The Historical Journal, , (), pp.

# Cambridge University Press

Printed in the United Kingdom

INDIVIDUAL AND SELF IN THE LATE

RENAISSANCE
GEOFF BALDWIN
Christs College, Cambridge

. This article argues that many traditional historical narratives of individualism have
been reproduced in more recent discussions of the self and selfhood, and that attempts to discover a point
at which the modern self came into existence have been hampered by such assumptions. To provide
an alternative to these approaches, discussions of the self in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries will be examined. Eschewing overarching narratives, the discussion will focus on how neostoic sources were employed in the context of challenges to traditional forms of the humanist ethics of
office-holding. Such ideas, important in writers like Montaigne, Pierre Charron, and William
Cornwallis, have been associated with an idea of new humanism , but this article aims to discuss
with precision how they relate to early modern ethical discussion. Here an insight can be gained into
a particular philosophical development of the idea of the self. This can be more productive than some
recent new historicist , or sociological, approaches to the literature of this period, which tend to the
deconstruction of a particular set of sources through the use of the self as a theoretical heuristic.

I
Twentieth-century scholarship of the early modern, or Renaissance, period has
been dominated by a notion of individualism. After Max Weber posited a link
between Protestantism and capitalism at the beginning of the twentieth
century, individualism became the focus of much attention from those who
wanted to explain what was distinctive about the modern social and political
world. The emergence of an individualist society was, for many social
historians, the process by which the modern, as opposed to the medieval, came
into being. Individualism was linked to capitalism, liberalism, and an incipient
industrial revolution, these three together breaking out of a medieval and
religious consensus. This trajectory fitted well with the stories that historians on
the right, and the followers of Marx, both wished to tell."
" Max Weber, The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, trans. T. Parsons (London, ).
R. H. Tawney followed similar lines, focusing on the retreat of theological influence upon
economic affairs, where the impersonal market was the realm for individual enterprise ; R. H.
Tawney, Religion and the rise of capitalism (London, ). H. M. Robertson questioned the explicitly
Protestant nature of capitalism, focusing more clearly upon individualist tendencies within society
which forced changes in both Catholic and Protestant theology and morals ; H. M. Robertson,
Aspects of the rise of economic individualism (Cambridge, ). Alan Macfarlane argued that English
society, uniquely in Europe, had been individualist from at least the thirteenth century, creating
ideal conditions for an industrial revolution ; Alan Macfarlane, The origins of English individualism
(Oxford, ).

In literary and artistic criticism a similar trajectory was being forged, which
drew upon Enlightenment ideas about the unity of particular eras in history
and the emergence of a valuation of autonomy. Jacob Burckhardt argued that
individuals only became aware of themselves separately from a general
category during the Italian Renaissance. His view has not gone unchallenged,
but the lineaments of his arguments remain a powerful influence on
Renaissance scholarship.# Ernst Cassirer focused on the philosophical side to
such a trajectory.$ Historians of philosophy and political theory often accepted
this picture, supplying histories of thought which showed how a developing
individualism shaped philosophy and ideas from the seventeenth century
onwards.% Through their view of the early modern period, these writers
participated in the wider debates between liberalism and socialism that
dominated the twentieth century.
Latterly, the emphasis of historical debate has moved away from such issues.
This is in part because social historians have focused more closely on questions
of community and the exercise of power which compromised the image of a
new era of individual, or bourgeois, liberty coming into being. Historians of
political thought have also moved toward an appreciation of the variety of
# Jacob Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (Basle, ), trans. S. G. Middlemore as
The civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (London, ). Burckhardt himself famously later became
sceptical of this aspect of his description of Renaissance culture, but this did not detract from its
influence. On Burckhardt see Felix Gilbert, History, politics or culture ? : reflections on Ranke and
Burckhardt (Princeton, NJ, ) ; Lionel Gossman, Cultural history and crisis : Burckhardts
Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy , in Michael S. Roth, ed., Rediscovering history : culture, politics and
the psyche (Stanford, ), pp. ; for earlier followers, see Norman Nelson, Individual as a
criterion of the Renaissance , Journal of English and Germanic Philology, (), pp. ; on his
indebtedness to Hegel, see Ernst Gombrich, In search of cultural history (Oxford, ), pp. .
$ Ernst Cassirer, Individuum und Kosmos in der philosophie der Renaissance (Berlin, ), trans.
M. Domandi as The individual and the cosmos in Renaissance philosophy (Oxford, ). On Cassirer, see
Walter Eggers, Ernst Cassirer : an annotated bibliography (New York, ) ; Cassirers position as a
neo-Kantian makes one wonder to what extent Kants notion of autonomy has been written back
into an earlier period. Richard Tuck has argued that Kants rewriting of the history of ethics led
to the denigrating of Grotius and other natural law thinkers of the seventeenth century : Philosophy
and government (Cambridge, ), p. xv. A modern example is J. B. Schneewind, The invention of
autonomy : a history of modern moral philosophy (Cambridge, ), which rewrites the history of
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century moral thought as leading to Kantian ideas of autonomy. The
Renaissance, and certainly any late Renaissance developments, are eclipsed by the need to
conform to this trajectory.
% C. B. Macpherson moulded seventeenth-century thinkers as diverse as the Levellers and
Hobbes into a schema which portrayed the seventeenth century as the time when politics adapted
itself to, and eventually guaranteed, individualism ; C. B. Macpherson, The political theory of
possessive individualism (Oxford, ). The Marxist assumptions of his approach are more explicitly
stated in C. B. Macpherson, Democratic theory : essays in retrieval (Oxford, ). J. A. W. Gunn
argued that the idea of public interest served to capture state power for the individual ; J. A. W.
Gunn, Politics and the public interest in the seventeenth century (London, ). Albert Hirschman
regarded developments in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century philosophy and
psychology as validating the potential social worth of individual passion over abstract reason.
Albert Hirschman, The passions and the interests (Princeton, NJ, ). Richard Tuck has argued
that the development of a coherent idea of subjective natural rights was one of the most significant
philosophical achievements of the seventeenth century : Natural rights theories (Cambridge, ).

discourses that can exist within a society, and gained a greater awareness of the
dangers of following, in a necessarily anachronistic way, the development or
emergence of an idea.& There has, however, been a development of a new
subject of inquiry closely analogous to individualism. This has been apparent
in literary studies, especially the more historicized parts thereof, as well as in
social histories of the early modern period.
This subject, the self, has the same chronological parameters, and covers
much of the same ground as did individualism. Writers of both social and
cultural history have turned from the individual to the self while preserving
many of the structures of the former discussion. The heirs of Weber have
employed the idea of the self as a way of investigating what was significant
about the literature or society of the past. Indeed, it is the starting point for
some of the most significant modern contributions to social analysis. Anthony
Giddens regards the reflexive creation of a self-identity as the subject to be
studied, and the post-traditional order of modernity to be the context in which
that endeavour changes its nature.' Roy Porter regards the self as an important
part of any historical understanding of the nature and functioning of language.(
Charles Taylor, attempting a philosophical understanding of modernity from
another direction, argues that the modern sense of self is the most important
ethical achievement of Western thought.)
The notion of a self or selves as aspects of a text, fictional or otherwise, has
become the focus for much attention from literary critics. Those who have
approached such questions have built on ideas of individualism, and have also
appropriated sociological and historical approaches. Writing in , Patricia
Meyer Spacks examined the analogues between two emergent genres in the
eighteenth century : the autobiography and the novel, most often written in the
form of autobiography.* Questions of authenticity, persuasion, and the nature
of selfhood were, she argues, common to both. More recently, Michael
Mascuch has attempted to trace the development of an idea of self through
autobiographical writing from the sixteenth to the late eighteenth century."!
& For instance, as a corrective to Macpherson, John Dunn has emphasized the theological
background to the thought of Locke : John Dunn, The political thought of John Locke (Cambridge,
). John Pocock has resurrected those elements of the thought of the American revolution that
could not be regarded as being beholden to Locke, or a caricature of his individualism, as a
progenitor : J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian moment (Princeton, NJ, ).
' Anthony Giddens, Modernity and self-identity : self and society in the late modern age (Cambridge,
). Giddens of course is inspired by and builds upon the work of Durkheim and Weber, whose
individualist thesis was so influential earlier in the century.
( Roy Porter, Expressing yourself ill : the language of sickness in Georgian England , in Peter
Burke and Roy Porter, eds., Language, self and society (Cambridge, ), pp. . Other essays
in this volume by Daniel Rosenburg and G. S. Rousseau are also of interest.
) Charles Taylor, The sources of the self : the making of modern identity (Cambridge, ).
* Patrica Meyer Spacks, Imagining a self : autobiography and novel in eighteenth-century England
(Cambridge, MA, ).
"! Michael Mascuch, Origins of the individualist self : autobiography and self-identity in England,
(Cambridge, ). Mascuch attempts to occupy the difficult space between social
history and textual criticism. See also Paul Delany, British autobiography in the seventeenth century

