RENAISSANCE ETHICS: REVIVAL OF NATURALISM IN MORALS
I. DETERMINING INFLUENCES
[Sidenote: The Renaissance: the
new intellectual life]
Toward the close of the medieval ages came that important movement in
European society known as the Renaissance, a main feature of which
was the restoration of classical culture. Since the incoming of the
northern barbarians with their racial traits and martial moral code
there had been no such modifying force brought to bear upon the moral
evolution of the European peoples, nor was there to appear a greater
till the rise of modern evolutionary science.
The Renaissance exerted its transforming influence on the moral life
of the West chiefly through the new intellectual life it awakened
by bringing the European mind in vital contact with the culture of
the ancient world; for intellectual progress means normally moral
progress. Hence as the Renaissance meant a new birth of the European
intellect, so did it mean also a new birth of the European conscience.
Just as the conscience of the medieval age had its genesis in the new
religion which superseded the paganism of the ancient world, so did the
common conscience of to-day have its genesis in the new science, the
new culture, which in the Renaissance superseded medieval ideas and
theological modes of thought. A chief part of our remaining task will
be to make plain how the new intellectual life born in the revival of
the fifteenth century, and expressing itself since in every department
of human life, thought, and activity, has reacted upon the moral
feelings and judgments of men and taught them to seek the ultimate
sanctions of a true morality in the deep universal intuitions of the
human heart and conscience.
[Sidenote: The decay of feudalism
and the rise of monarchy: court
life]
Running parallel throughout the later medieval time with the classical
revival, whose significance was so great for European morality, there
was going on a political and social revolution which exerted an
influence on the ethical evolution only less potent and far-reaching
than that of the intellectual movement. During this period the
petty feudal states in the different countries of Europe were being
gathered up into larger political units. The principle of monarchy was
everywhere triumphing over that of feudalism. The multitude of feudal
castles, in which had been cradled the knightly ideal of manhood, were
replaced by the palaces and courts of rich princes and powerful kings.
This meant a great change in the social and political environment of
the higher classes.
In the first place, in these later courts there was a brilliancy
of life, a culture and a refinement rarely found in the earlier
feudal castles. In the next place, the relation which every member
of the court sustained to the prince or sovereign was fundamentally
different from that which the vassal had sustained to his lord under
the feudal régime. This relation, it is true, was still a personal
one; but independence was gone, and with this were gone the pride and
self-sufficiency which it engendered. In these princely courts the
knight became a courtier.
The effect of these changes in surroundings and relationships upon
the standard of conduct was profound, as we shall see when, a little
farther on, we come to inquire what were the ethical feelings and
judgments awakened in this new environment.
[Sidenote: The growth of the
towns: the workshop and the market
as molders of morals]
Three institutions--the monastery, the castle, and the town--dominated
successively the life of the Middle Ages. Each developed a distinct
ethical ideal. The monastery cradled the conscience of the monk; the
castle, the conscience of the knight; and the town, the conscience of
the burgher.
What particular virtues were approved by the moral sense of the town
dweller we shall note a little farther on. We here merely observe that
in the atmosphere of the town, in the relationships of the workshop and
the market, were nourished the lowly lay virtues of the artisan and
the trader, virtues which, though disesteemed by classical antiquity,
regarded as of subordinate worth by the monk, and held in positive
contempt by the knight, were yet to constitute the heart and core of
the ethical ideal of the modern world.
II. SOME ESSENTIAL FACTS IN THE MORAL HISTORY OF THE AGE
[Sidenote: Revival of the
classical conception of life:
the new birth of the European
conscience]
When Christianity entered the Greco-Roman world with its new moral
ideal, the old classical ideal of character, as we have seen, was
practically superseded. There were, it is true, certain elements of
this pagan morality which were consciously or unconsciously absorbed by
Christianity; but the classical ideal as a whole was rejected, just as
the greater part of the cultural elements of Greco-Roman civilization
were cast aside. For a thousand years Hebrew-Christian conceptions of
the world and of life shaped the thought and conduct of men. Then came
the Renaissance.[697]
In the study of this movement the attention of the historian has
ordinarily been centered on the literary, artistic, and intellectual
phases of the revival, while the ethical phase has been given but
slight attention or has been dismissed with the facile observation that
the movement induced a revival of pagan immorality. This is true. But
the really significant thing was not the revival of pagan _immorality_
but the revival of pagan _morality_. For just as this classical revival
meant a new enthusiasm for the artistic, literary, and cultural
elements of the earlier Greco-Roman civilization, so did it also mean a
new enthusiasm for the Greco-Roman ideal of character. To many it was
no longer the Church ideal but the classical that seemed the embodiment
of what is ethically most noble and worthy. Such persons gave up the
practice of the distinctively Christian theological virtues, or,
if they still outwardly observed the Church code, this was merely
insincere conformity suggested by prudence or policy; the code of
morals which their minds and hearts approved and which they observed,
if they observed any at all, was the code of pagan antiquity. It is in
this secularization of the ethical ideal, in this divorce of morality
from theology, in this announcement of the freedom and autonomy of the
individual spirit, that is to be sought the real significance of the
classical revival of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for the
moral history of the Western world.
