kava, that here signifieth to cong
regate or gather together, from whence the latin word cavus, hollow,
may seem to be derived, as P ererius w ell noteth. And this lastly is
Ambrose conjecture, that God did enlarge the low places of the
earth, and the force also of the waters might make them deeper, lib. :
3 Hexam. c.2. And this is agreeable to the scripture, P sal. 104.8.
The waters descend to the place which thou hast founded for them . .
. . (pp. 6-6)
Willet continues in this vein on this question for about two hundred and
fifty m ore words.
Do we not find the sam e pattern of thought in this example from
Raleigh's H istory, whatever the difficulties in understanding the
computations ?
It appeareth that this flood of Deucalion was either at the egression
of the children of Israel out of Egypt, or near it: and then after
Noah 753 years according to Functius, who makes Cecrops to live
in the year of the world 2409; of if we follow M ercator, then 739
years after Noah, and in the year of the world 2395. But if
Deucalion w ere born in the age of the world 2356, according to
Codoman, then giving unto Deucalion forty years of age when this
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155;
flood happened, it falleth within one year of M ercator's account. But j
Deucalion, by all approved historians, is said to have been eighty- i
two years old at that tim e. Now Clem ens Alexandrinus dates the
tim e of this flood of Deucalion, and the conflagration and burning in
Phaeton's tim e, by the reign of Grotopus king of the A rgives; but
Crotopus lived king of the Ar gives six years after Isra el departed
Egypt, which m akes twenty years difference according to Functius,
who w ill have this flood and burning to have fallen fourteen years
before M oses left Egypt; for he gave of the w orld's years to the
flood and burning the year 2440, and to M oses's egression the year
24-54. And yet Ce dr enus thinks that M oses was m ore ancient, and
lived with Inachus, but that cannot be true; for then had the flood of
Deucalion and the burning of Phaeton preceded the flood of Ogyges,
which is denied by all: for that of T hessaly (called Deucalion's)
followed that of Attica (called Ogygia) at least 250 years, or th ere
abouts. Eusebius, in his Chronology, m akes it 230 years, and so
doth P. O rosius; Eusebius about the fiftieth year of M oses's life,
and Cyrillus about the sixty-seventh, and both after Noah's flood
770 years; for these be Clem ens Alexandrinus's words: . , .
"There happened in G reece in the tim e of Phoroneus, who lived j
after Inachus, the flood of Ogyges." Now if the flood of Ogyges in |
Attica w ere 1020 or 1016 years before the first Olympiad, accord- i
in g to Eusebius and O rosius, as before, then it is m anifest, that ;
taking 763 out of this number of 1020, it falls out that O gyges's flood '
happened before the Hebrews left Egypt 250 years, or 260 years,
according to the difference between the opinions of Eusebius and
O rosius. And for m yself, (who rather follow those chronologers
which give sixty years m ore to Abraham after the flood, than the
r e s t,) I reckon the tim es which come between these floods in this
sort. The general flood was in the year of the world 1656. Jacob
was born in the year of the world 2169, so as from the beginning of
the flood to Jacob's birth there w ere consumed 513 years, Ogyge's
[s ic ] flood happened 100 years after Jacob was born, and therefore
after the general flood 613 years. Now Deucalion was born in the
year of the world 2356, and had lived eighty-two years when his
kingdom of T hessaly was overwhelmed, (which added to 23 56, make
2438,) his flood was after Noah's flood ended 782 years. And hereto
Annius's Xenophon agreeth, who makes 700 years between the
general flood and Deucalion's birth; to which add eighty-two years
of his age, as before, and then the flood of T hessaly followed the
general 782 years.
The method of W illet and Raleigh was typical, if we accept Arnold
W illiam s' general summary of the method of all of the com m entators:
They strove to report all possible interpretations of a text, later
sifting the interpretations, refuting the false, pointing out the weak
or doubtful, and accepting the true. (Common Expositor, p. 12)
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D ifference from the Skeptical Method
I
Let us reca ll for a moment Strathmann's quotation from the P re - I
face of Raleigh's argumentative method, which he called "the best I
single explanation of Ralegh's philosophy," a "concise statem ent of j
his skeptical position," and his "boldest statem ent of the skeptical
I
position."