His work is marked by a debt to modern social theory, and a reluctance to

designate anything as true autobiography until the terminus ad quem of his
study James Lackingtons Memoirs of . The changes wrought by Romanticism obviously had a great effect upon the nature of literary reflexivity,
and may well be thought to have pushed the self to the centre of literary
inquiry, but it is in studies concerned with the centuries before this that the idea
of the self is used most consistently as a hermeneutic device.""
One of the most influential critics of Renaissance literature has been Stephen
Greenblatt, who saw a wide variety of texts, from More to Shakespeare, as
being attempts to construct selves that could function in a literary and fictional
sphere."# Greenblatts methodological basis in twentieth-century critical
Marxism, such as that of Althusser, means that the conception of a developing
individualist, or bourgeois, consciousness dominates his criticism. He writes of
More and Shakespeare as Macpherson wrote of Hobbes and Locke, the self in
literary production replacing the individual in political writing. For him, the
literature of the period is characterized by the creation of literary selves.
Earlier, Joan Webber had described the seventeenth century as one in which
the consideration of self defined literary style."$ Paul Oppenheimer went so far
as to equate a certain sense of self with the modern mind, and to locate the
development of such in the thirteenth century, when Giacomo da Lentino
invented the sonnet at the court of Frederick II."%
It seems that for scholars the inspiration for focusing on the self is very similar
to that for attempting to demonstrate the rise of something called individualism.
Both phenomena have their apotheosis after the French and Romantic
revolutions, and both are threatened by postmodernity or postindustrialism.

(London, ). Autobiography, as an essentially private form of writing, has received attention

from feminist critics : Shari Benstock, ed., The private self : theory and practice of womens autobiographical
writings (London, ) ; Felicity A. Nussbaum, The autobiographical subject : gender and ideology in
eighteenth-century England (Baltimore, ). These titles are in themselves revealing, the self in
question often being designated as private, as opposed to public, or linked with the individualism
that so exercised earlier writers.
"" Mascuchs distinction between autobiography and autobiographical textuality becomes
somewhat strained by the starkness of the arrival of true autobiography at the end of the eighteenth
century. John Lyons goes to some lengths to argue that Montaigne could not count as expressing
a sense of self, which could only come after the French Revolution had dissolved the constraints of
the past. John O. Lyons, The invention of the self : the hinge of consciousness in the eighteenth century
(Carbondale, ).
"# Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance self-fashioning : from More to Shakespeare (Chicago, ). Maus
has identified many critics in the New-Historicist mould who deny the possibility of a real inward
life in the Renaissance period, instead regarding the individual as entirely constructed intersubjectively ; Katherine Eisaman Maus, Inwardness and theatre in the English Renaissance (Chicago,
).
"$ Joan Webber, The eloquent I : style and self in seventeenth-century prose (Madison, Milwaukee,
).
"% Paul Oppenheimer, The birth of the modern mind : self, consciousness and the invention of the sonnet
(Oxford, ).

The ideological outlook of both sets of scholars is often similar. It may be

possible, however, to introduce some greater degree of subtlety into the grand
literary narratives that have dominated studies of the period, and at the same
time contribute to more historical debates on the nature of humanism.
For the historian of philosophy or political thought, it is somewhat difficult
to know how to contribute to this inquiry into what seems to be a curiously
persistent way of looking at the early modern period. Methodologically, there
is a reluctance to employ the idea of the self as a tool to unlock the structure
either of texts, or of social practices, which do not themselves use such a
concept. To examine how languages and discourses themselves were employed
and adapted, to make sense of and influence the world, should be the goal of the
intellectual historian. There is, however, a clear context for the employment of
such techniques. At the end of the sixteenth century, some writers and political
thinkers began to approach problems of rhetoric and personal political action
in a corrupt world. The solutions they found often used the idea of something
called the self, which they sometimes rendered as a noun, something which
could be spoken of as an object for the first time. Those developments that took
place on the continent were quickly absorbed into English Renaissance writing
through translation and direct influence on native writers. It seems that there
was a ready audience for such ideas, and that they represented a development
of which not sufficient account has been taken in Renaissance studies. It is
possible to identify a stage in thinking or writing about the self which is not
identifiable with the Renaissance as a whole, nor indeed with later eighteenthcentury developments in thinking about autonomy and reflexivity.
Such an approach could help solve conceptual problems created by the
intrusion of eighteenth-century ideas into later approaches to the Renaissance,
which still blurs distinctions important to an accurate story. This article aims
to examine the sources and structure of a different set of ideas, which do not lie
primarily in the realm of economics or literature, but in that of politics and
public service."& It is the ethical and political discussions of those in Britain and
"& Another obvious place to look for ideas about the individual and self is in religious discourses,
and one strand of thinking about the individual is focused upon the individuals relationship with
the divine. However, it seems to me that the reflexivity encouraged by religious feeling is of a
different order to that which I am discussing, as the self-examination was with specific reference to
divine providence, and the possible place of that individual within the divine plan. On Protestant
thought in this area, see William Haller, The rise of puritanism (New York, ) ; Herbert Wallace
Schneider, The puritan mind (Ann Arbor, MI, ) ; Edmund S. Morgan, Visible saints : the history
of a puritan idea (New York, ). On the Catholic versions, Henri Bremmond, Histoire litteT raire du
sentiment religieux en France depuis la fin de la guerre de religion jusqu aZ nos jours ( vols., Paris, ),
vols. ; John Bossy, The English Catholic community, (London, ), pp. ; Rene!
Taveneaux, Catholicisme dans la France Classique, (Paris, ), pp. ; Louis
Cha# tellier, The Europe of the devout, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge, ), pp. ; Jean
Delumeau, Rassurer et proteT ger : le sentiment de seT curiteT dans l occident d autrefois (Paris, ) ; Robin
Briggs, Communities of belief : cultural and social tensions in early-modern France (Oxford, ), pp.
. On Loyolan devotion, see Joseph de Guibert, La spiritualiteT de la Compagnie de JeT sus (Rome,
) ; Ignacio Iparraguirre, Historia de la praT ctica de los ejercicios espirituales de San Ignacio de Loyola

France who reacted to their humanist inheritance, and the nature of politics as
they saw it, that form the focus of this article.
By the end of the sixteenth century certain aspects of humanist, political and
social ideas had gained wide acceptance in both Britain and France, at a
national and also a local level. Those aspects were not republican constitutions
such as those of ancient Rome or early modern Florence, but ethical arguments
about the duties of those who held public office. Humanism could be thought
of as that part of the Renaissance which emphasized the rhetorical and ethical
achievements of ancient texts. It answered the need for a language to express
clearly ideas about public life that grew from the combination of an increasing
social and political complexity and older practices and institutions. It was to
some extent a literary activity, concerned as it was with models of how to speak
and write well. Humanists promoted themselves as secretaries and ambassadors
because they could write and speak convincingly and persuasively : common
among their texts is the story of the Athenian ambassadors who so impressed
the Lacedemonians in negotiating a peace that they wished they had never
started the war in the first place. They also argued that ancient texts showed
how to do politics : so they should be appointed as tutors to those who would
have power thrust upon them. Their students would then learn the skills
necessary to be successful in public life.
Texts such as Ciceros De officiis offered ideals of behaviour appropriate for
those occupying roles in government, both local and national, whether
executive, advisory, or judicial. Thus the ethical ideas were centred around
virtue in the public sphere, and the approbation in the form of gloria that would
follow from recognition of such virtue. Virtues, such as constancy or justice,
could be expressed in the execution of the duties of some sort of office ; an
enumeration of different offices could be thought of as fully describing an
individual. Early humanists in northern Europe such as Erasmus, More, Elyot,
or Bude! discussed and adapted such ideas in the light of different political and
religious contexts. Humanism did not become a standard or stable set of values,
but was constantly changing in the light of new circumstances.
II
By the late sixteenth century, to discuss the functioning of politics was to engage
with the legacy of humanism, as it provided the guide to appropriate behaviour
for those who held public office. One of the fundamental political values of

