The Age of the Reformation Part 47

To the zeal for religion animating Knox, George Buchanan [Sidenote: Buchanan] joined a more rational spirit of liberty and a stronger consciousness of positive right. His great work _On the Const.i.tution of Scotland_ derived all power from the people, a.s.serted the responsibility of kings to their subjects and pleaded for the popular election of the chief magistrate. In extreme cases execution of the monarch was defended, though by what precise machinery he was to be arraigned was left uncertain; probably const.i.tutional resistance was thought of, as far as practicable, and tyrannicide was considered as a last resort. "If you ask anyone," says our author, "what he thinks of the punishment of {604} Caligula, Nero or Domitian, I think no one will be so devoted to the royal name as not to confess that they rightly paid the penalty of their crimes."

[Sidenote: English monarchists]

In England the two tendencies, the one to favor the divine right of kings, the other for const.i.tutional restraint, existed side by side.

The latter opinion was attributed by courtly divines to the influence of Calvin. Matthew Hutton blamed the Reformer because "he thought not so well of a kingdom as of a popular state." "G.o.d save us," wrote Archbishop Parker, "from such a visitation as Knox has attempted in Scotland, the people to be orderers of things." This distinguished prelate preached that disobedience to the queen was a greater crime than sacrilege or adultery, for obedience is the root of all virtues and the cause of all felicity, and "rebellion is not a single fault, like theft or murder, but the cesspool and swamp of all possible sins against G.o.d and man." Bonner was charged by the government of Mary to preach that all rebels incurred d.a.m.nation. Much later Richard Hooker warned his countrymen that Puritanism endangered the prerogatives of crown and n.o.bility.

[Sidenote: and republicans]

But there were not wanting champions of the people. Reginald Pole a.s.serted the responsibility of the sovereign, though in moderate language. Bishop John Ponet wrote _A Treatise on Politic Power_ to show that men had the right to depose a bad king and to a.s.sa.s.sinate a tyrant. The haughty Elizabeth herself often had to listen to drastic advice. When she visited Cambridge she was entertained by a debate on tyrannicide, in which one bold clerk a.s.serted that G.o.d might incite a regicide; and by a discussion of the respective advantages of elective and hereditary monarchy, one speaker offering to maintain the former with his life and, if need be, with his death. When Elizabeth, after hearing a refractory Parliament, complained to the {605} Spanish amba.s.sador that "she could not tell what those devils were after" his excellency replied, "They want liberty, madam, and if princes do not look to themselves" they will soon find that they are drifting to revolution and anarchy. Significant, indeed, was the silent work of Parliament in building up the const.i.tutional doctrine of its own omnicompetence and of its own supremacy.

[Sidenote: Tyrannicide]

One striking aberration in the political theory of that time was the prominence in it of the appeal to tyrannicide. Schooled by the ancients who sang the praises of Harmodius and Aristogiton, by the biblical example of Ehud and Eglon, and by various medieval publicists, and taught the value of murder by the princes and popes who set prices on each other's heads, an extraordinary number of sixteenth century divines approved of the dagger as the best remedy for tyranny.

Melanchthon wished that G.o.d would raise up an able man to slay Henry VIII; John Ponet and Cajetan and the French theologian Boucher admitted the possible virtue of a.s.sa.s.sination. But the most elaborate statement of the same doctrine was put by the Spanish Jesuit Mariana, in a book _On the King and his Education_ published in 1599, with an official _imprimatur_, a dedication to the reigning monarch and an a.s.sertion that it was approved by learned and grave men of the Society of Jesus.

It taught that the prince holds sway solely by the consent of the people and by ancient law, and that, though his vices are to be borne up to a certain point, yet when he ruins the state he is a public enemy, to slay whom is not only permissible but glorious for any man brave enough to despise his own safety for the public good.

If one may gather the official theory of the Catholic church from the contradictory statements of her doctors, she advocated despotism tempered by {606} a.s.sa.s.sination. No Lutheran ever preached the duty of pa.s.sive obedience more strongly than did the Catechism of the Council of Trent.

