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Areopagitica: Part I
Areopagitica: Part I
They who to States and Governors of the Commonwealth direct their speech,
High Court of Parliament, or wanting such access in a private condition, write
that which they foresee may advance the public good; I suppose them as at the
beginning of no mean endeavor, not a little altered^1 and moved inwardly in
their minds: Some with doubt of what will be the success,^2 others with fear
of what will be the censure,^3 some with hope, others with confidence of what
they have to speak. And me perhaps each of these dispositions, as the subject
was whereon I entered, may have at other times variously affected; and likely
might in these foremost expressions now also disclose which of them swayed
most, but that the very attempt of this address thus made, and the thought of
whom it hath recourse to, hath got the power within me to a passion,^4 far
more welcome than incidental^5 to a preface. Which though I stay not to
confess ere any ask, I shall be blameless, if it be no other, than the joy and
gratulation which it brings to all who wish and promote their country`s
liberty; whereof this whole discourse proposed will be a certain testimony, if
not a trophy. For this is not the liberty which we can hope, that no grievance
ever should arise in the commonwealth, that let no man in this world expect;
but when complaints are freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily
reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained, that wise men
look for. To which if I now manifest by the very sound of this which I shall
utter, that we are already in good part arrived, and yet from such a steep
disadvantage of tyranny and superstition grounded into our principles as was
beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery,^6 it will be attributed first, as is
most due, to the strong assistance of God our deliverer, next to your faithful
guidance and undaunted wisdom, Lords and Commons of England. Neither is it in
God`s esteem the diminution of his glory, when honorable things are spoken of
good men and worthy magistrates; which if I now first should begin to do,
after so fair a progress of your laudable deeds, and such a long obligement
upon the whole realm to your indefatigable virtues, I might be justly reckoned
among the tardiest, and the unwillingest of them that praise ye. Nevertheless
there being three principal things, without which all praising is but
courtship^7 and flattery; first, when that only is praised which is solidly
worth praise: next, when greatest likelihoods are brought that such things are
truly and really in those persons to whom they are ascribed, the other, when
he who praises, by showing that such his actual persuasion is of whom he
writes, can demonstrate that he flatters not: the former two of these I have
heretofore endeavored, rescuing the employment from him who went about to
impair your merits with a trivial and malignant Encomium,^8 the latter as
belonging chiefly to mine own acquittal, that whom I so extolled I did not
flatter, hath been reserved opportunely to this occasion. For he who freely
magnifies what hath been nobly done, and fears not to declare as freely what
might be done better, gives you the best covenant of his fidelity; and that
his loyalest affection and his hope waits on your proceedings. His highest
praising is not flattery, and his plainest advice is a kind of praising; for
though I should affirm and hold by argument, that it would fare better with
truth, with learning, and the commonwealth, if one of your published orders
which I should name, were called in, yet at the same time it could not but
much redound to the luster of your mild and equal government, when as private
persons are hereby animated to think ye better pleased with public advice,
than other statists^9 have been delighted heretofore with public flattery. And
men will then see what difference there is between the magnanimity of a
triennial parliament, and that jealous haughtiness of prelates and cabin
counselors that usurped of late, when as they shall observe ye in the midst of
your victories and successes more gently brooking written exceptions against a
voted order, than other courts, which had produced nothing worth memory but
the weak ostentation of wealth, would have endured the least signified dislike
at any sudden proclamation. If I should thus far presume upon the meek
demeanor of your civil and gentle greatness, Lords and Commons, as what your
published order hath directly said, that to gainsay, I might defend myself
with ease, if any should accuse me of being new or insolent, did they but know
how much better I find you esteem it to imitate the old and elegant humanity
of Greece, than the barbaric pride of a Hunnish and Norwegian stateliness. And
out of those ages, to whose polite wisdom and letters we owe that we are not
yet Goths and Jutlanders, I could name him^10 who from his private house wrote
that discourse to the parliament of Athens, that persuades them to change the
form of Democracy which was then established. Such honor was done in those
days to men who professed the study of wisdom and eloquence, not only in their
own country, but in other lands, that cities and seigniories heard them
gladly, and with great respect, if they had ought in public to admonish the
state. Thus did Dion Prusaeus a stranger and a private orator counsel the
Rhodians against a former edict: and I abound with other like examples, which
to set here would be superfluous. But if from the industry of a life wholly
dedicated to studious labors, and those natural endowments happily not the
worst for two and fifty degrees of northern latitude, so much must be
derogated,^11 as to count me not equal to any of those who had this privilege,
I would obtain to be thought not so inferior, as yourselves are superior to
the most of them who received their counsel: and how far you excel them, be
assured, Lords and Commons, there can no greater testimony appear, than when
your prudent spirit acknowledges and obeys the voice of reason from what
quarter soever it be heard speaking; and renders ye as willing to repeal any
act of your own setting forth, as any set forth by your predecessors.