In two ways chiefly did the Renaissance exert its transforming
influence upon European morals: first, by awakening a new intellectual
life, for, as we have had repeatedly shown us, a new mental life
means a new moral life; and second, by the direct introduction of
various elements of Greco-Roman morals into the Christian ideal of
character. Thus at the same time that the cultural life of Europe
was being enlarged and enriched by the incorporation of those
literary and art elements of classical civilization which had been
rejected or underestimated by the Middle Ages, the moral life of
Christendom was being profoundly modified by the incorporation of
those ethical elements which constituted the precious product of the
moral aspirations and achievements of the best generations of the
ancient world. The conscience of those persons in the modern world
who are imbued with the true scientific spirit, that is to say, with
the humanistic spirit of the Renaissance, is quite as largely Greek
as Hebraic. A recent writer reviewing the life of a distinguished
personage (Julia Ward Howe) recognized this mingling in modern culture
of these diverse elements in these words: “She has blended and lived,
as no other eminent American woman, the humanistic and the Christian
ideals of life. She has preached love and self-sacrifice, and she has
loved beauty and self-realization.”
[Sidenote: Theological morality:
the ethics of persecution]
In the domain of theological morality the history of the Renaissance
affords one of the most painful chapters in European history. This
chapter has to do with the establishment of the Inquisition to maintain
uniformity of religious belief.
It is not an accident that this chapter should form an integral part of
the history of the Renaissance. The spread of heresy, which threatened
the unity of the medieval Church, was largely the outgrowth of the new
intellectual life awakened by the revival of learning.[698] Hence it
was inevitable that the age of the Renaissance should be also the age
of persecution. It is not a recital of the history of the Holy Office
during the period under review which is our concern in this place,
but only a consideration of the motives of Christian persecution.
That intolerance should ever have been regarded by the followers of
the tolerant Nazarene as a virtue and persecution of misbelievers as
a pious duty, challenges the attention of the historian of morals and
incites earnest inquiry into the causes of such an aberration of the
moral sentiment.
It cannot be made a matter of reasonable doubt that one of the chief
causes of Christian intolerance is the theological doctrine that
salvation is dependent upon right belief in religious matters, and
that error in belief, even though honest, is a crime that merits and
receives eternal punishment.[699] This dogma leads logically and
inevitably to intolerance and persecution;[700] for if wrong belief is
a crime of so heinous a nature as justly to subject the misbeliever to
everlasting and horrible torments, and if the misbeliever is likely to
bring others into the same fatal way of thinking, then it follows that
heresy should be extirpated, just as the germs of a dreaded contagion
are stamped out, by any and every means however seemingly harsh and
cruel. Thus St. Thomas Aquinas and other theologians logically “argued
that if the death penalty could be rightly inflicted on thieves and
forgers, who rob us only of worldly goods, how much more righteously
on those who cheat us out of supernatural goods--out of faith, the
sacraments, the life of the soul.”[701]
It was this theological teaching that heresy is a fault of unmeasured
sinfulness, an “insidious preventable contagion,” which was the main
root that fostered Christian intolerance and persecution.[702] The
activities of the Holy Office were maintained not by bad men but by
good men. “With such men it was not hope of gain, or lust of blood,
or pride of opinion, or wanton exercise of power [that moved them],
but sense of duty, and they but represented what was universal public
opinion from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century.”[703]
Reflecting on these facts, we readily give assent to the charitable
judgment of the historian Von Holst in commenting on the acts of the
Terrorists in the French Revolution, that “wrongdoing to others lies
not so much in the will as in the understanding.” The greatest crime
of history was committed by men who knew not what they did.[704] It
was a theological doctrine which is to-day rejected by the reason
and conscience of a large section of the Church itself, that caused
the loss for centuries of the virtue of toleration, which in the
ethical systems of the classical world had been assigned a prominent
place among the virtues, and which, could it have found a place in
the standard of goodness of the Church, would have saved Christendom
the horrors of the Albigensian crusades, the pious cruelties of the
Inquisition, and the mutual persecutions of Catholics and Protestants
throughout the age of the Reformation.