[Sidenote: Radicals]

A word must be said about the more radical thought of the time. All the writers just a.n.a.lysed saw things from the standpoint of the governing and propertied cla.s.ses. But the voice of the poor came to be heard now and then, not only from their own mouths but from that of the few authors who had enough imagination to sympathize with them. The idea that men might sometime live without any government at all is found in such widely different writers as Richard Hooker and Francis Rabelais. But socialism was then, as ever, more commonly advocated than anarchy. The Anabaptists, particularly, believed in a community of goods, and even tried to practice it when they got the chance.

Though they failed in this, the contributions to democracy latent in their egalitarian spirit must not be forgotten. They brought down on themselves the severest animadversions from defenders of the existing order, by whatever confession they were bound. [Sidenote: 1535] Vives wrote a special tract to refute the arguments of the Anabaptists on communism. Luther said that the example of the early Christians did not authorize communism for, though the first disciples pooled their own goods, they did not try to seize the property of Pilate and Herod.

Even the French Calvinists, in their books dedicated to liberty, referred to the Anabaptists as seditious rebels worthy of the severest repression.

[Sidenote: _Utopia_, 1516]

A n.o.bler work than any produced by the Anabaptists, and one that may have influenced them not a little, was the _Utopia_ of Sir Thomas More.

He drew partly on Plato, on Tacitus's _Germania_, on Augustine and on Pico della Mirandola, and for the outward framework of his book on the _Four Voyages of Americus Vespuccius_. {607} But he relied mostly on his own observation of what was rotten in the English state where he was a judge and a ruler of men. He imagined an ideal country, Utopia, a place of perfect equality economically as well as politically. It was by government an elective monarchy with inferior magistrates and representative a.s.sembly also elected. The people changed houses every ten years by lot; they considered luxury and wealth a reproach. "In other places they speak still of the common wealth but every man procureth his private wealth. Here where nothing is private the common affairs be earnestly looked upon." "What justice is this, that a rich goldsmith or usurer should have a pleasant and wealthy living either by idleness or by unnecessary occupation, when in the meantime poor laborers, carters, ironsmiths, carpenters and plowmen by so great and continual toil . . . do yet get so hard and so poor a living and live so wretched a life that the condition of the laboring beasts may seem much better and wealthier?" "When I consider and weigh in my mind all these commonwealths which nowadays anywhere do flourish, [Sidenote: The commonwealth] so G.o.d help me, I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and t.i.tle of the commonwealth." More was convinced that a short day's labor shared by everyone would produce quite sufficient wealth to keep all in comfort. He protests explicitly against those who pretend that there are two sorts of justice, one for governments and one for private men. He repudiates the doctrine that bad faith is necessary to the prosperity of a state; the Utopians form no alliances and carry out faithfully the few and necessary treaties that they ratify. Moreover they dishonor war above all things.

In the realm of pure economic and social theory {608} something, though not much, was done. Machiavelli believed that the growth of population in the north and its migration southwards was a constant law, an idea derived from Paulus Diaconus and handed on to Milton. He even derived "Germany" from "germinare." A more acute remark, antic.i.p.ating Malthus, was made by the Spanish Jesuit John Botero [Sidenote: Botero, 1589]

who, in his _Reason of State_, pointed out that population was absolutely dependent on means of subsistence. He concluded _a priori_ that the population of the world had remained stationary for three thousand years.

[Sidenote: Mercantile economics]

Statesmen then labored under the vicious error, drawn from the a.n.a.logy of a private man and a state, that national wealth consisted in the precious metals. The stringent and universal laws against the export of specie and intended to encourage its import, proved a considerable burden on trade, though as a matter of fact they only r.e.t.a.r.ded and did not stop the flow of coin. The striking rise in prices during the century attracted some attention. Various causes were a.s.signed for it, among others the growth of population and the increase of luxury.

Hardly anyone saw that the increase in the precious metals was the fundamental cause, but several writers, among them Bodin, John Hales and Copernicus, saw that a debased currency was responsible for the acute dearness of certain local markets.

[Sidenote: Usury]

The lawfulness of the taking of usury greatly exercised the minds of men of that day. The church on traditional grounds had forbidden it, and her doctors stood fast by her precept, though an occasional individual, like John Eck, could be found to argue for it. Luther was in principle against allowing a man "to sit behind his stove and let his money work for him," but he weakened enough to allow moderate interest in given circ.u.mstances. Zwingli would allow interest to {609} be taken only as a form of profit-sharing. Calvin said: "If we forbid usury wholly we bind consciences by a bond straiter than that of G.o.d himself. But if we allow it the least in the world, under cover of our permission someone will immediately make a general and unbridled licence." The laws against the taking of interest were gradually relaxed throughout the century, but even at its close Bacon could only regard usury as a concession made on account of the hardness of men's hearts.