Where natural reason hath built any thing so strong against itself,
as the sam e reason can hardly a ssa il it, much le ss batter it down; |
the sam e, in every question of nature, and finite power, may be
approved for a fundamental law of human knowledge. (II, xliv-xlv) |
I find in the whole of the H istory only one possible example of an ex- j
plicit restatem ent of this. It occurs in the enorm ously detailed
examination of the question whether B elosus, a Babylonian who was
given the city of Babylon as a reward for his assistan ce to the |
A ssyrian king, was the sam e man as Pul, an A ssyrian king who
entered P alestine with an arm y to conquer it. Raleigh chose to agree ;
with Annius, who was usually suspect, that the two w ere one man, for
it was not likely that the A ssyrians would in three to four years have
had their kingdom for them selves again under a man named Pul. The
great Joseph Justis Scaliger was of the opinion that they w ere two
distinct kings, whereupon Raleigh w rites, "Let us examine the argu
m ents of Scaliger, and see whether they be of such force as cannot
either be resisted or avoided" (IV, 677). Whatever echoes of Sextus
Em piricus may be heard here, it is im possible to say that Raleigh's
confrontation of error is essen tially different from that of com
m entators before him and contem porary with him, from whom his
work was largely derived. The m ost that.can be said is that the
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I
device of opposing forces in argument, such as we have seen in the |
excerpt from W illet, may have been reinforced as a weapon in :
(Raleigh's mind by his acquaintance with skepticism , or perhaps one
could say that to a degree skepticism was for Raleigh what Douglas
1
Bush said it was for Montaigne, "less of a weapon than a broom."
I
But one m ust say then that it was this for all the com m entators. I
have not found the idea anywhere that they w ere affected by the argu- |
m entative methods of skepticism ; as far as doctrine is concerned, the |
ancient Skeptics w ere unpopular with them; the Skeptics w ere con- !
I
sidered atheists, and w ere in tim e refuted in full and com plete style |
by Marin M ersenne, one of the m ost eminent com m entators, in his
Quaestiones celeberrim ae in Genesim (P aris, 1623) (Common
E xpositor, pp. 242-243).
M ost of the tim e Raleigh committed h im self in dispute, approving
one position, disapproving another. I cannot see that th ere is any
value in Strathmann's rem ark that Raleigh's skepticism is shown in
his many asides where he refuses to commit him self (Strathmann, pp.
247-248). We have already seen that the devout biblical com m entators
of the R enaissance found occasion to abstain from positive com m it
ment. I find that any non-com m itm ent on R aleigh's part is always
very w ell justified on grounds other than the skeptical ones, and that
the number of ca ses where he does not com m it him self are far, far
fewer than those where he sought a definitive solution. He had too
great a respect for h istorical truth to speak with certainty about a
^C lassical Influences, p. 55,
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158
past lost in obscurity, but no historian could have been m ore vigorous
■ in extracting the truth from whatever evidence had survived. He d is
played extraordinary patience in dealing with questions that surely
w ere aggravating!y com plex and confused; on the questions, who or
what was As sur ? who founded Chaldea? he pushed through a terrible
m ass of opinion and evidence, and em erged with a thesis on the
identity of As sur which he claim ed to have "the evidence of truth, and
agreem ent of circum stances," yet he had prefaced his long discussion
with an expression of fatigue at facing still another alm ost insoluble
puzzle, "a controversy w earisom ely disputed without any direct proof,
conclusion, or certainty" (II, 358). Some questions w ere so lost in a
web of tangled and unmanageable argument that where Raleigh does i
not commit him self, one is convinced it is due to the genuine im pos-
I
sibility of the solution. The only source for information on the
Babylonian and A ssyrian succession s was a fragm ent by the Chaldean ■
I
p riest B erosus which becam e notorious in the R enaissance for the ;
fanciful edition of it done by Johannes Annius V iterbensis, usually
2
referred to as Annius. On the su ccession s Raleigh very reasonably
found "nothing so warrantable, but that the sam e may be disputed, and
in the greatest part doubted" (II, 376). He chose not to dwell on the
subject: ,, -
And therefore in things uncertain, seeing a long discourse cannot be
pleasing to men of judgment, I w ill pass over the acts of this third
A ssyrian in as few words as I can express them. _ (II, 377)
Sim ilarly, the identity of Herm es T rism egistu s, also called M ercury,
2
W illiam s, Common Expositor, p. 143, n. 7.
