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r
. His Discourses upon Seneca the tragedian (London, 16o1) were often bound in with the essays, and
a combined edition was published in 16i. %) Ibid., sig. B, 8v.
%* Ibid., sig. E, rv.
&! Joseph Hall, Heaven upon earth, or of true peace and tranquillitie of mind (London, 16o8), pp. 8.
Joseph Hall (1166) was famous as a writer of meditative literature. See Richard McCabe,
Joseph Hall : a study in satire and meditation (Oxford, 18i); Frank Livingstone Huntley, Bishop Joseph
Hall and Protestant meditation (Binghampton, 181); T. F. Kinlock, The life and work of Joseph Hall,
.,,,.c,c (London, 11); Audrey Chew, Joseph Hall and neo-stoicism, Proceedings of the Modern
Languages Association, 6 (1o), pp. 11o. &" Hall, Heaven upon earth, p. .
&# Ibid., p. 8o.
r xir \r ii.i .xi s iii r x 1ni nix.r s s .xi
The ideal of being independent from the capricious events of the world was
obviously of great importance to a wide variety of early modern thinkers. The
virtue of constancy became less associated with the consistent performance of
duty, and more with an inner state, which, while it helped the individual carry
out public service, was also intrinsically important. The methods for attaining
constancy and tranquillity involved a reservation of a part of the individual,
most often in line with the Epictetian distinction between that which is within
our control, and that which is not. This did not mean a retreat from external
events, which were outside the individuals control, but a tendency to devalue
them so that they lost their power to dene the individual.
III
Constancy, as described above, was dependent upon a correct discerning of
what was of value and what was not. A false opinion of where the good lay
could be extremely damaging, and was identied as an enemy of tranquillity.
Regarding the external world as inessential to the real well-being of the
individual involved not merely being impervious to adverse events, but also
regarding external or general opinion as unimportant. Writers discussing ideas
of stoicism and the self not only counselled independence from opinion, but
regarded their ideas, at an individual level, as an antidote to the problems it
caused.
For Epictetus, The things do not trouble men, but the opinions which they
conceive of them, as it is only an opinion that a particular event is harmful, in
contrast to its true signicance which is negligible with regard to those things
which he regarded as important.&$ Similarly, one should not judge glory by the
use of opinion.&% In du Vairs version of stoic thought, the desire for riches and
honour should be resisted, and in this respect one must chase away this furious
desire far from us, and leaving the foolish opinions of the vulgar sort of
people.&& The doubt thrown on the link between glory and virtue was the
result of a scepticismabout the value of general approbation, where techniques
of manipulating that approbation were openly practised. This was especially
true when a distinction was made between those who could discern such
manipulation, ideally of course the stoic sage, and those to whom opinion
provided the only guide. There was no guarantee that virtue would bring
honour: it would have to be its own reward. To judge by opinion would lead
to both discontent and potentially immoral action.
For Lipsius, the intellectual confusion caused by the calamity of civil war is
a result of opinion. In Two bookes of constancie, the character of Lipsius is in
dialogue with Charles Langius who attempts to convince himto constancy. He
describes Lipsiuss present confusion, For these mists and clouds that thus
compass thee, do proceed from the smoke of ovrxroxs. &' Opinion is linked to
&$ Epictetus, Manuell, sig. B, v. &% Ibid., sig. B, v.
&& Du Vair, The moral philosophie of the stoicks, p. o.
&' Lipsius, Two bookes of constancie, p. . Charles Lange was a humanist and friend of Lipsius.
oioii n.iiwr x
the senses in Lipsiuss physiognomy of thought, as it representeth to the soul
the shapes and forms of things thorough windows of the senses , and as such
takes their side and By the means of it wee are troubled with cares, distracted
with perturbations, over-ruled by vices. &( Later in the work, Langius argues
that we must not fear circumstances such as poverty, exile, or death, but
behold themnaked without any vestment or vizard of opinions .&) To achieve
constancy or tranquillity, Lipsius regards a proper appreciation of the dangers
of opinion as a necessity.
