Truthfulness is, therefore, primary in the mores. It does not proceed from the religion, but the religion furnishes a sanction for the view which prevails in the mores. Oaths and imprecations are primitive means of invoking the religious sanction in promises and contracts. They always implied that the superior powers would act in the affairs of men in a proposed way, if the oath maker should break his word. This implication failed so regularly that faith in oaths never could be maintained. Since they have fallen into partial disuse the expediency of truthfulness has been perceived, and the value of a reputation for it has been recognized. Thus it has become a question whether a true success policy is to be based on truth or falsehood. The mores of groups contain their answer, which they inculcate on the young.

+714. The clever hero. Krishna.+ The wily and clever hero, who knows what to do to get out of a difficulty, or to accomplish a purpose, is a very popular character in the great epics. In the _Mahabharata_ Krishna is such a hero, who invents stratagems and policies for the Panduings in their strife with the Kuruings. The king of the latter, when dying, declares that the Panduings have always been dishonorable and tricky, while he and his party have always adhered to honorable methods.

However, he is dying and his party is almost annihilated. The victors are somewhat affected by his taunts, which refer to Krishna's inventions and suggestions, but Krishna shows them the booty and says: "But for my stratagems you would have had none of these fine things. What do you care that you got them by tricks? Do you not want them?" They applaud and praise him. Then the surviving Kuruings, weary of virtue and defeat, surprise and murder the Panduings in the night, an act which was contrary to the code of honorable war. The antagonism of a virtue policy and a success policy could not be more strongly presented.[2217]

In the same poem Samarishta says that five lies are allowed when one's life or property is in danger. The wicked lie is one uttered before witnesses in reply to a serious question, and the only real lie is one uttered of set purpose for selfish gain. Yayati, however, says, "I may not be false, even though I should be in direst peril."[2218] The heroes fear to falsify, and the Vedas are quoted that a lie is the greatest sin.[2219] The clever hero has remained the popular hero. At the present day we are told that Ganesa, or Gana-pati, son of Siva, really represents "a complex personification of sagacity, shrewdness, patience, and self-reliance,--of all those qualities, in short, which overcome hindrances and difficulties, whether in performing religious acts, writing books, building houses, making journeys, or undertaking anything. He is before all things the typical embodiment of success in life, with its usual accompaniments of good living, plenteousness, prosperity, and peace."[2220] The Persians, from the most ancient times, have been noted liars. They used truth and falsehood as instruments of success. The relation of king and subject and of husband and wife amongst them were false. They were invented and maintained for a purpose.[2221]

+715. Odysseus.+ The Greeks admired cunning and successful stratagem.

Odysseus was wily. He was a clever hero. His maternal grandfather Autolykos was, by endowment of Hermes (a god of lying and stealing), a liar and thief beyond all men.[2222]

+716. Clever hero in German epics.+ In the German poems of the twelfth century Rother is a king who accomplishes his ends by craft. In the _Nibelungen_, Hagen is the efficient man, who, in any crisis, knows what to do and can accomplish it by craft and strength combined. The heroes are noteworthy for tricks, stratagems, ruses, and perfidy.[2223] In all the epic poems the princes have by their side mentors who are crafty, fertile in resource, and clever in action.[2224] In the Icelandic saga of Burnt Njal, Njal is the knowing man, peaceful and friendly. His crafty devices are chiefly due to his knowledge of the law, which was full of chicane and known to few. These clever heroes, developed out of the mores of one period and fixed in the epics, became standards and guides for the mores of later times, in which they were admired as types of what every one would like to be.

