CAMPANELLA, TOMMASO
"("tōm–mä̔;zō
kämpänĕl̔;lä")", 1568–1639, Italian
Renaissance philosopher and writer. He entered the Dominican order at the age
of 15, and although he was frequently in trouble with the authorities, he never
left the church. Imprisoned in 1599 on the grounds that he was plotting against
the Spanish rule of Naples, he was released in 1626 on the representation of
Pope Urban VIII. His best-known work is Civitas solis ( 1623, tr. The
City of the Sun), an account of a utopian society that closely follows the
pattern of Plato's Republic. Although he retained much of scholasticism
and insisted on the preeminence of faith in matters of theology, he emphasized
perception and experiment as the media of science. His importance, like that of
Francis Bacon and Bruno, depends largely on his anticipation of what came to be
the scientific attitude of empiricism. For his Civitas solis, see Henry
Morley, ed., Ideal Commonwealths ( 1890).
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The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2000, Columbia
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IDEAL
COMMONWEALTHS
PLUTARCH'S LYCURGUS MORE'S
UTOPIA BACON'S NEW ATLANTIS CAMPANELLA'S CITY OF THE SUN AND A FRAGMENT OF
HALL'S MUNDUS ALTER ET IDEM
WITH AN
INTRODUCTION BY HENRY MORLEY LL.D., LATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON
EIGHTH EDITION
LONDON GEORGE
ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL 1899
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MORLEY'S UNIVERSAL LIBRARY. |
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1. Sheridan's Plays. |
35. De Quincey's Confessions of an
Opium-Eater, &c. |
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2. Plays from Molière By
English Dramatists. |
36. Stories of Ireland. By Miss |
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3. Marlowe's Faustus and Goethe's
Faust. |
37. Frere's Aristophanes: Acharnians,
Knights, Birds. |
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4. Chronicle of the Cid. |
38. Burke's Speeches and Letters. |
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5. Rabelais' Gargantua and the Heroic
Deeds of Pantagruel. |
39. Thomas
à Kempis. |
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6. Machiavelli's Prince. |
40. Popular Songs of Ireland. |
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7. Bacon's Essays. |
41. Potter's Æschylus. |
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8. Defoe's Journal of the |
42. Goethe's Faust: Part II. |
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9. Locke on Civil Government |
43. Famous Pamphlets. |
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10. Butler's Analogy of Religion. |
44. Francklin's Sophocles. |
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11. Dryden's Virgil. |
45. M. G. Lewis's Tales of |
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12. Scott's Demonology and |
46. Vestiges of the Natural |
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13. Herrick's Hesperides. |
47. Drayton's Barons' Wars, |
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14. Coleridge's Table-Talk. |
49. The Banquet of Dante. |
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15. Boccaccio's Decameron. |
50. Walker's Original. |
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16. Sterne's Tristram Shandy. |
51. Schiller's Poems and |
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17. Chapman's Homer's Iliad. |
52. Peele's Plays and Poems. |
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18. Mediæval Tales. |
53. Harrington's Oceana. |
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19. Voltaire's Candide, and |
54. Euripides: Alcestis and |
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20. Jonson's Plays and Poems. |
55. Praed's Essays. |
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21. Hobbes's Leviathan. |
56. Traditional Tales. |
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22. Samuel Butler's Hudibras. |
57. Hooker's Ecclesiastical |
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23 Ideal Commonwealths. |
58. Euripides: The Bacchanals |
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24. Cavendish's Life of Wolsey. |
59. Izaak Walton's Lives. |
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25 & 26. Don Quixote. |
60. Aristotle's Politics. |
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27. Burlesque Plays and Poems. |
61. Euripides: Hecuba and |
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28. Dante's Divine Comedy. |
62. Rabelais -- Sequel to Panta- |
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29. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wake- |
63. A Miscellany. |
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30. Fables and Proverbs from |
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31. Lamb's Essays of Elia. |
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32. The History of Thomas |
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33. Emerson's Essays, &c. |
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34. Southey's Life of Nelson. |
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"Marvels of clear type and general
neatness." -- Daily Telegraph. |
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INTRODUCTION.
PLATO in his "Republic"
argues that it is the aim of Individual Man as of the State to be wise, brave
and temperate. In a State, he says, there are three orders, the Guardians, the
Auxiliaries, the Producers. Wisdom should be the special virtue of the Guardians;
Courage of the Auxiliaries; and Temperance of all. These three virtues belong
respectively to the Individual Man, Wisdom to his Rational part; Courage to his
Spirit7ed; and Temperance to his Appetitive; while in the State as in the Man
it is Injustice that disturbs their harmony.
Because the
character of Man appears in the State unchanged, but in a larger form, Plato
represented Socrates as studying the ideal man himself through an Ideal
Commonwealth.
In another of
his dialogues, "Critias," of which we have only the beginning,
Socrates wishes that he could see how such a commonwealth would work, if it
were set moving. Critias undertakes to tell him. For he has received tradition
of events that happened more than nine thousand years ago, when the Athenians
themselves were such ideal citizens. Critias has received this tradition, he
says, from a ninetyyear-old grandfather, whose father, Dropides, was the friend
of Solon. Solon, lawgiver and poet, had heard it from the priests of the
goddess Neïth or Athene at Sais, and had begun to shape it into a heroic
poem.
This was the
tradition: -- Nine thousand years before the time of Solon, the goddess Athene,
who was worshipped also in Sais, had given to her Athenians a healthy climate,
a fertile soil, and temperate people strong in wisdom and courage. Their
Republic was like that which Socrates imagined, and it had to bear the shock of
a great invasion by the people of the vast island Atlantis. This island, larger
than all Libya and Asia put together, was once in the sea westward beyond the
Atlantic waves, -- thus America was dreamed of long before it was discovered.
Atlantis had
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ten kings,
descended from ten sons of Poseidon ( Neptune), who was the god magnificently
worshipped by its people. Vast power and dominion, that extended through all
Libya as far as Egypt, and over a part of Europe, caused the Atlantid kings to
grow ambitious and unjust. Then they entered the Mediterranean and fell upon
Athens with enormous force. But in the little band of citizens, temperate, brave,
and wise, there were forces of Reason able to resist and overcome brute
strength. Now, however, gone are the Atlantids, gone are the old virtues of
Athens. Earthquakes and deluges laid waste the world. The whole great island of
Atlantis, with its people and its wealth, sank to the bottom of the ocean. The
ideal warriors of Athens, in one day and night, were swallowed by an
earthquake, and were to be seen no more.
Plato, a
philosopher with the soul of a poet, died in the year 347 before Christ. Plutarch
was writing at the close of the first century after Christ, and in his parallel
Lives of Greeks and Romans, the most famous of his many writings, he took
occasion to paint an Ideal Commonwealth as the conception of Lycurgus, the half
mythical or all mythical Solon of Sparta. To Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus, as
well as to Plato, Thomas More and others have been indebted for some part of
the shaping of their philosophic dreams.
The discovery
of the New World at the end of the fifteenth century followed hard upon the
diffusion of the new invention of printing, and came at a time when the fall of
Constantinople by scattering Greek scholars, who became teachers in Italy,
France and elsewhere, spread the study of Greek, and caused Plato to live
again. Little had been heard of him through the Arabs, who cared little for his
poetic method. But with the revival of learning he had become a force in
Europe, a strong aid to the Reformers.
Sir Thomas
More's Utopia was written in the years 1515-16, when its author's age was about
thirty-seven. He was a young man of twenty when Columbus first touched the
continent named after the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci, who made his voyages to
it in the years 1499-1503. More wrote his Utopia when imaginations of men were
stirred by the sudden enlargement of their conceptions of the world, and
Amerigo Vespucci's account of his voyages, first printed in 1507, was fresh in
every scholar's mind. He imagined a traveller, Raphael Hythloday -- whose name
is from Greek
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words that mean
"Knowing in Trifles" -- who had sailed with Vespucci on his three
last voyages, but had not returned from the last voyage until, after separation
from his comrades, he had wandered into some farther discovery of his own. Thus
he had found, somewhere in those parts, the island of Utopia. Its name is from
Greek words meaning Nowhere. More had gone on an embassy to Brussels with
Cuthbert Tunstal when he wrote his philosophical satire upon European, and more
particularly English, statecraft, in the form of an Ideal Commonwealth
described by Hythloday as he had found it in Utopia. It was printed at Louvain
in the latter part of the year 1516, under the editorship of Erasmus, and that
enlightened young secretary to the municipality of Antwerp, Peter Giles, or Ægidius,
who is introduced into the story. "Utopia" was not printed in England
in the reign of Henry VIII., and could not be, for its satire was too direct to
be misunderstood, even when it mocked English policy with ironical praise for
doing exactly what it failed to do. More was a wit and a philosopher, but at
the same time so practical and earnest that Erasmus tells of a burgomaster at
Antwerp who fastened upon the parable of Utopia with such goodwill that he
learnt it by heart. And in 1517 Erasmus advised a correspondent to send for
Utopia, if he had not yet read it, and if he wished to see the true source of
all political evils.
Francis Bacon's
"New Atlantis," first written in Latin, was published in 1629, three
years after its author's death. Bacon placed his Ideal Commonwealth in those
seas where a great Austral continent was even then supposed to be, but had not
been discovered. As the old Atlantis implied a foreboding of the American
continent, so the New Atlantis implied foreboding of the Australian. Bacon in
his philosophy sought through experimental science the dominion of men over
things, "for Nature is only governed by obeying her." In his Ideal
World of the New Atlantis, Science is made the civilizer who binds man to man,
and is his leader to the love of God.
Thomas
Campanella was Bacon's contemporary, a man only seven years younger; and an
Italian who suffered for his ardour in the cause of science. He was born in
Calabria in 1568, and died in 1639. He entered the Dominican order when a boy,
but had a free and eager appetite for knowledge. He urged, like Bacon, that
Nature should be
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studied through
her own works, not through books; he attacked, like Bacon, the dead faith in
Aristotle, that instead of following his energetic spirit of research, lapsed
into blind idolatry. Campanella strenuously urged that men should reform all
sciences by following Nature and the books of God. He had been stirring in this
way for ten years, when there arose in Calabria a conspiracy against the
Spanish rule. Campanella, who was an Italian patriot was seized and sent to
Naples. The Spanish inquisition joined in attack on him. He was accused of
books he had not written and of opinions he did not hold; he was seven times
put to the question and suffered, with firmness of mind, the most cruel
tortures. The Pope interceded in vain for him with the King of Spain. He
suffered imprisonment for twenty-seven years, during which time he wrote much,
and one piece of his prison work was his ideal of "The City of the Sun."
Released at
last from his prison, Campanella went to Rome, where he was defended by Pope
Urban VIII, against continued violence of attack. But he was compelled at last
to leave Rome, and made his escape as a servant in the livery of the French
ambassador. In Paris, Richelieu became Campanella's friend; the King of France
gave him a pension of three thousand livres; the Sorbonne vouched for the
orthodoxy of his writings. He died in Paris, at the age of seventy-one, in the
Convent of the Dominicans.
Of Campanella's
"Civitas Solis," which has not hitherto been translated into
English, the translation here given, with one or two omissions of detail which
can well be spared, has been made for me by my old pupil and friend, Mr. Thomas
W. Halliday. In the works (published in 1776) of the witty Dr. William King,
who played much with the subject of cookery, is a fragment found among his
remaining papers, and given by his editors as an original piece in the manner
of Rabelais. It seems never to have been observed that this is only a
translation of that part of Joseph Hall's "Mundus Alter es Idem,"
which deals with the kitchen side of life. The fragment will be found at the
end of this volume, preceded by a short description of the other parts of
Hall's World which is other than ours, and yet the same.
H. M.
March 1885.
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CAMPANELLA'S CITY OF THE SUN.
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THE CITY OF THE SUN.
A Poetical Dialogue between a
Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitallers and a Genoese Sea-captain, his guest.
G. M. Prithee, now, tell me what happened to you
during that voyage?
Capt. I have already told you how I wandered over
the whole earth. In the course of my journeying I came to Taprobane, and was
compelled to go ashore at a place, where through fear of the inhabitants I
remained in a wood. When I stepped out of this I found myself on a large plain
immediately under the equator.
G. M. And what befell you here?
Capt. I came upon a large crowd of men and armed
women, many of whom did not understand our language, and they conducted me
forthwith to the City of the Sun.
G. M. Tell me after what plan this city is built and
how it is governed?
Capt. The greater part of the city is built upon a
high hill, which rises from an extensive plain, but several of its circles
extend for some distance beyond the base of the hill, which is of such a size
that the diameter of the city is upwards of two miles, so that its
circumference becomes about seven. On account of the humped shape of the
mountain, however, the diameter of the city is really more than if it were
built on a plain.
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It is divided into seven rings or huge circles
named from the seven planets, and the way from one to the other of these is by
four streets and through four gates, that look towards the four points of the
compass. Furthermore, it is so built that if the first circle were stormed, it
would of necessity entail a double amount of energy to storm the second; still
more to storm the third; and in each succeeding case the strength and energy
would have to be doubled; so that he who wishes to capture that city must, as
it were, storm it seven times. For my own part, however, I think that not even
the first wall could be occupied, so thick are the earthworks and so well
fortified is it with breastworks, towers, guns and ditches.
When I had been taken through the northern gate
(which is shut with an iron door so wrought that it can be raised and let down,
and locked in easily and strongly, its projections running into the grooves of
the thick posts by a marvellous device), I saw a level space seventy paces * wide between the first and second
walls. From hence can be seen large palaces all joined to the wall Of the
second circuit, in such a manner as to appear all one palace. Arches run on a
level with the middle height of the palaces, and are continued round the whole
ring. There are galleries for promenading upon these arches, which are
supported from beneath by thick and well-shaped columns, enclosing arcades like
peristyles, or cloisters of an abbey.
But the palaces have no entrances from below,
except on the inner or concave partition, from which one enters directly to the
lower parts of the building. The higher parts, however, are reached by flights
of marble steps, which lead to galleries for promenading on the inside similar
to those on the outside. From these one enters the higher rooms, which are very
beautiful, and have windows on the concave and convex partitions. These rooms are
divided
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making a mile. |
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from one another by richly decorated walls. The
convex or outer wall of the ring is about eight spans thick; the concave,
three; the intermediate walls are one, or perhaps one and a half. Leaving this
circle one gets to the second plain, which is nearly three paces narrower than
the first, Then the first wall of the second ring is seen adorned above and
below with similar galleries for walking, and there is on the inside of it
another interior wall enclosing palaces. It has also similar peristyles
supported by columns in the lower part, but above are excellent pictures, round
the ways into the upper houses. And so on afterwards through similar spaces and
double walls, enclosing palaces, and adorned with galleries for walking,
extending along their outer side, and supported by columns, till the last
circuit is reached, the way being still over a level plain.
But when the two gates, that is to say, those
of the outmost and the inmost walls, have been passed, one mounts by means of
steps so formed that an ascent is scarcely discernible, since it proceeds in a
slanting direction, and the steps succeed one another at almost imperceptible
heights. On the top of the hill is a rather spacious plain, and in the midst of
this there rises a temple built with wondrous art.
G. M. Tell on, I pray you! Tell on! I am dying to
hear more.
Capt. The temple is built in the form of a circle;
it is not girt with walls, but stands upon thick columns, beautifully grouped.
A very large dome, built with great care in the centre or pole, contains
another small vault as it were rising out of it, and in this is a spiracle,
which is right over the altar. There is but one altar in the middle of the
temple, and this is hedged round by columns. The temple itself is on a space of
more than three hundred and fifty paces. Without it, arches measuring about
eight paces extend from the heads of the columns outwards, whence other columns
rise about three paces from the thick, strong and
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erect wall. Between these and the former
columns there are galleries for walking, with beautiful pavements, and in the
recess of the wall, which is adorned with numerous large doors, there are
immovable seats, placed as it were between the inside columns, supporting the
temple. Portable chairs are not wanting, many and well adorned. Nothing is seen
over the altar but a large globe, upon which the heavenly bodies are painted,
and another globe upon which there is a representation of the earth.
Furthermore, in the vault of the dome there can be discerned representations of
all the stars of heaven from the first to the sixth magnitude, with their
proper names and power to influence terrestrial things marked in three little
verses for each. There are the poles and greater and lesser circles according
to the right latitude of the place, but these are not perfect because there is
no wall below. They seem, too, to be made in their relation to the globes on
the altar. The pavement of the temple is bright with precious stones. Its seven
golden lamps hang always burning, and these bear the names of the seven
planets.
At the top of the building several small and
beautiful cells surround the small dome, and behind the level space above the
bands or arches of the exterior and interior columns there are many cells, both
small and large, where the priests and religious officers dwell to the number
of forty-nine.
A revolving flag projects from the smaller
dome, and this shows in what quarter the wind is. The flag is marked with
figures up to thirty-six, and the priests know what sort of year the different
kinds of winds bring and what will be the changes of weather on land and sea.
Furthermore, under the flag a book is always kept written with letters of gold.
G. M. I pray you, worthy hero, explain to me their
whole system of government; for I am anxious to hear it.
Capt. The great ruler among them is a priest whom
they call by the name HOH, though we should call him Meta-
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physic. He is head over all, in temporal and
spiritual matters, and all business and lawsuits are settled by him, as the
supreme authority. Three princes of equal power -- viz., Pon, Sin and Mor --
assist him, and these in our tongue we should call POWER, WISDOM and LOVE. To
POWER belongs the care of all matters relating to war and peace. He attends to
the military arts, and, next to Hoh, he is ruler in every affair of a warlike
nature. He governs the military magistrates and the soldiers, and has the
management of the munitions, the fortifications, the storming of places, the
implements of war, the armories, the smiths and workmen connected with matters
of this sort.
But WISDOM is the ruler of the liberal arts, of
mechanics, of all sciences with their magistrates and doctors, and of the
discipline of the schools. As many doctors as there are, are under his control.
There is one doctor who is called Astrologus; a second, Cosmographus; a third,
Arithmeticus; a fourth, Geometra; a fifth, Historiographus; a sixth, Poeta; a
seventh, Logicus; an eighth, Rhetor; a ninth, Grammaticus; a tenth, Medicus; an
eleventh, Physiologus; a twelfth, Politicus; a thirteenth, Moralis. They have
but one book, which they call Wisdom, and in it all the sciences are written
with conciseness and marvellous fluency of expression. This they read to the
people after the custom of the Pythagoreans. It is Wisdom who causes the
exterior and interior, the higher and lower walls of the city to be adorned
with the finest pictures, and to have all the sciences painted upon them in an
admirable manner. On the walls of the temple and on the dome, which is let down
when the priest gives an address, lest the sounds of his voice, being
scattered, should fly away from his audience, there are pictures of stars in
their different magnitudes, with the powers and motions of each, expressed
separately in three little verses.
On the interior wall of the first circuit all
the mathematical figures are conspicuously painted -- figures more in number
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than Archimedes or Euclid discovered, marked
symmetrically, and with the explanation of them neatly written and contained
each in a little verse. There are definitions and propositions, &c. &c.
On the exterior convex wall is first an immense drawing of the whole earth,
given at one view. Following upon this, there are tablets setting forth for
every separate country the customs both public and private, the laws, the
origins and the power of the inhabitants; and the alphabets the different
people use can be seen above that of the City of the Sun.
On the inside of the second circuit, that is to
say of the second ring of buildings, paintings of all kinds of precious and
common stones, of minerals and metals, are seen; and a little piece of the
metal itself is also there with an apposite explanation in two small verses for
each metal or stone. On the outside are marked all the seas, rivers, lakes and
streams which are on the face of the earth; as are also the wines and the oils
and the different liquids, with the sources from which the last are extracted,
their qualities and strength. There are also vessels built into the wall above
the arches, and these are full of liquids from one to three hundred years old,
which cure all diseases. Hail and snow, storms and thunder, and whatever else
takes place in the air, are represented with suitable figures and little
verses. The inhabitants even have the art of representing in stone all the
phenomena of the air, such as the wind, rain, thunder, the rainbow, &c.
