a

journal

of political

philosophy

volume

4/1

winter

1974

page

leo

strauss

preliminary
thucydides'

observations of
work

the

gods

in

17 38

howard

white

rembrandt and

the human

condition

jerry

h.

combee

nietzsche as cosmologist:

the idea

of

the

eternal recurrence as a cosmological

doctrine

and some aspects of

its

relation

to the doctrine of the will to power

48

marvin

perry

arnold

toynbee:
god"

nationalism as a

"false

martinus

nijhoff, the

hague

edited at

queens college of

the city university

of new york

interpretation
a

journal
4

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editors
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erich

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leo

strauss

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executive editor

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269

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PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE GODS IN WORK

THUCYDIDES'

Leo Strauss

These I have
the

observations

"repeat,"

i.e.,

modify,
of

some

observations

which

made

in the Thucydides-chapter

purpose would

be

served

by

No necessary stressing the differences between the first and

and

The

City and Man.

second statements. war

For Thucydides the

was,
as

between the Peloponnesians

most

the Athenians

he

expected

from the beginning, the

motion of all

to speak, the greatest

times which
contention.

noteworthy motion so affected all human beings. The first

and

He

gives a two-fold proof of extensive

his

by

far the
of

most

(1.1-19)

proves

it

by laying

bare the

weakness

the

ancients and

therewith the strength, the surpassing strength, of the men,

especially the Greeks, of the present. Apart from a seemingly casual reference to the Delian Apollon (13.6), the first proof is silent regarding
gods; this
silence seems

to be connected

with

the fact that the most

famous speakers about antiquity are the poets, and the poets are in the habit of adorning their subjects by magnifying them (10.3): tracing happenings to the gods means precisely adorning the happenings by
magnifying them. The the sufferings brought
especially
with second on

proof

concentrates

on

the

greatness

of

by

the

Peloponnesian War

as

contrasted

the sufferings

tacitly distinguishes the

one another and
eclipses of

sufferings

due to the Persian War (23.1-3). Thucydides which human beings inflicted upon
inflicted
and
upon

those

which were

them
not

by

earthquakes,
plague.

the sun, the

we

drought, famine,

last but
of

least the
or

Following
Athenians,

guidance supplied

by

Thucydides'

Perikles addressing the

may

call

the

second

kind

happening

suffering
signifies,

"daimonic"

(II.64.2), leaving it
it is best

open whether

the

word always

within

the work, happenings of

or whether

non-human or super-human origin

(such

as

omens)

understood as synonymous with

speeches

"natural."

Let

us

then turn to
a
possible

Perikles'

or,
of

more

generally,
narrative

let
of

us

consider

difference between
other.

Thucydides'

the

deeds
our

on

the one hand and the speeches

on

his
so

characters

concerning
of

subject

the

In Book One he
and

speaks on

in his

narrative

the god in

Delphi,
he

of

oracles, temples,
other

without

making it
to

clear whether

accepts or reveres them

in the

same manner as so pair of speeches

speak everyone else

did. On the
and
whatever

hand,
or

the first

those

of the

Korkyraians

the Korinthians in Athens

to
gods

(1.32-43)
and

contain

no reference

to sacred things. (The same

is true

of

the brief

exchange

between the Korinthian embassy

the
and

Athenians in revealing in

53.2-9.)
four

The

situation

is

somewhat

more

complex

the

speeches

delivered in Sparta

by

the

Korinthians,

2
the Spartan

Interpretation

king Archidamos,
gods

and

the

ephor

Sthenolaidas (68-86). The

Korinthians,
than the
on

the accusers par excellence of the

who
watch

Athenians,
who

appeal more of

emphatically to the
the gods is
out

over

the performance

oaths

other speakers.

The only

speaker

here

singles

here

Archidamos, the by an explicit,

only speaker if somewhat qualified,

which again

is completely silent here whom Thucydides

praise.

In the

next

assembly

of

the Peloponnesians

takes place in

Sparta,

there occurs only a single speech; in that speech the Korinthians refer to the oracle of the god (123.1). There follows a narrative of the final
exchanges pollutions
abstains
which

deal

chiefly
the

with

mutual

contracted

by

two

sides

from

judging

on the merits of

regarding concerning gods; Thucydides the two cases; he merely notes

recriminations

that the Spartans held their polluting action to be responsible for the Thucydides' great earthquake that happened in Sparta (128.1). account
of

the final fate

of the

Spartan

and of the

Athenian leaders in the Persian

War

King Pausanias and Themistokles contains literal quotations from the letters by the two men to the king of Persia, i.e., something approaching speeches by Thucydidean characters; those quotations contain no
references

to gods. On

the other

hand,

word

to say about the

fitting

burial

of the

the god in Delphi had a weighty Spartan king, traitor though

he

was

(134.4).
for considering the
such

We
and

are now prepared

next

speeches.

There
once

are altogether three

speeches

speeches, the Periklean (1.140-44, 11.35-46

60-64). Perikles
remains

gods; only Archidamos

sion of

in the Funeral Speech for the time

addresses a speech
without ever

is, just like Archidamos, completely silent on the (38.1) does he refer to sacrifices.

being

unchanged.

Before the first inva

(11.11). Yet in Thucydides

Attika he

to the

supreme commanders of the

Peloponnesian troops
a

referring to

the gods

Periklean

speech addressed

to the Athenian
quote

Assembly

which

reports without speak of

claiming to
goddess,"

"the

it, he makes that outstanding leader meaning thereby the most valuable statue of
the

Athena,

for he is setting forth there in detail

financial

resources

of

the city (13.5). On the other hand, Thucydides has to say quite a few things about gods and sacred matters in his narrative of the plague which

follows

immediately

Perikles'

on

Funeral

Speech,

to say nothing of his

narrative about

early Athens (15.2-6).

Perikles'

The first
conflict

exchange of speeches after

and

last

speech concerns

the

between the Spartans

exchange
parties

the
on

Plataians,
a
solemn

who were allies of the oath

still

Athenians. The
two (or

is based

binding

the

three)
on

to the conflict. It

is particularly worthy

of note

that the Spartan

king

Archidamos begins his final reply to the Plataians

to be
cause

by

calling

the gods and heroes who possess the Plataian land

witnesses
which

to the justice of the Peloponnesian

might

(79.2)

justice

the reader

find

rather

dubious: the

moral-political situation

has

undergone a profound change since

the debate in Sparta.

Preliminary
We learn from
against the

observations on the gods

in

Thucydides'

work

3 battle

Thucydides'

narrative

that after a

victorious naval

Peloponnesians the Athenians consecrated a captured enemy ship to Poseidon (84.4). In the ensuing speech of the Peloponnesian naval commanders to their troops, who were understandably disheartened by their preceding defeat caused by their insufficient naval training or
experience,
no reference

is

made

to the gods (87). Yet the Athenian

soldiers were also afraid:

the Peloponnesian ships were more numerous

than the Athenian ones. The Athenian commander Phormion restored

their courage

by

a speech which

In the

second naval

is likewise silent regarding gods (88-89). battle the Peloponnesians fought better than in the
Athenian
victory: experience

first but the final

result was again a complete

decisive. Toward the end of Book Two Thucydides tells a story, without vouching for its truth, about Alkmaion, a matricide, who, thanks to Apollon's oracle, found a safe refuge in a district which did not yet exist at the time of the murder (102.5-6).
and skill were again

The

next speech

is the

one which the

Mytilenian

ambassadors address

to the gathering of the Peloponnesians and neutrals at Olympia in order to solicit help for their intended defection from the Athenian allies; the

Mytilenians are compelled to show that their intended action is or ignoble (IH.9-14). Toward the end of their speech they
their would-be new allies to

not unjust
admonish
would-

be

awed

by

the respect in

which

those

be

allies are

held

by

the hopes of the Greeks and

by

the respect of the

Olympian Zeus in whose temple they appear, as it were as suppliants. Mytilenians' request and in As Thucydides shows by his narrative, the
particular
effect.

the last-minute

appeal

to the Olympian Zeus remained

without

He does

not give a speech of reply.

to some extent
after the
of

by

the two

speeches

The reply is given by deed or exchanged in the Athenian Assembly

the actual conquest
of

Athenians'

conquest of

Mytilene. Prior to

Mytilene the Peloponnesian

commander

Teutiaplos

Elis

addresses

to

his troops

brief
after

speech which

only

one prefaced

might add

that

by having

is, according to Gomme (ad loc), the tade, instead of the usual toiade (29-30). (One
quoted

the brief speech, Thucydides notes

an
expression which

that Teutiaplos had said tosauta

he

uses

quite

frequently.)
commander

Teutiaplos'

counsel

was

rejected

by

his

Spartan
of

fellow-

Alkidas, obviously
Peloponnesian
takes
the
place

a stupid man who

thus contributed to the the Athenian

failure

of the

enterprise. after

In

meeting
of

Assembly
grown-up
earlier:

which

the

conquest

Mytilene Kleon
punishment of all

passionately

opposes

reconsideration of

the capital

male

Mytilenians

of a punishment resolved upon a

of an

few days

inexcusable injustice and must be dealt with accordingly. Kleon does not refer to the gods: he has no reason to refer in any way to the gods (37-40). The case for gentleness or rather for discrimination is made by Diodotos, who had already stated
the Mytilenians are simply guilty

it in the preceding meeting

the
most enigmatic speech

of

the

Assembly (42-48); his

whole work.

speech

is

perhaps com

in the

Diodotos is likewise

pletely

silent on

the gods. But it is possibly

not

inappropriate to

note that

4 he
as
cf.

Interpretation
speaks of compared

the weakness
with

of

the passionately
of

excited

"human

nature"

"the force

laws

awful"

84.2). Seen

Partly
a

thanks to

Diodotos'

or anything else intervention the majority

(45.7;
of the

Mytilenians had
within speeches of

hair's-breadth

escape.

the context

of the

whole, the fate

of

Mytilene
at

and the

accompanying it are the foil of the fate of Plataiai the Peloponnesians an event illumined likewise by an
The Plataians
are

the hands

exchange of

speeches.

eventually

compelled

to

surrender

their

city to the Spartans, who accept the surrender with a reservation which, to me at least, is not a model of good faith. The Plataians know
starved
of course

that the Spartans will give in to the demands of the

Thebans,

the

Plataians'

deadly

enemies, but

they

make

the Spartans of what the Spartans

would

the manly effort to remind have to do as good men. They

consecrated

naturally
remind

appeal

to the gods,

who

in the Persian War

the

anti-Persian alliance

in

which

the Plataians distinguished themselves.

sacred

They

the Spartans the graves,

who

of

the

respect

always

honored
the

duty incumbent upon the by the Plataians, of the

and
whom

latter to
Spartans'

fathers
Plataian

had fallen in the Persian War

had been buried in

ground.

They invoke
order

gods

the same altars in

Thebans'

to

persuade

the Greeks worship on the Spartans not to give in to the

meant

demand (53.5-9). The to show that the Plataians have

are

Thebans'

always

hard been

and

unjust

hateful reply is (61-67): hence

as

the

Thebans

completely
Plataians'

silent

about

the

gods

(lV.67.1);
deserve
Plataiai

the

Thebans The
us

imply,

the

pious

invocations do
of

not

an answer. prepares

narration of the

fate

of

Mytilene
account

and of that of

sufficiently for Korkyra and of the fratricidal

Thucydides'

the rising of the demos

and the

in

wars

between the mighty

the place of

demos
to the

in the

cities

in

general.

Cruel hatred took

friendship
of asylum

nearest of

kin, led

to complete disregard of the sanctity

in

the

temples

and

rather than

to utter disregard of "the divine law": partnership in crime respect for the divine law became the bond of good faith.
not explain what

Thucydides does

the precise ground

of

the divine law

no

is

nor what

its

specific prohibitions

doubt that the

partisans on

(or commands) are, but he leaves both sides lost all piety (82.6-7).

When Thucydides,
comes to speak of

compelled or excused

by

the sequence of events,

the first Athenian

expedition against

Sicily, he

speaks

first

daimonic things, one of them a small volcano near Sicily; in the opinion of the local people the outbreaks are due directly to Hephaistos (87-88). Immediately thereafter he speaks at somewhat greater length than before of earthquakes, this time giving his own opinion
of a number of about a related

event; his
on

own opinion contains no reference

to gods (89).

The Spartans

the other hand ask the god at Delphi regarding the

god

foundation
although

of a

city; the

approves of the plan

properly modified;

the

modifications are accepted

by

the god, the foundation is not

successful,

(92.5-93).

the least owing to the ineptitude of the Spartan magistrate Shortly thereafter Thucydides avails himself of the opportunity
not

Preliminary

observations on the gods

in

Thucydides'

work

to mention the violent death of Hesiod in the temple of the Zeus of Nemea: he had received in Nemea an oracle to the effect that this would happen to him there but Thucydides does not vouch for the truth of the story (96.1). Thucydides would have misled us greatly about Athens and

hence his

about the

Peloponnesian War if he had

Athenians'

not added soon

thereafter

Apollon's island of Delos, the purification having been ordered by "some oracle or The truth about the original form of the Delian festival is vouched for by no less a man than Homer himself (104).
account of

the

purification of

other."

The

end of

the first part

of

the

war

is

decisively

prepared

by

the

Athenian victory, due primarily to Demosthenes at Pylos (or Sphakteria), Brasidas' and by victorious march to Thrace. Near the beginning of the
section

Demosthenes
which

addresses

the hoplites
not

under

his

command.

In the

situation,

is

rather

grave,

to say

desperate, he

urges

them to

be

hope and not to be too greatly concerned with the calculation of chances. He does not mention gods (IV.9-10). His tactics prove to be highly successful. The Spartans are now willing to conclude an armistice
of good

and even a peace

treaty in

order

to

get

back the Spartiates

go so

cut off

by

the Athenians and

send ambassadors

to Athens. In their

speech

to the

Athenian
whether

Assembly

those ambassadors
or

far

as

to leave it open

the Spartans

the Athenians
Peloponnesians'

started

the war,

i.e., broke

the

treaty (IV. 17-20);

promised

they

naturally do

not mention

any
win

god:

Apollon had

to come to the

help

called or uncalled

(1.118.3,

II.54.4). Thanks chiefly to Kleon

the

Athenians
to

a splendid victory.

Nothing

is

said

by

anyone

to the

effect oracle

that the Spartans had asked for

send ambassadors

or received permission

from the

to Athens.
of

Before turning to
actions which are

Brasidas'

expedition, Thucydides

speaks

three

particularly noteworthy with a view to our present purpose. The first is the pan-Sicilian gathering at Gela, which has at its high point the speech of Hermokrates that he quotes (IV. 5 8-64). He
warns

his fellow-Sicilians

of

the danger

threatening

them at the hands of

not
order

the Athenians: the Athenians intend to come to

Sicily,

in

order

to

help
their silent

their Ionian
of

kinsmen
whole of

against

the Dorians but in

not

to acquire

the wealth

the

desire,
about

which

Sicily. He does belongs to human nature

thus

blame the Athenians for

universally.

He is completely
argument of

the gods,

silently

anticipating the

the
the

Athenians He

on

Meios. The

second

action

is

Brasidas'

winning
a clever speech

over

Akanthians,
presents

allies of

Athens,
of

to Sparta

by

(IV. 8 5-8 7).

the Spartans as the liberators

of

the Greeks from servitude the Akanthians might feel

to Athens

and

he disposes
the

any fear

which

that the Spartans might

misuse their
Spartans'

victory,

telling his
good

audience

that he

has

received

from

rulers

the most

solemn

oaths

to the
given?

desired

effect: what stronger proof of

Spartan

faith

could

be

In addition, he counters a possible Akanthian argument that the Spartans have no right to liberate the Akanthians from the Athenians by force,

by

calling

as witnesses

the

gods and

heroes

of

the

Akanthians'

land: to

6
force
the

Interpretation

the liberation

is
of

not

Akanthians to be free and to contribute their share towards of Greece as a whole by the use of force for this purpose Athenians' occupation and fortification unjust. The third action is the

the

Delion,

temple of Apollon near the border of Boiotia and Attika.

a speech

The Boiotian leader Pagondas delivers

tells
them

to his troops in

which

he

that the

god

whose

temple

the

Athenians have

lawlessly

occupied will
which

be

on

the side of the Boiotians and that the sacrifices

offered are

the Boiotians have

commander

Hippokrates in his
a

address

favorable (IV.92). The Athenian to his troops is completely silent

Athenian defeat. The impious in fortifying,
and

on gods and sacred

things (1V.95): we could not expect differently. The

battle

ends of course with

very

severe

actions of

the

Athenians,
the

which consisted

living in,

the

sanctuary,

enable

Boiotians,

Athenians the evacuation of der of their dead. In the ensuing debate the Athenians claim that allegedly impious action would be forgiven as an involuntary action by the god (98.6).
When Brasidas
citizens, to
whom

they think, to demand from the the temple before they can claim the surren
as

their
even

comes to

Toronte, he
things

arranges

he

says

similar

to those he had

there a meeting of the said to the

Akanthians (114.3-5) but his speech to the Toronaians is only reported, Brasidas' not quoted. Thucydides did not need a further proof of Brasidas' rhetorical ability. In addition, action in Akanthos had established his
credit
Athens'

among

vacillating

allies sufficiently.

Finally,

we cannot

the possibihty that the Spartan authorities did not entirely approve Brasidas' of making solemn promises in their name (108.7; cf. 132.3).
exclude

In the

report of the speech to

the Toronaians there naturally

and

occurs no

reference

to the gods. Let us remind ourselves here of two

reports

earlier parallels.

In 1.72-78 Thucydides first

then quotes the speech of the

Athenians in Sparta:
mentioned

gods are not mentioned

in the
speech

report

but they

are

in the
the

quoted

speech; the result is that

Archidamos'

of

the four speeches

silent about the

delivered
gods.
speech

only In 11.88-89 Thucydides first

to the Athenian

on

occasion

is

reports

and

then quotes Phormion's

contradistinction speech

troops; but Phormion, in

not reinforce

to the

Peloponnesian commanders, does punishment (II.87.9).

his

by

threats of

As

a consequence of an armistice.

Brasidas'

successes the
article of

Spartans

and

the Athenians

conclude

The first

the armistice concerns the

same

sanctuary order is

and

the oracle of the Pythian Apollon (IV.118.1-3). The

observed

in the solemnly
with
Thucydides'

sworn

so-called

peace

of

Nikias

(V.17end-18.2).
Book V
opens
of

account
of
which

of

the correction

by

the

they had become guilty when they purified Delos. There soon follows the battle of Amphipolis with Brasidas in command of the Peloponnesians and their allies and Kleon in command of the Athenians; the battle leads to a severe defeat of the Athenians; the leaders of both armies are killed. Before the battle Brasidas addresses
a

Athenians

neglect

Preliminary
his speech,
or sacred

observations on

the gods in

Thucydides"

work

7
gods

quoted

by Thucydides,
also

to his troops

without

referring to

things (cf.

10.5);

on

the

other

hand, he

prepares a sacrifice alone

to Athena (10.2). We note that no

quoted.
of

speech of

Kleon is reported, let

a strange reversal of

Kleon is too
army, to
a

busy
speak

with

"seeing,"

with

observing the movement

Brasidas'

(7.3-4, 9.3,
the then

10.2):

doings
a

as

between

Spartan
after

and

leading
at

Athenian

demagogue,

kind

of comic equivalent

to the

fighting

Pylos. The

citizens of

Amphipolis

honor Brasidas

his death with the honors of a hero. The death of the two commanders increased the influence of those leading men in Sparta and Athens who favor peace. To bring about this result in Sparta,
the cooperation of the priestess in Delphi was important. This does not

necessarily contradict Apollon's promise at the beginning of the war that he would come to the help of the Spartans called or uncalled, for the only
war's oracle

regarding the war which lasting 27 years (V.26.3): the

would

proved god

to be true
not

concerned

the

had
war."

promised

that the

Spartans
of

be

victorious

in "the first

the fact that the armistice

Brasidas'

or peace was at

that time a

This is to say nothing great help for

Sparta. Between last speech (9) and the dialogue on Meios at the end of V (84ff.) there occur no quoted speeches but only a few reported
speeches or references to them.
of gods and

But in that twilight there

which

occur mentions earthquakes

divine things, among

and of unfavorable operations

one

may

count

(45.4, 50.5),
broke
too
off

sacrifices

as causes

military

(54.2, 55.3,
Spartans'

why the Spartans 116.1). But the Athenians

prior

of course obeyed

the oracle of the Delphic god (32.1). Above all, that the the

Thucydides
was not

makes clear

flute playing

to battle
law"

done "for the

us

sake of

divine"

(70). in
cf.