The gure of the sagacious man gures strongly in Montaignes Essayes, often
in opposition to common or vulgar thought. He argues that diversity of
opinions possible upon any event or thing means that any particular opinion
on pain, poverty, or death is subjectively determined, For if evils have no
entrance into-us, but by our judgement, it seemeth that it lieth in our power,
either to contemn or turn them to our good. &* Montaigne thus retains the
lineaments of the stoic argument, while emphasizing the sceptical element that
not only contributes both to the necessity of so acting or so thinking, but makes
it a possibility. In discussing glory, Montaigne expands Epictetus argument
about public approbation. Taking account of other peoples views, we are
exposed to a breathy confusion of bruits, and frothy Chaos of reports, and of
vulgar opinions , especially dangerous as appearances are no clear indication
of the nature of the event.'! Honour is rejected: Let us disdain this insatiate
thirst of honour and renown, base and beggarly, which makes us so suppliantly
to crave it of all sorts of people. '" Montaignes scepticism with regard to his
own opinions and the opinions of others has the eect of destroying the
humanist connection between virtue and glory, and turns opinion into the
enemy of the wise man rather than the measure of the virtuous.
For Pierre Charron, opinion was a vain, light, crude and imperfect
iudgement of things drawn from the outward senses, and common report
never arriving to the understanding, which is extremely dangerous if it is
allowed to become settled.'# In opposing dogmatists, and such as will govern,
and give laws unto the world, Charron argues that people are too quick to
believe what is commonly accepted, thus he regards the whole world led and
carried with opinions and beliefs .'$ Common opinion tends to have a
snowballing eect, thus which dogma is accepted, or who is regarded as
virtuous, is for Charron merely a question of fortune.'% The state of the world
is a mass of contradictory opinions, which can only be resolved by subservience
to custom.
English writers took up the arguments about opinion with some enthusiasm,
and indeed this was an aspect of English thought evident before the importing
of French stoic material. In his Virtues commonwealth of 16o, Henry Crosse
argued that the problems of poverty and other aictions are bad if judged
&( Ibid., p. 1i. &) Ibid., p. 1o. &* Montaigne, Essayes, p. 1i.
'! Ibid., p. 6. '" Ibid., p. 611. '# Charron, Of wisdome, p. 6.
'$ Ibid., pp. 1, 1. '% Ibid., p. 16o.
r xir \r ii.i .xi s iii r x 1ni nix.r s s .xi
only with the eye of common reason, which the wise should ignore to t
himself to bear the troubles of this life, with a valiant and immutable
courage.'& He rejected riches, parentage, oce, place, dignity as indicators
of virtue, as they are part of a rotten ladder, dependent on the judgement of
the opinion of the multitude.'' He criticizes those who have climbed this
ladder; they are in their own opinion very gallant, but in the judgement of
wise men they are but a blown bladder, painted over with many colours,
stued full of pride and envy.'( Opinion has enabled such men to succeed
thanks to the uncertain nature of success and failure in the public world.
Cornwallis held that opinion, a monster, half Truth, and half Falsehood,
is to be rejected even though it is a component of worldly success, as it cleaves
most to great Fortunes, and yet liveth upon the breath of the vulgar.') This
illustrates the disjunction between the necessity of courting opinion for
promotion or honour and its natural falsehood and debasement, accentuated
by its association with the vulgar people. Those who court popularity Needs
must they have cunning that deal with this ticklish commodity of the vulgars
favour, which cunning has the capacity to corrupt the ambitious. It is
necessary, but as the blossom of the tree of virtue is susceptible to base
mercenary imitations , as the labour of most men now adayes is not to obtain
truths, but opinions warrant .'* Cornwalliss attitude to opinion is ambiguous,
distrusting it while recognizing its indispensability. His is a less pressing
constancy, and also a less pressing rejection of opinion than that which was
required of the stoic sage.
Opinion within an individual was regarded as the mistaken estimation of
both people and things that could do harm by leading one to have a false
conception of what lay within ones power and what did not, thus disturbing
the minds tranquillity. Opinion in the world was beyond control, especially as
it could be consciously manipulated by the unscrupulous, or even by the honest
man attempting to advance or merely act in the world. To regard such opinion
as a true measure would lead either to dishonesty or perturbation of the mind,
or both, and an alienation of the individual from his true worth which could
not thus be estimated. The discernment of appearance from reality was held to
be impossible, or at least very dicult, for the vulgar or common sort of people.