On the interior of the third circuit all the
different families of trees and herbs are depicted, and there is a live
specimen of each plant in earthenware vessels placed upon the outer partition
of the arches. With the specimens there are explanations as to where they were
first found, what are their powers and natures, and resemblances to celestial
things and to metals: to parts of the human body and to things in the sea, and
also as to their uses in medicine, &c. On the exterior wall are all the
races of fish, found in rivers, lakes
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and seas, and their habits and values, and ways
of breeding, training and living, the purposes for which they exist in the
world, and their uses to man. Further, their resemblances to celestial and
terrestrial things, produced both by nature and art, are so given that I was
astonished when I saw a fish which was like a bishop, one like a chain, another
like a garment, a fourth like a nail, a fifth like a star, and others like
images of those things existing among us, the relation in each case being
completely manifest. There are sea-urchins to be seen, and the purple
shell-fish and mussels; and whatever the watery world possesses worthy of being
known is there fully shown in marvellous characters of painting and drawing.
On the fourth interior wall all the different
kinds of birds are painted, with their natures, sizes, customs, colours, manner
of living, &c.; and the only real phænix is possessed by the
inhabitants of this city. On the exterior are shown all the races of creeping
animals, serpents, dragons and worms; the insects, the flies, gnats, beetles,
&c., in their different states, strength, venoms and uses, and a great deal
more than you or I can think of.
On the fifth interior they have all the larger
animals of the earth, as many in number as would astonish you. We indeed know
not the thousandth part of them, for on the exterior wall also a great many of
immense size are also portrayed. To be sure, of horses alone, how great a
number of breeds there is and how beautiful are the forms there cleverly
displayed!
On the sixth interior are painted all the
mechanical arts, with the several instruments for each and their manner of use
among different nations. Alongside the dignity of such is placed, and their
several inventors are named. But on the exterior all the inventors in science,
in warfare, and in law are represented. There I saw Moses, Osiris, Jupiter,
Mercury, Lycurgus, Pompilius, Pythagoras, Zamolxis, Solon, Charondas,
Phoroneus, with very many others. The even have Mahomet,
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whom nevertheless they hate as a false and
sordid legislator. In the most dignified position I saw a representation of
Jesus Christ and of the twelve Apostles, whom they consider very worthy and
hold to be great. Of the representations of men, I perceived Cæsar,
Alexander, Pyrrhus and Hannibal in the highest place; and other very renowned
heroes in peace and war, especially Roman heroes, were painted in lower
positions, under the galleries. And when I asked with astonishment whence they
had obtained our history, they told me that among them there was a knowledge of
all languages, and that by perseverance they continually send explorers and
ambassadors over the whole earth, who learn thoroughly the customs, forces,
rule and histories of the nations, bad and good alike. These they apply all to
their own republic, and with this they are well pleased. I learnt that cannon
and typography were invented by the Chinese before we knew of them. There are
magistrates, who announce the meaning of the pictures, and boys are accustomed
to learn all the sciences, without toil and as if for pleasure; but in the way
of history only until they are ten years old.
LOVE is foremost in attending to the charge of
the race. He sees that men and women are so joined together, that they bring
forth the best offspring. Indeed, they laugh at us who exhibit a studious care
for our breed of horses and dogs, but neglect the breeding of human beings.
Thus the education of the children is under his rule. So also is the medicine
that is sold, the sowing and collecting of fruits of the earth and of trees,
agriculture, pasturage, the preparations for the months, the cooking
arrangements, and whatever has any reference to food, clothing, and the
intercourse of the sexes. Love himself is ruler, but there are many male and
female magistrates dedicated to these arts.
Metaphysic then with these three rulers manage
all the above-named matters, and even by himself alone nothing is done; all
business is discharged by the four together,
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but in whatever Metaphysic inclines to the rest
are sure to agree.
G. M. Tell me, please, of the magistrates, their
services and duties, of the education and mode of living, whether the
government is a monarchy, a republic, or an aristocracy.
Capt. This race of men came there from India, flying
from the sword of the Magi, a race of plunderers and tyrants who laid waste
their country, and they determined to lead a philosophic life in fellowship
with one another. Although the community of wives is not instituted among the
other inhabitants of their province, among them it is in use after this manner.
All things are common with them, and their dispensation is by the authority of
the magistrates. Arts and honours and pleasures are common, and are held in
such a manner that no one can appropriate anything to himself.
They say that all private property is acquired
and improved for the reason that each one of us by himself has his own home and
wife and children. From this self-love springs. For when we raise a son to riches
and dignities, and leave an heir to much wealth, we become either ready to
grasp at the property of the state, if in any case fear should be removed from
the power which belongs to riches and rank; or avaricious, crafty, and
hypocritical, if any one is of slender purse, little strength, and mean
ancestry. But when we have taken away self-love, there remains only love for
the state.
G. M. Under such circumstances no one will be
willing to labour, while he expects others to work, on the fruit of whose labours
he can live, as Aristotle argues against Plato.
Capt. I do not know how to deal with that argument,
but I declare to you that they burn with so great a love for their fatherland,
as I could scarcely have believed possible; and indeed with much more than the
histories tell us belonged to the Romans, who fell willingly for their country,
inasmuch as they have to a greater extent surrendered
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their private proverty. I think truly that the
friars and monks and clergy of our country, if they were not weakened by love
for their kindred and friends, or by the ambition to rise to higher dignities,
would be less fond of property, and more imbued with a spirit of charity
towards all, as it was in the time of the Apostles, and is now in a great many
cases.
G. M. St. Augustine may say that, but I say that
among this race of men, friendship is worth nothing; since they have not the
chance of conferring mutual benefits on one another.
Capt. Nay, indeed. For it is worth the trouble to
see that no one can receive gifts from another. Whatever is necessary they
have, they receive it from the community, and the magistrate takes care that no
one receives more than he deserves. Yet nothing necessary is denied to any one.
Friendship is recognized among them in war, in infirmity, in the art contests,
by which means they aid one another mutually by teaching. Sometimes they
improve themselves mutually with praises, with conversation, with actions and
out of the things they need. All those of the same age call one another
brothers. They call all over twenty-two years of age, fathers; those who are
less than twenty-two are named sons. Moreover, the magistrates govern well, so
that no one in the fraternity can do injury to another.
G. M. And how?
Capt. As many names of virtues as there are amongst
us, so many magistrates there are among them. There is a magistrate who is
named Magnanimity, another Fortitude, a third Chastity, a fourth Liberality, a
fifth Criminal and Civil Justice, a sixth Comfort, a seventh Truth, an eighth
Kindness, a tenth Gratitude, an eleventh Cheerfulness, a twelfth Exercise, a
thirteenth Sobriety, &c. They are elected to duties of that kind, each one
to that duty for excellence in which he is known from boyhood to be most
suitable. Wherefore among them neither robbery nor clever murders,
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nor lewdness, incest, adultery, or other crimes
of which we accuse one another, can be found. They accuse themselves of
ingratitude and malignity when any one denies a lawful satisfaction to another,
of indolence, of sadness, of anger, of scurrility, of slander, and of lying,
which curseful thing they thoroughly hate. Accused persons undergoing
punishment are deprived of the common table, and other honours, until the judge
thinks that they agree with their correction.
G. M. Tell me the manner in which the magistrates
are chosen.
Capt. You would not rightly understand this, unless
you first learnt their manner of living. That you may know then, men and women
wear the same kind of garment, suited for war. The women wear the toga below
the knee, but the men above. And both sexes are instructed in all the arts
together. When this has been done as a start, and before their third year, the
boys learn the language and the alphabet on the walls by walking round them. They
have four leaders, and four elders, the first to direct them, the second to
teach them, and these are men approved beyond all others. After some time they
exercise themselves with gymnastics, running, quoits, and other games, by means
of which all their muscles are strengthened alike. Their feet are always bare,
and so are their heads as far as the seventh ring. Afterwards they lead them to
the offices of the trades, such as shoemaking, cooking, metal-working,
carpentry, painting, &c. In order to find out the bent of the genius of
each one, after their seventh year, when they have already gone through the
mathematics on the walls, they take them to the readings of all the sciences;
there are four lectures at each reading, and in the course of four hours the
four in their order explain everything.
For some take physical exercise or busy
themselves with public services or functions, others apply themselves to
reading. Leaving these studies all are devoted to the more
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abstruse subjects, to mathematics, to medicine,
and to other sciences. There is continual debate and studied argument amongst
them, and after a time they become magistrates of those sciences or mechanical
arts in which they are the most proficient; for every one follows the opinion
of his leader and judge, and goes out to the plains to the works of the field,
and for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the pasturage of the dumb
animals. And they consider him the more noble and renowned who has dedicated
himself to the study of the most arts and knows how to practise them wisely.
Wherefore they laugh at us in that we consider our workmen ignoble, and hold
those to be noble who have mastered no pursuit; but live in ease, and are so
many slaves given over to their own pleasure and lasciviousness; and thus as it
were from a school of vices so many idle and wicked fellows go forth for the
ruin of the state.
The rest of the officials, however, are chosen
by the four chiefs, Hoh, Pon, Sin and Mor, and by the teachers of that art over
which they are fit to preside. And these teachers know well who is most suited
for rule. Certain men are proposed by the magistrates in council, they
themselves not seeking to become candidates, and he opposes who knows anything
against those brought forward for election, or if not, speaks in favour of
them. But no one attains to the dignity of Hoh except him who knows the
histories of the nations, and their customs and sacrifices and laws, and their
form of government, whether a republic or a monarchy. He must also know the
names of the lawgivers and the inventors in science, and the laws and the
history of the earth and the heavenly bodies. They think it also necessary that
he should understand all the mechanical arts, the physical sciences, astrology
and mathematics. (Nearly every two days they teach our mechanical art. They are
not allowed to overwork themselves, but frequent practice and the paintings
render learning easy to them. Not too much care is given to the
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cultivation of languages, as they have a goodly
number of interpreters who are grammarians in the state.) But beyond everything
else it is necessary that Hoh should understand metaphysics and theology; that
he should know thoroughly the derivations, foundations and demonstrations of
all the arts and sciences; the likeness and difference of things; necessity,
fate, and the harmonies of the universe; power, wisdom, and the love of things
and of God; the stages of life and its symbols; everything relating to the
heavens, the earth and the sea; and the ideas of God, as much as mortal man can
know of Him. He must also be well read in the Prophets and in astrology. And
thus they know long beforehand who will be Hoh. He is not chosen to so great a
dignity unless he has attained his thirty-fifth year. And this office is
perpetual, because it is not known who may be too wise for it or who too
skilled in ruling.
G. M. Who indeed can be so wise? If even any one has
a knowledge of the sciences it seems that he must be unskilled in ruling.
Capt. This very question I asked them and they
replied thus: "We, indeed, are more certain that such a very learned man
has the knowledge of governing, than you who place ignorant persons in
authority, and consider them suitable merely because they have sprung from rulers
or have been chosen by a powerful faction. But our Hoh, a man really the most
capable to rule, is for all that never cruel nor wicked, nor a tyrant, inasmuch
as he possesses so much wisdom. This, moreover, is not unknown to you, that the
same argument cannot apply among you, when you consider that man the most
learned who knows most of grammar, or logic, or of Aristotle or any other
author. For such knowledge as this of yours much servile labour and memory work
is required, so that a man is rendered unskilful; since he has contemplated
nothing but the words of books and has given his mind with useless result to
the consideration of the dead
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signs of things. Hence he knows not in what way God rules the universe, nor the ways and customs of Nature and the nations. Wherefore he is not equal to our HOH. For that one cannot know so many arts and sciences thoroughly, who is not esteemed for skilled ingenuity, very apt at all things, and therefore at ruling especially. This also is plain to us that he who knows only one science, does not really know either that or the others, and he who is suited for only one science and has gathered his knowledge from books, is unlearned and unskilled. But this is not the case with intellects prompt and expert in every branch of knowledge and suitable for the consideration of natural objects, as it is necessary that our HOH should be. Besides in our state the sciences are taught with a facility (as you have seen) by which more scholars are turned out by us in one year than by you in ten, or even fifteen. Make trial, I pray you, of these boys."
In this matter I was struck with astonishment at their truthful discourse and at the trial of their boys, who did not understand my language well. Indeed it is necessary that three of them should be skilled in our tongue, three in Arabic, three in Polish, and three in each of the other languages, and no recreation is allowed them unless they become more learned. For that they go out to the plain for the sake of running about and hurling arrows and lances, and of firing harquebuses, and for the sake of hunting the wild animals and getting a knowledge of plants and stones, and agriculture and pasturage; sometimes the band of boys does one thing, sometimes another.
They do not
consider it necessary that the three rulers assisting HOH should know other
than the arts having reference to their rule, and so they have only a
historical knowledge of the arts which are common to all. But their own they
know well, to which certainly one is dedicated more than another. Thus POWER is
the most learned in the equestrian art, in marshalling the army, in marking out
of
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camps, in the manufacture of every kind of
weapon and of warlike machines, in planning stratagems, and in every affair of
a military nature. And for these reasons, they consider it necessary that these
chiefs should have been philosophers, historians, politicians, and physicists.
Concerning the other two triumvirs, understand remarks similar to those I have
made about POWER.
G. M. I really wish that you would recount all their
public duties, and would distinguish between them, and also that you would tell
clearly how they are all taught in common.
Capt. They have dwellings in common and dormitories,
and couches and other necessaries. But at the end of every six months they are
separated by the masters. Some shall sleep in this ring, some in another; some
in the first apartment, and some in the second; and these apartments are marked
by means of the alphabet on the lintel. There are occupations, mechanical and
theoretical, common to both men and women, with this difference, that the
occupations which require more hard work, and walking a long distance, are
practised by men, such as ploughing, sowing, gathering the fruits, working at
the threshing-floor, and perchance at the vintage. But it is customary to
choose women for milking the cows, and for making cheese. In like manner, they
go to the gardens near to the outskirts of the city both for collecting the
plants and for cultivating them. In fact, all sedentary and stationary pursuits
are practised by the women, such as weaving, spinning, sewing, cutting the
hair, shaving, dispensing medicines, and making all kinds of garments. They
are, however, excluded from working in wood and the manufacture of arms. If a
woman is fit to paint, she is not prevented from doing so; nevertheless, music
is given over to the women alone, because they please the more, and of a truth
to boys also. But the women have not the practice of the drum and the horn.
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And they prepare their feasts and arrange the
tables in the following manner. It is the peculiar work of the boys and girls
under twenty to wait at the tables. In every ring there are the suitable
kitchens, barns, and stores of utensils for eating and drinking, and over every
department an old man and an old woman preside. These two have at once the
command of those who serve, and the power of chastising, or causing to be
chastised, those who are negligent or disobedient; and they also examine and
mark each one, both male and female, who excels in his or her duties.
All the young people wait upon the older ones
who have passed the age of forty, and in the evening when they go to sleep the
master and mistress command that those should be sent to work in the morning,
upon whom in succession the duty falls, one or two to separate apartments. The
young people, however, wait upon one another, and that alas! with some
unwillingness. They have first and second tables, and on both sides there are
seats. On one side sit the women, on the other the men; and as in the
refectories of the monks, there is no noise. While they are eating a young man
reads a book from a platform, intoning distinctly and sonorously, and often the
magistrates question them upon the more important parts of the reading. And
truly it is pleasant to observe in what manner these young people, so beautiful
and clothed in garments so suitable, attend to them, and to see at the same
time so many friends, brothers, sons, fathers and mothers all in their turn
living together with so much honesty, propriety and love. So each one is given
a napkin, a plate, fish, and a dish of food. It is the duty of the medical
officers to tell the cooks what repasts shall be prepared on each day, and what
food for the old, what for the young, and what for the sick. The magistrates
receive the full-grown and fatter portion, and they from their share always
distribute something to the boys at the table who have shown themselves more
studious in the
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morning at the lectures and debates concerning
wisdom and arms. And this is held to be one of the most distinguished honours.
For six days they ordain to sing with music at table. Only a few, however,
sing; or there is one voice accompanying the lute and one for each other
instrument. And when all alike in service join their hands, nothing is found to
be wanting. The old men placed at the head of the cooking business and of the
refectories of the servants praise the cleanliness of the streets, the houses,
the vessels, the garments, the workshops and the warehouses.
They wear white undergarments to which adheres
a covering, which is at once coat and legging, without wrinkles. The borders of
the fastenings are furnished with globular buttons, extended round and caught
up here and there by chains. The coverings of the legs descend to the shoes and
are continued even to the heels. Then they cover the feet with large socks, or
as it were half-buskins fastened by buckles, over which they wear a half-boot,
and besides, as I have already said, they are clothed with a toga. And so aptly
fitting are the garments, that when the toga is destroyed, the different parts
of the whole body are straightway discerned, no part being concealed. They
change their clothes for different ones four times in the year, that is when
the sun enters respectively the constellations Aries, Cancer, Libra and
Capricorn, and according to the circumstances and necessity as decided by the
officer of health. The keepers of clothes for the different rings are wont to
distribute them, and it is marvellous that they have at the same time as many
garments as there is need for, some heavy and some slight, according to the
weather. They all use white clothing, and this is washed in each month with lye
or soap, as are also the workshops of the lower trades, the kitchens, the
pantries, the barns, the store-houses, the armories, the refectories and the
baths. Moreover, the clothes are washed at the pillars of the peristyles, and
the.
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water is brought down by means of canals which
are continued as sewers. In every street of the different rings there are
suitable fountains, which send forth their water by means of canals, the water
being drawn up from nearly the bottom of the mountain by the sole movement of a
cleverly contrived handle. There is water in fountains and in cisterns, whither
the rain-water collected from the roofs of the houses is brought through pipes
full of sand. They wash their bodies often, according as the doctor and master
command. All the mechanical arts are practised under the peristyles, but the
speculative are carried on above in the walking galleries and ramparts where
are the more splendid paintings, but the more sacred ones are taught in the
temple. In the halls and wings of the rings there are solar time-pieces and
bells, and hands by which the hours and seasons are marked off.
G. M. Tell me about their children.
Capt. When their women have brought forth children,
they suckle and rear them in temples set apart for all. They give milk for two
years or more as the physician orders. After that time the weaned child is
given into the charge of the mistresses, if it is a female, and to the masters,
if it is a male. And then with other young children they are pleasantly
instructed in the alphabet, and in the knowledge of the pictures, and in
running, walking and wrestling; also in the historical drawings, and in
languages; and they are adorned with a suitable garment of different colours.
After their sixth year they are taught natural science, and then the mechanical
sciences. The men who are weak in intellect are sent to farms, and when they
have become more proficient some of them are received into the state. And those
of the same age and born under the same constellation are especially like one another
in strength and in appearance, and hence arises much lasting concord in the
state, these men honouring one another with mutual love
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and help. Names
are given to them by Metaphysicus, and that not by chance but designedly, and
according to each one's peculiarity, as was the custom among the ancient
Romans. Wherefore one is called Beautiful (Pulcher), another the
Big-nosed (Naso), another the Fat-legged (Cranipes), another
Crooked (Torvus), another Lean (Macer), and so on. But when they
have become very skilled in their professions and done any great deed in war or
in time of peace, a cognomen from art is given to them, such as Beautiful, the
great painter (Pulcher, Pictor Magnus), the golden one (Aureus),
the excellent one (Excellens), or the strong (Strenuus); or from
their deeds, such as Naso the Brave (Nason Fortis), or the cunning, or
the great, or very great conqueror; or from the enemy any one has overcome,
Africanus, Asiaticus, Etruscus; or if any one has overcome Manfred or
Tortelius, he is called Macer Manfred or Tortelius, and so on. All these
cognomens are added by the higher magistrates, and very often with a crown
suitable to the deed or art, and with the flourish of music. For gold and
silver is reckoned of little value among them except as material for their
vessels and ornaments, which are common to all.