It is easy for
Thucydides'

to find that the references to "the divine

account of the civil wars

(III.82.6;
and statements

II.53.4)

and

to the

gods most as

in the dialogue between the Melians

the Athenians are the

important

or

the

most

far

as the gods are concerned.

revealing It is

occurring in his

work

all the more

necessary to realize

that the

theology
the
order

of the
subject

Melian dialogue is in

one sense of subordinate

importance;
passing. against

In

is brought up by the Athenians as it were in to show the Athenians that they may have some hope
played

hope,

the Melians remind them of the role

as

in

war

by
(to
to

chance:

they trust,
will not of

far

as chance

is concerned, that "the

given

divine"

theion)

disadvantage them,
Melians'

the justice of the Melians

say nothing

the fact that the Spartans are forced

assistance.

by

sheer

shame

to come to the

Athenians,
the limits

can count on

the good

The Athenians reply that they, the divine," will of "the for they act within
or

believe regarding "the divine," for the Athenians (or all sensible human beings) believe as regards "the divine" what is generally thought about it and as regards the human they know clearly, namely, that the strong rules the weaker by nature and hence sempiternally with necessity. Thereupon the Melians drop the
of what

human beings hold

8
subject and speak

Interpretation

only of their manifest or human hopes, i.e., the hope derive from their relation with Sparta. We note that in the they divine," are not mentioned but only "the Melian dialogue "the Of "the divine which is more general and more vague than "the divine," law" Thucydides speaks in his own as distinguished from "the
which
gods"
gods."

name; but he is in the case

silent about

of

the divine

law,

as

in that

of

the

divine,

the precise meaning of the expressions. He clearly equally disapproves of breaches of the divine law, whereas he refrains from

passing judgment sadors on Meios. Books VI

expedition,
plague and

on

the

Athenians'

theology

as stated

by

their ambas

VII,

Thucydides'

which contain

account of the

Sicilian
of

are

related
Pericles'

to the Melian dialogue

as

his

account

the

Funeral Speech. In his archaeology of Sicily he is to his indicates the untrustworthy character of what is said about the Kyklopes
and others

(2.1-2). The first

great event

tion
and

is

the exchange of speeches, quoted

pertaining to the Sicilian expedi by Thucydides, between Nikias

there are two such speeches to

Alkibiades in the Athenian

and one a

Assembly;
Nikias

by

Nikias

by
they

Alkibiades. In
of roles

what could seem

be, especially
against
and

in retrospect,
endangering
things

reversal

warns of

the Athenians

what

possess

for the

sake

immanifest

future

(9.3), just as the Athenians had warned the Melians; there is this difference that the Melians were not, or at least not in the same way as

with the faraway (13; cf. 24.3). But Nikias is not Alkibiades in dexterity; he is defeated in the debate, in a way that resembles (or his comrades') defeat by Kleon in the debate regarding Pylos. Neither Nikias nor Alkibiades mentions gods but Alki biades refers to the oath which obliges the Athenians to come to the

the

Athenians, in love
to
Nikias'

equal

assistance of their

Sicilian
of

allies

(18.1;

cf.

19.1).

Nikias'

last

word

is to

the effect that the fate

cannot

the

expedition will

depend

on

chance,

which

be

mastered

the

expedition

and hitherto Hermai which

by men, rather than on human foresight (23.3). While being prepared according to the proposal of the sensible always lucky Nikias, unknown individuals mutilate the
is
stand

in front

of private

houses bad

as well as
omen

temples;

this

and other
and even
on

impious deeds
for the

are regarded as a

for

the expedition

established

Alkibiades

and quite a

few

democratic regime; a strong suspicion falls others. In spite of this Alkibiades is left

together with Nikias in command of the expedition; the Athenians have the greatest hope for future things as compared with what they already
possessed

thing
and

(31.6). This hope was not unconnected with piety; when every ready for the departure of the armament, the customary prayers libations were offered (32.1-2). As httle as in the debate in the
was

Athenian
cast

Assembly

are

the

gods mentioned whether of

Assembly. It is hard to say

this

silence

in the debate in the Syracusan is one of the shadows Hermai

with

by

the

unsolved

mystery

the

mutilation of the

and similar

impieties. The
considerable

disappointment

which

the Athenians

the

excep-

Preliminary
tion
of

observations on the gods

in

Thucydides"

work

9
to

Nikias (46.2)

experienced

after

their arrival in

Sicily

proves

be
of

minor compared with

the recall to Athens of Alkibiades who is

account of

now

to be proceeded

against on

his

alleged

impiety. The
or

action

the Athenian demos against Alkibiades enables

of

forces Thucydides

to tell the true story

and

the alleged tyrannicide committed

note

by

Harmodios

Aristogeiton. We
and

in

particular
on

two

things:
and

the

tyranny

of

Peisistratos

his

family

was

the whole mild

law-abiding
tyrant
expulsion a

and

in

particular

death
years

of

Hippias, the man who was in fact his father, Peisistratos, survived and after his
pious;
the

after the

few

by king and fought on the Persian side at Marathon (54.5-6, 59.4), thus foreshadowing in a manner the fate of Themistokles. In the first battle, Nikias defeats the Syracusans after having encouraged his troops by reminding them of their military superiority to the enemy:
and some refuge with the

later from Athens

Persian

Spartans

Athenians found

the enemy

(68.2,
does both

army is inferior to army in regard to knowledge 69.1). There is no need for him to refer to gods and hence he
the
to them. This is perfectly compatible with the fact that in soothsayers bring the usual sacrifices prior to the battle
was accompanied

Nikias'

not refer armies

(69.2). The battle battle

the

by

a thunderstorm and of

heavy

rain

phenomena which

increased the fear

the more

those

who

had

no previous

experience while

experienced men

simply

regarded

them

as a consequence of the season of

the

year

(70.1):

frightening
a speech of
which

effect of the

daimonic things.

Any

diminishes discouragement which

experience

the Syracusans may have suffered on account of their defeat is removed

by

Hermokrates in their

Assembly

which

Thucydides

reports

is not encumbered by an explicit reference to gods (72). Hermokrates is also the speaker for Syracuse in a gathering at Kamarina in which both belligerents sue for the favor of those Sicilians who have
and not yet

taken sides; the

of

speaker

for Athens
at

carries

the

characteristic name

Euphemos. Both gathering

speeches

are quoted and are

silent on the gods.

In

the anti-Athenian cities

Sparta Alkibiades

succeeds

in

convincing the Spartans of the soundness of a broadly Athenian pohcy and strategy and at the same time of the itude
on

conceived perfect

anti-

correct-

of

his high treason.

Alkibiades'

speech

the gods; its

being

quoted and

its

being

While the Spartan and its way to Syracuse, the situation quite favorable: Nikias is quite hopeful. Yet the only mishap which befell the Spartans was that they had to interrupt a military operation which they had started against Argos, because of an earthquake (95.1). As it seems to me, Book VT, which is rich in quoted speeches, also abounds
same reason. on

is silent have the Korinthian relief force is already of the Athenians on Sicily looks

is

also quoted and

silent on

the

gods

in

reported speeches.

in the his half-Spartan turn of mind to the much more daring commanders Gylippos of Sparta and Hermokrates of Syracuse (cf., e.g., 3.3 and 8.3). The
Book VII
can

be

said

to

bring

the

peripeteia:

the

leadership
Nikias

fight for Syracuse

shifts

from the Athenian

gentleman

with

10
Athenians'

Interpretation

situation in Sicily becomes grave; Nikias is compelled to send letter to Athens with an urgent request for additional troops and supply. Apart from the fact that the letter was accompanied by oral messages, it has the status of a quoted speech (8.1-2, 10-15) to a greater degree

than the excerpts from the

letters
of

of

Pausanias

and not

Themistokles to the

king

of

Persia
what

(1.129.3, 137.4). Nikias does

he thinks
their "difficult

hesitate to tell the

(VII. 14.2
and

Athenians

natures"

4).

The reversal of fate which has taken place in Sicily resembles that at Pylos: while Athens has ceased to be the preponderant naval power, the anti-Athenian combination's naval power has increased (11.2-4, 12.3).
Gods
and

the

sacred

things are not

mentioned

at

least

not explicitly.

For the

greatest now

increase in the
other

Spartans'

power

was

caused

by
who

their

holding
treaty,

whereas

among in the first

things
war

that the
rather

Athenians had broken the

been the Spartans

it had

had

begun the war; the Spartans therefore believed that their misfortunes in the first war, like that at Pylos, were deserved or reasonable (cf. 18.2);

they believed
injustice
This
accident
of

that good or bad fortune in

war

depends

on

the justice

or

the

thought

belligerents, i.e., on the rule of is ascribed by Thucydides to

follows
almost

gods concerned with

justice.
no
Nikias'

the

Spartans,

but it is
of

that it
also a

immediately
by

his

quotation

letter; it is
The

Nikian thought.

operations

urgently
as

recommended

Alkibiades begin to hurt

the Athenians considerably,

although

for the time

of

being
what

the harm

which

Athens
small

suffered was of

nothing
at
whom

compared with

happened to
send

the

city

Mykalessos Athens

the hands

Thracian

mercenaries who were

in the pay fiscal

of

and

the Athenians had to

an

home for
tactics

reasons.

Thereafter through

improvement in their

naval

the Syracusans defeat the Athenians unmistakably in a naval battle; this Athenians' was the turning point (41). Yet for the moment the situation
seems to be greatly improved by the expeditionary force that is commanded arrival of

the

second

Athenian

by

Demosthenes.

Demosthenes'

daring
or else

attempt

either

to win

victorious

to

start at once with

the preparation for the

decision practically at once return home of the

place

Athenian

armament

is

spoiled

in the first

by

enemy

resistance.

Secondly,
within voted not

there is disagreement among the Athenian commanders and the army: there seems to be no longer any hope. Demosthenes
as

for immediate frank

the
as
with

be

return to Athens. In the deliberations Nikias could Demosthenes since he was engaged in secret negotia who

tions

influential, wealthy Syracusans,

Demosthenes'

he

speedy

end of

the enormously expensive war; he

proposal.

He he

voted

therefore against

desired as much as still has some hope. The reason by which

of

of the difficult nature Athenians: the very soldiers who clamor now for the immediate to Athens will say after their return, when they have come again

supported

his

vote was what

he thought

the

return

under

the influence

of

the

demagogues,
he for

that the

Athenian generals have been

to perish unjustly at

bribed

by

the enemy:

one would not prefer

Preliminary
the hands
of
"privately,"

observations on the gods

in

Thucydides"

work

11

enemy

the Athenians rather than perishing at the hands of the i.e., not unjustly. He does not consider the fact that
would contribute

his

unjust

death

to the

salvation of

the Athenian arma

ment.
most

The

exchange

between Demosthenes in
Thucydides'

and

Nikias (47-49.3) is the

an exchange of reported

striking
as

example

work of

speeches.

since,

speech, though, does not simply express his thought Thucydides makes clear, his hope prevents him from being

Nikias'

completely frank. He clings to his opinion because he is swayed by hope based on his Syracusan connections rather than by fear of Athenian
revenge, and his
opinion wins out.

The

postponement of

the

Athenians'

departure is due entirely to him. But at the time everything was ready for the departure of the whole armament by sea, an eclipse of the moon took place. Thereupon most of the Athenians and not the least Nikias himself, who was somewhat too much addicted to divination and the like, demanded further postponement of the departure: Nikias decided according to the interpretation given by the soothsayers one ought
even

that not

to deliberate about the date of

leaving

before three times

nine

days

had

passed

(50.4).
the

In the
almost

meantime

Syracusans

gained a splendid naval

exit

victory, thus
of

closing to the Athenians the

from the harbor

Syracuse.

The
their

Athenians'

regret

discouragement increased correspondingly and still more about the whole expedition. Before they make a last desperate

effort

to break the Syracusan

blockade, Nikias
the
power of

calls

all

soldiers

under

his

command

together and addresses to them

still

a speech

in

which

he

shows war.

them there is
Nikias'

hope,

given

chance

especially in
whereas

speech

is

paralleled

by

a speech

of

the enemy

commanders

to the

their

troops:

they have

much

better

grounds

for hope

are reduced to putting their reliance altogether on fate (61-68). In these speeches, both of which are quoted, gods and sacred things are not mentioned, but the extreme danger in which the Athenians find them selves

Athenians

induces Nikias to

address other

every
of

single

commander of

trireme

and remind

him, among
follows
achieve a

things,

the ancestral gods (69.1-2). The

battle

which

and

which

consisted

in the futile

attempt

of

the

Athenians to
compelled to

breakout through the

The Athenians
the life-and-death

blockading
struggle.

enemy navy
participa

was of unrivaled violence.

who could not embark were

be

spectators of

Their

tion was hmited to their passionate response to the part

of

the fight which

they
saw on

could see

from the

place where each

happened to
their

stand: when

they

their

own men vanquish

the enemy,

they

caught courage and called

courage and

the gods; in the opposite case,

they lost

apparently

also their willingness to call on the gods (71.3). Hope ceasing, piety Athenians' disaster prevents them from taking ceases (cf. also 75.7). The

the customary
victors
with

loving

care

of

their many

dead,

even

from asking the

the contrast

for the

surrender

of

the Athenian corpses (72.2):

the

circumstances

in

which

Perikles delivered his Funeral Speech is

of

overpowering.

Retreat into the interior

Sicily

is

rendered

difficult

and

12 eventually impossible

Interpretation

by

a ruse of

Hermokrates to
refused

which

he

was

forced

to have recourse because the Syracusans

to continue

fighting

during

the night:

they just happened

its
commanders

to celebrate a festival in honor of

the miserable end of the

Herakles (73.2-74). Thucydides has described

Athenian army
tion
as and

an event which surpasses

descrip

adequately as possible. Shortly before the very end Nikias addressed a speech of encouragement to his troops which is quoted by Thucydides in full and which is the last
speech

quoted

in full that

occurs

in the

work.

hope,
is

exhorts

his

soldiers

to be hopeful. He declares

Nikias, still filled with truthfuUy that he

he has fulfilled

rather worse off

than his comrades in

arms although

the customary duties toward the gods and has always been just and modest towards human beings. The Athenians may have provoked the

envy

of

the

god

punished

for this;
Nikias'

(77.1-4).
the

expedition but they have been sufficiently they deserve the god's pity rather than his envy theology obviously differs from nay, is opposed to

by

their

now

theology stated by the Athenian ambassadors on Meios. According to Thucydides himself Nikias would have deserved a better fate than the one which fell to his lot, for he had applied himself more than any other of
Thucydides'

contemporaries to

the

exercice of

that virtue

which

is

praised

held up by the law (86.5) as distinguished from another, possibly kind of virtue but his theology is refuted by his fate. It is almost higher,
and

unnecessary to say that the

of

Athenians'

hopeless
as

retreat

into

the

interior

Sicily
come

was accompanied
were

seasonal,
to

interpreted

by by

thunderstorms and rain

which,

while

being
still

the

Athenians
permitted

pointing to misery
expression

(79.3).

Thucydides'

theology
located in the
and that of the mean

if it is
the

to use this

is

Aristotelian sense) between that Athenian ambassadors on Meios.

(in

of

Nikias

Book VIII,
on

the

last Book, is
on
of

anticlimactic.
of the

What this

expression means

depends obviously
the character

the character
VI-VII

climax,

i.e., in

the first place

work.

Books

and

then of the whole

It has

been plausibly

suggested

incompleteness,
to complete his

that the peculiarity of Book VIII is due to its perhaps to Thucydides having died before he was able
work. of

But this is
of

not more than a plausible

hypothesis.
of

The peculiarity

Book VIII

must

be

understood
of

in the hght
The
most

the

peculiarity

or peculiarities

the bulk

the

work.

striking
with

peculiarity
are

of

the bulk

of the work

is the

speeches of the characters which

quoted

in full

and

the

way in

which

they

are

interwoven

the

the deeds as well as with the speeches which are merely reported. There are no speeches quoted in full to be found in Book VIII. There is
account of

however a large section of Book V which has the same character: V.I 0-84. The absence of quoted speeches from this section heightens the power,
the

impact,

of

the

dialogue

on

the Sicilian expedition (VI-VII).

more

Meios (V.85-112) and Is that power, that

of

the account of
not
still

impact,

heightened

by the

absence of

fully

quoted speeches

from Book VIII?

Preliminary
Let this

observations on the gods

in

Thucydides"

work

13

question also not be more than a plausible hypothesis. It has at least the merit of protecting us against the danger of mistaking a plausible hypothesis ratified by an overwhelming majority for a demonstrated verity.

Since the Athenians

and

their enemies preserve their turns of mind

and

their cautious slowness, respectively happened in Sicily, the Athenians were able to build up a new powerful force and to protect the largest part of their empire. Their initial anger when they learned of their disaster in Sicily was directed also against the diviners and soothsayers who had confirmed them in their hope that they would conquer Sicily. But the long-range reaction was rather in favor of thrift and moderation and of some form of rule by

their zealous quickness

what

despite

older men.

One may
would

doubt, however,
have been
part of of

whether avail

any

effort on

the

part of

the Athenians

been frictions

or

any dissensions among her Attika

commanded

to them if there had not

enemies.

Owing

to

Alkibiades'

instigation

an

important

was under permanent occupation

by
or

an

enemy army

by

the Spartan

king Agis,
to his
and

and

Agis

was

became

a mortal
Agis'

enemy
power

of

Alkibiades.
with on

Owing

command of a

Spartan army

in Sparta had increased

the
other

he had thus
authorities.
other

increased

dissensions Alkibiades therefore had to depend

or aroused

Spartan
these

the support
was

of

Spartan
the

authorities

(5.3-4, 12.2, 45.1). But it

which saved

another and

division

within

enemy
sound

combination

Athens

incredible

by

the same stroke

Alkibiades,

who was condemned made the

it may to death by
as

Athens. The Athenian defeat in

Sicily

had

king

of

Persia (and

therewith his satrap Tissaphernes) and the Spartans the actual or potential heirs to that part of the Athenian empire which was located in Asia

Minor and the islands nearby. Tissaphernes wished to use those rich Athens' financial resources, which were hitherto at disposal, for the king's services. This state of things naturally led to a Spartan-Persian alliance
that was strongly
more or
urged

by Alkibiades.
the demos
oligarchic of

less its

old

fury,

While the Samos rose

war
with

continued

with

the

help

of

the

fellow-citizens, killing or expelling them and confiscating their property (21). Furthermore, the war still dragging on, the Peloponnesians felt that their treaty with Tissaphernes
against

Athenians

their

gave them of

less than they were alliance between the two

command

entitled powers

to expect; accordingly, a new

was concluded.

treaty
in the
Persia

change and

Spartan

brought the latent

conflict

between Sparta
with

into

the open.

The Spartans

who were now

negotiating

Tissaphernes

found it
restored

unbearable

that the two treaties between Sparta and Persia

of

to the
ever

king

Persia

the

right to

all countries which

he

and

his

ancestors

possessed,

i.e.,

above all

the Greek lands

which

Greeks

was

had liberated from Persian domination. Tissaphernes became angry and unwilling to continue paying the large sums of money which he had
spent

hitherto for
saw

the

Peloponnesian
compeUed

navy.

Precisely
with

at

this moment

Alkibiades
order

himself

to take

refuge

to find

protection against

his

numerous and

Tissaphernes in powerful enemies in

14

Interpretation
against

Sparta. He took resolutely the side of Tissaphernes He became the teacher of Tissaphernes in all things moderation: Tissaphernes ought to reduce the pay
saUors,
and
whose ruin

the Spartans.

of

especiaUy regarding the Peloponnesian

to

hybris is

and

high pay induces them to commit every kind of mischief bodies (45.1-2). Alkibiades, who was notorious for his incontinence, as teacher of moderation and continence: if this
their
greatest
or most

not the

moving

peripeteia

recorded

in

Thucydides'

work, it is surely the with regard to the lion laughed

most

astounding

one.

What

an ancient critic observed

Thucydides'

account of

the Kylon affair

(I.126.2ff.)
to

here

can

be

applied with at

least

Alkibiades'

equal right

timely

conversion.

PoliticaUy
Tissaphernes

the

most

important instruction
victory
could

which

Alkibiades

gave

to
or

was to prevent the a

of either the

Peloponnesians

the Athenians:

divided Greece

If Persia had to
to prefer

make a choice

between

the two
of a

easily be controUed by Persia. Greek powers she ought

Athens,

which constituted

less

danger to Persia than the

Poloponnesians. In

this

reconciliation with the

way Alkibiades prepared at the same time his Athenians. For he held that the Athenians might

turn to him if Tissaphernes appeared to

required the change of

be his friend. But this

from
a

solution

the Athenian regime

could not

democracy
put
over

into

an

oligarcy:
on a

be expected to king democracy. Very influential Athenians were won

the

Persian

any

reliance

to the plan
opposition

to recaU Alkibiades

and

to abolish the democracy. The popular

to the plan was sUenced

would give.

by
with

the hope for the pay

Alkibiades'

which

the Persian
some

king

Connected
of

conspiracy but to
on

extent

independent
the

it,
as

there developed

an

anti-democratic

conspiracy among
and the

highest

strata of the a

that that army

recaU of
with

Athenian army whole favored the

on

Samos,

with the consequence

abolition of
sent an

democracy

Alkibiades. The Athenians

Samos

Peisandros as its leader. There was Athens to the recaU of Alkibiades, not the least on the ground of the fact that he had been condemned to death because of impiety. Yet the
opponents were unable to suggest an alternative which might save

embassy to Athens considerable opposition in

Athens.

Thereupon Peisandros told

the government
six more

except to make clearly "there is oligarchic (53.3). This utterance of Peisandros

them

none"

is the only direct speech quoted in Book VIII. This necessarily mean that it is the most important utterance of a Thucydidean character that occurs in the last Book. But it clearly under lines, especiaUy if taken in conjunction with the absence of any quoted
roughly
not

lines

does

speech

by Alkibiades,
character,
abundance of

the most
as

striking

characteristic of

that Book: its

anticlimactic
relative

previously
quoted

explained.