[Footnote 1: Troubled.]
[Footnote 2: Issue.]
[Footnote 3: Judgement.]
[Footnote 4: Enthusiasm.]
[Footnote 5: Appropriate.]
[Footnote 6: i.e., after the decline of the empire.]
[Footnote 7: Courtiership.]
[Footnote 8: Bishop Hall had damned the Parliament with faint praise.]
[Footnote 9: Statesmen.]
[Footnote 10: Isocrates.]
[Footnote 11: Subtracted.]
If ye be thus resolved, as it were injury to think ye were not, I know
not what should withhold me from presenting ye with a fit instance wherein to
show both that love of truth which ye eminently profess, and that uprightness
of your judgment which is not wont to be partial to yourselves; by judging
over again that order which ye have ordained to regulate printing. That no
book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth printed, unless the same be first
approved and licensed by such, or at least one of such as shall be thereto
appointed. For that part which preserves justly every man`s copy^12 to
himself, or provides for the poor, I touch not, only wish they be not made
pretenses to abuse and persecute honest and painful men, who offend not in
either of these particulars. But that other clause of licensing books, which
we thought had died with his brother quadragesimal^13 and matrimonial^13 when
the prelates expired, I shall now attend with such a homily, as shall lay
before you, first the inventors of it to be those whom you will be loath to
own; next what is to be thought in general of reading, what ever sort the
books be; and that this order avails nothing to the suppressing of scandalous,
seditious, and libelous books, which were mainly intended to be suppressed.
Last, that it will be primely to the discouragement of all learning, and the
stop of truth, not only by the disexercising and blunting our abilities in
what we know already, but by hindering and cropping the discovery that might
be yet further made both in religious and civil wisdom.
[Footnote 12: Copyright.]
[Footnote 13: Regulations of the Episcopal Church relating to Lent and
Marriage.]
I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the church and
commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as
men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as
malefactors: for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a
potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they
are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of
that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as
vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragons teeth; and being sown up and
down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand unless
wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a
man kills a reasonable creature, God`s image; but he who destroys a good book,
kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man
lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a
master spirit, imbalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. It
is true, no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss;
and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for
the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary therefore
what persecution we raise against the living labors of public men, how we
spill^14 that seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books; since we
see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom, and if it
extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends
not in the slaying of an elemental^15 life, but strikes at that ethereal and
fifth essence,^16 the breath of reason itself, slays an immortality rather
than a life. But lest I should be condemned of introducing license, while I
oppose licensing, I refuse not the pains to be so much historical, as will
serve to show what has been done by ancient and famous commonwealths, against
this disorder, till the very time that this project of licensing crept out of
the Inquisition, was caught up by our prelates, and hath caught some of our
presbyters.
[Footnote 14: Destroy.]
[Footnote 15: Material.]
[Footnote 16: Spiritual element of Aristophanes.]
In Athens where books and wits were ever busier than in any other part of
Greece, I find but only two sorts of writings which the magistrate cared to
take notice of; those either blasphemous and atheistical, or libelous. Thus
the books of Protagoras were by the judges of Areopagus commanded to be burnt,
and himself banished the territory for a discourse begun with his confessing
not to know whether there were gods, or whether not: And against defaming, it
was decreed that none should be traduced by name, as was the manner of Vetus
Comoedia,^17 whereby we may guess how they censured libeling: And this course
was quick enough, as Cicero writes, to quell both the desperate wits of other
atheists, and the open way of defaming, as the event showed. Of other sects
and opinions though tending to voluptuousness, and the denying of divine
providence they took no heed. Therefore we do not read that either Epicurus,
or that libertine school of Cyrene, or what the Cynic impudence uttered, was
ever questioned by the laws. Neither is it recorded that the writings of those
old comedians were suppressed, though the acting of them were forbidden; and
that Plato commended the reading of Aristophanes the loosest of them all, to
his royal scholar Dionysius, is commonly known, and may be excused, if holy
Chrysostome, as is reported, nightly studied so much the same author and had
the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence into the style of a rousing sermon.