This prejudice favoured those who had read and accepted the sceptical and
stoic arguments on which it was based; to some extent at least they were able
to penetrate the mist of opinion with which all knowledge was shrouded. It was
they, therefore, who could be constant, and who could discern what was, and
what was not, essential to the self.
A sense of constancy and independence from common opinion were both
virtues advised in the ancient texts in pursuit of an ideal of the correct
'& Henry Crosse, Virtues commonwealth: or the high-way to honour (London, 16o), sig. F, 1r, sig. F,
ir. '' Ibid., sig. D, 1r. '( Ibid., sig. K, v. ') Cornwallis, Essayes, sig. I, iv.
'* Ibid., sig. Q, ivQ, r; sig. Q, rv; William Cornwallis, Discourses upon Seneca the tragedian
(London, 16o1), sig. B, v.
6 oioii n.iiwr x
relationship with the political or social world. This to some extent could seem
to be itself a role to be inhabited, rather than something clearly distinct from
the ideas of oce-holding emphasized by traditional humanism. While seeing
stoic ideas as a resource in dealing with the problems raised by humanist ethics
and political life, those thinkers considered here went further. They wished to
redescribe the relationship that the individual should have with the oces they
might perform, or the roles they might play. This redescription was not an
attempt to dene a role or set of imperatives, but to create a space away from
those roles the individual inhabited.(!
IV
One way of confronting the problems of action in a world dominated by
opinion was to give an explanation of individual reason. Explanations of the
workings of the soul diered in complexity and arrangement and even in the
number of the various faculties, but the similarity of the arguments that ran
through a wide variety of texts is striking. The mind was thought to be broadly
divided into two faculties : the rational and the sensitive, the higher of those two
being the rational, which in scholastic terms was closer to God. Reason was
thus in opposition to passions, which demand an immediate and unthinking
response, and opinion, which is a potential misrepresentation of signicance or
moral value. Reason was therefore necessary to judge the actions of others and,
perhaps more importantly, to act appropriately and give the correct impression
to others : in other words, to achieve any degree of worldly success. Many texts
created an idea of what it was to be rational, dened, to use their most common
metaphor, in terms of the internal politics of the soul, and against the supposed
irrationality of the common or vulgar people, who inhabited a world of
opinion.("
This could only ever be part of the solution to the problem of being and
acting in a world which could not be relied upon to display the same
rationality. As well as following reason, it could be thought necessary to
reinforce a sense of self, a sense of something reserved, through a process of
introspection. Stoicism could be seen as creating a sense of self aloof from the
caprices of fortune, which enabled the individual to cope and remain constant
despite reversals. Constancy was necessary to any such sense of self, as it had to
be something that remained the same rather than being at the mercy of either
circumstance or outward opinion. The reservation of something particular to
(! There is a desire in authors such as Tuck and Salmon (Philosophy and government and Seneca
and Tacitus in Jacobean England) to see stoicism as a doctrine of retreat from the world in a
corrupt time: this provides part of a new humanism which is as a whole to be associated with a
corrupt political sphere, by contrast to natural law or more modern constructions. The stoic
inheritance, however, could and was turned in other, more positive, directions, as this article
attempts to demonstrate.
(" For a detailed discussion with reference to the French writers, see Anthony Levi, French
moralists (Oxford, 16), pp. 1.
r xir \r ii.i .xi s iii r x 1ni nix.r s s .xi
the individual, or the exclusion of the inessential, was not a simple process. One
part of that process was the maintenance of the sovereignty of reason within the
soul or the mind, which enabled correct judgement to be made about the
nature of that which was presented through the senses. Good judgement could
therefore be seen as both a product of, and essential to, the self. Self-
examination was part of this process, both because it could help maintain the
balance necessary for good judgement, and because it was essential to the
notion of reservation of something which was particular individual.