(Bilbao, ) ; Terrence W. O Reilly, The Spiritual exercises and the crisis of medieval piety , The
Way, suppl. (), pp. ; John W. O Malley, The first Jesuits (Cambridge, MA, ),
pp. . Providence has some resemblance to stoic ideas of fate or destiny : contemporaries were
at some pains to distinguish the two see especially Justus Lipsius, Two bookes of constancie, trans.
John Stradling (London, ), pp. . I shall in any case attempt to argue that the ideas I am
examining went beyond a repetition of stoic commonplaces.

humanism, and one which became a commonplace during the Renaissance,

was that of the ability to convince, and convey the desired impression on an
audience. The ambiguities and possibilities for deceit in such a rhetorical ethic
of self-presentation had been targets for criticism since the time of Aristotle, and
its Renaissance revival led to a similar set of responses.
The direct relationship between the public exercise of virtue and the glory
due to the individual was challenged by those who argued that the very
techniques involved in the exercise of virtue most especially the use of
rhetoric tended to vitiate the reliability of that relationship. Virtue was in a
sense performed : in discussing office the metaphor of acting was commonplace
from Cicero onwards. Whether or not that performance was a fake, it was
necessarily artificial. The creation of fictive personalities prompted by such
activity is the focus for literary critics such as Greenblatt, who have identified
such traits in writers such as More and Shakespeare. The discovery and
examination of such processes amounts for these critics to a denial of
subjectivity : the performance is made the defining aspect of human nature.
I would like to argue that there was, in the later Renaissance, a new
discussion pertaining to the self which served both to show how problems raised
by humanist ethics and politics could be limited, or at least circumvented, and
to demonstrate how the individual could best cope with living within such a
culture. This involved strategies for understanding the world in which
appearance differed from reality, and truth differed from what was said, as well
as living with the psychological strains arising from the presentation of fictive
personae. These developments raise doubts about the unity of Renaissance ideas
of self and personality, and to undermine readings based upon such
assumptions. The negotiation of the boundary between public persona and
private self had become apparent as one of the criticisms of the functioning of
a traditional rhetorical humanism. Discussions of virtue and how to survive in
the public world increasingly appropriated arguments from the Greek and
Roman stoics which emphasized a sense of detachment from that which was
subject to fortune. The way in which this inheritance was employed would
involve discussions of something some contemporaries called the self, a
construction that would enable individuals to deal with the vicissitudes of life.
Such notions were strongly at variance with older humanist ideas of public
virtue and action. There has been some discussion of a new humanism ,
linked to stoicism, and to the rise of absolute monarchies, and the consequent
destruction of a context within which traditional humanist ideas could find
their application. Focusing in more detail on ideas of individual action or the
self may help to clarify its content of such a humanism."' Ideas of the self did
"' See for instance Tuck, Philosophy and government ; J. H. M. Salmon, Seneca and Tacitus in
Jacobean England , in Linda Levy Peck, The mental world of the Jacobean court (Cambridge, ) ;
Peter Burke, Tacitism, in T. A. Dorey, ed., Tacitus (London, ), p. ; Alan T. Bradford,
Stuart absolutism and the utility of Tacitus , Huntington Library Quarterly, (), pp. .

not constitute an abandonment of such old humanist ideals, but were an

attempt to make them attainable in circumstances that made their straightforward application impossible. Such developments were highly significant in
that such themes would recur later in the century during the crisis of political
authority that began in , and be employed in a fashion that had a dramatic
impact on the way it was possible to think about politics and political
reasoning. Ideas about individual judgement and rationality would dominate
discussion at the foundation of the new state after the execution of Charles in
January , and in the work of writers such as Hobbes, Milton, and
Harrington.
Criticisms of humanism and the functioning of politics were often made by
citing the mutability of opinion, which the orator or courtier was expected to
manipulate. Stoic ideas of constancy and independence from the world were
closely connected to the problem of opinion, both in terms of the individuals
capabilities and the possibly flawed judgements of the world in general upon
the individuals actions and worth."( The revival of stoicism was a natural
starting point for a discussion of such ideas, though the early modern writers
would go beyond their ancient forebears.
The earliest manifestation of stoic philosophy in Renaissance England was
Epictetus Enchridion, the only direct source for the original Greek stoic sect. It
was translated into English in by John Sanford from a French translation
of the Greek.") Epictetus central point is to make a distinction between those
things that are within our power, Opinion, Endevour, Desire, Eschewing ,
and those things that are without, Body, Possession, Honours, Sovereignties ."*
To worry about those things that cannot be controlled is foolish and only
destroys tranquillity. It is natural to enjoy such things, but one should not
become attached to them. As one can love a pot in the knowledge that it is
fragile and brittle , and thus likely to break, so one should love everything
outside ones power, even wives and children.#! The same goes for both
honour and place , which one should not value but ask Is it in thee to bear
rule or to be bidden to a banquet ? #" Epictetus thus devalues the search for
public acclamation, and so questions the humanist connection between virtue
"( The neo-stoic movement was especially strong in northern Europe. For a general survey, see
Julien Angers, Reserches sur le stoicisme aux XVI et XVII sieZ cles (Hildesheim, Olms, ) ; Jacqueline
Lagre! e, ed., Le stoicisme aux XVI et XVIIe sieZ cles actes du colloque Juin (Caen, ) ;
Jaqueline Lagre! e, Juste Lipse et la restauration du stoicisme (Paris, ) ; Gilles D. Monsarrat, Light
from the porch : Stoicicm and English Renaissance literature (Paris, ) ; Gerhard Oestreich, Neostoicism
and the early modern state (Cambridge, ).
") Epictetus was popular in France, appearing in both Latin and Greek editions from the s
onwards. The Enchridion was translated as Le manuel d EpicteT te by Antoine Moulin in , and as
La doctrine d EpicteT te stoicie by Andre! Rivandeau in . Many of the most significant texts that had
some stoic inspiration were French, and they often gained rapid popularity in Europe.
"* Epictetus, Manuell of Epictetus translated out of Greeke into French, and now English, conferred with
two Latin translations, trans. John Sanford (London, ), sig. A, r. The spelling in quotations has
been modernized where possible and appropriate, but titles have been left.
#! Ibid., sig. B, v.
#" Ibid., sig. C, r. Banket means banquet.

and honour, along with the associated ideas of being able to help friends or
ones country.
The other ancient source of stoic ideas was Seneca, whose works were
translated by Thomas Lodge in . Apart from some plays, none of his works
was published in Latin in England before this, but there were numerous
continental editions from the late fifteenth century onwards. In Of providence he
asks, as there is a divine, directing, providence, why do adversities befall good
men? .## His answer is that God loveth them strongly , and so tests them in
order to reveal their virtue, rather as wrestlers engage stronger athletes to
improve themselves.#$ He quotes the stoic Demetrius, who states a central
paradox, There is nothing, saith he, more unhappy then that man that hath
never been touched with adversity : for he hath not had the means to know
himself. #% As well as having shocking effect, this paradox shows the importance
of knowing that one can be constant in the face of adversity, especially as one
may be thrust into it at any moment. Seneca asks, How can I know what
constancy thou hast against ignominy, infamy, and popular hate, if thou grow
old amidst the applauses of every man? #& To be pampered by fortune is to be
unsure of ones own virtues or abilities. To be constant, Seneca argues, one
must bear in mind the same distinction that was central to Epictetus thought,
that those things which the common people long after, and which they are
afraid of, are neither good nor evil .#'
One of the most immediate reactions to this inheritance was Guillaume du
Vairs La philosophie morale du stoW ques of , which was translated by Thomas
James in .#( He argued that the ideal form of life is not to be troubled with
any passions or perturbations of the mind , despite the fact that one is living in
a world which would naturally lead one to be so disturbed.#) The solution is
Epictetus distinction between that which is within our power, and that which
is not, and the correct use of that which we can control. All circumstances can
be turned to our joy and contentment through concentration upon the inner
realm, so that after a time even galley slaves sing as merrily as birds .#*
Justus Lipsiuss De constantia of was translated as Two bookes of constancie
by John Stradling in . The immediate context for this work was the Dutch
civil wars of the late sixteenth century, which caused so much suffering and
## Lucius Annus Seneca, Works, trans. Thomas Lodge (London, ), p. .
#$ Ibid., p. .
#% Ibid., p. .
#& Ibid., p. .
#' Ibid., p. .
#( Guillaume du Vair () was an advocate active in the Paris Parlement who