[Sidenote: Political morality:
Machiavellian ethics]
The matter of dominant importance in the sphere of political morality
during the Renaissance was the creation of a code of morals for
princes. This was a system formulated by the Italian philosopher
Machiavelli, who wrote under the secularizing influences of the
classical revival and of the paganized courts of the Italian princes of
his time.[705] It was a code which the ruling class, for whom it was
designed, eagerly adopted, for the reason that it harmonized with their
desires, ambitions, and practices, and sanctioned as not only morally
permissible, but even as obligatory and meritorious, policies and acts
which, without such sanction, might have awakened in some at least
inconvenient and hampering scruples of conscience.
This princely ideal, notwithstanding that the conduct of the prince who
acted in accordance with it was generally condoned, was not one which,
like the ascetic or the knightly ideal, awakened moral enthusiasm. It
was a standard of conduct never approved by the best conscience of
Christendom. On the contrary, the work in which Machiavelli embodied
this ideal for princes was, on its first appearance, fiercely assailed
as grossly immoral, and ever since has called forth the severest
condemnation of moralists.
The fundamental principle of Machiavelli’s system is that the moral
code binding on the subject is not binding on the ruler; or rather that
ethics has nothing to do with politics.[706] With the prince the end
justifies the means. He is at liberty to lie, defraud, steal, and kill,
in fine, to employ all and every form of deception, injustice, cruelty,
and unrighteousness in dealing with his enemies and with other princes
or states.
This moral standard set for princes by Machiavelli was the dominant
force in international affairs from the middle of the sixteenth to the
middle of the seventeenth century. During this period it debased the
public morals not only of Italy but of every other land in Christendom.
Its vicious principles were acted upon by every court of Europe.[707]
Even to-day Machiavellism, though condemned in theory, is still too
often followed in practice. It would not be an exaggeration to say that
_The Prince_ has exercised a more baneful influence over the political
morals of Europe than any other book ever written.
It is instructive to contrast the influence of Machiavellism with that
of Stoicism. Among the good effects of Roman Stoicism was its ennobling
influence upon the imperial government. It gave the Roman Empire such a
succession of high-minded and conscientious rulers as scarce is shown
by the history of any other state ancient or modern. In contrast to
the influence of this noble philosophy which apotheosized duty and
exalted in rulers the virtues of clemency, truthfulness, magnanimity,
and justice, Machiavellism filled, or contributed to fill, the thrones
of Christendom with rulers whose moral sense was so blunted by its
sinister doctrines that for generations truth speaking, sincerity,
regard for the obligations of treaties, and respect for the rights of
sister states were almost unknown in the diplomacy and mutual dealings
of the governments of Europe. It is only after the lapse of more than
three centuries that Christendom is freeing itself from the evil
influence of Machiavelli’s teachings, and that there has been generated
a new public conscience which recognizes that states like individuals
are subjects of the moral law, and that the code which is binding on
individuals is binding likewise on governments and communities.
[Sidenote: The ethical value of
the ideal of the courtier]
We have already mentioned the ideal of the courtier as one of the
ethical or semi-ethical products of the age of the Renaissance. This
was a conception of perfect manhood which was nurtured in the socially
brilliant and refined courts of the Italian princes of this period. It
was a fusion and modification of selected virtues and qualities of the
knight and of the scholar. The Christian theological virtues had no
necessary place in it.
It was the distinctive virtues of the knight, elevated and refined,
which formed the heart and core of the ideal. Like the ideal of
knighthood, the courtly ideal was an aristocratic one; the courtier,
like the knight, must be “nobly born and of gentle race.”[708] Martial
exploits were accounted to him as virtues; “his principal and true
profession ought to be that of arms.”[709] As loyalty to his superior
was a supreme virtue in the knight, so was absolute loyalty to his
prince the pre-eminent virtue of the courtier. Not less prominent was
the place accorded in the ideal to the knightly virtues of courage and
courtesy.[710]
But to these qualities and virtues of the knight the courtier must
needs add those of the scholar. The ordinary knight despised learning
and held the virtues of the scholar in contempt. But the ideal of
courtliness grew up in a land where humanistic studies had become a
ruling passion, and in an age when the highest ambition of many an
Italian prince was to be known as a patron of learning. It was natural
that, developing in the atmosphere of these courts, the new standard of
perfect manhood should give a prominent place to the qualifications and
virtues of the scholar.