The stoic sources were relatively silent on these issues. Seneca did, however,
make a strong link between tranquillity and a sense of reservation. In Of
tranquilitie, he discusses the hazards of the public life, concluding let my mind
cleave unto himself, let him seem himself : let him not intend no foreign
businesses, nor any thing that is subject to every mans censure.(# Conversations
with strangers are dangerous, and we ought to retire our selves very inwardly
within our selves, for the conversation of those men that are of dierent humour
from us, disturbeth those things that are well composed, and reneweth
aections .($ The idea that exposure to novelty or aections could disturb a
sense of self was reproduced by du Vair in his account of the passions in The
moral philosophy of the stoicks. Fear promotes other passions such as hatred of what
is feared, and carrieth us out of our selves , while jealousy is nothing else but
a distrust of a mans self, and a bearing witness of him self against himself of his
small deservings .(% Passion, as taking one away from oneself, or being an
expression of the fact that one is already alienated from ones essence, is a very
signicant step beyond Epictetus, whose thought du Vair claimed to be
representing.(&
Montaigne makes a similar complaint about the aections, that they create
false imagination in us , which means that We are never in our selves, but
beyond. (' The soul is unable to remain constant, being always moved and
tossed, and if she have not some hold to take, looseth it self in it self, and must
ever be stored with some object, on which it may light and work.(( He claims
that it is not possible to complain enough about the disorder and unruliness of
our minde, which is not settled enough to concentrate on itself and thus create
a settled sense of itself, but will always wander towards new objects.() The
import of Montaignes answer is that judgement must be turned and focused
upon oneself if any part of his project is to be realized. An eort must be made
to create a sense of self that is separated from the external world. In discussing
solitariness, he argues that it is not sucient to shift place, a man must also
sever him-self fromthe popular conditions, that are in us. Aman must sequester
and recover himself from himself. (* This sequestration requires judgement,
and makes impartial judgement a possibility. Once achieved, it should be
(# Seneca, Works, p. 6. ($ Ibid., p. 6i.
(% Du Vair, Moral philosophy, pp. o, 1o1i.
(& This has become proverbial ; one still speaks of being beside oneself with anger or fear.
(' Montaigne, Essayes, p. . (( Ibid., p. . () Ibid., p. 1o. (* Ibid., p. 11.
8 oioii n.iiwr x
possible for the wise man to wed nothing but himself , despite the huge
inequality in appearance and reality between individuals.)! In Of exercise or
practice, Montaigne describes self-examination as essential to this process,
There is no description so hard, nor so protable, as is the description of a
mans own self. )" A conceited consideration of ones life leads to alienation for
those who build castles in the air; deeming themselves as a third person and
strangers to themselves , such that it is essential that good judgement be
reexively employed.)#
Montaigne argues in the same vein when discussing the active life: it is most
important to avoid becoming a stranger to oneself. In On how one ought to govern
his will he develops the traditional analogy of the stage as Most of our
vacations are like plays. Care must be taken when playing a part to maintain
an appropriate distinction: We must play our parts duly, but as the part of a
borrowed personage. Of a vizard and appearance, wee should not make a real
essence, nor proper of that which is anothers.)$
Such as fail to distinguish the skin from the shirt become inconstant, they
transform and transubstantiate themselves, into as many new forms and
strange beings as they undertake charges .)% The primary injunction from
Montaigne is to avoid this happening, not to give oneself to any party so that
the understanding is thereby infected.)& The understanding must be
maintained to retain the sense of something specic and unique. For
Montaigne, living in the world required the reservation, or even the creation,
of an idea of the self in order to sustain a proper outward appearance. For there
to be dierent parts well played, there had to be an actor capable of judging
and distinguishing the part from reality: there had to be a self.
Charron demanded for his wisdom a high status, First, that wisdom which
is neither common nor vulgar hath properly this libertie and authoritie, Iure suo
singulari, to judge of all and in judging to censure and condemn common
and vulgar opinions. )' To judge by ones own rule was a radical solution to the
problemof scepticism, but was restricted to a relatively small number of people.