supported Henri de Navarre from onwards. He wrote a treatise on constancy during the siege
of Paris in , and in became governor of Provence, where he was active in intellectual life.
In , after finding favour with Louis XIII, he was made bishop of Lisieux. On his life, see Rene!
Radouant, Guillaume du Vair, L homme et orateur jusqu aZ la fin des troubles de la ligue, (Paris,
n.d.) ; also Paul Roques, Le philosophie morale des stoiques de Rene! Radouant, Guillaume du Vair ,
Archives de philosophie, n.s., (), pp. .
#) Guillaume du Vair, The moral philosophie of the stoicks, trans. Thomas James (London, ),
p. .
#* Ibid., pp. , . This example shows du Vair employing the stoic strategy of using a
shocking paradox in order to arrest the reader and make the point all the more forceful.

danger, especially for those involved in public life.$! Lipsius advises constancy
in the face of these calamities, which he defines as a right and immovable
strength of the minde, neither lifted up, nor pressed down with external or
casual accidents .$" These external accidents are false goods and false evils,
which both distemper the mind .$# He echoes Senecas argument that
adversity is an important spur to virtue : If all things succeed prosperously and
happily to a man, there is no place to make proof of his virtue : for the only true
level to try withal, is affliction. $$ Despite his praise of gardens as places of
retreat, Lipsiuss constancy is a virtue of active involvement with the world,
rather than a wholesale rejection of worldly affairs. We cannot just ignore the
world, as if it be Destiny that this weather-beaten ship of thy country shall be
saved from drowning, it is destiny withal that she shall be aided and defended ,
so that there is a duty to put to thy helping hand .$%
One text often cited as dealing with stoic ideas and problems of individuality
is the Essais of Michel de Montaigne, the third and last book of which appeared
in .$& John Florios translation of all three books in spread the
popularity of this work, which was referred to with admiration by English
essayists. The impact of this work comes partly from generic innovation and
also the air of moral scepticism which pervades most of the essays. His Of
cannibals and the Apology for Raymond Sebond have long been regarded as classic
expressions of Pyrrhonian scepticism. With this background, he regarded
constancy, and the stoic inheritance in general, favourably but not uncritically.
Montaigne follows Epictetus in emphasizing the positive nature of ill
fortune. He argues that it is not a question of virtue making one happy despite
suffering, but through it, since difficulties ennoble, sharpen, animate and raise
that divine and perfect pleasure .$' The problem of constancy is linked to moral
scepticism, and the difficulty of comprehending motivation in such essays as Of
the inconstancie of our actions. An advocation of constancy can only ever be a
partial answer to these problems. In his essay Of constancy Montaigne defined it
as firmly bearing the inconveniences, against which no remedy is to be
found .$( He does not aim at the complete serenity of the stoic sage, but
praises instead the wise Peripatetic , as he doth not exempt him self from
perturbations of the mind, but doth moderate them .$) Montaigne feared the
$! See Martin van Gelderen, The political thought of the Dutch revolt, (Cambridge, ),
pp. et passim.
$" Justus Lipsius, Two bookes of constancie, trans. John Stradling (London, ), p. .
$# Ibid., p. .
$$ Ibid., p. .
$% Ibid., p. . This contrasts with Richard Tucks view of Stoicism as a retreat from a corrupt
world ; Tuck, Philosophy and government, pp. .
$& Montaignes fame is such that it would be pointless to attempt to list all works that discuss his
work. For a biography see Donald M. Frame, Montaigne : a biography (London, ) ; see also on
his works Pierre Villey, Les sources et l eT volution des Essaies de Montaigne (Paris, ) ; Donald M.
Frame, Montaignes discovery of man (New York, ) ; R. A. Sayce, The Essays of Montaigne a
critical exploration (London, ).
$' Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, trans. John Florio (London, ), p. .
$( Ibid., p. .
$) Ibid., p. .

consequences of inconstancy, but was sanguine about the ability of human

beings entirely to overcome it.
In On how one ought to govern the will, Montaigne shows how he feels this
detachment should affect how one lives ones life. He declares I am not
wedded unto many things, and by consequence, not passionate of them , thus
rejecting the affections that distract me from my self .$* It is an emotional
engagement with the public world that Montaigne is wary of, a public world
which is outside the individuals control. He says of those involved in public life,
Their faculties are not their own, but theirs to whom they subject themselves ,
the primary example of such a one being his own father, who as mayor of
Bordeaux was cruelly turmoiled with this public toil .%! He does not advocate
a retreat from public life, but a different attitude towards it so that one may not
be destroyed by that which is inherently outside ones control. Montaigne
advocates a particular way of becoming involved in public affairs, claiming I
know how to deal in public charges, without departing from my self the
breadth of my nail ; and give my self to an other, without taking me from my
self. Indeed, he that employeth but his judgement and direction is better at
managing public affairs.%" His formulation is similar to stoic sources, but more
sophisticated in that he gives a name to that which is defined as under his own
control : he calls that himself. He creates an idea of a self which can provide an
anchor and make it possible to remain constant and take part in an uncertain
public sphere.
Pierre Charrons De la sagesse, translated by Samson Lennard in as Of
wisdome three bookes written in French, aimed beyond a wisdom, discretion and
advised carriage in a mans affairs and conversation , this being common, as
respecting nothing but that which is outward and in action .%# Charron argues
that man is the play-game of Fortune, the image of inconstancy, the example
and spectacle of infirmity .%$ In response to this, desires and pleasures must be
governed, and suffering should be welcomed : In these times of prosperity,
adversity is a medicine, because it leadeth us to the knowledge of our selves. %%
The fruit of all our labours and studies, the crown of wisdom is to maintain
himself in true tranquillity of spirit , not involving a retreat or vacation from
all affairs but an impermeability to the blows of fortune, and to restore
himself to himself .%&
Many English writers followed Montaigne and produced volumes of essays,
$* Ibid., p. .
%! Ibid., pp. , .
%" Ibid., p. .
%# Pierre Charron, Of wisdome three bookes written in French, trans. Samson Lennard (London,

), sig. A, v. On Charrons life, see Alfred Soman, Pierre Charron : a revaluation , BibliotheZ que
d humanisme et Renaissance, (), pp. . On his political significance, Anna Maria Battista,
Alle origini del pensiero politico libertino (Milan, ). See also E. F. Rice, The Renaissance idea of wisdom
(Harvard, ), pp. ; Richard H. Popkin, The history of scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes
(Assen, ), pp. ; Anthony Levi, French moralists, the theory of the passions (Oxford, ), pp.
; M. C. Horowitz, Pierre Charrons view of the source of wisdom , Journal of the History of
%$ Charron, Of wisdome, p. .
%% Ibid., p.
Philosophy, (), pp. .
%& Ibid., pp. , .