That other leading city of Greece, Lacedaemon, considering that Lycurgus their
law-giver was so addicted to elegant learning, as to have been the first that
brought out of Ionia the scattered works of Homer, and sent the poet Thales
from Crete to prepare and mollify the Spartan surliness with his smooth songs
and odes, the better to plant among them law and civility, it is to be
wondered how museless^18 and unboogish they were, minding naught but the feats
of war. There needed no licensing of books among them for they disliked all,
but their own Laconic Apothegms, and took a slight occasion to chase
Archilochus out of their city, perhaps for composing in a higher strain than
their own soldierly ballads and roundelays could reach to: Or if it were for
his broad verses, they were not therein so cautious, but they were as
dissolute in their promiscuous conversing,^19 whence Euripides affirms in
Andromache, that their women were all unchaste. Thus much may give us light
after what sort books were prohibited among the Greeks. The Romans also for
many ages trained up only to a military roughness, resembling most of the
Lacedaemonian guise, knew of learning little but what their twelve tables, and
the Pontific college with their Augurs and Flamins taught them in religion and
law, so unacquainted with other learning, that when Carneades and Critolaus,
with the Stoic Diogenes coming ambassadors to Rome, took thereby occasion to
give the city a taste of their philosophy, they were suspected for seducers by
no less a man than Cato the censor, who moved it in the senate to dismiss them
speedily, and to banish all such Attic babblers out of Italy. But Scipio and
others of the noblest senators withstood him and his old Sabine austerity;
honored and admired the men; and the censor himself at last in his old age
fell to the study of that whereof before he was so scrupulous. And yet at the
same time Naevius and Plautus the first Latin comedians had filled the city
with all the borrowed scenes of Menander and Philemon. Then began to be
considered there also what was to be done to libelous books and authors; for
Naevius was quickly cast into prison for his unbridled pen, and released by
the Tribunes upon his recantation: We read also that libels were burned, and
the makers punished by Augustus. The like severity no doubt was used if aught
were impiously written against their esteemed gods. Except in these two
points, how the world went in books, the magistrate kept no reckoning. And
therefore Lucretius without impeachment versifies his epicurism to Memius, and
had the honor to be set forth the second time by Cicero so great a father of
the commonwealth; although himself disputes against that opinion in his own
writings. Nor was the satirical sharpness, or naked plainness of Lucilius, or
Catullus, or Flaccus, by any order prohibited. And for matters of state, the
story of Titius Livius, though it extolled that part which Pompey held, was
not therefore suppressed by Octavius Caesar of the other faction. But that
Naso was by him banished in his old age, for the wanton poems of his youth,
was but a mere covert of state over some secret cause: and besides, the books
were neither banished nor called in. From hence we shall meet with little else
but tyranny in the Roman empire, that we may not marvel, if not so often bad,
as good books were silenced. I shall therefore deem to have been large enough
in producing what among the ancients was punishable to write, save only which,
all other arguments were free to treat on.
[Footnote 18: Inartistic.]
[Footnote 19: Intercourse.]
[Footnote 17: e.g., the old Attic comedy]
By this time the emperors were become Christians, whose discipline in
this point I do not find to have been more severe than what was formerly in
practise. The books of those whom they took to be grand heretics were
examined, refuted, and condemned in the general counsels; and not till then
were prohibited, or burned by authority of the emperor. As for the writings of
heathen authors, unless they were plain invectives against Christianity, as
those of Porphyrius and Proclus, they met with no inderdict that can be cited,
till about the year 400, in a Carthaginian council, wherein bishops themselves
were forbidden to read the books of Gentiles, but heresies they might read:
while others long before them on the contrary scrupled more the books of
heretics, than of Gentiles. And that the primitive councils and bishops were
wont only to declare what books were not commendable, passing no further, but
leaving it to each one`s conscience to read or to lay by, till after the year
800 is observed already by Padre Paolo the great unmasker of the Trentine
Council. After which time the Popes of Rome engrossing what they pleased of
political rule into their own hands, extended their dominion over men`s eyes,
as they had before over their judgments, burning and prohibiting to be read,
what they fancied not; yet sparing in their censures, and the books not many
which they so dealt with: till Martin V by his bull not only prohibited, but
was the first that excommunicated the reading of heretical books; for about
that time Wyclif and Huss growing terrible, were they who first drove the
papal court to a stricter policy of prohibiting. Which course Leo X, and his
successors followed, until the Council of Trent, and the Spanish inquisition
engendering together brought forth, or perfected those catalogues, and
expurging indexes that rake through the entrails of many an old good author,
with a violation worse than any could be offered to his tomb. Nor did they
stay in matters heretical, but any subject that was not to their palate, they
either condemned in a prohibition, or had it straight into the new purgatory
of an index. To fill up the measure of encroachment, their last invention was
to ordain that no book, pamphlet, or paper should be printed (as if St. Peter
had bequeathed them the keys of the press also out of Paradise) unless it were
approved and licensed under the hands of two or three glutton friars. For
example:
Let the Chancellor Cini be pleased to see if in this present work be
contained ought that may withstand^20 the printing.