It was dependent upon reason, but, more importantly, on self-knowledge:
Thou forgetest thy self, and losest thy self about outward things ; thou
betrayest and disrobest thy self ; thou lookest alwaies before thee; gather thy self
unto thy self, and shut up thy self within thy self : examine, search, know thy
self. )(
Charron here communicates a strong sense of the necessity of reserving and
keeping something of the self through the process of searching for self through
introspection. It is easy to know the things which are outwardly adjacent to
individuals, such as oces, dignities, riches, nobilitie, grace, and applause of
the greatest peers and common people, but this public carriage is of no
account ; what is necessary is a true, long, and daily study of himself, a serious
)! Ibid., pp. 1io1. )" Ibid., p. i1. )# Ibid., p. iio. )$ Ibid., p. 6o.
)% Ibid., pp. 6o. )& Ibid., p. 6o. )' Charron, Of wisdome, sig. A, 6v.
)( Ibid., p. i.
r xir \r ii.i .xi s iii r x 1ni nix.r s s .xi
and attentive examination not only of his words, and actions, but of his most
secret thoughts .)) This is the essence of the wisdom that Charron wishes to
teach.
This independence of mind does not imply the ability to ignore accepted
rules and customs, but while outwardly conforming, the wise man will play
one part before the world, and another in his mind, which he must do to
preserve equity and iustice in all .)* Judgement is here preserved in a space
away from the censure of an unthinking and unreective world, enabling the
individual to remain just despite the uncertain value of truth or opinion. The
elite capable of reservation and judgement must not, however, retreat into their
gardens to preserve their independence. While we must reserve our selves unto
our selves , the wise individual must apply himself to public society those
oces and duties which concern him, but in doing so should not confuse such
duties with his own self.*! Charron argues : we must know how to distinguish
and separate our selves from our public charges : every one of us playeth two
parts, two persons ; the one strange and apparent, the other proper and
essential .*"
Knowing how to separate and preserve the proper and essential person is
the subject of Charrons chapter, Of the justice and duty of man towards
himself , which he argues is a microcosm of the entire three books. What is
required is to make a diligent culture of himself , asking himself the reason
why things have gone either right or wrong. If vices or natural defects are
found, he must quietly and sweetly correct them, and provide for them. It is
a process of recovery: He must reason with himself, correct and recall himself
courageously. *# In Charrons thought the convergence between the ideas of a
self and ideas about judgement is striking. It is necessary to judge well in order
to recall oneself well, and to recall oneself well in order to reserve a self that is
able to judge.
William Cornwallis is eloquent in recommending the knowledge of the self,
asking whether can knowledge bend her force, more excellently then, then
man to look upon man: this knowledge is protable, for it is for himself . All
other sorts of knowledge are subordinate to this, as it hunts for light without
light, in himself he must begin and end, for in himself is the light of reason,
that discovereth all things else.*$ For Cornwallis knowledge of the self is a
prerequisite for the acquisition of any type of knowledge, as it shows how it is
possible to have knowledge at all. It is necessary to have knowledge of how the
mind can and does know things, and to have a knowledge of the particular
nature of ones own mind, before knowledge of the world becomes a possibility.
Judgement is described as the child of this knowledge and reason, and enables
the individual to be virtuous, especially in the exercise of power. To be taken
in by deception, especially attery, is a aw in knowledge of the self, a false
reection of our own thoughts that abuseth us .*% To be absorbed in deception,
)) Ibid., pp. , 6. )* Ibid., p. i. *! Ibid., p. i1. *" Ibid., p. ii.
*# Ibid., p. i. *$ Cornwallis, Essayes, sig. X, v. *% Ibid., sig. Nn, r.
6o oioii n.iiwr x
to be continually practising it, means that a man looseth the use of himself .*&
Cornwalliss ideas about the self are limited, but the force of his text is to
attempt to show how it is possible to retain the use of oneself. The prerequisite
for good judgement in matters of the external world, and the divination of
falsehood, is a knowledge and examination of the soul.
The self as an object is elusive, and the closest most authors come to
describing it is as something which retains its independence and ability to
judge, despite both the inherent deceptiveness of appearance, and the roles
which the individual is forced to take up as a matter of course. This involves
introspection, and a continual assessment of the individuals state of mind, to
ensure that there is something which remains untouched either by internal
passions or external perturbations. A language of liberty could be used to
uphold this conception about how individuals should act with respect to
themselves and the world.