One

might also note the

fuUy

treaties of alliance
of

(18, 37, 58)

if

as

contrasted with

the complete absence

fully
other an

quoted than

speeches proper.
not

The oligarchicaUy minded Athenians altogether inimical to him, established

wherever else

Alkibiades,

they

could

oligarchy in Athens and in the Athenian empire. But the allies or

Preliminary
subjects of

observations on the gods

in

Thucydides'

work

15

of
of

Athens were less eager for oligarchy than for being independent Athens. The regime now established in Athens was the government 5,000 who were most able to help the city by their property and by
This
meant

themselves.
clique were
violent rule.

in fact that only

proposal

members

of

the

oligarchic

entitled

to participate in the government and exercised a the actual government was vested
of

At

Peisandros'

in 400

men out of

the 5,000. The establishment

this regime in Athens

was a remarkable
exceUent

achievement, the
oligarchic

work of some of the most able and

rulers

Athenians. The

naturally fortified their

rule

by

prayers and sacrifices to

the gods (70.1).

They

changed

many

of

the

provisions made under who

the

democracy

had been

exiled

in

order not

but they did not recall the men to be forced to recall Alkibiades in

particular. rather

They

tried to start negotiations with

than with Tissaphernes was their aim. But

Agis; peace with Sparta they achieved nothing.

In addition, the Athenian army on Samos put down the oligarchy there. The democratic leaders obliged the soldiers and especially the ohgarchicaUy
minded

among them
the

by

the

greatest

oaths

to accept the

democracy
were

and continue
of

war against recaU and was

the Peloponnesians (75.2).

They
the the

in favor
of

Alkibiades'

its implication:

alliance with

King

Persia. This

proposal

adopted

by

the

Assembly
which

of

soldiers on on that

Samos,

with

the

result

that Alkibiades joined the Athenians

island. He

addressed a speech

to that

Assembly

Thucydides
to

reports and which overstated

the case for Alkibiades and his pohcy as

was elected general serve

strongly

as possible

(81.2-3). Thereupon he

together with the previous ones. He was now in a position to frighten

the Athenians

with

his

alleged

or

true influence

on

Tissaphernes

and

Tissaphernes

with

his

power

over

the Athenian army.

It

was

in this

grave situation that

Alkibiades

seemed

for the first time to have benefited

his fatherland
attempt straight of

less than any other man by preventing an ill-conceived the Athenians on Samos to leave that island and to sail
no

into the Peiraeus. In fact there

as capable

was

at

that time no one apart

from him
at

to restrain the multitude. He abolished the rule of

the 400 while preserving or rather restoring the rule of the 5,000. lust

this

time,

whUe

the

sharpest

civic

conflict

raged
closest

in

Athens,

the

Athenians
city; the
on

suffered a severe naval graver

defeat in the
than

situation was

even

immediately
was

proximity to the after the disaster

Sicily. But they

the

showed again

their old courage and resilience. The

rule of

5,000, i.e.,
a
right

the rule of the

hoplites,
of

firmly
and

established.

Then the Athenians had for the first time

good regime:

during

Thucydides'

life

kind

of

mixture

Simultaneous

with this

salutary

revolution

oligarchy Alkibiades was

democracy. The hope

come

formaUy recalled
to

(96-97)

and therewith

the hope for

Athens'

salvation restored.

came to nought, as other

hopes

spoken of

by

Thucydides had

fault. How it came to nought is told nought, but not through Xenophon in the Hellenika. There seems to be a connection, not by

Alkibiades'

16
made explicit

Interpretation

that

existed

by Thucydides, during

between the first

good

Athenian

regime

Thucydides'

lifetime

and

Alkibiades'

unquestioned

predominance.

REMBRANDT AND THE HUMAN CONDITION

Howard White

The quest of this paper is the quest for the human soul, as I believe Rembrandt understood the human soul to be. As I am not an art historian, I shaU have to show that one may find the human soul as a painter saw

it

the

by relating history of

art

history

to the

history
be

of pohtical philosophy.

Just

as

in

pohtical

phUosophy
art.

there are

regions, times,

and

influences,

yet each pohtical phUosopher must

one

in his
an

own

be in the

history

of

There

is, however,

right, so it may important difference.

PhUosophy
"logical"

one.

has known but one revolution in its tools: a methodological Of course, there is the invention of the printing press; but

has probably enabled men to pass as phUosophers who, as Rousseau fanatics." said, "in the days of the League would be known only as Art has known several, perhaps many revolutions: canvas, chiaroscuro, the
that use of shadow to make a rounded

figure,

and

so

on.

Seldom is there

Perhaps Cezanne has something in common with antiquity, but not technically. Perhaps Cezanne is closer to the classics than Rembrandt, which does not make him a better
reversion,
at

least

formal

one.

painter.

We So to

consider
speak

it legitimate to
not

speak of

"modern

phUosophy."

pohtical

is

to

deny

that
and

pohtical phUosophers

Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes,

Spinoza

were phUosophers

like Machiavelh, in their own

Yet they

right,
aU

who made original contributions so

to

political philosophy.

differed

strongly,
and

classical

thinkers,
need

markedly from Plato and Aristotle and other from medieval political thinkers, that it is today
so same

a commonplace to refer to modern and pre-modern political philosophy.

There

not

be the

break in the

history

of

pictorial

arts.

However,

the deft use of shadows to create a

rounded

figure is
art

called

by

one

art

historian "the
or

most

decisive

revolution place

which

history

knows."1

Strange
the

not, the fact that it took

of

in the

seventeenth

century,
modern

century

Descartes,

sometimes considered

the founder of

phUosophy,

and a man whose

portrait,

as we shall

see, Rembrandt

drew, is
It is

worthy of notice. I hope that the above wUl

not always
was

century
stiU

suffice as an introduction to my approach. easy for serious men to understand why the seventeenth time of high hopes. Today the view that the universe is
often causes
great

alien and

incomprehensible
and

despair. Granted that there hope from the

of prospect

are

those who equate and take

of

the

conquest,

therefore the

comprehension,

the

incomprehensible

1 p.

Heinrich Wolfflin, Principles of Art History, trans. M. D.

Hottinger, 7th

ed.,

21.

18
universe, there is
you
men

Interpretation
a more thoughtful view:
never go was

to the moon; find

a

what when

can;

you wiU

find God. There

time, however,

To Francis Bacon, fifth essence, the coelum fantasticum. it meant the end of Aristotle's From Machiavelli to Descartes, it was a time of soaring hope, the hope
took delight

in the

alien character of the universe.

that the coelum

making.

fantasticum
same

might

be

replaced

by

a universe

of man's

There is
seemed

the

soaring hope in Rembrandt.

Just

as

Aristotle he

to Bacon and Descartes to forge chains,

binding

man so that

could not

be free,
to

so the classic art patterns seemed to

impose restrictions,

restrictions which were

Rembrandt,

make room

graduaUy removed by Titian, by Caravaggio, by for color and hght. For hope one paid a price.

Bacon knew that, and the wise men he created are fuU of compassion. Rembrandt implicitly raises the question as to why, in response to the development of universality, in the face of the great metaphysical systems like that of Descartes, it was necessary to turn to the soul and the self. John Donne wrote:

And new PhUosophy caUs aU in doubt, The Element of Fire is quite put out; The Sun is lost, and th'earth, and no man's Can weU direct him where to look for it.2
Both Donne

wit

and Rembrandt seem to suggest that the truth about the (or self) is not essentiaUy related to the truth about the whole. In a Rembrandt painting, it would be difficult for us to see the difference, if he saw one, between the soul and the self. Stand in gaUery after gaUery, and watch hght and shadow play upon the youthful face, the aged face, soul as soul

the ageless face of the painter himself. Jakob

exhibit of aU the self-portraits.

Rosenberg

postulates

an

"We know

altogether,"

says

he, "about

sixty painted self-portraits by the master, in addition to more than twenty drawings."3 This gives us a total of ninety, perhaps etchings, and about ten a few more. There wiU have been some losses. Of course there probably were precedents. Durer made self-portraits, one in the likeness of Christ. Then there were furtive portraits in group paintings. Rembrandt may have done that too (see the Samson and Delilah in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Since it is doubtful, I assume that self-portraits in group portraits are not included in Rosenberg's computation. Among great men there is nothing like Rembrandt's concentration on the self except, perhaps, in the abundance of confessional literature in Rousseau, and
that comes much later. There are no
concern with the soul and the self.
real

precedents

for Rembrandt's

What
of

would

the visitor to
growth

Rosenberg's
and

hypothetical
compassion,

exhibit and

see?

Growth,

course,
a

in wisdom

often, though Rembrandt led

life

of much

deprivation

2
8

"An Anatomie

of

the

World,"

Donne

and

Blake (New
rev. ed.

Jakob Rosenberg, Rembrandt: Life

and

Work,

York), p. 171. (London, 1964),

p.

37

Rembrandt

and

the Human Condition

could not

19
that when
whether

in happiness. Perhaps Rembrandt painted his first self-portrait. And

continued with the style

have known

he

he because it was economical, because he found it successful, or because there was a genuine philosophical interest, whether perhaps, in either creating or seeking the self, he might find the soul. Something of the last may be suggested by Kenneth Clark's statement: "We know from Rembrandt's early etchings that one of his
we perhaps cannot

know

chief exercices was the

observation of

his face in

mirror, expressing
pictures."4

every violent emotion that he was likely to need in his This does not seem to suggest that Rembrandt's self
unique,
so much as that

narrative

was autonomous or which

it

was

the easiest object in

to find the

human. Of course,
existence of the soul

individuahty

in painting developed

long

before the

became phUosophicaUy problematic. I have not seen the early self-portraits, except for one drawing in the Louvre, which is quite The portrait of 1634 (Berlin-Dhalen) shows an elegant
engaging.6

engaging young man. The portrait of 1640 (London, National GaUery) is simUar but statelier. In 1650 (Washington, National Gallery), Rembrandt became a thinker, as seen in The Scholar in his Study. In the many later self-portraits Care grows. Insight also grows. The faces are fuU of wonder, and wonder, to Aristotle, is the beginning of wisdom. What the portraits
and

show, in hght, to

spite of

the suffering, is the ascent of the

soul and

the strange

which we shaU return.

that Rousseau had a similar absorption with the self. time Rembrandt painted his first self-portrait, around 1630, to the time Rousseau completed his last work, Reveries d'un promeneur solitaire (1776) about a century and a half intervened. These two men, different as they were, had two things in common, a concern for the

mentioned

From

the

deep compassion. It seems probable, however, that Rembrandt, Rousseau, was entirely free of amour-propre. His reasons for presenting a long series of self-portraits are probably not the same as Rousseau's reasons for writing a large body of confessional literature. Rousseau gives a reason at the begining of the Confessions. He wants to
self and a

unlike

show

"a

man

in

aU

the truth of
weU

nature."8

Such

a claim

deny

selectivity, and it is

known that there is

Confessions. The Rembrandt

could

reference

to Rousseau is not

not necessarily selectivity in the intended to suggest that some

does

possibly have had in mind himself as a natural man in Rousseau's sense. If Rembrandt painted two self-portraits a year, even these may be selective, as there may be gaps which his brush did not capture. Selective or not, however, his large and continuous output of
self-portraiture

does

suggest

that,

at

some

time,

his

concern

with

the

Sir Kenneth Clark, Rembrandt

and

the Italian Renaissance (New

York, 1964),

p.

4.
5 6

F. Lugt, Inventaire des dessins ecole Hollandaise (Paris), 1149. (Euvres completes "Un homme dans toute la verite de la
nature,"

(Paris, 1952),

vol.

1,

p.

5.

20
self

Interpretation

became permanently fixed as a concern, legitimate and responsible, to be to exhibit to the world. In other words, the expression of self had spiritual growth. of showing what is proper to mental and one means Rembrandt one can anticipate Jakob Burckhardt's criticism of

Already

for employing
whether

vulgar

themes.7

Burckhardt

writes:

"One

can

wonder

this

constant examination of

his

own

features

with the

help

of

a mirror was good gives

some of

for him. Maybe the strange blinking of the eyes which his portraits such a dreadful expression came from this
self-portraits

habit."8

Yet the

have

none of

the

confessional pleadings

of

Rousseau or, for that matter, of not the enough in portrait painting, in Durer, in Franz Hals. That is through the self, the point. The point is the search for the self, and, human, a search which has nothing to do with the gtult which bothers the Christian confessional and the natural confessional ahke. The search for the human in Rembrandt must take us occasionaUy to Descartes. Descartes hved the greater part of his mature life in HoUand,
and wrote

St. Augustine. Rembrandt has

precedent

in 1631, "You

must excuse

my

zeal

if I invite
only to

you

to choose

Amsterdam for
and

your retirement and prefer

it

not

aU

the Capuchin

also to the

Carthusian monasteries, to which many worthy people retire, but Italy."9 finest residences in France and Rembrandt, as I have
"Cartesius."

noted,

made

portrait

of

Its

present

whereabouts

are

unknown.10

What is compelling is that Descartes Rembrandt, and the leading phUosopher of his time and the painter of his time may have had something to say to one Descartes wrote, "Mais, tout de meme que les peintres ne
must
egalement

have

sat

for

leading
pouvant

another.11

dans un tableau plat toutes les diverses faces d'un corps sohde, en choisant des principaux qu'Us mettent seul vers le This statement is somewhat paradoxical. jour et ombrageant les "faces" It says that painters cannot present in a painting aU the different
bien
representer
autres."12

"surfaces"

or

of a solid

body,

and

it

seems to refer

to seventeenth-century

art,

perhaps

to Rembrandt in particular. The statement appears in a

"Rembrandt,"

in Kulturgeschichtliche Vortrdge (Leipzig,

made

n.d.).

Translations from

Burckhardt's essay have been

8
9

by

my

wife.

Ibid.,

p.

118.

Letter to A. Balzac, Amsterdam, May 5, 1631, (Euvres completes, pp. 941-42. 10 J. Bolten, ed., Dutch Drawings from the Collection of Dr. G. Hofstade de

Groot

Valerius Rover collection,

is

(Utrecht, 1967). A footnote refers to the handwritten "catalogue of the There library of the Municipal University, drawing in the Louvre, not in the Lugt inventory, which is a portrait, apparently
Amsterdam."

of a 11

philosophe,

with a globe at

There is

another relationship.

his feet. This may be Descartes. Descartes and Rembrandt had

wrote

a mutual

friend
and

in Constantijn Huygens. The letters Descartes

friendly. Huygens
mend was also

to Huygens were warm

genius and

the first to

recognize

Rembrandt's

to recom

him to

royal patrons.

Huygens,
pt.

the father

of

the physicist, was the one person

well. p.

who 12

certainly knew both Descartes

and

Rembrandt

"Discours de la

methode,"

5,

(Euvres complites,

154.

Rembrandt
paragraph

and the

Human Condition

21

in which Descartes refers to "un trait que quelques considera tions m'empechent de This is generally taken to be a reference to Le Monde, and the principal "consideration" is believed to be the
publier."

fate

Gahleo. Hence perhaps what a painter could not do Descartes do if he could. However, a friend suggests the possibihty that chiaroscuro is a form of concealment or ombrage, that the painter's
of

would

concealment

was

related

to

Descartes'

concealment.

Chiaroscuro is
was

a of

form
We

of

concealment,
the

and

Rembrandt,

like Descartes,
and

a master

concealment. should see

relation

between Descartes
not

Rembrandt in

quite

another way. with the self.

Rousseau
Descartes'

was

the first

philosopher

to be concerned
considered an

Discours de la
not a

methode

may be

autobiography,
comparison of

Much

earlier

seen his his own way with that of seventeenth-century painting. in the Discours he says he will "be glad to show, in this

though

confession.

We

have

already

discourse,
my life
a an and

what are

the ways that I have

[tableau]."13

followed,
a

and

here to

represent

as a

painting

If his life is

self-portrait,

or a series of

self-portraits.14

painting, it is obviously Insofar as the Discours is

of

autobiography, it deals with the development it is therefore a series of self-portraits. As

represents an a
ascent,15

Cartesian thought,

with

Rembrandt,
The

the

Discours
of

yet an

inteUectual

ascent.

question

subjectivity,

Descartes, may be

raised.

subjectivity perhaps common to Rembrandt and Is Cartesian morality purely subjective? Is it

idiosyncratic? Yet in the Discours II, Descartes tells who are the people who should not imitate him in the rash ("ni avoir assez de patience pour conduire par ordre toutes leurs pensees") and the By implica tion, we can teU who should imitate him. In part 6, Descartes adds that
modest.16

"perhaps the

public

has
a

morahty, then, has

His following. Publication begets imitation. At the

some

interest in
presents

knowing

these

things."17

beginning
houses,18

of part

3, Descartes
in
which

the one

he

must now

the famous analogy of the two hve, and the one that is being

constructed. a

Here is
morahty.

a morale par

provision, and, again

by imphcation,

morality is just for himself, the introduction of subjectivity into philosophy bears a close relation to Rembrandt's self-portraits. As mentioned above, that is probably not the case. However, there is something else that is new, and that is the definitive
If the
provisional

emphasis on solitude

for

philosophic reasons.

Descartes

refers

to himself

is 14

ibid.,

p.

127.
writes:
nature.

Gregor Sebba
substantial

"The
. .

self as res cogitans can

clearly

its

own

"Time

and

the Modern Self:

and distinctly know Descartes, Rousseau,

Beckett."

IB 16 17
is

(Euvres completes, pp.

126,

179.

Ibid.,

p. p.
p.

135. 167. 140.

Ibid., Ibid.,

22
as a man

Interpretation

"qui

marche seul et

dans les
permits

tenebres."19

His

praise of

HoUand

is the
a

praise of a

country that

desert.20

That

solitude

solitude, where he can live as in has something to do with the task of modern

phUosophy.

strangely with the acts of the citizen-phUosopher Phaedrus.21 It is not with the remarks Socrates is made to utter in the to show that Descartes our concern here to develop this point, but merely has an affinity with Rembrandt in subjectivity. We are stiU a long way

This

contrasts

from the A "Not

a

promeneur solitaire.

self-portrait

is

not

few

people who

necessarily a soul portrait. Leo Strauss writes: have come to despair of the possibUity of a decent

securahst

society,

without

having been
into the
a

induced

by

their despair to question

art."

secularism as

such,
and

escape self

self and

into
of

Note that, in this

can
understand

sentence,
that

art

have

peculiar

affinity.

One

affinity if

one

realizes

that
of

the
art

role
and

individuality
with

in

art

is

necessarUy
traditional

strong.

The
of

joining

self contrasts

the more
'self'

joining

imitation

and soul.

Strauss

continues:

"The
. . .

is obviously a descendant of the soul; that is, it is not the soul. soul is a part of an order which does not originate in the soul;
self

The
the
not

of

it is
as

not certain whether

it is

a part of

an

order which

does

originate
soul

in the
soul,
the
wrote

self."22

Yet
on

modern

philosophy
was

continued to

treat the

asserting that
a work
soul.

the person

not

purely
and

autonomous. even

Descartes
wrote of

the "passions de
do.23

l'ame,"

Locke

Some

phUosophers stiU

Whatever the

soul

is in

Rembrandt,
to his
own

and

there is no easy answer to

and

that, it is

somehow related

predecessors, hke Titian

Caravaggio,

and to what was

happening
soul.

to the

relation

of

man

to the cosmos, from Machiavelli to

Descartes. There is

stiU a soul

It is

weU

known

that modern

in Rembrandt, but it is not the Platonic phUosophy in general, and Descartes

of virtue
over

in particular,

replaced

the supremacy
passions.24

the passions with

the supremacy of the Rembrandt certainly had a hierarchy of the passions, wherever he got it. He either replaced virtue by passions
or

identified

virtue of

and passions.

Before
must

we can understand

the hierar
things
sense

chical

structure

the

soul,
and

we

first treat

of

other of

in
of or

Rembrandt,
touch,
I
supernal

of motion

rest,

of

the

instrumentality
of

the

of the

biblical picture, of the transformation light into the terrestrial or diurnal.

aware of

the

celestial

am

the rashness

of

suggesting that Rembrandt

show that the suggestion

raised

philosophical

questions.

I hope I

can

is less

is

20 21 22 23

Ibid., Ibid.,
Leo

p.

136. 146.

p.

Plato Phaedrus 230D-E. Kurt

Strauss, Liberalism Ancient and Modern (New York, 1968), p. 261. Riezler, Man Mutable and Immutable (Chicago, 1950), p. 111. 24 See esp. Richard in Leo Strauss and J. Cropsey, Kennington, History of Political Philosophy (Chicago, 1963), pp. 379-95.
"Descartes,"

eds.,

Rembrandt
rash than

and

the Human Condition

one might

23

it

appears

to be. I think that

including Rembrandt,
Goethe,
view or

just
or

Coleridge,

in the perspective of virgin soil but treading beaten paths. There is a distinction between is caUed in art-historical jargon the "painterly" (das malerische) and

study certain painters, have studied the phUosophy of Shakespeare. It stUl remains to establish this the whole. In one respect we are not plowing
as scholars what what

is

caUed

the

"linear."

According

to one art
sixteenth

historian,
century
chose

this distinction

was understood
what

in

antiquity.25

In the

some artists chose over

had previously been

writes of

rejected.

They

motion

rest,

indeed,

appearance over reahty.

