RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY

From Modern Philosophy: Essential Selections, by James Fieser

© 2008, updated 1/1/2026, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

 

CONTENTS

Introduction

Petrarch: Stoicism

Pico Della Mirandola: Platonism

Thomas More: Epicureanism

Michel Montaigne: Skepticism

Martin Luther: Reject Philosophy and Embrace Faith

Desiderius Erasmus: Social Criticism

John Calvin: Sense of God and Double Predestination

Edward Herbert of Cherbury: Deism

Study Questions

 

INTRODUCTION

The Renaissance was a European intellectual movement from around the 14th through the 16th centuries, which marked the close of the middle ages and the beginning of the modern period. Three features of the Renaissance are important in the history of philosophy: (1) the revival of Greek philosophy, (2) the protestant reformation, and (3) the scientific revolution. In this chapter we will explore the first two of these.

          The term "Renaissance"—a designation by later historians—comes from the French word for "rebirth" and specifically signifies a rebirth of classical Greek culture. The Renaissance movement began in Italy as a revival of ancient Greek artistic style, and soon encompass all cultural achievements, including philosophy. The revived interest in classics was further propelled by the invention of the movable type printing press in 1450, which allowed for wider distribution of books, both classical and modern. In its most general sense, the philosophy of the Renaissance was "humanism", which was an appreciation of secular studies consisting of five humanities subjects: grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy. But more specifically Renaissance philosophers affiliated themselves with one or more of the classical Greek schools of philosophy, namely, Platonism, Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Skepticism. The first four selections below are vivid examples of this trend.

          The first selection is by Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), better known as Petrarch, one of the earliest Renaissance figures who is sometimes called the father of humanism. Born in Tuscany, in central Italy, he was a famed poet and in 1341 crowned Rome's poet laureate. He traveled widely, collecting forgotten Greek and Latin texts, and coined the expression "dark ages" in reference to what he believed was the low quality of medieval literature in comparison to the "light" of ancient Greece and Rome. The selections below are from two works, published in manuscript form prior to the printing press, both of which show his affinity with Stoic philosophy. The first is a letter titled "Ascent of Mont Ventoux" (1350), written to his spiritual advisor. It depicts his efforts to climb a challenging mountain in France and the moral journey he makes along the way where he rejects his love of earthly pleasures. Next is his Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul (1360), which is a work of 340 short dialogues between five characters—Joy, Hope, Fear, Despair, and Reason—who battle between optimistic and pessimistic outlooks in life. In what follows, Joy exalts freedom, which Reason counter-balances with a grim view that we could all become slaves at any moment, and the only true freedom is death. Despair next complains about handicap, shortness, weakness, sickness, and poverty. Reason then counters that there are moral benefits to all of our adversities, and so beauty and health are not as enviable as they seem to be. The Stoic perspective that emerges is that we should not be too confident with our good fortune, and learn to develop virtues from our misfortune.

          The second selection is by Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494). Born into a wealthy family near the city of Modena in Italy, he began his education aiming towards a career in the Church, but switched to philosophy and traveled to educational centers throughout Europe before dying at the early age of 31. He was an eclectic philosopher who drew from Greek, scholastic, Kabbalistic, and Arabic philosophical traditions, and is most associated with Renaissance Platonism. His texts below are from two sources. First, in A Platonic Discourse on Love (1486) he follows the views of Plato and Plotinus that ideas of beauty flow down from God to the Angels, and then from Angels to humans. Those who grasp the purest ideas of celestial love will attempt to reject the physical world and rise up to the divine world. In the same year Pico composed his Oration on Human Dignity, which he intended to be an opening speech for a public discussion of one of his books; the discussion never took place. In his oration he examines why humans are so unique among God's creatures.

          The third selection is by English statesman Thomas More (1478-1535) from his book Utopia (1516). More was born in London, educated as an attorney, and held several political positions including Lord Chancellor. A loyal Catholic, he opposed Henry VIII's marital annulment and his split from the Catholic Church, which eventually lead to charges of treason against More and his execution. Utopia (1516), one of his earlier works, describes an ideal island containing a society with a unique and highly efficient political, economic and social structure. The passages below describe the Epicurean philosophy followed by the Utopians, how it is compatible with religion, the types of pleasure that are to be pursued, and those that should not be pursued.

          The fourth selection is by French philosopher Michel Montaigne (1533-1592) from his book Essays (1580). Montaigne was born into a wealthy family in the Aquitaine region of France, worked in a government court of law, and at age 37 retired from public life, devoting himself to the study of literature. His Essays, is a collection of 107 chapters which unsystematically reflect on various topics. Many of his essays reflect his appreciation of ancient Greek skepticism, and in his discussions he repeatedly concludes with the statement "what do I know?" Passages are presented below from two of his essays. In "An Apology for Raymond Sebond" he attempts to defend fourteenth-century Spanish philosopher Raymond Sebond against critics. Sebond argued that faith and reason can be harmonized, while his critics maintained that it cannot be. Montaigne argues that the division between faith and reason collapses since reason is fundamentally flawed. In "Of Custom" he argues that morality is only a matter of social custom.

          The Protestant Reformation was born on October 31, 1517 when German priest Martin Luther (1483-1546) nailed a revolutionary document to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church. The situation was ripe in the surrounding German states to revolt in mass against both the religious and political domination of the Catholic Church, and the Reformation movement spread from there throughout Europe. Reformers were well-schooled in philosophy and had much to say on the subject as they moved away from the medieval scholasticism that had defined the Catholic Church's conception of philosophy.

          The first selection below is by Luther, who was born in the town of Eisleben, Germany, and studied liberal arts, law and theology at the University of Erfurt. After a religious experience he joined a Catholic religious order, and in the years to come became increasingly discontent with Catholic practices, particularly with the sale of indulgences, which are certificates for purchase from the Church that would reduce a person's time in purgatory. The passages below are from two sources. First is Luther's Appeal to the German Nobility (1520), the general aim of which was to gain support from Germany's rulers. In this he discusses reforms needed throughout society, including university curricula, which relied too heavily on the writings of Aristotle. Second is from Table Talk, which is a collection of conversations that Luther compiled, but was first published after his death in 1566. In this Luther argues that religious understanding is grounded in faith, not reason, and that, while philosophy is necessary for ordinary life, it should stay out of theology entirely.

          The second selection is by Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) who sought to reform the Catholic Church from superstitious practices while remaining in it. Born in Rotterdam, Holland, to a Catholic priest and his mistress, he was educated in monastic schools, and ordained as a priest. Desiring more freedom to study and write, he became a wandering scholar, tutoring and writing for his income, and later in life was released from some of the constraints of his monastic vows. He was initially sympathetic with the concerns of early Protestant reformers, and he himself published works criticizing abuses in the church, but ultimately sided with the Catholics. He was a prolific writer on both religious and non-religious topics and translator of classical texts. The passages below are from four sources. In The Manual of a Christian Knight (1501) holds the Platonist view that there are three parts to human nature whereby our human soul is caught between our animal body and our heavenly spirit. In Praise of Folly (1509), he criticizes religious superstitions within the Catholic Church and the nonsense held by natural philosophers. The work is presented from the perspective of the goddess "Folly" who praises herself and the foolish humans that follow her. In Against War, (1515), he argues that nature has designed humans for friendship and not war. In Popular Colloquies (1518) he discusses the differences between Epicureanism and Stoicism.

          The next selection is by French reformer John Calvin (1509-1564). He was born in the Picardy region of France, studied philosophy and law at renowned Catholic universities, and 1533 had a religious experience that prompted him to break ties with the Catholic Church. In 1536 he published the first edition of Institutes of the Christian Religion, which is a work of both Christian theology and philosophy. Calvin went on to be a leading figure in the Reformation, second perhaps only to Luther, and the doctrines from his Institutes shaped the theology of many protestant denominations. The passages below, which are taken from this work, focus on several themes. First, he argues that human beings have an innate sense of God's existence. Second, the human soul has a consciousness of ethics. Third is his view that our understanding of human nature needs to be based on what humans were like both before and after the fall of Adam. Fourth is his view that God predestines some people to heaven, and the rest he predestines to hell. The key points of his philosophy, then, are these. The first created humans had pure intellects, genuinely free wills, and were not predestined to fall. After the fall, though, humans lost their freedom of choice, their intellects became compromised to at least some extent, and their salvation and condemnation became predestined by God. Both before and after the fall, humans had and continue to have an instinctive sense of God's existence and a consciousness of morality.

          The final selection is by Edward Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648). He was born into an aristocratic family the English county of Shropshire, and was a historian, poet, philosopher and member of Parliament. He is often regarded as the "father of English Deism" for his view that religious beliefs should be based on reason and universal principles rather than on revelation or dogma. In his work, De Veritate (On Truth, 1624), he argued that there are certain "common notions" or innate ideas that all humans possess, which form the basis of true religion. These include the belief in a supreme being, the importance of worship, the necessity of virtue, repentance for wrongdoing, and the existence of rewards and punishments in the afterlife. In a later work titled The Ancient Religion of the Gentiles (composed around 1645), he argued that the religious practices and beliefs of ancient civilizations, despite being corrupted by priests for their own purposes, still contained the five fundamental principles of true religion.

PETRARCH: STOICISM

Climbing a Mountain and the Journey Towards a Blessed Life (from "The Ascent of Mount Ventoux")

The Climb Up: Moral Challenges of Ascending to a Blessed Life

Today I made the ascent of the highest mountain in this region, which is not improperly called Ventosum. My only motive was the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer. I have had the expedition in mind for many years. For, as you know, I have lived in this region from infancy, having been cast here by that fate which determines the affairs of men. Consequently the mountain, which is visible from a great distance, was always before my eyes, and I conceived the plan of some time doing what I have at last accomplished today. . . .

          We finally made the ascent this morning, with no companions except [my brother and] two servants; and a most difficult task it was. The mountain is a very steep and almost inaccessible mass of stony soil. But, as the poet has well said, "Remorseless toil conquers all." It was a long day, the air fine. We enjoyed the advantages of vigor of mind and strength and agility of body, and everything else essential to those engaged in such an undertaking and so had no other difficulties to face than those of the region itself. We found an old shepherd in one of the mountain dales, who tried, at great length, to dissuade us from the ascent, saying that some fifty years before he had, in the same eagerness of youth, reached the summit, but had gotten for his pains nothing except fatigue and regret, and clothes and body torn by the rocks and briars. No one, so far as he or his companions knew, had ever tried the ascent before or after him.

          But his advice increased rather than diminished our desire to proceed, since youth is suspicious of warnings. So the old man, finding that his efforts were in vain, went a little way with us, and pointed out a rough path among the rocks, uttering many warnings, which he continued to send after us even after we had left him behind. Surrendering to him all such garments or other possessions as might prove burdensome to us, we made ready for the ascent, and started off at a good pace. But, as usually happens, fatigue quickly followed upon our excessive exertion, and we soon came to a halt at the top of a certain cliff. Upon starting on again we went more slowly, and I especially advanced along the rocky way with a more deliberate step. While my brother chose a direct path straight up the ridge, I weakly took an easier one which really descended. When I was called back, and the right road was shown me, I replied that I hoped to find a better way around on the other side, and that I did not mind going farther if the path were only less steep. This was just an excuse for my laziness; and when the others had already reached a considerable height I was still wandering in the valleys. I had failed to find an easier path, and had only increased the distance and difficulty of the ascent. . . .

          After being frequently misled in this way, I finally sat down in a valley and transferred my winged thoughts from material things to immaterial ones, addressing myself as follows: "What you have repeatedly experienced today in the ascent of this mountain, happens to you, as to many, in the journey toward the blessed life. But this is not so easily perceived by people, since the motions of the body are obvious and external while those of the soul are invisible and hidden. Yes, the life which we call blessed is to be sought for on a high level, and straight is the way that leads to it. Many, also, are the hills that lie between, and we must ascend, by a glorious stairway, from strength to strength. At the top is immediately the end of our struggles and the goal for which we are bound. All wish to reach this goal, but, as Ovid says, 'To wish is little; we must long with the utmost eagerness to gain our end.' You certainly do fervently desire, as well as simply wish, unless you deceive yourself in this matter, as in so many others. What, then, holds you back? Nothing, certainly, except that you would take a path which seems, at first thought, easier, leading through low and worldly pleasures. But nevertheless in the end, after long wanderings, you must inevitably either climb the steeper path, under the burden of tasks foolishly deferred, to its blessed culmination, or lie down in the valley of your sins, and (I shudder to think of it!), if the shadow of death overtake you, spend an eternal night amid constant torments."

          These thoughts stimulated both body and mind in a wonderful degree for facing the difficulties which yet remained. Oh, that I might travel in spirit that other road for which I long day and night, even as today I overcame material obstacles by my bodily exertions! And I know not why it should not be far easier, since the swift immortal soul can reach its goal in the twinkling of an eye, without passing through space, while my progress today was necessarily show, dependent as I was upon a failing body weighed down by heavy members.

On the Mountain Peak: Self-Reflection on Rejecting Earthly Things for Things of the Soul

          One peak of the mountain, the highest of all, the country people call "Sonny," why, I do not know, unless by antiphrasis, as I have sometimes suspected in other instances; for the peak in question would seem to be the father of all the surrounding ones. On its top is a little level place, and here we could at last rest our tired bodies.

          Now, my father [i.e., spiritual confessor], since you have followed the thoughts that spurred me on in my ascent, listen to the rest of the story, and devote one hour, I pray you, to reviewing the experiences of my entire day. At first, owing to the unaccustomed quality of the air and the effect of the great sweep of view spread out before me, I stood like one dazed. I beheld the clouds under our feet, and what I had read of Athos and Olympus seemed less incredible as I myself witnessed the same things from a mountain of less fame. I turned my eyes toward Italy, whither my heart most inclined. The Alps, rugged and snow-capped, seemed to rise close by, although they were really at a great distance; the very same Alps through which that fierce enemy of the Roman name once made his way, bursting the rocks, if we may believe the report, by the application of vinegar. I sighed, I must confess, for the skies of Italy, which I beheld rather with my mind than with my eyes. An inexpressible longing came over me to see once more my friend and my country. At the same time I blamed myself for this double weakness, springing, as it did, from a soul not yet hardened to manly resistance. Yet there were excuses for both of these cravings, and a number of distinguished writers might be summoned to support me.