Vincent Rabatta, Vicar of Florence.
I have seen this present work, and find nothing athwart the Catholic
faith and good manners: in witness whereof I have given, etc.
Nicolo Cini, Chancellor of Florence.
[Footnote 20: Forbid.]
Attending the precedent relation, it is allowed that this present work of
Davanzati may be printed,
Vincent Rabbatta, etc.
It may be printed, July 15.
Friar Simon Mompei d`Amelia,
Chancellor of the holy office in Florence.
Sure they have a conceit, if he of the bottomless pit had not long since
broke prison, that this quadruple exorcism would bar him down. I fear their
next design will be to get into their custody the licensing of that which they
say Claudius intended, but went not through with. Vouchsafe to see another of
their forms the Roman stamp:
Imprimatur,^21 if it seem good to the reverend master of the holy palace,
Belcastro, Vicegerent.
Imprimatur, Friar Nicolo Rodolphi, Master of the holy palace.
[Footnote 21: Let it be printed (Latin).]
Sometimes five Imprimaturs are seen together dialogue-wise in the Piatza
of one title-page, complimenting and ducking each to other with their shaven
reverences, whether the author, who stands by in perplexity at the foot of his
epistle, shall to the press or to the sponge. These are the pretty
responsories, these are the dear antiphonies that so bewitched of late our
prelates, and their chaplains with the goodly echo they made; and besotted us
to the gay imitation of the lordly Imprimatur, one from Lambeth house,^22
another from the West end of Pauls,^23 so apishly Romanizing, that the word of
command still was set down in Latin; as if the learned grammatical pen that
wrote it, would cast no ink without Latin; or perhaps, as they thought,
because no vulgar tongue was worthy to express the pure conceit of an
Imprimatur; but rather, as I hope, for that our English, the language of men
ever famous, and foremost in the achievements of liberty, will not easily find
servile letters enough to spell such a dictatorie^24 presumption English. And
thus ye have the inventors and the original of book-licensing ripped up, and
drawn as lineally as any pedigree. We have it not, that can be heard of, from
any ancient state, or polity, or church, nor by any statute left us by our
ancestors, elder or later; nor from the modern custom of any reformed city, or
church abroad; but from the most Antichristian Council^25 and the most
tyrannous inquisition that ever inquired. Till then books were ever as freely
admitted into the world as any other birth; the issue of the brain was no more
stifled than the issue of the womb: no envious Juno sat cross-legged^26 over
the nativity of any man`s intellectual offspring; but if it proved a monster,
who denies, but that it was justly burned, or sunk in the sea. But that a book
in worse condition than a peccant soul, should be to stand before a jury ere
it be borne to the world, and undergo yet in darkness the judgment of
Radamanth and his colleagues,^27 ere it can pass the ferry backward into
light, was never heard before, till that mysterious iniquity^28 provoked and
troubled at the first entrance of reformation, sought out new limbos and new
hells, wherein they might include our books also within the number of their
damned. And this was the rare morsel so officiously snatched up, and so
ill-favoredly imitated by our inquisiturient^29 bishops, and the attendant
minorites^30 their chaplains. That ye like not now these most certain authors
of this licensing order, and that all sinister intention was far distant from
your thoughts, when ye were importuned the passing it, all men who know the
integrity of your actions, and how ye honor truth, will clear ye readily.
[Footnote 22: Residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.]
[Footnote 23: Where the Bishop of London formerly lived.]
[Footnote 24: Dictatorial.]
[Footnote 25: Council of Trent.]
[Footnote 26: As at the birth of Hercules.]
[Footnote 27: The judges in Hades.]
[Footnote 28: The Church of Rome.]
[Footnote 29: Desirous of becoming inquisitors.]
[Footnote 30: Franciscan friars.]
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