V
Ideas of independence could merge easily with ideas of freedom. If it were
possible to retain a self that was unaected by outside events or opinions, then
that self could be regarded as free. Unfreedom could exist if one were enslaved
either to passion, the inner motions of an unbalanced soul, or to opinion,
accepted but untried knowledge. Seneca put his views on fortune in these terms
in Of tranquilitie, emphasizing that all are subject to her caprice, Some are
enthralled by their honours, othersome by their base estate. *' In Of constancy,
freedom is equated with that quality, liberty being when we oppose a resolute
mind against injuries .*( Epictetus put his ideas in terms of freedom,
commanding He then which will be free, let him neither desire, nor ee any
thing, which is in an other man his hand, and power, otherwise of necessity he
shall be constrained to serve. *) Only that which was within the mind was not,
to some extent, in the power of others.
Lipsius put the point in a more dialectical fashion when speaking of reason,
perhaps putting a twist on the common humanist sentiment that to bear rule
one must learn to obey: To obey it is to bear rule, and to be subject thereunto
is to have the sovereignty in all human aairs. ** Freedom through subjection
may appear somewhat paradoxical, but to be rational was a prerequisite of any
freedom, because it left the judgement free despite the generally evil use of
power in the world. Lipsius concluded Thy judgement is not restrained, but
thy acts. "!! Du Vair describes in more detail how a passion, envy, destroys
freedom by making one chase after false goods such as wealth, which in order
to gain we have to atter and cozen as they do, suer many injuries, and needs
lose our liberty."!" To be invited to a banquet one must atter the host, and so
lose the liberty of expressing an honest judgement. Thus, ideas of liberty
*& Ibid., sig. Nn, v. *' Seneca, Works, p. 6. *( Ibid., p. 61.
*) Epictetus, Manuell, sig. C, 1v. ** Lipsius, Constancy, p. 11. "!! Ibid., p. 1ii.
"!" Du Vair, Moral philosophie, p. .
r xir \r ii.i .xi s iii r x 1ni nix.r s s .xi 61
functioned within these texts in two ways : rst, with respect to the way the
individual should be in order to be capable of freedom, and secondly, howit was
possible to express that freedom despite the corruption of the world by being
independent of it.
The greatest liberty for Montaigne was the contemning of death or any other
temporal aiction after the stoic manner. He advises the contemplation of
death such that it loses its strangeness, and argues : Herein consists the true and
Sovereign liberty, that aords us means wherewith to jest and make a scorn of
force and injustice, and to deride imprisonment, gives, or fetters."!#
The readiness to accept aiction is the way to gain independence and
freedomfromthe world. Montaigne also values a somewhat similar intellectual
liberty associated with scepticism. He praises the Pyrrhonians for their extreme
doubt, They are so much the freer and at liberty, for that their power of
judgement is kept entire. "!$ It is not only an inner liberty that is valued, but
a life where that liberty can be given expression. He goes on to condemn the
favours and obsequies that courtiers have to perform, These favours, with the
commodities that follow minion-courtiers, corrupt (not without some colour of
reason) his liberty, and dazzle his judgement. "!% Courtiers are unfree not only
because they have to subject their own judgement to that of others, but because
this process leads to the destruction of their original ability to judge. This dual
liberty, of judgement and expression, is a liberty which Montaigne evidently
valued and saw as an integral part of ideas about stoicism or the self.
Charron in his introduction shows how he values self-knowledge, and links
the ght against passion and opinion to freedom: He that hath an erroneous
knowledge of himself, that subjecteth his minde to any kinde of servitude, either
of passions or popular opinions, makes himself partial ; and by enthralling
himself to some particular opinion is deprived of the liberty and jurisdiction of
discerning, judging and examining all things."!&
Slavery is here imagined as occurring within the mind, as lack of
independence from a particular idea or way of thinking. To remain free in
himself the individual must examine, and weigh all reasons or opinions, and
not give up that ability to judge in any sphere, else he will be led like oxen,
rather than living freely."!' The most important opinion to be free of is that
concerning death or other aictions, and Charron follows Montaignes
argument about learning to die, the science of dying is the science of
liberty."!( Death is natural and part of ones own life, and to fear it is to fear
"!# Montaigne, Essayes, p. 6. "!$ Ibid., p. i1. "!% Ibid., p. .