          Then a new idea took hold of me, and I shifted my thoughts to a consideration of time rather than place. "Today it is ten years since, having completed your youthful studies, you left Bologna. Eternal God! In the name of immutable wisdom, think what alterations in your character this intervening period has seen! I pass over a thousand instances. I am not yet in a safe harbor where I can calmly recall past storms. The time may come when I can review in due order all the experiences of the past, saying with St. Augustine, 'I desire to recall my foul actions and the carnal corruption of my soul, not because I love them, but that I may the more love you, O my God.' Much that is doubtful and evil still clings to me, but what I once loved, that I hove no longer. Yet what am I saying? I still love it, but with shame, but with heaviness of heart. Now, at last, I have confessed the truth. So it is. I love, but love what I would not love, what I would that I might hate. . . .

          While I was thus dividing my thoughts, now turning my attention to some terrestrial object that lay before me, now raising my soul, as I had done my body, to higher planes, it occurred to me to look into my copy of St. Augustine's Confessions, a gift that I owe to your love, and that I always have about me, in memory of both the author and the giver. I opened the compact book, small indeed in size, but of infinite charm, with the intention of reading whatever came to hand, for I could happen upon nothing that would be otherwise than edifying and devout. Now it happened that the tenth book presented itself. My brother, waiting to hear something of St. Augustine's from my lips, stood attentively by. I call him, and God too, to witness that where I first fixed my eyes it was written: "People go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they do not consider." I was ashamed, and, asking my brother (who was anxious to hear more) not to annoy me, I closed the book, angry with myself that I should still be admiring earthly things who might long ago have learned from even the pagan philosophers that nothing is wonderful but the soul, which, when great itself, finds nothing great outside itself. Then, in truth, I was satisfied that I had seen enough of the mountain. I turned my inward eye upon myself, and from that time not a syllable fell from my lips until we reached the bottom again. Those words had given me occupation enough, for I could not believe that it was by a mere accident that I happened upon them.

Stoic Response to Fortune's Whims (from Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul, 1360)

Beware of both Good Fortune and Ill Fortune (Preface)

We are attacked on every side in a perpetual war with Fortune, where only virtue can make us conquerors. But, willingly and knowingly, we revolt against that virtue. Weak and unarmed, we encounter a fierce enemy in an unequal fight. Fortune tosses us up and down and as if we weighed nothing, it turns us around and plays with us. It would thus be better for us to be defeated by Fortune than continually be shamed. What is the cause of this? It is only our own lightness and delicacy, for we seem to be good for nothing else than to be tossed back and forth like a tennis ball.  We are creatures of very a short life, of infinite carefulness, and yet ignorant about what shore we to sail with our little ship. . . .

          I have mingled with these thoughts of others a few matters touching the excellencies of virtues and the power of vices (although they are beside the purpose but have a similar effect), and seem to be such as are able to make men's minds cheerful or sorrowful. . . . My intent is to give a remedy against any mischief and harmful benefit, either of which is the outcome of Fortune. It is a quick medicine, but happily created for a double disease, so that you may always have one hand, as they say, in all places and at all times, as it were, an effective remedy contained in a little box. For, as I have said, both of Fortune's faces are to be feared, but, nevertheless, both must be endured. Accordingly, the one has need a bridle for restraint, the other of comfort. In the one, the pride of the a person's mind is to be repressed. In the other, their weariness and grief is to be comforted and relieved.

No true Freedom, but only That in Death

          Joy: I was born in freedom.

          Reason: He is not free that is born, but he that dies. Fortune has power over those who come into the world, but no power over those who have gone out of it. Death overthrows strong cities, conquers valiant armies, and subdues mighty kingdoms. The grave is an impregnable castle where the worms take rule, and not fortune. Whoever therefore has stepped into that liberty, of all people they are alone free from the abuses of this life. You boast that you are free, but you do not know whether you will enter this day a freeman, I do not mean to your grave, but to your bedroom. Your liberty hangs by a weak thread, as do all things that you firmly trust.

          Joy: I am a free man!

          Reason: I suppose you call yourself a free man because you have no master; but hear what Seneca says: do you not know at what age Hecuba and Cresus, and the mother of Darius, and Plato, and Diogenes came into bondage? Or do you forget Reguhis and Valerianus? The one was made a slave to the Carthagenians: the other to the Persians. The one was consumed with servitude, the other put to a cruel death. What shall I say of Syphax and Persius, the kings of Macedon and Numedia, who fell down from the top of their kingdoms, into the Roman fetters. How many people in your own time have been thrown out of the [royal] court into prison? How many kings made slaves in bondage? The happier in freedom, the more miserable in bondage. Therefore, do not be proud of your liberty. It is indeed a very sweet thing to enjoy, but the loss of it is the more to be in question, for the face of human things change daily.

          Further, do not think yourself a free man because you have no master, or are born of free parents, or was never taken prisoner in war, or sold for a slave. You have invincible masters of your minds, hidden enemies and inward wars. For a small price you miserably sell your souls to sin, and are tied to vile pleasures with indissoluble chains. Go your way, boasting of your freedom, and judge him to be bound who is subject to one mortal master. But as for him that is oppressed with a thousand immortal tyrants, him you account free. Even finely as you make judgment of other things, truly it is not good fortune that makes a man free, it is virtue. If you would be wise, just, modest, patient, courageous, or godly, then you are free indeed.

          Joy: But I am not only free myself, but I was born in a free and famous country.

          Reason: You have also known countries, and cities that have been enslaved as well as men. Of ancient examples, the most free cities of Lacedemon and of Athens, first suffered a civil, and afterward a foreign yoke. The holy city of Jerusalem, the mother of everlasting liberty, was in temporal subjection to the Romans and the Assyrians, and is now in captivity to the Egyptians. Rome itself, not only a free city, but the lady of nations, was first enslaved to her own citizens, and afterward to the most vile persons. Thus, no man can ever trust to his own freedom, or to the freedom of his empire.

No Cause to Complain with Handicap, Shortness, Weakness, Sickness, Poverty

          Despair: I fear the numerous evils that come on with declining life, and you must acknowledge that deformity of body, in age as well as in youth, is held in contempt.

          Reason: By the evil, it is; whose contempt is honor! If Paris had been so fortunate, Troy might have stood; and he might not have fallen wickedly.

          Despair: Everyone desires the beauty of the body.

          Reason: On the contrary: no good men desire, and many have rejected, this vanity. A Tuscan youth, by his own choice, mangled his beautiful face, which he perceived to be suspected by many, an enemy to his own good name, and harmful to the honesty of others. This is the opposite of you in your admiration of it!

          Despair: If beauty may be dismissed, a short stature is surely contemptible.

          Reason: Why so? Seeing all of this stature are more nimble, light, and dapper. Who can argue that just as a big man dwells in a little house, so may great virtue, and even great courage dwell in a small body. Whoever complained of a small burden? Truly, to be sorry that you have a body, so useful a necessity, and that you are not oppressed with its load, is a fine cause of complaint! Virtue does not require the stature of the body, but of the mind. If that is tall, right, magnificent, and attractive, it matters not, believe me, what the other is, no, not even in the battle! Marius chose tough, not tall, soldiers. Length of body may carry majesty, but it is seen to diminish from force. Alexander, Augustus Caesar, and King David were short in stature, and I never heard that this hindered their fame.

          Despair: But weakness often attends the small.

          Reason: A sword of steel may be hidden in a rotten sheath, and a sound mind in a crazy body. If so, you are not indeed suited to carry loads, nor to dig and plow land; but you are suited for honest studies and just leadership. As in a ship, the stronger sort are set to handle the axe, but the wiser to guide the helm. If weakness does repulse you from viler functions, be happy with the nobler ones. Leave the others to ploughmen, sailors, and smiths. Milo, and Hercules, in age, could not surpass you in desired strength. But the strength of Socrates, Solon, Nestor, and Cato did not decay with the vessels in which it was enclosed. Strength is a matter of degree, and nature has been most bountiful. She has made the elephant and the ox much stronger than any human. Do you then complain that she has not made you an ox or an elephant? Believe me, she distributes to her children everything that is sufficient for them; and is more loving toward them than they are toward their own offspring. Inequality is the beauty of the world: take away variety, and the world will surely perish.

          Despair: But if the body is sickly, surely that is to be complained of?

          Reason: By no means, for sickness, is the guardian of modesty, and the friend of religion since your body is only a certain house of your mind. It will last a few days in the time of your life. But if it strikes you down, it will be your happy exist from it, to an everlasting and undecaying mansion! The strong in body and weak in wisdom are most similar to animals. Consider the excellent person who from a low position, from the water and his fishing nets, was advanced to the skies and made a keeper of the gates of heaven, whose only shadow drove away the sicknesses and infirmities of the body. He was asked once why he allowed his own daughter to be injured with a grievous sickness. He answered that it is beneficial for her for this to be so: to the degree that we can , we should cure our own soul, and our body will either be cured or freed by the heavenly Physician.

          Despair: But it is painful to be sick.

          Reason: Certainly, for the present, no pain is joyous but rather grievous. Nevertheless, it is a good and glorious pain, since it works the fruits of virtue in the patient.

          Despair: But poverty must be grievous!

          Reason: Yet poverty preserved the city of Rome for many hundred years. When she left poverty, the city fell.

          Despair: But poverty in a home is lamentable!

          Reason: Her entrance is somewhat sharp and bitter, and, like a traveling visitor, armed at all points. Yet when once received into familiarity, she will be a guest, nothing sumptuous indeed, but quiet and gentle.

          Despair: But how can that be, when she breaks the spirit?

          Reason: She breaks the spirit of the proud, but not the spirit of the humble. It is grievous to those that resist her, but pleasant to them that give her place. She preserves them from many evils, for she is a passing diligent watcher. She saves them from thieves but also from pleasures that are worse than thieves, such as the ridiculous judgments of outward appearance and the disgrace of greed and wasteful extravagance. These are common in the wide halls of the rich. But in the cottages of the poor there is no room for pride, no store for envy, no fear of losses nor of deceit. There is no overabundance and loathsomeness. Nor is there gout, that unfailing quest of the rich! All which being shut out of doors, health, quietness, and virtue, shall have the larger entertainment: and they will bring their own welcome.

          Despair: But to be denied proper food and apparel cannot be a comfort.

          Reason: Virtue is pleased with a very little; vice is not pleased with any blessing that can be given her. Virtue denies nothing but what would hurt being granted, and it takes away nothing but what it is profitable to lose. She deserves nothing, she commands nothing. She does not pluck back her hand, or frown, for look strangely. She despises, forsakes or deceives no one. She does not chase, or rage, or change. She is always one, and everywhere to be found if it is truly sought.

PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA: PLATONISM

Platonism: Ideas of Love Transfer from God to Angels to Humans (from A Platonic Discourse on Love, 1486, Sects. 1.2, 2.10)

Platonists distinguish created things into three degrees. The first includes physical and visible things, such as the sky, the elements, and everything made from them. The third is the invisible and nonphysical, which are completely free from bodies and which are properly called "intellectual natures" and are divine and angelical. Between these is a middle nature, which though nonphysical, invisible, and immortal, they nevertheless move bodies, as is necessary for their function. These are called "rational souls" and are inferior to angels yet superior to bodies. They are ruled by the angels, yet are rulers of bodies. Above all of these is God himself, the author and principle of every creature, and in him divinity has a causal existence. It is from him that divinity proceeds to the angels in their formal existence, and from there divinity is derived into rational souls through participation in their luster. Below that nature nothing can assume the title of the divine. . . .

          From God, ideas [i.e., Platonic Forms] descend into the angelic second mind, by which the love of intellectual beauty is produced in her, called "divine love". The same ideas then descend from the angelic mind into the rational [human] soul, which is so much more imperfect in her, since she lacks angelic perfection. From these springs human love. Plato discourses about the first, Plotinus about the latter. . . . Man may be understood by the rational soul, either considered apart [from the body], or in its union to the body. Because of this, in the first sense, human love is the image of the celestial. In the second sense, it is desire of sensible beauty, which involves the soul abstracted from matter, and (as much as its nature will allow) made intellectual. The greater part of men reach no higher than this. Other people are more perfect and remember that more perfect beauty which the soul witnessed (before it was immersed in the body); they are inflamed with an incredible desire of remembering it, in pursuit of it they separate themselves as much as possible from the body, of which the soul (returning to its first dignity) becomes absolute mistress. This is the image of celestial love, by which man arises from one perfection to another, until his soul (wholly united to the intellect) is made an angel. Purged from material rubbish and transformed into spiritual flame by this divine power, he rises up to the intelligible heaven, and happily rests in his father's bosom.

On Evil and Magic (From 900 Theses, 1486)

[32] Conclusions in Theology number XXIX. According to his own opinion, quite different from the common way of speaking of theologians.

15. If Adam had not sinned, God would have been incarnate, but not crucified.

16. In the light in which John saw the Apocalypse, he did not understand the Apocalypse.

17. The angel's first sin was a sin of omission [i.e., neglect of duties to God], the second a sin of lust [i.e., craving something outside the divine order], the third a sin of pride [i.e., the culmination of rebellion].

19. Were it not for the sayings of the saints, which in the manifest expression of their discourse seem to say the opposite, I would firmly assert this and the following conclusion, that they are nevertheless probable and can be defended rationally, the first of which is that mortal sin is in itself a finite evil.

20. The second is that a mortal sin of finite time does not incur a punishment infinite in time, but only a finite one.

21. Not every will of God's good pleasure is efficacious.

[38] Conclusions Magically, number 26 according to one's own opinion.