G. M. Tell me, I pray you, is there no
jealousy among them or disappointment to that one who has not been elected to a
magistracy, or to any other dignity to which he aspires?
Capt. Certainly not. For no one wants
either necessaries or luxuries. Moreover, the race is managed for the good of
the commonwealth and not of private individuals, and the magistrates must be
obeyed. They deny what we hold -- viz., that it is natural to man to recognize
his offspring and to educate them, and to use his wife and house and children
as his own. For they say that children are bred for the preservation of the
species and not for individual pleasure, as St. Thomas also asserts. Therefore
the breeding of children has reference to the commonwealth and not
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to individuals,
except in so far as they are constituents of the commonwealth. And since
individuals for the most part bring forth children wrongly and educate them
wrongly, they consider that they remove destruction from the state, and
therefore, for this reason, with most sacred fear, they commit the education of
the children, who as it were are the element of the republic, to the care of
magistrates; for the safety of the community is not that of a few. And thus
they distribute male and female breeders of the best natures according to
philosophical rules. Plato thinks that this distribution ought to be made by
lot, lest some men seeing that they are kept away from the beautiful women, should
rise up with anger and hatred against the magistrates; and he thinks further
that those who do not deserve cohabitation with the more beautiful women,
should be deceived whilst the lots are being led out of the city by the
magistrates, so that at all times the women who are suitable should fall to
their lot, not those whom they desire. This shrewdness, however, is not
necessary among the inhabitants of the City of the Sun. For with them deformity
is unknown. When the women are exercised they get a clear complexion, and
become strong of limb, tall and agile, and with them beauty consists in
tallness and strength. Therefore, if any woman dyes her face, so that it may
become beautiful, or uses highheeled boots so that she may appear tall, or
garments with trains to cover her wooden shoes, she is condemned to capital
punishment. But if the women should even desire them, they have no facility for
doing these things. For who indeed would give them this facility? Further, they
assert that among us abuses of this kind arise from the leisure and sloth of
women. By these means they lose their colour and have pale complexions, and
become feeble and small. For this reason they are without proper complexions,
use high sandals, and become beautiful not from strength, but from slothful
tenderness. And thus they ruin their own
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tempers and
natures, and consequently those of their offspring. Furthermore, if at any time
a man is taken captive with ardent love for a certain woman, the two are
allowed to converse and joke together, and to give one another garlands of
flowers or leaves, and to make verses. But if the race is endangered, by no
means is further union between them permitted. Moreover, the love born of eager
desire is not known among them; only that born of friendship.
Domestic
affairs and partnerships are of little account, because, excepting the sign of
honour, each one receives what he is in need of. To the heroes and heroines of
the republic, it is customary to give the pleasing gifts of honour, beautiful wreaths,
sweet food or splendid clothes, while they are feasting. In the daytime all use
white garments within the city, but at night or outside the city they use red
garments either of wool or silk. They hate black as they do dung, and therefore
they dislike the Japanese, who are fond of black. Pride they consider the most
execrable vice, and one who acts proudly is chastised with the most ruthless
correction. Wherefore no one thinks it lowering to wait at table or to work in
the kitchen or fields. All work they call discipline, and thus they say that it
is honourable to go on foot, to do any act of nature, to see with the eye, and
to speak with the tongue; and when there is need, they distinguish
philosophically between tears and spittle.
Every man who,
when he is told off to work, does his duty, is considered very honourable. It
is not the custom to keep slaves. For they are enough, and more than enough,
for themselves. But with us, alas! it is not so. In Naples there exists seventy
thousand souls, and out of these scarcely ten or fifteen thousand do any work,
and they are always lean from overwork and are getting weaker every day. The
rest become a prey to idleness, avarice, ill-health, lasciviousness, usury and
other vices, and contaminate and corrupt very many families by
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holding them in
servitude for their own use, by keeping them in poverty and slavishness, and by
imparting to them their own vices. Therefore public slavery ruins them; useful
works, in the field, in military service and in arts, except those which are
debasing, are not cultivated, the few who do practise them doing so with much
aversion. But in the City of the Sun, while duty and work is distributed among
all, it only falls to each one to work for about four hours every day. The remaining
hours are spent in learning joyously, in debating, in reading, in reciting, in
writing, in walking, in exercising the mind and body, and with play. They allow
no game which is played while sitting, neither the single die nor dice, nor
chess, nor others like these. But they play with the ball, with the sack, with
the hoop, with wrestling, with hurling at the stake. They say, moreover, that
grinding poverty renders men worthless, cunning, sulky, thievish, insidious,
vagabonds, liars, false witnesses, &c.; and that wealth makes them
insolent, proud, ignorant, traitors, assumers of what they know not, deceivers,
boasters, wanting in affection, slanderers, &c. But with them all the rich
and poor together make up the community. They are rich because they want
nothing, poor because they possess nothing; and consequently they are not
slaves to circumstances, but circumstances serve them. And on this point they
strongly recommend the religion of the Christians, and especially the life of
the Apostles.
G. M. This seems excellent and sacred,
but the community of women is a thing too difficult to attain. The holy Roman
Clement says that wives ought to be common in accordance with the apostolic
institution, and praises Plato and Socrates, who thus teach, but the Glossary
interprets this community with regard to obedience. And Tertullian agrees with
the Glossary, that the first Christians had everything in common except wives
Capt. These things I know little of. But
this I saw
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among the
inhabitants of the City of the Sun that they did not make this exception. And
they defend themselves by the opinion of Socrates, of Cato, of Plato, and of
St. Clement. but, as you say, they misunderstand the opinions of these
thinkers. And the inhabitants of the solar city ascribe this to their want of
education, since they are by no means learned in philosophy. Nevertheless, they
send abroad to discover the customs of nations, and the best of these they
always adopt. Practice makes the women suitable for war and other duties. Thus
they agree with Plato, in whom I have read these same things. The reasoning of
our Cajetan does not convince me, and least of all that of Aristotle. This
thing, however, existing among them is excellent and worthy of imitation --
viz., that no physical defect renders a man incapable of being serviceable
except the decrepitude of old age, since even the deformed are useful for
consultation. The lame serve as guards, watching with the eyes which they
possess. The blind card wool with their hands, separating the down from the
hairs, with which latter they stuff the couches and sofas; those who are
without the use of eyes and hands give the use of their ears or their voice for
the convenience of the state, and if one has only one sense, he uses it in the farms.
And these cripples are well treated, and some become spies, telling the
officers of the state what they have heard.
G. M. Tell me now, I pray you, of their
military affairs. Then you may explain their arts, ways of life and sciences,
and lastly their religion.
Capt. The triumvir, Power, has under him
all the magistrates of arms, of artillery, of cavalry, of foot-soldiers, of
architects, and of strategists, and the masters and many of the most excellent
workmen obey the magistrates, the men of each art paying allegiance to their
respective chiefs. Moreover, Power is at the head of all the professors of
gymnastics, who teach military exercise, and who are prudent
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generals,
advanced in age. By these the boys are trained after their twelfth year. Before
this age, however, they have been accustomed to wrestling, running, throwing
the weight and other minor exercises, under inferior masters. But at twelve
they are taught how to strike at the enemy, at horses and elephants, to handle
the spear, the sword, the arrow and the sling; to manage the horse; to advance
and to retreat; to remain in order of battle; to help a comrade in arms; to
anticipate the enemy by cunning; and to conquer.
The women also
are taught these arts under their own magistrates and mistresses, so that they
may be able if need be to render assistance to the males in battles near the
city. They are taught to watch the fortifications lest at some time a hasty
attack should suddenly be made. In this respect they praise the Spartans and
Amazons. The women know well also how to let fly fiery balls, and how to make
them from lead; how to throw stones from pinnacles and to go in the way of an
attack. They are accustomed also to give up wine unmixed altogether, and that
one is punished most severely who shows any fear.
The inhabitants
of the City of the Sun do not fear death, because they all believe that the
soul is immortal, and that when it has left the body it is associated with
other. spirits, wicked or good, according to the merits of this present life.
Although they are partly followers of Bramah and Pythagoras, they do not
believe in the transmigration of souls, except in some cases, by a distinct
decree of God. They do not abstain from injuring an enemy of the republic and
of religion, who is unworthy of pity. During the second month the army is
reviewed, and every day there is practice of arms, either in the cavalry plain
or within the walls. Nor are they ever without lectures on the science of war.
They take care that the accounts of Moses, of Joshua, of David, of Judas
Maccabeus, of Cæsar, of Alexander, of Scipio, of Hannibal, and other
great soldiers should be read. And
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then each one
gives his own opinion as to whether these generals acted well or ill, usefully
or honourably, and then the teacher answers and says who are right.
G. M. With whom do they wage war, and for
what reasons, since they are so prosperous?
Capt. Wars night never occur,
nevertheless they are exercised in military tactics and in hunting, lest
perchance they should become effeminate and unprepared for any emergency.
Besides there are four kingdoms in the island, which are very envious of their
prosperity, for this reason that the people desire to live after the manner of
the inhabitants of the City of the Sun, and to be under their rule rather than
that of their own kings. Wherefore the state often makes war upon these
because, being neighbours, they are usurpers and live impiously, since they
have not an object of worship and do not observe the religion of other nations
or of the Brahmins. And other nations of India, to which formerly they were
subject, rise up as it were in rebellion, as also do the Taprobanese, whom they
wanted to join them at first. The warriors of the City of the Sun, however, are
always the victors. As soon as they suffered from insult or disgrace or
plunder, or when their allies have been harassed, or a people have been
oppressed by a tyrant of the state (for they are always the advocates of
liberty), they go immediately to the council for deliberation. After they have
knelt in the presence of God that He might inspire their consultation, they
proceed to examine the merits of the business, and thus war is decided on.
Immediately after a priest, whom they call Forensic, is sent away. He demands
from the enemy the restitution of the plunder, asks that the allies should be
freed from oppression, or that the tyrant should be deposed. If they deny these
things war is declared by invoking the vengeance of God -- the God of Sabaoth
-- for destruction of those who maintain ann unjust cause. But if the enemy
refuse to reply, the priest gives him the space of one hour for his answer, if
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he is a king,
but three if it is a republic, so that they cannot escape giving a response.
And in this manner is war undertaken against the insolent enemies of natural
rights and of religion. When war has been declared, the deputy of Power
performs everything, but Power, like the Roman dictator, plans and wills
everything, so that hurtful tardiness may be avoided. And when anything of
great moment arises he consults Hoh and Wisdom and Love.
Before this,
however, the occasion of war and the justice of making an expedition is
declared by a herald in the great council. All from twenty years and upwards
are admitted to this council, and thus the necessaries are agreed upon. All
kinds of weapons stand in the armories, and these they use often in sham
fights. The exterior walls of each ring are full of guns prepared by their
labours, and they have other engines for hurling which are called cannons, and
which they take into battle upon mules and asses and carriages. When they have
arrived in an open plain they enclose in the middle the provisions, engines of
war, chariots, ladders and machines and all fight courageously. Then each one
returns to the standards, and the enemy thinking that they are giving and
preparing to flee, are deceived and relax their order: then the warriors of the
City of the Sun, wheeling into wings and columns on each side, regain their
breath and strength, and ordering the artillery to discharge their bullets they
resume the fight against a disorganized host. And they observe many ruses of
this kind. They overcome all mortals with their stratagems and engines. Their
camp is fortified after the manner of the Romans. They pitch their tents and
fortify with wall and ditch with wonderful quickness. The masters of works, of
engines and hurling machines, stand ready, and the soldiers understand the use
of the spade and the axe.
Five, eight, or
ten leaders learned in the order of battle and in strategy consult together
concerning the business of war, and command their bands after consultation. It
is their
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wont to take
out with them a body of boys, armed and on horses, so that they may learn to fight,
just as the whelps of lions and wolves are accustomed to blood. And these in
time of danger betake themselves to a place of safety, along with many armed
women. After the battle the women and boys soothe and relieve the pain of the
warriors, and wait upon them and encourage them with embraces and pleasant
words. How wonderful a help is this! For the soldiers, in order that they may
acquit themselves as sturdy men in the eyes of their wives and offspring,
endure hardships, and so love makes them conquerors. He who in the fight first
scales the enemy's walls receives after the battle a crown of grass, as a token
of honour, and at the presentation the women and boys applaud loudly; that one
who affords aid to an ally gets a civic crown of oak-leaves; he who kills a
tyrant dedicates his arms in the temple and receives from Hoh the cognomen of
his deed, and other warriors obtain other kinds of crowns. Every horse-soldier
carries a spear and two strongly tempered pistols, narrow at the mouth, hanging
from his saddle. And to get the barrels of their pistols narrow they pierce the
metal which they intend to convert into arms. Further, every cavalry soldier
has a sword and a dagger. But the rest, who form the light-armed troops, carry
a metal cudgel. For if the foe cannot pierce their metal for pistols and cannot
make swords, they attack him with clubs, shatter and overthrow him. Two chains
of six spans length hang from the club, and at the end of these are iron balls,
and when these aimed at the enemy they surround his neck and drag him to the
ground; and in order that they may be able to use the club more easily, they do
not hold the reins with their hands, but use them by means of the feet. If
perchance the reins are interchanged above the trappings of the saddle, the
ends are fastened to the stirrups with buckles and not to the feet. And the
stirrups have an arrangement for swift movement of the bridle, so that they
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draw in or let
out the rein with marvellous celerity. With the right foot they turn the horse
to the left and with the left to the right. This secret, moreover, is not known
to the Tartars. For, although they govern the reins with their feet, they are
ignorant nevertheless of turning them and drawing them in and letting them out
by means of the block of the stirrups. The light-armed cavalry with them are
the first to engage in battle, then the men forming the phalanx with their
spears, then the archers for whose services a great price is paid, and who are
accustomed to fight in lines crossing one another as the threads of cloth, some
rushing forward in their turn and others receding. They have a band of lancers
strengthening the line of battle, but they make trial of the swords only at the
end.
After the
battle they celebrate the military triumphs after the manner of the Romans, and
even in a more magnificent way. Prayers by the way of thank-offerings are made
to God, and then the general presents himself in the temple, and the deeds,
good and bad, are related by the poet or historian, who according to custom was
with the expedition. And the greatest chief, Hoh, crowns the general with
laurel and distributes little gifts and honours to all the valorous soldiers,
who are for some days free from public duties. But this exemption from work is
by no means pleasing to them, since they know not what it is to be at leisure,
and so they help their companions. On the other hand, they who have been
conquered through their own fault, or have lost the victory, are blamed; and
they who were the first to take to flight are in no way worthy to escape death,
unless when the whole army asks their lives, and each one takes upon himself a
part of their punishment. But this indulgence is rarely granted, except when
there are good reasons favouring it. But he who did not bear help to an ally or
friend is beaten with rods. That one who did not obey orders is given to the
beast, in an enclosure, to be devoured, and a staff is put
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in his hand,
and if he should conquer the lions and the bears that are there, which is
almost impossible, he is received into favour again. The conquered states or
those willingly delivered up to them, forthwith have all things in common, and
receive a garrison and magistrates from the City of the Sun, and by degrees
they are accustomed to the ways of the city, the mistress of all, to which they
even send their sons to be taught without contributing anything for expense.
It would be too
great trouble to tell you about the spies and their master, and about the
guards and laws and ceremonies, both within and without the state, which you
can of yourself imagine. Since from childhood they are chosen according to
their inclination and the star under which they were born, therefore each one
working according to his natural propensity does his duty well and pleasantly,
because naturally. The same things I may say concerning strategy and the other
functions.
There are
guards in the city by day and by night, and they are placed at the four gates,
and outside the walls of the seventh ring, above the breastworks and towers and
inside mounds. These places are guarded in the day by women, in the night by
men. And lest the guard should become weary of watching, and in case of a
surprise, they change them every three hours, as is the custom with our soldiers.
At sunset, when the drum and symphonia sound, the armed guards are distributed.
Cavalry and infantry make use of hunting as the symbol of war, and practise
games and hold festivities in the plains. Then the music strikes up, and freely
they pardon the offences and faults of the enemy, and after the victories they
are kind to them, if it has been decreed that they should destroy the walls of
the enemy's city and take their lives. All these things are done on the same
day as the victory, and afterwards they never cease to load the conquered with
favours, for they say
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that there
ought to be no fighting, except when the conquerors give up the conquered, not
when they kill them. If there is a dispute among them concerning injury or any
other matter (for they themselves scarcely ever contend except in matters of
honour), the chief and his magistrates chastise the accused one secretly, if he
has done harm in deeds after he has been first angry. If they wait until the
time of the battle for the verbal decision, they must give vent to their anger
against the enemy, and he who in battle shows the most daring deeds is
considered to have defended the better and truer cause in the struggle, and the
other yields, and they are punished justly. Nevertheless, they. are not allowed
to come to single combat, since right is maintained by the tribunal, and
because the unjust cause is often apparent when the more just succumbs, and he
who professes to be the better man shows this in public fight.
G. M. This is worth while, so that
factions should not be cherished for the harm of the fatherland, and so that
civil wars might not occur, for by means of these a tyrant often arises, as the
examples of Rome and Athens show. Now, I pray you, tell me of their works and
matter connected therewith.
Capt. I believe that you have already
heard about their military affairs and about their agricultural and pastoral
life, and in what way these are common to them, and how they honour with the
first grade of nobility whoever is considered to have a knowledge of these.
They who are skilful in more arts than these they consider still nobler, and
they set that one apart for teaching the art in which he is most skilful. The
occupations which require the most labour, such as working in metals and
building, are the most praiseworthy amongst them. No one declines to go to
these occupations, for the reason that from the beginning their propensities
are well known, and among them, on account of the distribution of labour, no
one does work harmful to
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him, but only
that which is necessary for him. The occupations' entailing less labour belong
to the women. All of them are expected to know how to swim, and for this reason
ponds are dug outside the walls of the city and within them near to the fountains.
Commerce is of
little use to them, but they know the value of money, and they count for the
use of their ambassadors and explorers, so that with it they may have the means
of living. They receive merchants into their states from the different countries
of the world, and these buy the superfluous goods of the city. The people of
the City of the Sun refuse to take money, but in importing they accept in
exchange those things of which they are in need, and sometimes they buy with
money; and the young people in the City of the Sun are much amused when they
see that for a small price they receive so many things in exchange. The old
men, however, do not laugh. They are unwilling that the state should be
corrupted by the vicious customs of slaves and foreigners. Therefore they do
business at the gates, and sell those whom they have taken in war or keep them
for digging ditches and other hard work without the city, and for this reason
they always send four bands of soldiers to take care of the fields, and with
them there are the labourers. They go out of the four gates from which roads
with walls on both sides of them lead to the sea, so that goods might easily be
carried over them and foreigners might not meet with difficulty on their way.
To strangers
they are kind and polite; they keep them for three days at the public expense;
after they have first washed their feet, they show them their city and its
customs, and they honour them with a seat at the council and public table, and
there are men whose duty it is to take care of and guard the guests. But if
strangers should wish to become citizens of their state, they try them first
for a month on a farm, and for another month in the city, then
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they decide
concerning them, and admit them with certain ceremonies and oaths.
