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Front Page  Quotations Other Quotes Week of 28 December, 2012
About this Quotation:
This quotation is part of a series for “The Twelve Days of Christmas” on the theme of “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will towards men” [Luke 2:14]
It is curious to find an argument in a 16th century text in defence of monarchy these passages extolling peace as the best way human beings can achieve perfectibility in both thought and action. One would normally associate the idea of perfectibility with the 18th century enlightenment, most notably Condorcet, or the early 19th century with Wilhelm von Humboldt. Yet here Dante states that the quiet, calm, and tranquility provided by a state of peace allows the human race to “accomplish most freely and easily its given work” which is in the first instance intellectual or speculative in nature (thus literature or philosophy) and secondly by “extension” all other types of “action” in the physical world. One wonders if one might take this to mean all manner of economic activity including trade and exchange with others? Dante links these ideas to religion with the idea that this state of peace brings human beings closer to that of the angels where a situation of beatitude might be achieved as promised by the heavenly host at the birth of Christ. We include with this quotation the notes of the translator Aurelia Henry which provide a list of other passages from Dante’s works where he discusses peace, suggesting that it was of great concern to him.
Other quotes from this week:Other quotes about War & Peace:- 2013: The 10th Day of Christmas: Richard Cobden on public opinion and peace on earth (c. 1865)
- 2013: The 8th Day of Christmas: Jefferson on the inevitability of revolution in England only after which there will be peace on earth (1817)
- 2012: The 7th Day of Christmas: Madison on “the most noble of all ambitions” which a government can have, of promoting peace on earth (1816)
- 2012: The 3rd Day of Christmas: Erasmus stands against war and for peace on earth (16th century)
- 2012: The 2nd Day of Christmas: Petrarch on the mercenary wars in Italy and the need for peace on earth (1344)
- 2012: The 1st Day of Christmas: Jan Huss’ Christmas letters and his call for peace on earth (1412)
- 2012: The evangelist Luke “on earth peace, good will toward men” (1st century)
- 2012: Molinari on the elites who benefited from the State of War (1899)
- 2012: John Bright calls British foreign policy “a gigantic system of (welfare) for the aristocracy” (1858)
- 2012: James Madison on the necessity of separating the power of “the sword from the purse” (1793)
- 2012: Sumner’s vision of the American Republic was a parsimonious government which had little to do (1898)
- 2012: Sumner’s vision of the American Republic as a confederation of free and peaceful industrial commonwealths (1898)
- 2012: Cobden argues that the British Empire will inevitably suffer retribution for its violence and injustice (1853)
- 2012: John Bright on war as all the horrors, atrocities, crimes, and sufferings of which human nature on this globe is capable (1853)
- 2011: Cobden on the complicity of the British people in supporting war (1852)
- 2011: The City of War and the City of Peace on Achilles’ new shield (900 BC)
- 2011: Cobden on the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries (1859)
- 2011: Cobden urges the British Parliament not to be the “Don Quixotes of Europe” using military force to right the wrongs of the world (1854)
- 2011: James Mill likens the expence and economic stagnation brought about by war to a “pestilential wind” which ravages the country (1808)
- 2011: The Duke of Burgundy asks the Kings of France and England why “gentle peace” should not be allowed to return France to its former prosperity (1599)
- 2011: Grotius on Moderation in Despoiling the Country of one’s Enemies (1625)
- 2011: Sumner and the Conquest of the United States by Spain (1898)
- 2010: Trenchard on the dangers posed by a standing army (1698)
- 2010: John Jay on the pretended as well as the just causes of war (1787)
- 2010: Vicesimus Knox on how the aristocracy and the “spirit of despotism” use the commemoration of the war dead for their own aims (1795)
- 2010: Milton warns Parliament’s general Fairfax that justice must break free from violence if “endless war” is to be avoided (1648)
- 2009: Madison argued that war is the major way by which the executive office increases its power, patronage, and taxing power (1793)
- 2009: Thomas Jefferson on the Draft as "the last of all oppressions" (1777)
- 2009: Daniel Webster thunders that the introduction of conscription would be a violation of the constitution, an affront to individual liberty, and an act of unrivaled despotism (1814)
- 2008: Alexander Hamilton warns of the danger to civil society and liberty from a standing army since “the military state becomes elevated above the civil” (1787)
- 2008: John Trenchard identifies who will benefit from any new war “got up” in Italy: princes, courtiers, jobbers, and pensioners, but definitely not the ordinary taxpayer (1722)
- 2008: Adam Smith observes that the true costs of war remain hidden from the taxpayers because they are sheltered in the metropole far from the fighting and instead of increasing taxes the government pays for the war by increasing the national debt (1776)
- 2007: James Madison on the need for the people to declare war and for each generation, not future generations, to bear the costs of the wars they fight (1792)
- 2007: Thomas Gordon on standing armies as a power which is inconsistent with liberty (1722)
- 2007: James Madison argues that the constitution places war-making powers squarely with the legislative branch; for the president to have these powers is the “the true nurse of executive aggrandizement” (1793)
- 2007: St. Thomas Aquinas discusses the three conditions for a just war (1265-74)
- 2006: A.V. Dicey noted that a key change in public thinking during the 19thC was the move away from the early close association between “peace and retrenchment” in the size of the government (1905)
- 2006: J.M. Keynes reflected on that “happy age” of international commerce and freedom of travel that was destroyed by the cataclysm of the First World War (1920)
- 2006: John Jay in the Federalist Papers discussed why nations go to war and concluded that it was not for justice but “whenever they have a prospect of getting any thing by it” (1787)
- 2005: Thomas Gordon gives a long list of ridiculous and frivolous reasons why kings and tyrants have started wars which have led only to the enslavement and destruction of their own people (1737)
- 2005: Hugo Grotius states that in an unjust war any acts of hostility done in that war are “unjust in themselves” (1625)
