SUNY Buffalo State Julian of Norwich and Voltaire Discussion

PRIMARY SOURCE READINGS IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION Gilgamesh…………………………………………………………………………………3 Plato……………………………………………………………………………………….6 Aristotle…………………………………………………………………………………..10 Stoicism………………………………………………………………………………….12 Cicero…………………………………………………………………………………….14 Sermon on the Mount…………………………………………………………………… 17 Bernard of Clairvaux…………………………………………………………………… 21 Thomas Aquinas………………………………………………………………………….23 Julian of Norwich……………………………………………………………..…………24 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola…………………………………………….…………….26 Niccolò Machiavelli…………………………………….………………………………..28 Martin Luther…………………………….………………………………………………30 Thomas Hobbes……………………………………………………………………………..32 Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet………………………………………………………………..34 John Locke……………………………………………………………………………….36 René Descartes……………………………………………………………………………………………………38 Voltaire…………………………………………………………………………………..40 Immanuel Kant…………………………………………………………………………..43 Declaration of the Rights of Man………………………………………………………..44 Olympe de Gouges………………………………………………………………………46 Edmund Burke……………………………………………………………………………49 John Stuart Mill………………………………………………………………………….52 William Wordsworth…………………………………………………………………….55 Giuseppe Mazzini………………………………………………………………………..56 2 Heinrich von Treitschke…………………………………………………………………….61 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels…………………………………………………………………………….63 Social Darwinism………………………………………………………………………..67 Certainty and Uncertainty……………………………………………………………….69 Sigmund Freud…………………………………………………………………………….72 Friedrich Nietzsche……………………………………………………………………………..75 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin…………………………………………………………..………..77 Joseph Stalin……………………………………………………………………………..79 Benito Mussolini…………………………………………………………………………………………………82 Adolf Hitler………………………………………………………………………………………………………..85 Mikhail Gorbachev………………………………………………………………………………………………91 Jean-Paul Sartre…………………………………………………………………………………………………..95 John Paul II…………………………………………………………………………………………………………97 3 Gilgamesh The earliest written version of the story of Gilgamesh was composed by a Sumerian author around 2150 BCE. It was retold and enlarged by later Mesopotamian writers, Babylonian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Chaldean. Based on the historical figure, King Gilgamesh of the Sumerian city of Uruk, who probably reigned around 2700 BCE, it recounts Gilgamesh’s adventures and his search for immortality. This excerpt is taken from a Babylonian text. I will proclaim to the world the deeds of Gilgamesh. This was the man to whom all things were known; this was the king who knew the countries of the world. He was wise, he saw mysteries and knew secret things, he brought us a tale of the days before the flood. He went on a long journey, was weary, worn out with labor, returning he rested, he engraved on a stone the whole story. When the gods created Gilgamesh they gave him a perfect body. Shamash, the glorious sun, endowed him with beauty, Adad the god of the storm endowed him with courage, the great gods made his beauty perfect, surpassing all others, terrifying like a great wild bull. Two thirds they made him god and one third man. Gilgamesh went abroad in the world, but he met with none who could withstand his arms till he came to Uruk. But the men of Uruk muttered in their houses, “Gilgamesh sounds the alarm for his amusement, his arrogance has no bounds by day or night. No son is left with his father, for Gilgamesh takes them all, even the children; yet the king would be a shepherd to his people. His lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior’s daughter nor the wife of the noble; yet this is the shepherd of the city, wise, handsome, and resolute.” The gods heard their lament, the gods in heaven cried to the Lord of Uruk, to Anu, the god of Uruk: “A goddess made him, strong as a savage bull, none can withstand his arms. No son is left with his father, for Gilgamesh takes them all; and is this the king, the shepherd of his people? His lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior’s daughter nor the wife of the noble.” When Anu had heard their lamentation the gods cried to Aruru, the goddess of creation, “You made him, O Aruru, now create his equal; let it be as like him as his own reflection, his second self, stormy heart for stormy heart. Let them contend together and leave Uruk in quiet.” So the goddess conceived an image in her mind, and it was of the stuff of Anu of the firmament. She dipped her hands in water and pinched off clay, she let it fall in the wilderness, and noble Enkidu was created. There was virtue in him of the god of war. His body was rough, he had long hair like a woman’s; it waved like the hair of Nisaba, the goddess of the corn. His body was covered with matted hair like Sumquan’s, the god of cattle. In Uruk the bridal bed was made, fit for the goddess of love. The bride waited for the bridegroom, but in the night Gilgamesh got up and came to the house. Then Enkidu 4 stepped out, he stood in the street and blocked the way. Mighty Gilgamesh came on and Enkidu met him at the gate. He put out his foot and prevented Gilgamesh from entering the house, so they grappled, holding each other like bulls. They broke the doorposts and the walls shook, they snorted like bulls locked together. They shattered the doorposts and the walls shook. Gilgamesh bent his knee with his foot planted on the ground and with a turn Enkidu was thrown. Then immediately his fury died. When Enkidu was thrown he said to Gilgamesh, “There is not another like you in the world. Your strength surpasses the strength of men.” So Enkidu and Gilgamesh embraced and their friendship was sealed. [Gilgamesh and Enkidu then set out on a long journey to the Cedar Forest in the North. They slay a fire-breathing monster called Humbaba, the guardian of the forest. After their