Agriculture is
much followed among them; there is not a span of earth without cultivation, and
they observe the winds and propitious stars. With the exception of a few left
in the city all go out armed, and with flags and drums and trumpets sounding,
to the fields, for the purposes of ploughing, sowing, digging, hoeing, reaping,
gathering fruit and grapes; and they set in order everything, and do their work
in a very few hours and with much care. They use waggons fitted with sails which
are borne along by the wind even when it is contrary, by the marvellous
contrivance of wheels within wheels.
And when there
is no wind a beast draws along a huge cart, which is a grand sight.
The guardians
of the land move about in the meantime, armed and always in their proper turn.
They do not use dung and filth for manuring the fields, thinking that the fruit
contracts something of their rottenness, and when eaten gives a short and poor
subsistence, as women who are beautiful with rouge and from want of exercise
bring forth feeble, offspring. Wherefore they do not as it were paint the
earth, but dig it up well and use secret remedies, so that fruit is borne
quickly and multiplies, and is not destroyed. They have a book for this work,
which they call the Georgics. As much of the land as is necessary is
cultivated, and the rest is used for the pasturage of cattle.
The excellent
occupation of breeding and rearing horses, oxen, sheep, dogs and all kinds of
domestic and tame animals, is in the highest esteem among them as it was in the
time of Abraham. And the animals are led so to pair that they may be able to
breed well.
Fine pictures
of oxen, horses, sheep, and other animals are placed before them. They do not
turn out horses with mares to feed, but at the proper time they bring them
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together in an
enclosure of the stables in their fields. And this is done when they observe
that the constellation Archer is in favourable conjunction with Mars and
Jupiter. For the oxen they observe the Bull, for the sheep the Ram, and so on
in accordance with art. Under the Pleiades they keep a drove of hens and ducks
and geese, which are driven out by the women to feed near the city. The women
only do this when it is a pleasure to them. There are also places enclosed,
where they make cheese, butter, and milk-food. They also keep capons, fruit and
other things, and for all these matters there is a book which they call the
Bucolics. They have an abundance of all things, since every one likes to be
industrious, their labours being slight and profitable. They are docile, and
that one among them who is head of the rest in duties of this kind they call
king. For they say that this is the proper name of the leaders, and it does not
belong to ignorant persons. It is wonderful to see how men and women march
together collectively, and always in obedience to the voice of the king. Nor do
they regard him with loathing as we do, for they know that although he is
greater than themselves, he is for all that their father and brother. They keep
groves and woods for wild animals, and they often hunt.
The science of
navigation is considered very dignified by them, and they possess rafts and
triremes, which go over the waters without rowers or the force of the wind, but
by a marvellous contrivance. And other vessels they have which are moved by the
winds. They have a correct knowledge of the stars, and of the ebb and flow of
the tide. They navigate for the sake of becoming acquainted with nations and
different countries and things. They injure nobody, and they do not put up with
injury, and they never go to battle unless when provoked. They assert that the
whole earth will in time come to live in accordance with their customs, and
consequently they always find out
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whether there
be a nation whose manner of living is better and more approved than the rest.
They admire the Christian institutions and look for a realisation of the
apostolic life in vogue among themselves and in us. There are treaties between
them and the Chinese, and many other nations, both insular and continental,
such as Siam and Calicut, which they are only just able to explore.
Furthermore, they have artificial fires, battles on sea and land, and many
strategic secrets. Therefore they are nearly always victorious.
G. M. Now it would be very pleasant to
learn with what foods and drinks they are nourished, and in what way and for
how long they live.
Capt. Their food consists of flesh,
butter, honey, cheese, garden herbs, and vegetables of various kinds. They were
unwilling at first to slay animals, because it seemed cruel; but thinking
afterwards that it was also cruel to destroy herbs which have a share of
sensitive feeling, they saw that they would perish from hunger unless they did
an unjustifiable action for the sake of justifiable ones, and so now they all
eat meat. Nevertheless, they do not kill willingly useful animals, such as oxen
and horses. They observe the difference between useful and harmful foods, and
for this they employ the science of medicine. They always change their food.
First they eat flesh, then fish, then afterwards they go back to flesh, and
nature is never incommoded or weakened. The old people use the more digestible
kind of food, and take three meals a day, eating only a little. But the general
community eat twice, and the boys four times, that they might satisfy nature.
The length of their lives is generally one hundred years, but often they reach
two hundred.
As regards
drinking, they are extremely moderate. Wine is never given to young people until
they are ten years old, unless the state of their health demands it. After
their tenth year they take it diluted with water, and so do the
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women, but the
old men of fifty and upwards use little or no water. They eat the most healthy
things, according to the time of the year.
They think
nothing harmful which is brought forth by God, except when there has been abuse
by taking too much. And therefore in the summer they feed on fruits, because
they are moist and juicy and cool, and counteract the heat and dryness. In the
winter they feed on dry articles, and in the autumn they eat grapes, since they
are given by God to remove melancholy and sadness; and they also make use of
scents to a great degree. In the morning, when they have all risen they comb
their hair and wash their faces and hands with cold water. Then they chew thyme
or rock parsley or fennel, or rub their hands with these plants. The old men
make incense, and with their faces to the east repeat the short prayer which
Jesus Christ taught us. After this they go to wait upon the old men, some go to
the dance, and others to the duties of the state. Later on they meet at the
early lectures, then in the temple, then for bodily exercise. Then for a little
while they sit down to rest, and at length they go to dinner.
Among them
there is never gout in the hands or feet, no catarrh, nor sciatica, nongrievous
colics, nor flatulency, nor hard breathing. For these diseases are caused by
indigestion and flatulency, and by frugality and exercise they remove every
humour and spasm. Wherefore it is unseemly in the extreme to be seen vomiting
or spitting, since they say that this is a sign either of little exercise or of
ignoble sloth, or of drunkenness or gluttony. They suffer rather from swellings
or from the dry spasm, which they relieve with plenty of good and juicy food.
They heal fevers with pleasant baths and with milk-food, and with a pleasant
habitation in the country and by gradual exercise. Unclean diseases cannot be
prevalent with them because they often clean their bodies by bathing in wine,
and soothe them with
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aromatic oil,
and by the sweat of exercise they diffuse the poisonous vapour which corrupts
the blood and the marrow. They do suffer a little from consumption, because
they cannot perspire at the breast, but they never have asthma, for the humid
nature of which a heavy man is required. They cure hot fevers with cold
potations of water, but slight ones with sweet smells, with cheese-bread or
sleep, with music or dancing. Tertiary fevers are cured by bleeding, by rhubarb
or by a similar drawing remedy, or by water soaked in the roots of plants, with
purgative and sharp-tasting qualities. But it is rarely that they take
purgative medicines. Fevers occurring every fourth day are cured easily by
suddenly startling the unprepared patients, and by means of herbs producing
effects opposite to the humours of this fever. All these secrets they told me
in opposition to their own wishes. They take more diligent pains to cure the
lasting fevers, which they fear more, and they strive to counteract these by
the observation of stars and of plants, and by prayers to God. Fevers recurring
every fifth, sixth, eighth or more days, you never find whenever heavy humours
are wanting.
They use baths,
and moreover they have warm ones according to the Roman custom, and they make
use also of olive oil. They have found out, too, a great many secret cures for
the preservation of cleanliness and health. And in other ways they labour to
cure the epilepsy, with which they are often troubled.
G. M. A sign this disease is of wonderful
cleverness, for from it Hercules, Scotus, Socrates, Callimachus, and Mahomet
have suffered.
Capt. They cure by means of prayers to
heaven, by strengthening the head, by acids, by planned gymnastics, and with
fat cheese-bread sprinkled with the flour of wheaten corn. They are very
skilled in making dishes, and in them they put spice, honey, butter and many
highly strengthening spices, and they temper their richness with acids, so that
they never
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vomit. They do
not drink ice-cold drinks nor artificial hot drinks, as the Chinese do; for
they are not without aid against the humours of the body, on account of the
help they get from the natural heat of the water; but they strengthen it with
crushed garlic, with vinegar, with wild thyme, with mint, and with basil, in
the summer or in time of special heaviness. They know also a secret for
renovating life after about the seventieth year, and for ridding it of
affliction, and this they do by a pleasing and indeed wonderful art.
G. M. Thus far you have said nothing
concerning their sciences and magistrates.
Capt. Undoubtedly I have. But since you
are so curious I will add more. Both when it is new moon and full moon they
call a council after a sacrifice. To this all from twenty years upwards are
admitted, and each one is asked separately to say what is wanting in the state,
and which of the magistrates have discharged their duties rightly and which
wrongly. Then after eight days all the magistrates assemble, to wit, Hoh first,
and with him Power, Wisdom and Love. Each one of the three last has three
magistrates under him, making in all thirteen, and they consider the affairs of
the arts pertaining to each one of them; Power, of war; Wisdom, of the
sciences; Love, of food, clothing, education and breeding. The masters of all
the bands, who are captains of tens, of fifties, of hundreds, also assemble,
the women first and then the men. They argue about those things which are for
the welfare of the state, and they choose the magistrates from among those who
have already been named in the great council. In this manner they assemble
daily, Hoh and his three princes, and they correct, confirm and execute the
matters passing to them, as decisions in the elections; other necessary
questions they provide of themselves. They do not use lots unless when they are
altogether doubtful how to decide. The eight magistrates under Hoh, Power,
Wisdom and Love are changed according to the wish of the
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people, but the
first four are never changed, unless they, taking counsel with themselves, give
up the dignity of one to another, whom among them they know to be wiser, more
renowned, and more nearly perfect. And then they are obedient and honourable,
since they yield willingly to the wiser man and are taught by him. This,
however, rarely happens. The principals of the sciences, except Metaphysics,
who is Hoh himself, and is as it were the architect of all science, having rule
over all, are attached to Wisdom. Hoh is ashamed to be ignorant of any possible
thing. Under Wisdom therefore is Grammar, Logic, Physics, Medicine, Astrology,
Astronomy, Geometry, Cosmography, Music, Perspective, Arithmetic, Poetry,
Rhetoric, Painting, Sculpture. Under the triumvir Love are Breeding,
Agriculture, Education, Medicine, Clothing, Pasturage, Coining.
G. M. What about their judges?
Capt. This is the point I was just
thinking of explaining. Every one is judged by the first master of his trade,
and thus all the head artificers are judges. They punish with exile, with
flogging, with blame, with deprivation of the common table, with exclusion from
the church and from the company of women. When there is a case in which great
injury has been done, it is punished with death, and they repay an eye with an
eye, a nose for a nose, a tooth for a tooth, and so on, according to the law of
retaliation. If the offence is wilful the council decides. When there is strife
and it takes place undesignedly, the sentence is mitigated; nevertheless, not by
the judge but by the triumvirate, from whom even it may be referred to Hoh, not
on account of justice but of mercy, for Hoh is able to pardon. They have no
prisons, except one tower for shutting up rebellious enemies, and there is no
written statement of a case, which we commonly call a lawsuit. But the
accusation and witnesses are produced in the presence of the judge and Power;
the accused person makes his defence, and he is immediately acquitted or
condemned
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by the judge; and if he appeals to the
triumvirate, on the following day he is acquitted or condemned. On the third
day he is dismissed through the mercy and clemency of Hoh, or receives the
inviolable rigour of his sentence. An accused person is reconciled to his
accuser and to his witnesses, as it were, with the medicine of his complaint,
that is, with embracing and kissing. No one is killed or stoned unless by the
hands of the people, the accuser and the witnesses beginning first. For they
have no executioners and lictors, lest the state should sink into ruin. The
choice of death is given to the rest of the people, who enclose the lifeless
remains in little bags and burn them by the application of fire, while
exhorters are present for the purpose of advising concerning a good death.
Nevertheless, the whole nation laments and beseeches God that His anger may be
appeased, being in grief that it should as it were have to cut off a rotten
member of the state. Certain officers talk to and convince the accused man by
means of arguments until he himself acquiesces in the sentence of death passed
upon him, or else he does not die. But if a crime has been committed against
the liberty of the republic, or against God, or against the supreme
magistrates, there is immediate censure without pity. These only are punished
with death. He who is about to die is compelled to state in the presence of the
people and with religious scrupulousness the reasons for which he does not
deserve death, and also the sins of the others who ought to die instead of him,
and further the mistakes of the magistrates. If, moreover, it should seem right
to the person thus asserting, he must say why the accused ones are deserving of
less punishment than he. And if by his arguments he gains the victory he is
sent into exile, and appeases the state by means of prayers and sacrifices and
good life ensuing. They do not torture those named by the accused person, but
they warn them. Sins of frailty and ignorance are punished only with blaming,
and with com-
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pulsory continuation as learners under the law
and discipline of those sciences or arts against which they have sinned. And
all these things they have mutually among themselves, since they seem to be in
very truth members of the same body, and one of another.
This further I would have you know, that if a
transgressor, without waiting to be accused, goes of his own accord before a
magistrate, accusing himself and seeking to make amends, that one is liberated
from the punishment of a secret crime, and since he has not been accused of such
a crime, his punishment is changed into another. They take special care that no
one should invent slander, and if this should happen they meet the offence with
the punishment of retaliation. Since they always walk about and work in crowds,
five witnesses are required for the conviction of a transgressor. If the case
is otherwise, after having threatened him, he is released after he has sworn an
oath as the warrant of good conduct. Or if he is accused a second or third
time, his increased punishment rests on the testimony of three or two
witnesses. They have but few laws, and these short and plain, and written upon
a flat table, and hanging to the doors of the temple, that is between the
columns. And on single columns can be seen the essences of things described in
the very terse style of Metaphysics -- viz., the essences of God, of the
angels, of the world, of the stars, of man, of fate, of virtue, all done with
great wisdom. The definitions of all the virtues are also delineated here, and
here is the tribunal, where the judges of all the virtues have their seat. The
definition of a certain virtue is written under that column where the judges
for the aforesaid virtue sit, and when a judge gives judgment he sits and
speaks thus: O son, thou hast sinned against this sacred definition of
beneficence, or of magnanimity, or of another virtue, as the case may be. And
after discussion the judge legally condemns him to the punishment for the crime
of which he is
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accused -- viz., for injury for despondency,
for pride, for ingratitude, for sloth, &c. But the sentences are certain
and true correctives, savouring more of clemency than of actual punishment.
G. M. Now you ought to tell me about their priests,
their sacrifices, their religion, and their belief.
Capt. The chief priest is Hoh, and it is the duty of
all the superior magistrates to pardon sins. Therefore the whole state by
secret confession, which we also use, tell their sins to the magistrates, who
at once purge their souls and teach those that are inimical to the people. Then
the sacred magistrates themselves confess their own sinfulness to the three
supreme chiefs, and together they confess the faults of one another, though no
special one is named, and they confess especially the heavier faults and those
harmful to the state. At length the triumvirs confess their sinfulness to Hoh
himself, who forthwith recognizes the kinds of sins that are harmful to the
state, and succours with timely remedies. Then he offers sacrifices and prayers
to God. And before this he confesses the sins of the whole people, in the
presence of God, and publicly in the temple, above the altar, as often as it
had been necessary that the fault should be corrected. Nevertheless, no
transgressor is spoken of by his name. In this manner he absolves the people by
advising them that they should beware of sins of the aforesaid kind. Afterwards
he offers sacrifice to God, that He should pardon the state and absolve it of
its sins, and to teach and defend it. Once in every year the chief priests of
each separate subordinate state confess their sins in the presence of Hoh. Thus
he is not ignorant of the wrongdoings of the provinces, and forthwith he
removes them with all human and heavenly remedies.
Sacrifice is conducted after the following
manner: Hoh asks the people which one among them wishes to give himself as a
sacrifice to God for the sake of his fellows. He is then
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placed upon the fourth table, with ceremonies
and the offering up of prayers: the table is hung up in a wonderful manner by
means of four ropes passing through four cords attached to firm pulley-blocks
in the small dome of the temple. This done they cry to the God of mercy, that
He may accept the offering, not of a beast as among the heathen, but of a human
being. Then Hoh orders the ropes to be drawn and the sacrifice is pulled up
above to the centre of the small dome, and there it dedicates itself with the
most fervent supplications. Food is given to it through a window by the
priests, who live around the dome, but it is allowed a very little to eat,
until it has atoned for the sins of the state. There with prayer and fasting he
cries to the God of heaven that He might accept its willing offering. And after
twenty or thirty days, the anger of God being appeased, the sacrifice becomes a
priest, or sometimes, though rarely, returns below by means of the outer way
for the priests. Ever after this man is treated with great benevolence and much
honour, for the reason that he offered himself unto death for the sake of his
country. But God does not require death. The priests above twenty-four years of
age offer praises from their places in the top of the temple. This they do in
the middle of the night, at noon, in the morning and in the evenirig, to wit,
four times a day they sing their chants in the presence of God. It is also
their work to observe the stars and to note with the astrolabe their motions
and influences upon human things, and to find out their powers. Thus they know
in what part of the earth any change has been or will be, and at what time it
has taken place, and they send to find whether the matter be as they have it.
They make a note of predictions, true and false, so that they may be able from
experience to predict most correctly. The priests, moreover, determine the
hours for breeding and the days for sowing, reaping, and gathering the vintage,
and are as it were the ambassadors and intercessors and connection between God
-258-
and man. And it is from among them mostly that
Hoh is elected. They write very learned treatises and search into the sciences.
Below they never descend, unless for their dinner and supper, so that the
essence of their heads do not descend to the stomachs and liver. Only very
seldom, and that as a cure for the ills of solitude, do they have converse with
women. On certain days Hoh goes up to them and deliberates with them concerning
the matters which he has lately investigated for the benefit of the state and
all the nations of the world.
In the temple beneath one priest always stands
near the altar praying for the people, and at the end of every hour another
succeeds him, just as we are accustomed in solemn prayer to change every fourth
hour. And this method of supplication they call perpetual prayer. After a meal
they return thanks to God. Then they sing the deeds of the Christian, Jewish,
and Gentile heroes, and of those of all other nations, and this is very
delightful to them. Forsooth, no one is envious of another. They sing a hymn to
Love, one to Wisdom, and one each to all the other virtues, and this they do
under the direction of the ruler of each virtue. Each one takes the woman he
loves most, and they dance for exercise with propriety and stateliness under
the peristyles. The women wear their long hair all twisted together and
collected into one knot on the crown of the head, but in rolling it they leave
one curl. The men, however, have one curl only and the rest of their hair
around the head is shaven off. Further, they wear a slight covering, and above
this a round hat a little larger than the size of their head. In the fields
they use caps, but at home each one wears a biretto white, red, or another
colour according to his trade or occupation. Moreover, the magistrates use
grander and more imposing-looking coverings for the head.
They hold great festivities when the sun enters
the four cardinal points Qf the heavens, that is, when he enters
-259-
Cancer, Libra, Capricorn, and Aries. On these
occasions they have very learned, splendid, and as it were comic performances.
They celebrate also every full and every new moon with a festival, as also they
do the anniversaries of the founding of the city, and of the days when they
have won victories or done any other great achievement. The celebrations take
place with the music of female voices, with the noise of trumpets and drums,
and the firing of salutations. The poets sing the praises of the most renowned
leaders and the victories. Nevertheless, if any of them should deceive even by
disparaging a foreign hero, he is punished. No one can exercise the function of
a poet who invents that which is not true, and a license like this they think
to be a pest of our world, for the reason that it puts a premium upon virtue
and often assigns it to unworthy persons, either from fear or flattery, or
ambition or avarice. For the praise of no one is a statue erected until after
his death; but whilst he is alive, who has found out new arts and very useful
secrets, or who has rendered great service to the state either at home or on
the battle-field, his name is written in the book of heroes. They do not bury
dead bodies, but burn them, so that a plague may not arise from them, and so
that they may be converted into fire, a very noble and powerful thing, which
has its coming from the sun and returns to it. And for the above reasons no
chance is given for idolatry. The statues and pictures of the heroes, however,
are there, and the splendid women set apart to become mothers often look at
them. Prayers are made from the state to the four horizontal corners of the
world. In the morning to the rising sun, then to the setting sun, then to the
south, and lastly to the north; and in the contrary order in the evening, first
to the setting sun, to the rising sun, to the north, and at length to the
south. They repeat but one prayer, which asks for health of body and of mind,
and happiness for themselves and all people,
-260-
and they conclude it with the petition "As
it seems best to God." The public prayer for all is long, and it is poured
forth to heaven. For this reason the altar is round and is divided crosswise by
ways at right angles to one another. By these ways Hoh enters after he has
repeated the four prayers, and he prays looking up to heaven. And then a great
mystery is seen by them. The priestly vestments are of a beauty and meaning
like to those of Aaron. They resemble Nature and they surpass Art.