- 2005: Hugo Grotius discusses the just causes of going to war, especially the idea that the capacity to wage war must be matched by the intent to do so (1625)
- 2005: Herbert Spencer argued that in a militant type of society the state would become more centralised and administrative, as compulsory education clearly showed (1882)
- 2005: William Graham Sumner denounced America’s war against Spain and thought that “war, debt, taxation, diplomacy, a grand governmental system, pomp, glory, a big army and navy, lavish expenditures, political jobbery” would result in imperialsm (1898)
- 2005: Erasmus has the personification of Peace come down to earth to see with dismay how war ravages human societies (1521)
- 2004: Ludwig von Mises laments the passing of the Age of Limited Warfare and the coming of Mass Destruction in the Age of Statism and Conquest (1949)
- 2004: Thomas Hodgskin on the Suffering of those who had been Impressed or Conscripted into the despotism of the British Navy (1813)
- 2004: Robert Nisbet on the Shock the Founding Fathers would feel if they could see the current size of the Military Establishment and the National Government (1988)
- 2004: Adam Smith on the Sympathy one feels for those Vanquished in a battle rather than for the Victors (1762)
- 2004: Hugo Grotius on sparing Civilian Property from Destruction in Time of War (1625)
- 2004: Bernard Mandeville on how the Hardships and Fatigues of War bear most heavily on the “working slaving People” (1732)
28 December, 2012Read the full quote in context here. The Florentine poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) believed in a universal monarch who would end the squabbling and bloodshed between rival kings and lords in Europe. Only under such a regime could peace be established under which humanity could thrive and prosper:
It has now been satisfactorily explained that the proper function of the human race, taken in the aggregate, is to actualize continually the entire capacity of the possible intellect, primarily in speculation, then, through its extension and for its sake, secondarily in action. And since it is true that whatever modifies a part modifies the whole, and that the individual man seated in quiet grows perfect in knowledge and wisdom, it is plain that amid the calm and tranquillity of peace the human race accomplishes most freely and easily its given work. How nearly divine this function is revealed in the words, “Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels.” Whence it is manifest that universal peace is the best of those things which are ordained for our beatitude. And hence to the shepherds sounded from on high the message not of riches, nor pleasures, nor honors, nor length of life, nor health, nor beauty; but the message of peace. For the heavenly host said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.” Likewise, “Peace be unto you” was the salutation of the Saviour of men. It befitted the supreme Saviour to utter the supreme salutation. It is evident to all that the disciples desired to preserve this custom; and Paul likewise in his words of greeting.
The full passage from which this quotation was taken can be be viewed below (front page quote in bold):
- It has now been satisfactorily explained that the proper function of the human race, taken in the aggregate, is to actualize continually the entire capacity of the possible intellect, primarily in speculation, then, through its extension and for its sake, secondarily in action. And since it is true that whatever modifies a part modifies the whole, and that the individual man seated in quiet grows perfect in knowledge and wisdom, it is plain that amid the calm and tranquillity of peace the human race accomplishes most freely and easily its given work. How nearly divine this function is revealed in the words, “Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels.” Whence it is manifest that universal peace is the best of those things which are ordained for our beatitude. And hence to the shepherds sounded from on high the message not of riches, nor pleasures, nor honors, nor length of life, nor health, nor beauty; but the message of peace. For the heavenly host said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.” Likewise, “Peace be unto you” was the salutation of the Saviour of men. It befitted the supreme Saviour to utter the supreme salutation. It is evident to all that the disciples desired to preserve this custom; and Paul likewise in his words of greeting.
2. From these things which have been expounded we perceive through what better, nay, through what best means the human race may fulfill its proper office. Consequently we perceive the nearest way through which may be reached that universal peace toward which all our efforts are directed as their ultimate end, and which is to be assumed as the basic principle of subsequent reasoning. This principle was necessary, we have said, as a predetermined formula, into which, as into a most manifest truth, must be resolved all things needing to be proved. [footnote 7]
[Editor’s Note 7] Some of Dante’s most eloquent exhortations in prose and some of the most perfect music of his verse are touching that peace which he knew should make man happy on earth and blessed in heaven, that peace which he went to seek “from world to world,” and which he found at last in complete obedience to the will of God.
Purg. 3. 74: Virgil conjures the spirits “By that peace which I think is awaited by you all.”
Purg. 5. 61: Dante here tells of “that peace, which makes me, following the feet of a guide thus fashioned, seek it from world to world.”
Purg. 10. 34: “The angel that came on earth with the decree of the many years wept-for peace … opened Heaven from its long interdict.”
Purg. 11. 7: “Let the peace of thy kingdom come to us.”
Purg. 21. 13: “My brethren, God give you peace,” is the greeting of Statius.
Purg. 28. 91: “The highest Good, which does only its own pleasure, made the man good and for good, and gave him this place for an earnest to him of eternal peace.”
Purg. 30. 7: “That truthful folk … turned them to the car as to their peace.”
Par. 2. 112: “Within the heaven of the divine peace revolves a body in whose virtue lies the being of all that is contained in it.”
Par. 3. 85: “In His will is our peace.”
Par. 27. 8: “A life complete of joy and peace.”
Par. 30. 100: “Light is there on high, which makes visible the Creator to that creation which only in seeing Him has its peace.”
Par. 31. 110: St. Bernard “in this world by contemplation tasted of that peace.”
Par. 33. 1: “Virgin Mother … in thy womb was rekindled the Love, through whose warmth in the eternal peace this flower has thus sprung.”
[More works by Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321) and on War and Peace] |