+717. Lack of historic sense amongst Christians.+ In the first centuries of the Christian era no school of religion or philosophy thought that it was an inadmissible proceeding to concoct edifying writings and attribute them to some great authority of earlier centuries, or to invent historical documents to advance a cause or support the claims of a sect. This view came down to the Middle Ages. The lack of historic feeling is well shown by the crusaders who, after Antioch was taken, in the next few days and on the spot, began to write narratives of the deeds of their respective commanders which were not true, but were exaggerated, romantic, and imaginary. They were not derived from observation of facts, but were fashioned upon the romances of chivalry.[2225] This was not myth making. It was conscious reveling in poetic creation according to the prevailing literary type. It was not falsehood, but it showed an entire absence of the sense of historic truth. In the case of the canon law, "the decretals were intended to furnish a documentary title, running back to apostolic times, for the divine institution of the primacy of the pope, and for the teaching office of bishops; a title which in truth did not exist."[2226] There was probably lacking in the minds of the men who invented the decretals all consciousness of antagonism between fact and their literary work. If they could have been confronted with the ethical question, they would probably have said that they knew that the doctrines in question were true, and that if the fathers had had occasion to speak of them they would have said such things as were put in their mouths. Mediaeval history writing was not subject to canons of truth or taste. It included what was edifying, to the glory of God and the church. Legends and history were of equal value, since both were used for edification. The truth of either was unimportant.

+718. Success policy in the Italian Renaissance.+ The historical period in which the success policy was pursued most openly and unreservedly was the Italian Renaissance. The effect on all virtue, especially on truthfulness of speech and character, was destructive, and all the mores of the period were marked by the choice of the code of conduct which disregards truth. The most deep-lying and far-reaching cause of societal change was the accumulation of capital and the development of a capitalistic class. New developments in the arts awakened hope and enterprise, and produced a "boundless passion for discovery" in every direction.[2227] The mediaeval church system did not contain as much obscurantism in Italy as in some other countries, and the interests of the Italians were intertwined with the hierarchical interests of Rome in many ways. It flattered Italian pride and served Italian interests that Rome should be the center of the Christian world. Every person had ties with the church establishment either directly or by relatives. In spite of philosophic freedom of thought or moral contempt for the clergy, "it was a point of good society and refined taste to support the church."

"It was easy for Germans and Englishmen to reason calmly about dethroning the papal hierarchy. Italians, however they might loathe the temporal power, could not willingly forego the spiritual primacy of the civilized world." Thus the Renaissance pursued its aims, which were distinctly worldly, with a superficial good-fellowship towards the church institution.[2228] "The attitude of the upper and middle classes of Italy towards the church, at the height of the Renaissance, is a combination of deep and contemptuous dislike with accommodation towards the hierarchy as a body deeply interwoven with actual life, and with a feeling of dependence on sacraments and ritual. All this was crossed, too, by the influence of great and holy preachers."[2229]

+719. Divergence between convictions and conduct.+ This means that faith in Christian doctrine was gone, but that the ecclesiastical system was a tolerated humbug which served many interests. Burckhardt quotes[2230] a passage from Guicciardini in which the latter says that he had held positions under many popes, which compelled him to wish for their greatness, on account of his own advantage. Otherwise he would have loved Martin Luther, not in order to escape the restraints of the current church doctrine, but in order to see the corrupt crew brought to order, so that they must have learned to live either without power or without vices. Thus the conduct of men was separated from their most serious convictions by considerations of interest and expediency, and a moral inconsistency was developed in character. Churches were built and foundations were multiplied, so that the masses seemed more zealous than the popes, but at the beginning of the sixteenth century there were bitter complaints of the decline of worship and the neglect of the churches.[2231] We have all the phenomena of a grand breaking up of old mores and the beginning of new ones. "It required the unbelief of the fifteenth century to give free rein to the rising commercial energies, and the craving for material improvement, that paved the way for the overthrow of ascetic sacerdotalism."[2232] The new class of burghers with capital produced a new idea of liberty to be set against the feudal idea of liberty of nobles and ecclesiastics, and that new class became the founders of the modern state.