but few discussed constancy or stoic ideas in any detail.%' One who did was
William Cornwallis, whose Essayes was published in . As well as using the
essay form, he speaks of having common purpose with Montaigne in speaking
of himself only in order to instruct. While accepting that human beings are
subject to fate or destiny, he regards it as an excuse for sloth, as these names
of shelter are but the surnames to our folly , and Our actions are in our own
hands , to be directed by wisdom and virtue.%( To gain such wisdom and live
accordingly, it is necessary for the individual to be reflexive : let us begin with
our selves, and marshal and dispose our own course ; let us determine it, and
leave nothing to uncertainties, but drawing out our intents regularly, follow
that delineated and weighed manner : Here lives Happiness, for here lives
wisdom.%)
Constancy is necessary to do this, and Cornwallis praises the patience
necessary to resist calamities, to be shaken with the winds and tempests of
Chance, and mortality, and yet not to be loosened, nor in danger of falling, is
the most beautiful, the most happie, and the most renowned blessing of man .%*
Cornwalliss reflections serve as testimony to the influence of stoic thought in
England, but also to the complexity of its reception in a country which, while
at times politically unstable, was not racked by civil war. The stoic virtue of
constancy made central by the Dutchman Lipsius remains important, but is
subordinated to other aspects of stoic philosophy and ideas of selfhood.
Another perspective on the stoic inheritance is provided by the divine Joseph
Hall, author of Characters of virtues and vices, whose Heaven upon earth, or of true peace
and tranquillitie of mind was published in . He gives a traditional definition
of tranquillity, That it is such an even disposition of the heart, wherein the
scales of the mind neither rise up towards the beam, through their own
lightness, or the over-weaning opinion of prosperity, nor are too much
depressed with any load of sorrow ; but hanging equal and unmoved betwixt
both. &! Hall adds Christian ideas of grace to the Senecan method by which one
may attain tranquillity. Later in the piece he reiterates some of Senecas ideas
at greater length, for instance the promotion of that wisdom to teach us to
esteem of all events as they are , that is how they truly relate to ourselves, rather
than how they seem to affect us.&" Expectation and foresight of suffering are
also recommended such that troubles are half past in their violence when they
do come .&#
%' Francis Bacons Essayes, published in and later expanded, was perhaps the first.
%( William Cornwallis, Essayes by Sir William Cornewalys the younger, knight (London, ), sig. B,

r. His Discourses upon Seneca the tragedian (London, ) were often bound in with the essays, and
%) Ibid., sig. B, v.
a combined edition was published in .
%* Ibid., sig. E, rv.
&! Joseph Hall, Heaven upon earth, or of true peace and tranquillitie of mind (London, ), pp. .
Joseph Hall () was famous as a writer of meditative literature. See Richard McCabe,
Joseph Hall : a study in satire and meditation (Oxford, ) ; Frank Livingstone Huntley, Bishop Joseph
Hall and Protestant meditation (Binghampton, ) ; T. F. Kinlock, The life and work of Joseph Hall,
(London, ) ; Audrey Chew, Joseph Hall and neo-stoicism , Proceedings of the Modern
&" Hall, Heaven upon earth, p. .
Languages Association, (), pp. .
&# Ibid., p. .

The ideal of being independent from the capricious events of the world was
obviously of great importance to a wide variety of early modern thinkers. The
virtue of constancy became less associated with the consistent performance of
duty, and more with an inner state, which, while it helped the individual carry
out public service, was also intrinsically important. The methods for attaining
constancy and tranquillity involved a reservation of a part of the individual,
most often in line with the Epictetian distinction between that which is within
our control, and that which is not. This did not mean a retreat from external
events, which were outside the individuals control, but a tendency to devalue
them so that they lost their power to define the individual.
III
Constancy, as described above, was dependent upon a correct discerning of
what was of value and what was not. A false opinion of where the good lay
could be extremely damaging, and was identified as an enemy of tranquillity.
Regarding the external world as inessential to the real well-being of the
individual involved not merely being impervious to adverse events, but also
regarding external or general opinion as unimportant. Writers discussing ideas
of stoicism and the self not only counselled independence from opinion, but
regarded their ideas, at an individual level, as an antidote to the problems it
caused.
For Epictetus, The things do not trouble men, but the opinions which they
conceive of them , as it is only an opinion that a particular event is harmful, in
contrast to its true significance which is negligible with regard to those things
which he regarded as important.&$ Similarly, one should not judge glory by the
use of opinion .&% In du Vairs version of stoic thought, the desire for riches and
honour should be resisted, and in this respect one must chase away this furious
desire far from us, and leaving the foolish opinions of the vulgar sort of
people .&& The doubt thrown on the link between glory and virtue was the
result of a scepticism about the value of general approbation, where techniques
of manipulating that approbation were openly practised. This was especially
true when a distinction was made between those who could discern such
manipulation, ideally of course the stoic sage, and those to whom opinion
provided the only guide. There was no guarantee that virtue would bring
honour : it would have to be its own reward. To judge by opinion would lead
to both discontent and potentially immoral action.
For Lipsius, the intellectual confusion caused by the calamity of civil war is
a result of opinion. In Two bookes of constancie, the character of Lipsius is in
dialogue with Charles Langius who attempts to convince him to constancy. He
describes Lipsiuss present confusion, For these mists and clouds that thus
compass thee, do proceed from the smoke of . &' Opinion is linked to
&$ Epictetus, Manuell, sig. B, v.
&% Ibid., sig. B, v.
&& Du Vair, The moral philosophie of the stoicks, p. .
&' Lipsius, Two bookes of constancie, p. . Charles Lange was a humanist and friend of Lipsius.

the senses in Lipsiuss physiognomy of thought, as it representeth to the soul

the shapes and forms of things thorough windows of the senses , and as such
takes their side and By the means of it wee are troubled with cares, distracted
with perturbations, over-ruled by vices. &( Later in the work, Langius argues
that we must not fear circumstances such as poverty, exile, or death, but
behold them naked without any vestment or vizard of opinions .&) To achieve
constancy or tranquillity, Lipsius regards a proper appreciation of the dangers
of opinion as a necessity.
The figure of the sagacious man figures strongly in Montaignes Essayes, often
in opposition to common or vulgar thought. He argues that diversity of
opinions possible upon any event or thing means that any particular opinion
on pain, poverty, or death is subjectively determined, For if evils have no
entrance into-us, but by our judgement, it seemeth that it lieth in our power,
either to contemn or turn them to our good. &* Montaigne thus retains the
lineaments of the stoic argument, while emphasizing the sceptical element that
not only contributes both to the necessity of so acting or so thinking, but makes
it a possibility. In discussing glory, Montaigne expands Epictetus argument
about public approbation. Taking account of other peoples views, we are
exposed to a breathy confusion of bruits, and frothy Chaos of reports, and of
vulgar opinions , especially dangerous as appearances are no clear indication
of the nature of the event.'! Honour is rejected : Let us disdain this insatiate
thirst of honour and renown, base and beggarly, which makes us so suppliantly
to crave it of all sorts of people. '" Montaignes scepticism with regard to his
own opinions and the opinions of others has the effect of destroying the
humanist connection between virtue and glory, and turns opinion into the
enemy of the wise man rather than the measure of the virtuous.
For Pierre Charron, opinion was a vain, light, crude and imperfect
iudgement of things drawn from the outward senses, and common report
never arriving to the understanding , which is extremely dangerous if it is
allowed to become settled.'# In opposing dogmatists, and such as will govern,
and give laws unto the world , Charron argues that people are too quick to
believe what is commonly accepted, thus he regards the whole world led and
carried with opinions and beliefs .'$ Common opinion tends to have a
snowballing effect, thus which dogma is accepted, or who is regarded as
virtuous, is for Charron merely a question of fortune.'% The state of the world
is a mass of contradictory opinions, which can only be resolved by subservience
to custom.
English writers took up the arguments about opinion with some enthusiasm,
and indeed this was an aspect of English thought evident before the importing
of French stoic material. In his Virtues commonwealth of , Henry Crosse
argued that the problems of poverty and other afflictions are bad if judged
&( Ibid., p. .
'! Ibid., p. .
'$ Ibid., pp. , .

&) Ibid., p. .
'" Ibid., p. .

&* Montaigne, Essayes, p. .

'# Charron, Of wisdome, p. .