Jakob Burckhardt
no matter what

Rembrandt, "He

subordinated

the subject,

two elementary powers: light and air. Rembrandt does not care about the true form of things. Their appearance
under the
everything."26

it was,

is

One may

question this
aU art

interpretation
an

of appearance and

reahty.

On the

one

hand,

may be

Ulusion. On the other, why

a

should rest

be

more real

than motion?
was

That
or

people

have beheved that there

higher reahty, in God,

whether
paint
"being,"

in being, is

clear.

Artists have tried to

more
visible world

paint

God. It is doubtful

anyone can paint

God, any

than one can

world of

in the
seems
and

Platonic

sense.

The

is the

becoming. What

likely

to be new is not so much the relation between appearance

what

reahty, in

Wolfflin

caUed

"the

history
shade,

knows."27

and

There are new in these things Titian

artists

decisive revolution which art techniques in the rendition of light and

most and

Caravaggio
the

were

Rembrandt's

teachers.

If baroque

thought that

they had found

Titian
and

"truth,"

they have
weU

something in common with be objectivity in taste, to

modern philosophy.

compare

Though there may Rembrandt, Plato

and

the province of us professors. To say that is not to deny that any reasonable man wiU prefer Shakespeare to his con temporaries. He would be a rash man indeed who compared Shakespeare

Aristotle, is beyond

and

Homer. Since Wolfflin

otherwise we must

must

have it, however, that "the

historian"

judges
artist,28

(apparently

without

investigation)
the

than

the

baroque

stay for

a moment with

relative merits of appearance

and reality. For appearance to be superior to reahty, reahty must be incomprehensible. That is certainly, though oversimplified, what Bacon believed. In discussing the portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels (Berlin-Dahlen),

Wolfflin writes, "We

on

see

that the

emphasis no

longer hes

on

being

but

becoming
If Wolfflin

and

change."29

means

this distinction in the Platonic sense, I have said

25

Wolfflin, Principles
"Rembrandt,"

of Art

History,

p.

20.

26
27 28 29

p.

112.
p.

Wolfflin, Principles of Art History, ibid.,

pp.
p.

21.

158-59.

Ibid.,

52.

24
above that a painting.

Interpretation

it is doubtful

whether

Platonic
not an

"being"

could

be imitated in

Poetics, did not mean to suggest that a great tragedy, with a catharsis of pity and fear, would be an imitation of being. Wolfflin should have asked first, "What was Rembrandt's view
I
am not sure

However, that Aristotle, in

this is certainly
the

universaUy

accepted principle.

reality?"

of

reaUy talking about is motion and rest, the Greeks So did Michelangelo. Rembrandt was certainly a master of change, if that is becoming. Recession gives an impression of move ment, but it is not recession alone. There is movement in the Descent If
what we are
sought motion.

from the Cross (National GaUery of Art, Washington, D.C.). There is the impression of movement in the Night Watch. There is the man rising
from his
that
modern chair

in the Syndics (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). It is

expression

possible
of

Rembrandt is giving

to

one

of

the

leading

tenets

thought,

the alien and

incomprehensible

character of

the universe.
got such

It is possible, but not hkely. Since I think it unlikely that he a notion from Bacon, could he have gotten it from Titian? Rest is
sometimes related
as moderation

to moderation and motion to daring. Valuable is traditionaUy held to be, there is a level at which it is a negative quahty. "However ambiguous that daring, that mania which transcends the limits of moderation on the political plane alone, it comes into its own, or is in accordance with nature on the plane of
thought,"

Daring in thought, however, need not mean daring Often it does not, as Strauss, in his studies of writing and "mania" in reading between the lines, has shown us. Daring, or frenzy, Platonic thought, is supplemented by extreme care in construction of a dialogue. Rembrandt was not careless, but he was extremely bold in execution. He did not innovate "slowly, hke as Bacon urged.
says

Leo

Strauss.30

in

expression.

time,"

His treatment
Whether
closer of

of motion was

bold

innovation.31

reality than rest, whether the tactile is to reahty than the visible, a higher reahty is still possible. The roles faith and skepticism in the High Renaissance are moot, and there is
motion

is

closer to

a great

deal to be
about

said about of

them. I suppose that there is no question,

and

however,

the piety

Giotto. Madonna
a

the Child

Enthroned,
as an

for example,

appears to

be

genuinely devout
The
of

picture.

I take it

expression of a

behef in

a spiritual reahty.

central position of mother

and chUd contributes

to the expression

piety, but

there

is

much more

to give the impression of profound rehgious conviction that many pictures, even of biblical subjects, do not.

Apollonius
animals

of

Tyana
of

asked a

representations
rather

the gods were

than gods.

Egyptians why Egyptian pictorial representing irrational When asked what Greek statues were like, group
of so

grotesque,

3"

The

City

and

Man (Chicago, 1964),

p.

299. But

see

Bacon's essay

on

boldness:

"Boldness is ill in counsell, good in 31 Cf. Rosenberg, Rembrandt, pp. 139, 146.

execution."

Rembrandt

and

the Human Condition

25

ApoUonius
should

rephed

in terms

of

be

encouraged

by

the statue

reverence, the reaction which, he said, of a god. When then asked whether

Phidias and Praxiteles and the others went up and saw the gods, so that they knew what the gods looked like, Apollonius replies that that was done by creative imagination. In other words, Apollonius, in defending
Greek
view sculptural representations of

the gods,

abandoned

the traditional

that art was

imitation for

doctrine

of critical

imagination.32

We

here concerned with the origin of this view or its relation to Aristotle's discussion of imagination in the De Anima.33 A view that imagination is nobler than imitation because it presents what the artist
are not

does

not

see,

view

similar

to that

which

Philostratus

attributes

to

ApoUonius, seems For Rembrandt,

evident

essential

to rehgious representation.

the question of the

though more can be said about the

subject.

higher reality remains doubtful, Is not the compassion so

in the face

and

hands
piety?

of

the father in the Return of the Prodigal

Son

clearly Christian The

He

painted religious pictures use

rehgious painting.

Certainly Rembrandt knew his Bible well. in Calvinist Holland, though Calvin opposed of imagination to give a visible shape to God
What
was
was

or, apparently, to Christ

presented

was unlawful. other

lawful

was what was

to the eye. In

words, imitation

lawful.34

not foUow in Calvin's steps, at least in this respect. interested in pointing out profanities and jokes in the treatment of biblical subjects, as Balet and one of the art historians he cites seem to be.35 I am seeking the human soul. The subject matter may tell us

Rembrandt did

am not

something
alone and

of what

the

artist sees

the

soul

to

be, but

the subject matter

of virtue

is

hardly

sufficient.

In the serenity

quattrocento's representation which

holiness,
subject

there is

strengthens

the impression of
passions

the

matter.

In
not

Rembrandt,
all passions

as

in Descartes,
equaUy
action,
on,

tend to

replace

virtues, but

are

pervasive.

Burckhardt
of

writes of virtue.

Rubens: "Rubens is
see,

as

rich in figures
and so

of evU as

in figures

We

generaUy

in

violent

Discord, Envy, Hate,

while

Deception, Rage, Ignorance, Slander

as a many-headed
with

Rebellion

appears

hydra. Yet

all

these figures blend the

court and

most

harmoniously
. . .

the ladies

and gentlemen of

the

aristocracy.

they

part, introduced with unerring Panofsky says something simUar about Titian: "Titian's world extended all the way from the idyUic to the tragic, from tenderness to brutality, from though the seductive to the repulsive, from the sublime to the almost

are, for the

most

propriety."36

never

quite

vulgar."37

Seldom is

contrast

between

great

masters

32 33
84

Flavius Philostratus Life of Apollonius of Tyana 6.19.

Bk. 3.3
Institutes 1. 11.12.

35 36 37

Leo Balet, Rembrandt and Spinoza (New York, 1962), pp. 173-78. Jakob Burckhardt, Recollections of Rubens (London, n.d.), p. 117. Irwin Panofsky, Problems in Titian (New York,

1969),

p.

91.

26
so striking.

Interpretation
teUer,"

"Along

with

Homer,

the

greatest

story

Burckhardt
visions.

says

of

Rubens.38

Rembrandt
the

was

not

storyteUer.

He had

His

greatest vision was

vision

of

the good life. He denied himself

is inclined to say, dehberately Titian's range. Figures of evU were not his wont. They do exist. There is David in David arid Uriah (Hermitage, Leningrad). The cruelty is unmistakable. Yet even David
one
and

Saul (The

Hague)

are

lonely

rather

than evU, and arouse compassion.

There are those who see prurience in Susannah, but you have to look tried his hand at the very hard to find it. That is perhaps not aU. He unsympathetic passions, but they did not stay long with him.
There
as
are

two

or

four

passions which

dominate Rembrandt's painting,

upon whether

far

as

can see.

I say two

or

four because it depends

curiosity
and wonder. go

you

identify
and

love

and compassion or

In

Rembrandt,

love

compassion

frequently

Prodigal Son, in the old men, of Homer (Mauritshaus, The Hague), in the

together, as in The Return of the whom he was so fond, in the blind

pictures of

Anna

and

Tobit

from the Apocrypha. The compassion which is expressed by the father in the Prodigal Son, compassion for the prodigal, is shared by Rembrandt and surely by nearly everyone who looks at the painting. Compassion imphes a certain inequality. Love, of course, does not.
The
was
other

hke

the
as

father

had "eyes but it is

object of

Rembrandt is wonder, or, perhaps, Solomen's House, in Bacon's New Atlantis, who There is compassion in the self-portraits, if he pitied
passion
curiosity.39

of

man."

mingled

self-portraits,

with happiness and thoughtfulness. Moreover, in the it is Rembrandt who shows compassion. He is not the compassion; if he were, he would be guUty of self-pity, which
absurd. so

would

be

The
noted men

problem

of

equality

and

inequality
and

presents
and

difficulties,

that perhaps we should unite

love

compassion

speak of care.

As

above, the Prodigal Son

on

shows the care of shaded.

the

father. The three

passions

the right are

somewhat

Whatever

they do

express,
older

they do
not

not

seem

to

share

the

compassion

of

the father. The

brother, if it be he, has

prodigal.

a red cloak and a

beard

hke his father, but apparently with the shaven head of the
with

the noble care. The beards contrast

The

upright

posture not

contrasts

the

humility
the

of

kneeling. The
resembles

prodigal's
of

face is

turned to the

spectator.

In this he

one

distraught, in

Parting

of David to the

arid

the figures, clearly the more Jonathan (also in the Hermitage,

and the

Leningrad). Love

goes out

penitent

father. It

goes

out

38 39

Burckhardt, Recollections
Wonder is
not a passion

of

Rubens,

p. at

157.

in Aristotle,

least

not

the wonder

of

the Meta

physics.

It is partly painful, because it

not

accompanies

ignorance.
but

Nevertheless,

it leads

to philosophy, obviously
contemplation.
passion

by

quick conversion

rather

It is, therefore, a habit. Wonder becomes, with discussed in the Traiti des passions de I'dme (Paris, 1952),

through study and Descartes, the first

pp.

723ff.

Rembrandt
in
one picture to the

and

the Human Condition

27

returning, in the other, to the

would you greet and

ran

away to the East ViUage, passion? The father could,

parting. If your son him with such sympathetic Rembrandt knew that this was no

ordinary father. Let us return to the Jewish Bride (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). We may here recaU that many, perhaps most, of the titles are not Rembrandt's. This fact is
until one

significant even

in the
name

case

of

some

pictures. caUed

Burckhardt

says

that "perhaps

the master's last picture,

the Jewish

Bride,

has

better
of

for

it,"

could

be

called a genre
of are

picture.40

The love in the

picture

is tender. The touch

The
with passions

the

groom's

hand is
subdued.

hght
The

and

devoid

sensuality.

intense but

spectator

experiences

wonder.

fact that happiness is

compassion as weU as

rningled

The mystery is enhanced by the shyness. Therefore one may feel

the head
of

love. Or

consider

Christ (Metropolitan

Museum

inexplicably, Jesus is suffused with care. What of the visitor to the museum? Does he feel compassion for Jesus' compassion for humanity? Perhaps both, Jesus, or does he share the former being the key to the latter.
of

Art, New York). Not

There

are numerous

two in the Hermitage.

shows
sorrow.

powering care. Older and sadder than the

cares,
and

portraits of old and elderly people. There are One is labeled Portrait of an Elderly Man and The other is caUed Old Man in Red and shows over The hands are heavily veined. The brow is wrinkled.

one

cares an

an old man

in

Elderly Man, he wears a skull cap. He for him. In London (National GaUery) there is armchair. He is also careworn and tired. His head

his hand. The hand caUs witness to care, as it does in the Prodigal Son and the Jewish Bride. The man in the armchair seems to "probably" be more weU-to-do than the figure in the portrait marked Rembrandt's brother in The Hague (Mauritshaus). There is a simUar
rests upon
careworn

face,

but the drabness

of

of

the cloak contrasts strangely with

old man

the bright red

the man in the armchair or the

in

red.

Also

in London,
and

there

is

an

Eighty-Three-Year-Old Woman. She is withered,

pictures

the picture is
are

compassionate.

There

other

instances: the

of

Anna

and

Tobit, like

Anna

Jeremiah

Gallery Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Again, Jeremiah's face is resting on one of his hands. In the Woman Taken in Adultery (National GaUery, London), the
and the
atmosphere

Blind Tobit in the National

(London). There is

is

one

of

pity.

The light is
vacated

on

the
of

penitent

woman

and

on

what

appears of

to be

the
place

throne

the high

priest.

The

judgment
where

Jesus takes

one

would

expect

to find

below the throne. One finds compassion it, in the Good Samaritan (Louvre,

Paris). The Apostle Paul

(National Gallery,

Washington)

sits,

again

40

"Rembrandt,"

p.

122.

28
with

Interpretation

his head supported by his hand, his pen idle in his right hand, his brow full of perplexity. He is singularly unlike the phUosopher on
the other side of the gallery.

Let

me

add

one

precaution.

Care is
old men
of

passion

common

enough

in

art, in tragedy, in many forms The way we feel towards these

we

of expression.

Rembrandt did
not

not

invent it.

is

feel towards Durer's

portrait

his

mother.

different from the way The point I want to

Rembrandt paintings,

stress

is twofold. First, there are, in the totality

many showing care, indicating The second point is that the
with such

of

a great

that care
things

was perhaps

his primary
notes

concern.

Burckhardt

that

Rubens handled
are excluded.

Is it true
the

that

propriety Rembrandt did

discord,

envy,

hate,

and

so on

not

know
not

enough

for

certain

subjects?

That he had the wrong kind

expression

of models?

anatomy But if a he
was

great

artist eschews

of evil,

is it

likely

that

saying, "This is not my way"? Something I think Burckhardt misses is the possibihty that Rembrandt did certain things deliberately, and for
phUosophical reasons.

If Rembrandt knew

Rubens'

of Leucippus or the Rape of Hippodameia, he did them. If rape is in the Italian classical tradition,
much

Rape of the Daughters not choose to imitate

a

Dutchman has
as a

as

right to
was

belong
not

to

the Italian

classical son

tradition
was

Fleming.
man,

But that but he

his

way.

The

prodigal

rash

young

was not a rapist.

The

woman

taken in adultery broke one of the

commandments. widespread

But

that no one cast the stone shows

that the sin was

enough.41

The kind
troubled

of people nature

for

whom

Rembrandt has
or

compassion are people

by

old age,

blindness

by

circumstance,

hke

poverty.

If Rembrandt
must

painted

for

all

time,

as

he

must

have known he

did,

he

have for

expected

his

of men se

centuries.
exempter

pourrait

human sympathy to touch the hearts He may have known that Descartes wrote "qu'on d'une infinite de maladies tant du corps que de
profound

l'esprit,
on

et meme

aussi

peut-etre

avait assez

de

connaissance
a

de leurs

de Paffaiblissement de la vieillesse, si causes et de tous les remedes

dont la did?

nature nous

pourvus."42

Did Rembrandt

see an end

to the suffering he

depicted,

as

Descartes

Something

took place between the High Renaissance and

Rembrandt,
clearly
what

something
that was.

of a philosophical

nature, but

we must see more

We

must next

address the question

of whether we and painted

are

dealing

with

wonder or curiosity. penumbral.

Rembrandt drew drew

of a
and painted

the mysterious, the

He

also

the

commonplace.

The Jewish

Bride is
should wonder

an

object

further

make

wonder, the Slaughtered Ox of curiosity. One distinction between two kinds of wonder, the
art and

that is the

end of

the

wonder

that

is the

beginning

of

John 8:3-12.
42

"Discours de la

m6thode,"

pt.

6,

p.

169.

Rembrandt
phUosophy; the
wonder of

and the

Human Condition
and

29
Aristotle's Hamlet when
the
phUosophical

Metaphysics;
he
refers

the wonder that

Aristotle's Poetics, Horatio sees

and

the

wonder of

at the end of wonder

to
the

Tempest,
If

"woe or incipient

wonder"

the

that

permeates

or phUosophical

wonder.

It is the

Rembrandt was concerned. the room from the Apostle Paul, we see the portrait labeled The Philosopher. He may not be a philosopher at all, but he seems to be wondering. The lips are slightly parted; the gaze is intent.
wonder with which we walk across

He wears a blue chain, but the colors are far from garish or prodigal. His identity is apparently obscure. If this portrait was painted in 1650, Spinoza was eighteen, and Descartes was dying in Stockholm. One may
wonder,
to

however,

at

obvious

perplexities

without

that

wonder

leading
of a

phUosophy.43

Burckhardt writes, "Sometimes he [Rembrandt]

past period to great
matter of

uses

costumes

advantage.

The
rich

etchings
and

throw

more

light

on

the
are

dress:

either

extremely

colorful,

or rags.

There

Turks,
in
their

strange old

men,

Jews,

cripples,

beggars, draughtsmen
philosophers."44

absorbed

work,

for the time

finaUy thinkers being to accept

the
not

phUosophers."

It will suffice Burckhardt's great authority for "perhaps To Rembrandt's philosophical concern we must return.
and perhaps

There is
the
painter not care

also

Anatomy Lesson
care

of Professor Tulp. It is said that

did

for the
either.

picture. at

Among

the

students,
at

some

do
ask

for the lesson

with

Yet

least three look

the

professor

and

the corpse

intense

curiosity.

for

more?

There is the Syndics

Would any contemporary professor (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Eyes

are aglow with interest and concern. There is Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer (Metropolitan, New York). We have seen touch used to show compassion or care. Here we see contemplation through the fingers. Julius S. Held writes of Aristotle's hands, "One rests on Homer's

head,
at

whUe

the

other

touches the chain.

The

philosopher

looks

neither

Homer

nor at

the chain. Yet we cannot

countenance and
objects."45

far-away
seems aU

glance are right

seeing that this melancholic in some way linked to both these

men,

help

Held

to be

that the countenance is melancholic.

Aristotle It is

wrote

that

truly outstanding
remark was

including

philosophers,

were melancholic.
cited

This

widely
could

by

Cicero.46

Rembrandt

in the Renaissance. have known it and applied

current

it to Aristotle himself. The notion of Aristotle as melancholy was widespread. One possible suggestion is that Aristotle was melancholy in contemplating the Poetics because he knew that he could not complete it,

43
44 45 46

Aristotle Metaphysics 982B.

"Rembrandt,"

p.

123.

Held, Rembrandfs Aristotle (Princeton, N.J., 1969), p. 39. Aristotle Problemata 30.1; Cicero Tusc. 1.33, 80: "Aristoteles quidem
ingeniosos
esse."

Julius S.

ait,

omnes

melancholices

30
that

Interpretation

he

could not

discuss comedy,

as

Plato had done in the Symposium.

It is

possible

but

highly

speculative. companion

Homer is

much

like the Homer in the

piece

in

the

Mauritshaus. He is apparently blind, but, in the hands show Homer's wonder; the bust,

the portrait
of as

but

wonder

is in

the right

hand

of

Aristotle,

in The Hague, course, has no hands, weU as in the eyes.

The mingling of care and contemplation is visible in A Franciscan Monk in the National Gallery (London). In one of several pictures of the Holy FamUy, this one in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, there is dozing. apparently no manger. The furnishings are Dutch. Joseph is suppose to be The baby is sleeping. Mary is reading a book, which I
the Old

Testament, lighted by
source.

the strange

to have no
on

One

cannot see again

the Virgin's

hght which, as face, but

Because
to
a

so

often, seems

the

hght

shines
almost

her book. Wonder is

the
or
picture

suggested. some

the

setting is
pictures

cavernous,

bears
which

relation

the

treating
We

phUosophers
shah

savants

show

light in

cavernous

setting.

turn to those later. Wonder

is

hardly

seen, but the setting implies

wonder. clear that any great work of art induces wonder, the wonder is self-sufficient, the wonder in the Poetics, the wonder in Horatio's "woe or It is perhaps rarer for incipient wonder, the wonder of the Metaphysics, to be one of the leading sympathetic passions in

It is

that

wonder."

an artist's corpus as

imaginative

presentation.

Yet it

so

dominates the Rembrandt

the

Uriah,

to eliminate any comparison the terror of Belshazzar's Feast

of

with

cruelty

of

David

and

loneliness
I
quoted

Saul (Saul

and

(London, National GaUery), the David, Mauritshuis), or anything else that

as

might suggest a

likeness to Rubens

Rubens

appears

in

the passage

from Burckhardt.
turn to sight and touch.

