HOOKER STARTS HIS TREATMENT OF NATURAL LAW by discussing his philosophical foundations. In his presentation, Hooker is decidedly traditional and Aristotelian, and rejects the philosophical presuppositions of the Calvinist/Ramist schools.
Hooker begins: All things but God (who is pure act, and in whom is no potentiality for development) are in various states of potentiality or "somewhat in possibility," and to that extent are not in act. In other words, all creation develops towards something, has not reached its end, and is in movement from its potential to some perfection in act. Creation is becoming in its being, unlike God in whom there is no shade of becoming, but is pure Being. This metaphysical reality gives rise to the well-observed fact that "there is in all things appetite or desire, whereby they incline to something which they may be." I.5.1, 72-73. Upon achieving that desire, they are more perfect, more complete, than before achieving that desire. This perfection which all things seek is generally known as goodness. Since there is nothing in the world that does not exist to make another thing good, it follows that all things are good. I.5.1, 73.
This desire for goodness, that is to say, a creature's thirst for improvement, for perfection, proceeds from God, as he is the cause of all things. Since God is the cause of all things, and since "every effect does after a sort contain, [or] at least . . . resemble the cause from which it proceeds," all things may be said to be seeking in a manner "to seek the highest, and to covet more or less the participation of God himself." I.5.2, 73. All things, willy-nilly, seek to participate in God, as effect to cause.
This urge toward perfection, and therefore this urge to participate in God, is nowhere more clearly seen than in man. Part of this is because man desires "so many kinds of perfection," that is, he seeks various "degrees" of perfection. I.5.2, 73. Like animals, men seek to "the continuance of their being" (first degree). Since man, like other beings, cannot in fact live for ever, the urge to continue his being is manifest in the desire to propagate offspring. Man, not unlike God, also seeks to be constant and excellent in those physical qualities which are his by nature (second degree). Quoting Aristotle, Hooker observes how "the works of nature do always aim at that which cannot be bettered." I.5.2, 73 (quoting Aristotle's De Anima, (415b) [Πάντα γὰρ ἐκείνου ὀρέγεται.]) These two degrees of appetites or desires are, however, so intertwined with our nature that "we scarcely perceive the appetite to stir in reaching forth her hand towards them." I.5.3, 73. They are, as it were, involuntary appetites or desires.
More apparent than the first two degrees of aspiring toward perfection is the third degree. This degree comprehends those desires for perfection which "grow externally," especially those desires that do not arise without knowledge of the perfection (virtue) or those desires for knowledge itself (truth).
Title Page of Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie
Hooker then addresses the issue of knowledge, contrasting the angelic knowledge which is "already full and complete," and men whose knowledge "in their spring," that is, when they are children, "are at the first without understanding or knowledge at all." I.6.2, 74. Ultimately, however, man's knowledge approaches, as it were, asymptotically, angelic knowledge.
Here, Hooker invokes that great circle of being, the chain of being from insensate creation, through vegetative life, up to the life of unreasoning animals, unto man and angel reaching into the ultimate source of Being, God Himself. Man participates, like the creatures below him, in the perfections of God. But he has a calling, a dignity all his own. He is meant to participate in the being and perfection of God in a way unique to him, and he achieves this through the use of reason:
Hooker complains that his generation appears to have ignored or rejected Aristotelian logic. The gap in "maturity of judgment" between a man who is well-versed in Aristotelian logic, and one who is not is as wide as that between men and children.* Hooker stresses the importance of education, of instruction or formation, of paideia, as it were, in the development of human reason.
In the next blog entry, we will continue Hooker's treatment of the underlying principles, the philosophical foundations of his theory of the natural law.