return, Ishtar, the goddess of love, becomes infatuated with Gilgamesh and offers to marry him. Gilgamesh, complains that she is fickle and refuses. In her fury, Ishtar sends the Bull of Heaven to destroy Gilgamesh, but Enkidu grabs its horns, allowing Gilgamesh to kill it. The gods then decree that either Einkidu or Gilgamesh must die, and it is Enkidu who perishes. Bereaved, Gilgamesh sets out on a difficult quest to find Utnapishtim, the Mesopotamian Noah, to whom and to whose wife the gods had granted the gift of immortality.] Bitterly Gilgamesh wept for his friend Enkidu; he wandered over the wilderness as a hunter, he roamed over the plains; in his bitterness he cried, “How can I rest, how can I be at peace? Despair is in my heart. What my brother is now, that shall I be when I am dead. Because I am afraid of death I will go as best I can to find Utnapishtim whom they call the Faraway, for he has entered the assembly of the gods.” So Gilgamesh traveled over the wilderness, he wandered over the grasslands, a long journey, in search of Utnapishtim, whom the gods took after the deluge; and they set him to live in the land of Dilmun, in the garden of the sun; and to him alone of men they gave everlasting life. [When Gilgamesh finds Utnapishtim, Utnapishtim recounts the story of the flood: mankind’s ceaseless activity had disturbed the rest of the gods, who decided to destroy human beings by flooding the earth. Ea, the god of the waters, warned Utnapishtim of the coming deluge. By building a large ship, Utnapishtim, his family, the craftsmen he employed, and the animals he took on board survived. The gods then repented of their action and granted immortality to Utnapishtim and his wife. Utnapishtim cannot share his immortality with Gilgamesh, but he does offer him a similar gift.] “Gilgamesh, I shall reveal a secret thing, it is a mystery of the gods that I am telling you. There is a plant that grows under the water, it has a prickle like a thorn, like a rose; it will wound your hands, but if you succeed in taking it, then your hands will hold that which restores his lost youth to a man.” When Gilgamesh heard this he opened the sluices so that a sweet-water current might carry him out to the deepest channel; he tied heavy stones to his feet and they dragged him down to the water-bed. There he saw the plant growing; although it pricked him he took it in his hands; then he cut the heavy stones from his feet, and the sea carried him 5 and threw him on to the shore. Gilgamesh said to Urshanabi the ferryman, “Come here, and see the marvelous plant. By its virtue a man may win back all his former strength. I will take it to Uruk of the strong walls; there I will give it to the old men to eat. Its name shall be ‘The Old Men Are Young Again’; and at last I shall eat it myself and have back all my lost youth.” So Gilgamesh returned by the gate through which he had come, Gilgamesh and Urshanabi went together. They traveled their twenty leagues and then they broke their fast; after thirty leagues they stopped for the night. Gilgamesh saw a well of cool water and he went down and bathed; but deep in the pool there was lying a serpent, and the serpent sensed the sweetness of the flower. It rose out of the water and snatched it away, and immediately it sloughed its skin and returned to the well. Then Gilgamesh sat down and wept, the tears ran down his face, and he took the hand of Urshanabi; “O Urshanabi, was it for this that I toiled with my hands, is it for this I have wrung out my heart’s blood? For myself I have gained nothing; not I, but the beast of the earth has joy of it now. Already the stream has carried it twenty leagues back to the channels where I found it. I found a sign and now I have lost it. Let us leave the boat on the bank and go.” The destiny was fulfilled which the father of the gods, Enlil of the mountain, had decreed for Gilgamesh. O Gilgamesh, you were given the kingship, such was your destiny, everlasting life was not your destiny. Because of this do not be sad at heart, do not be grieved or oppressed; he has given you power to bind and to loose, to be the darkness and the light of mankind. He has given unexampled supremacy over the people, victory in battle from which no fugitive returns, in forays and assaults from which there is no going back. But do not abuse this power, deal justly with your servants in the palace, deal justly before the face of the Sun. Edited from N.K. Sandars. trans.. The Epic of Gilgimesh. (London: Penguin Books, 1978), 61, 62-63, 69, 87-88, 102, 116-118. 6 Plato, The Republic Plato (427-347 BCE) was Socrates’ greatest pupil and may well be the most influential philosopher who ever lived. In this dialogue from The Republic, he discusses who should rule the State and why. Only philosophers are able to grasp the one eternal and unchangeable reality. Those who are not philosophers are lost amidst the many and changeable. So which of the two should rule our State? What would be the best way to begin answering that question? Let us say that whichever of the two are best able to guard the laws and institutions of our State should be our guardians. Agreed. And can there be any question that it would better for someone with keen eyesight to be a guard rather than a blind man? None at all. And are not those who have no true knowledge of reality, and no clear standard of truth, simply blind? True, so they are. And shall those who are blind be our guardians? Or shall the philosophers who, besides being their equals in experience and in virtue, also know the deepest truth of every thing? There can be no reason for rejecting those who have this deepest knowledge; they must be our leaders unless they are inferior in some other respect. Suppose, then, that we determine how far philosophers can unite this knowledge with other virtues. Let us do so. In the first place, we must ascertain the character of philosophers. When we have done