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1 5 9 |
who lived perhaps even before M oses, was im possible to establish,
and while Raleigh would say that Mercury was perhaps M oses him self, :
he says of his suggestion that it was "over-venturous, " "for what this i
man was, it is known to God. Envy and aged tim e hath partly defaced |
and partly worn out the certain knowledge of him" (III, 195). The
same difficulty attended the study of the Egyptian succession. St.
Augustine him self, Raleigh points out, did not deal with this subject
because of the uncertainty, though he was "a man of exceeding great
judgment and incomparable diligence, who had sought into all antiq- |
. I
uities, and had read the books of Varro, which now are lost. . ."
I
(III, 37). Certainly Raleigh emulated Augustine's diligence and
attacked all problems where there was sufficient basis for doing so.
Wisely, he was not at all insistent about his theses concerning obscure;
times;
I freely grant, that all these proofs are no other than such as may
be gathered out of authors not well agreeing, not to be reconciled in
such obscurity, otherwise than by likelihoods, answerable to the
holy text. (Ill, 47)
Without sufficient basis for the responsible play of his own mind,
Raleigh depended heavily on reliable authorities, and a consensus of
opinion at such tim es meant a good deal. When he came to the history
of Medea and the succès sibn of the Medean kings, Raleigh found a
great difference of opinion among his sources for reason of the un
certainty of the actual occurrences. He decided simply to pass on
this information rather than to try the apparently hopeless task of
clearing up the difficulties.
For to reconcile so great a difference as is found in those writers
that vary from Eusebius, is more than 1 dare undertake. 1 w ill only
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160:
here set down the roll of kings that reigned in Media, accordingly as I
sundry authors have delivered it. . . . Mercator hath laboured with |
much diligence to reconcile these catalogues, and to make them also j
agree with Eusebius. But forasmuch as it seem s to me an impos
sible matter to attain unto the truth of these forgotten tim es, by con- |
jectures founded upon Ctesias and Metasthenes, I w ill lay the burden i
upon Eusebius, who lived in an age better furnished than ours with |
books of this argument (IV, 725-726)
Of such unsettled and complex questions as those surrounding Cham |
and O siris, and other Egyptian kings, which had been very extensively |
commented on, and never satisfactorily cleared up, he wrote that he |
held it "no shame to fail in such conjectures" (IV, 729), and on the
subject of Acherres, "whether he were Ucboreus that was the eighth
from Ozymandias, " one can hardly blame Raleigh for relinquishing the :
effort to settle much when the best minds before him had disagreed.
" I w ill not vex my brains," he wrote, "in the unprofitable search of
this and the like inextricable doubts" (IV, 735-736).
The following passage is frequently taken to be proof of Raleigh's
gloomy and skeptical doubts that the truth could ever be come by:
I
This disagreement [among chronologers and authors] is found, not
only in the reigns of heathen kings and princes, but even in compu
tation of those tim es which the indisputable authority of holy scrip
ture hath summed up; as in that of Abraham's birth; and after, in
the tim es of the judges, and the oppressions of Israel; in the times
from the egression to the building of Solomon's temple, in the
Persian empire, the seventy weeks; and in what not? Wheresoever
the account of tim es may suffer examination, the arguments are
opposite, and contentions are such, as, for ought that I see, men
have sought by so many ways to uncover the sun, that the days there
by are made more dark, and the clouds more condensed, than be
fore: I can therefore give no other warrant than other men have done
in these computations; and therefore that such and such kings and
kingdoms took beginning in this or that year, I avow it no otherwise
than as a borrowed knowledge, or at least as a private opinion, which
I submit to better judgments: . . . "In ancient things we are not to
require an exact narration of the truth, " says Diodore. (Ill, 387)
We know that in the sixteenth century a school of thought arose which
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161 :
doubted that history told the truth of the past at all. Others before
Agrippa, among them M achiavelli, had spoken of the difficulties of the ;
contradictory reports of history; Agrippa's point was not new (Jenkins, |
pp. 81-85). The skeptical temper in this regard was not peculiar to I
Raleigh. Furthermore, for a sound evaluation, the brevity of the
i
passage by Raleigh should be considered. Innumerable examples have ;
shown that he was a vigorous disputant and researcher in scriptural
history; in the major part of his work he pursued the truth as if it
were obtainable, provided sufficient common sense, care, and good j
judgment were exercised, and in scriptural dispute, if respect for the
word w ere maintained. The mood expressed in the passage, though it
came upon Raleigh from time to time, is not typical of the History.