We

must

It is

obvious

that every

painter

makes use of sight and

touch in order to paint a painting. We are not

here attributing a Zeitgeist to the seventeenth century, as is sometimes "tactile." done in the aUeged diversion from the We are talking about

touch,
book

or

the

tactile,

as

Rembrandt

understood

it,

as

an

instrument

of

understanding.

are the Hebrew characters. The is a way of enhancing and understanding Belshazzar's terror. In Lucrezia (National Gallery, Washington) the right hand, holding the dagger, appears to be resolute, though the eyes are sad. Old men of

In Belshazzar's Feast, Daniel is reproduced and so

the

mysterious

hand from the

writing

on the wall

show tiredness, resting their faces on their hands, as in Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem or the Old Man in an Armchair, mentioned above.

The hght
the

and

tender
sense
of

touch

of

the

groom

in

the

Jewish Bride
which

gives

viewer

tenderness,

and

the

shyness

only in the face but also in the touch of the bride The father lays his hands upon the Prodigal Son. Compassion is in the touch as in the sight. If hands are instruments of compassion, hands are also instruments
shows not

arouses compassion.

Rembrandt
of wonder or curiosity.

and the

Human Condition
in the

31

If touch is
saw

conspicuous

Anatomy Lesson,

hands his
on

are

equaUy
of

conspicuous

hands,

as though

he

in Homer, where the blind poet extends with them. And Aristotle lays his right hand

the bust
more

hands To
sight

one sage contemplating another sage with his clearly than with his eyes. make this a little clearer, let me refer to the classical belief that was the noblest of the senses and to the essay of Hans Jonas on

Homer,

"The

Nobihty
move

of Sight,"47 where classical

the

author gives

some

of

the

reasons

for the

in

nobUity of probably only in the human hand, in the fact that in his hand, man
mental

also notes the

antiquity from sight to phUosophy. Yet Jonas touch: "An organ for real shape-feeling exists
and there

is
a

more

than

coincidence which

possesses

tactile organ
eye.

can
a

take over some of the distinctive achievements of his

side

There is
aU

to the highest performance of the tactile sense, or

rather

to the use that is made of its sentience,

and

information,
Blind
of

that transcends
within
'see'

mere

it is the

mental use which

.

brings touch
men can

the dimension

of the achievements of sight.

by

means of their

hands,

not

because they

are

devoid

their eyes, but because

'vision'

they

are

and only happen to be beings endowed with the general faculty of deprived of the primary organ of Such a statement helps us to understand Rembrandt's portrait of
sight."48

Homer. To Aristotle, however, touch

senses nor and

was

the most

pervasive

of

the

the most necessary. But to Aristotle

much.49

neither

the

pervasive

the necessary count for very the blind mole has touch. Necessity is touch a member of the opposite sex. We

Pervasiveness is
clear.

clear.

Even

also need

We touch food; we food and, whUe individuals

race

may

not

need

sexual

intercourse,

the

human

does.

But

the

unnecessary things, hke thought, are, to the classics, higher. I do not know that the first to repudiate this teaching was MachiaveUi, but I do know that MachiaveUi did repudiate it. "Men in general
says MachiaveUi, "judge more by the eyes than by the hands, because each judges by seeing, few by feeling. AU see what you As Leo Strauss says, "in order appear to be; few feel what you be deceived, one must be close to the deceptive things and not to
are."60

[universali],"

immune to false

imaginations."51

There is

also

flight from

reason.

included among the deceptive things, and cannot Obviously be touched. So too is the Platonic eidos. I cannot say how far Rembrandt followed MachiaveUi or whether he had even heard of this passage. He was not particularly pohtical in the narrower sense of the term, though he cared for the independence of
visions are

4T
48
49

In The Phenomenon of Life (New York, 1966),

pp.

135-56.

Ibid.,
De

pp.

141-42.

anima

422B-28ff.
ch.

so bi

The Prince,
Thoughts

18 (near the

end).

on

Machiavelli

(Glencoe, DI., 1958),

p.

203.

32
HoUand.62

Interpretation

He

was

passionately

Certainly

touch does not

as a source me quote

MachiaveUi

concerned with how men should live. have for him the universal validity it has for of understanding. I have mentioned the use of
on

hands. Let human

eye:

Burckhardt

Rembrandt's understanding
effect

of

the

"Rembrandt knew the

fire."53

of

eyes

as

few

others
or a

did. cap
one

He knew how to
with strange sight and of

make them shine under the shadow of a

hat

Whether Rembrandt foUowed MachiaveUi regarding

touch, in

some ways

he

was stUl a modern man.

Certainly
elevates eros

his

greatest pictures

is

the

Jewish Bride. Through touch it

restrained

the

admittedly tender and admittedly beyond what the classics would have done.

but
we

stUl

sexual

far
the

Before

we of

can

seek

another

universality,
a strange

must

understand

diurnahty
and

the

supernal

hght. It is

hght,

as everyone

its

source

is usuaUy

mysterious.

There

are a

few paintings,
structure

knows, drawings,

and etchings where

the light comes through the window, but here the

mystery is
or

retained

because

of

the

cavernous says aU

of

the room

some

other

factor.
be."

"Rembrandt,"

Burckhardt, "wiU probably

remain aU

the

greatest

painter

of

hght

of

time, because
see

that is reaUy

he

wanted

to

only
spirit

understand

Burckhardt adds, "We can through the artist how beautiful

the

hght, but

we

and

transfused

with

it

is."54

Of course, Rembrandt had forerunners. One of the hght effects of Titian are quite different from Radiances of divine hght may appear in diagonal
the
three

them was

Titian, but
Rembrandt.

those of

ceiling
points

pieces

at

the

form, for instance in Santa Maria deUa Salute in Venice.

Panofsky
series

out that "from an iconographical point of view the be called a trilogy of homicide: homicide condemned by God may (Cain), homicide prevented by God (Abraham), and homicide approved

by
but

God (David
the

and not

Goliath)."35

hght is

usuaUy, in

Rembrandt,

Titian certainly influenced Rembrandt, presented in such diagonals.

This is not a study of influences, but a word must be said about Caravaggio. There is nothing new in this; it is widely accepted in the literature. It is not so much the hght, however, as the substitution of the human for the transcendent. La Vocazione di San Matteo (The

Calling

of St.

Matthew) is
of

caUed

[key
"the

paintings]
choice
of

the

entire

by Guttoso history of
a

"one

of

the dipintichiave

art."66

Here, Guttoso
carries

adds,

the extracts of life

choice

not casual

itself

52

He did

paint

at

least two

significant

political

paintings,

The

Julius Civilis (in Stockholm), a tribute to liberty, derived from Concord of the State (in Rotterdam).
53 64
"Rembrandt,"

Conspiracy of Tacitus, and The

p.

118.

Ibid.,

p.

113.
pp.

65
56

Problems in Titian,

33-34.
p.

Renato Guttoso, Caravaggio (Milan, 1971),

7.

Rembrandt
out through

and the

Human Condition
of

33
light."

the constructive and significant office

usual use of

the

I doubt

light in Rembrandt. The object of the strange light is varied. In the Woman Taken in Adultery, the hght shines on the woman clad in white and on an empty throne (perhaps the high priest's), for which I can find no biblical authorization. The hght is not on Jesus. In the Prodigal Son, the hght
that this shines
on and

is the

the tattered clothing of the

returned

prodigal

and

on

the

hands hght

face

of the compassionate and

streams

beneath
maid of

father. In Jeremiah Lamenting the behind the prophet. In St. Peter's Denial
the light is
on

(Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam),
bodice
of of

St. Peter's
one
chUd

robe and on the

of

the

the

high

priest.67

In

picture

the

Holy

Family (Louvre),
the

the hght is
another

on the

Christ
the

but

also

on one part

floor. In
the

picture

of

Holy Family (Rijksmuseum,

Amsterdam),
turban,

the sleeping Christ child but also on Joseph's on large sections of the wall behind Joseph, and on the book

hght is

on

Mary is reading. The help us to understand

to
emphasize.

light blends

with

the shadow,

and

the light may

artist chose

each particular picture and what

the

Not

aU

shading is umbral;
character

much

of

mysterious profound

of

an

object.

Or,

it is penumbral, enhancing the as Burckhardt says, "the most

What is important here is that
same

darkness is

not quite

black."68

secular objects are sometimes penumbral and mysterious and sometimes

lighted,
in
one

suggesting
picture,
show
an

enlightenment.

Often the

objects

are

lighted

shaded

hands best from

Old Man in
the robe.

Often, in portraits, the face and the hght. Not, however, in Homer (The Hague) or in Armchair (London), where the hght seems to come
in
another.

The play of light and shadow is lifelike enough. Rembrandt may have had no other design than to make use of the light to iUuminate the simply human. Rembrandt never heard of the Enlightenment, and
when

Descartes

he died (1669) the siecle des lumieres had and even Bacon may be considered
one

not yet

arrived.

Yet
the

as

belonging

to

Enlightenment, if
hght
with

does

not

insist

on

the French identification of

century.

light, fruit,
as

the

experiments with

Bacon talked continuously about light: the light in contradistinction to experiments

dry
with

the merchants of

light,

and

the lamps of the New Atlantis.

Bacon,

d'Alembert said, "born in the depths of the most profound night, Rembrandt need not have read believed that philosophy was not
yet."59

Bacon. He
of

need not

have

read

Descartes,

though

he

made

portrait

Meditations Scientific reasoning is known in The metaphorical use of light is much older. as the "hght of does not refer to human progress. But "let your light so shine before the phUosopher uses light figuratively, but the painter may Obviously
that
philosopher.
nature."

Descartes'

men"

67
68 69

Mark 4:66.
"Rembrandt,"

p.

113.

"Discours

preliminaire

de

l'Encyclopedie."

34
use

Interpretation

it both

figuratively

and

hteraUy. There is

a problem.

Did

what was with

happening
what was

difference between the High Renaissance coincidence and Rembrandt can be traced to his agreement or at least difficult to say exactly in with Bacon and Descartes, but it is extremely philosopher. what way that is so. It is true that Rembrandt was not a

It

seems

happening to me likely

in painting from Titian to Rembrandt have a in phUosophy from MachiaveUi to Descartes?

relation

that the

He
and

was

not compeUed philosophe

or

to be
a

consistent.

Yet

Panofsky

can

speak

of

savant, naming He should, it seems to me, have named us see first what Rembrandt did not accept. Much of the High Renaissance was skeptical. It can be seen in Raphael's paintings, in Leonardo's writings. But the classical-pagan element in the Christian tradition, the
peintre
Durer.60

peintre

several

like Leonardo Rembrandt. Let

at aU. Order cosmos, Raphael certainly does not seem to have rejected liness is conspicuously present in the High Renaissance. Orderliness is united with skepticism. It is probably different with Rembrandt.

does not demand the kind of belief in a weU-ordered universe that Raphael's does. Yet there is something in thought that Rembrandt did contribute. Long before Rembrandt, Hugh Latimer had said, it was chiefly through
His
work

yeomen's sons that the and

Gospel

was

kept
art.

alive.

The

appeal

to the

lowly
Neri. Bible

the humble found its way into

said that

That is

perhaps

the link with

Caravaggio. It is
With Caravaggio
and of

Caravaggio
than
ends

was

influenced

by

St.

Philip
of the

as with rather

Rembrandt it is the human

the

side

hagiology

transcendent which is predominant

except

Perhaps the

resemblance a

here,

for the

use

of

hght, for in

Caravaggio there is

is httle

of

strong element of violence, even brutality. There this in Rembrandt. The compassion which the prodigal son,
the woman taken

the Good

Samaritan,

in adultery

command

is Christian

compassion, and, even if Rembrandt was a modern man, the stream of Baconian-Cartesian thought had somehow
was also a man

a man whom

impressed, he
life
and reject

thoroughly
Can

conversant with the

Bible

and a man who took

of

the Bible

seriously.

one accept

the Christian way

the Christian order?

a

Certainly
accepts

there

is

kind

of wisdom

in Rembrandt,
with

wisdom

which

Christian

compassion,

coupled

the

possibihty that the need for that compassion may some day be obviated. What was said at the beginning of the discussion of the hght is that

Rembrandt deal
and of

made the of

supernal

hght diurnal. Burckhardt

as

makes

a great

fun
an

besides

wanted to be something instrument for iUumination.61 Perhaps this is so. But it helps to indicate that hght, both literaUy and metaphoricaUy, is of supreme importance to Rembrandt. The hght appears to be heavenly or divine

for

having

Rembrandt for choosing models a hard time getting models, as they

experiments

in hght

so 61

Problems in

Titian,

p.

88.

"Rembrandt,"

passim.

Rembrandt hght. It has the

mysterious

and

the

Human Condition

35

quality of heavenly light. Its source is not its objects are not only varied but apparently indis usuaUy shown, criminate. It can shine from the body of a slaughtered ox. It seems to have divine origins, but it can be brought into the everyday. Essentially, its universality is a universality of this world. When I first embarked upon the journey that took me outside my own field of political philosophy to the relations between the history
and of pohtical phUosophy and of art, I believed that I could establish Rembrandt's affinity with Descartes. I realize that that was an over simplification. Richard Kennington writes, "In some part of the soul arises spontaneously the desire to esteem oneself highly."62 Yet why should one esteem oneself highly? Kennington quotes Cartesian passages about the "mastery and and the "enjoyment of ownership of the fruits of earth in this life without The highest passion or virtue in Descartes, generosite, is a form of self-love, but it is directed towards what Bacon caUs the "relief of man's Despite the great differences, did Rembrandt here have something in
nature"

pain."63

estate."

with Descartes? Let us look again at the play of light and The spirituahty of hght the Dutch painter found in Titian. So, I suppose, did Vermeer. The relation of light to realism he found in Caravaggio. And this would be true if Rembrandt had never had Descartes sit for him. However, the works of Rembrandt show strong

common
shadow.

affinity with hght, in the metaphorical as weU as the hteral sense. The mingling of hght and shadow in the Jeremiah noted above is different from the sharp contrasts in the cavernous pictures. The Holy Family in Amsterdam is a cavernous picture. The light comes through the window, reminding
paint us

of

the

pictures

of

phUosophers.64

Why did

Rembrandt

backgrounds, light coming through the windows, and figures apparently enchanced by the light chiefly as representatives of
Dark backgrounds
and are not uncommon.

those dark

phUosophy?

blackness,
this
which

sunhght,

cavernous

appearance

which

It is the mingling of is special. It is

belongs to phUosophers, particularly old philosophers. Age But one does not pity the old philosopher contemplating the truth. As I mentioned, pictures sometimes go by may be
an object of compassion.

different titles. The He

gives

cavernous picture of

the

savant or philosophe calls

in the

Louvre is labeled Le Philosophe.

the
same

Rosenberg
search

it Scholar in His Study.

title to

simUar

numerous other

iUustrations

of

the

London.66 There are painting in for truth and its relation to

hght. One is an etching, sometimes caUed Faust. This picture is not cavernous, but it has a dark background, a scholar rising to look at a

"The Teaching 26 (1972): 117.

63 64 65

62

of

Nature in

Descartes'

Soul

Doctrine,"

Review of Metaphysics

Ibid., p. 87. Lugt, Inventaire, 1 128. Rembrandt, pp. 266-67.

36

Interpretation
and

disc,

the source of

hght streaming through the window. That in these pictures hght is less mysterious than in others, seems to indicate a
radical view which

lumiere

naturelle.

In putting forth the The

characteristics

gather such evidence as

of

I am about to express, I must I can, including one picture that I have not seen. the London and Paris paintings are massive light shining from the
window on the savant or presence of articles
spiral staircase.
Room.66

darkness

relieved

by

the

phUosopher,

cavernous
with

appearance, and the

identifiable There is
a

in the dark
picture

some

difficulty, hke

the

in Stockholm

caUed

A Scholar in

Lofty

According
in
other

to a print, this picture is not cavernous, but it

shares the other characteris

variations

tics of the Paris and London paintings. There are some

pictures.

There is

also an

etching

which

I have

seen

in the Rembrandtshuis
a

in

Amsterdam,
contrast

which purports to show

St. Jerome in
a

Dark

Chamber.67

Here too there

this
sunlight

are

sunlight,

spiral

staircase, darkness.
with

GeneraUy
or a

speaking,
corner of

of quasi-total

darkness

foreground

is

reserved

for

pictures of phUosophers or scholars.

It is

proper

to

suppose

that

there

is
of

relation

between
hght.68

contemplation

and

this

pecuhar

confrontation

darkness

and

in Plato's Republic, the philosopher light and then is forced back into the cave goes from the cave to the to rule. He does not and he cannot take the hght with him. The cave In the famous
myth of the cave

is

the world,
most

or,

at

least,
see

the

pohtical world.

It

cannot

for

only shadows, In the Enlightenment, however, light is brought back into the cave of the dispeUed.
one of

men

wiU

and

the darkness
as

be enlightened, wiU never be

world.69

Allan Bloom says, the This distinction is

this

the

most

important distinctions between

Whether Rembrandt knew

pre-modern and modern

pohtical

thought.

of

distinction, I do

not

know. Yet

out of of

The darkness
progress

his work, I beheve, could be created a new myth. man's world remains, but one may suppose that, as
sunhght would

continues, the

iUuminate be

not

only

the

phUosopher

but
seen

also

the fruits of his work, and that the sorrow and care,
would
some

so

by Rembrandt,
a certain
an

day

dispelled,

like

the

clearly darkness

of

the cavernous chamber.

There is
to
estabhsh

relation with

Descartes,

though it would be hard

To Descartes, the leading passion, and also the highest virtue, is generosite. As Kennington points out, generosite is a kind of Descartes himself points out the simUarity of generosity to the Aristotelean virtue of magnanimity, adding that it
affinity.
self-esteem.70

(generosite) is "comme la
66
67 68
69

clef

de toutes les

autres vertus et une remede

A. Bredius, The Paintings of Rembrandt (New York, 1942), Hind, op. cit., 201. See also 202.
See
also

no.

430.

Bredius, Rembrandt,
p.

nos.

423-24.
p.

Allan Bloom, trans., Republic (New York, 1968),

"Descartes,"

103.

70

117.

Rembrandt
generate contre

and the

Human Condition
passions."71

37
generous man
savant

tous les dereglements des

things.72

The

is

capable of great

Is Rembrandt,
man of

or

Rembrandt's To

in the
one

cavernous
would

Descartes'

study,
myth of

generosite!
which

answer

that,
We

have to know
Plato's know. AU

whether

the myth

Rembrandt

created

to

replace

the cave presents a kind of

self-esteem.

can

hardly
now

we can

say is that Rembrandt

that
with

accepted

something from
goal

the tradition of Bacon and Descartes which is

caU

associated with what we with

Enlightenment

him

as

them, the

of

contemplation

became

practical.

fi 72

"Traite des

passions

de

l'ame,"

art.

161, (Euvres

completes, pp. 773-74.

Ibid.,

art.

156,

p.

770.

NIETZSCHE AS COSMOLOGIST: THE IDEA OF THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE AS A COSMOLOGICAL DOCTRINE AND SOME ASPECTS OF ITS RELATION TO THE DOCTRINE OF THE WILL TO POWER

Jerry H. Combee In
the

last

speech of part

of stUl

Thus Spoke something

Zarathustra,1

Zarathustra
them.

teUs his friends that there is

more

he

could teU

been revealed; perhaps Evidently Zarathustra's final teaching has itself. In Ecce Homo, Nietzsche reports it is that teaching is incomplete by III" and he also he was that when he "found Zarathustra is "the fundamental conception of this work says that
not
"finished,"
(Zarathustra)"

"the idea

of the eternal

recurrence."2

The first
to be

speech of part

of

Thus

Spoke Zarathustra
of

contains what appears

dramatic
Homo;3

re-creation on of

a much grander scale of

the
as

occasion of

Nietzsche's

finding
in
on

the idea
second
eternal

the

eternal

recurrence

described in Ecce
reveals

the
the

speech

of part

3, Zarathustra first
not

his teaching
on

recurrence,

though

to

his in

friends.4

Relying

this

passage

in

Zarathustra
of aU

and certain

others

other

works,5

the essence of the

idea

the

eternal recurrence

things

that

can

occur

may be distilled into the following proposition: have occurred and wiU recur in the same
times.6

succession an

infinite

number of

Portable Nietzsche (New

p.
as

Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Walter Kaufmann, The York, 1954); hereafter cited as Zarathustra. 2 Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York, 1966), 295 ("Thus Spoke Zarathustra, A Book for All and 1); hereafter cited
Friedrich
None,"

Ecce Homo. It has been

see, e.g., Karl

argued

that this doctrine was really

not

new

with

Nietzsche;
Revival
of

Lowith, Meaning

in

History (Chicago, 1949), "Nietzsche's

Such
arguments are well considered

the Doctrine of Eternal

Recurrence."

and refuted

in Joan

Stambaugh,

Nietzsche's Thought of Eternal Return

(Baltimore,
a powerful

1972),
3

passim.

Nietzsche found the idea

He

while on a walk when

he

stopped

before

pyramidal rock.

reveals

it to

group

of

sailors,

whom

he

calls of

bold

searchers and researchers;

some

sailors

were

earlier
which

depicted he tells

as
a

shooters

rabbits.