"!& Charron, Of wisdome, sig. A, iv. "!' Ibid., pp. io, i.
"!( Ibid., p. i. On attitudes to death, see Philipe Arie' s, The hour of our death, trans. Helen
Weaver (New York, 181); Michel Vovelle, Mourir autrefois : attitudes collectives devant la mort aux
XVII
e
et XVIII
e
sieZ cles (Paris, 1); Joachim Whaley, ed., Mirrors of mortality: studies in the social
history of death (London, 181); David Stannard, The puritan way of death: a study in religion, culture and
social change (Oxford, 1); Clare Gittings, Death, burial and the individual in early-modern England
(London, 18); Michael Neill, Issues of death: mortality and identity in English Renaissance tragedy
(Oxford, 1), pp. 18.
6i oioii n.iiwr x
an opinion. Opinion can also enslave in its manifestation as honour, which,
being the opinion of others, is in their gift. To follow honour unreservedly is
voluntarily to renounce his own liberty, because it is to let his own aections
depend upon the eyes of another, or even the vulgar sort ."!) Thus, Charrons
wisdom is intended to free the individual from two sorts of slavery; the
knowledge is necessary to set at liberty, and to free our selves from that
miserable double captivity, public and domesticall, of another, and of
ourselves ."!*
English writers were on the whole less keen to emphasize this aspect of their
thought, but it did emerge in the writings of Cornwallis. In speaking of
suspicion he describes how a lack of virtue means liberty is lost, giving liberty
we loose liberty, and by degrees throwing of the prescribed course of Virtue, we
fall into the incertainties of passions, and appetites .""! Here liberty is again
gured in opposition to the internal tyranny of appetites. Later, he puts it in
terms of pleasure, it is not pleasure to do what wee list, but never to stray from
what we should.""" In Of natures policy, he links these ideas to a concept of
policy, which is equivalent to the sovereignty of reason over the childish or
beastly courses in the soul. Policy is reason writ large, and it too is important
for the soul, and can contribute to its freedom: and therefore Policy producing
peace, and peace giving liberty to the souls workings, government and policy
are the destinated and direct objects of the souls that are yet in bodies .""#
Cornwallis is interested here in the public conditions necessary for the
production of peace in the mind, and he concludes that the eorts of those
minds must be focused on the problem of the public peace. This concurs with
a more traditionally republican notion of freedom which requires individuals
to demonstrate virtue to ensure its preservation.
The idea of intellectual freedom was a highly signicant product of neo-
stoicism or thought concerning the self. While accepting the essentially unfree
nature of the individuals place within the world, no matter what status he or
she was accorded, it showed how there was a dierent sort of liberty that could
be achieved. It was divided into two parts : rst, the ability to judge by virtue
of the freedom of ones own mind, scorning the interferences of passions ;
secondly, which was not so easily within grasp, the freedom to express
judgement, or not to be bound to admitting conventional wisdom, or the
particular opinion of another. The latter was especially bound up with ideas of
honour or popularity, which were closely tied to the opinion of others, such that
not to accept these values was to be free.
"!) Ibid., p. . "!* Ibid., p. ii. ""! Cornwallis, Essayes, sig. C, r.
""" Cornwallis, Discourses upon Seneca the tragedian, sig. A, 6r.
""# Ibid., sig. Aa, iv, sig. Aa, r.
r xir \r ii.i .xi s iii r x 1ni nix.r s s .xi 6
VI
This amalgam of liberties points to the confused and at times contradictory
nature of writings that concerned themselves with the self. What is clear is that
after the turn of the century there was an explosion of interest in texts which
had several themes in common, and can be thought of as providing strategies
for individual survival in a capricious world. These ideas did not provide a
clear and cogent argument, but rather an association of several dierent
concepts, some of them having their origins in newly popular stoic thought. It
is plausible to group these ideas around the idea of a self, as so many texts used
this term of analysis, although it was only comparatively rarely that they
stopped to analyse it in any detail. In order to be able to elude the clutches of
fortune, it was necessary to be constant, and to disregard that which was
outside ones control, without at the same time abandoning public duties or
virtuous eort. Associated with fortune was the opinion of the world, which
itself was both subject to fortune, and at the same time determined it. To
disregard the world it was necessary to reserve something that could not be
harmed or in any way inuenced by it.