Raleigh's dark words occur as he is dealing with mythological history,
about which he (and many other historians and theologians) had decided
doubts. That Raleigh doubted the truth had been discovered about a
dubious mythological past, that he was led to general reflections about :
the obscurity of all past tim es even with the help and authority of the
Bible, since it was certainly true that disagreem ent flourished on
many points of scriptural h istory--these facts do not describe
Raleigh's dominant mood or the tone of the History.
1 found that Raleigh showed excellent good sense in refusing to
pause over m atters of little importance. Perhaps here again he was
alerted by Bacon to the danger of om ission of worthy matter in uni
versal history. For example, he consciously omits a completely
inconsequential and ineffectual rebellion against Artaxerxes (V, 263) ;
nor does he ponder over the nationality of the women chosen by
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162:
Pharoah to supervise the midwives in the slaying of the first-born I
Hebrew children (III, 62). The story of the reigns of two or three
insignificant and "slothful" kings of Babylon interested him not at all I
(V, 9). He let go other relatively unimportant m atters where there
was no shred of evidence in scripture direct or indirect; for example,
on the settlem ent of T iras, seventh son of Japhet,
because the scriptures are altogether silent what part of the world
Tiras peopled, the conjectures are indifferent, and give no ground
at all of dispute. (II, 278) I
I
But in more significant questions that stirred his interest, in the ab- |
sence of scriptural evidence, where there was evidence of other kinds,;
he moved ahead firm ly and confidently with his argument:
For that ever Noah him self came out of the east, as there is no
scripture or authority to prove it, so all probable conjecture and
reason itself denies it. (II, 301)
Finally, it goes alm ost without saying that Raleigh did not commit
him self on such questions as the nature of God and the manner in
which He worked in all things because they w ere prohibited to d is
cussion by any man out of religious reverence.
The Skeptical Content of Raleigh's Attack on A ristotle
in the P reface to The History of the World
History of the dispute surrounding A ristotle's
position on the eternity of form and matter
M ost of the Preface to the History is intensely personal, filled
with sad m oralizing and bitter accusations. But in the last third of the
P reface Raleigh becom es absorbed in an attack on the A ristotelian
doctrine that the world had never been created in tim e. One cannot
fully appreciate Raleigh's arguments and emotions without som e
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163|
understanding of the history of this crucial question. |
A ristotle's doctrine derived from his theory of matter, which,
stated briefly, taught that form and matter were complementary parts :
of each physical object, and that matter was never found without form |
in the physical world. The combination of matter and form had the
potential of assuming other form s. In their interaction, matter was I
the recipient, form the active principle, though neither was dominant. |
Matter combined with form existed prior to physical change, and the i
: I
form which matter was to assume in change was brought upon it by I
I
something which already had that form. Thus, "nothing comes from
nothing"; cause always resem bled effect, and effect cause, and
m aterial things (and time as well) had a potentiality to which no lim it
could be assigned. The consequence of this line of reasoning was that
spiritual and m aterial realities were n ecessary and eternal. There
was no beginning of things in tim e. But it was necessary logically to
provide a first cause, since every effect required a cause distinct
from itself. The first cause was a form free of matter, an uncaused
cause, an unmoved m over. This is the Actus Purus of A ristotle.
Only a pure form could serve as first cause since it could not undergo
change through contact with matter. It could cause motion because
form was the active principle in change. The Pure Act or F irst
Mover, though the final cause, was not the efficient cause of m ove
ment, nor was it Providence. Such tenets as these were, of course,
3
fundamentally contrary to Christian doctrine.
3
Julius R. Weinberg, A Short History of M edieval Philosophy
(Princeton, 1964), pp. 14-16; John Leofric Stocks, "Form and Matter, "
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164
Dispute on this question of the eternity of form and m atter raged
for centuries. After the réintroduction of the whole of A ristotelian
philosophy, universities and centers of learning among religious |
I
orders were established in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries where
the new ideas could be examined. At the University of P aris, estab
lished in 1200, there w ere two groups of schools, the Faculty of Arts |
and the Faculty of Theology. The form er was a center of profane
I
learning; the new A ristotelian m aterials w ere read there with great
j
interest. The Faculty of Theology, by contrast, was conservative and i
non-speculative, with "a marked preference for Holy Scripture and
m oral and pastoral theology" and "a suspicious attitude towards logic
4 !