*Note: In this regard, Hooker is focusing his sights on Ramism (what he calls "Ramystry"), "that other new devised aid" of reasoning. The traditionalist Hooker, therefore rejects the novel logical/rhetorical anti-scholastic and anti-Aristotelian theories of the Protestant Peter Ramus, the distasteful and superficial and rebellious scholar that had been killed at the St. Bartholomew's Massacre. Sarcastically, Hooker describes "Ramystry" as "of marvelous quick dispatch," allowing its proponents to learn in three days what others take sixty years to learn. It also restrains itself to generalities, avoiding the peril of detail. Thus, "Ramystry" is an art "which teaches the way of speedy discourse, and restrains the mind of man that it may not wax over wise." I.6.4, 76.
Portrait of Richard Hooker
Hooker begins: All things but God (who is pure act, and in whom is no potentiality for development) are in various states of potentiality or "somewhat in possibility," and to that extent are not in act. In other words, all creation develops towards something, has not reached its end, and is in movement from its potential to some perfection in act. Creation is becoming in its being, unlike God in whom there is no shade of becoming, but is pure Being. This metaphysical reality gives rise to the well-observed fact that "there is in all things appetite or desire, whereby they incline to something which they may be." I.5.1, 72-73. Upon achieving that desire, they are more perfect, more complete, than before achieving that desire. This perfection which all things seek is generally known as goodness. Since there is nothing in the world that does not exist to make another thing good, it follows that all things are good. I.5.1, 73.
This desire for goodness, that is to say, a creature's thirst for improvement, for perfection, proceeds from God, as he is the cause of all things. Since God is the cause of all things, and since "every effect does after a sort contain, [or] at least . . . resemble the cause from which it proceeds," all things may be said to be seeking in a manner "to seek the highest, and to covet more or less the participation of God himself." I.5.2, 73. All things, willy-nilly, seek to participate in God, as effect to cause.
This urge toward perfection, and therefore this urge to participate in God, is nowhere more clearly seen than in man. Part of this is because man desires "so many kinds of perfection," that is, he seeks various "degrees" of perfection. I.5.2, 73. Like animals, men seek to "the continuance of their being" (first degree). Since man, like other beings, cannot in fact live for ever, the urge to continue his being is manifest in the desire to propagate offspring. Man, not unlike God, also seeks to be constant and excellent in those physical qualities which are his by nature (second degree). Quoting Aristotle, Hooker observes how "the works of nature do always aim at that which cannot be bettered." I.5.2, 73 (quoting Aristotle's De Anima, (415b) [Πάντα γὰρ ἐκείνου ὀρέγεται.]) These two degrees of appetites or desires are, however, so intertwined with our nature that "we scarcely perceive the appetite to stir in reaching forth her hand towards them." I.5.3, 73. They are, as it were, involuntary appetites or desires.
More apparent than the first two degrees of aspiring toward perfection is the third degree. This degree comprehends those desires for perfection which "grow externally," especially those desires that do not arise without knowledge of the perfection (virtue) or those desires for knowledge itself (truth).
Concerning perfections of this kind, that by proceeding in the knowledge of truth and by growing in the exercise of virtue, man amongst the creatures of this inferior world, aspires to the greatest conformity with God . . .I.5.3, 73-74. This aspiration to moral goodness and to truth, "aspires to the greatest conformity with God," and is particular to man among all creation. Its presence and uniqueness is attested to by both Scripture and the best of pagan philosophers. Mention of it is found in the Gospel of Matthew (5:48: "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect") and in the Book of Wisdom (7:27: Wisdom "maketh the friends of God and prophets."). Plato speaks of knowledge as exalting men above other men, raising them up into heaven, and, though it makes men not God, it makes them quasi-divine: "yet as gods, high, admirable, and divine." I.5.3, 74. In reference to the virtues of a righteous soul, the pagan Mercurius (Hermes) Trismegistus states that "such spirits . . . are never cloyed with praising and speaking well of all men, with doing good unto every one by word and deed, because they study to frame themselves according to THE PATTERN of the father of spirits." I.5.3, 74 (Ἡ δὲ τοιαύτη ψυχὴ κόρον οὐδέποτε ἔχει ὑμνουσα εὐϕημουσά τε πάντας ἀνθρώπους, καὶ λόγοις καὶ ἔργοις πάντας [πάντως] εὐποιουσα, μιμουμένη αὐτης τὸν πατέρα.)