1. All magic, which is in use among moderns, and which the Church rightly exterminates, has no firmness, no foundation, no truth, because it depends primarily on the hand of the enemies of truth, the powers of these darknesses, which pour the darkness of falsehood upon ill-disposed intellects.

2. Natural magic is permissible, not forbidden, and I state the conclusions written below about the universal theoretical foundations of this science according to my own opinion.

3. Magic is a practical part of natural science.

4. From this conclusion and the conclusion dogmatizing paradoxes XLVII., it follows that magic is the noblest part of natural science.

5. There is no power in heaven or on earth, seminally and separately, which a magician cannot both actuate and unite.

6. Whatever miraculous work is done, whether it be magical, or cabalistic, or of any other kind, it must be most principally referred to the glorious and blessed God, by whose grace the heavenly waters of miraculous virtues daily rain liberally upon contemplative men of good will.

7. The works of Christ could not be done either by the way of magic or by the way of the Cabala.

8. The miracles of Christ are the most certain proof of his divinity, not because of the thing done, but because of the way in which he did it.

9. There is no science which more assures us of the divinity of Christ than magic and cabala.

10. What a human magician does through art, nature did naturally by making man.

11. The wonders of art are magical only through the union and actuation of those things which are seminally and separately in nature.

12. The form of all magical power is from the soul of man standing and not falling.

13. To work magic is nothing other than to marry the world.

14. If there is any nature immediate to us, which is either simply, or at least as much rationally rational, it has magic at its highest, and through its participation it can be more perfect in men.

15. There can be no magical operation of any efficacy unless it has an explicit or implicit cabalistic work attached to it.

16. That nature, which is the horizon of time and eternity, is proper to the Magician, but below him.

17. Magic is proper to that nature, which is the horizon of time and eternity, and must be sought from it by proper methods known to the wise.

18. His nature, which is the horizon of temporal eternity, is close to the Magus, but the Cabala is above him and proper to him.

19. Therefore, voices and words have an effect in a magical work, because that in which nature first exercises magic is the voice of God.

20. Every voice has virtues in magic, insofar as it is formed by the voice of God.

21. Non-significant words can do more in magic than significant ones, and he who is profound can understand the reason for the conclusion from the preceding conclusion.

22. No names as significant, and insofar as they are names, taken individually and by themselves, can have power in a magical work, unless they are Hebrew, or closely derived from it.

23. Any number except three and ten are material in magic, these are formal, and in magical arithmetic they are numbers of numbers.

24 From the principles of more secret philosophy it is necessary to admit that characters and figures can have more power in a magical work than any material quality can.

25. Just as characters are proper to magical work, so numbers are proper to cabalistic work, existing as a medium between both, and appropriable through the declination to extremes of the use of letters.

26. Just as through the influx of the first agent, if it is special and immediate, something is done that is not reached through the mediation of causes, so through the work of the Cabala, if it is pure Cabala and immediate, something is done that no Magic can reach.

On Freedom and Dignity (from Oration on Human Dignity, 1486)

Common Explanations of Human Uniqueness Miss the Point

Reverend Fathers: In the writings of the Arabians, I have read that Abdula the Saralen was asked what on the "world's stage," as they say, is the most wondrous. He replied, "There is no greater wonder than humanity." Mercury agrees with this opinion: "A magnificent miracle is humanity!" (Asclepius 1:6). But I am dissatisfied when considering the reasons for these assertions [such as the following]. Man intermediates between all creatures, being familiar with the gods, yet rulers of inferior creatures. We interpret nature by the sharpness of our senses, the judgment of our reason, and the light of our intelligence. We are the moment between eternity's permanence, and the passage of time. As the Persians say, we are the binding force, no, the marriage union of the world. According to David, we are "just a little beneath the angels" (Psalms 8:5). These reasons are great, but not the principal ones. That is, they do not possess the privilege of the highest admiration. For, why should we not have more admiration for the angels and the beautiful heavenly choirs? Ultimately, it seems to me, I now understand why man is the most fortunate of creatures, and worthy of complete admiration. I understand what their allotted position is in the hierarchy of beings, which is a role envied by the animals, by the stars, and by the minds beyond the world. It is something wonderful beyond faith. And why not? It is for this reason that man is justly deemed a great miracle, and truly wonderful creature. So, with receptive ears, Fathers, listen attentively to what I say.

Each Person Selects his/her Own Spot in the Chain of Created Things

By the laws of his hidden wisdom, God the father and master architect built this worldly home which we observe, a most sacred temple of his divinity. The areas above the heavens he gave minds. He gave animated souls to the celestial spheres. He filled the dregs of the lower world with a variety of animals. But when finished, the architect wished that there would be someone to appreciate the work, to love its beauty, and marvel at its size. Thus, all other things finished, as Moses and Timaeus report, he finally considered creating man. But there was nothing in his archetypes from which he could form new progeny, nor anything in his supply house which he might bequeath to a new son, nor was there an empty chair in which this new being could sit and contemplate the world. All places were filled. Everything had been assigned in the highest, middle, and lowest orders. But in this last task, it was not part of the Father's power to give up as though exhausted. It was not part of his wisdom to waver because of a lack of a clear plan. It was not part of his living kindness that he should be praised for his generosity to others, but condemned for lack of it on himself. Finally, the master architect declared that this creature, to whom nothing unique could be given, should be a composite, and have that which belonged exclusively to all other things.

          Thus, God took humanity, creatures of indeterminate form, placed them in a middle place in the world, and said this: "I have given you, Adam, neither a fixed place nor a fixed form of your own. You may possess any place or any form as you desire. The laws ordained by me establish a limited nature for all other creatures. In accord with your free will, your destiny is in your own hands and you are confined to no bounds. You will fix the limits of your nature yourself. I have put you in the world's center so that you may look around and examine the world's content. I have made you neither heavenly nor earthly, neither mortal nor immortal. You may freely and honorably mold, make, and sculpt yourself into any shape you prefer. You can degenerate into the forms of the lower animals, or climb upward by your soul's reason, to a higher nature which is divine."

The Importance of Choosing the Higher above the Lower

What great generosity of God the Father! What great and wonderful happiness of humanity! It is given him to have what he wants and to be what he wants. The animals at the time of their birth, bring with them from "their mother's womb" (as Lucilius said) all that they shall possess. The higher spirits were immediately, or shortly after, what they were intended to be for eternity. But in embryionic humanity, the Father gave seeds of all kinds and the germs of all kinds of life. They each will have grown and will grow in him. With the vegetative, he may become a plant. With the appetitive he may become an animal. With the rational he may rise to the rank of heavenly. With the intellective he may be an angel and a son of God. If he is not content with any of these creatures, he may occupy himself at his center, become one with the Spirit of God, in the solitary darkness of the Father, who is above all things. Who would not admire our chameleon, or, indeed, what else could be more admirable? . . . What makes the angel is spiritual intelligence, not freedom from a body. If you see a man who is a slave to his stomach, crawling on the ground, then you see a plant and not a man. If you see a man made a slave to his own senses, bedazzled by the empty forms of the imagination and their allurement, such as by the charms of Calypso, then you see a brute and not a man. If, however, you see a philosopher, judging and distinguishing all things according to the rule of reason, you will hold him in veneration, for he is a creature of heaven and not of earth. If, finally, you see a pure contemplator, unmindful of the body, wholly withdrawn into the inner chambers of the mind, here indeed is neither a creature of earth nor a heavenly creature, but some higher divinity, clothed in human flesh.

          Who then will not look with wonder upon man, upon man who, not without reason in the sacred Mosaic and Christian writings, is designated sometimes by the term "every flesh"' and sometimes by the term "every creature,"' because he molds, fashions and transforms himself into the likeness of all flesh and assumes the characteristic power of every form of life? This is why Evantes the Persian (in his exposition of the Chaldean theology) writes that man has no inborn and proper appearance, but rather many which are extraneous and accidental. Thus, the Chaldean saying: "man is a living creature of varied, multiform and ever-changing nature."

Begin by Emulating the Three Virtues of the Angels

But what is the purpose of all this? It is to make us understand that it is up to us, that our natural condition allows us to be what we want. More than anything else, it is to ensure that we will not be accused of ignoring our highest duty, becoming like pack animals and irrational creatures. Rather let us agree with the prophet Asaph: "You are all gods and sons of the Most High". Let us not abuse the extreme generosity of the Father's indulgence by using free choice for our detriment rather than salvation. Let a kind of sacred ambition invade our minds and make us dissatisfied with mediocrity so that we aspired to summits and work with all our strength to achieve them. For, we can do this if we want. Let us despise the things of the earth, and even care nothing for the astral orders, devaluing all that is in the world, and fly to the court which stands beyond the world near the highest Divinity. There, as the sacred mysteries tell us, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones [i.e., the three orders of angels] occupy the first places. Let us then emulate their dignity and glory, unable as we are to yield to them, and impatient to hold any second place to them. If we wish it, we will be inferior to them in nothing.

          But what means do we have, what must we do finally? Let us see what they themselves do, what life they [i.e., the angels] live. If we lead this life, we too (for we can) will have already put our fate on a level with theirs. The Seraph burns with the fire of charity; the Cherub shines with the splendor of intelligence; the Throne stands in the firmness of judgment [i.e., we should emulate the three virtues of the three orders of angels]. If, then, given over to the active life, we have taken care of the lower things by holding the balance upright, we will be established in the immutable solidity of Thrones. If we have taken leave from action to meditate the worker in the work, the work in the worker, and if our activity takes the form of a contemplative leisure, we will shine on all sides with the splendor of the Cherubim. If we burn with love for the worker himself and for him alone, it is with his fire, which is voracious, that we, like the Seraphim, will suddenly be set ablaze.

Authorities to Consult on the Climb to Higher Wisdom

Let us consult the Apostle Paul, the chosen vessel, to ask him what he saw the armies of the Cherubim doing when he was caught up to the third heaven. He will not fail to answer, through the voice of Dionysius, that they purify themselves, then become enlightened and finally become perfect. Thus, imitating ourselves on earth the life of the Cherubim, bridling the impetuosity of the passions by moral science, dispelling the fogs of reason by dialectics, eliminating, so to speak, the filth of ignorance and vices, let us cleanse our souls, lest our passions be unleashed unexpectedly or our unsuspecting reason sometimes begin to rave. Then, into our soul properly disposed and purified, we will pour the light of natural philosophy, to finally make it perfect by the knowledge of divine things. . . .

          And not to be satisfied with our own authors, let us consult the patriarch Jacob, whose sculpted portrait shines in the seat of glory. He will instruct us, the most wise Father, who slept in the world below and watches in that above. But it is in a figurative manner (for everything was given to them by figures) that he will teach us that a ladder, resting on the ground at the very bottom, rises up to the summit of heaven, divided into a series of multiple rungs; at the top stands the Lord, and the contemplating angels travel it, ascending and descending alternately. . . .

          But in truth, it is not only the Mosaic or Christian mysteries, but also the theologies of the earliest ages that show us the advantages and dignity of these liberal arts whose discussion and approach I have undertaken. What else do the degrees of initiation followed in the secret ceremonies of the Greeks mean? To the initiates previously made pure by the arts in some way purifying of which we have spoken, morality and dialectic, it was given to confront the mysteries. In what can this consist, if not in an interpretation by philosophy of the secrets of nature? It is at this stage, and at this stage only, that the famous epopteía came to them, that is to say, the internal vision of divine things by the light of theology. Who would not desire to be initiated into such sacred mysteries? . . .

          Let us also consult the very wise Pythagoras, wise above all because he never considered himself worthy of the name of wise. He will advise us first of all not to sit on the bushel, in other words not to renounce, by remaining lazily seated without doing anything, the reasonable part of the soul which allows it to measure, judge and examine everything - but on the contrary to direct it assiduously and to set it in motion by dialectical training and regulation. . . .

          Let us also examine the texts of the Chaldeans [i.e. neo-Babylonians]: we shall see, according to them, the same sciences open to mortals the way to happiness. It was Zoroaster, according to the writings of the Chaldean interpreters, who called the soul "winged," adding that when the wings fall the soul is thrown back into the body, to fly away again towards those above when they grow again. . . .

Justifying a Public Discussion of the 900 Theses

          These, most venerable Fathers, are the reasons which have not only incited me, but constrained me to the study of philosophy. I would certainly not have expounded them, if I had not had to answer those who are accustomed to disapprove of this study, especially when men of the highest rank devote themselves to it, but even when it is a question of individuals of moderate fortune. So true is it that in our days - it is a misfortune of the age - all this philosophical activity leads to contempt and insults, rather than to honors and glory. . . .

          In fact, most venerable Fathers, I was not unaware that, as much as you would receive with favor and pleasure my present dissertation, all of you who favor the liberal arts and who have been kind enough to honor this discussion with your most august presence, it would be painful and unpleasant to many others; and there is no lack, I know, of those who have already condemned my project in the past and who, for many reasons, still condemn it at present. . . .

          Add that each has a particular mark, which it does not share with the others. And to begin with ours, to whom philosophy came last, I will say that there is something lively and subtle in John Scotus, solid and balanced in Thomas, careful and precise in Aegides, penetrating and acute in Francis, ample and imposing in Albert; and in Henry, it seems to me, always something sublime which commands respect. Among the Arabs, we find something firm and unshakeable in Averroes, powerful and meditative in Avempace and al-Farabi, divine and Platonic in Avicenna. The Greeks as a whole have a luminous philosophy, and above all pure: rich and abundant in Simplicius, elegant and dense in Themistius, learned and well-ordered in Alexander, elaborated with gravity in Theophrastus, agile and graceful in Ammonius. . . .

          This is what prompted me to expound the principles not of a single doctrine (as some wished), but of doctrines of all kinds: by thus confronting many schools, by putting the various philosophies into discussion, I wanted the flash of truth - as Plato says in his Letters - to shine with greater brilliance in our souls, like the sun rising from the sea. . . .