+720. Classical learning a fad.+ Whatever may have been the origin of the zeal for classical study of the late Middle Ages, it was a remarkable example of a fad which became the fashion and very strongly influenced the mores. It was strengthened by the revolt against the authority of the church, and the humanism which it produced took the place of the mental stock which the church had offered. "Humanism effected the emancipation of intellect by culture. It called attention to the beauty and delightfulness of nature, restored man to a sense of his dignity, and freed him from theological authority. But in Italy, at any rate, it left his conscience, his religion, his sociological ideas, the deeper problems which concern his relation to the universe, the subtler secrets of the world in which he lives, untouched."[2233] That means that it was a fad and was insincere. There were men who were great scholars within the standards of humanism, but the enthusiasm for art, the zeal for Latin and Greek literature, the cooperative struggle for exhumations and specimens, were features of a reigning fad. The Renaissance was an affair of the upper and middle classes. It never could spread to the masses. Classical learning came to be valued as a caste mark. Then it became still more truly an affectation, and was tainted with untruth. The masses were superior in the sincerity and truthfulness of their mores by the contrast. The humanists were pagan and profane, but did not follow their doctrines into a reformation of the church. They exaggerated the knowledge of the ancients and the prestige of classical opinion until it seemed to them that anything ancient must be true and authoritative. They transferred to what was ancient the irrational reverence which had been paid to the doctrines of the church, and paid to the great classical authors the respect which had been paid to saints.[2234] In the sixteenth century they fell into discredit for their haughtiness, their shameful dissipation, and for their unbelief.[2235]

+721. The humanists.+ The humanists of Italy are a class by themselves, without historical relations. They had no trade or profession and could make no recognized career. Their controversies had a large personal element. They sought to exterminate each other. Three excuses have been suggested for them. The excessive petting and spoiling they met with when luck favored them; the lack of a guarantee for their physical circumstances, which depended on the caprice of patrons and the malice of rivals; and the delusive influence of antiquity, or of their notions about it. The last destroyed their Christian morality without giving them a substitute. Their careers were such generally that only the strongest moral natures could endure them without harm. They plunged into changeful and wearing life, in which exhaustive study, the duties of a household tutor, a secretary, or a professor, service near a prince, deadly hostility and danger, enthusiastic admiration and extravagant scorn, excess and poverty, followed each other in confusion.

The humanist needed to know how to carry a great erudition and to endure a succession of various positions and occupations. To these were added on occasion stupefying and disorderly enjoyment, and when the basest demands were made on him he had to be indifferent to all morals.

Haughtiness was a certain consequence in character. The humanists needed it to sustain themselves, and the alternation of flattery and hatred strengthened them in it. They were victims of subjectiveness. The admiration of classical antiquity was so extravagant and mistaken that all the humanists were subject to excessive suggestion which destroyed their judgment.[2236]

+722. "Individualism."+ Recent writers on the period have emphasized the individualism which was produced. By this is meant the emancipation of men of talent from traditional morality, and the notion that any man might do anything which would win success for his purposes. There was no grinding of men down to an average.[2237] This code was very widely applied in statecraft and social struggles. A smattering knowledge of Plutarch, Plato, and Virgil furnished heroic examples which could justify anything.[2238] Machiavelli's _Prince_ was only a text-book of this school of action for statesmen. Given the existing conditions in Italy, he assumed a man of ability and asked how he should best act. "He said that, to such a man, undertaking such a task, moral considerations were of subsidiary importance, and success was the one criterion by which he was to be judged. The conception was one forced on him by the actual facts of Italian history in his own time. The methods which he codified were those which he saw being actually employed."[2239]

Gobineau[2240] supposes a dialogue between Michael Angelo, Machiavelli, and Granacci about Francis I, Henry VIII, Charles V, and Leo X, in which the speakers attempt to foresee the development of events. They do not rightly estimate the royal personages, do not foresee the Reformation, and do not at all correctly judge the future. It was impossible that any one could do the last at a time when great historical movements and efforts of personal vanity and desire were mixing in gigantic struggles to control the world's history. Italy offered a narrower arena for personal ambition. Creighton[2241] describes Gismondo Malatesta of Rimini. He "thoroughly mastered the lesson that to man all things are possible. He trusted to himself, and to himself only. He pursued his desires, whatever they might be. His appetites, his ambition, his love of culture, swayed his mind in turns, and each was allowed full scope.