Ideas about reason and the functioning of the soul were employed to
demonstrate how it was possible for an individual to judge, or how it was
possible to resist either accepted opinion or the sensual urges of the body. The
ideal of reason could be held up as giving the possibility of the search after an
impartial truth, and defeating passions which clouded the mind against clear
sightedness. Judgement made possible the reservation of something which
could be called the self, away from that which sought either to control or to
destroy the individual. It is clear that the French writers conceptions of the self
were far more sophisticated than those of the English, and they were far keener
to discuss the self as an object. There was a huge demand for this French
literature, all of the important texts from the French stoic thought being
translated very rapidly after their composition. The English writers seemed
keener to emphasize the sovereignty of reason as the most signicant product
of this complex of ideas, and it may be signicant that this was the formulation
farthest removed from the stoic sources. They did not on the whole employ
these ideas to construct a theory of liberty as did the French. The important
point is, however, that these ideas were available to Englishmen at the start of
the seventeenth century, and would be highly inuential throughout the whole
century.
With the possible exception of William Cornwallis, the English essayists and
writers were less sophisticated than their French counterparts, and the full
impact of their ideas would not be apparent from merely studying their
immediate intellectual heirs. What is very apparent is that both sets of thinkers
used these ideas to address the problematic relationship between the public and
private spheres, which traditional humanist concepts were increasingly unable
to resolve. The valuing of honour and glory as an indication of worth had been
6 oioii n.iiwr x
questioned by scepticism, and a theory of the self provided a method for
retaining ideals of public service while accepting the sceptical argument about
the value of general opinion. In order to present a public persona given this
atmosphere, it was important not to put ones whole self into this persona, so that
the individual could not be described by referring to the sumof duties or oces
held. Something unique had to be retained that could not be crushed, as
Montaignes father had been crushed, by the destruction of those other persona.
Not only this, but the self which was reserved had to be capable of judgement,
so that it could discern the deception of the world and direct the operation of
one or more persona. This made it possible to act in a awed world, and remain
true to oneself and therefore potentially free.
The sense of self evinced in the texts described above diers fromthe ideas of
self which have been used to examine and criticize literary texts. For
Greenblatt, an articial self is created by an author for a purpose, in eect, to
perform an act of communication. It is precisely this process, which is part of
political as well as literary life, that these writers are protesting against. The
performance of this act, without any attempt to retain a sense of the essential
self, is both unsuccessful and damaging to the individual. The resolution of the
problemof acting in a uid public sphere, with all the strategies of presentation
that implies, is the self-conscious fashioning of a real, as opposed to a ctive, self.
This would make it possible both to understand, and live in, the external world.
The sense of self which seems to emerge here is one which lies between the
stereotypical view of Renaissance humanism and individualism in a later
eighteenth-century sense. These writers did not regard autonomy as the
dening feature of human existence, and therefore as the basis of ethics, as did
Kant, for whom each individual must legislate the moral law. Neither did they
describe the individuals relationship with the political and social world in
terms of roles to be performed, or oces to be lled. They attempted to oer a
solution to the problems of a public existence as dramatized by writers like
More and Shakespeare. There is an analogy between the public ethics of early
manifestations of humanism in England, such as that of Elyot, and the view of
the world as inter-subjective held by some literary critics : in both there is little
space for the self as opposed to a persona. Such an analogy can lead to the
dangerous error of homogenizing the Renaissance in England, whereas
reactions to the problems raised by humanist thought constituted a signicant
innovation in eectively and deliberately separating self and persona: an
enumeration of oces could not describe an individual. Later writers such as
Hobbes or Spinoza would attempt to base a moral theory, and political
obligation, on private deliberation. At the beginning of the seventeenth
century, there was a body of writers who developed ideas of the self which drew
upon stoicism and ideas of oce, but went beyond both of these. They pointed
forward to more individualistic moral theories, as well as backwards to the
conception of the individual as a performer of a variety of roles.