and profane studies." Apparently it was the Faculty of Theology
which initiated the first prohibition of 1210 which forbade the study of ;
certain works containing heretical ideas inspired by A ristotle, as w ell
as some writings of A ristotle, in particular those on natural philo so-
!
phy. The prohibition also dealt with the error of A ristotle on the
question of the eternity of the world. In 1270 the Bishop of P aris
enumerated certain h eresies, including the eternity of the world, and
excommunicated those who would teach them. St. Bonaventura, who
taught at P aris from 1250-1257, opposed the concept as a philosophical
A ristotelianism (New York, 1963), pp. 34-50; Melbourne G. Evans,
"The P rinciples, of Change," The P hysical Philosophy of A ristotle
(Albuquerque, 1964), pp. 25-40; A. G. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo:
The History of Science A .D . 400-1650 (London, 1952), pp. 49-50;
Van Skeenberghen, A ristotle in the W est, p. 11, 14.
4
Van Steenberghen, p. 73.
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1 6 5 ;
doctrine incompatible with Christian teaching. St. Thomas, on the ■
other hand, in the De Aeternitate Mundi (ca. 1271) defended it on the
authority of the great philosophers. But the weight of Christian
authority was much against the concept. The question was still alive i
in R aleigh's tim e.^
I
R aleigh's attack
In the Preface Raleigh defended the belief that an Infinite Pow er |
existed which had created the universe in tim e out of nothing. Raleigh |
was convinced that belief in creation in tim e, a doctrine of faith, was j
available to man through his natural reason without the aid of faith, |
through the n ecessity of things. It was astonishing to him that
A ristotle had not recognized the truth. "That . . . the judgment of
natural reason, wherein he believed, had not better informed him, it
is greatly to be m arvelled at" (II, xliv). The m ost ancient philoso
phers, those who w ere "truly learned" (II, Iviii), had found "in the
n ecessity of invincible reason, one eternal and infinite Being" (II,
xlvii). "In the n ecessity of this infinite power, all the reason of man
ends and d issolves itself" (II, xlvii). On the question of m atter itself,
if m atter of chaos had pre-existed, how could it happen that m atter
fitted itse lf so exactly to God's plans? Certainly God was not lim ited
in His creation to the amount of m atter He had happened to find. "It
w ere horrible to conceive of God, that as an artificer he applied him
self, according to the proportion of m atter which he lighted upon"
5
For this summary I have used Van Steenberghen, A ristotle in the
West, p. 59, pp. 73-74, pp. 68-69, pp. 153-154, p. 210, p. 234.
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166
(II, xlviii). If the amount of matter was not exactly right, God must |
either have created m ore m atter out of nothing, or dissolved the ;
6
matter He did not need. M oreover, eternity could not be separated
from infinite. Matter could not have been infinite, for that would have |
allowed no place for infinite form; the finite form which matter took
proved that the first matter, too, was finite. |
A ristotle had used the proposition that effects resem ble causes to I
prove the eternity of the world, and Raleigh's response to this was
I
heavy with sarcasm , because that reasoning placed God on the same
level as natural necessity: I
I
But what a strange m ockery is this in so great a m aster, to confess
a sufficient and effectual cause of the world (to wit, an almighty God)
in his antecedent; and the same God to be a God restrained in his
conclusion. (II, xlvii)
A ristotle had argued further that every agent which had the power to
work, and did not do so, if it worked later, it had been moved to work;
nor could this apply to God, who was never moved, but was always
the same ; thus, if God created the world, He created it eternally.
Raleigh's answer was that God eternally purposed to create the world
at a particular tim e.
The counterpart of the error that the world had no beginning was
that it would have no end. The evidence given for this was that no
physical degeneration of the world had yet been observed. To this
In the body of the H istory Raleigh explains further that the "mass,
or indigested matter" was.without form, "that is, without the proper
form which it afterwards acquired," when the spirit of God separated
the earth from the w aters, and moved upon the waters to change the
m ass to its present form, adorned with fruits and flow ers (II, 9).