Inclusion of Magical Theorems and Secret Philosophies

We have also proposed magical theorems, in which we have shown that magic is twofold: the first is entirely the action and authority of demons - which is, by my faith, execrable and monstrous; the second, on closer inspection, is only the perfect accomplishment of natural philosophy. When they mention both, the Greeks call the former goeteian (goetia), not considering it worthy of the name of magic; they designate the latter by the proper and particular term of mageian (magic), as the perfect and supreme wisdom. . . .

          If I have wished to recall this fact, it is so that one may know what trouble I have taken, what difficulties I have encountered in extracting the meaning of the secret philosophy which is concealed in the prepared logogriphs of enigmas and in the hiding places of fables; especially since I could not count, to carry out this task so heavy, so full of secrets and so new, on the attentive work of any other interpreter. Which did not prevent the dogs from barking at my heels: according to them, I had accumulated trifles and trifles to produce an effect of numbers, as if it were not a question of extremely uncertain and controversial questions violently opposing the main schools; as if I had not provided, to those very people who tear my work to pieces by taking themselves for the princes of philosophers, an unprecedented contribution and a quantity of ideas never before submitted for examination!

          Now, I have been so careful to avoid this mistake that I have taken care to restrict, as far as possible, the number of points under discussion. If I had wanted, like so many others, to mark all the divisions and articulations, the number of theses would certainly have become incalculable.

THOMAS MORE: EPICUREANISM (from Utopia, 1516)

Pleasure the Highest Good, supported by both Religion and Reason

As to moral philosophy, the Utopians have the same disputes among them as we have here. They examine what are properly good both for the body and the mind, and whether any outward thing can be called truly good, or if that term belongs only to the attributes of the soul. They also inquire into the nature of virtue and pleasure. But their chief dispute concerns the happiness of a human, and wherein it consists: is it in some one thing, or in a great many? They seem, indeed, more inclinable to the opinion that places the main part of a person's happiness in pleasure, if indeed not the whole part. What may seem stranger, is that they make use of arguments even from religion, notwithstanding its severity and sternness, for the support of that opinion so indulgent to pleasure. For they never dispute concerning happiness without using some arguments from the principles of religion, as well as from natural reason, since without the former they suppose that all our inquiries after happiness must be but conjectural and defective.

          These are their religious principles: that the soul of man is immortal, and that God in his goodness has designed that it should be happy; and that he has therefore appointed rewards for good and virtuous actions, and punishments for vice, to be distributed after this life. Though these principles of religion are conveyed down among them by tradition, they think that even reason itself determines a man to believe and acknowledge them, and freely confess that if these were taken away it would be seem sensible for people to seek after pleasure by all possible means, lawful or unlawful. They say this using only this caution, that a lesser pleasure might not stand in the way of a greater, and that no pleasure ought to be pursued that should draw a great deal of pain after it. They think it the silliest thing in the world to pursue any virtue that is a bitter and difficult thing, and, not only to renounce the pleasures of life, but willingly to undergo much pain and trouble, if a man has no prospect of a reward. What reward can there be for one that has passed his whole life, not only without pleasure, but in pain, if there is nothing to be expected after death? Yet they do not place happiness in all sorts of pleasures, but only in those that in themselves are good and honest.

Advancing Pleasure for both Others and Oneself

There is a school among them who place happiness in bare virtue; others think that our natures are conducted by virtue to happiness, as that which is the chief good of man. They define virtue thus, that it is a living according to nature, and think that we are made by God for that end. They believe that a person then follows the dictates of nature when he pursues or avoids things according to the direction of reason. They say that the first dictate of reason is the kindling in us of a love and reverence for the Divine Majesty, to whom we owe both all that we have and all that we can ever hope for. In the next place, reason directs us to keep our minds as free from passion and as cheerful as we can, and that we should consider ourselves as bound by the ties of good-nature and humanity to use our utmost endeavors to help forward the happiness of all other persons. For there never was any person such a morose and severe pursuer of virtue (such an enemy to pleasure, that though he set hard rules for people to undergo much pain, many watchings, and other rigors) yet did not at the same time advise them to do all they could, in order to relieve and ease the miserable, and who did not represent gentleness and good-nature as amiable dispositions.

          Thus, a person ought to advance the welfare and comfort of the rest of mankind, since there is no virtue more proper and unique to our nature than to ease the miseries of others, to free from trouble and anxiety, in furnishing them with the comforts of life, in which pleasure consists; from this they infer that nature much more vigorously leads them to do all this for himself. A life of pleasure is either a real evil, and in that case we ought not to assist others in their pursuit of it, but, rather, keep them from it all we can just as we would from that which is most hurtful and deadly; or, if it is a good thing, so that we not only may, but ought to help others to it, why, then, ought not a person to begin with himself? For no one can be more bound to look after the good of another than after his own. For nature cannot direct us to be good and kind to others, and yet at the same time to be unmerciful and cruel to ourselves. Thus, as they define virtue to be living according to nature, so they imagine that nature prompts all people on to seek after pleasure, as the end of all they do.

Compatibility between Private and Public Pleasure

They also observe, that in order for us to support the pleasures of life, nature inclines us to enter into society. For no one is raised above the rest of mankind so as to be the only favorite of nature. On the contrary, nature seems to have placed on the same level all those that belong to the same species. From this they infer that no person ought to seek his own conveniences so eagerly as to harm others. Therefore they think that not only all agreements between private persons ought to be observed, but likewise that all those laws ought to be kept—that is, laws which either a good prince has published in due form, or to which a people that is neither oppressed with tyranny nor circumvented by fraud, has consented, for distributing those conveniences of life which afford us all our pleasures.

          They think it is an evidence of true wisdom for a man to pursue his own advantages as far as the laws allow it. They account it piety to prefer the public good to one's private concerns, and they think it is unjust for a person to seek for pleasure by snatching another person's pleasures from him. On the contrary, they think it a sign of a gentle and good soul, for a man to dispense with his own advantage for the good of others. By this means a good man finds as much pleasure one way as he parts with another. He may expect the same from others when he may come to need it. But even if that does not happen, the sense of a good action, and the reflections that he makes on the love and gratitude of those whom he has so obliged, gives the mind more pleasure than the body could have found in that from which it had restrained itself. They are also persuaded that God will make up the loss of those small pleasures, with a vast and endless joy, of which religion easily convinces a good soul.

Types of Pleasure: Bodily, Mental, Natural, No Lingering Bad Effects

Thus, upon an inquiry into the whole matter, they hold that all our actions, and even all our virtues, terminate in pleasure as our chief end and greatest happiness. They call every motion or state a pleasure, either of body or mind, in which nature teaches us to delight. They cautiously limit pleasure to those appetites which nature leads us to. For, they say that nature leads us only to those delights to which reason as well as sense carries us, and those by which we neither injure any other person nor lose the possession of greater pleasures, and of such as draw no troubles after them. But they look upon those delights which men, by a foolish, though common mistake, call pleasure (as if they could change the nature of things as easily as terms), as greatly obstructing instead of advancing their real happiness. For these so entirely possess the minds once captivated by them with false notions of pleasure, that no room is left for that of a truer and purer kind.

Criticism of Artificial Pleasures: Fine Clothes, Respect for the Upper Class

There are many things that, in themselves, have nothing that is truly delightful. On the contrary, they have a good deal of bitterness in them. Yet from our perverse appetites after forbidden objects, these are not only placed among pleasures, but are made even the greatest aims of life. Among those who pursue these sophisticated pleasures, as I mentioned before, are those who think themselves really the better for having fine clothes. The Utopians think they are doubly mistaken, both in the opinion that they have of their clothes, and in that they have of themselves. For if you consider the use of clothes, why should a fine thread be thought better than a coarse one? And yet these men (as if they had some real advantages beyond others, and did not owe them wholly to their mistakes) look big, seem to think themselves to be more valuable, and imagine that a respect is due to them because of a rich coat, to which they would not have pretended if they had been more humbly clothed. These people even resent it as an affront, if that respect is not paid them. It is also a great folly to show outward marks of respect, which signify nothing. For what true or real pleasure can one man find in another taking off his hat or bowing to him? Will the bending of another man's knees give ease to yours? And will the head's being bare cure the madness in yours? Nevertheless, it is wonderful to see how this false idea of pleasure bewitches many. How they delight themselves with the thought of their nobility, and are pleased with the conceit of having ancestors who have been deemed for some successions rich,—for this is all that at present constitutes nobility. Yet they do not consider themselves a bit less noble, though their immediate parents left none of this wealth to them, or though themselves have squandered it all.

Assisted Suicide for Incurable Diseases

I have already related to you with what care they look after their sick, so that nothing is left undone which may contribute either to their health or ease. As for those who are afflicted with incurable disorders, they use all possible means of cherishing them, and making their lives as comfortable as possible. They visit them often, and take great pains to make their time pass easily. But if any have torturing, lingering pain, without hope of recovery or ease, the priests and magistrates visit and encourage them [to voluntarily end their lives]. They are unable to proceed with the business of life, have become a burden to themselves and all around them, and have in reality outlived themselves. Thus, they should no longer cling to a deep-rooted disease, but choose instead to die since they would only live in great misery. Being persuaded, if they thus relieve themselves from torture, or allow others to do it, they shall be happy after death. Since they forfeit none of the pleasures, but only the troubles of life by this, they think they not only act reasonably, but consistently with religion. For they follow the advice of their priests, the expounders of God's will.

          Those who are influenced by these reasons either starve themselves or take laudanum. But no one is compelled to end his life in this way, and if they cannot be persuaded to it, the former care and attendance on them is continued. Though they respect a voluntary death when chosen on such authority to be very honorable, on the contrary, if anyone commits suicide without the concurrence of the priests and senate, they do not honor the body with a decent funeral, but throw it into a ditch.

MICHEL MONTAIGNE: SKEPTICISM (from Essays)

Response to First Criticism: Religious Knowledge is Grounded in Faith, but Reason can Assist (from "Apology for Raymond Sebond")

Shortly before my father's death he accidentally found this book [the Natural Theology by Raymond Sebond] under a pile of other neglected papers and commanded me to translate it into French for him. . . . It was a strange and a new occupation for me, but having by chance at that time little else to do, and not being able to resist the command of the best father that ever was, I did it as well as I could. He was so well pleased with it as to order it to be printed, which after his death, was done. I found the imaginations of this author exceedingly fine, the interconnection of his work well followed up, and his design full of piety. Because many people take a delight in reading it, and particularly the women, to whom we owe the most service, I have often been asked to assist them to clear the book of two principal objections. Sebond's purpose is strong and bold. By human and natural reasoning he undertakes to establish all the articles of Christian religion, contrary to the atheists. He is, in truth, so firm and successful, that I doubt it is possible to do better on that subject, and I doubt that he has been equaled. To me, the work seemed too beautiful and rich for such an unknown author, of whom all we know is that he was a Spanish physics professor at Thoulouse about 200 years ago. I asked Adrian Turnebus, who knows everything, what he thought of the book. He answered that he thought it was an abstract drawn from St. Thomas Aquinas since only Aquinas's wit, learning, and subtlety could produce those thoughts. So, whoever was the author and inventor (without more argument it is not reasonable to deprive Sebond of that title), he was a person of great sufficiency and admirable abilities.

          The first objection that they make to his [i.e., Sebond's] work, is that Christians should not base their belief upon human reasoning, since it is only the result of faith and the particular inspiration of divine grace. This objection contains a certain zeal for piety and, thus, with courtesy and respect we should address those who offer it. This is a task more proper for a person well-read in divinity than for me who knows nothing of it. [In response to this objection,] nevertheless, I conceive that this [religious] Truth—with which it has pleased the goodness of Almighty God to enlighten us—is a thing so divine, so high, and so far transcending all human intelligence. Because of this, it is very necessary that God should lend us his assistance, by extraordinary privilege and favor, to conceive and imprint it in our understanding. I do not believe that any type of purely human efforts are capable of doing it. For, if they were, so many rare and excellent souls in former ages, so abundantly furnished with natural power, would have not failed to arrive at this knowledge by their reason. It is faith alone that grasps the deep mysteries of our religion. I do not say, though, that it is not a brave and admirable attempt to use our God-given natural and human abilities to the service of our faith. It is undoubtedly the noblest use we can put them to. . . . I know an important, well educated person who confessed to me that Sebond's arguments saved him from serious error. . . .

Response to Second Criticism: Many Truths Known without Reason (from "Apology for Raymond Sebond")

Some [other critics of Sebond] say that his arguments are weak and unfit to make good what he proposes, and undertake with great ease to refute them. These are to be a little more roughly handled; for they are more dangerous and malicious than the first. . . . Let us see, then, if man has in his power some more forcible and convincing reasons than those of Sebond, especially people who are inclined to arrive at certainty by arguments and reasons. St. Augustine, disputing against such people, justly criticizes them for maintaining that our beliefs must be false if they cannot be established by reason. He cleverly offers specific experiments to show that a great variety of known and indubitable things cannot be demonstrated by our natural reason, such as when people confess that they see nothing. Without drawing from unusual examples (as Augustine does) we must do more than this so they will see the weakness of their reason. Consider: reason is so blind that there is no faculty clear enough to distinguish the easy and the hard; nature in general challenges reason's authority and rejects its mediation in all subjects equally; what does Truth mean when she preaches to us to reject worldly philosophy, or when she so frequently dictates to us "that our wisdom is folly in the sight of God? The vainest of all vanities is humanity; the person who presumes upon his wisdom does not yet know what wisdom is; a person seduces and deceives himself if he thinks himself to be something when in fact he is nothing." These sentences of the Holy Ghost [from the Bible] clearly and vividly express what I am saying, and I need no other proof against people who would submit to the Holy Spirit's authority with humility and obedience. But those others will not tolerate anyone to oppose their reasoning, except by reasoning itself; thus they will be punished at their own expense.