What he

reveals

is

vision and

dwarf, who is the spirit of gravity, about the eternal recurrence. See Zarathustra, pp. 241-42, 267-70 (pt. 2, aph. 18; pt. 3, aph. 2). 5 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York, 1967), p. 549; hereafter cited as Will to Power. Also see Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche, aph. 2.
6

riddle in

As Arthur C. Danto has emphasized, the doctrine is

recur, but
rather

not

things

that the
p.

exact

same

things

recur.

that very similar See his Nietzsche as

Philosopher (New

York, 1965),

204.

Nietzsche

as

Cosmologist

39

I Nietzsche had
entitled
with

an intention, which he never fulfilled, to write a book The Eternal Recurrence. In a note of this title, made in connection his plan to write a book entitled The Will to Power, Nietzsche

presents

the

foUowing

outline:

The Eternal Recurrence. A 1.

Prophecy

Presentation
Proof
of

of the

doctrine

and

its

theoretical presuppositions and consequences.

2.
3.

the doctrine.
consequences of
of

Probable
a) Means

its being believed (it

makes

everything break

open).

enduring

of of

it;
it.

b) Means
4.

of

disposing

Its

place

in history
of an

as a mid-point.

Period

of greatest

danger.
oligarchy
politics.
above

Foundation

peoples

and

their interests:

education

to a

universally human

Counterpart

of Jesuitism.7

This
as

not unenigmatic outline

does

make one

thing

clear:

The idea

of the

eternal recurrence
weU.8

is

not

just

a moral

doctrine,

but

a cosmological one

As

a moral
or

project,

doctrine, hope, for

I

the the

eternal recurrence

Superman.

recurrence

"moral,"

mean

fust

of aU

recurrence as

something to be to have happened and to happen again an infinite

wUled:9

is bound up with Nietzsche's By calling the idea of eternal that Nietzsche presents the eternal wUl for aU things that can happen
number of

of

times.
of not

Phrased

imperatively,

the

doctrine is. One

amounts
who wiUs

to a test
eternal

the

degree has

one's affirmation of what

recurrence

immanent being via otherworldly visions. By caUing "moral," I mean, second of all, that idea of eternal recurrence Nietzsche presents the eternal recurrence as something to be believed. As a behef, it bestows cosmic significance upon the particular of the present. In order to act in a manner consistent with belief in eternal
sought to escape the

recurrence, it

would

be imperative to

so

"act (or

so

be)

that you would

Will to

Power,

pp.

544-55.
not

This distinction,
of

although

in these

exact

terms, is
as

common

in secondary

Philosopher, p. 203, also pp. 203-9 with pp. 209-13; Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, contrasting Psychologist, Antichrist (Princeton, N.J., 1950), contrasting pp. 279-87 to pp. 287-88; and Lowith, Meaning in History, p. 222.
treatments
the doctrine.

See,

e.g.,

Danto,

Nietzsche

The

adjective

"moral"

that

"willing
aph.

such"

as

should

is hence justified if only because Nietzsche himself says See Friedrich be included "within the sphere of
morals."

Nietzsche,
(pt. 1,

Beyond Good

and

Evil,

trans. Walter Kaufmann (New

York, 1966),

p.

27

19); hereafter

cited as

Beyond Good

and

Evil.

40
be willing to act exactly the an infinite number of times
This differs from wiUing
the idea

Interpretation
same

way (or be exactly

the

same

thing)
with

over."10

eternal

recurrence, for it involves acting

recognition of eternal recurrence as a

fact beyond

one's

wiU.11

As behef,
the world

of eternal recurrence gives the

he to any

notion of

having

any kind; consequently, the for whatever meaning the universe is to have must be responsibility borne by man, whose every act has occurred and wiU occur again an
a

purpose, meaning,

or

final

state of

infinite

number of times.

As behef, then, the

moral

aspect of the

idea

verges on the notion of the eternal recurrence as a cosmological

doctrine.

By caUing the idea of the eternal recurrence a cosmological doctrine, I mean, first of aU, that the idea is a theoretical idea; it is one which has theoretical presuppositions and consequences, an idea for which one
can at

least try to

give

proofs12

an

idea,

therefore,

which

in

some sense
reahty.13

can

be

spoken of as

This
more

much

is

clear

aUegedly true description of objective "cosmology" from the outline. But by something
an meant: an account of ah things

has traditionally been

as

one,

an

Danto, Nietzsche
passage

as

objects

to this understanding of the

Philosopher, p. 212. Kaufmann (Nietzsche, pp. 283-84) doctrine, but Danto appears to reflect accurately
a

the

he

quotes

from

Nietzschean fragment. Kaufmann

character of a comparison of

seems

correct,

however, in
to Kant's
n

urging the misleading

Nietzsche's doctrine

categorical

Lowith

imperative, whatever the superficial formal resemblance may be. (Meaning in History, p. 222) argues that wherever Nietzsche "tries to
rationally, it

develop his doctrine

and

breaks

asunder

in two irreconcilable it

pieces:

in

presentation of eternal recurrence as an objective

fact,

to be demonstrated
as a subjective

by

physics

mathematics, and in

a quite

different

presentation of

hypothesis,
if

to be demonstrated
the above

by its
a

consequences."

ethical

If there is

a contradiction and

analysis of also

the ideal

of eternal recurrence as a moral

then there is willing of

contradiction within

the doctrine

as

doctrine is correct, moral, i.e., between the

eternal recurrence and a contradiction.

the

belief in it. It is
the

not

clear,

however,
could

that there

necessarily is
"wishing."

Willing
it

eternal recurrence need not entail

"willing"

the necessity
mean

for it happening,
12

nor

need

entail

opposite;

simply

Danto

argues

(Nietzsche

as

Philosopher,
be through
Eternal

pp.

204-5)

that if the doctrine "is to

of premises

receive evidential which proof

support, it

must of

some

evidential support

then

entail

the doctrine

Recurrence."

It is true that Nietzsche's

some

for the doctrine is deductive.

However,
of

only

of

the

premises

are

established of

inductively. Others

are established a point

priori,

i.e.,

through avoiding the law

p.

noncontradiction; see, e.g.,

13

(3)

the summary on

45 below.
"scientific"

The

adjective

"theoretical"

as used

here is
as

synonymous with

in the

analyses of

the doctrine in
pp.

Danto, Nietzsche
is

Philosopher,
preferable

p.

203,

and

Kaufmann,
to

Nietzsche,
miss

287-88.

"Theoretical"

perhaps

if it

enables one not

that Nietzsche
would

was not

simply appealing to the

to
of
view

established science of physics

in
an

his day. It immanent

be
of

much more accurate

his

effort

in this

regard

as

critique

the existing

science

physics; involved in his

and

doctrine, for

example, was
conception.

a rejection of

the Second Law of Thermodynamics

the mechanistic

Nietzsche
account of the

as

Cosmologist As

41
the

intrinsic

order which makes the world a whole.

wiU

cosmological aspect of

the doctrine is explored, it

of

become

clear

that

this

description, too,

fits the idea

the eternal

recurrence.14

n
In the first
again16

speech

of

part

of

Thus Spoke
of

Zarathustra,
and

an

hour

speaks

to

Zarathustra,

asserting that Zarathustra is now going

Beyond Good Evil deals
consisted

his way to in their

"greatness."

Aphorism 212 The

with the concept of greatness.

greatness of philosophers

has

horizons for man; in this task, they have taken their bearings by the concept of greatness on the horizon of their times, defining the new in opposition to the old. Nietzsche gives a brief statement of the new idea of greatness as a philosopher of the future would define it; it is a statement which takes its bearings in part by opposing the herd
creation of new

morahty
the He

of modern

egalitarianism,
on

and

it is

almost a recapitulation of

speech of
shall

the hour

greatness:16

be

greatest who can

good and

human beyond

evil, the

be loneliest, the most concealed, the most deviant, the master of his virtues, he that is overrich in will.

Precisely

this

shall

be

called greatness:

being

capable of

being

as manifold as

whole,

as ample as full.17

This emphasis on manifoldness, wholeness, ampleness, and fullness is in opposition to the specialization or compartmentalization which Nietzsche believed
manifestation of characterizes modern
times.18

One

can see an obvious

a sign of

this trend in the modern theoretical sciences;

of
cosmological speculation.

it has been the decline

This decline is

directly
the new

related

to the rise

of

the

most

science which came

modern physics.

into

being

spectacularly successful part of in the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries
aspects:

The

relation might

be

seen as

having
the

three

according to

one view of modern of

modern

physics:19

1.

The

founders

physics

insisted
It

that

certainty

attained

in

mathematics

be

sought

in

physics.

was

to be sought

by

making
14

physics mathematical.

The

goal of

certainty

and

the consequent

In part, this becomes

recurrence and

clear

by

seeing the

relation

between the idea

of

the

eternal

the idea

of

the will to

power

as

an alternative ontological
as

conception of explicates

the

mechanistic-materialistic.

Danto (Nietzsche

Philosopher,
that he

ch.

8)

the

will of

to power doctrine as ontology; it is the

eternal recurrence

strange

neglects

to

relate the 15

idea

to it.
speech of pt.

An hour To
see

also speaks

to Zarathustra in the last

2.

16

the

aphorism as a recapitulation of read more of

and

the speech of the

hour

on

greatness,

it is necessary to
17 18
19
also

the

aphorism

than is quoted here.

Beyond Good

Evil,

p.

139 (aph. 212).

Ibid.,

p.

137 (aph. 212).

See Leo
Richard

Strauss,
pp.

Natural Right

and

Kennington, "Rene
379-96.

Descartes,"

History (Chicago, 1953), pp. 169-77. See in History of Political Philosophy

(Chicago, 1963),

42
making
previous
of physics seemed

Interpretation
to require,
of
at

least,

the

abandonment

of

teleological

conceptions

the

world.

It

was

felt

that

such

conceptions

to attain

in large part accounted for the faUure of traditional phUosophy certain knowledge and to combine knowledge patterned after
a teleological
conception.20

mathematics with

In

place

of

teleological
of

conception,
universe

mechanistic atoms

conception

was

substituted

view

the

as

material

in

aimless

motion

transferred

by

collision capable

with

one

another

and

describable in terms Now this hence

of

inexorable laws

of mathematical
a cosmological

statement.21

mechanistic conception

is indeed
as

conception, but it tended to become unquestioned,

and

the

demand for certainty

a mathematical approach

achieved

the

status of a methodological axiom.

2.

construct:

Mathematics, it was thought, owed its certainty to being a human i.e., we can know what we make. But this meant that
physics was

mathematical

fundamentally
that

human

construct

and

owed

its certainty precisely to

traditional sense,
and of a

fact.

Consequently, knowledge, in
between the
subject
goal of

the

correspondence

(or mind)
conception

the object (or reahty) could no longer be the

also
aU

physics; this

conclusion eliminated

foUowed from from the

the

fact that the

and

mechanistic

mind

world

hence

made

any
was

notion

of

correspondence or even

interaction between

mind and

reality incompre
mastery
of
experiments

hensible. The
nature.

goal

substituted

for knowledge

of nature

The

achievement of this

goal, in turn, demanded

in

which the

theoretical constructs could be

tested; in

experimental situations

the senses could be used to determine whether one could indeed control
nature

to achieve the results that had been hypothesized

the

by taking

one's

bearings from
"sensed"

theoretical

constructs.
even

Since
some

the

whole

cannot

be

in

this

way, cosmology,
a not

in

redefinition as

mastery

of the or at

whole, ceases to be a meaningful

goal

of the scientific

endeavor,

least becomes

entirely
must

respectable one methodologicaUy.

3.

A true cosmology
which

be

capable

of

comprehending human
of certain attempts

beings,
made

after all are part of

the whole in some sense. Could the to

man?

mechanistic conception

be

extended

In hght

in that direction, it seems safe to say that the answer is no, unless it be bought at the price of a monstrous distortion of the phenomena. But this
meant that science could not explain

its

own

doings

not even

its

passion

If
then

this

for mastery, much less any depiction of modern science

sort of as

"knowledge."

anti-cosmological

is accurate,
in
some

it

should not seem strange

to try to

view

Nietzsche

as

way

20 2i

See Strauss, Natural Right and History, pp. 171-72. In ancient times, of course, very similar conceptions had been developed
Democritean-Epicurean
schools.

by

the

What

made

the

modern

conception

unique

and productive of

vastly different
as

consequences was

the combination of a mechanistic

conception

with

mathematics pp.

the pattern for knowledge.

See

Strauss,

Natural

Right

and

History,

169-72.

Nietzsche
the bad cosmological conscience
surprise us

as

Cosmologist
modern
science,22

43
nor
should

of

it

to hear the hour

of

the first speech of part 3 of Thus Spoke

Zarathustra say to Zarathustra:

One
must

learn to look away from

of

oneself

in

order

to

see

much:

this hardness

is

necessary to every

climber of mountains. who

But the lover

of all

knowledge

is

obtrusive with

his

eyes

how

could

he

see more

things than their foregrounds? But you, O

Zarathustra,

wanted

to

see

the

ground and

background

of all

things; hence,
you.23

you must climb over yourself

upward,

up

until even your stars are under

Zarathustra soon reveals that such hard maxims as the above are his own, i.e., Nietzsche's. It is perhaps surprising to hear a say such things; but Nietzsche was a peculiar kind of psychologist and would have himself been guUty of his charge against modernity of if he had not been more than a psychologist. Nietzsche as psychologist explains aU psychic phenomena in terms of the
psychologist24 specialization25

wUl

to power; he reduces aU psychic phenomena to the self, the

and the

self

to the

body,
when

body
avoid

to the

wUl

to

power.

It is that last
materialism

reduction which
succumbs

enables

him to

the crudities to which

usually

trying

to account for the human

things; i.e., his

"materialism"

is

"spiritual."

peculiarly
a materialist at aU.

In the final analysis, however, Nietzsche is not He regarded materialistic atomism as "one of the
are,"

best
us

refuted

theories there

to abjure the behef in the last

'substances,'

maintaining that "Boscovich has taught fast' part of the earth that 'stood the
in the
wants
earth-residuum

belief in
atom."26

in

'matter,'

and

particle-

FoUowing Boscovich, Nietzsche

consisting Boscovich in that he tries to
as
not of material atoms

to

try

to

see

all

but

of centers of

force.27

He

goes all

reahty as beyond
motion)

understand all which

force (aU energy, has been

the
to say,

wiU-force,

as wiU

to

power,28

is

an alternative mode of causal

explanation
ball"

to the

mechanistic mode of what such an

power,30

caUed "bUliard-

causality.29

Under
to

interpretation,
which

world would consist

of

nothing but

wiU

nothing but then he would be able to

consists of

spirit.31

is If Nietzsche

not

however,
out

that it

could

carry

this program,

succeed where

the

mechanistic conception

had

faUed. The human

and

nonhuman, animate and

inanimate (if these

words

22 23 24 25

See Beyond Good

and

Evil,

par.

1,

sentence

2.
Books,"

Zarathustra,

p.

265 (pt. 3,
pp.

aph.

1).

See Ecce Homo,

Beyond Good

and

266-69 ("Why I Write Such Good Evil, p. 137 (aph. 212).

of

5, 6).

26
27 28 29 so 31

Ibid.,
See

pp.

19-20 (aph. 12). 12

and

aphs.

36

Beyond Good

and

Evil.

Ibid.,
Ibid.,

pp. pp. p.

47-48 (aph. 36).

29, 48 (aphs. 21, 36).

Ibid.,

48 (aph. 36); Will to Power, p. 550. See aph. 12 of Beyond Good and Evil.

44
stUl

Interpretation

have any meaning), could be explained in the same terms. What is important is that now science could explain its own doings, its drive for mastery of nature, in the same terms as those in which nature would be explained namely, wiU to power for Nietzsche had already
most

attempted

to

show

that the doctrine of the

phUosophy.32

wiU

to power can

explain or

comprehend ah science or

Nietzsche
capable of

accepted

provisionaUy
or

that

the

mechanistic

conception

is

explaining

interpreting

sense

experience; he thought, how

prove

ever, that the

wiU-to-power

conception

might

equaUy

successful

it tried.33 But ultimately he could not take this ability to explain or interpret sense experience as the final test, for materialistic atomism is more consistent with sense experience, which does indeed teU
in
this regard were
us that

there is

"substance"

or

whereas

Nietzsche's

conception

denies just

"matter", sohdity or impenetrability, Consequently, it was

this.34

necessary for Nietzsche to

conception

make a

dialectical

attack on

the mechanistic

by

showing
one

that

it is

self-contradictory.

According
argued that

to

view, the

mechanistic

conception

was

adopted

by
of

modern physics

because it

was thought

to be

non-teleological.

Nietzsche

the mechanistic conception does have the

consequence

involves duration, leading the once-and-for-aU. He seems to have had in mind the immutabihty, second law of thermodynamics, which asserts that the universe is moving death" in which aU differences of inexorably towards a state of "heat temperature wiU be leveled and cosmic energy, though indestructible
the
goal of an equUibrium that and
space.36

to a final state

quantitatively the same, wiU be uniformly dissipated throughout Nietzsche accepts as decisive against the mechanistic conception
such

"That a state Nietzsche's argument on this point is not altogether clear, but perhaps it can be expressed and elaborated as foUows: he maintained (as did mechanistic physics) that time is infinite, that "the concept 'temporal infinity of the world in the is not self-contradictory, and that its opposite cannot
a state
never

the fact that

final

has

been

reached:

of equilibrium

is

never reached proves that

it is

not

possible."36

past'"

be

This means that there have already infinite number of chances for a final state to be reached. If a final state is possible, it has a probabUity greater than zero. Given an
maintained without
an
contradiction.37

been

32 33 34

See ibid.

Ibid.,

pp.

See ibid.,

aphs.

19-20, 30, 47-48 (aphs. 12, 30, 36). 12, 14.

35 Reliance for this statement of the law is placed upon Milic Capek, Philosophical Impact of Contemporary Physics (Princeton, N.J., 1961), p. 128. Capek argues (p. 129) that since this law is only a statistical law, given an infinity of chances a decrease of entropy is not impossible. But does not the once-for-all
character of 36

the law

contradict

Capek's

argument

Will to Power,

pp.

547-49.

37

Ibid.,

p.

548.

Nietzsche infinite
number of

as

Cosmologist

45

chances, any event whose probability is greater than how slightly greater, must occur and indeed must occur an infinite number of times.38 Since a final state has not occurred, it is not possible i.e., its probabUity is not greater than zero. If a final state is not possible, then there are only two possibilities left: either the world has the requisite energy, motion, and force for
zero,
no matter

infinite novelty or it does not, in which case one is left with a concept of infinite repetitiveness or Nietzsche circularity i.e., eternal claims that "the law of the conservation of demands eternal energy He maintains that the very concept of force is incompatible with the idea of infinite force: "the world, as force, may not be thought of as unlimited, for it cannot be so thought It foUows that infinite novelty is not possible; by process of elimination, eternal recurrence is
recurrence.39

recurrence."40

of."41

proved.

And the mechanistic conception, in that it entaUs the notion of final state, is proved false. The superiority of the will-to-power con ception, at least when it asserts that reahty consists of force and only of force, is established because it is consistent with the idea of the eternal

recurrence.

AU this may be
1. The
world

summarized as follows:42

certain
world

stands

definite quantity of force and contains a of force. (It is necessary to see the as consisting of force or centers of force, which Nietzsche under as will to power, instead of matter or material atoms; the former
a certain

is

definite

number

of centers

is
of

consistent with eternal

the

mechanistic

recurrence; the latter is not because it, as part conception, has the consequence of a final state which

is

not possible. It is necessary to see the world as consisting of a certain definite quantity of force or containing a certain definite number of centers of force because the idea of infinite force is a contradiction.)

2.

There

are a calculable number of possible

combinations,

configura

tions,
from

or arrangements of

the force in the

universe.

(Again,

this follows

the concept of

infinite force

being

contradiction.)
on

3. Time is infinite. (This is maintained its coroUary, the temporal infinity of the
contradictions,
and

the grounds that it and

world

in the past,
maintained

are

not

that

the

opposite

cannot

be

without

contradiction.)

38 89
40

See

Capek,
p.

Philosophical Impact of
pp.

Contemporary Physics,

pp.

126-27.

Will to Power,

546-47.

Ibid.,
we

547.
argument

41

Ibid.. Perhaps Nietzsche's do

so

is that

when we speak of

force,

power,

or

energy

meaningfully only
a

when we can
and

specify force for what,

power or of

energy to do what, meaning

definite

therefore finite thing: thus the idea

infinite force, it
42

might

See Will to

be argued, is Power, pp. 548-49.

contradictory.

46 4.

Interpretation

Every

possible

combination

must

at

some

time

or

another
an

be

realized, and

be

realized an

infinite

number of

times. (Given
greater

infinite
must

number of chances, any however slightly greater, occur an infinite number

event whose must of

occur

probabUity is
at some

than zero,

point,

and

indeed

times.)
and

5.
and

Between

every

combination

its

next

recurrence

aU

other

possible combinations would

have to
whose

occur.

(Between every
greater

combination

its

recurrence

is

an

infinite

number of

time instants or changes, and

therefore every combination occur in the interval.)

probabUity is

than

zero must

6.

Each

of

these
the

combinations
same

conditions

the

entire

sequence

of

combinations

in

series.

(This is
and aU

true

because
one

if the

exact

combination of

forces in
and

the universe
aU

is known for any

past

moment,
can

in

principle

the next

future

combinations

be

predicted.43)

7.

Therefore there is
an

circular

movement

of

absolutely identical
wiU repeat

series that

itself

has repeated itself an infinite infinite number of times.