Title Page of Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie Hooker then addresses the issue of knowledge, contrasting the angelic knowledge which is "already full and complete," and men whose knowledge "in their spring," that is, when they are children, "are at the first without understanding or knowledge at all." I.6.2, 74. Ultimately, however, man's knowledge approaches, as it were, asymptotically, angelic knowledge.
Nevertheless from this utter vacuity [of knowledge in man which an infant], they grow by degrees, till they come at length to be even as the Angels themselves are. That which agrees to the one now, the other shall attain unto in the end; they are not so far disjoined and severed, but that they come at length to meet.I.6.1, 74. Hooker sees man as a tabula rasa, a γραμματεῖον, an unwritten book, a book upon whose pages knowledge must be inscribed: "The soul of man being therefore at the first as a book, wherein nothing is, and yet all things may be imprinted; we are to search by what steps and degrees it rises unto perfection of knowledge." I.6.1, 74.
Here, Hooker invokes that great circle of being, the chain of being from insensate creation, through vegetative life, up to the life of unreasoning animals, unto man and angel reaching into the ultimate source of Being, God Himself. Man participates, like the creatures below him, in the perfections of God. But he has a calling, a dignity all his own. He is meant to participate in the being and perfection of God in a way unique to him, and he achieves this through the use of reason:
The soul of man therefore being capable of a more divine perfection, has (besides the faculties of growing unto sensible knowledge which is common unto us with beasts) a further ability, whereof in them [brute animals] there is no show at all, the ability of reaching higher than unto sensible things. Till we grow to some ripeness of years, the soul of man does only store itself with conceits of things of inferior and more open quality, which afterwards do serve as instruments unto that which is greater: in the meanwhile above the reach of meaner creatures it ascends not.I.6.3, 75. This aspect of man's reason is found in such things as the awareness of time, of "affirmations, negations, and contradictions in speech." To these must be applied the "true art and learning" of Aristotelian demonstration or logic. I.6.3, 75.
Hooker complains that his generation appears to have ignored or rejected Aristotelian logic. The gap in "maturity of judgment" between a man who is well-versed in Aristotelian logic, and one who is not is as wide as that between men and children.* Hooker stresses the importance of education, of instruction or formation, of paideia, as it were, in the development of human reason.
Education and instruction are the means, the on by use, the other by precept to make our natural faculty of reason, both the better and the sooner able to judge rightly between truth and and error, good and evil.While Hooker realizes the value of education and instruction as an aid in allowing men to judge between truth and error and good and evil, he also notes that this faculty is not necessarily tied to the "skill and learning" of academia, but is more a product of "common sense" and experience. I.6.5, 76. It is not philosophers "who best know the nature both of fire and gold, to teach what degree of the one will serve to purify the other," but rather artisans "who do this by fire, discerns by sense when the fire has that degree of heat which suffices for this purpose." I.6.5, 76. In similar manner, then, truth and good are not obtained solely from education and instruction, but are also a sort of art and product of common sense and experience. For Hooker, then, the knowledge of true and good is both a science and art, one which requires personal involvement and commitment.
In the next blog entry, we will continue Hooker's treatment of the underlying principles, the philosophical foundations of his theory of the natural law.
*Note: In this regard, Hooker is focusing his sights on Ramism (what he calls "Ramystry"), "that other new devised aid" of reasoning. The traditionalist Hooker, therefore rejects the novel logical/rhetorical anti-scholastic and anti-Aristotelian theories of the Protestant Peter Ramus, the distasteful and superficial and rebellious scholar that had been killed at the St. Bartholomew's Massacre. Sarcastically, Hooker describes "Ramystry" as "of marvelous quick dispatch," allowing its proponents to learn in three days what others take sixty years to learn. It also restrains itself to generalities, avoiding the peril of detail. Thus, "Ramystry" is an art "which teaches the way of speedy discourse, and restrains the mind of man that it may not wax over wise." I.6.4, 76.
Portrait of Richard Hooker
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