He was at once a ferocious scoundrel, a clear-headed general, an adventurous politician, a careful administrator, a man of letters and of refined taste. No one could be more entirely emancipated, more free from prejudice, than he. He was a typical Italian of the Renaissance, combining the brutality of the Middle Ages, the political capacity which Italy early developed, and the emancipation brought by the new learning." This might serve as a description of any one of the great secular men of the period. "Capacity might raise the meanest monk to the chair of St. Peter, the meanest soldier to the duchy of Milan. Audacity, vigor, unscrupulous crime, were the chief requisites of success."[2242]

"In Italy itself, where there existed no time-honored hierarchy of classes and no fountain of nobility in the person of a sovereign, one man was a match for another, provided he knew how to assert himself....

In the contest for power, and in the maintenance of an illegal authority, the picked athletes came to the front."[2243]

+723. Perverted use of words.+ Many words were given a peculiar and technical meaning in the use of the period. _Tristezza_ often meant wickedness. It was a duty to be cheerful and gay.[2244] "Terribleness was a word which came into vogue to describe Michael Angelo's grand manner. It implied audacity of imagination, dashing draughtsmanship, colossal scale, something demonic and decisive in execution."[2245]

_Virtu_ meant the ability to win success. Machiavelli used it for force, cunning, courage, ability, and virility. "It was not incompatible with craft and dissimulation, or with the indulgence of sensual vices."[2246]

Cellini used _virtuoso_ to denote genius, artistic ability, and masculine force.[2247] "The Italian _onore_ consisted partly of the credit attaching to public distinction and partly of a reputation for _virtu_" in the above sense.[2248] It was objective,--"an addition conferred from without, in the shape of reputation, glory, titles of distinction, or offices of trust."[2249] "The _onesta_ of a married woman is compatible with secret infidelity, provided she does not expose herself to ridicule and censure by letting her amour be known."[2250] A _virago_ meant a bluestocking, but was a term of respect for a learned woman. Modesty was "the natural grace of a gifted woman increased by education and association."[2251] The tendency of words to special uses is an index of the character of the mores of a period. The development of equality, when the restraints of traditional morality are removed, ought not to be passed without notice.

+724. Extravagance of passions and acts.+ It followed from the "ways" of the period that the human race "was bastardized" "by the physical calamities, the perpetual pestilences, the constant wars, the moral miseries, the religious conflicts, and the invasion of ancient ideas only half understood." The men died young in years, old in vice, decrepit and falling to pieces when not beyond the years of youth.[2252]

The emancipation of men with inordinate ambition and lust meant a grand chance of crime. Pope Paul III (Farnese) said that men like Cellini, "unique in their profession, are not bound by the laws." Cellini had committed a murder. He committed several others, to say nothing of minor crimes. After he escaped from St. Angelo, he was in the hands and under the protection of Cardinal Cornaro. The pope, Clement VII, wanted to get possession of him and Cornaro wanted a bishopric for a friend, so the pope and cardinal made a bargain and Cellini was surrendered.[2253]

"Italian society admired the bravo almost as much as imperial Rome admired the gladiator. It also assumed that genius combined with force of character released men from the shackles of ordinary morality."[2254]

Cellini was a specimen man of his age. He kept religion and morality far separated from each other.[2255] Varchi wrote a sonnet on him which is false in fact and in form, and displays the technical and conventional insincerity of the age.[2256] The augmentative form of the name Lorenzaccio expresses the notion that he was great, awful, and wicked.[2257] His biographer says that he was a "mattoid."[2258] He missed success because his antagonists were stronger than he, but his career was typical of the age. He was in part a victim of the classical suggestion. He expected to be glorified as a tyrannicide. This taste for the imaginative element was an important feature in the Italian Renaissance and helped to make it theatrical and untrue. "In gratifying his thirst for vengeance [the Italian] was never contented with mere murder. To obtain a personal triumph at the expense of his enemy by the display of superior cunning, by rendering him ridiculous, by exposing him to mental as well as physical anguish, by wounding him through his affections or his sense of honor, was the end which he pursued."[2259]