IV

number of

times and

According
the
recurrence: mechanistic

to

Nietzsche, "The
and

two most
are

extreme

modes

of

thought
eternal

mechanistic

the

Platonic
the

reconcUed

in

the

both in

are

ideals."44

The idea

of

the

eternal

recurrence

is
the

the sense that

it,

and

requisite wiU-to-power

conception,

more adequately meet the ideal standard of no teleology which founders of modern science laid down and for the sake of which, in

one

view, the
of the

mechanistic

conception not

was

adopted.

Also,

the

idea

of

the

eternal recurrence

does

deny
as

the place of certainty in

science.

Out

it were, Nietzsche has pulled the utmost happens happens of necessity, and happens of necessity an infinite number of times. Thus Zarathustra affirms in " the fourth speech of Part III of Thus Spoke Zarathustra: 'By
of

hat

blind chance,
that

necessity

everything

chance'

that is the
ah things:

most ancient nobUity of the world, and this I restored to I dehvered them from then bondage under Purpose."45 A place

for certainty
science

indeed, for
of

mathematical and

by way probability The idea of the eternal recurrence is Platonic in the

the most radical denial
and
"matter."46

certainty its laws.

of

could

be

retained

in it

sense which

that

presupposes or entaUs

the senses,
also

testify

to the reahty of sense that it is an account

"substance"

It is

Platonic in the

of

the intrinsic order

which makes the world

43

44 45 46

See ibid., p. 547. ibid., p. 546.

Zarathustra,

p.

278 (pt. 3,
and

aph. p.

4).

See Beyond Good

Evil,

22 (aph. 14).

Nietzsche
a whole.

as

Cosmologist

47
rule of
chance.

what one would

Nietzsche finds such an intrinsic order by assuming the have thought to be the very principle of disorder

If the
able as

world

necessity.

is as it is by chance, then it must be as Nietzsche says it is by Nietzsche achieves, it might seem, what was for Plato unattain

but

nevertheless an
of

ideal,

a comprehension of

the whole,

by

assuming

the

principle

the whole that which would appear to be the most

hostile to

a rational account of

the

whole.

ARNOLD TOYNBEE: NATIONALISM AS A "FALSE

Marvin Perry

GOD"

was a principal force shaping European history from French Revolution to World War II, and it has spread to the nonWestern world with predictably disastrous results. In A Study of

Nationalism

the

History
to the

and other works

Arnold Toynbee devotes In

this

considerable

attention

phenomenon of nationalism. conception of modern

discussion
nationalism

we shah as a

focus

on

Toynbee's
and

Western

"false

god"

his

estimation of

its future

course.

Toynbee defines
and
act and

nationalism

as

"a

spirit

which

makes

people

feel
and

think about a part of any given society as though it were

the whole

of

that
states

society."1

By designating
nationalism

"insiders"

people

as a
regression

"outsiders,"

Toynbee,
man

represents

to

tribalism; by compelhng
"political
of

to worship his local community, it is the

counterpart of polytheistic
God."2

idolatry

'association'

the monstrous
so

false

gods with

As God is One,

too is there

unity

of

humanity: this
the center of

vision

held

by

the prophets of aU higher religions

is

at

corrupting this vision of universalism and by causing men to hanker after false gods, says Toynbee, nationalism has perverted man's spiritual development; by provoking fratricidal warfare among people that share a common civilization, it has hampered
thought.
man's social progress. with

Toynbee's

By

ancient

After studying aU of Sumeria, Toynbee concludes

of

man's civilizations

beginning
has been
for

that

nationalism

responsible

for "the death

perhaps
of

no

less than fourteen

out of

civUizations

certain,

and

no

civUizations

that had come

less than sixteen, into

existence."3

the

twenty-one

of

Humanity's finest achievement, says Toynbee, has been the inspiration the prophets of higher religions. Adherence to prophetic ideals enables man to overcome his natural self-centeredness and to uplift himself
moraUy. of these

HistoricaUy,
of

the

most

formidable
religion

obstacle
of

to

the

realization

ideals has been the lower

nationalism:

its

narrow

conception
and

humanity
of

has

set

man

against

man

in unholy warfare,

its deification
spiritual

the

parochial

from the

presence

community has turned men away behind the universe. If twentieth-century

i are 2 3

Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History (New York, 1962-64), I,

to the
paperback edition.

p.

9. All

references

Ibid., TV, Ibid., DC,

pp. p.

407-8.

442.

Arnold Toynbee: Nationalism

man

as a

"False

God"

49
repeUent

does

not extricate

himself from

tribal, neo-pagan, morally

nationalism, Toynbee, it is doubtful that he wUl survive. Modern nationalism sprouted on soil fertilized by the wreckage of Latin Christendom during the era of Renaissance and Reformation. The Renaissance revival of classical culture, one of whose elements was a fierce devotion to the city-state, "raised Western nationalism to
concludes
a new pitch of and
intensity."4

Modern
says

man

has

remained

infatuated

with

the Greeks

Romans,

him how to infuse citizens build a powerful state. For Toynbee the Greek devotion to his city-state was a form of idolatry; the Greek citizen drew the moraUy sinful and

Toynbee, because the ancients taught with patriotic fervor, organize armies, and

inteUectually
deserved

his polis, a man-made institution, Since God alone is worthy of worship, this act of hybris had to end in disaster. Idolization of the local community, a false god, raised the psychological temperature of city-state warfare and culminated in the ruinous Peloponnesian War that precipitated the
arrogant conclusion that
worship.

breakdown This

of

HeUenic

civilization.
of

pagan

the citizens
who aUowed

of

the parochial community was imitated by Florence, MUan, Genoa, and the other Italian cities, loyalty to their local city to predominate over allegiance to

deification

Respublica Christiana. MachiaveUi gave intellectual expression and moral approval to this new outlook. From Machiavelli, says Toynbee, was derived the principle that
if the worship
absolute moral a of a parochial which

community
was

constituted of

the whole

duty

of

its subjects, be
a moral

then any community

moral

the

object

such

worship
subject

must

universe

in itself

which

could

be

to no transcendent
of

law in its

physical collisions with other representatives

its

own

species.5

In absorbing and surpassing HeUenic parochiahsm, the modern West has behaved according to the Machiavellian precept that the state is a non-moral institution. The revival of HeUenism, says Toynbee,
ministered to Western man's "insatiable lust for power which was the inevitable ruling passion in hearts that had relapsed from Christianity Humanity," and Western man into a pagan worship of a CoUective pushed

"this

resuscitated

political

that had

never
on

been
the

approached of an

ideology of HeUenism to extremes by HeUenes themselves in their

Leviathan."6

self-

immolation
state over

altar

idolized

Christian morality, the West expressed Christian heritage while conveniently ignoring the principal lesson of HeUenism, namely, "that this inordinate divisive mindedness was the
chief cause of

In elevating the a defiance of its

HeUenic

civUization's

downfaU."7

And the

same

fate

* 5 6 7

Arnold

Arnold

Toynbee, Change and Habit (New York, 1966), p. 109. Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs, 1933 (London, 1934), A Study of History, IX, p. 3.
Change
and

p.

116.

Habit,

p.

109.

50
wiU

Interpretation

befaU the

modern

world, insists
was one

Toynbee, if it fails
fuel
that

to "exorcise this

demon A

resolutely."8

revived

HeUenism

has

fed

the

furnace

of

nationalism. overheated

of religion

Modern Western nationalism, asserts Toynbee, has also been by Christian fanaticism. The terrible ferocity of the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries alienated humane

people

transferred to

from Christianity. The devotion withdrawn from Christianity was technology and secular ideologies nationalism, individual Of the three
most

ism,
the

communism.

post-Christian

ideologies,

Nationalism is the
others when

obsessive.
come

these

into
to

At any rate, Nationalism usually prevails over conflict with it. The devotion that has been
has
detached

transferred
good

from

Christianity
self-sacrifice,

Nationalism
what

itself from

what

is
the
are

in Christianity but has clung to

of

is for

evil

in it. It has
as

repudiated

ideals

love,
of

and

concern

mankind

whole

that

Christianity's virtues; it has

religions

retained

the fanaticism that is the

common vice of

the

Judaic family, and this sour wine, constricting bottle, has fermented there with explosive
the

poured
effects.9

into Nationalism's

Toynbee
coUective

regards modern nationalism as a

power

lower

religion

that worships

human

instead

of

higher

spiritual

reahty.

That

man

has been willing to sacrifice himself for this modern cult is an indication that nationalism "was in truth a rehgious revival in the spiritual vacuum As a left in human hearts by the evaporation of a higher
religion."10

neo-pagan

religion

that mistakenly

worships

Leviathan instead Western

of

the

One God,
spiritual

modern nationalism

has

undermined

man's moral and

which

development; it has led him away from Christianity,

regards as the soul of

Toynbee

Western

civilization.

Because modern nationalism has been power-driven by a fanaticism inherited from Christianity, it "is tribalism with a difference. The Convinced primitive religion has been deformed into an
enormity."11

that

they

were

in

possession of the

true

faith,

rehgious

fanatics

during

the wars of religion sought to impose

spiritual

the

nation as

the highest good,

nationalist

unity by force; regarding fanatics have sought to impose

national

unity The fusion of

aggravated states

by
a

persecuting minorities and regimenting the population. revived HeUenic parochiahsm with Christian fanaticism
warfare
ruin

fratricidal

and

gave

Western
the

parochial

sovereign

the capacity

"to
a

their common civilization

another."12

Nationalism had transformed

god,

warfare

into

holy

crusade,

by ruining one human community into atrocities into pagan sacrifices,

man,
a component

traitors into

heretics,

citizens

into true believers.

Toynbee beheves

that religion

is

a perennial need of

8 9 io
n

Arnold Toynbee, Hellenism (New York, 1959), Change and Habit, p. 1 10.
A

p.

253.

12

Study of History, VHb, Ibid., V, p. 161. Ibid., DC, p. 443.

p.

521.

Arnold Toynbee: Nationalism

of

as a

"False

God"

51
and reconcUe

human

nature.

Through

religion man

tries to comprehend

himself to the he
admits to
of religion.

awesome

it

or

death. A human being, whether reality not, insists Toynbee, cannot hve without some form
of and rejects a

life

When he

higher

religion

that

stresses

selflessness,

love,

and

universalism,
as

heightens his
nationalism

only embrace a lower religion that innate egocentricity. Thus Toynbee interprets modem a lower religion, for it selfishly worships the coUective
wiU

he

human

power of an expanded tribe at the expense of the rest of a

humanity.
side
of

Whereas human

higher

religion emancipates man

from his innate

and are

self-centered

ness, nationalism intensifies the

nature.

brutal, irrational,
higher
religions

selfish

Nationalism
sought

and

Christianity
of

has

to free

man

competing faiths. from the self-destructive idolization

human power; by deifying the state, a human creation, nationalism has enmeshed man in sin. Christianity aspires to a brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God, whUe nationalism represents the "lamentable
ecumenicalism."

victory
evoked not

of

parochiahsm

over

13

Although the
to the sin and

spiritual

message of

higher

religions

is

infinitely

superior

idolatry

nationalism, the power nationalism exercises over man has been broken by the higher religions. In 1971 Toynbee concluded:

by

in my human
words

belief,
race

the worship

of

the collective human

rest

power

of

fraction

of

the

at

the expense of the

real
religion

of

the human race

of people.

nationalism, in

other

is the

today

of

majority

Nationalism has been

of which aims
at

superseded

only

nominally

by

the

'higher'

religions,
own prescription

each

converting the

whole of mankind

to its

into touch

with ultimate reality. religions or

Whether
almost

we profess
of

for putting the individual to be followers of one of the

nationalist under

historic higher

not,

all

us

are

the

skin.14

Nationalism has
and
with

surpassed

in

power and

influence both individualism

ideologies. And in
common

communism, the these

other

other

post-Christian

ideologies it has been a poor substitute for Christianity, for it is "incapable of helping human beings to preserve their person which is a basic need of aU men. Both competitive individualism and ant-like coUectivism deprive the individual of his dignity by regarding
alities,"16

him

as an object.

So too does tribal-minded

stiU

nationalism.

force that has increased the intensity of modern nationalism. At first glance, observes Toynbee, it appears that democracy and nationalism stand in opposition. In essence democracy represents universalism, not parochialism, the rights of man, not the

Democracy is

another

special

destiny
a

of a people.

Democracy
no all

is
.

characterized

by
field
this
of
action

a spirit of

fraternity

which

knows

bounds.

The
and

natural

for is

Democracy is
spiritual

field that

embraces

Mankind;
this

it is

on

range

that its

potency

is beneficent. But

when

potent

spiritual

driving-force

i 14 is

Ibid. Arnold Toynbee, Surviving the Future (New York, 1971), Arnold Toynbee, Experiences (New York, 1969), p. 325.
p.

65.

52
diverted into the

Interpretation
mechanism of a parochial
. . .

state, it

not

only

ceases

to be beneficent
parochial

but becomes malignantly subversive. degenerates into Nationalism.16

Democracy imprisoned in

states

By turning democracy
It is in the With the
sixteenth

into

an

agent of nationalism of the modern world.

the

parochial

state

system poisoned the pohtical

hfe

area of warfare that of the rehgious

democracy has

caused

the

most

havoc. in the

breakup
century,

war

unity of Western became infused with a sectarian

of

Christendom

religious

fanaticism

that

magnified

"the

evil

War into

an

unprecedented

enormity."17

By
war

the

eighteenth religion

century
the

there

had been

achieved which attained

divorce between
to
reduce

and

intensity
and

of warfare

immediate effect of to the lowest level ever

was

the

in Western history.

Warfare in the

eighteenth said

moderate,"18

"temperate century was relatively civilized Gibbon. Wars were waged from limited aims,
and the civilian population remained uninvolved.
emotions was

casualty rates The ferocity

rehgion

were

low,
mass

and

that

had

characterized

the

wars

of

ended, as warfare

transformed into
and

the "sport of

kings,"

a game played
not recruited

for limited

stakes

devoid live
were

of passion.

Annies
off

were
peace map.

by

conscription and and wage

did

not

off

the countryside;
wiped

terms were not crushing

countries moderate

not

the

Princes
great

were

forced to
that

warfare, for there to

a

existed

no

passion

could

raUy
ancient

the

nation

total

effort.

In the

eighteenth

as

century many they did slavery an

people regarded war

in

much the same manner

curse

that was rapidly

dissipating. It

was the spiritual power of

democracy
of

that restored to war the

ferocity
the
the
of

displayed "sport bouts for

of
eighteenth of

during
kings"

the

Wars
la
out

Rehgion.
totale.

Democracy
The hmited

transformed
warfare

into

guerre

century turned

fanaticism,
Once

to be only a brief interlude between two the earlier wars of religion and the later wars of
people

nationality. national

the

had become
could

"nation in
remain

arms"

fighting
and

survival,
the

warfare

no

longer
war

temperate
an

indecisive.
struggle,

During

French Revolution
of

became

ideological

and the

flames

hatred fanned

by

mass emotions could not

be

extinguished

by the rational and Compounding the danger of

mUitarism,
which made war

universal spirit of the philosophes.

democratic into
a

warfare

was

the

emergence

of

and

worthy

of

human

worship.

cult, something desirable in itself In the years from von Moltke to Hitler,

states

Toynbee, young
kinds

men embraced the

military

virtues

because they

had been
starved of other

of spiritual are
and

bread.

These

latter-day Western
which were

worshippers nurtured

of

the

"military

virtues"

the

epigoni

of

generations

in

the "Christian virtues";

they began

to be starved of the traditional Christian

16
" 18

Study
p.

of

History, IV,

pp.

162-63.

Ibid.,

143.
p.

Quoted in Experiences,

203.

Arnold Toynbee: Nationalism

morality,
of

as a

"False

God"

53

their forebears had been brought up, when, at the turn centuries, the unbelief of a cultivated minority in the Western World began to infect the less sophisticated masses.19
upon

which

the eighteenth

and

nineteenth

Rejecting
could

the creed of Isaiah and Jesus for

barbaric

cult of

the

sword

there be a more

depressing
in

example of spiritual
a crucial

Toynbee has
of

caUed attention

to

backsliding? development in the evolution

of

modern

nationalism:

the

process
essential

feeding

off

democracy,

nationalism

ideals. In the first half of the nineteenth century many liberal inteUectuals identified nationalism with hberty. Liberal nationalists believed that a unified state free of foreign subjugation was in harmony with the principle of natural rights and insisted that love of country led to a love of humanity. "With all stated Frantisek Palacky, the Czech my ardent love of my
nation,"

destroys democracy's

patriot, "I

always

esteem

more

highly

the good

of

mankind

and

of

learning
national

than the good of the

who

nation."20

Addressing
arisen
offer

the

Slavs, Giuseppe
name
of win our

Mazzini declared: "We

But the
of

have

ourselves and

in the

right, beheve in
Liberal

your

right,

to

help

you

to

it.

purpose of our mission

is the

permanent and peaceful organization

Europe."21

nationalism

stressed

individual freedom, human

extend

itarianism,
and

and

the

open

cosmopolitanism; it sought to society throughout Europe. But

constitutionalism

intensity,

it

soon clashed with

to sacrifice liberal principles

in liberal ideals, and few liberals hesitated for nationalist goals.

as nationalism gained

During and after the revolutions of 1848 liberals demonstrated an increasing fascination for nationalism and the power-state and a decreasing
commitment was

by

to liberalism. The link between liberalism and nationahsm completely severed in the last decades of the nineteenth century integral nationalists who not only glorified state power but also

insisted that liberahsm was an obstacle to the achievement of nationalist ends. In the early part of the century liberals had stressed the close connection between nationalism and individual freedom, considering the
nationalist goal of
of man.

liberation
part of

and

unity to be in

accord with

the rights

In the last
as

the century, integral nationalists attacked

to national greatness, removing, in

liberalism
human

the
all

principal restraints

menace

the process,

imposed

by liberal
As

principles that

sanctified

dignity

and exalted reason.

nationalism embrace

became freedom

increasingly
modes of and

dissociated from hberalism, it began to thought. No longer committed to liberal

nationalists native

mythical

goals

of

reason,
cult of

became

entranced

with

the cult
the

of

ancestors,
a

the

soil, the

cult of

heroes,
the

the

cult of

leader,

the cult of

force,

the cult of the state.

By

end of the nineteenth

century

narrowminded,

19 20
21

Study

of

History, IV,

pp.

644-45.

Quoted in Hans Quoted in ibid.,

Kohn,
p.

Pan-Slavism (South

Bend, Ind., 1953),

pp.

66-67.

44.

54 openly beUicose,
continent,
recognized

Interpretation

European absurdly raciahst chauvinism stalked the masses. Some thinkers attracting both the ehte and the the danger: an astute German phUosopher wrote in 1902 that
and
nationalism

supersensitive

has become

very

serious

danger for

all

peoples

of

Europe; because of it they are in danger of losing the feeling for human values. Nationalism, pushed to an extreme, just like sectarianism, destroys moral and even logical consciousness. Just and unjust, good and bad, true and false, lose
their meaning; others,
what men condemn same

as

disgraceful

and

inhuman

when

done

by

they
a

recommend

in the

breath to their

own peoples as

something to be

done to

foreign

country.22

World War I
trends
and

and

Nazism

were the terrible

fulfUhnent

of

these dangerous
nationahsm
nationahsm

in European
contributed

nationalism.

Liberahsm had

nurtured of

had

to its success, but the

momentum

could not

be

contained

by

liberal

principles.

has contributed to nationalism's "demonic is industrialism. Like democracy, industrialism is ecumenical in spirit, for it "wiU not work freely or effectively or beneficently except in so far as the world is organized into one single field of economic But when industrialism made its appearance, the Western
Another

force

that

dynamism"23

activity."24

world was

units

already broken up into a multitude of petty that erected barriers to economic integration.
of

politico-economic

"Caught in the

trammels

the Parochial
to fulfiU

State,"25

industrialism,
Instead
at

like
of

been
order,
seeks of

unable

its

essential

nature.

democracy, has buUding a world

the rest

industrialism, like democracy, has fortified

to promote its
own economic

the parochial state which

interests

the

expense of

humanity. Toynbee
views the

Industrial Revolution that began in the West

during

the

eighteenth

revolution
B.C."20

century as the "unmistakable counterpart of the economic that had overtaken the HeUenic World in the sixth century
city-states were

At that time the Greek

whUe

becoming
This

economically

interdependent
created

remaining

politically

divided.
endemic world

incongruity

intolerable tensions that triggered

With the Peloponnesian War the Hellenic

interstate warfare. entered its time of

troubles; it never survived them, despite the reprieve granted it by the Roman Empire. The Western world has also become economicaUy

interdependent, but, remaining politicaUy fractured, it has

fratricidal
warfare. national

waged

ferocious
social

The

parochial-minded not prepared

state,

created

in

different
of

context, was

to cope with the ecumenical forces

democracy

22 23 24
25

Meinecke, The German Catastrophe (Boston, 1963), Habit, p. 109. A Study of History, TV, p. 169.
Friedrich

pp.

23-24.

Change

and

Ibid.

26

Ibid., DC,

p.

444.