so, I think that we shall agree that such a union of knowledge and virtue is possible, and that therefore it is philosophers alone who should be rulers in the State. What do you mean? 7 Let us assume that philosophers love the knowledge that reveals the eternal reality that neither changes nor decays. Agreed. And if this is true, is there not another quality that they should also possess? What quality? Truthfulness; they will never intentionally tolerate falsehood, which they detest, and they will love truth. Yes, that may be safely said of them. “May be said of them.” is not correct; say rather, “must be said of them:” for if you love anything, you cannot help loving everything closely connected to the object of your affection. Right. And is there anything more connected to wisdom than truth? How can there be? Can the same person be a lover of wisdom and a lover of falsehood? Never. The true lover of learning then will yearn for the whole truth from his earliest youth? Certainly. But then again, we know by experience that a man whose desires are strong in one direction will have them weaker in others; they will be like a stream that has been drawn off into another channel. True. So the man whose desires are drawn toward the acquisition of knowledge will be absorbed in the pleasures of the mind, and will hardly desire physical pleasure–I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one. That is most certain. 8 Such a one is sure to be temperate and the reverse of covetous; for the motives which make another man eager to get and to spend have no place in his character. Very true. There is something else in the philosophical nature that we must look for. What is that? There should be no secret corner of meanness; pettiness of mind is alien to the philosopher who longs after the whole truth of things both divine and human. That is true. Then how can he who has greatness of mind and is the spectator of all time and all existence, think much of this human life of ours? He cannot. Or can such a person fear death? Not at all. Then cowardly and mean natures have no part in true philosophy? Certainly not. Or again: can a man who is well balanced, who is not greedy or mean, or a boaster, or a coward, ever be unjust or hard in his dealings? Impossible. There is another point that should be noticed. What point? A nature that has no taste or style will tend to lack of a sense of proportion. Undoubtedly. And do you consider truth to be akin to proportion or to disproportion? To proportion. 9 Then, besides other qualities, we want a gracious mind with a sense of proportion, which will naturally and easily move toward the apprehension of the true nature of everything. Certainly. And so, when they are perfected by years and education, aren’t these the only men to whom you would entrust the State? 10 Aristotle, Politics After Plato, Aristotle (384-322 BCE) is the Greek philosopher who has had the greatest influence on western civilization. Although he studied with Plato and admired him, Aristotle was a more commonsensical thinker and disagreed with Plato about a number of matters, among them politics. In this excerpt, Aristotle explains the origins of government and discusses what the best form of government would be. The state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example, were the whole body to be destroyed, there would be no foot or hand, except in an ambiguous sense. The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficient, and therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole. A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature. Anyone who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is self-sufficient, must be either a beast or a god: he is no part of a state. Almost all things rule and are ruled according to their nature. But the kind of rule differs; the freeman rules over the slave in a different way from that in which the male rules over the female, or the man over the child; although the parts of the soul are present in all of them, they are present in different degrees. For the slave has no deliberative faculty at all; the woman has, but it is without authority, and the child has, but it is immature. So it must necessarily be supposed to be the same with the moral virtues: all should partake of them, but only in such manner and degree as is required by each to fulfill his duty. The temperance of a man and of a woman, or the courage and justice of a man and of a woman, are not, as Socrates maintained, the same; the courage of a man is shown in commanding, of a woman in obeying. We cannot consider all those to be citizens who are necessary to the existence of the state; for example, children are not citizens equally with grown-up men, who are citizens absolutely. The best form of state will not admit [laborers] to citizenship. The government, which is the supreme authority in states, must be in the hands of one, or of a few, or of the many. The true forms of government, therefore, are those in which the one, or the few, or the many, govern with a view to the common interest; but governments which rule with a view to the private interest, whether of the one or of the few, or of the many, are perversions. For [all] the members of a state, if they are truly citizens, ought to participate in its advantages. The forms of government in which one rules and respects the common interests, we call kingship or royalty; that in which more than one, but not many, rule who have the interests of the state and its citizens at heart, we call aristocracy. When the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is called by the generic name—a constitution. One man or a few may excel in virtue; but as the number increases it becomes more difficult for them to attain perfection in every virtue, though they may excel in military virtue, for this is a virtue found in the mas …
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