"However profligate the people might have been, they were not contented with grossness unless seasoned with wit. The same excitement of the fancy rendered the exercise of ingenuity, or the avoidance of peril, an enhancement of pleasure to the Italians. This is perhaps the reason why all the imaginative compositions of the Renaissance, especially the _novellae_, turn upon adultery."[2260] The false standards, aims, codes, and doctrines required this play of the fantasy to make them seem worth while. The fantastic element gave all the zest. When the mediaeval imaginative element failed the classical learning furnished a new one with suggestions, examples for imitation, and unlimited maxims and doctrines. Hence the passions become violent and upon occasion criminal,[2261] that is to say, they violated the code recognized by all men in all ages. "Force, which had been substituted for Law in government, became, as it were, the mainspring of society. Murders, poisoning, rapes, and treasons were common incidents of private as of public life. In cities like Naples blood guilt could be atoned for at an inconceivably low rate. A man's life was worth scarcely more than that of a horse. The palaces of the nobles swarmed with professional cutthroats, and the great ecclesiastics claimed for their abodes the right of sanctuary. Popes sold absolution for the most horrible excesses, and granted indulgences beforehand for the commission of crimes of lust and violence. Success was the standard by which acts were judged; and the man who could help his friends, intimidate his enemies, and carve a way to fortune for himself by any means he chose was regarded as a hero."[2262] If we should follow the manners and morals of the age into detail we should find that they were all characterized by the same fiction and conventional affectation, and by the same unrestrainedness of passion. Caterina Sforza avenged the murder of her lover with such atrocities that she shocked the Borgia pope.[2263] The artists of the late Renaissance were absorbed in admiration of carnal beauty. There was vulgarity and coarseness on their finest work.

Cellini's work is marked by "blank animalism."[2264] There was a great lack of all sentiment. "Parents and children made a virtue of repressing their emotions." "No period ever exhibited a more marked aversion from the emotional or the pathetic."[2265] There was no shame at perfidy or inconsistency, and very little notion of loyalty. It shocks modern taste that Isabella d'Este should have bought eagerly the art treasures of her dearest friend when they had been stolen and put on the market, and that after warm adherence to her brother-in-law, Ludovico il Moro, until he was ruined, she should have turned to court the victor.[2266] It is not strange that the age became marked by complete depravity of public and private morals, that the great men are enigmas as to character and purpose, and that they are demonic in action. The sack of Rome put an end to the epoch by a catastrophe which was great enough to strike any soul with horror, however hardened it might be.[2267] That event seems to show how the ways of the time would be when practiced by brutal soldiers.

+725. The sex relation and position of women.+ In such a period the sex relation is sure to be degraded and the position of woman is sure to be compromised. They can only be defined by the restraints which are observed or enforced. When all restraints are set aside sensuality is set free. Women were not suppressed. They took their place by the men and only demanded for themselves a liberty equal to that assumed by the men. The opinion has been expressed that Isabella d'Este "may be regarded as the most splendid realization of the Renaissance ideal of woman."[2268] Vittoria Colonna has been more generally accorded that position. She is doubly interesting for her Platonic relation to Michael Angelo, who was fifteen years her senior,[2269] and for her personal character. The title "bastard" was often worn with pride. In royal houses it happened often that the illegitimate branch took the throne on the failure of the other, so that the existence of the former was a recognized and useful fact, not a shameful one.[2270] Although it was true that woman "occupied a place by the side of man, contended with him for intellectual prizes, and took part in every spirited movement,"

although many of them became celebrated for humanistic attainments, and were intrusted with the government of states,[2271] yet it was not possible that they could maintain womanly honor and dignity side by side with the concubines and bastards of their husbands. The love of men for men was a current vice which was hardly concealed and which degraded the sex relation.[2272] The individualism of the period is interpreted as a motive for making love to the wife of another, that is, to another fully developed individual.[2273] Adultery also appealed to the love of intrigue and the appreciation of the imaginative element. Lewd stories and dramas were produced in great numbers in which the cunning and deception of adultery were developed in all imaginable combinations of circumstances. In real life a woman's relatives showed great ferocity in enforcing against her all the current conventions about her conduct.