Arnold Toynbee: Nationalism

and

as a

"False

God"

55

within

industrialism. The attempt to confine these new and dynamic forces the framework of the national state, concludes Toynbee, resulted

in the totalitarian state. Only a modification of parochial sovereignty have dealt creatively with industrialism and democracy; perverted by their imprisonment within the national state, these two ecumenical forces contributed to the power of totalitarian nationahsm.
could

The dangerous tendencies in modern Western nationalism culminated in National Socialism, a repudiation of "the moral and religious essence In rejecting Christianity for their human his goddess, the German state, the German people had adopted a perverse neopagan rehgion. Toynbee believes that Nazism was not a peculiarly German phenomenon but a German expression of the crisis in Western civilization the rejection of Christianity and the pursuit
of
culture."27

Western Christian

god,

Hitler,

and

of

false

gods.

In the late Western

seventeenth

century,

enthusiasm

for

religion

began

disUlusioned and disheartened by generations of rehgious conflicts. The dechne of Christianity created a discomforting spiritual vacuum which was fUled by post-Christian ideologies, of which nationahsm was the most powerful and Nazism the most malignant
to
wane

in

world

expression.

The

essential reason

astonishing ease for a cause. The

could not

was not

force

or propaganda

why Nazism won over the youth with but latent idealism searching
stress upon

spiritual vacuum

that emerged with the decline of religion

be fUled

by liberahsm,
endure."28

for its

self-interest,

utilitarian

ism,

and commercialism

which

Society

cannot

"seemed to be extinguishing the vision without To many young people National Socialism
wrote

was a new

faith. Toynbee

in 1933:
skepticism of

The truth
elite
.
. .

seems

to be that the
an

enlightened and

the eighteenth-century
void with

had

produced

immense

intolerable

spiritual

the

con

sequence

that any new

spiritual

force, however
be

primitive

and

crude,

could

count

upon a welcome

in the house thus

swept and garnished.

Viewed

with a sympathetic

eye, the

neopagan movements might

regarded as a pathetic effort on

the

part of of of

twentieth-century Western Youth, to begin again, from the bottom, the ascent spiritual ladder, by setting its foot clumsily on the lowest rung. The tragedy
Western World, in this age, was its division an ancestral Church which had lost its hold had
gone
against

the the

itself through
masses,

a conflict

between

over the

and a generation which

a-whoring

after

false

gods

under

the delusion that

it

was

recapturing its

lost

spiritual birthright.29

The

experience of

National Socialism

contains era

particular and mankind precariousness of

in

general.

The Nazi
of

lessons for the West in demonstrated anew the

and

civilization, the
glorification

fragility
of

reason,
a

the

immutabihty
the racial

of original

sin.

The

Teutonic

ancestors

and

delusions

about

the "blond

beast"

indicated that

Germany

disillusioned

27

28
29

and Habit, p. 18. Study of History, VUb, p. 520. Survey of International Affairs, 1933,

Change

pp.

133-34.

56
with

Interpretation

Western

civUization was

forest from

which

the German tribes had

retreating into the darkness of the primeval come. The conversion of the

barbarians to civUization had not rooted out barbarism from the West; in the form of National Socialism, "barbarism was taking its revenge by That a Western finding its way into the souls of its Western people could fall so low indicates that the West had not risen so high that it is continually menaced by a moraUy perverse barbarism that it
conquerors."30

harbors in its
of

own

the struggle between the

breast. For Toynbee, Nazism represented "one phase spirit of Western Christendom and the spirit
which

of

European barbarism

Christianity

had

sometimes

charmed

and

had thereby partially tamed, but had never whoUy West abandoned its devotion to God, who is love, it became
every The Nazi
and that
moral enormity. experience

exorcised."31

When the

capable of

This, for Toynbee, is the true lesson of Hitlerism. reinforced his belief that civilizations are stiU
to rise above the level of the primitive,

experiments

in

which man seeks

these experiments often end in failure.

The

moral catastrophe of of reason and secular

Nazism, insists Toynbee, demonstrates

the

anew

the limitations
of

inadequacy
of

of a nonreligious conception unbuttressed

liberty. The

values

the

Enlightenment,

by

Christian spirituality, are insufficient to restrain man's basest impulses. When the West discarded Christian dogma in reaction to the savagery of the wars of religion, it also dispensed with Christian love, a loss
unforgivable and unendurable.

After the Nazi

experience

it has become
and

"impossible to

retain

Modern Western Man's

Human

latter-day

dogmatic belief in the

in the inevitable self-perfectibility WhUe Nazism

progress of a secularized of a graceless

Western Civilization

Nature."32

emerged within

Christians for
problem
a vein of

more

than a thousand years,

a

Europe among it
or

a people

that had been

a

was

as

much

human

as

it

was

purely German
nature

Western one, for there lurks

to which Hitlerism makes a
and never secure.

Original Sin in human

everywhere

strong appeal. The moral is that civilization is nowhere

cake of custom

It is

thin

overlying

a molten mass of wickedness

that is

always

boiling

up for
price

an

opportunity to burst
eternal vigilance

out.

Civilization

cannot ever
effort.33

be taken for

granted.

Its

is

and ceaseless

spiritual

n The institution have

spread

of

the national state and the

ideology

of nationahsm throughout

from their birthplace in Western Europe globe, blazing "a traU of persecution, eviction, and
30 31
32 33 34

the

massacre."34

National-

Study of History, DC, p. 450. Survey of International Affairs, 1933, A Study of History, VIII, p. 289.

p.

202.

Arnold Toynbee, Acquaintances (New York, 1967), p. 294. Arnold Toynbee, The World and The West, published with Civilization

on

Trial

(Cleveland, O., 1958),

p.

280.

Arnold Toynbee: Nationalism

as a

"False

God"

57
mortality

ism,
the

which

historically

"has been

by

far the

commonest cause of

among

civilizations,"35

has become the

religion

of most of

humanity

in

contemporary world. WhUe the problems that threaten human survival can only be solved by a global effort, the number of parochial sovereign states has increased, and the temperature of nationalism remains high.
In
a world

that

desperately
a

requires global

thinking,
the

says

Toynbee,

we

continue race.

to worship

fraction
of

of mankind at

expense of

the human
prime

The lower
train
them

religion

nationalism

continues

to

be "the

conditioner which enables and

the

'establishment'

to turn

men

into

soldiers
personal

to

ldU their fellow human beings

compunction."36

without

animosity but also without form of violence that did not

wars are waged organization.

War is

an

institutionalized

exist

prior

to the appearance of states;

sovereignty,"37

by people who have achieved a large degree of pohtical Regarding war as "a parasite on the institution of local Toynbee insists that only by destroying the host can we
parasite.

eliminate

the

The

need

for

a world-state

pressing than
poUution,

today, for the

persistence of nationalism

has never been more in an age of global

world-wide

overpopulation,

and atomic weapons

is, for Toynbee,

on

death-wish."38 nothing less than "a Toynbee beheves that a pohtical

system's merit

depends

its ability
more

"to

rid

human

social

hfe

of

the

violence

that is the price

of

anarchy."39

Judged

by

this

standard,

world-states
or national

have been
states;
order

considerably

successful

than city-states

they have
and

succeeded

in

providing a large measure in relatively few wars with

the two
centuries after

of

domestic

states

unity while engaging beyond their borders. For example, in

endured not more seemed
warfare.

27
of

B.C.

"the Roman Empire

.
. .

than half-a-dozen years

internal

War

to have

been banished from the center of civilization to its periphery and to have been transformed into police-operations against barbarians beyond
the pale;
and even on the single

frontier where, along the Euphrates

state, the total

the

Roman Empire
of war-years

marched with another organized

number

during

these two centuries was

as
old

WhUe

pohtical

divisiveness is

as

hardly more than the first hunting bands,

fifteen."40
world-

mindedness is a relatively recent phenomenon; it made its appearance only after civUization had already been established. World-states were formed when one state dehvered a knockout blow to its competitors. But the age-old habit of divisiveness inherited from the early days of

prehistory persisted long after the establishment of the world-state. defeated peoples rejected the peace and stability imposed by the

Often,
world-

35 36 37 38
39 40

Study of History, DC, Surviving the Future, p.

p.

p.

442.

116.

Experiences,
Change
and

84.
p.

Habit,

112.

Ibid.,

p.

24.

Survey

of International

Affairs, 1928 (London, 1934),

p.

4.

58
state and rose of

Interpretation

in

nationalist revolt. elements of

In

our

own

day,

the

subordination

the

universal

communism

to the demands
greater

of

Russian
not

nationahsm mindedness without

is

another

indication

of

the

appeal

of

parochial-

than of

world-mindedness.

Yet

world-states

have

been

their appeal, as evidenced

peoples

by

the

loyalty
and

Rome

received

from the
stUl

different
a

that composed the

a

empire.

While tribalism is
product of culture

deeply
and not

ingrained
an

formidable
of

habit, it is
human

ineradicable trait
that he
can

nature.

Toynbee feels that form

ments of
pohtical

man can

be taught to
and

regard a world-state as a superior

organization

learn to

subordinate

parochial sentiments

to a

world-wide mankind

loyalty. Since 1500

certain

develop

have

served

to push

into the direction

of a single society.

which has been notoriously plagued with political been the agent in this movement towards ecumenicalism. parochialism, has The spread of Western technology, institutions, and ideas throughout the globe is bringing the world together in a common culture. Spearheading

Ironically,

the

West,

the

global

diffusion
to the

of

Western
the

civilization who

is

a world-wide

inteUigentsia
for the
as world

comparable
cultural

heUenizers,
of

served

as

the

medium

unification

ancient

Mediterranean
already think
cultural

world.

Perhaps the

modern

intelligentsia, many
will

of whom
social

and

behave for the

citizens,

serve

as

"the

and

cement

holding

together of a

world-state."41

Another promising

sign

for future

world

and political consohdation of western

unity is the growing economic Europe since World War II. This

radically new departure is "a good augury, considering how deeply ingrained is nationalism in the tradition of Western European peoples

If the Western European

as

peoples can unite with each other voluntarily,

they

are now

demonstrating they
not a Utopian

can, a voluntary unity

of

mankind,

on a global

scale, is

objective."42

The future

world-state wUl not

be greatly centralized,
only reluctantly
atomic

predicts

Toynbee,
national

for the
ment.

peoples of

the world
an era

will

support world govern recalcitrant

Moreover, in
be
themselves

of

weapons,
might

states cannot not put

coerced

into accepting

world authority.

While
to

states wiU
surrender

out of

business, they

be

persuaded

certain prerogatives

for the

sake of self-preservation.

Realizing

that the

may be self-destruction, mankind wiU choose a form of world government, but unlike the world-states of the past, which were unitary states imposed by force, the coming world-state will be a voluntary federal
alternative
union.

But to be

effective

it

must

have the

power

to

prevent

local units,

driven

by

parochial

the proper end of

'universal,'"

from engaging in war. Toynbee beheves that 'national' and statesmanship is the "harmony between

loyalties,

but if this

harmony is
155.

to endure and succeed, "the authority

41 42

Change

and

Habit,

p.

Arnold Toynbee, "For the First Time in 30,000 1972, p. 9.

Years,"

World View, March

Arnold Toynbee: Nationalism

of

as a

"False
must

God"

59

the

'universal,'

and

the

loyalty

paid
of

to

it,

be

paramount."43

history, Toynbee insists that the coming world polity requires a rehgious base, for only by expressing devotion to God can man overcome the limitations of parochialism and live in brotherly unity. Western technology is an inadequate scaffolding
upon which

Consistent

with

his interpretation

to construct world unity;

offer man
of

so

too

are
of

the

post-Christian

ideologies,
again

which

limited

conception

inadequate understanding
to the

the purpose of life.

of

true

prophets
an

universalism

humanity and an Only by turning once Isaiah, Jesus, Buddha,

Gandhi

can man

fashion

infusion

mankind might not

enduring world order. Without this spiritual succeed in making the leap from tribalism

to ecumenicalism, from idol worship to spirituality. For

a

true
as

and

lasting

peace, a religious revolution

made

is, I

am

sure,

a sine qua non.

By

religion,

I hope I have
and

clear, I mean the overcoming of self-centeredness,

in both individuals
presence

communities,

behind the

universe and

this is the

key

to peace,

by getting into a communion with the spiritual by bringing our wills into harmony with it. I think but we are very far from picking up this key and using
the human
race will continue

it,

and until we

do,

the

survival of

to be in doubt.44
war

If the future
conflict

world-state

manages

to

eliminate

the

and

class

that have

traditionaUy

wrecked

civUizations

and

succeeds

in

coping

with poUution and

mankind would

overpopulation, the next problem confronting be the role of leisure in a mechanized world. Toynbee

fears that leisure lavished on a proletarian majority wiU lead to cultural deterioration. What irony it would be if the reward for the elimination
of war and class conflict

turns out to be the mass

of
Swine."

of mankind

in Plato's "Commonwealth
system also

To

prevent mechanization
must create

wallowing from

crushing the spirit, the society

that stimulates

of

the future
and

an educational

gifts

inteUectual growth. But Toynbee recognizes that only a relatively few people possess the intrinsic required for art and thought. Consequently, if man is to use leisure
aesthetic service of some able

"in the
selves

high calling to

which all men would

find them
again

to devote their
Religion,"

hves,

then Mankind

must

turn

salvation

to

which

provides

"an infinite

spiritual

scope

for for

Everyman."45

m Toynbee's study of history leads him to conclude that "our greatest is for spiritual improvement in ourselves and in our relations with

need
our

feUow human beings."46 For man to achieve this spiritual end he must "break out of the prison of his inborn self-centeredness and enter

43 44

45
46

Study of History, XII, p. 619. Surviving the Future, pp. 66-67. A Study of History, DC, p. 618. Surviving the Future, p. 47.

60

Interpretation
communion with

into
more

valuable,

and more

reahty that is greater, more important, himself."47 The way lasting than the individual
some
greatest

to

accomphsh

this is to turn once again to humanity's

teachers,

the prophets of

Unity.
man

By

higher religions, who saw God as One and mankind as recognizing that God alone is the supreme value in the universe,
owes no ultimate

hberates himself. He
are

loyalty

to a

state or

ideology,

God has sternly warned against only the worship of false gods. Man's ultimate concern is moral growth not on power, fame, or riches, which are also man-made idols. By focusing for they
man-made

idols

and

God, Toynbee
He
with

maintains,

man

becomes
no

free

moral

agent, for no human

can claim

person, no human
also overcomes

institution,

human tradition
and

his

soul.

self-centeredness

is thus
own

enabled

to treat his

feUows
higher
of

with respect and even man

love. It is through

a spiritual communion

God that

becomes
man

conscious of

his

humanity. Because the

not

religions

address themselves to

aU

mankind,

just to

part

it, they

enable

to the

"overcome the
cultural

pohtical

barriers between
parochial civiliza

parochial states and even

tions."48

barriers between

Without expressing aUegiance to God, men wUl to dispense with their tribal loyalties and dweU together in

not

be

able

peace.

A strong He does

element of

humanism
the

pervades

Toynbee's

religious orientation.

not celebrate

by

prophetic

concern

irrational, but insists that reason, uniUuminated for humanity, wiU distort human values with
He does
not negate

computer-like
unknown

indifference. chng

this

world

for

some

after-life or

dogmaticaUy

to the doctrines

of a sectarian

church, nor does he retreat into fruitless despair. He beheves that the ideals of the City of God do benefit the City of Man. By setting our

foot

on

the spiritual path, he states, we can make ourselves better and

our a relations with each

improve Man is
or

other.

And for Toynbee the

City

of

true cosmopolis; it embraces all mankind, not just Christians

Westerners.

Toynbee's humanism

is

clearly

discerned in

his

attitude

towards

technology,
of man another

which

he

regards as stiU another

false god,

another example

idolizing his own power, another grievous substitute "shocking vent for Original Sin and a serious threat
to his
existence."49

for God, to Man's

welfare and perhaps even

In the fifth century B.C.,

Toynbee

philosophers

from for

theories of the natural us, Socrates, finding inadequate for dealing with human problems, turned away study of nature to the study of man and society. Toynbee caUs
reminds

the

a simUar reorientation. man

He

yearns

for

a modern

convince
spiritual

to channel his energies into

man

developing
how to

Socrates his
utilize

who would

moral

and

potential, who would instruct

not

technology
created

so that

it does

warp human

souls.

The techniques

and

tools

47 48
49

ibid.,
A

p.

46.
to Religion

Survey of History, VUb, p. 433. Arnold Toynbee, An Historian's Approach

(New

York, 1956),

p.

238.

Arnold Toynbee: Nationalism

as a

"False
in

God"

61
the human
or
Socrates."50

by

man's

inteUect
to
use

can

be enormously
not

effective

bettering
or

condition, but "we have

goodness

the

spiritual

power
need

understanding

these

tools

right

We

another

and nationalism, in contrast to higher religions, care for the individual human personality man's nothing dignity and his need for personal consolation and spiritual uplifting. For Toynbee, man

Both

technology

becomes

fully

human

when

he

sees

the spiritual significance

of

life

and

the moral potential of his own personality.

Technology

must

promote

this end, he says, if we are to avoid either Huxley's Brave New World or the destruction of the planet. And, it should be added, Toynbee
warned of

the dangers

of

technology long before it became fashionable

to do so.

Only
and

through spirituality and universalism can mankind preserve itself

the

individual fulfiU himself

His
was

this

is

the

essence

of

Toynbee's
that

thought.

one response to the crisis of

Western

civUization

defined the first half of the twentieth century. Having lost confidence in reason and committed no longer to freedom, some thinkers found a new faith in fascism. Rejecting liberal society and entranced by a Utopian days," vision of the "end of others converted to communism. Shattered

by

the senseless slaughter

with a

and

World War I, Toynbee became disiUusioned repudiated Christianity for technology ideologies. Because hberalism had dispensed with Christian love
of

Western

civilization

that had

and the was

Christian
selfish

precept that man's

hberty

came

from God's grace, it sacrosanctity

of

too

and

competitive

to

preserve

the

the

personality; because the rationalism of the Enlightenment was spiritually empty, it could not contain the brutal and irrational side of human
nature

that

constitutes

man's

original

sin.

Holding

that

the

liberal-

rationalist or

tradition alone was

inadequate to
who

protect man

from Leviathan
mankind presence

to provide for his

again

spiritual

needs, Toynbee has

urged

to
of

hsten

to its religious prophets,

of

have taught the

dignity Absolute Reahty

the

God,

as

man, the unity of humanity, and communion with the true purpose of life. If we reject the prophetic
to
continue to pursue false has been demonstrated. Only mankind find the spiritual strength to
we shall

ideals

of

higher religions, he warns,

wreck

gods whose power

civilization
can

through the higher religions

counter the
of

"demonic

dynamism"

of

nationalism, the

most

dangerous

these idols.

Toynbee has been

and

accused of

retorting to myths, escaping into

Ulusion,

underestimating the

narrowmindedness of religion-dominated societies.

critics say, Toynbee's hostUity to all forms of parochialism him to differences between varieties of nationalism. For example, bhnds to caU Zionists disciples of the Nazis seems simplistic, if not grotesque. To some critics, Toynbee's rehgious orientation is fanciful, foolish, dangerous, and hateful. Nevertheless, he cannot easUy be dismissed.

Moreover, his

60

Surviving

the

Future,

p.

43.

62 After
of

Interpretation
the experience of the twentieth

century

even the staunchest

defenders

the Enlightenment tradition have to heal humanity's

reservations

of reason

ills,

and

regarding the capacity only the naive interpret history as

efficacy
of unrestricted

linear

progress.

Nor

are we so certain about the

"noble"

technological growth, and the

peoples continues

principle of self-determination of

to cause

much mischief.

Toynbee

compels us to confront

the

irrational,

to find a constructive outlet for its creative energies, and

to cope with

its destructive
and

capacities.

He forces
the

the

rationalist,
of

the

technologist,

the

nationalist
a

to

ponder

implications
that

their

behefs,

and

he

reminds not

secularly

oriented

humanity
been

rehgious

sentiments

have

been

eradicated

but

have

rerouted

into

ideologies,

of which nationahsm

is the

most pernicious.

OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE ASSOCIATION

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March,

1974

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social , research
AN INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
VOLUME 40/NUMBER 4

WINTER 1973

Aron Gurwitsch
The Subjective Pohtics The Dilemma
of of

Hans Jonas Power:

567

Postsuperego Man

David Gutmann
Michael Walzer

570
617

Regicide

and

Revolution Crisis Mean Today?

What Does

Legitimation Problems in Late

Capitalism

Jurgen Habermas
the Will to Bear

643

Survivors
Witness

and

Terrence Des Pres

668

in

Theory and Experiment Psychology

The Paradox
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Sigmund Koch

691

System Builders: Robert Lamb History?

708

Plato

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Hobbes
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The Next Stage

Timothy
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Table

of

Contents

and

Indices
After p
.766

for Volume 40

Phil OSO D hV /
I

Advisory Editors
Stuart Hampshire John Rawls Hampshire,
Editor Marshall Cohen

Public
** TTO

A ff

j l*C
*

Associate Editors Thomas Nagel, Thomas Scanlon

WINTER 1974
DONALD A. PEPPERS

VOLUME 3

NUMBER 2

War Crimes and Induction : A Case for Selective NonConscientious Objection Rawls
and

RICHARD MILLER JOHN HARRIS TED HONDERICH A

Marxism

The Marxist Conception of Violence

Difficulty

with

Democracy

Correspondence

Robert Paul Wolff, Frederick A. Olafson

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