[1] In Greek the words "politics" and "ethics" both have a wider meaning than they have in English.

[2] Lord Morley.

SECTION 4. SCIENCE

[Sidenote: Inductive method]

The glory of sixteenth-century science is that for the first time, on a large scale, since the ancient Greeks, did men try to look at nature through their own eyes instead of through those of Aristotle and the _Physiologus_. Bacon and Vives have each been credited with the discovery of the inductive method, but, like so many philosophers, they merely generalized a practice already common at their time. Save for one discovery of the first magnitude, and two or three others of some little importance, the work of the sixteenth century was that of observing, describing and cla.s.sifying facts. This was no small service in itself, though it does not strike the imagination as do the great new theories.

[Sidenote: Mathematics]

In mathematics the preparatory work for the statement and solution of new problems consisted in the perfection of symbolism. As reasoning in general is dependent on words, as music is dependent on the mechanical invention of instruments, so mathematics cannot progress far save with a simple and adequate symbolism. The introduction of the Arabic as against the Roman numerals, and particularly the introduction of the zero in reckoning, for the first time, in the later Middle Ages, allowed men to perform conveniently the four fundamental processes.

The use of the signs + {610} and - for plus and minus (formerly written p. and m.), and of the sign = for equality and of V [square root symbol] for root, were additional conveniences. To this might be added the popularization of decimals by Simon Stevin in 1586, which he called "the art of calculating by whole numbers without fractions." How clumsy are all things at their birth is ill.u.s.trated by his method of writing decimals by putting them as powers of one-tenth, with circles around the exponents; _e.g._, the number that we should write 237.578, he wrote 237(to the power 0) 5(to the power 1) 7(to the power 2) 8 (to the power 3). He first declared for decimal systems of coinage, weights and measures.

[Sidenote: Algebra 1494]

Algebraic notation also improved vastly in the period. In a treatise of Lucas Paciolus we find c.u.mbrous signs instead of letters, thus no.

(numero) for the known quant.i.ty, co. (cosa) for the unknown quant.i.ty, ce. (censo) for the square, and cu. (cubo) for the cube of the unknown quant.i.ty. As he still used p. and m. for plus and minus, he wrote 3co.p.4ce.m.5cu.p.2ce.ce.m.6no. for the number we should write 3x + 4x(power 2) - 5x(power 3) + 2x(power 4) - 6a. The use of letters in the modern style is due to the mathematicians of the sixteenth century.

The solution of cubic and of biquadratic equations, at first only in certain particular forms, but later in all forms, was mastered by Tartaglia and Cardan. The latter even discussed negative roots, whether rational or irrational.

[Sidenote: Geometry]

Geometry at that time, as for long afterwards, was dependent wholly on Euclid, of whose work a Latin translation was first published at Venice. [Sidenote: 1505] Copernicus with his pupil George Joachim, called Rheticus, and Francis Vieta, made some progress in trigonometry.

Copernicus gave the first simple demonstration of the fundamental formula of spherical trigonometry; Rheticus made tables of sines, tangents and secants {611} of arcs. Vieta discovered the formula for deriving the sine of a multiple angle.

[Sidenote: Cardan, 1501-76]

As one turns the pages of the numerous works of Jerome Cardan one is astonished to find the number of subjects on which he wrote, including, in mathematics, choice and chance, arithmetic, algebra, the calendar, negative quant.i.ties, and the theory of numbers. In the last named branch it was another Italian, Maurolycus, who recognized the general character of mathematics as "symbolic logic." He is indeed credited with understanding the most general principle on which depends all mathematical deduction.[1] Some of the most remarkable antic.i.p.ations of modern science were made by Cardan. He believed that inorganic matter was animated, and that all nature was a progressive evolution.

Thus his statement that all animals were originally worms implies the indefinite variability of species, just as his remark that inferior metals were unsuccessful attempts of nature to produce gold, might seem to foreshadow the idea of the trans.m.u.tation of metals under the influence of radioactivity. It must be remembered that such guesses had no claim to be scientific demonstrations.