Most of Us are Fools (from "Apology for Raymond Sebond")

Let us then now consider a man alone, without outside assistance, armed only with his own proper weapons, without the divine grace and wisdom, which is all his honor, strength, and the foundation of his being. Let us see what certainty he has in this fine equipment. Let him make me understand by the force of his reason, upon what foundations he has built those great advantages he thinks he has over other creatures. What has made him believe, that this admirable movement of the celestial arch, the eternal light of those planets and stars that roll so proudly over his head, the fearful motions of that infinite ocean, were established, and continue so many ages, for his service and convenience? Can anything be imagined to be so ridiculous that this miserable and wretched creature, who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of everything, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command it? This privilege which he attributes to himself, of being the only creature in this grand fabric that has the understanding to distinguish its beauty and its parts, the only one who can return thanks to the architect, and keep account of the revenues and disbursements of the world. Who, I wonder, sealed for him this privilege? Let us see his letters-patent for this great and noble charge. Were they granted in favor of the wise only? Few people would be concerned about that: are fools and wicked persons worthy of so extraordinary a favor, and, being the worst part of the world, to be preferred before the rest? Should we believe this man?

Knowledge not very Useful (from "Apology for Raymond Sebond")

In my time I have known a hundred craftsmen and a hundred laborers who are wiser and more happy than the chancellors of the university, and whom I would much rather resemble. Learning, I think, has its place among the necessary things of life, such as glory, nobility, dignity, or, at the most, such as beauty, riches, and such other qualities, which, indeed, are useful to it. But it is only remotely so, and more by imagination than by nature. We scarcely need more obligations, rules, and laws of living in our society than cranes and ants do in theirs. Yet we see that these live very regularly without knowledge. If man were wise, he would take the true value of everything according as it was most useful and proper to his life. Whoever will number us by our actions and manners, will find many more excellent men among the ignorant than among the learned, indeed, in all sorts of virtue. The old Rome seems to me to have been of much greater value, both for peace and war, than that learned Rome that ruined itself. Though all the rest were equal, nevertheless integrity and innocence would remain to the ancients, for they inhabit singularly well with simplicity. But I will leave this discourse that would lead me farther than I am willing to follow. I will only say this further, it is only humility and submission that can make a complete good man. We should not leave to each person's own judgment the knowledge of his obligation. We are to prescribe it to him, and not permit him to choose it at his own discretion. Otherwise, according to the foolishness and infinite variety of our reasons and opinions, we would eventually create for ourselves obligations that would (as Epicurus says) urge us to eat one another.

Pyrrhonism: Ignorance is better than Reason, Leads to Tranquility, and Purges Itself (from "Apology for Raymond Sebond")

Suppose that learning and knowledge actually produced the effects they speak about. That is, they could blunt and soften the sharpness of the misfortunes that follow us. Does it do this any better than what ignorance accomplishes much more clearly and simply? The philosopher Pyrrho was at sea, and because of a violent storm was in great danger of being thrown overboard. He offered no comfort to those that were with him in the ship except to follow the example of a pig that was on board. For, nothing at all distressed the pig, who seemed to watch and outstare the storm. Philosophy, after all her principles, ultimately has us follow the examples of a wrestler or a mule-driver. For in them we see less feeling of death, pain, grief, and other inconveniences. They exhibit a more courageous consistency than learning or knowledge could ever give someone, unless, through an inborn habit, he prepared for it. . . . . We are told that the people of Brazil die only from old age, and they attributed this to the serenity and tranquility of the air they live in. But I attribute it to the serenity and tranquility of their soul, free from all passion, thought, or employments, continuous or unpleasing, as people that pass over their lives in an admirable simplicity and ignorance, without letters, without law, without king, or any manner of religion. . . .

          That ignorance which knows, judges, and condemns itself is not an absolute ignorance. For to be so, it must be completely ignorant of itself. Thus, the profession of the Pyrrhonians is to waver, to doubt, to inquire, and never be assured of anything nor explain himself. Of the three functions or faculties of the soul (i.e. the imaginative, the appetite, and the consenting), they follow the first two, but the last they believe is ambiguous and hold neither one side nor the other with approval or inclination. . . . This straight and inflexible attitude of their judgment, receiving all objects without adoption or consent, leads them to their tranquility. This is the condition of a quiet and settled life, which is exempt from the agitations which we receive by the impression of the opinion and knowledge which we imagine to have of things. For from such claims to knowledge arise fear, avarice, envy, passionate desires, ambition, pride, superstition, love of novelty, rebellion, disobedience, obstinacy, and a great number of bodily evils. Indeed, with this attitude they exempt themselves from jealousy within their own discipline. For, they argue only mildly. The do not fear rebuttal or contradiction in their arguments. When they say that heavy things fall downward, they would hate to be believed and wish to be contradicted. This, in turn, brings about doubt and suspense of judgment, which is their purpose. They put forward their propositions only to criticize those they imagine we believe in. If you take their side, then they will try to maintain the opposite view. It is all the same to them, nor do they have a preference. If you propose that snow is black, they will argue on the other side that snow is white. If you say it is neither one nor the other, they will maintain that it is both. . . .

          I understand why the Pyrrhonian philosophers cannot by any manner of speech express their general conception. To do so, they would need a new language. Our language is completely composed of affirmative propositions, which are directly against the Pyrrhonians. Thus, when they say "I doubt" you have them by the throat to make them admit that they doubt; at least you are assured of and know this. So they have been compelled to save themselves with the following comparison from medicine, without which their attitude would be inexplicable. When they say, "I don't know," or "I doubt," they say, that this proposition expels itself along with other propositions, just as rhubarb [i.e. a laxative] purges one of bad humors and is itself purged. This attitude is more clearly seen in the question "What do I know?" I bear these words as inscribed on a pair of balances.

Custom the Foundation of all Values (from "Of Custom")

It seems to me that the power of custom is rightly conveyed by the person who first invented this story. A country woman accustomed herself to play with and carry a young calf in her arms, and did so daily as it grew up. By this custom, when grown to be a great ox, she was still able to carry it. In truth, custom is a violent and treacherous teacher. Little by little, she slyly and imperceptibly slips in the foot of her authority. But after this gentle and humble beginning, when it becomes fixed and established through the benefit of time, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannical appearance, against which we have no more the courage or the power as to even lift up our eyes. At every turn we see her forcing and violating the rules of nature: "Custom is the best master of all things." . . .

          [There are societies] where they boil the bodies of their dead, and afterwards pound them to a pulp, which they mix with their wine, and drink it; where the most coveted burial is to be eaten by dogs; . . . where they live in that rare and unsociable opinion of the mortality of the soul; . . . where women urinate standing and men squatting; where they send their blood in a token of friendship . . . where the children nurse for four years, and often twelve; ... where they circumcise the women;  . . . in another it is reputed a holy duty for a man to kill his father at a certain age; . . . where children of seven years old endured being whipped to death, without changing expression. . . .

          To conclude; there is nothing, in my opinion, that custom does not, or may not do; and therefore, with very good reason it is that Pindar calls her the ruler of the world. He that was seen to beat his father, and criticized for so doing, answered that it was the custom of their family; that, in like manner, his father had beaten his grandfather, his grandfather his great-grandfather, "And this," says he, pointing to his son, "when he comes to my age, will beat me." And the father, whom the son dragged and hauled along the streets, commanded him to stop at a certain door, for he himself, he said, had dragged his father no farther, that being the utmost limit of the hereditary outrage the sons used to practice upon the fathers in their family. It is as much by custom as infirmity, says Aristotle, that women tear their hair, bite their nails, and eat coals and earth, and more by custom than nature that men abuse themselves with each other.

          The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom. Since everyone has an inward reverence for the opinions and manners approved of and received among his own people, no one can, without very great reluctance, depart from them, or apply himself to them without approval. . . . It is by the mediation of custom that everyone is content with the place where he is planted by nature; and the Highlanders of Scotland no more desire Touraine; than the Scythians desired Thessaly. . . . Whoever would disengage himself from this violent prejudice of custom, would find several things that were accepted with absolute and undoubting opinion that in fact have no other support than the aged head and wrinkled face of ancient usage. But when the mask is taken off, and things are referred to the decision of truth and reason, he will find his judgment as it were altogether overthrown, and yet restored to a much surer estate.

MARTIN LUTHER: REJECT PHILOSOPHY AND EMBRACE FAITH

Against Aristotle's Metaphysics and Ethics (from Appeal to the German Nobility, 1520)

The universities also require a good, sound reformation. I must say this, let it bother whom it may. The fact is that whatever the papacy has ordered or instituted is only designed for the propagation of sin and error. What is the present state of universities, but, as the book of Maccabees says, "schools of 'Greek fashion' and 'heathenish manners'" (2 Macc. 4:12-13)? They are full of dissolute living, where very little is taught of the Holy Scriptures and of the Christian faith, and the blind heathen teacher, Aristotle, rules even more than Christ. My advice is that the books of Aristotle, the Physics, the Metaphysics, On the Soul, and the Ethics, which have until now been considered the best, be altogether abolished along with all others that claim to examine nature, though nothing can be learned from them, either of natural or spiritual things. Besides, no one has been able to understand his meaning, and much time has been wasted and many noble souls bothered with much useless labor, study, and expense. I venture to say that any potter has more knowledge of natural things than is to be found in these books. My heart is saddened to see how many of the best Christians have been fooled and led astray by the false words of this cursed, proud, and dishonest heathen. God sent him as a plague for our sins.

          Doesn't the wretched man in his best book, On the Soul, teach that the soul dies with the body, though many have tried to save him with vain words? It is as if we didn't have the Holy Scriptures to teach us everything completely of which Aristotle had not the slightest perception. Yet this dead heathen has conquered, and has hindered and almost suppressed the books of the living God. Thus, when I see all this misery, I cannot help but think that the evil spirit has introduced this study.

          Then there is the Ethics, which is accounted one of the best, though no book is more directly contrary to God's will and the Christian virtues. Oh that such books could be kept out of the reach of all Christians! Let no one object that I say too much, or speak without knowledge. My friend, I know what I'm talking about. I know Aristotle as well as you or people like you. I have read him with more understanding than St. Thomas or Scotus, which I may say without arrogance, and can prove this if I need to. It doesn't matter that so many great minds have exercised themselves in these topics for hundreds of years. Such objections do not affect me as they might have done once, since it is plain as day that many more errors have existed for hundreds of years in the world and the universities.

          I would, however, gladly consent that Aristotle's books on Logic, Rhetoric, and Poetics, should be retained, or they might be usefully studied in a condensed form so that young people can practice speaking and preaching. But the notes and comments should be eliminated. Just as Cicero's Rhetoric is read without note or comment, Aristotle's Logic should be read without such long commentaries. But now neither speaking nor preaching is taught out of them, and they are used only for argumentation and toil.

Religious Truth acquired through Faith, not Reason (from Table Talk, 1566)

4. We should not criticize, explain, or judge the Scriptures by our mere reason, but diligently, with prayer, meditate on them, and seek their meaning. The devil and temptations also afford us occasion to learn and understand the Scriptures, by experience and practice. Without these we should never understand them, however diligently we read and listened to them. The Holy Ghost must here be our only master and tutor; and let youth have no shame to learn of that preceptor. When I find myself attacked by temptation, I immediately lay hold of some text of the Bible, which Jesus extends to me; as this: that he died for me, from where I derive infinite comfort.

          58. All the works of God are unsearchable and unspeakable, no human sense can find them out. Faith only takes hold of them without human power or aid. No mortal creature can comprehend God in his majesty, and for this reason he came before us in the simplest manner, and was made man, ay, sin, death, and weakness. In all things, in the least creatures, and their members, God's almighty power and wonderful works clearly shine. For what man, however powerful, wise, and holy, can make out of one fig, a fig-tree, or another fig? Or, out of one cherry-stone, a cherry, or a cherry-tree? Or what man can know how God creates and preserves all things, and makes them grow. Neither can we conceive how the eye sees, nor how intelligible words are spoken plainly when only the tongue moves and stirs in the mouth. All of these are natural things, daily seen and acted. How then should we be able to comprehend or understand the secret counsels of God's majesty, or search them out with our human sense, reason, or understanding? Should we then admire our own wisdom? I, for my part, admit myself a fool, and yield myself captive.

          65. For the blind children of the world the articles of faith are too high. That three persons are one only God; that the true Son of God was made man; that in Christ are two natures, divine and human, etc. All this offends them, as fiction and fable. For just as unlikely as it is to say, a man and a stone are one person, so it is unlikely to human sense and reason that God was made man, or that divine and human natures, united in Christ, are one person. St Paul showed his understanding of this matter, though he did not take hold of it all, in Colossians: "In Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Also: "In him lies hid all treasure of wisdom and knowledge."

          353. The Anabaptists pretend that children, not as yet having reason, ought not to receive baptism. I answer: That reason in no way contributes to faith. Nay, in that children are destitute of reason, they are all the more fit and proper recipients of baptism. For reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but, more frequently than not,struggles against the Divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God. If God can communicate the Holy Ghost to grown persons, he can, a fortiori, communicate it to young children. Faith comes of the Word of God, when this is heard; little children hear that Word when they receive baptism, and therewith they receive also faith.

The Limits of Philosophy (from Table Talk, 1566)

7. The school divines, with their speculations about scripture, deal in pure vanities, in mere imaginings derived from human reason. Bonaventura, who is full of them, made me almost deaf. I sought to learn in his book how God and my soul had become reconciled, but got no information from him. They talk much of the union of the will and the understanding, but it is all idle fantasy. The right, practical divinity is this: Believe in Christ, and do thy duty in that state of life to which God has called you. In like manner, the Mystical Divinity of Dionysius is a mere fable and lie. With Plato he chatters: all is something, and all is nothing—and so he leaves things hanging.