They divide the seasons according to the
revolution of the sun, and not of the stars, and they observe yearly by how
much time the one precedes the other. They hold that the sun approaches nearer
and nearer, and therefore by everlessening circles reaches the tropics and the
equator every year a little sooner. They measure months by the course of the
moon, years by that of the sun. They praise Ptolemy, admire Copernicus, but
place Aristarchus and Philolaus before him. They take great pains in
endeavouring to understand the construction of the world, and whether or not it
will perish, and at what time. They believe that the true oracle of Jesus
Christ is by the signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars, which signs
do not thus appear to many of us foolish ones. Therefore they wait for the
renewing of the age, and perchance for its end. They say that it is very
doubtful whether the world was made from nothing, or from the ruins of other
worlds, or from chaos, but they certainly think that it was made, and did not
exist from eternity. Therefore they disbelieve in Aristotle, whom they consider
a logician and not a philosopher. From analogies, they can draw many arguments
against the eternity of the world. The sun and the stars they, so to speak,
regard as the living representatives and signs of God, as the temples and holy
living altars, and they honour but do not worship them. Beyond all other things
they venerate the sun, but they consider no created thing worthy the adoration
of worship. This they
-261-
give to God alone, and thus they serve Him,
that they may not come into the power of a tyrant and fall into misery by
undergoing punishment by creatures of revenge. They contemplate and know God
under the image of the Sun, and they call it the sign of God, His face and
living image, by means of which light, heat, life, and the making of all things
good and bad proceeds. Therefore they have built an altar like to the Sun in
shape, and the priests praise God in the sun and in the stars, as it were His
altars, and in the heavens, His temple as it were; and they pray to good
angels, who are, so to speak, the intercessors living in the stars, their
strong abodes. For God long since set signs of their beauty in heaven, and of
His glory in the Sun. They say there is but one heaven, and that the planets
move and rise of themselves when they approach the sun or are in conjunction
with it.
They assert two principles of the physics of
things below, namely, that the Sun is the father, and the Earth the mother; the
air is an impure part of the heavens; all fire is derived from the sun. The sea
is the sweat of earth, or the fluid of earth combusted, and fused within its bowels;
but is the bond of union between air and earth, as the blood is of the spirit
and flesh of animals. The world is a great animal, and we live within it as
worms live within us. Therefore we do not belong to the system of stars, sun,
and earth, but to God only; for in respect to them which seek only to amplify
themselves, we are born and live by chance; but in respect to God, whose
instruments we are, we are formed by prescience and design, and for a high end.
Therefore we are bound to no Father but God, and receive all things from Him.
They hold as beyond question the immortality of souls, and that these associate
with good angels after death, or with bad angels, according as they have
likened themselves in this life to either. For all things seek their like. They
differ little from us as to places of reward and punishment. They are in doubt
-262-
whether there are other worlds beyond ours, and
account it madness to say there is nothing, Nonentity is incompatible with the
infinite entity of God. They lay down two principles of metaphysics, entity
which is the highest God, and nothingness which is the defect of entity. Evil
and sin come of the propensity to nothingness; the sin having its cause not
efficient, but in deficiency. Deficiency is, they say, of power, wisdom or
will. Sin they place in the last of these three, because he who knows and has
the power to do good is bound also to have the will, for will arises out of
them. They worship God in Trinity, saying God is the supreme Power, whence
proceeds the highest Wisdom, which is the same with God, and from these comes
Love, which is both Power and Wisdom; but they do not distinguish persons by
name, as in our Christian law, which has not been revealed to them. This
religion, when its abuses have been removed, will be the future mistress of the
world, as great theologians teach and hope. Therefore Spain found the New World
(though its first discoverer, Columbus, greatest of heroes, was a Genoese),
that all nations should be gathered under one law. We know. not what we do, but
God knows, whose instruments we are. They sought new regions for lust of gold
and riches, but God works to a higher end. The sun strives to burn up the
earth, not to produce plants and men, but God guides the battle to great issues.
His the praise, to Him the glory!
G. M. Oh, if you knew what our astrologers say of
the coming age, and of our age, that has in it more history within a hundred
years than all the world had in four thousand years before! Of the wonderful
invention of printing and guns, and the use of the magnet, and how it all comes
of Mercury, Mars, the Moon, and the Scorpion!
Capt. Ah, well! God gives all in His good time. They
astrologize too much.
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SOCIALISM BEFORE
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
A HISTORY
BY WILLIAM B.
GUTHRIE, PH.D.
INSTRUCTOR IN
HISTORY, COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, LECTURER IN SOCIAL SCIENCE UNDER THE
BOARD OF EDUCATION, AND ON FOREIGN INVESTMENTS IN THE SCHOOL OF COMMERCE AND
FINANCE OF NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
New York
THE MACMILLAN
COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1907
All rights
reserved
-i-
CHAPTER IV
LIFE AND TIMES OF
CAMPANELLA
1. With the study of Campanella the
field is changed from north to south, from England to Italy, from Germanic to
Romance culture. The appearance of social discontent and anti-social theories
seems perfectly natural among southern peoples, and especially in Italy where
the Revival of Learning started theorizing on other lines, and where the
capitalistic régime showed itself quite early. 1 There certainly existed conditions
favorable to social upheaval, and the Italian character seemed fitted thereto.
There appears, however, very slight agitation and very little literature
bearing on social questions in Romance lands. The northern countries stimulated
at once by the two great movements, the Renaissance and the Reformation, had
witnessed uprisings and had produced some literature and social theories more
or less revolutionary. Italy, during this time, seems not to have taken much
part in this sentiment of social disorder.
For a long time
a calm had marked the social life of Italy. Away back in the latter part of the
thirteenth
____________________
|
1 |
Janssen, "History of German People
at the Close of the Middle Ages," St. Louis, 1900, Vol. II, Ch. I. Cf.
Labriola, op. cit., p. 153. |
-132-
century one
bold character had dared to revolt against the petty but effective despotism of
one of the republics. 1 Arnold of Brescia for some time scattered the seeds of social discontent
in Milan, where was reaped the usual harvest of disorder and riot. As is usual,
Arnold was led to attack property by a scandalous abuse of its power by one
class and he developed rather a complete scheme of communism. Aroused by the
power or abuse of power in the hands of the church, he bitterly attacked the
landed clergy, as was done so much later in France and England. The
disaffection spread, and war was waged not only against property but also
against its kindred institutions. This movement was soon checked, however, and
little came of the agitation for a cause for which its leader gave up his life.
There is,
moreover, a general paucity of literature for a century following Thomas More,
for which several explanations are offered. One of importance is the fact that
so disastrous had been the attempts at social reform in northern Europe that
the cause seemed hopeless, and radical agitators were stamped as enemies of
state, church, and of civilization itself. 2 This conclusion seemed justified by
the history of Lollardy,
____________________
|
1 |
Ibid., p. 29. |
|
2 |
Kirchenheim,
"L'Eternelle Utopia," Paris, 1897, p. 83. Cf.
Berens, "The Digger Movement," etc., p. 11; also Kautsky,
"Communism," pp. 29et seq. |
-133-
the Hussite
movement in Bohemia, and kindred uprisings. It is also true that great
religious questions came to occupy people's minds, and abstract principles and
even questions of scientific method came to the front, while the idealist and
reformer were less patronized. With the opening of the seventeenth century the
interest in social questions revived, and considerable literature was published.
Of this the most interesting and important came from the pen of the Calabrian
monk, Thomas Campanella.
2. Very little attention has been paid
to Campanella by English students, and accounts in English of his life and work
are very meagre and unsatisfactory. His works have, however, been quite fully
treated by foreign critics. Owing to this paucity of English literature
treating his life and works, a rather extended notice of authorities seems
justifiable. Among the works from his pen those dealing with the social problem
are: "City of the Sun," which probably first appeared in 1619, almost
exactly a century after the "Utopia" by Thomas More; and his
"Discourses touching the Spanish Monarchy," published about 1599. The
date is somewhat in dispute, though it seems highly probable that it appeared
shortly before the death of Elizabeth in England. The "Realistic
Philosophy," Part IV, was probably written while the author was in prison
and published at an uncertain date afterward.
-134-
There is quite
an extensive literature of a biographical and critical nature. So many-sided
was his culture and so far-reaching were his teachings that the life of the
learned monk called forth extensive criticism in various tongues. Among these
may be cited the treatise by Andrea Calenda, "Thomas Campanella and his
Social and Political Doctrines bearing upon Modern Socialism." 1 On the philosophy of Campanella the
short work by Sante Felici, "The Philosophical and Religious Doctrines of
Campanella," is very satisfactory. 2 On his biography the work of
Baldacchini, "Vita e filosofia di Tommaso Campanella," should
be consulted. Luigi Amabile of Naples has written a very extensive treatise of
his life, but it is cumbrous and tedious. 3 Shorter notices appear in such works
as those of Adolphe Franck 4 and Von Mohl. 5 The place of Campanella has been discussed by Paul Lafargue; 6 and very briefly by
Kleinwächter. 7
3. It is perhaps a result of a
chauvinistic spirit that
____________________
|
1 |
Calenda, "Fra
Tommaso Campanella e la sua Dottrina Sociale e Politica di Fronte al
Socialismo Moderno," 1895. |
|
2 |
"Le
Dottrine Filosofico-religiose di Tommaso Campanella, con particolare riguardo
alla filosofia della rinascenza Italiana". |
|
3 |
"Fra
Tommaso Campanella la sua congiura i suoi processi e la sua pazzia,"
etc., Naples, 1882. |
|
4 |
"Riformateurs
et publicistes de l'Europe," 1881. |
|
5 |
Op. cit. |
|
6 |
"Die
Vorläufer des neueren Socialismus," pp. 469-506. |
|
7 |
"Die
Staatsromane," Wien, 1891. |
-135
each nation
sees in its writers and critics the forerunners of great movements and the
originators of wise social schemes. Such a case is seen when Guizot states with
an interesting air of assurance that every great idea has either originated in
France or passed through the French to the world. A certain element of this
spirit probably inspires those writers who claim for Campanella a very large
place in the history of the incipient stages of socialism. The claim seems, however,
to have a very good justification in fact. Campanella, monk, philosopher,
communist, and revolutionist, made a very substantial contribution to the early
thought of socialism. 1 He is not important because of the quantity he wrote; his works are
marked by commendable brevity. Analysis shows, however, that his social
theories and economic views are far-reaching and suggestive. 2
Campanella was
born, according to the most reliable biographers, in 1568 in the little village
of Stillo, in Calabria. 3 Educated for orders, in the declining days
____________________
|
1 |
Calenda, op. cit., Preface. |
|
2 |
The value of the Italian critics
concerning Campanella has been questioned by Croce. That modern socialists
look upon Campanella as their "Homer" is, of course, an
exaggeration. Lafargue also comes in for his share of the criticism. See Croce, "Matérialism
Historique et Économie Marxiste," Paris 1901, pp. 270et
seq. |
|
3 |
Calenda, op
cit., p. 4; Colet, "Œuvres choisies," p. 2, Franck,
op. cit., Vol. II, p. 151. |
-136
of
scholasticism, he was early noted for his power as a philosopher, and it is in
this sphere he is best known. It was during the period of struggle then in
progress against the ancient Aristotelian philosophy that Campanella gained his
reputation as a scholar and as a great philosophic controversialist. 1
It may be of
interest to take a glance at the intellectual environment of the man. He was
born at the close of the life of Bruno, far-famed for having anticipated the
theories of Galileo, who also was advanced in life while Campanella was in
childhood. Telesius, whose disciple and defender he became, died before
Campanella reached manhood. Francis Bacon, who seemed not to have known him,
was seven years his senior. Bodin wrote his six "Livres de la
République" while the monk's character was in the making, and
Grotius was a contemporary with this brilliant group of political and social
philosophers. The work of the noted chemist and founder of the science of
Medicine, Paracelsus, appeared shortly before the social theorizing of
Campanella began. Of the place of Italy at this time it is only necessary to
note that five of the greatest scholars of Europe are Italians -- Cardanus,
Telesius, Patritius, Bruno, and the Calabrian monk, Campanella. 2
____________________
|
1 |
Calenda, op.
cit., p. 62. |
|
2 |
Rixner, "Leben
und Lehrmeinungen Berühmter Physiker," 1829; "Einleitung."
|
-137
Campanella's
first great inspiration was Telesius, in whose defence he made those speeches
on which his fame rests and which enhanced the reputation of his client. It is
said that while Antonia Marta consumed seven years writing a book against
Telesius, Campanella occupied but seven months in destroying it. Campanella's
works were highly theoretical. Many of the writings of a similar nature during this
period partake of a more scientific spirit. Bodin has been classified in much
the same school as Campanella and has even been called very idealistic and
utopian. He saw, however, the difference between his method and that of
Campanella and More, declaring that he was not dealing with an imaginary
commonwealth, as Thomas More had done. 1 Campanella, then, may be called the
most idealistic and utopian of this learned group; he is more positively a
social reformer than the others. He had, however, sound judgment on social and
political affairs corresponding somewhat to Harrington, the premises of both
men being very sane.
A study of this
many-sided man reveals a strange life -- a virtual paradox. An orthodox Catholic
and a devoted monk, he was a worshipper of the stars and
____________________
|
1 |
"Republic,"
Bk. I, p. 3; cf. Sudre, "Histoire du Communisme";
Baudrillart, "Tableaux des Théories Politiques,"
etc., pp. 24et seq.; Gierke, "Althusius," pp. 151, 152 (ed.
1880); Bluntschli, "Histoire du droit publique." |
-138-
placed
astrology above his religion. Himself violently persecuted, his theories make
no provision for liberty, nor is he a friend of toleration. A forerunner of the
rational method in physical science, he was superstitious in religion and
fanciful in his social theories. Although he lived an isolated monk in the
cloister or a martyr in the cell he advanced a form of social organization
which most clearly abandons individualism. Apparently a free-thinker, he was
yet a slave to the traditions and ceremonies of the past.
There are some
very interesting points of contrast between More and Campanella. Both were
determined for orders, but More returned to public life and the law, while
Campanella took to the cloister. Both were devoted Catholics. More, however,
espoused the New Learning and was a devoted follower of Aristotle; Campanella,
also versed in classic lore, revolted against Greek philosophy and became its
bitterest enemy and most feared opponent. More was a marked conservative and on
the side of order; Campanella was a radical and a revolutionary and suffered
for his course. Campanella suffered twenty-six years of martyrdom for his
radicalism; More went to the scaffold for his conservatism. More favored an
absolute monarchy with the people having a kind of king-making power;
Campanella favored a republic, though, of course, of the Italian pattern.
Campanella was an agitator, believed
-139-
he could upset
the power of Spain, destroy the existing social order, and create a republic; 1 More was an advocate of the Tudor
monarchy. More resembled Karl Marx; Campanella was an early Lassalle. 2 The only hope of More was a return
to the earlier and simpler life he saw daily passing farther away; for
Campanella the new seventeenth century, with its eventful opening, was to be
the dawn of a new age of social regeneration. 3
Campanella
differs from More in this, that he adhered more persistently to national
ideals; he was struggling for the independence of the Italian states, but with
the larger purpose of their national unity; More was willing to return to a
more decentralized form of social organization. Both were spurred on by a
knowledge of the evil conditions of their times. The aspect, however, more
apparent to Campanella was the political; that which impressed More was the
economic or social.
This very
decided difference in view point must be noted. More was led to his discussion
by a study of the economic and social conditions. In these he saw
contradictions and flagrant wrongs. Campanella, and, it
____________________
|
1 |
Lafargue,
"Le Devenir Social," Vol. I, p. 312. |
|
2 |
Gonner, "The Social Philosophy of
Rodbertus," London, 1899, pp. 5et seq. |
|
3 |
Sigwart,
"Kleine Schriften," Freiburg, 1889, Band I, p. 138. |
-140-
may be added, the Jesuits and the English radicals, go out chiefly from the religious or the religious-political point of view. They are therefore more largely political than social or economic reformers. 1
As has been
said the writings of Campanella bearing upon social questions were very limited
in quantity. His purely philosophical works were far more extensive. As in the
case of More the social and political environment gave force and direction to
his literary works touching political and social matters. These consist, as is
the case with most social reformers, of two widely differing kinds. His
imaginative tendency was, as in the case of Plato, offset by his sound,
practical judgment. In connection with his highly theoretical "City of the
Sun" should be read the practical treatise, "A Discourse touching the
Spanish Monarchy." 2
These two works
illustrate widely differing methods. The "Discourses" are historical
in nature and of a practical turn; written, as were other Italian works, to
give advice to a prince, they are similar to the "Laws" of Plato as
compared with his "Republic." This work is marked by good sense and
keen insight and shows power of practical observation. The "City of the
Sun,"
____________________
|
1 |
Campanella spent twenty-six years in
prison, where much of his writing was done. He was treated far more
considerately than other radicals as he stayed in the church. Bruno, an
anti-Catholic sceptic, was burned at the stake in Rome, 1600. |
|
2 |
Calenda, op.
cit., pp. 16et seq. |
-141
on the other
hand, is idealistic, philosophic, and at times fantastic. The
"Discourses" were a direct outgrowth of his study of the Spanish
Monarchy and its relation to the Italian states which had come under its rule.
The work was translated into English in 1654 at the request of Cromwell and
became widely known. Its relation to Spain was very similar to the relation of
"Utopia" to England. It was written primarily to lead to reform in
the Monarchy, but like the "Utopia" it had a larger intent and
contemplated the general political situation.
Only such
reference will be here made to the "Discourses" as may shed light on
the general theories of Campanella. The sub-title is of some interest, taken in
connection with the views of the author. Translated, it reads, "Some
Directions and Practices whereby the King of Spain may attain to Universal
Monarchy." Bearing on the same point he has in the Preface set forth the
historic movements tending in this direction. The tendency shown by Campanella
to shake loose from the old manner of interpreting things in terms of theology
is clearly shown in the Preface. "I shall, notwithstanding, in a brief and
compendious way, give your Lordship an account what my judgment is concerning
this subject and shall give in the causes of each several
____________________
|
1 |
Citations are to the first English
edition which was done from Latin in 1654, at the request of Cromwell. |
-142-
point; in
General first; not after a natural nor Theological but after a political
way."
In his views
and in his conscious efforts to use a certain analytic method, Campanella was
in advance of his contemporaries. In his "Discourses" he first lays
down certain general principles which monarchs should follow and then proceeds
historically to test their validity by examining the nations which had followed
them. To certain conscious lines of action he attributes national strength and
perpetuity. He furthermore clearly distinguishes between primary and secondary
causes operating in social life. Speaking of historical causes he says,
"Fate is nothing else than the concurring of all the causes working by
virtue of the first Cause." 1
In his social
doctrines, as set forth in the "Discourses," he clearly recognizes the
effect of physical environment as a cause in social evolution. 2 Thus his theory of social
interpretation follows, perhaps not so distinctly as the "Spirit of
Laws," those lines of reasoning later followed by Montesquieu, to whom is
generally attributed the introduction of this style of reasoning. In his
"City of the Sun" Campanella attributes social
____________________
|
1 |
Campanella, "A Discourse touching
the Spanish Monarchy," etc., London, 1654, p. 1. |
|
2 |
Ibid., Ch.