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1 6 7
Raleigh answered that it might either be said that the absence of physi-i
cal change showed the new ness of the world, or, that there had in fact ;
been change: som e lands w ere m ore habitable, som e seas m ore j
navigable than ancient accounts had indicated. In any case, the d e
generation of early m atter was not so rapid as som e imagined:
Many things have been digged up out of the earth, of that depth, as
supposed to have been buried by the general flood, without any |
alteration either of substance or figure; yea, it is believed, and it |
is very probable, that the gold which ia daily found in m ines and
rocks under ground, was created together with the earth, (II, liv)
The A ristotelians w ere in profound error also in confusing nature and I
God. ” I do also account it not the m eanest, but an im piety mon
strous, to confound God and nature, be it but in term s" (II, Ivii).
Nature could work only if it was provided with means and m atter.
Nature lacked w ill, reason, understanding. If nature w ere granted
these virtues, "why should we then call such a cause rather Nature
than God?" (II, Ivii)
And this I say in short, that it is a true effect of true reason in man, !
(were there no authority m ore binding than reason,) to acknowledge
and adore the first and m ost sublime power. (II, Ivii)
Finally, Raleigh complains that A ristotle's was m erely a "verbal
doctrine, " that he "failed in this main point [Creation] and taught
little or other than term s in the rest," which is sim ilar to Bacon's
view that A ristotle neglected experience; and he criticizes, like
Bacon, the subservience of scholars to A ristotle:
And it is no le ss strange, that those men, which are desirous of
knowledge . . . have so retrenched their minds from the following
and overtaking of truth, and so absolutely subjected them selves to
the law of those philosophical principles ; as all contrary kind of
teaching, in the search of causes, they have condemned either for
fantastical or curious. (II, liv)
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y
168;
Raleigh asks, "How shall the upright and unpartial judgment of man j
give a sentence where opposition and examination are not admitted to |
give in evidence?" (II, xlv). This recalls Bacon's words: "For true !
consent is that which consists in the coincidence of free judgments, j
after due examination" (Works, VIII, 108). Raleigh's complaint here
is that the Aristotelians had not admitted experience in the Baconian
sense, but had spun logicalities with words. |
I
A reading of Raleigh's attack i
' i
-R aleigh 's attack begins with a passage which for Strathmann is
crucial in proving that Raleigh's History was influenced by skepticism.
The lines which I have underscored are those which Strathmann takes
to be an expression of Pyrrhonic ideas, an exaltation of experience
over reason.
But for m yself, I shall never be persuaded that God hath shut up all
light of learning within the lantern of A ristotle's brains; o r . . .
that God hath given invention but to the heathen, and that they only
have invaded nature, and found the strength and bottom thereof; the
same nature having consumed all her store, and left nothing of price
to after-ages. That these and these be the causes of these and these
effects, time hath taught us, and not reason; and so hath experience,
without art. The cheese-w ife know eth it as w ell as the philosopher,
that sour runnet doth coagulate her milk into a curd. But if we ask
a reason of this cause, why the sourness doth it? whereby it doth
it? and the manner how? I think that there is nothing to be found in
vulgar philosophy to satisfy this and many other vulgar questions.
But man, to cover his ignorance in the least things, who cannot give
a true reason for the grass under his feet, why it should be green
rather than red, or of any other colour; that could never yet d is
cover the way and reason of nature's working . . . that hath so short
a tim e in the world, as he no sooner begins to learn, than to die;
that hath in his memory but borrowed knowledge; in his understand
ing truly nothing; that is ignorant of the essence of his own soul, and
which the w isest of the naturalists . . . could never so much as de
fine, but by the action and effect, telling us what it works, (which
all men know as w ell as he,) but not what it is, which neither he nor
any else doth know, but God that created i t . . . man, I say, that is
but an idiot in the next cause of his own life, and in the cause of all
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169:
the actions o£ his life, will, notwithstanding, examine the art of God :
in creating the world. . . . He w ill disable God's power to make a
world, without matter to make it of. . . . He w ill . . . make two i
powers, the one to be the author of the matter, the other of the form;!
and lastly, for want of a workman, have it eternal: which latter
opinion Aristotle, to make him self the author of a new doctrine,
brought into the world. . . . (II, xlv-xlvii) i
It is clear that "reason" and "art" in the underscored passage are
contrasted with "time" and "experience," so that they take on very '
I
unfavorable connotations; they represent what the presumptuous
Aristotelians pursued, that which was cut off from experience. If the
words are taken out of the context-of Raleigh's attack on Aristotle,
they do indeed sound like a traditional skeptical as suit on the power
of reason. But are they not preceded by words that claim the power
of discovery for Raleigh's own age?