          9. The Holy Scriptures surpass in effectiveness all the arts and all the sciences of the philosophers and jurists. These, though good and necessary to life here below, are vain and of no effect as to what concerns the life eternal. The Bible should be regarded with wholly different eyes from those with which we view other productions. He who wholly renounces himself, and relies not on mere human reason, will make good progress in the Scriptures. But the world does not understand them, from ignorance of that self-renunciation which is the gift of God's Word.

          48. God alone, through his Word, instructs the heart, so that it may come to the serious knowledge of how wicked it is, and corrupt and hostile to God. Afterwards God brings man to the knowledge of God, and how he may be freed from sin, and how, after this miserable, fleeting world, he may obtain life everlasting. Human reason, with all its wisdom, can bring it no further than to instruct people how to live honestly and decently in the world, how to keep house, build, etc., things learned from philosophy and heathenish books. But how they should learn to know God and his dear Son, Christ Jesus, and to be saved, this the Holy Ghost alone teaches through God's Word. For philosophy understands nothing of divine matters. I don't say that men may not teach and learn philosophy; I approve thereof, so that it be within reason and moderation. Let philosophy remain within her bounds, as God has appointed, and let us make use of her as of a character in a comedy; but to mix her up with divinity may not be endured; nor is it tolerable to make faith an accidens or quality, happening by chance; for such words are merely philosophical—used in schools and in temporal affairs, which human sense and reason may comprehend. But faith is a thing in the heart, having its being and substance by itself, given of God as his proper work, not a physical thing that may be seen, felt, or touched.

          157. The philosophers, and learned among the heathen, had innumerable speculations about God, the soul, and the life everlasting, all uncertain and doubtful, they being without God's Word. While to us God has given his most sweet and saving Word, pure and incorrupt. Yet we condemn it. It is nothing, says the buyer. When we have a thing, how good it may be, we soon tire of it, and disregard it. The world remains the world, which neither loves nor endures righteousness, but it is ruled by a certain few, just as a little boy of twelve years old rules, governs, and keeps a hundred great and strong oxen upon a pasture.

DESIDERIUS ERASMUS: SOCIAL CRITICISM

Three Parts of Human Nature: Animal body, Heavenly Spirit, Human Soul between the Two (from The Manual of a Christian Knight, 1501, Ch. 7)

To conclude, the spirit makes us gods, the body makes us animals, the soul makes us human. The spirit makes us religious, obedient to God, kind and merciful. The body makes us despisers of God, disobedient to God, unkind and cruel. The soul makes us indifferent, that is to say, neither good nor bad. The spirit desires heavenly things, the body desires delicate and pleasant things, the soul desires necessary things. The spirit carries us up to heaven, the body thrusts us down to hell. To the soul nothing is attributed, that is to say, it does neither good nor harm. Whatever is carnal or springs of the body that is filthy. Whatsoever is spiritual, proceeding of the spirit, is pure, perfect and godly. Whatsoever is natural, and proceeds of the soul, is a medium and indifferent thing, neither good nor bad. Will you more plainly have the diversity of these three parts shown to you as it were with a person's finger? Certainly I will try. That which is natural deserves no reward. You pay reverence to your father and mother: you love your brother, your children and your friend: it is not of so great virtue to do these things, as it is offensive not to do them. For why should you not being a Christian man do that thing which the nonbelievers by the teaching of nature do, indeed which brute animals do? That thing that is natural will not be credited with merit. But you have come to such a narrow path that either the reverence toward your father must be despised, the inward love towards your children must be subdued, the benevolence to your friend set to nothing, or God must be offended. What will you now do? The soul stands in the middle between two paths: the body cries to her on the one side, the spirit on the other side. The spirit says, God is above your father: you are bound to your father but for your body only. To God you are bound for all things that you have. The body puts you in remembrance, saying: Except you obey your father, he will disinherit you, you will be called of every person an unkind and unnatural child, look to your profit, have respect to your good name and fame. God either does not see, or else conceals and wittingly looks away from it, or at the least, will be soon pacified again. First your soul doubts, then she wavers here and there, to whichever of either part she turn herself. If she obeys the harlot, that is to say the flesh (the spirit despised), she shall be one body with the flesh. But if she lifts up herself and ascends to the spirit (the flesh set at nothing) she shall be transposed and changed to the nature of the spirit. After this manner get used to wisely examining yourself.

Against Religious Superstition (from In Praise of Folly, 1509)

Undoubtedly, Folly owns those people who love to hear or talk about imagined miracles and strange lies. They never tire of repeating such tales, so long as they are about ghosts, spirits, goblins, devils, or the like. The further they are from truth, the more quickly they are listened to by an audience's itching ears. These serve not only to pass away time but bring profit, especially to mass priests and indulgence.

           And next to these are people who foolishly though happily believe that if they merely look at a wooden or painted stature of St. Christopher, they will not die that day. Or they believe that if they salute a carved St. Barbara in the usual set form, they will safely return from battle. Or still they believe that if call to St. Erasmus on certain days with some small wax candles and the proper prayers, they will quickly get rich.... Or what should I say about people who hug themselves with their counterfeit certificates pardoning them from sin [i.e. indulgences]? They have charted the time span of purgatory and can flawlessly demonstrate its ages, years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. Or what about those people who put stake in magical charms and short prayers invented by a religious fraud? Perhaps for spiritual benefit or financial gain, these frauds promise everything: wealth, honor, pleasure, affluence, health, long life, and lively old age. Further, they promise that the believer will be right next to Christ in the afterlife – which they hope doesn't happen too soon before the pleasures of this life have run out. . . .

           Why do I launch out into this ocean of superstitions? If I had a hundred tongues, just as many mouths, and a strong voice, I would still not be able to cover the various kinds of fools, or all the names of folly. They are everywhere! And yet your priests have no problem receiving and cherishing them as proper instruments of profit. Suppose, though, that a person of wisdom came forward to speak about the truth of things. For example, he might say that to live well is the way to die well; the best way to get rid of sin is not simply through monetary offering, but through tears, watchings, prayers, fastings, and improving life; a particular saint will favor you if you imitate his life. If a wise person would say these things to the people, what sort of misery would he lead them to from their current state of happiness?

Against the Nonsense of Natural Philosophers (from In Praise of Folly)

After these come our [natural] philosophers. They are revered for their furred gowns and starched beards and view themselves as the only wise people and all others are mere shadows. How pleasantly do they admire themselves while framing innumerable words in their heads. With a pair of compasses, they measure out the sun, the moon, the stars, even the heaven itself. They establish the causes of lightning, winds, eclipses, and other inexplicable matters. They do all this without the least doubting, as if they were nature's secretaries, or dropped down among us from the council of the gods. In the meantime, nature laughs at them and all their blind conjectures. The mere fact that they don't agree among themselves and so are incomprehensible in every subject is a sufficient argument to show that they know nothing.

          Though they don't have the least degree of knowledge, they claim to have mastered everything. Indeed, even though they don't know themselves, and cannot perceive a ditch or rock in front of them (perhaps most of them are half blind, or they are half-wits) they still maintain that they have discovered ideas, universal truths, separated forms, first principles, the essential nature of things, formalities, and the like things. They claim to have discovered things so thin and bodiless that I believe even Lynceus [the keen-sighted Argonaut] himself was not able to perceive them. Mostly, though, they ridicule the unholy crowd and they cast a mist before the eyes of the ignorant. This they do with their triangles, quadrangles, circles, and the like mathematical devices, more bewildering than a labyrinth, and letters piled on each other, as if a battle arrangement. You'll even find that some of these pretend to foretell things by the stars and promise miracles beyond all wonders. They are thus fortunate to meet people who believe them.

War is Contrary to our Natural Human Kindness (from Against War, 1515)

If there is in the affairs of mortal men any one thing which it is proper uniformly to disapprove of, which it is required of everyone, by every lawful means, to avoid, to denounce, to oppose, that one thing is doubtless war. There is nothing more unnaturally wicked, more productive of misery, more extensively destructive, more obstinate in mischief, more unworthy of man as formed by nature, even more so of a man professing Christianity. . . .

          How more justly should this [tendency towards war] be wondered at, what evil spirit, what pestilence, what mischief, and what madness put first in man's mind a thing so beyond measure beastly. Why has this most pleasant and reasonable creature man, which nature has created for peace and benevolence, who alone she has created to the help and support of all other, should with so wild willfulness, with so mad rages, run headlong one to destroy another? We will wonder even more if we withdraw our minds from the opinions of the common people, and turn it to see the very pure strength and nature of things; and will apart see with philosophical eyes the image of humanity on the one side, and the picture of war on the other side.

          If we would first consider well the behavior and shape of the human body will we not immediately see that nature, or rather God, has shaped this creature, not for war but for friendship, not for destruction but for health, not for wrong but for kindness and benevolence? For whereas nature has armed all other animals with their own armor, as the violence of the bulls she has armed with horns, the ramping lion with claws . . . humans alone she has brought forth all naked, weak, tender, and without any armor, with most soft flesh and smooth skin. . . .

          She has endowed humans with hatred of solitariness, and with love of company. She has utterly sown in humans the very seeds of benevolence. She has so done, that the selfsame thing, that is most wholesome, should be most sweet and delectable. For what is more delectable than a friend? And again, what thing is more necessary? Moreover, if a person might lead all his life most profitably without any meddling with other people, yet nothing would seem pleasant without a companion. Otherwise a person would cast off all humanity, and abandoning his own kind, become an animal.

          Besides all this, nature has endowed humans with knowledge of liberal sciences and a burning desire of knowledge. This most especially withdraws a person's mind from all animalistic wildness, and so has it a special grace to get and knit together love and friendship. For I dare boldly say, that neither sympathy nor even kindred relation binds the minds of people together with straighter and surer bands of friendship, than does the fellowship of them who are learned in fine literature and honest studies. Above all this, nature has divided among people by a marvelous variety the gifts, as well of the soul as of the body, to the intent truly that every person might find in every singular person one thing or other, which they should either love or praise for the excellency thereof, or else greatly desire and make much of it, for the need and profit that comes from it. Finally she has endowed humans with a spark of a godly mind, so that though he see no reward, yet through his own courage he delights to do good to every person. . . .

          If war cannot by any means be avoided, on account of the wickedness of the bulk of mankind, then, after you have left no stone unturned to avoid it, after you will have sought peace by every means of negotiation, the next desirable point will be to take the greatest care that the execution of a bad business may be chiefly consigned to bad men; and that it may be put an end to with as little loss as possible of human blood. . . . [However] if we exhibit these three qualities, without which no man can deserve the appellation of a Christian; innocence, that we may be free from vice; charity, that we may deserve well of all men; patience, that we may bear with those who use us ill, and, if possible, bury injuries by an accumulation of benefits on the injured party; I ask what war can possibly arise hereafter for any trifles which the world contains?

Epicureans and Stoics Contrasted (from "The Profane Feast" in Popular Colloquies, 1518)

          Augustine: Now let us enjoy ourselves, and eat heartily. Let us be Epicureans. We have nothing to do with haughtiness. Farewell care, let all ill-will and detraction be banished. Let us be merry, pleasant, and humorous.

          Christian: Tell me, Augustine, who are those Stoics and Epicureans?

          Augustine: The Stoics are a certain melancholy, rigid, stingy sect of philosophers, who make the highest good of mankind to consist in a certain, I can't tell what, moral goodness. The Epicureans are the reverse of these, and they make human happiness to consist in pleasure.

          Christian: Tell me, what sect are you of, a Stoic or an Epicure?

          Augustine: I recommend the rules of Zeno [the Stoic]; but I follow Epicurus's practice.

          Christian: Augustine, what you speak in jest, a great many do in earnest, and are only philosophers by their cloaks and beards.

          Augustine: Indeed, indeed they outlive the extravagant in luxury. . . .

          Christian: I never very well liked those Stoics, who referring all things to their (I can't tell what) moral goodness (honestum), thought we ought to have no regard to our persons and our palates. Aristippus [the hedonist] was wiser than Diogenes (the Stoic) beyond expression in my opinion.

          Augustine: I despise the Stoics with all their fasts. But I praise and approve Epicurus more than that Cynic Diogenes, who lived upon raw herbs and water; and therefore I don't wonder that Alexander, that fortunate King, had rather be Alexander than Diogenes.

          Christian: Nor indeed would I myself, who am but an ordinary man, change my philosophy for Diogenes's; and I believe Catius [the Epicurean] would refuse to do it too. The philosophers of our time are wiser, who are content to dispute like Stoics, but in living outdo even Epicurus himself. Yet for all that, I look upon Philosophy to be one of the most excellent things in nature, if used moderately. I don't approve of philosophizing too much, for it is a very boring, barren, and melancholy thing. When I fall into any calamity or sickness, then I take myself to philosophy, as to a physician; but when I am well again, I bid it farewell.

          Augustine: I like your method. You do philosophize very well. Your humble servant, Mr. Philosopher; not of the Stoic school, but the kitchen.

          Christian: What is the matter with you, Erasmus, that you are so melancholy? What makes you frown? What makes you so silent? Are you angry with me because I have entertained you with such a slender supper?

          Erasmus: No, I am angry with you that you have put yourself to so much effort on my account. Augustine gave you strict instructions that you would provide nothing extraordinary on his account. I believe you have a mind that we should never come to see you again; for they give such a supper as this that intended to make but one. What sort of guests did you expect? You seem to have provided not for friends, but for princes. Do you think we are gluttons? This is not to entertain one with a supper, but victualing one for three says together.