XXVII. Here he discusses the influence of climate on fecundity and the
increase of certain social and individual qualities. |
-143
changes to the
stars and lays stress on the general cosmography as an aid to an understanding
of the control of human affairs. In his "Discourses" he treats in a
discriminating manner of the relations of geographical environment to social
change. As will be shown later this is a thoroughly socialistic view point. The
highly theoretical nature of the "City of the Sun" is offset by the
fact that Campanella had designed to found a republic in Calabria, the leading
features of which were outlined in his "City of the Sun." There was,
then, a very practical turn to the mind of the Calabrian monk, and when he
touches political and social subjects he displays considerable capacity.
4. Only the briefest notice can be
taken here of the place Campanella held in the development of that thought his
century did so much to bring forth. This task belongs rather to the study of the
philosopher than of the socialist, but a sketch of the man must be very
incomplete that omits it entirely. A clue to his work along lines of inductive
science may be gained from his "Discourses." In the sphere of
physical science he advised the rejection of the Aristotelian theories and
methods and he attempted to demolish the ancient cosmography through the
development of more accurate knowledge and the adoption of the inductive
method. To this end he advised the Spanish monarch to close the Greek schools
which must of necessity
-144-
teach both the
matter and the method of the Aristotelian school.
He furthermore
advised him to found and foster the Arabic schools, because of the attention
they paid to mathematics and geography. 1 On this he says: "Then let him
get about him the ablest cosmographers that he can and assign them liberal
advances; whose business it shall be to describe those various parts of the
world wheresoever the Spaniards shall have set footing throughout the entire
world; because that Ptolemy knew nothing of those countries at all. And let him
by the industry of these mathematicians correct all the errors of the ancient
geographers." Of the teachings of Aristotle he says, "Aristotle, though
his teachings were impious, yet was he little of a hindrance to
Alexander." In his references to the ancient school Campanella shows the
same radical attitude seen in his social theories.
5. It is coming to be more clearly
appreciated by students of social and economic science that it is necessary to
study and to grasp the general philosophy of the world's great teachers. The
method of Spencer in his synthetic philosophy shows how imperative is this
demand. Underlying any special theory on social or economic life or process is
to be sought the substratum
____________________
|
1 |
Campanella, "A Discourse touching
the Spanish Monarchy," etc. Ch. X. |
-145
of philosophy
and the general world-view. Perhaps the German students have gone about this
task most seriously and the term "Weltanschauung" has come to
occupy a very prominent place in their vocabulary of social science. 1 Especially is this true with those
periods when revolution is prevailing and when "natural rights"
instead of historic or traditional privileges are emphasized; when the
metaphysician, and not the historian or the dogmatist, has the field. Of
socialism these statements are true in a very particular manner. Socialism is
not only an economic, it is an ethical system as well, and pretends to
reëstablish mankind on a new basis of right-thinking and right-dealing. It
is necessary, then, to take frequent excursions into the realm of general
philosophy and metaphysics to discover those lines of reasoning, knowledge of
which makes clearer the movements in the progress of social thought.
Now in these
early periods of the history of social thought, metaphysics and a very abstract
philosophy bore about the same relation to social theory as do the natural
sciences to-day. 2 Psychology, in its application to social and economic science, may be
said to have displaced metaphysics and, dealing primarily with the
____________________
|
1 |
Labriola, op. cit., p. 14. |
|
2 |
"A long development of the inorganic
and vital sciences was necessary before sociology or morals could attain
their normal constitution." -- Ingram, "A History of Political
Economy," p. 11. |
-146-
individual, may
be called an outgrowth of that metaphysics which dealt with an extreme form of
individualism which helped to produce the French Revolution. Present-day social
science, on the other hand, tends to interpret phenomena in terms of material
thought, geography, climate, and the like. Early social study was carried on in
the light of metaphysical and idealistic modes of thinking; modern social
investigation advances along lines drawn by the physical scientist and in the
light of evolutionary thought. Applied in a spirit of reform or of revolution
the one mode of thought produced an idealistic, utopian, impracticable type of
socialism; while the other gave a realistic, practical, scientific type.
This
metaphysical-theological mode of viewing society pretty largely prevailed till
the opening of the nineteenth century and was at its height when Campanella
wrote. Socialism during the nineteenth century yielded to the same
all-conquering force of the scientific spirit and the socialism of Karl Marx
was a natural result. What has been said may be summed up in the statement of
Royce that a general philosophy is necessary to give unity to theories and
facts and an explanation of life and of the world.1
____________________
|
1 |
All great
social schemes have been a result of an attempt to apply a general philosophy
to social life. The history of the social ideas and ideals of Aristotle and
Plato is but their attempted application of |
-147-
A glance,
therefore, into the realm of philosophic thought in which Campanella moved may
be useful in explaining his social scheme so largely metaphysical. As one of
the most learned opponents of Aristotle, a forerunner of Bacon in the field of
induction, a precursor of Montesquieu in his mode of social interpretation --
and withal a most philosophic and mystical theorizer in social spheres,
Campanella's career certainly justifies a general study.
In the first
half of the seventeenth century the old system of philosophy was very seriously
shaken. The Age of Discovery, the influences of the Reformation, and the
liberation of the human mind following the Renaissance and other great
movements, tended to destroy the old and usher in the new age. It was to the
introduction of this new age that Campanella lent his efforts and directed his
massive intellectual powers. It was as a disciple of Telesius, who had long
opposed the earlier teachings, that Campanella first doubted and then denied
the ancient dogma and helped to lead in the inductive age. Kozlowski says of
him, 1 that he was the first philosopher who went over to the side of sense-
____________________
|
|
their philosophy to social problems. The
Metaphysics of Campanella helps to explain his peculiar views. The social
philosophy and schemes in revolutionary France rest finally upon the
metaphysics of the eighteenth century. Cf. Royce, "Spirit of Modern
Philosophy," Boston and N. Y., 1892, pp. 1-2. |
|
1 |
Op. Cit.,
p. 21. |
-148
perception, and
attempted to construct a philosophy and a science in which there would be a
large element of exact reasoning based upon actual evidence. His great work was
the first attempt at a general synthesis of the sciences, an attempted
synthetic philosophy. In this "Universalis philosophiæ sive
metaphisicorum rerum intra propria dogmata partes IV," he pretends to
treat the field of human knowledge. This work includes a variety of subjects
among which is found his treatise on society as a part of the general
philosophy.
As Campanella pretended to apply his positive method to the social sciences it may be well to note its chief features. To him the knowledge gained by sense-perception was the only real knowledge. Led to draw a sharp distinction between this real knowledge and common opinion, he came to look upon experience and induction as the only safe method of acquiring knowledge. 1
There is,
however, a most marked inconsistency in the career of Campanella. His thinking
presents a peculiar mixture of idealism and realism, of spiritualism and
materialism. In his general philosophy both as to matter and method he was a
decided sensualist, approaching the modern materialist. 2 In his social
____________________
|
1 |
Wuttge, "Erkenntnistheorie
und Ethik des Tommaso Campanella," p. 33. |
|
2 |
Franck, op.
cit., Vol. II, pp. 162et seq. |
-149-
teachings he
was highly deductive and metaphysical. Hence in his "City of the Sun"
there appears the most peculiar cosmogony and throughout his social scheme
there runs a mystifying symbolism. Plato did not so completely involve his
social scheme in his philosophy as did his later imitator. Thus some of his
theory seems totally unreasonable when divorced from his general metaphysical
scheme. In this scheme all matter is animated by a soul. There is an internal
soul which corresponds to the soul of man and an external soul immanent in the
world. The trees, animals, and rocks are all animated by this external soul. In
his scheme of social organization the sun figures as the chief ruler; he
describes the "City of the Sun." "Hoh" is the sun, which
symbolizes "power," or the greatest controlling force, and is endowed
with the external soul. In his theory, existence was based upon feeling;
therefore everything existing had feeling. Knowledge was an accumulation of
experiences, and hence everything could have knowledge. Love is defined as a
state of perfect harmony existing in the world. In his idea of a perfect social
state there are these three controlling forces: power, knowledge, and love.
On these
propositions rested Campanella's hope for social harmony. He conceived all
existence as presenting this inner spiritual harmony and unity, and it is a
result of an unnatural social arrangement that
-150-
society is at
war. This is only a more mystical, metaphysical way of stating the doctrine of
natural law and order, essential and natural, which theory underlay the
optimism of the eighteenth century. On this same idea of an inner unity and
hence a possible harmony was founded the hopeful social philosophy of the early
French socialists and indeed of those far down into the last century.
Campanella taught that there was a double trinity, -- power, knowledge and
love, as found in man, external nature, and God. It was in the heavenly bodies
that he saw the most perfect expression of this external soul; he was therefore
much occupied with astrology and believed social affairs were in some
mysterious manner controlled by the stars.
6. As a result
of Campanella's opposition to Aristotle, he was inclined to take up the
theories of Plato and in a way became very sympathetic with the teachings set
forth in the "Republic." 1 In many of the main features of his social doctrines he was a follower
of Plato; while in regard to his principal contention, that is, that a
communistic society would succeed, he directly opposed Aristotle. He denies
that the property bond is the only basis for social unity, and that the
acquisitive spirit is the only one which furnishes the motive to toil.
____________________
|
1 |
Fornari, "Delle
Teorie economiche nelle Provincie Napolitane dal secolo XIII al XVIII,"
1882, p. 1 86). |
-151-
No serious attempt has been made by the admirers of the Italian monk to dispute the place so long held by Bacon in the progress of human thought. It is of some interest, however, to note that while the great Englishman was working out his system, another noted scholar was engaged along similar lines in Italy; and that Campanella was, by an application of the new scientific method, making for himself a place comparable to that which Bacon was to occupy in English culture. As a critic says: "Et voilà où Campanella voit l'avenir de la philosophie et la régénération de toutes les sciences." 1
7. Certain
works have already been cited as sources of the thought of Campanella.
Reference is here made to an influence of considerable importance exerted on
the minds of reformers by the Jesuits and their institutions in South America.
These seem to have been partly the cause and partly the result of Campanella's
views.
____________________
|
1 |
Adolphe Franck,
"Réformateurs et publicistes de l'Europe," Vol. II, p. 153. The following works
are on the philosophy of Campanella: Kozlowski, "Die Erkenntnislehre
Campanellas," 1897; Sträter, "Briefe über
Italianischen Philosophen"; "Zeitschrift der Gedanke,"
1864- 1865; Carriere, "Die philosopbische Weltanschauung der
Reformationszeit," 1847; Baudrillart, "Tableau des
Théories Politique et des Idées Économiques au
Seizième Siècle," 1853; Rixner und Siber, "Leben
und Lehrmeinungen Berühmter Physiker am Ende des XVI und am Anfange des
XVII Jahrhunderts," 1829. Besides
these, standard histories as Royce, Weber, Überweg, and the like may be
consulted. |
-152
The attempt to
bring these Jesuit communistic schemes into proper relationship to the
prevalent social theories was induced by the title of the leading authority on
this subject; "The history of Paraguay, containing amongst many, new,
curious, and interesting particulars; a full and authentic account of the
establishment formed there by the Jesuits, from among the savage nations, in
the very centre of barbarism; establishments allowed to have realized the
sublime ideas of Fénelon, Thomas More, and Plato; by Charlevoix,
1759."
Of all attempts
to organize an artificial society and to conduct affairs after a definite plan,
with a decided creed and consciously wrought-out purpose, the Jesuit colony of
South America furnishes the most conspicuous example. It was the most extensive
and successful attempt at establishing a society after the dreams of idealists
and reformers. This was a heroic example of the application of close, minute
social control to the affairs of a society based upon communism. "Loyola
contemplated calling into existence an organization, novel in character and in
scope, and that fact he sought to impress on the world by a title conspicuously
expressive of superior pretensions." 1
Brief analysis
will reveal close bonds of unity between the doctrines of Campanella and this
Jesuit scheme of a
____________________
|
1 |
Graham, "The Jesuits,"
p. 8. |
-153
regenerated social organization. Both were at war with the same despotic power -- the Spanish Monarchy. Campanella was striving to drive Spain from Southern Italy; the Jesuits, exiled from most lands, had set on foot a most ambitious plan to colonize in the South and finally to drive and keep Spain out of South America while their priests attempted to take North America. Here was a gigantic project contemplating the conquest of territory from Canada to Paraguay. Attention, however, can only be called to the communistic state of Paraguay. 1
Specifically,
then, wherein lies the similarity between the Jesuit schemes and the teachings
of the Italian monk? In the first place, as has been said, both adhere to the
idea of close control by the state of the form and process of organized
society. Naturally, both advised the suppression of the individual with a
weakening of the motive of selfishness and an enlargement of the power of the
social will and of social motives. There is found with both the happy thought
that labor can be made attractive and thus the need of an external motive be
lessened or removed?
____________________
|
1 |
Rambaud, "Histoire
Générale," Paris, 1895; Vol. V, pp. 698 et seq.
|
|
2 |
"On the
one hand, every conceivable guarantee is provided for crushing out any germs
of independent impulse that could possibly allow momentary play to an
individual member; to some |
-154
In their
practice the Jesuits also followed the theory of Campanella. The actual
organization of the Jesuit colonies in Paraguay suggests very strongly the plan
laid down in the "City of the Sun." The establishments were built
around central points, in which centres were grouped all the inhabitants as
Campanella suggested. In the midst of all was the church. On the outlying lands
were the houses constructed for industrial purposes, but not for residences. In
these and other external features there was a striking resemblance between the
two schemes of social organization.
Property
relations in Paraguay were also similar to those set forth in the "City of
the Sun." 1 The land that was in any community was the common property of the group;
its entire control was in the government. In addition there was a portion set
aside near the towns, which was in a special sense a commons, cultivated by the
community jointly. This feature resembled the early English
"commons." 2 The product of this common labor and land was stored in maga-
____________________
|
|
movement of dissent, however suppressed
or strictly mental from another emanating from a superior." -- Graham, "The
Jesuits," p. 14. |
|
1 |
Gothein, "Der
christlich-sociale Staat der Jesuiten in Paraguay," Schmoller "Staats-
u. Socialwissenschaftliche Forschungen," Vol. 4, No. 4, p. 5. Cf. also, Graham, "Vanished Acadia." |
|
2 |
Kobler, "Der
christliche Communismus in den Reductionen von Paraguay," etc.,
Würzburg, 1877, p. 26. |
-155-
zines and kept
for common distribution. The land lying farther out was divided every so often
among the families, according to the number of members in each. This land was
not considered private property; could not be bought nor sold by the person
cultivating it; and could be burdened in no manner in favor of the holder, nor
to the injury of the community right therein. The same thing held true of the
houses. Certain forms of personal property could, however, be acquired in the
Jesuit colonies. This was one feature in their peculiar polity that furnished a
motive to industry and frugality. Those who showed idleness were compelled to
labor. 1 An interesting regulation reflecting feudal influence required all the
population, men and women, to give one day per week to the cultivation of the
commons and that without compensation.
8. It is
needless here to emphasize the very great importance of the Jesuits in the
field of education. It may, however, be of some interest to examine their
policy in Paraguay as it ran parallel to the idea of Campanella. They made a
twofold division of the youth. The larger class devoted their energies to
industrial lines. These were placed in schools where trades were learned and
practised. Those not directly determined for industrial life were given culture
of a more general kind, being trained in the more ele-
____________________
|
1 |
Kobler, op. cit., pp. 26-27. |
-156-
mentary
subjects, such as language and mathematics. As is done in all socialistic
schemes, the Jesuits laid great stress on agriculture, training in this line
being compulsory for all. The common fields referred to above were a kind of
agricultural station where training was carried on.
As in the
scheme of Campanella the Jesuits grave much attention to the industrial arts.
This fact contributed much to the early success of the social experiments in
South America. 1 Commerce and trade in Paraguay were all controlled by the public power,
none being left in private hands.
In these
colonies there appeared the same problems which all socialism must face. The
abandonment of private property destroyed at once the basis of social unity and
a chief motive to industry. In Paraguay this lack seems to have been supplied
largely by religious enthusiasm?
9. Campanella
and the Jesuit reformers differed on the question of the family. In Paraguay
the Jesuits made provision for the continuance of the family, though marriage
was very closely controlled by the public power. Both were eager to suppress
selfishness,
____________________
|
1 |
Gothein, op. cit., p. 9. |
|
2 |
"The
spiritual attachment to their order, the strongest perhaps that ever
influenced any body of people, is characteristic of the Jesuits and serves as
a key to the genius of their policy." -- Robertson, "History of
Charles V," Philadelphia, 1883, Vol. II, p. 453. |
-157-
ambition, and
greed; these must be eliminated if society is to reach its highest purpose. The
Jesuits favored the employment of free labor as opposed to slaves, while
Campanella under conditions would allow slavery.
Certain
features marking these colonies are in line with early social ideals. In the
first place, they were founded in an isolated portion of the earth away from
the traditions and established institutions, with none of the forms of ancient
culture to disturb. Again, they were planted among a barbarian people; among a
people about as near Rousseau's "man of nature" as could be hoped
for. It is also true that the originators of this social scheme were fitted to
bring such an experiment to success because of their zeal and devotion and of
the definiteness of their plan, to which they consistently adhered. The
religious enthusiasm and exaggerated pietism, so characteristic of communistic
experiments, was also not lacking among the Jesuits. There has been a variety
of attempts to solve the social problem through state or school and church. The
communist colonies of the Jesuits in Paraguay were marked by the most serious
effort to solve it by means of the church.
There is,
however, a more important and interesting feature of the Jesuit teaching
bearing upon the socialism of Campanella and indeed upon all social theory of
-158
this type. It
has been already pointed out that all forms of utopian socialism base the hope
of a reconstructed society upon the possibility of abandoning the forms and
traditions of the past, in order that a social state may be set up after a
preconceived plan. It is therefore of importance to note that of the political
thinkers of that age the Jesuits were the first to recognize the changeable
nature of the state. It was well along in the new era before the theory was
seriously questioned that the church and the state were one. The sacredness and
stability attributed to the church had also been posited of the state. The stability
of monarchy had as its support the idea of the inviolability and perpetuity of
the church. It was largely due to Jesuit teaching that this dogma was
abandoned. The church was left to enjoy protection from innovation, while the
state and soon society itself were to be shaken to their foundations as they
came to be viewed more and more as subject to the social will. 1
10. It is
easier to say that the Jesuit socialistic experiment did much to mould the thought
of Campanella than to measure the extent of that influence. The inference,
however, seems safe that their plans formed one general social scheme. Certain
it is that the order
____________________
|
1 |
Gothein, op. cit., pp. 2-3. See
also Gierke, "Althusius," Pt. 2, Ch. I, p. 65. |
-159-
was at that
time attracting universal attention. Rulers and students were watching with
interest and apprehension as the Jesuits carried on their experiment. That
Campanella has voiced some of their views seems highly probable. 1
Back of the two
books from the pen of the Italian, and inspiring his practical experiments,
there was a large public purpose in which the Jesuits took part. He had
advocated in his writings and had proposed a practical plan on a small scale of
what they projected so large. Both were thinking of an enlarged Catholic rule;
a more extended papal control; a Catholic system, reformed, liberalized, and
reconstructed. He and the Jesuit teachers saw, what the modern churchmen are
slow at grasping, that the church must meet the social needs if it is to
maintain its place and power. They saw that the church must enter the field of
social reform. The closing decades of the last century have witnessed much the same
movement on the part of the church.