'% Ibid., p. .

only with the eye of common reason , which the wise should ignore to fit
himself to bear the troubles of this life, with a valiant and immutable
courage .'& He rejected riches, parentage, office, place, dignity as indicators
of virtue, as they are part of a rotten ladder , dependent on the judgement of
the opinion of the multitude .'' He criticizes those who have climbed this
ladder ; they are in their own opinion very gallant, but in the judgement of
wise men they are but a blown bladder, painted over with many colours,
stuffed full of pride and envy .'( Opinion has enabled such men to succeed
thanks to the uncertain nature of success and failure in the public world.
Cornwallis held that opinion, a monster, half Truth, and half Falsehood ,
is to be rejected even though it is a component of worldly success, as it cleaves
most to great Fortunes, and yet liveth upon the breath of the vulgar .') This
illustrates the disjunction between the necessity of courting opinion for
promotion or honour and its natural falsehood and debasement, accentuated
by its association with the vulgar people. Those who court popularity Needs
must they have cunning that deal with this ticklish commodity of the vulgars
favour , which cunning has the capacity to corrupt the ambitious. It is
necessary, but as the blossom of the tree of virtue is susceptible to base
mercenary imitations , as the labour of most men now adayes is not to obtain
truths, but opinions warrant .'* Cornwalliss attitude to opinion is ambiguous,
distrusting it while recognizing its indispensability. His is a less pressing
constancy, and also a less pressing rejection of opinion than that which was
required of the stoic sage.
Opinion within an individual was regarded as the mistaken estimation of
both people and things that could do harm by leading one to have a false
conception of what lay within ones power and what did not, thus disturbing
the minds tranquillity. Opinion in the world was beyond control, especially as
it could be consciously manipulated by the unscrupulous, or even by the honest
man attempting to advance or merely act in the world. To regard such opinion
as a true measure would lead either to dishonesty or perturbation of the mind,
or both, and an alienation of the individual from his true worth which could
not thus be estimated. The discernment of appearance from reality was held to
be impossible, or at least very difficult, for the vulgar or common sort of people.
This prejudice favoured those who had read and accepted the sceptical and
stoic arguments on which it was based ; to some extent at least they were able
to penetrate the mist of opinion with which all knowledge was shrouded. It was
they, therefore, who could be constant, and who could discern what was, and
what was not, essential to the self.
A sense of constancy and independence from common opinion were both
virtues advised in the ancient texts in pursuit of an ideal of the correct
'& Henry Crosse, Virtues commonwealth : or the high-way to honour (London, ), sig. F, r, sig. F,
'' Ibid., sig. D, r.
'( Ibid., sig. K, v.
') Cornwallis, Essayes, sig. I, v.
'* Ibid., sig. Q, vQ, r ; sig. Q, rv ; William Cornwallis, Discourses upon Seneca the tragedian

r.

(London, ), sig. B, v.

relationship with the political or social world. This to some extent could seem
to be itself a role to be inhabited, rather than something clearly distinct from
the ideas of office-holding emphasized by traditional humanism. While seeing
stoic ideas as a resource in dealing with the problems raised by humanist ethics
and political life, those thinkers considered here went further. They wished to
redescribe the relationship that the individual should have with the offices they
might perform, or the roles they might play. This redescription was not an
attempt to define a role or set of imperatives, but to create a space away from
those roles the individual inhabited.(!
IV
One way of confronting the problems of action in a world dominated by
opinion was to give an explanation of individual reason. Explanations of the
workings of the soul differed in complexity and arrangement and even in the
number of the various faculties, but the similarity of the arguments that ran
through a wide variety of texts is striking. The mind was thought to be broadly
divided into two faculties : the rational and the sensitive, the higher of those two
being the rational, which in scholastic terms was closer to God. Reason was
thus in opposition to passions, which demand an immediate and unthinking
response, and opinion, which is a potential misrepresentation of significance or
moral value. Reason was therefore necessary to judge the actions of others and,
perhaps more importantly, to act appropriately and give the correct impression
to others : in other words, to achieve any degree of worldly success. Many texts
created an idea of what it was to be rational, defined, to use their most common
metaphor, in terms of the internal politics of the soul, and against the supposed
irrationality of the common or vulgar people, who inhabited a world of
opinion.("
This could only ever be part of the solution to the problem of being and
acting in a world which could not be relied upon to display the same
rationality. As well as following reason, it could be thought necessary to
reinforce a sense of self, a sense of something reserved, through a process of
introspection. Stoicism could be seen as creating a sense of self aloof from the
caprices of fortune, which enabled the individual to cope and remain constant
despite reversals. Constancy was necessary to any such sense of self, as it had to
be something that remained the same rather than being at the mercy of either
circumstance or outward opinion. The reservation of something particular to
(! There is a desire in authors such as Tuck and Salmon (Philosophy and government and Seneca
and Tacitus in Jacobean England ) to see stoicism as a doctrine of retreat from the world in a
corrupt time : this provides part of a new humanism which is as a whole to be associated with a
corrupt political sphere, by contrast to natural law or more modern constructions. The stoic
inheritance, however, could and was turned in other, more positive, directions, as this article
attempts to demonstrate.
(" For a detailed discussion with reference to the French writers, see Anthony Levi, French
moralists (Oxford, ), pp. .

the individual, or the exclusion of the inessential, was not a simple process. One
part of that process was the maintenance of the sovereignty of reason within the
soul or the mind, which enabled correct judgement to be made about the
nature of that which was presented through the senses. Good judgement could
therefore be seen as both a product of, and essential to, the self. Selfexamination was part of this process, both because it could help maintain the
balance necessary for good judgement, and because it was essential to the
notion of reservation of something which was particular individual.
The stoic sources were relatively silent on these issues. Seneca did, however,
make a strong link between tranquillity and a sense of reservation. In Of
tranquilitie, he discusses the hazards of the public life, concluding let my mind
cleave unto himself, let him seem himself : let him not intend no foreign
businesses, nor any thing that is subject to every mans censure .(# Conversations
with strangers are dangerous, and we ought to retire our selves very inwardly
within our selves, for the conversation of those men that are of different humour
from us, disturbeth those things that are well composed, and reneweth
affections .($ The idea that exposure to novelty or affections could disturb a
sense of self was reproduced by du Vair in his account of the passions in The
moral philosophy of the stoicks. Fear promotes other passions such as hatred of what
is feared, and carrieth us out of our selves , while jealousy is nothing else but
a distrust of a mans self, and a bearing witness of him self against himself of his
small deservings .(% Passion, as taking one away from oneself, or being an
expression of the fact that one is already alienated from ones essence, is a very
significant step beyond Epictetus, whose thought du Vair claimed to be
representing.(&
Montaigne makes a similar complaint about the affections, that they create
false imagination in us , which means that We are never in our selves, but
beyond. (' The soul is unable to remain constant, being always moved and
tossed , and if she have not some hold to take, looseth it self in it self, and must
ever be stored with some object, on which it may light and work .(( He claims
that it is not possible to complain enough about the disorder and unruliness of
our minde , which is not settled enough to concentrate on itself and thus create
a settled sense of itself, but will always wander towards new objects.() The
import of Montaignes answer is that judgement must be turned and focused
upon oneself if any part of his project is to be realized. An effort must be made
to create a sense of self that is separated from the external world. In discussing
solitariness, he argues that it is not sufficient to shift place, a man must also
sever him-self from the popular conditions, that are in us. A man must sequester
and recover himself from himself. (* This sequestration requires judgement,
and makes impartial judgement a possibility. Once achieved, it should be
(#
(%
(&
('

($ Ibid., p. .
Seneca, Works, p. .
Du Vair, Moral philosophy, pp. , .
This has become proverbial ; one still speaks of being beside oneself with anger or fear.
(( Ibid., p. .
() Ibid., p. .
(* Ibid., p. .
Montaigne, Essayes, p. .

possible for the wise man to wed nothing but himself , despite the huge
inequality in appearance and reality between individuals.)! In Of exercise or
practice, Montaigne describes self-examination as essential to this process,
There is no description so hard, nor so profitable, as is the description of a
mans own self. )" A conceited consideration of ones life leads to alienation for
those who build castles in the air ; deeming themselves as a third person and
strangers to themselves , such that it is essential that good judgement be
reflexively employed.)#
Montaigne argues in the same vein when discussing the active life : it is most
important to avoid becoming a stranger to oneself. In On how one ought to govern
his will he develops the traditional analogy of the stage as Most of our
vacations are like plays. Care must be taken when playing a part to maintain
an appropriate distinction : We must play our parts duly, but as the part of a
borrowed personage. Of a vizard and appearance, wee should not make a real
essence, nor proper of that which is anothers.)$
Such as fail to distinguish the skin from the shirt become inconstant, they
transform and transubstantiate themselves, into as many new forms and
strange beings as they undertake charges .)% The primary injunction from
Montaigne is to avoid this happening, not to give oneself to any party so that
the understanding is thereby infected .)& The understanding must be
maintained to retain the sense of something specific and unique. For
Montaigne, living in the world required the reservation, or even the creation,
of an idea of the self in order to sustain a proper outward appearance. For there
to be different parts well played, there had to be an actor capable of judging
and distinguishing the part from reality : there had to be a self.
Charron demanded for his wisdom a high status, First, that wisdom which
is neither common nor vulgar hath properly this libertie and authoritie, Iure suo
singulari, to judge of all and in judging to censure and condemn common
and vulgar opinions. )' To judge by ones own rule was a radical solution to the
problem of scepticism, but was restricted to a relatively small number of people.
It was dependent upon reason, but, more importantly, on self-knowledge :
Thou forgetest thy self, and losest thy self about outward things ; thou
betrayest and disrobest thy self ; thou lookest alwaies before thee ; gather thy self
unto thy self, and shut up thy self within thy self : examine, search, know thy
self. )(
Charron here communicates a strong sense of the necessity of reserving and
keeping something of the self through the process of searching for self through
introspection. It is easy to know the things which are outwardly adjacent to
individuals, such as offices, dignities, riches, nobilitie, grace, and applause of
the greatest peers and common people , but this public carriage is of no
account ; what is necessary is a true, long, and daily study of himself, a serious
)! Ibid., pp. .
)% Ibid., pp. .
)( Ibid., p. .