JOHN CALVIN: THE SENSE OF GOD AND DOUBLE PREDESTINATION (from The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1536)

Innate Sense of Divinity (sensus divinitatis) (Book 1.3.1-3)

1. We hold to be beyond dispute that there exists in the human minds and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of divinity. This is so since, to prevent any person from pretending ignorance, God himself has given all people some idea of his Godhead. He constantly renews and occasionally enlarges our memory of this. Thus, being aware that there is a God, and that he is their maker, people may be condemned by their own conscience when they neither worship him nor consecrate their lives to God's service. Certainly, if there is any area where it may be supposed that God is unknown, the most likely for such an instance to exist is among the dullest tribes farthest removed from civilization. But, as a heathen writer tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish, as not to be endowed with the conviction that there is a God. Even those who in other respects seem to differ very little from the lower animals, constantly retain some sense of religion. This common conviction is thoroughly possessed in the mind and firmly stamped on the breasts of all people. Since, then, there never has been, from the very first, any area of the globe, any city, any household even, without religion, this amounts to a tacit confession, that a sense of divinity is inscribed on every heart. No, even idolatry is ample evidence of this fact. For we know how reluctant humans are to lower themselves, in order to set other creatures above them. Therefore, when he chooses to worship wood and stone rather than be thought to have no God, it is evident how very strong this impression of a Deity must be. For, it is more difficult to obliterate it from the minds of people, than to break down the feelings of his nature. These feelings are certainly being broken down, though, when, in opposition to his natural haughtiness, he spontaneously humbles himself before the meanest object as an act of reverence to God.

           2. It is most absurd, therefore, to maintain, as some do, that religion was devised by the cunning and craft of a few individuals. Supposedly, these cunning individuals did this as a means of keeping the body of the people in due subjection; and, while teaching others to worship God, they themselves could not have believed less in the existence of God. I readily acknowledge, that cunning people have introduced a vast number of fictions into religion, with the view of inspiring the populace with reverence or striking them with terror, and thereby rendering them more submissive. But they never could have succeeded in this, had the minds of men not been previously imbued with that uniform belief in God, from which, as from its seed, the religious propensity springs. . . .

           3. All people of sound judgment will therefore hold that a sense of divinity is permanently etched on the human heart. This belief is naturally brought out in all, and thoroughly fixed as it were in our very bones. This is strikingly attested by the insubordination of the wicked, who, though they struggle furiously, are unable to untangle themselves from the fear of God. Though Diagoras, and others of like minds, make themselves merry with whatever has been believed in all ages concerning religion, and Dionysus scoffs at the judgment of heaven, it is only a cynical grin. For, the worm of conscience, keener than burning steel, is gnawing them within. ... It follows that this is not a doctrine which is first learned at school, but one as to which every man is his own master, from birth. One which nature herself allows no individual to forget, though many, with all their might, strive to do so. Moreover, all are born and live for the express purpose of learning to know God; and if the knowledge of God fails to fulfill this purpose, then it is fleeting and vain. Thus, it is clear that all those who do not direct the whole thoughts and actions of their lives to this end fail to fulfill the law of their being. This did not escape the observation even of philosophers. For it is exactly what Plato meant in the Phaedrus and the Theatetus when he taught (as he often does) that the chief good of the soul consists in resemblance to God. That is, the soul resembles God when, by means of knowing him, it is completely transformed into God. . . .

The Soul: Consciousness of Ethics (Book 1.15.6)

It is pointless to seek a definition of the soul from philosophers, not one of whom, with the exception of Plato, distinctly maintained its immortality. Others of the school of Socrates, indeed, lean the same way, but still without teaching distinctly a doctrine of which they were not fully persuaded. Plato, however, advanced still further, and regarded the soul as an image of God. Others so attach its powers and faculties to the present life, that they leave nothing external to the body. It was already shown from Scripture that the substance of the soul is incorporeal. We must now add that, though it is not properly enclosed by space, it however occupies the body as a kind of habitation. It not only animates all its parts, and makes the organs fit and useful for their actions, but it also holds the first place in regulating the conduct. It does this not merely in regard to the function of a terrestrial life, but also in regard to the service of God. This, though not clearly seen in our corrupt state, yet the impress of its remains is seen in our very vices. From what source do humans have such a thirst for glory but from a sense of shame? What is the source of this sense of shame but from a respect for what is honorable? Of this, the first principle and source is a consciousness that they were born to cultivate righteousness, – a consciousness akin to religion. But as people were undoubtedly created to meditate on the heavenly life, so it is certain that the knowledge of it was etched on the soul. Indeed, people would lack the principal use of their understanding if they were not able to discern their happiness, the perfection of which consists in being united to God. Hence, the principal action of the soul is to aspire to that higher level, and, accordingly, the more a person studies to approach God, the more he proves himself to be endued with reason.

Human Faculties Before and After the Fall (Book 1.15.8)

Therefore, God has provided the human soul with intellect, by which he might distinguish good from evil, just from unjust, and might know what to follow or to shun, reason going before with her lamp. For this reason, philosophers, in reference to her directing power, have called her "princely". To this he has joined will, to which choice belongs. People excelled in these noble endowments in his primitive condition [i.e. before the fall of Adam]. At that time, reason, intelligence, prudence, and judgment, not only sufficed for the government of his earthly life, but also enabled him to rise up to God and eternal happiness. Thereafter choice was added to direct the appetites, and temper all the organic motions. The will was thus perfectly submissive to the authority of reason. In this upright state, human nature possessed freedom of will, by which, if he chose, he was able to obtain eternal life.

          It is unreasonable to introduce here the question concerning the secret predestination of God, because we are not considering what might or might not happen, but what human nature truly was. Adam, therefore, might have stayed in this original state if he chose, since it was only by his own will that he fell. But it was because his will was pliable in either direction (and he had not received constancy to keep going) that he so easily fell. Still he had a free choice of good and evil. Not only so, but in the mind and will there was the highest integrity, and all the organic parts were duly framed to obedience, until humans corrupted its good properties, and destroyed himself. Hence we see the great darkness of philosophers who looked for a complete building within the rubble of ruins, and fit arrangement in disorder. The principle they set out with was that humans could not be rational animals unless they had a free choice of good and evil. They also imagined that the distinction between virtue and vice would be destroyed if man did not of his own direction manage his life. Well-reasoned this far, if there had there been no change in man. This being unknown to them, it is not surprising that they throw everything into confusion.

          However, some, while they profess to be the disciples of Christ, still seek for free-will in human nature, notwithstanding that humans are lost and drowned in spiritual destruction, labor in various delusions. This approach makes for a heterogeneous mixture of inspired doctrine and philosophical opinions, and so erring as to both. But it will be better to leave these things to their own place, (see Book 2 chap. 2). At present it is necessary only to remember, that human nature, at its first creation, was very different from what it has become. It derives its origin from its later state, after it became corrupted, and received a hereditary taint. At first every part of the soul was formed to decency. There was soundness of mind and freedom of will to choose the good.

God not Responsible for the Fall and Humanity's Weak Will (Book 1.15.8)

If anyone objects that it was placed, as it were, in a slippery position, because its power was weak, I answer, that the degree conferred was sufficient to take away every excuse. For surely the Deity could not be tied down to this condition, to make humans such that they either could not or would not sin. Such a nature might have been more excellent. But to dispute with God as if he had been bound to confer this nature on man, is more than unjust, seeing he had full right to determine how much or how little he would give. Why he did not sustain humans by the virtue of steadfastness is hidden in his own purpose. It is our purpose to keep within the bounds of composure. Humanity had received the power, if it had the will, but it had not the will which would have given the power. For this will would have been followed consistently. Still, after humans had received so much, there is no excuse for them having spontaneously brought death upon themselves. No necessity was laid upon God to give humanity more than an intermediate and even transient will, so that out of humanity's fall God might extract materials for his own glory.

Accomplishments of Non-Believers: Human Reason Partly Preserved after the Fall (Book 2.2.15)

In reading profane authors, the admirable light of truth displayed in them should remind us that the human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator. If we reflect that the Spirit of God is the only fountain of truth, we will be careful, so not to insult him, to avoid rejecting or condemning truth wherever it appears. In despising the gifts, we insult the Giver. How, then, can we deny that truth must have beamed on those ancient lawgivers who arranged civil order and discipline with so much justice? Should we say that the philosophers, in their exquisite researches and skillful description of nature, were blind? Should we deny the possession of intellect to those who drew up rules for discourse, and taught us to speak in accordance with reason? Should we say that those who, by the cultivation of the medical art, expended their industry in our behalf were only raving? What should we say of the mathematical sciences? Should we deem them to be the dreams of madmen? No, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these subjects without the highest admiration. It is an admiration which their excellence will not allow us to withhold. But should we deem anything to be noble and praiseworthy, without tracing it to the hand of God? Such ingratitude is far from us. This is an ingratitude not chargeable even on heathen poets, who acknowledged that philosophy and laws, and all useful arts were the inventions of the gods. Therefore, since it is manifest that people whom the Scriptures term carnal, are so acute and clear-sighted in the investigation of inferior things, their example should teach us how many gifts the Lord has left in possession of human nature, notwithstanding of its having been despoiled of the true good.

Predestination to Heaven and Hell (Book 3.21.1)

The covenant of [eternal] life is not preached equally to all, and among those to whom it is preached, it does not always meet with the same reception. This diversity of reception displays the unsearchable depth of the divine judgment, and is without doubt a part of God's purpose of eternal election. But if it is plainly owing to God's mere pleasure that salvation is spontaneously offered to some, while others have no access to it, great and difficult questions immediately arise. These questions are inexplicable, when proper views are not entertained concerning election and predestination. To many this seems a perplexing subject, because they deem it most incompatible that, of the great totality of mankind, some should be predestined to salvation, and others to destruction. ... However, until we are made acquainted with his eternal election, we will never feel persuaded (as we ought) that our salvation flows from the free mercy of God ... It is plain how ignorance of this principle greatly detracts from the glory of God, and impairs true humility. ... To make it evident that our salvation flows entirely from the good mercy of God, we must be carried back to the origin of election. Thus, those who would extinguish it, wickedly do as much as in them lies to obscure what they ought most loudly to extol, and pluck up humility by the very roots.

Predestination different from God's Foreknowledge (Book 3.21.5)

No pious person could simply deny the predestination by which God adopts some to the hope of life, and pronounces others to eternal death. But it is greatly undermined especially by those who make foreknowledge its cause. We, indeed, ascribe both foreknowledge and predestination to God. But we say, that it is absurd to make the latter subordinate to the former. When we attribute foreknowledge to God, we mean that all things always were, and ever continue, under his eye. To God's knowledge there is no past or future, but all things are present. Indeed, all things are so present, that it is not merely the idea of them that is before God (such as objects which we retain in our memories) but that he truly sees and contemplates them as actually under his immediate inspection. This foreknowledge extends to the whole circuit of the world, and to all creatures. By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every person. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation. Accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that each person has been predestined to life or to death. God has testified this not only in the case of single individuals, but with communities too. This was so of all future generations of Abraham, to make it plain that the future condition of each nation lives entirely at his disposal.

EDWARD HERBERT OF CHERBURY: DEISM (from Ancient Religions of the Gentiles, 1645)

Truth and Common Notions (De Veritate)

As for the overall purpose of this work, it is the universal inquiry into truth, which resides within all people. It is astonishing that no one has ever expressly embraced this subject in a general sense. Among those who pride themselves on their learnedness, I have not yet encountered anyone who has dared to offer a good definition of truth. Perhaps the difficulty of finding one has deterred them, especially since they have often exerted more effort in refuting the opinions of others than in exploring the nature of things to establish a system of doctrine. . . .

          I have spoken about what is necessary to establish the required conditions for simple truths, and I come now to the nature of understanding. Understanding, having something divine within it, does not need to rely on external things and is satisfied with its own truths. For although these truths may seem to vanish in the absence of objects, they cannot be entirely idle, since the objects cannot fail to correspond to them, just as the truths cannot fail to correspond to the objects. Now, these truths [of the understanding] are certain common notions found in all sound and whole individuals, whose minds, having been granted by Heaven, judge the objects that appear on the world's stage. It is through this sole means that the understanding judges both known and new things, such that it alone can discern whether our primary faculties have encountered truth in their pursuit of it. Nevertheless, the understanding does not stop there. After comparing the notions received internally with the required conditions, it presents them internally as either legitimate and conforming or as flawed and deformed. Thus, these sacred elements or principles are not drawn from experience and observations, since we cannot even experiment or observe anything without their aid. At the very least, some of these notions are necessary. If we had not found it written and engraved within ourselves that we ought to seek the nature of things (for it is not the objects themselves that imprint this knowledge upon us), and if we did not possess some common notions of this, we could neither distinguish these things nor even undertake the search for a common nature. Without this, such efforts would be in vain and even harmful. We would experience the representations and terrors of images without purpose if the internal analogy by which we judge whether they are good or bad were not presented to us by notions imprinted on the soul. For we do not learn this from any external source.

Six Marks that Distinguish Common Notions from Those formed through Reasoning

To distinguish innate common notions, which arise from natural instinct on their own, from those formed through the aid of reasoning, we identify six marks or differences to separate those of the first order from those of the second.

          1. Priority: Natural instinct is the first of our faculties, while reasoning is the last. For this reason, in elements, zoophytes, and even embryos, this instinctive faculty works to ensure self-preservation. It develops gradually, anticipating the concepts of reason at every step. For example, natural instinct perceives the beauty of symmetry in a house built according to architectural rules more immediately than reason does. Reason, by contrast, requires laborious comparisons of proportions—both between the parts and in relation to the whole—and even this process depends on common notions. The same is evident in the beauty of faces, the elegance of form, and musical harmony. Although ordinary people take pleasure in such things, no one calls them mathematicians or musicians for it.

          2. Independence: If a common notion depends on something else for its validity, it no longer belongs to the first order but to the second, even if it remains true. When no further recourse is possible, the notion is to be considered of the first order, and the entire chain of proof must be based on it.

          3. Universality: The supreme law of natural instinct (excluding the insane and mentally impaired) is universal consent. Particular notions, by contrast, are suspect, carrying traces of imposture or error. Common notions, drawn from nature's wisdom, are universal in themselves, though reasoning may extend them to particular cases.

          4. Certainty: These notions hold such authority that doubting them would disrupt the entire natural order, effectively stripping a person of their humanity. It is forbidden to argue against such principles; once understood, they cannot be denied. As is rightly said, the intellect naturally assents to principles, just as the will naturally assents to its proper ends.

