Chapter Four - The Fourth Phase: Integrating the New Four Causal Understandings with the Traditional c.1720– c.1750
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 March 2021
Summary
I think enough has been already said, to establish “the first and true principles” of monarchical and indeed “of every other kind of government;” though Mr. Locke condescended to examine those of Filmer, more out of regard to the prejudices of the time, than to the importance of the work. Upon such foundations we must conclude, that since men are directed by nature to form societies because by their nature they cannot subsist without them, nor in a state of individuality. And since they were directed in like manner to establish governments, because societies cannot be maintained without them, nor subsist in a state of anarchy; the ultimate end of all governments is the good of the people, for whose sake the were made, and without whose consent they could not have been made. In forming societies, and submitting to government, men gave up part of that liberty to which they are all born, and all alike. But why? Is government incompatible with a full enjoyment of liberty? By no means.
Lord Bolingbroke, On The Idea of The Patriot King (1738)The more tranquil the state of the body the more capable it is of portraying the true character of the soul. In all positions too removed from this tranquility, the soul is not in its most essential condition, but in one that is agitated and forced. A soul is more apparent and distinctive when seen in violent passion, but it is great and noble when seen in a state of unity and calm. The portrayal of the suffering alone in Laocoon would have been parenthysros; therefore the artist, in order to unite the distinctive and the noble qualities of soul, showed him in an action that was closes to a state of tranquility for one in such pain …
The common taste of artists of today, especially the younger ones, is in complete opposition to this … The arts themselves have their infancy as do human beings, and they begin as do youthful artists with a preference for amazement and bombast. Such was the tragic muse of Aeschylus; his hyperbole makes his Agamemnon in part far more obscure than anything Heraclitus wrote. Perhaps the first Greek painters painted in the same manner that their first good tragedian wrote.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Metahistory of Western Knowledge in the Modern EraFour Evolving Metaparadigms, 1648 to Present, pp. 65 - 82Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2021