)" Ibid., p. .
)& Ibid., p. .

)# Ibid., p. .
)$ Ibid., p. .
)' Charron, Of wisdome, sig. A, v.

and attentive examination not only of his words, and actions, but of his most
secret thoughts .)) This is the essence of the wisdom that Charron wishes to
teach.
This independence of mind does not imply the ability to ignore accepted
rules and customs, but while outwardly conforming, the wise man will play
one part before the world, and another in his mind, which he must do to
preserve equity and iustice in all .)* Judgement is here preserved in a space
away from the censure of an unthinking and unreflective world, enabling the
individual to remain just despite the uncertain value of truth or opinion. The
elite capable of reservation and judgement must not, however, retreat into their
gardens to preserve their independence. While we must reserve our selves unto
our selves , the wise individual must apply himself to public society those
offices and duties which concern him , but in doing so should not confuse such
duties with his own self.*! Charron argues : we must know how to distinguish
and separate our selves from our public charges : every one of us playeth two
parts, two persons ; the one strange and apparent, the other proper and
essential .*"
Knowing how to separate and preserve the proper and essential person is
the subject of Charrons chapter, Of the justice and duty of man towards
himself , which he argues is a microcosm of the entire three books. What is
required is to make a diligent culture of himself , asking himself the reason
why things have gone either right or wrong. If vices or natural defects are
found, he must quietly and sweetly correct them, and provide for them . It is
a process of recovery : He must reason with himself, correct and recall himself
courageously. *# In Charrons thought the convergence between the ideas of a
self and ideas about judgement is striking. It is necessary to judge well in order
to recall oneself well, and to recall oneself well in order to reserve a self that is
able to judge.
William Cornwallis is eloquent in recommending the knowledge of the self,
asking whether can knowledge bend her force, more excellently then, then
man to look upon man : this knowledge is profitable, for it is for himself . All
other sorts of knowledge are subordinate to this, as it hunts for light without
light, in himself he must begin and end, for in himself is the light of reason,
that discovereth all things else .*$ For Cornwallis knowledge of the self is a
prerequisite for the acquisition of any type of knowledge, as it shows how it is
possible to have knowledge at all. It is necessary to have knowledge of how the
mind can and does know things, and to have a knowledge of the particular
nature of ones own mind, before knowledge of the world becomes a possibility.
Judgement is described as the child of this knowledge and reason, and enables
the individual to be virtuous, especially in the exercise of power. To be taken
in by deception, especially flattery, is a flaw in knowledge of the self, a false
reflection of our own thoughts that abuseth us .*% To be absorbed in deception,
)) Ibid., pp. , .
*# Ibid., p. .

)* Ibid., p. .
*! Ibid., p. .
*" Ibid., p. .
*$ Cornwallis, Essayes, sig. X, v.
*% Ibid., sig. Nn, r.

to be continually practising it, means that a man looseth the use of himself .*&
Cornwalliss ideas about the self are limited, but the force of his text is to
attempt to show how it is possible to retain the use of oneself. The prerequisite
for good judgement in matters of the external world, and the divination of
falsehood, is a knowledge and examination of the soul.
The self as an object is elusive, and the closest most authors come to
describing it is as something which retains its independence and ability to
judge, despite both the inherent deceptiveness of appearance, and the roles
which the individual is forced to take up as a matter of course. This involves
introspection, and a continual assessment of the individuals state of mind, to
ensure that there is something which remains untouched either by internal
passions or external perturbations. A language of liberty could be used to
uphold this conception about how individuals should act with respect to
themselves and the world.
V
Ideas of independence could merge easily with ideas of freedom. If it were
possible to retain a self that was unaffected by outside events or opinions, then
that self could be regarded as free. Unfreedom could exist if one were enslaved
either to passion, the inner motions of an unbalanced soul, or to opinion,
accepted but untried knowledge. Seneca put his views on fortune in these terms
in Of tranquilitie, emphasizing that all are subject to her caprice, Some are
enthralled by their honours, othersome by their base estate. *' In Of constancy,
freedom is equated with that quality, liberty being when we oppose a resolute
mind against injuries .*( Epictetus put his ideas in terms of freedom,
commanding He then which will be free, let him neither desire, nor flee any
thing, which is in an other man his hand, and power, otherwise of necessity he
shall be constrained to serve. *) Only that which was within the mind was not,
to some extent, in the power of others.
Lipsius put the point in a more dialectical fashion when speaking of reason,
perhaps putting a twist on the common humanist sentiment that to bear rule
one must learn to obey : To obey it is to bear rule, and to be subject thereunto
is to have the sovereignty in all human affairs. ** Freedom through subjection
may appear somewhat paradoxical, but to be rational was a prerequisite of any
freedom, because it left the judgement free despite the generally evil use of
power in the world. Lipsius concluded Thy judgement is not restrained, but
thy acts. "!! Du Vair describes in more detail how a passion, envy, destroys
freedom by making one chase after false goods such as wealth, which in order
to gain we have to flatter and cozen as they do, suffer many injuries, and needs
lose our liberty ."!" To be invited to a banquet one must flatter the host, and so
lose the liberty of expressing an honest judgement. Thus, ideas of liberty
*& Ibid., sig. Nn, v.
*' Seneca, Works, p. .
*( Ibid., p. .
*) Epictetus, Manuell, sig. C, v.
** Lipsius, Constancy, p. .
"!! Ibid., p. .
"!" Du Vair, Moral philosophie, p. .

functioned within these texts in two ways : first, with respect to the way the
individual should be in order to be capable of freedom, and secondly, how it was
possible to express that freedom despite the corruption of the world by being
independent of it.
The greatest liberty for Montaigne was the contemning of death or any other
temporal affliction after the stoic manner. He advises the contemplation of
death such that it loses its strangeness, and argues : Herein consists the true and
Sovereign liberty, that affords us means wherewith to jest and make a scorn of
force and injustice, and to deride imprisonment, gives, or fetters."!#
The readiness to accept affliction is the way to gain independence and
freedom from the world. Montaigne also values a somewhat similar intellectual
liberty associated with scepticism. He praises the Pyrrhonians for their extreme
doubt, They are so much the freer and at liberty, for that their power of
judgement is kept entire. "!$ It is not only an inner liberty that is valued, but
a life where that liberty can be given expression. He goes on to condemn the
favours and obsequies that courtiers have to perform, These favours, with the
commodities that follow minion-courtiers, corrupt (not without some colour of
reason) his liberty, and dazzle his judgement. "!% Courtiers are unfree not only
because they have to subject their own judgement to that of others, but because
this process leads to the destruction of their original ability to judge. This dual
liberty, of judgement and expression, is a liberty which Montaigne evidently
valued and saw as an integral part of ideas about stoicism or the self.
Charron in his introduction shows how he values self-knowledge, and links
the fight against passion and opinion to freedom : He that hath an erroneous
knowledge of himself, that subjecteth his minde to any kinde of servitude, either
of passions or popular opinions, makes himself partial ; and by enthralling
himself to some particular opinion is deprived of the liberty and jurisdiction of
discerning, judging and examining all things."!&
Slavery is here imagined as occurring within the mind, as lack of
independence from a particular idea or way of thinking. To remain free in
himself the individual must examine, and weigh all reasons or opinions, and
not give up that ability to judge in any sphere, else he will be led like oxen ,
rather than living freely."!' The most important opinion to be free of is that
concerning death or other afflictions, and Charron follows Montaignes
argument about learning to die, the science of dying is the science of
liberty ."!( Death is natural and part of ones own life, and to fear it is to fear
"!# Montaigne, Essayes, p. .
"!$ Ibid., p. .
"!% Ibid., p. .
"!& Charron, Of wisdome, sig. A, v.
"!' Ibid., pp. , .
"!( Ibid., p. . On attitudes to death, see Philipe Arie' s, The hour of our death, trans. Helen