          5. Necessity: Every common notion contributes to human preservation. They are so rich in mystery that, when ordered properly, they offer a glimpse of eternal universal wisdom, for which there is no greater idea within or outside ourselves. This is why we govern ourselves by our own counsel. Providence is so aligned with free will that while God alone is wise in the fool, both God and the individual are wise in the sage. Arrange these notions accordingly, and avoid reckless reasoning as if they existed beyond yourself. Instead, return inward by the same steps through which the most wise Creator has reached you.

          6. Mode of Formation: Common notions form instantly, provided one grasps the sense of the matter or words, whereas reasoning works slowly through its categories and questions, advancing and retreating endlessly. This process often contradicts sensory evidence, leading to countless errors in schools where reasoning is misapplied to experience. For instance, when qualities are assigned to elements without proper observation, reasoning is wrongly credited with what belongs to the senses, or vice versa. Each faculty has its proper scope, beyond which it acts improperly or not at all.

          It should also be noted that notions arising from natural instinct can be derived even from a false hypothesis, as they carry their own credibility. This is why divine worship can persist even under a false religion, though the fault lies with reasoning, as true religion requires no such assistance.

Common Notions in the Religion of the Gentiles (Ancient Religions, Chapter 1)

Whether a Good God would Eternally Damn Heathens for their Disbelief

When, for a long time I had employed my most serious thoughts, in considering whether any common means for the obtaining [of] eternal salvation, were so proposed to all mankind, that from thence we might necessarily conclude and infer the certainty of an universal divine providence, I met with many doubts and difficulties, not easy to be solved. I found that very many fathers of the church had not only a mean and contemptible opinion of the ancient divulged religion of the heathens, but also absolutely and entirely condemned it. The divines of this present age also pronounce as severe a sentence against all those that are without their pale; so that, according to their opinions, the far greatest part of mankind must be inevitably sentenced to eternal punishment.

          This appearing to me too rigid and severe to be consistent with the attributes of the most great and good God, I began to consult the writings of the heathens themselves. But when, by their own histories, I found their gods were often not only mere men, but also some of the most vile; and when I had observed that their religious worship, rites and ceremonies, were ridiculous and extravagant, I was very much inclined to be of the common opinion against them. But then again, when I considered that this was altogether incompatible with the dignity of a universal divine providence, I began to make a diligent inquiry, whether they meant the same by God as we now do.

          Now by God we understand a perfect, immense, and eternal being. But I found, that with them it [i.e., the term "God"] sometimes signified nature, or a certain imperfect, finite, and transitory power; so that not only heaven, the planets, stars, ethereal and aerial spirits; but those men also who had deserved well of mankind in general, or their own country in particular, were unanimously translated into the number of their deities. Their emperors also (some of whom were the worst of men) were deified in their lifetime; and even the fever, fear, and paleness were esteemed gods and goddesses by them; so that they ascribed divine honor to whatsoever was above the common rank of mankind, or exceeded the apprehension of the vulgar. But still it is very evident, that wherever we find the attributes of summus, optimus, maximus; most supreme, most good, and most great, they meant the same God and common father with us. So that the homonymy [i.e., different meanings] of the word being explained, the doubts that arise by comparing our God with theirs, will soon be cleared.

          But yet neither their religious worship or rites, could ever make me have an ill opinion of the common people, they being the invention of the priests only. Accordingly, this crime ought solely to be imputed to their great men, and not to the populace, who were only passive in the matter. I suppose none will deny but that priests have introduced superstition and idolatry, as well as sown quarrels and dissentions wherever they came: this inclined me not to make so rash and peremptory a determination, concerning the future state or the laity, as some divines have done; they being only culpable, for totally devoting and subjecting themselves to the authority of their priests. Their great defection from the pure worship of the supreme God being justly to be attributed to the sacerdotal order [i.e., the priests of organized heathen religions], put me upon the inquiry, whether among those heaps of ethnical superstitions, a thread of truth might be found, by the assistance of which it was possible for them to extricate themselves out of that labyrinth of error, in which they were involved.

          Upon this, five undeniable propositions presently occurred; which not only we, but all mankind in general, must acknowledge: 1. That there it one supreme God; 2. That he ought to be worshipped; 3. That virtue and piety are the chief parts of divine worship; 4. That we ought to be sorry for our sins, and resent of them. 5. That divine goodness doth dispense rewards and punishments both in this life, and after it. . . .

Salvation Open to All through General Providence

Then I had recourse to other authors, but especially [Johannes] Crellius, a very learned man, who has written concerning the souls of the heathens, he quotes several very excellent passages upon this subject out of the most ancient [Christian] fathers by which I found they were of opinion, that some of the best amongst the heathens, through the infinite mercy of God, might be capable of eternal salvation. I soon embraced their opinion, not seeing how the doctrine of a universal divine providence could be solved otherwise, than that some means should be afforded unto all men, by which they might come to God. And seeing that nature or common providence, did supply us here with all things that were necessary and convenient for food and clothing; I could not conceive how the same God, either could or would, leave any man quite destitute (either by nature or grace) of the means of obtaining a more happy state, and though the heathens did not make so good use of them as they might have done, yet the most good and great God, was not in the least to be charged with their miscarriage.

          I know it is a generally received opinion, that common providence does not afford sufficient means, without the concurrence of grace and particular providence. But my design is to make it evident, that a universal providence is extended to all mankind. Now insofar as the heathens (as the holy scriptures testify, and learned divines acknowledge) worshipped the same God as we do; had the same abhorrence of sin, believed rewards and punishment after this life; I cannot but think, that after they had led a good life, they were made partakers of the fulness of that divine grace; especially since they knew the most rational and clearest parts of the true divine worship.

          I pretend not to defend the gross of the heathen religion, which I always esteemed foolish, incongruous, and absurd, but only propose those truths which shined in the midst of their greatest obscurity. Now when they mixt superstitions and fictions with them, and had polluted their souls with such crimes as no repentance could sufficiently purge and expiate, their destruction was justly owing to themselves. But let glory be to the great God for ever. Whether these means for attaining a better state, are so sufficiently effectual, that eternal happiness will be the necessary consequence, shall be discoursed of hereafter in its place.

The Soundest Parts of Heathen Religion (Chapter 15)

Mind (Right Reason) Gives us the Five Common Principles, which Heathen Believers Follow

And first of the mind by which the ancients understood no more than right reason. They esteemed a sound mind beyond all things; for without it they could not make a just choice of religion, or lead a holy life according to such precepts, and reject false and spurious doctrines.

          The wise and sagacious amongst the heathen received the first principles of their religion—such as, (1.) That there is one supreme God, (2.) That he ought to be worshipped, (3.) That virtue is the principal part of his worship, (4.) That we ought to repent of our sins, (5) that there are rewards and punishments both in in this life and hereafter—from the mind or right reason, and the rest derive its authority from the priest only; to the first they gave a firm and entire assent, the others they esteemed at best but doubtful and probable. Thus they did not condemn and reject the revelation, traditions and dreams of their priests, but were somewhat cautious and not easily to be imposed on by them, or run the hazard of resting an entire faith in them. They did not think any doctrines ought to be built on faith only, though the most extensive, for they easily discovered how they might be imposed on by that means. For these reasons the ancients deified the mind, but especially (as Varro, Lactantius, St. Augustine and others say) that they might be endued with a good mind. . . .

          All which, I leave my reader to judge of, as he thinks fit, though there is nothing which we can find amongst them, that carries more probability in it, unless it be those common principles; that God is good and just, and therefore he will reward and punish men, both in this life, and after it, according to their actions and very thoughts.

          But the great men amongst the heathens, began to wander beyond these known bounds; introducing many things that had not the least foundation in humane reason, or any other faculty to support them.

          Thus, the philosopher adds one thing, the priest another, and the poet many more, that quite overturned the fabric of truth, and reduced it to a mere heap of rubbish. For what can be safely established concerning the state after this life, besides those common principles mentioned before, unless we did partake with the inspector of humane consciences and the divine counsels. . . .

Ordinary Heathens Reject the Religious Embellishments of their Priests

It is my established opinion, therefore, that the heathens accounted these five articles as common principles and selected and separated them from all the rest, and recorded them in their interior court as incontrovertible truths; and whatever else the priests added from their oracles, revelations and dreams, they either gave them reception only as probabilities, or else totally rejected them as smelling too rank of cheat and imposture.  Now as in every proposition that is advanced, some new degree of knowledge is excited, it will follow that as there were different degrees of proofs, so different: degrees of assent or dissent must arise in the auditors [i.e., listeners]. So that we may justly conclude that in that wonderful hotchpotch of religion, contrived and patched up by the priests, the heathens did esteem these propositions as altogether undeniable, others more or less probable, and others absurd, contradictory, impossible or false.

          But if it be objected that these truths were not discoverable perfect and entire, but involved and shrouded in lies and fictions. I answer, though some light and trivial truths, like things which support themselves in the air, or float upon the water, presently fall down or sink when any heavy weight is laid on them and cannot rise again till it either falls away or is taken off. Yet the five above mentioned truths ever were, and always will be, of that divine nature, that, like the sunbeams, which no weight can depress, nor any wind blow out, they have darted their glorious rays into the minds of men in all parts of the earth, where they did but exercise their natural use of reason. These then were the parts of the sound religion of the heathens. The rest were either factitious fables, faint resemblances, or frivolous ceremonies, amongst which (to the great prejudice of mankind) some favored of distraction and others of impiety.

          Now in regard all these things were imposed upon the people by the impostures of the sacerdotal order, the fault must lie at their door, for the people very easily submitted to whatever was commanded by the pontifical college. Here the patrons of the heathens, may tax me with making too severe reflections upon their religious worship. For besides the true practice of virtue; they had faith, gave alms, and had public prayers as well as we, and their hierarchy and priesthood was very exemplary and eminent, now why might not they embrace that faith and those rites they received from their ancestors, as well as we have done; and they are not to be blamed for approving those things which have been delivered to them through a long tract of time.

STUDY QUESTIONS

Please answer all of the following questions.

1. According to Petrarch, what mistake did he make when he began climbing the mountain, and what lesson did he learn from this mistake regarding his journey towards a blessed life?

2. According to Petrarch, what are the pessimistic responses to the claim that we are free, and what are the optimistic responses to the complaints about handicap, shortness, weakness, sickness, and poverty?

3. According to Pico, what are the three degrees of created things and the two types of love for humans?

4. According to Pico, what are some of the common reasons given for why human beings are so wondrous, and what is his explanation?

5. According to More, what are the religious reasons for adopting the view that pleasure is the highest good?

6. According to More, how is that pursuit of private pleasures can be compatible with the pursuit of public pleasure?

7. According to More, what is so bad about pleasure from fine clothes and respect for nobility?

9. According to Montaigne, what are the two common criticisms of Sebond, and what is Montaigne's response to each?

9. According to Montaigne, what are some of the ways that human reason is so deficient, and what is the process of Pyrrhonian skepticism that leads to tranquility?

10. What reasons does Montaigne give to support his position that custom is the best master of all things?

11. According to Luther, which writings of Aristotle's are bad and which are good?

12. According to Luther, what is the relation between faith and reason, and between theology and philosophy?

13. According to Erasmus, what are the three parts of human nature, and what tension does that create in the human soul?

14. In Erasmus's dialogue on Epicureanism and Stoicism, what is Christian's view of the two schools?

15. What are Erasmus's criticisms of religious superstition and natural philosophers?

16. According to Erasmus, how is our natural human makeup contrary to war?

17. According to Calvin, what evidence is there of a sense of divinity and what is his view of the soul's consciousness of ethics?

18. According to Calvin, what were human reason and human will like both before and after the fall, and what is his position on predestination to heaven and hell?

19. According to Herbert, what are the five marks of instinctive common notions?

20. According to Herbert, what are the five common notions that the heathen religions held to, and how did ordinary people view the contentions of their priests who went beyond those five common notions?

21. Short essay: please select one of the following and answer it in a minimum of 100 words.

          a. The classical Stoic position on free will is a tricky one. Look up some information on this and discuss the Stoic elements of Petrarch's account of human freedom.

          b. The Platonist theme in Pico's "Discourse on Love" is clear, but the Platonism in his "Oration" may not be. Try to connect together the Platonism in those two discussions.

          c. The classical Epicurean view of morality is that pleasure is the highest good. Medieval philosophers typically rejected this view and maintained instead that the highest good was to love God, and not to pursue earthly pleasures. Discuss More's attempt to present Epicureanism in a way that would not be religiously objectionable.

          d. Classical Greek skepticism was also not very popular in the Middle Ages. Discuss what if anything is religiously objectionable in Montaigne's defense of Sebond or his account of Pyrrhonism.

          e. Montaigne's discussion of custom is a defense of moral relativism. Explain his main argument, and discuss whether there are any moral values that are not susceptible the effects of custom. You may need to look at Montaigne's full essay (web search for "Montaigne custom").

          f. While Petrarch, Pico, More, Montaigne and Bruno each championed a different ancient Greek philosophy, they were all still very eclectic, which was common among Renaissance philosophers. Even in the above selections they go beyond their specific schools and share some common themes with each other. What are some of those shared themes?

          g. On the issue of faith and reason, Luther holds what is sometimes called the "fideist" position, which is that religious understanding comes only through faith, and not through reason. Explain Luther's position and discuss both the positive and negative features of it.

          h. Erasmus has two accounts of human nature in the above selections. In the first, the human soul wavers between the opposite influence of the body and the spirit; in the second, humans are naturally inclined to friendship rather that war. Try to reconcile these two views.

          i. Calvin attempts to distinguish predestination from divine foreknowledge. Explain his position and discuss whether the two can be separated.

          j. Herbert argues that there are six marks (or indicators) of instinctive common notions that do not proceed from reasoning. Are these valid indicators that an idea is instinctive?