That
Campanella's teaching had its influence on the Jesuit system seems also true.
The two men most influential in Jesuit society were Italians, Cataldino and
Maceta. They were, in all likelihood, known to Campanella; there was also, in
all probability, a common knowledge of the principles they so vigorously
____________________
|
1 |
Gothein, op. cit., p. 3. |
-160-
applied. On
this Kirchenheim says: "Such was the Christian social state of the Jesuits
in Paraguay, of which Campanella in the prison had written. It is evident that
this state agreed not merely in general principles, but in its details with the
scheme of Campanella." "The philosophic writers and these practical
reformers attempted to build a state after a given mechanical form." 1
11. One feature worthy of note was the
cosmopolitan views of Campanella. A few general facts may help explain the
breadth of his view. The first one of a very general nature was his philosophic
habit of mind. Philosophy, dealing as it does with the world of the abstract,
is apt to lose the particular in the general and the special in the universal.
History furnishes many illustrations of this. One of the best examples was the
condition in Germany during her "humiliation," while her great
philosophers were "ruling the air." As a
____________________
|
1 |
On this subject consult: Gierke, "Althusius";
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix , "Histoire du Paraguay,"
Paris, 1757, 2 vols.; Gothein, "Ignatius Loyola und die
Gegenreformation," 1885; "Der christlich-sociale Staat der
Jesuiten in Paraguay"; "Staats- und Socialwissenschaftliche
Forschungen," Band 4, Heft 4; Handelmann, "Geschichte von
Brasilien," 1860; Gottheil, "Die Jesuiten Colonien Paraguay";
Bonifacio, "Les Jesuites et Pédagogie au XVIme Siècle,"
1894; Hughes, "Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits,"
1892; E. Friedberg, "Die Mittelalterlichen Lehren über das
Verhältniss von Staat und Kirche," 1874; Döllinger, "Kirche
und Kirchen," etc, 1861; Kirchenheim, "L'Éternelle
Utopie," 1897, p. 133. |
-161
land she was
disunited and humiliated. Her thinkers were too cosmopolitan to be national;
they dealt too much with the abstract and the universal to care for the local
and practical affairs. This state of things holds in Italy in the age of
Campanella. While the nation, already divided, was thus solidifying into many
warring kingdoms, to endure for three hundred years, her philosophers were busy
with the most general and abstract reasoning.
Again,
Campanella was, in a way, a man without a country, much as was the greatest
cosmopolitan socialist, Karl Marx. He, too, was a kind of world-citizen.
Moreover, Italy was the land in which had lingered the tradition of a
world-empire.
As a devoted
follower of the papal church and an active member of the clerical orders,
Campanella was versed in the history of the universal church, and sympathized
with her aspirations to hold universal empire. Since the downfall of the Roman
Empire the papal power alone had given unity to Christendom, and in it was the
hope and aspiration to universal rule. Campanella believed with Pascal,
Grotius, and other seventeenthcentury thinkers in the unity of the human race,
and looked forward toward the time when all peoples should unite under one
world-power. He looked for a more perfect social unity through the
reëstablishment of a liberalized Papal See and through the growth of a
-162-
Christian empire under the rule of the Spanish monarch as vicegerent of the Roman power. 1
At first,
Campanella was devoted to the Spanish Monarchy and believed Spain would one day
come to universal dominion. Like so many, he was slow to learn from the events
of his day, and his belief in a worldpower seemed very genuine. This was, of
course, the direction thought took till the spirit 2 and practice of mercantilism broke
up the movement toward worldunity. As a recent writer puts it: "The
cosmopolitanism of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the dreams of the
world-unity, have been replaced by a set of narrower ideas concerning customs,
laws, literature, and art by a set of independent states, each striving to
realize to its fullest its independent aptitudes and characteristics. Thus do
the nations of Western
____________________
|
1 |
It would be interesting to bring the
ideas of Campanella into contrast with certain radical teaching in England of
the Stuart Monarchy. One Dutch writer, Peter Cornelius, held that this and
the old system of society should come to an end, and that Christendom should
become a world-state under the rule of one magistracy. Gooch, "History
of English Democratic Ideas of the Seventeenth Century," Cambridge, 1898,
p. 209. |
|
2 |
One of his
biographers says: "Noch vor seiner Rückkehr nach Stilo hatte er
in dieser Richtung geschrieben; über die christliche Monarchie,
über das Regiment der Kirche; das Ideal einer christlichen Weltmonarchie
unter dem Pabst als Oberhaupt schwebte ihm vor; die spanische Macht sei
berufen sie zu verwirklichen." -- Sigwart, "Kleine
Schriften," Vol. 1, p. 137. |
-163-
|
|
Europe pass
through a period marked by this narrow spirit of extreme nationalism till
Adam Smith and the Physiocrats again teach the lessons of a broader worldview
and sympathy." 1 Socialists
have been about equally divided as to the breadth of their sympathies. Race
environment, training, and the conditions of the age have had much to do with
the tendencies of social students in this regard. Illustrating those who were
decidedly national in their sympathies may be named Cabet, Rodbertus, and
Lassalle. Those of a greater breadth of mind were More, Campanella, Weitling,
and Karl Marx. Rodbertus stands as the best representative of the former, and
Marx of the latter class. 2 12. Enough has been said already to
indicate the general direction of the political thought of Campanella. Living
as he did during the struggle over the great national problems, the
consolidation of national groups and of absolute monarchies, he was naturally
influenced by it. Along with his predecessors he idealized the
"prince" and was devoted to a centralized form of government. Along
with most reformers of this type he believed in a hierarchy of personal
control. In this respect the early socialistic schemes differ from any ____________________
-164- |
|||||||
|
|
Europe pass
through a period marked by this narrow spirit of extreme nationalism till
Adam Smith and the Physiocrats again teach the lessons of a broader worldview
and sympathy." 1 Socialists
have been about equally divided as to the breadth of their sympathies. Race
environment, training, and the conditions of the age have had much to do with
the tendencies of social students in this regard. Illustrating those who were
decidedly national in their sympathies may be named Cabet, Rodbertus, and
Lassalle. Those of a greater breadth of mind were More, Campanella, Weitling,
and Karl Marx. Rodbertus stands as the best representative of the former, and
Marx of the latter class. 2 12. Enough has been said already to
indicate the general direction of the political thought of Campanella. Living
as he did during the struggle over the great national problems, the
consolidation of national groups and of absolute monarchies, he was naturally
influenced by it. Along with his predecessors he idealized the
"prince" and was devoted to a centralized form of government. Along
with most reformers of this type he believed in a hierarchy of personal
control. In this respect the early socialistic schemes differ from any ____________________
-164- |
||||||
creed of
anarchism. They always provide for social order. There is only a slight
tendency toward democracy in the earlier social schemes; in fact, very little
in the later ones.
One of
Campanella's contemporaries presents a very interesting contrast touching
political theory. The Italian advocates an absolute form of monarchy coupled
with the destruction of private property, especially in land. Harrington, on
the other hand, favored a limited monarchy and a careful preservation of
private property in land. 1 Harrington made private ownership of land an absolute essential to the
permanence of society and the protection of the individual. Campanella saw the
permanence of social peace and the happiness of the individual possible only
through the abandonment of property. With one the existence of property meant
social and political equilibrium; to the other it was the prime disturbing
element and a fruitful source of discord. 2 Harrington would create a hierarchy
with property very closely controlled by government; Campanella created a
hierarchy with no semblance of property.
____________________
|
1 |
"Oceana," 1656. |
|
2 |
See Gooch, op. cit., pp. 290 et
seq. |
-165-
CHAPTER V
THE SOCIALISM OF CAMPANELLA
1. Probably no body of men ever so
completely controlled the economic aspects of society as did the Jesuits. The
general propositions laid down touching the efforts of the Jesuit society at
complete social control, find their best expression in the theories contained
in "City of the Sun" of Thomas Campanella. His position in the church
has already been suggested as leading him to his theory of a reconstructed
society. This general theory had, indeed, been exemplified throughout the
history of the papal church. For centuries the church had attempted in a most
studied manner to control affairs, civil, social, and religious. Nowhere in
history has a system flourished whose organization and orders so entirely
ignored the natural laws of society, and so thoroughly managed the social
process by the mandates of councils. Out of catholic culture might be expected
socialistic theories and experiments; in the general conflict between the
social or centralized control and the free play of the individual will, the
former would naturally prevail. The extensive control of the papal church,
carried over into the industrial sphere, would naturally destroy private
initia-
-166-
tive and
abolish individualistic methods of industry. Individualism in industry and its
accompanying progress were products of the Reformation and flourished in those
lands where papal power was most thoroughly shaken.
2. In connection with these more
general teachings of Campanella there remain certain special features of his
social scheme worthy of notice.
Of his theory
of labor it may be said that he opposed slavery and advocated an organization
of society upon the basis of free labor. In his ideal society it was not the
custom to keep slaves. 1 Slavery, idleness, and vice he places in causal relationship. Of the
seventy thousand persons in the Naples of his day only ten or fifteen thousand
were employed. On one hand, he saw masses of overburdened, overdriven laborers;
on the other, the idle and vicious wealthy. The scheme of Campanella provides
for a better distribution of social burdens. In true Marxian fashion he affirms
that, were all required to labor, the labor-day would be shortened to four
hours. 2 This condition he saw attainable only through the destruction of a
profit-producing system; this change would compel all to labor and make
possible the reduction of the labor-day to four hours. 3 But in the "City of the
Sun," while duty and work are distributed among all, it falls to each one
to work only about four hours every day.
____________________
|
1 |
"City of the Sun," p. 237. |
|
2 |
Ibid., p.
238. |
|
3 |
Ibid. |
-167-
The chief
feature of the problem, then, is the distribution of the social burden. This
factor, the leading one in the socialistic propaganda, was clearly seen and
discussed by Campanella. More had seen the same problem and had advised such a
social reorganization as would reduce the labor-day to six hours. It will be
remembered that this idea was proposed before the machine had come to give its
name to the age, to transform industry, and by augmenting the power of labor,
to make possible a shorter labor-day with a still larger product. With Karl
Marx the machine figured very largely, and made possible the shortening of the
labor-day or the same length of day with an increased product, giving rise to
surplus-value. Campanella drew his conclusions from a study of society still in
the handicraft stage.
3. A fundamental proposition underlies
Campanella's theory of the short day. It is necessary that all should labor if
the task for some be lightened. When all the members of society share in its
toils and sacrifices, then will the laborer be freed from his long hours and
his irksome toil. It is the fact that the social drones are carried by the
laboring masses that explains the hardship of labor. In Marxian terms, when
none live from surplus-value, then can the labor-day be shortened. With
Campanella, as with most socialists, it is the control of private property that
creates a leisure class, and
-168
this
leisure-class, thus controlling the product of industry, exploits labor and
lives from surplus-value. Modern socialism has devised more refined means of
meeting this problem; the method of Campanella was bold and crude. 1 He proposed to throw all the members
of society back upon labor for their subsistence by destroying private
property, by instituting a system of communism.
The foundation
of the system of Campanella, then, was the crudest form of communism. In his
ideal state all things were held in common, and dispensation was made by the
magistrates. 2 His communism is, however, of a broad and rather noble type. It does not
merely contemplate material wealth. It means the participation of all the
members of the community in all the benefits of social progress, temporal, and
spiritual. "Arts, honors, and pleasures are all in common and are held in
such manner that no one can appropriate anything to himself." 3
4. The leading causes of the existence
and accumulation of private property are clearly given. At the basis lies the
need of gain, that a legacy may be left to wife and child. The home, then, is
the leading fact in the
____________________
|
1 |
"All things are common with
them." -- City of the Sun, p. 225. |
|
2 |
Ibid., pp.
225-226. |
|
3 |
"But with them the rich and poor
make up one community; they are rich because they want nothing, poor because
they possess nothing." -- Ibid., p. 238. |
-169-
development of
private property. Riches, dignity, and honor are of importance when there is a
line of descent and the dignity of a family name to be maintained. The clergy,
monks, prelates, etc., are less useful because of this inordinate love of wealth.
1
Campanella
differs from Morelly and later writers in seeing a vital relationship between
the family organization and private property. With him the home fosters the
desire for acquisition and leads to the accumulation of property. This being
his attitude to the problem, his theory of the family can be easily conceived.
In the system devised by Campanella there was community of wives. He abandoned
the monogamous family. The dwellers in his ideal city have all things in
common, even the women. This custom they defend from the writings of the
Apostolic Fathers, the writings of Clement, Socrates, Cato, and Plato. In brief
but unmistakable terms the celibate monk advises the Platonic theory of
community of wives; it is defended as scriptural, historical, and expeditious.
The union of
the sexes, as treated by Campanella, must conserve the larger interests of the
state in supplying society with a healthy, strong population. With
____________________
|
1 |
"They say all private property is
acquired and improved, for the reason that each one of us by himself has his
own home and wife and children; from this self-love springs." -- City of
the Sun, p. 225. |
-170
severe satire
he says: "Indeed they laugh at us who exhibit a studious care for our
breed of horses and dogs, but neglect the breeding of human beings." 1 In this, as in all parts of his
scheme, Campanella has the social view point. The pleasure, pride, and dignity
of the individual life must yield and be subordinated to the welfare of the
commonwealth. 2 "For they say that children are bred for the preservation of the
species and not for individual pleasure, as St. Thomas so often asserts.
Therefore the breeding of children has reference to the commonwealth and not to
individuals except in so far as they are constituents of the
commonwealth." 3
In no other
respect does his artificial view of society make itself so apparent as in his
regulation of the family in accordance with the above principle. The men and
women were to have no choice as to each other's companionship. Emotion or
natural affection plays no part in his scheme. Desire and impulse, he declares,
are wrong principles by which the most important feature of social life is
controlled. "And thus they distribute male and female breeders to the best
natures according to philosophical rules." 4 Where Plato had
____________________
|
1 |
Ibid., p.
224. |
|
2 |
Cf. "A Discourse touching the
Spanish Monarchy," English translation, 1654, p. 70. |
|
3 |
City of the Sun, p. 236. |
|
4 |
Ibid, p.
237. |
-171-
advised the use
of the lot in mating, Campanella would have the matter adjusted by magistrates.
In some instances regard was had for individual desire and choice, but in those
cases alone where no harm could result to the state.
5. As a
corollary to the foregoing proposition there was no room for a leisure class in
the scheme of Campanella. As has been said, it was necessary that all should
labor if the burden of the toiler be lightened. With one-fifth of the
population of Naples employed and four-fifths idle, long days and heavy work were
a grinding necessity; with all the population productively employed a reduced
labor-day would follow. Provision was made for the indigent aged; they were
public charges. There was to be no "sturdy vagabond" class, as these
must engage in some industry. There was no chance for the growth of a beggar
class, as labor was suited to the capacities of all.
Campanella saw
the dangers arising from idleness in all three classes. The idle rich went to
extremes in luxury and indulgence, and fell a prey to vice. The industrious
were to spend their leisure in recreation, study, and self-improvement lest
they degenerate. Efforts must be made to prevent the lame, blind, and
unfortunate from becoming a public charge. Emphasis to-day is placed upon the
dangers of the idle rich; Campanella called attention to the need of pre-
-172-
venting an idle poor class. "No physical defect renders a man incapable of service except the decreptitude of old age, and even the deformed are useful in consultation." 1
His opposition
to slavery, above referred to, rests largely upon this principle. Slavery, he
says, corrupts the population and leads to idleness and degeneracy in the free
population -- an argument used against this institution when it was struggling
for its life in its last stronghold.
Thus, the
labor-theory of Campanella, though very imperfect, contains several modern
notions concerning the length of the labor-day. He advocated a shorter day. He
advised schemes for self-improvement for the leisure time. Slavery was opposed
because it led to idle, vicious habits. No moral standards are laid down. The
problems are not discussed as having distinct ethical import, social utility
being the sole test applied. No reference is made to any rights inhering in the
laborer or in the slave. The main consideration is that the state be not
harmed, nor the social manners corrupted. The criteria applied to actions are
public welfare and social expediency.
6. The question
of the demand and supply of labor is but briefly discussed. Of the nature of
wants, the extent of the market, and kindred questions he has said
____________________
|
1 |
City of the Sun, p. 239. |
-173-
little. Enough
is said to show that he believed that labor employed four hours daily would
supply all the necessities, but few of the luxuries of life. This is in line
with sound socialistic doctrine. Reduce all society to the grade of ordinary
labor and the demand for luxuries would be much lessened. 1
Labor is not
employed to supply foreign markets. His theory involves a self-sufficing
industrial state, -a state producing all it needs and little more. Hence
commerce was little fostered in the "City of the Sun." Exchange, in
so far as allowed, was a simple form of barter. Campanella was opposed to money
and its use, and believed a system of natural economy with barter was
preferable.
7. In speaking
of the form of political organization advocated by Campanella, it is well to
recall that he was a citizen of an Italian city, and that the structure most
familiar to him was the Italian city-state. As in the earlier centuries the
dramatic conditions in Italy had inspired Dante and furnished a theme to the
great poetphilosopher Machiavelli, so in the seventeenth century conditions
could well suggest the principles of government advanced by Campanella. Though
an advocate of absolute social equality arising from common property he was
devoted to absolutism in government.
____________________
|
1 |
Rodbertus, "Overproduction and
Crises." Introduction by Professor Clark, London, 1898, pp. 16-17. |
-174-
A feature of
considerable interest was that within limitations the government was elective.
The magistrates were elected, choice being limited to those whose training in
the arts and sciences made them most competent to rule. The chief magistrates
must be above thirty-five years of age. If eminently fitted, they held office
for life. Citizenship was limited to men of over twenty years, who formed an
assembly not unlike the Ecclesia of Clisthenes.
From what has
been said, it will appear that the governing body in the state depended neither
upon an aristocracy of wealth nor of birth. Some new principle, therefore, must
serve as selective for the governing classes. This the author finds in the
realm of science. Campanella wished to establish an aristocracy of education
and put the control of society into their hands. The teachers of the arts and
sciences, he urged, are best fitted to choose the rulers in the different
departments. That higher education unfits men for practical duties and
political services he denies, while at the same time he condemns the hereditary
principle of selection. "We, indeed, are more certain that such a very
learned man has the knowledge of governing than you who put ignorant persons in
authority and consider them suitable merely because they have sprung from the
rulers or have been chosen from a powerful faction." 1
____________________
|
1 |
City of the Sun, p. 229. |
-175
Campanella has the utmost confidence in the trained mind in public life, and has no confidence in heredity as a selective principle. 1
8. There has
been perhaps no political principle more generally accepted nor more often
acted upon than that of centralization of political power. Historical
development has brought with it the suppression of local patriotism and local
pride in view of a larger grouping. This principle has been recognized from the
formation of the Delian Confederation down to the organization of the German
Empire. In these instances, as in countless others, this spirit of
particularism has been most destructive to perfect socialization and complete national
unity. Advocates of a more liberal policy and of a larger social unity, from
Miltiades down to Bismarck, have not hesitated to weaken or destroy this local
spirit which was a foe to the centralizing process. Such friends of
consolidation have, however, generally dealt with politically organized bodies
such as small kingdoms, free cities, semi-sovereign states, and the like; few
have had the hardihood to fall back of these and interfere with the
socializing, or, as some say, the de-socializing force of the family-group.
The author of
the "City of the Sun" did not overlook the fact that in the
abandonment of private property, of family life, and the attendant desire for
inheritance,
____________________
|
1 |
Cf. The reasoning of Plato,
"Republic," Bk. VI. |
-176
he had
undermined the foundations of society and broken some of the strongest bonds of
social unity. In meeting this situation he reveals some interesting social
philosophy. He has a definite theory of social unity. Campanella was too wise
to propose the destruction of the existing social forces without meeting the
inevitable question as to the motives necessary to industrial endeavor; he was
too thoughtful to banish the common centres in which social interests might
gather and not consider the probability of finding a new basis of social
equilibrium.