"Time hath taught us, and not reason," w rites Raleigh. The
words of Bacon again provide an accompaniment that helps to remove
Raleigh's words from isolation where they tend to seem more unusual
and weighty than they are. In the Novum Organum where Bacon lists
among the impediments to learning a too great reverence for antiquity
and authority, he points out that much that was new had been dis
covered "in our times."
It shows a feeble mind to grant so much to authors and yet deny time
his rights, who is the author of authors, nay rather of all authority.
For rightly is truth called the daughter of tim e, not of authority.
(Works, VIII, 117)
This thought about time was a way of inspiring faith and perseverance
in the Baconian system . It is possible to see a sim ilar sequence of
argument in Raleigh's words: an attack on old authors, followed by a
claim for what time could accomplish.
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170
The difficulty of the passage is caused by two things: the rapid |
movement from one argumentative strategy to another, and the shift
in the meaning of "reason" from what we find in other parts of the
same general argument. F irst Raleigh claim s, with scorn for the |
pride of the A ristotelians, that much remained to be discovered by his |
own age; he then uses reason and art in a pejorative sense because ;
they are the tools of the A ristotelians; and then, neatly, imperceptibly,!
I
puts on the face of the skeptic. When Raleigh turns to expound on j
: ' I
man's ignorance and weakness in understanding the causes of the most j
fam iliar phenomena, he does so to create the strongest possible con-
i
trast, to set that weakness against the monstrous impudence of
divining the ultimate causes behind God's effects. Immediately after
divesting man of his powers, Raleigh sets forth man's great p re
sumption; the contrast is the weapon he is using here against the
A ristotelians. That is to say, Raleigh's denial of man's strength of
reason is rhetorical in purpose; it is not an end in itself.
That man could never discover the way and reason of nature's
working (not even from tim e and experience), or that he was ignorant
of the essen ce of his own soul, or unable to give other ultimate ex
planations, are truths that lay behind the separation of science and
theology, and there is nothing in them that would have been surprising
to any active, believing Baconian scientist of that tim e. Bacon's
structure of knowledge was based on effects, and he did not presume
that final explanations could be provided by his method, confident as
he was of its efficiency. It was only in the area of m aterial and ef
ficient cau ses--n ot the final and form al causes of m etaphysics or even
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171
the final summary law of nature--that certainty was possible (Van
Leeuwen, p. 4). I
This much d iscu ssed instance of a denigration of reason is utterly |
I
overshadowed by R aleigh's confidence in reason throughout the ;
H istory, the reason which was placed second only to scripture by the
Christian hum anists--w hose influence, Douglas Bush tells us, did not i
i
stop with Henry--and the reason of the experim ental scientist, which |
lim ited itself to working on the m atter of the universe. Clearly
Raleigh was thinking of m ore than one form of reason. "True reason" |
(II, lix) led man to Christian truths (either before or after a knowledge!
of scripture), it informed man of its own lim its, and it helped man '
establish a proper relation to God. But reason might be corrupted or :
"stupified" by presumption (II, xlix), in which case it led to un-
scriptural and unorthodox b eliefs and caused man to make impious
assertions about such things as the nature of God's essen ce of His
manner of creation. Thus, the m isu se of reason led away from God.
In a sense the H istory is a long dem onstration of "true reason"; it is
one of the R enaissance tributes to reason, "pars divini Spiritus in
corpus humanum m e r si, " that "part of the divine spirit in the human
body" (II, lix). The concept of "right reason" or "reverend reason"
was "one of the main props and philosophic justifications of the dignity
7
of man through the Middle Ages and R enaissance." Then, as Robert
Hoopes has said very w ell,
7
Robert Hoopes, Right Reason in the English R enaissance
(Cambridge, M a ss., 1962), p. T !
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172|
toward the end of the seventeenth century certain tendencies con- j
verge to underm ine the vitality of the concept. . . . V oices equating |
human dignity with human power grow m ore numerous and insistent, ;
and absolute confidence in ratio scientiae begins to replace cautious
trust in ratio sapientiae. (pp. 1-2) ;
!
The H istory of the World was w ritten in a tim e of transition. We see 1
in R aleigh's work a distinct m ovem ent toward the new understanding
j
of reason that was to becom e dominant after his tim e.
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Kabat, Lillian Trena Gonan
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'The History Of The World': Reason In Historiography Of Sir Walter Raleigh
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