This ideal of the courtier was never such a moral force in history
as that of the monk or of the knight, but there were in it ethical
elements of positive value to the moral life of the world. It was
the inspiration of many of the finest spirits of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.[711] Of the noble-minded Sir Philip Sidney a
biographer says, “He conscientiously molded his life on the model of
the perfect courtier of Cortelliani.” Nor has the ideal ever ceased
to appeal to the imagination, or lost its power to soften and refine
manners and ennoble conduct. It inspires gentle consideration for
others of whatsoever estate, incites to unselfish service, and induces
absolute good faith and self-forgetting loyalty to friends and to the
cause espoused, all of which are moral qualities of high value, and all
of which have entered or are entering as permanent elements into the
growing world ideal of perfect manhood.
[Sidenote: The ethics of industry:
the medieval towns the cradle of
the modern business conscience]
In the medieval town was developed a moral ideal as distinct and
individual as that of the monastery or of the castle. Central in this
type of goodness were the homely virtues of industry, carefulness in
workmanship, punctuality, honesty, faithful observance of engagements,
and general fair dealing. To these lay virtues were added all those
which made up the Church ideal for the ordinary life, for there had not
yet been effected that divorce of business from theology which had been
effected in the case of politics.
The development of this ideal of goodness was a matter of immense
importance for the moral life of the West, because, acted upon by the
practical ethical spirit of Protestantism and other agencies, it was
destined to supersede the ascetic and chivalric ideals of life, which
for more than a thousand years had been the ruling moral forces in the
life of Christendom, for neither of these ideals of goodness could be
more than a partial and passing form of the moral life. The ascetic
ideal, having for its distinctive qualities such virtues as celibacy,
poverty, solitary contemplation, vigils, fastings, and mortifications
of the body, could not possibly become the standard for all men. It was
confessedly a standard of perfection for the few only.
As to the knightly ideal, this was too exclusively a martial one
to become the supreme rule of life and conduct for the multitude.
Furthermore, it was an aristocratic ideal, an ideal for the noble born
alone. This precluded the possibility of its becoming, as a distinct
type, a permanent force in civilization.
But the ethical type of the towns, embracing those native human virtues
which spring up everywhere out of the usual and universal relationships
of everyday life and occupations, was sure of a permanent place among
the ethical types of the classes and professions of modern society. In
the same sense that the medieval towns (as the birthplace of the third
estate) were the cradle of modern democracy, were they the cradle of
modern business morality. Just as through the medieval monastery passes
the direct line of descent of the present-day social conscience of
Christendom,[712] just so through the medieval town passes the direct
line of descent of the present-day business conscience of the Western
world.
[Sidenote: Disuse of trial by
wager of battle]
The influence of the spirit generated in the medieval towns is seen in
that important reform, the abolition of the judicial duel, which was
one of the most noteworthy matters in the moral history of the Middle
Ages.[713]
It was the military spirit of the German barbarians which, as we have
seen, was a chief agency in the introduction of the wager of battle
or trial by combat in the jurisprudence of the European peoples.[714]
Besides the influence of the towns, a number of other causes concurred
in gradually effecting the abrogation of this method of settling
disputes, among which the most efficient were the opposition of the
Church, the revival of the Roman law in the eleventh century, and the
advance in general intelligence. Into every one of these agencies there
entered an ethical element, so that we may regard this great reform, in
its causes as well as in its effects, as distinctively a moral reform.
Thus the influence of the towns was essentially ethical, for the rise
of these communities, as we have just seen, meant the superseding
of the ethics of aristocracy and war by the ethics of democracy and
industry. Consequently the influence exerted by the towns was largely
that of a new ideal of character.
The opposition of the Church was motived chiefly by moral feeling,
the pontiffs and the bishops who opposed the practice doing so on
the ground that the ordeal by battle was “brutal, unchristian, and
unrighteous.”
The advocates of the civil law opposed the practice not only because
it interfered with the royal and imperial administration of justice,
but because it was a practice based on ignorance and superstition and
“incompatible with every notion of equity and justice,” since brutal
force was allowed to usurp the place of testimony and reason. Thus the
Roman law, as the embodiment of right reason, was here as everywhere
else a moral force making for what is reasonable and just.
The influence of the general progress in enlightenment was also
profoundly ethical, since this movement resulted, as intellectual
advance always normally does, in a growing refinement of the moral
feelings, in progress in moral ideas, and in truer ethical judgments.
By the opening of the modern age trial by combat, acted on by these
various influences, had become obsolete or obsolescent in most of the
countries of Europe.[715] Strangely enough, the international duel or
public war, resting on substantially the same basis as the private
judicial duel, has held its place as the instituted and legalized
method of settling controversies between nations down to the present
time, without, till just yesterday, being seriously challenged by the
awakening conscience of the world as equally repugnant to the moral law
and incompatible with every principle of reason, humanity, and justice.