The encyclopaedic character of knowledge was then, perhaps, one of its most striking characteristics. Bacon was not the first man of his century to take all knowledge for his province. In learning and breadth of view few men have ever exceeded Conrad Gesner, [Sidenote: Gesner] called by Cuvier "the German Pliny." His _History of Animals_ (published in many volumes 1551-87) was the basis of zoology until the time of Darwin. [Sidenote: Zoology] He {612} drew largely on previous writers, Aristotle and Albertus Magnus, but he also took pains to see for himself as much as possible. The excellent ill.u.s.trations for his book, partly drawn from previous works but mostly new, added greatly to its value. His cla.s.sification, though superior to any that had preceded it, was in some respects astonishing, as when he put the hippopotamus among aquatic animals with fish, and the bat among birds.

Occasionally he describes a purely mythical animal like "the monkey-fox." It is difficult to see what criterion of truth would have been adequate for the scholar at that time. A monkey-fox is no more improbable than a rhinoceros, and Gesner found it necessary to a.s.sure his readers that the rhinoceros really existed in nature and was not a creation of fancy.

[Sidenote: Leonardo]

As the master of modern anatomy and of several other branches of science, stands Leonardo da Vinci. It is difficult to appraise his work accurately because it is not yet fully known, and still more because of its extraordinary form. Ho left thousands of pages of notes on everything and hardly one complete treatise on anything. He began a hundred studies and finished none of them. He had a queer twist to his mind that made him, with all his power, seek byways. The monstrous, the uncouth, fascinated him; he saw a Medusa in a spider and the universe in a drop of water. He wrote his notes in mirror-writing, from right to left; he ill.u.s.trated them with a thousand fragments of exquisite drawing, all unfinished and tantalizing alike to the artist and to the scientist. His mind roamed to flying machines and submarines, but he never made one; the reason given by him in the latter case being his fear that it would be put to piratical use. He had something in him of Faust; in some respects he reminds us of William James, who also started as a {613} painter and ended as an omniverous student of outre things and as a psychologist.

[Sidenote: Anatomy]

If, therefore, the anatomical drawings made by Leonardo from about twenty bodies that he dissected, are marvellous specimens of art, he left it to others to make a really systematic study of the human body.

His contemporary, Berengar of Carpi, professor at Bologna, first did this with marked success, cla.s.sifying the various tissues as fat, membrane, flesh, nerve, fibre and so forth. So far from true is it that it was difficult to get corpses to work upon that he had at least a hundred. Indeed, according to Fallopius, another famous scientist, the Duke of Tuscany would occasionally send live criminals to be vivisected, thus making their punishment redound to the benefit of science. The Inquisitors made the path of science hard by burning books on anatomy as materialistic and indecent.

[Sidenote: Servetus]

Two or three investigators antic.i.p.ated Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood. Unfortunately, as the matter is of interest, Servetus's treatment of the subject, found in his work on _The Trinity_, is too long to quote, but it is plain that, along with various fallacious ideas, he had really discovered the truth that the blood all pa.s.ses through heart and lungs whence it is returned to the other organs.

[Sidenote: Physics]

While hardly anything was done in chemistry, a large number of phenomena in the field of physics were observed now for the first time.

Leonardo da Vinci measured the rapidity of falling bodies, by dropping them from towers and having the time of their pa.s.sage at various stages noted. He thus found, correctly, that their velocity increased. It is also said that he observed that bodies always fell a little to the eastward of the plumb line, and thence concluded that the earth revolved on its axis. He made careful experiments with billiard b.a.l.l.s, discovering that the {614} momentum of the impact always was preserved entire in the motion of the b.a.l.l.s struck. He measured forces by the weight and speed of the bodies and arrived at an approximation of the ideas of mechanical "work" and energy of position. He thought of energy as a spiritual force transferred from one body to another by touch. This remarkable man further invented a hygrometer, explained sound as a wave-motion in the air, and said that the appearance known to us as "the old moon in the new moon's lap" was due to the reflection of earth-light.

Nicholas Tartaglia first showed that the course of a projectile was a parabola, and that the maximum range of a gun would be at an angle of 45 degrees.