That was because she might bring disgrace and ridicule on them by marrying beneath her, or by a liaison which was known and avenged by her husband. The assassination of the husband in such cases was only a trifling necessity which might be called for.[2274] A physician having married a widowed duchess, born a princess of Aragon, her brothers murdered her and her children and caused the physician to be assassinated by hired bravos.[2275] In the comedies marriage was derided and marital honor treated with contempt. Downright obscenity was not rare. Some of the comedies would not now be tolerated anywhere before an audience of men only.[2276] It seems trifling that objection was made to the nakedness of some figures in Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment." "As society became more vicious, it grew nice."[2277]

+726. The cult of success.+ This deep depravation of all social interests by the elevation of success to a motive which justified itself has the character of an experiment. Amongst ourselves now, in politics, finance, and industry, we see the man-who-can-do-things elevated to a social hero whose success overrides all other considerations. Where that code is adopted it calls for arbitrary definitions, false conventions, and untruthful character.

+727. Literature.+ There were several books published in the Renaissance period which aimed to influence the mores. In the middle of the fifteenth century was written Pandolfini's _Governo della Famiglia_. An old man advises his two sons and three grandsons on the philosophy and policy of life. He urges thrift and advises to stay far removed from public life. It is, he says, a "life of insults, hatreds, misrepresentations, and suspicions." He advises not to come into the intimacy of great nobles and not to lend them money. He has a low opinion of all women and would not trust a wife with secrets. Della Casa, in the first half of the sixteenth century, wrote _Il Galateo_, a treatise on manners and etiquette. He lays great stress on cleanliness of person and house, and he forbids all impropriety, for which he has a very positive code. Castiglione's _Courtier_ inculcates what the age considered sound ideas on all social relations, rights, and duties. In the dialogue different views are put forward and discussed, from which it results that the views to be regarded as correct often lack point and definiteness. Symonds thinks that the type presented with approval differs little from the modern gentleman.[2278] Cornaro wrote at the age of eighty-three a book called _Discorsi della Vita sobria_, which is said to set forth especially the diet by which the writer overcame physical weakness and reached a hale old age. When ninety-five he wrote another book to boast of the success of the first. He died in 1565, over a hundred years old.[2279]

+728. Moral anarchy.+ The antagonism between a virtue policy and a success policy is a constant ethical problem. The Renaissance in Italy shows that although moral traditions may be narrow and mistaken, any morality is better than moral anarchy. Moral traditions are guides which no one can afford to neglect. They are in the mores and they are lost in every great revolution of the mores. Then the men are morally lost.

Their notions, desires, purposes, and means become false, and even the notion of crime is arbitrary and untrue. If all try the policy of dishonesty, the result will be the firmest conviction that honesty is the best policy. The mores aim always to arrive at correct notions of virtue. In so far as they reach correct results the virtue policy proves to be the only success policy.

[2216] _Globus_, LXXXIII, 374.

[2217] Holtzmann, _Indische Sagen_, I, 170.

[2218] Holtzmann, _Indische Sagen_, I, 105.

[2219] _Ibid._, 23, 37, 119.

[2220] Monier-Williams, _Brahmanism and Hinduism_, 216.

[2221] Hartmann, _Ztsft. d. V. f. Volkskunde_, XI, 247.

[2222] _Od._, XIX, 394.

[2223] Lichtenberger, _Nibelungen_, 334, 354.

[2224] Uhland, _Dichtung und Sage_, 232.

[2225] Kugler, _Kreuzzuge_, 52.

[2226] Eicken, _Mittelalterl. Weltanschauung_, 656.

[2227] Symonds, _Renaissance_, III, 320.

[2228] _Ibid._, I, 390-405.

[2229] Burckhardt, _Renaissance_, 458.

[2230] Burckhardt, _Renaissance_, 465.

[2231] _Ibid._, 490.

[2232] Lea, _Sacerd. Celibacy_, 364.

[2233] Symonds, _Catholic Reaction_, II, 137.

[2234] Burckhardt, 184.

[2235] _Ibid._, 267.

[2236] Burckhardt, _Renaissance_, 268-271.

[2237] Symonds, _Renaissance_, I, 423.

[2238] Gauthiez, _Lorenzaccio_, 71.

[2239] Creighton, _Hist. Essays and Reviews_, 336.