In his theory
of social unity, Campanella partly follows Plato. When discussing the family
and its place in the state, Plato condemns the family as an obstacle to the
perfect devotion of the citizen to the state. Banish family life and the
citizen has no cause for pride, no object of devotion, no stimulus to effort
and sacrifice except the state. The state, as an institution, is then without a
rival. More than once has this principle had historical confirmation. It was
evidenced in the unconquerable spirit of Sparta in Plato's day. It was in the
plan of Hildebrand'when he enforced celibacy among the clergy of Germany; and
to this general theory the Italian monk was no stranger. He had, indeed, given
warning against the dissension and disunion that were weakening and threatening
Italy and Spain. As a celibate monk he
-177
was devoted to
the Holy Church only. The recent history of Italy was not wanting in examples,
as Guelph and Ghibelline struggled for mastery, and great families with their
unbridled ambitions threatened, even destroyed, the unity, and threatened the
very existence of the Italian state.
It is, then,
not much wonder that Campanella, devoted to one supreme organization, should
have opposed those forces tending to disunion, and among them considered the
family as an enemy to close social unity. He condemns the family as the source
of self-love. Dishonesty arises in the state, since to acquire property and
honor for the family statesmen will be led to grasp at the property of the
state and misuse public office. One would think he wrote of the twentieth
instead of the seventeenth century, and of the United States instead of Naples.
He sums up his thought as follows, "But when we take away self-love, there
remains only love for the state." 1
A second
feature in his theory recalls an interesting part of the argument of Aristotle.
It will be remembered that in his "Ethics," Aristotle places great emphasis
upon friendship as a principle of social unity and coöperation. 2 Campanella, while briefly discussing
the
____________________
|
1 |
City of the Sun, p. 225. |
|
2 |
"Ethics," Ch. IX. Cf. Adam
Smith, "Theory of Moral Sentiments," expressing the same views. |
-178-
family, shows
his sympathy with this theory. As has been stated, love based upon sex or
filial devotion had no place in his system. There is, however, one type of
affection which he considers a true social force. "Moreover that love born
of eager desire is not known among them, only that born of friendship." 1
To the objection that with a society based on communism, mutual helpfulness, so often the basis of friendship and of social interdependence, would be lacking (people having neither the need nor the power to aid), Campanella wisely remarks that material interests are not the only ones in society, nor is their absence the destruction of friendship. "Friendship is recognized among them in war, in infirmity, and in the art contests whereby they aid one another." 2
The theory of
Campanella was, moreover, open to another objection: the one which in ancient
times Aristotle used with such force against Plato. Aristotle had urged that
with selfish personal motives removed, under a system of common property,
industry would suffer, and what was everybody's business would be nobody's
business. 3 Campanella, in restating the position of Aristotle, expresses in a very
modern form the chief objection to socialism: "Under such circumstances no
one will be willing to labor when he expects
____________________
|
1 |
City of the Sun, p. 237. |
|
2 |
Ibid., p.
226. |
|
3 |
Aristotle, "Politics," Jowett
translation, Vol. I, p. 30. |
-179-
to live from
the labor of others." 1 Admitting this difficulty, he believes that the consciousness of union
with a larger social aggregate will supply motive, and that industry will not
decline. "But I declare to you that they burn with so great a love for
their fatherland as I could scarcely have believed possible." 2 Campanella urged that a society
based upon common property had equal chances of success with one founded on
private property.
The subject,
however, may be approached from a different view point. The strength of the
motive to labor need only be proportionate to the onus of labor. In the system
of Campanella labor is considered neither severe nor dishonorable. All labor is
honorable, and hence no class-distinctions can arise from the nature of the
employment. The society described is one where all are employed, and where
idleness alone is condemned. "Wherefore no one thinks it lowering to wait
on table or to work in the kitchen or fields." 3 Labor, in its ideal state, is a part
of civic duty, and obloquy attaches to idleness as it does to the neglect of
civic activity. "Those occupations that require the most labor, such as
working in metals and building, are the most praiseworthy among them." 4 Here, then, is a new type of
nobility, -- a nobility based upon toil, an aristocracy of labor.
____________________
|
1 |
City of the Sun, p. 225. |
|
2 |
Ibid., pp.
225-226. |
|
3 |
Ibid., p.
237. |
|
4 |
Ibid., p.
246. |
-180-
9. This argument from Campanella rests
upon that idea of labor which was so much enlarged on by the great French
socialist, Fourier. Campanella hoped to so adapt employment to inclination and
to capacity that labor would be freed of much of its pain and sacrifice. This
was a part of his scheme for maintaining the efficiency of labor when the
strong motive of individual gain had been removed.
This
coördination of powers and occupation began in the schools where the
youths were trained in those lines chosen because of fitness and inclination.
Men of lesser intellect were kept in agricultural pursuits; those of peculiar
powers were put at the arts and sciences. Those who at like age showed similar
tastes and faculties were so classified industrially as to bring harmony to the
state. 1 By this means, he hoped to avoid that anarchy in the industrial world
due to a bad distribution of the supply of labor. According to Campanella,
there is possible such an adjustment of the laborsupply that none will avoid
labor because it is either dishonorable or distasteful. In this theory is
expressed the hope of social unity, of individual satisfaction, and of
industrial efficiency.
It will thus be
seen that the theory of Campanella stands in marked contrast to the theory of
selfishness or the theory based upon the concept of the "economic
____________________
|
1 |
Ibid., p.
234. |
-181-
man." The
"economic man" was man viewed clearly from the individualistic
standpoint; Campanella's concept of man is gained by seeing him in his social
attitude -- man a mere function of society. These characters are about equally
mythical. A system of social philosophy built upon either idea is untrue to the
facts. Man never has been, probably never will be, so egoistical as classical
economics assumed. Man may never be so highly socialized as Campanella pictured
him. Each theory has its lessons as to the possibilities of socialism. The
theory of Campanella suggests many things concerning the possible limitations
on human selfishness. His was a most attractive dream of a peaceful society,
composed of very highly socialized members. The teaching of classical economics
has its valuable warnings touching those obstacles to that happy state whose
primary feature was an absence of selfishness.
10. The teachings of Campanella, thus
briefly sketched, display a bold thinker, for his day and place, as well as a
man of sound social and political judgment. For one writing from the cloister,
he possesses clear insight into the facts of society and government. The
romance, "City of the Sun," must be classed as one of the pioneer
socialistic documents. What he has said is not great in quantity but is very
rich in suggestiveness. He saw and appreciated certain principles
-182
since laid hold
of and worked into the system of modern socialism. In his teachings on the
possibility of social reorganization he follows that type of interpretation
which had been dominant for two thousand years. He combined in an interesting
manner a knowledge of practical affairs with a subtle philosophic insight and a
keen metaphysical sense.
11. As has been intimated, there exist
some interesting points of comparison between the social teachings of the two
philosophers, Campanella and Bacon. What Bacon had to say on social life was
left in his short but interesting fragment, the "New Atlantis." In
this, he gave the general outlines of a perfect social state.
Bacon was a
statesman, philosopher, man of affairs, and a contemporary of the Italian monk.
From the first, he was inclined toward politics and statecraft. He believed a
life devoted to the creation of a perfect social state was the loftiest type of
life. After devoting himself for a time to social study, he turned toward
philosophy and abandoned his social schemes. The "New Atlantis" was
written at the same time as the "City of the Sun," though it seems
improbable that their illustrious authors ever met or were aware of each
other's theories or social studies.
It has often
been lamented that for various reasons certain great writers did not complete
the works they had begun; as when William Archer Butler left un-
-183-
completed his
history of philosophy, after writing two brilliant volumes; or when Henry
Buckle laid aside his pen after writing his remarkable "Introduction to a
History of Civilization in England," not having reached his main theme.
The same regrets may be expressed that Bacon never finished, as he expected to
do, a great political masterpiece. What he has left in "New Atlantis"
shows what the nature of his thinking was, and illustrates the application of
his philosophic thought to social science. 1
Bacon occupied
much the same position in English thought as did Campanella in Italian. As the
latter had opposed the method and teachings of Aristotle, so had Bacon stood
out against the deductive, abstract reasoning of his time. In his social theory
he advocated complete social reconstruction. He treated society as a structure
and not as an organism; a thing to be controlled by social and not by natural
law. He also exaggerated the influence of the social will, consciously ordering
social progress. It was therefore natural that he should place a large
importance upon knowledge. He advocated the creation of a social condition
where the control should be in the hands of philosophers.
12. The opening of the " New
Atlantis" recalls the
____________________
|
1 |
It was the intention to treat fully the
movement in England during the Commonwealth. The main character has been ably
discussed by L. H. Berens in the "Digger Movement in the Days of the
Commonwealth," London, 1906. |
-184-
features
marking other works of its kind. Under the influence of an age of discovery,
Bacon pictures a company driven to an unknown land. There the usual fear of the
natives terrorizes them -- a fear born of the knowledge of the habits of
civilization. The usual detail is indulged in describing the material aspects
of this terra incognita. The same happy disillusionment occurs upon
finding the barbarian life so mild and their manners so peaceable. "New
Atlantis" is a city where ideal conditions exist. Nature, as pictured
there, is most prodigal in her care for the physical comfort of the happy
citizens. The formation is fitted to every need, the material conveniences
standing in marked contrast to the London of Bacon's day, or even the modern
city.
According to
Bacon, the end of government is the welfare of the people. The king of the
ideal state must rule by virtue of his ability and his inclination to rule for
the commonwealth. The state should be, to a large extent, self-sufficient.
Foreign influence must be carefully guarded lest the oft-recorded invasions of
vice, luxury, and evil manners should here corrupt the population. In his
discussion of the marriage relation, Bacon indulges in a bitter satire on the
social morals of his age. He intimates that in the society of his day marriage
was but a cloak for immorality; and that the family was only a corrupt bargain,
"wherein is sought
-185-
alliance or
position or reputation with some desire (almost indifferent) of issue." 1 As in the "City of the
Sun," the end sought through marriage is to supply a strong offspring to
the state. Any union threatening social welfare is forbidden.
The "New
Atlantis" presents the picture of a perfect social state viewed from a
scientific standpoint. It is the philosophers' state. It is the dream of a
philosopher who believed that the highest purpose of the state was to secure
intellectual equality. Bacon's society was established, not upon a communism of
wealth, but upon a communism of knowledge. He conceived of a cultural state,
pure and simple. His highest concept of good was of the intellectual type. His
communism meant the largest possible participation of all the members in the
benefits of society. Society should be so reconstructed as to grant to all the
blessings of general culture.
There is,
moreover, a very decided materialistic color to the last part of his work.
There is found there a very remarkable classification of those things which
minister to the physical wants of man. The teaching of Bacon is more Epicurean
than is that of Campanella. If the writings of Campanella are full of the
doctrine of high thinking, Bacon's theories have room for the praise of good
living. His interesting fragment is
____________________
|
1 |
New Atlantis, Morley edition, p. 198. |
-186-
rich in
practical wisdom; it abounds in suggestions touching almost every phase of
useful science and progressive art. The great purpose, however, of all social
effort of the "New Atlantis," Bacon sets forth in one sentence,
showing the spirit and the high purpose of the writer. "But thus you see
we maintain a trade, not for gold, silver, or jewels, not for silks nor for
spices, nor for any commodity of matter, but only for God's first creature,
light; to have light, I say, of the growth of all parts of the world." 1
13. This thesis pretends to be an introduction
to the study of socialism, which comments on certain writers who appear as its
precursors and pioneers. What importance, then, has Campanella in these
incipient stages? Of him a French critic says: " Campanella, Harrington,
and Fénelon are the successors of Plato, of the 'Republic,' of
Savonarola, and of Thomas More, and the forerunners of Rousseau, Mably,
Fourier, and of SaintSimon." 2 Sigwart calls him the forerunner and founder of a system of socialistic
thought. 3 " Kirchenheim calls him the founder of radical socialism, who saw
____________________
|
1 |
Ibid., p. 191. |
|
2 |
Franck, "Réformateurs
et publicistes, de l' Europe," Vol. II, pp. 150-151. |
|
3 |
" Er
ist derjenige der zuerst ein vollkommen socialistisches System
wissenschaftlich begründet hat, an Geist und Consequenz den meisten
seiner Nachfolger welt überlegen."-- Sigwart,
op. cit., p. 151. |
-187
clearly the
conflict between the individual and society. 1
The "City
of the Sun" is one of the clearest expressions of a radical type of social
reform and is logical in the extremes to which it goes. 2 It is the clearest and most rational
scheme for a perfect social state thus far written. 3 In the scheme of control suggested,
Campanella has embodied most of the ideas of the hierarchy of Saint-Simon.
Their schemes of organization are strikingly similar.
14. The social teachings of Campanella,
then, may be briefly described in the first place as reactionary, a feature he
had in common with Thomas More. He shows this attitude on various occasions. He
had struggled to bring back the power of the Catholic clergy, as the Jesuits
had done in the counter-reformation. The new and interesting feature of his
plan was an attempt to bring the church up to the new demands and to fit it to
meet the new economic conditions. This Campanella hoped to do by giving it a
deeper social
____________________
|
1 |
"Mais
la pauvreté de l'ndividu doit avoir pour résultat la richesse
de la collectivité, et c'est ainsi que Campanella a été
défendu de nos jours par Fourier, Bebel, et d'autres, seulement aucun
ne l'a surpassé en audace." -- Kirchenheim, op. cit.,
p. 99. Cf. Franck, op. cit., Vol II, p. 7,
where he calls Campanella the founder of the system of Saint-Simon. |
|
2 |
Sudre, "Histoire
du Communisme," p. 198. |
|
3 |
Lafargue,
"Die Vorläufer des neueren Socialismus," p. 492. |
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and economic
significance. His was not state -- but like the Jesuits' scheme -- it was
church socialism. These men saw a very important thing much emphasized to-day,
the weight of economic causes; to some extent they appreciated the importance
of the economic basis of society. They saw that attention must be paid to
industrial and economic conditions, and that these form the foundations upon
which a solid political structure must rest. 1
The communism
of Campanella was not of a gross, material kind, so often and doubtless rightly
condemned. It meant, as Schäffle remarks, more than a mere division of
goods. It involved a general and equal participation of all in the products of
culture and in the results of social progress. He taught that all should share
alike in those social institutions, and that there should be social
coöperation all along the line. Industries, he said, should be open to
all, and this at a time when labor-castes ruled industrial society and narrow
favoritism was dominant over Europe. All institutions were to be entered by
those fitted for them by nature or by culture. His was a most comprehensive
type of communism, including the communism of women. It was
____________________
|
1 |
The same thing was true of the English
writers of this time. "Alone of all his contemporaries, Harrington
understood that the causes of the great upheaval which had been witnessed
needed to be sought in the underlying social and economic
transformation." -- Gooch, op. cit., p. 292. Cf. Kirchenheim, op. cit., p.
151. |
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directed toward
breaking up the home with its exclusiveness, the classes with their privileges,
and absolute government with its oppressiveness.
Campanella
advocated certain sane ideas on social organization. Some of these are to-day
in force; some await fulfilment, others were but dreams. He advocated free and
compulsory education for all classes. He advised changes in the school
curriculum that would bring more practical results. He laid special emphasis on
the need of care in the propagation of offspring. Therefore he abandoned
marriage as based upon sentiment and provided for the social control of the
family, whereby fitness and not capricious fancy should be the basis of sexual
union. The underlying principle of his social scheme was that society can never
be a success till the social will completely dominates the individual will.
Egoism is a mortal foe of social welfare and harmony, and hence those institutions
that foster selfishness and egoism, such as property and the family, must be
sacrificed to the welfare of the larger social group.
Attention has
also been called to his theory of the devotion to a larger social aggregate.
This had been a part of the theory of the Papal See since the time of Gregory
the Great in the eleventh century. The same reasoning had led to the system of
celibacy among the German monks, established in order to free them
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from the
limiting, narrowing influences of home life, and to keep them from entangling
alliances, dangerous to Italian domination. 1 That Campanella drew much of his
inspiration from this practice and tradition seems highly probable.
In the scheme
of Campanella, then, the state invades the sphere of individual action and
initiative in its minutest details. The importance of the individual arises
from his attachment to the larger group; and he is most useful when he most
completely conforms to the social will.
Campanella put
forth few views that might be called economic. What he says is scattered
throughout his works and is not of great interest. On the theory of
distribution he has no clear ideas; indeed, with a system of communism, it
would seem none is needed. As is the situation in connection with all similar
schemes, however, the problem of distribution still perplexes. In fact, the
further these writers depart from the natural laws governing in the economic
world, the more difficult does the situation appear. Campa-
____________________
|
1 |
On this reference may be made to the
general works and to one work by Henry C. Lea. On this he says: "By the
efforts of Gregory, the monk was, in theory at least, separated irrevocably
from the world and committed to an existence which depended solely upon the
church. Cut off from family and friends, the door closed behind him forever,
and his only aspiration beyond his own wants could but be for his abbey and
church," etc. -- Henry C. Lea, "Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal
Celibacy in the Christian Church," pp. 117-118. |
-191
nella taught
that the individual should be rewarded by society according to his capacity,
and the work done was the test of capacity. In the last analysis, however, the
wants of each were determined by society, as none could live in luxury and none
should be allowed to want. In this respect, his theory was very similar to that
of the later French socialists. 1
It may be very
reasonably asked what all this mysticism and metaphysical theory contains that
is of interest to the social student? Has not Campanella, in his way, laid hold
of a great fact in social thought and interpretation? He has set forth the
fact, hailed as an acquisition of the nineteenth century, that social
development is only one phase of the general cosmical process. Obscured by much
confusing symbolism, this idea appears in the teachings of Campanella. Mingled
with much metaphysical and theological obscurity it is; lacking almost entirely
in any clear inductive analysis it may be; yet his work foreshadows an attempt
at a synthetic treatment of scientific thought. Take as an illustration a
quotation from a sonnet: "The universe is a great and perfect animal,
statue of God and made in his image.""We are on the earth which is a
grand animal on a greater one still as the vermin on our bodies." 2
____________________
|
1 |
Adolphe Franck,
"Réformateurs," etc., Vol. II, p.
194. |
|
2 |
Ibid. , p.
165. |
-192-
Campanella may
be said to be the only philosopher in Italy to whom the liberation of the human
mind in the sphere of religion and philosophy had an application to the
conditions in society and the state. To some extent, at least, he attempted to
apply the new thought to the social world. With him the Reformation issued in a
more or less clear social scheme. As Thomas More had given a social direction
to the new thought in England, so in Italy Campanella was the one man to whom a
comprehensive scheme of social reform suggested itself.
Other
philosophers were engaged in scholastic disputes; statesmen were struggling for
the spoils of office; the Calabrian monk alone devoted his energies to creating
a scheme of social reorganization. Among all the Italian states, oppressed by
foreign rulers and exploited by despotic power, Calabria alone arose in revolt
and demanded a new social and political organization. The soul of this struggle
was the Calabrian monk -- Campanella.
Judged by
ordinary standards, the life and teachings of Campanella may seem to mean
little to social progress and amelioration. Few to-day know him or his work.
The words of Royce, however, certainly apply to him: "Surely no statesman
ever founded an enduring social order; one may add that no statesman ever
produced even temporarily the exact social order that he meant to
-193
found. No human
life ever attained the glorious dreams of its youth. But still the saints and
sages are not failures, even if they are forgotten. There is an enduring
element about them. They did not wholly die." 1
____________________
|
1 |
Royce, "Spirit of Modern
Philosophy," p. 6. |
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