Weaver (New York, ) ; Michel Vovelle, Mourir autrefois : attitudes collectives devant la mort aux
XVIIe et XVIIIe sieZ cles (Paris, ) ; Joachim Whaley, ed., Mirrors of mortality : studies in the social
history of death (London, ) ; David Stannard, The puritan way of death : a study in religion, culture and
social change (Oxford, ) ; Clare Gittings, Death, burial and the individual in early-modern England
(London, ) ; Michael Neill, Issues of death : mortality and identity in English Renaissance tragedy
(Oxford, ), pp. .

an opinion. Opinion can also enslave in its manifestation as honour, which,

being the opinion of others, is in their gift. To follow honour unreservedly is
voluntarily to renounce his own liberty , because it is to let his own affections
depend upon the eyes of another , or even the vulgar sort ."!) Thus, Charrons
wisdom is intended to free the individual from two sorts of slavery ; the
knowledge is necessary to set at liberty, and to free our selves from that
miserable double captivity, public and domesticall, of another, and of
ourselves ."!*
English writers were on the whole less keen to emphasize this aspect of their
thought, but it did emerge in the writings of Cornwallis. In speaking of
suspicion he describes how a lack of virtue means liberty is lost, giving liberty
we loose liberty, and by degrees throwing of the prescribed course of Virtue, we
fall into the incertainties of passions, and appetites .""! Here liberty is again
figured in opposition to the internal tyranny of appetites. Later, he puts it in
terms of pleasure, it is not pleasure to do what wee list, but never to stray from
what we should .""" In Of natures policy, he links these ideas to a concept of
policy, which is equivalent to the sovereignty of reason over the childish or
beastly courses in the soul. Policy is reason writ large, and it too is important
for the soul, and can contribute to its freedom : and therefore Policy producing
peace, and peace giving liberty to the souls workings, government and policy
are the destinated and direct objects of the souls that are yet in bodies .""#
Cornwallis is interested here in the public conditions necessary for the
production of peace in the mind, and he concludes that the efforts of those
minds must be focused on the problem of the public peace. This concurs with
a more traditionally republican notion of freedom which requires individuals
to demonstrate virtue to ensure its preservation.
The idea of intellectual freedom was a highly significant product of neostoicism or thought concerning the self. While accepting the essentially unfree
nature of the individuals place within the world, no matter what status he or
she was accorded, it showed how there was a different sort of liberty that could
be achieved. It was divided into two parts : first, the ability to judge by virtue
of the freedom of ones own mind, scorning the interferences of passions ;
secondly, which was not so easily within grasp, the freedom to express
judgement, or not to be bound to admitting conventional wisdom, or the
particular opinion of another. The latter was especially bound up with ideas of
honour or popularity, which were closely tied to the opinion of others, such that
not to accept these values was to be free.

"!) Ibid., p. .
"!* Ibid., p. .
""! Cornwallis, Essayes, sig. C, r.
""" Cornwallis, Discourses upon Seneca the tragedian, sig. A, r.
""# Ibid., sig. Aa, v, sig. Aa, r.

VI
This amalgam of liberties points to the confused and at times contradictory
nature of writings that concerned themselves with the self. What is clear is that
after the turn of the century there was an explosion of interest in texts which
had several themes in common, and can be thought of as providing strategies
for individual survival in a capricious world. These ideas did not provide a
clear and cogent argument, but rather an association of several different
concepts, some of them having their origins in newly popular stoic thought. It
is plausible to group these ideas around the idea of a self, as so many texts used
this term of analysis, although it was only comparatively rarely that they
stopped to analyse it in any detail. In order to be able to elude the clutches of
fortune, it was necessary to be constant, and to disregard that which was
outside ones control, without at the same time abandoning public duties or
virtuous effort. Associated with fortune was the opinion of the world, which
itself was both subject to fortune, and at the same time determined it. To
disregard the world it was necessary to reserve something that could not be
harmed or in any way influenced by it.
Ideas about reason and the functioning of the soul were employed to
demonstrate how it was possible for an individual to judge, or how it was
possible to resist either accepted opinion or the sensual urges of the body. The
ideal of reason could be held up as giving the possibility of the search after an
impartial truth, and defeating passions which clouded the mind against clear
sightedness. Judgement made possible the reservation of something which
could be called the self, away from that which sought either to control or to
destroy the individual. It is clear that the French writers conceptions of the self
were far more sophisticated than those of the English, and they were far keener
to discuss the self as an object. There was a huge demand for this French
literature, all of the important texts from the French stoic thought being
translated very rapidly after their composition. The English writers seemed
keener to emphasize the sovereignty of reason as the most significant product
of this complex of ideas, and it may be significant that this was the formulation
farthest removed from the stoic sources. They did not on the whole employ
these ideas to construct a theory of liberty as did the French. The important
point is, however, that these ideas were available to Englishmen at the start of
the seventeenth century, and would be highly influential throughout the whole
century.
With the possible exception of William Cornwallis, the English essayists and
writers were less sophisticated than their French counterparts, and the full
impact of their ideas would not be apparent from merely studying their
immediate intellectual heirs. What is very apparent is that both sets of thinkers
used these ideas to address the problematic relationship between the public and
private spheres, which traditional humanist concepts were increasingly unable
to resolve. The valuing of honour and glory as an indication of worth had been

questioned by scepticism, and a theory of the self provided a method for

retaining ideals of public service while accepting the sceptical argument about
the value of general opinion. In order to present a public persona given this
atmosphere, it was important not to put ones whole self into this persona, so that
the individual could not be described by referring to the sum of duties or offices
held. Something unique had to be retained that could not be crushed, as
Montaignes father had been crushed, by the destruction of those other persona.
Not only this, but the self which was reserved had to be capable of judgement,
so that it could discern the deception of the world and direct the operation of
one or more persona. This made it possible to act in a flawed world, and remain
true to oneself and therefore potentially free.
The sense of self evinced in the texts described above differs from the ideas of
self which have been used to examine and criticize literary texts. For
Greenblatt, an artificial self is created by an author for a purpose, in effect, to
perform an act of communication. It is precisely this process, which is part of
political as well as literary life, that these writers are protesting against. The
performance of this act, without any attempt to retain a sense of the essential
self, is both unsuccessful and damaging to the individual. The resolution of the
problem of acting in a fluid public sphere, with all the strategies of presentation
that implies, is the self-conscious fashioning of a real, as opposed to a fictive, self.
This would make it possible both to understand, and live in, the external world.
The sense of self which seems to emerge here is one which lies between the
stereotypical view of Renaissance humanism and individualism in a later
eighteenth-century sense. These writers did not regard autonomy as the
defining feature of human existence, and therefore as the basis of ethics, as did
Kant, for whom each individual must legislate the moral law. Neither did they
describe the individuals relationship with the political and social world in
terms of roles to be performed, or offices to be filled. They attempted to offer a
solution to the problems of a public existence as dramatized by writers like
More and Shakespeare. There is an analogy between the public ethics of early
manifestations of humanism in England, such as that of Elyot, and the view of
the world as inter-subjective held by some literary critics : in both there is little
space for the self as opposed to a persona. Such an analogy can lead to the
dangerous error of homogenizing the Renaissance in England, whereas
reactions to the problems raised by humanist thought constituted a significant
innovation in effectively and deliberately separating self and persona : an
enumeration of offices could not describe an individual. Later writers such as
Hobbes or Spinoza would attempt to base a moral theory, and political
obligation, on private deliberation. At the beginning of the seventeenth
century, there was a body of writers who developed ideas of the self which drew
upon stoicism and ideas of office, but went beyond both of these. They pointed
forward to more individualistic moral theories, as well as backwards to the
conception of the individual as a performer of a variety of roles.