The Defense of Truth: Herbert of Cherbury and the Seventeenth Century

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THE DEFENCE OF TRUTH

For Linda,Jon and Noll

R. D. BEDFORD

THE DEFENCE OFTRUTH Herbert of Cherbury and the seventeenth century

MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS

R. D. Bedford 1979 all rights reserved

Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road Manchester M13 9PL U.K. ISBN O 7190 0740 2 British Library cataloguing in publication data

Bedford, R. D. The defence of truth. 1. Herbert, Edward, Baron Herbert, b. 1583 I. Title 192 B1201.H34 ISBN 0-7190--0740-2

Computerised Phototypesetting by G.C. Typeset Ltd., Bolton, Greater Manchester Printed in Great Britain by · A.Wheaton & Co. Ltd., Exeter

CONTENTS Acknowledgements Abbreviations

page

Vll Vlll

I

Herbert's career and writings

1

II

The problem of certainty Imbeciles and sceptics Scholasticism Scepticism De veritate and some responses

26

III

The strategy of truth Reason and intuition The common mind Herbert and Locke Some logical problems

63

IV

The Platonic metaphysic The Platonic heritage

87

Magica sympathia

'Plastic virtue' The immortality of the soul V

VI

Authority and faith Herbert as publicist Authority and tradition Revelation and faith Hooker, Herbert and Locke

130

Herbert and Christianity Paradox and history The religion of the stars Sin, salvation and free will The virtuous pagan

173

VII

VIII

Toleration The theory of persecution The vision of concord The epistemology of toleration

211

Deists and deism

239

Select bibliography

263

Index

267

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The wisdom and stimulation offered by the late Tom Henn of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, who first guided me into die seventeenth century and encouraged me to pursue my studies further, represents that sort of incalculable debt which a host of others who knew him can also acknowledge. I have naturally incurred many debts, both academic and practical, during the dozen years or so since I first began reading Herbert. Special thanks are recorded to the staff of the University Library, Cambridge; to the editors of Manchester University Press for undertaking this book with such unfailing co-operation and good advice; to the Trustees of the estate of Mrs V. E. Carre and to Bristol University for permission to quote from Meyrick H. Carre 's translation of Herbert's De veritate; and to the British Academy for their generous assistance towards the costs of production. My thanks are also due to Melba Chapman and Mary Milton at Exeter for tireless typing and copying, and to my wife Linda for both encouragement over many years and for a constantly refreshing Montaignian scepticism. Though much may not have been done without this help, what inadequacies remain are of course my own. Exeter, 7979

ABBREVIATIONS Certain works to which frequent reference is made have been abbreviated as follows: D.V.

Lord Herbert's De Veritate Prout Distinguitur Revelatione, a Verisimili, a Possibili, et a Falso, editio tertia, London, 1645. This is the best

edition and the last published in Herbert's lifetime. There is a facsimile edited by Ganter Gawlick (with Introduction and Bibliography), Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1966. Carre

Meyrick H. Carre, De Veritate, Translated with Introduction, University of Bristol, 1937. This is a translation of the London 1645 edition.

Rossi

Mario M. Rossi, La Vita, le opere, i tempi di Edoardo Herbert di Chirbury, 3 vols. Florence, 1947.

Fordyce and Knox

C. J. Fordyce and T. M. Knox, 'The books bequeathed to Jesus College Library, Oxford, by Lord Herbert of Cherbury', in Proceedings and Papers of the Oxford Bibliographical Society, 5, 1936-9, Part II, pp. 53f.

I HERBERT'S CAREER AND WRITINGS What brought Hercules his everlasting renown? Isn't he famous because he wandered through the world, freeing peoples from tyrannies, errors, dangers, and distresses? He put all the brigands to death, and all the monsters, all the poisonous serpents, and harmful creatures. Why don't we follow his example, and do what he did in all the countries we pass through? ... Come now, shall we go? Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, V

Among the first words uttered by the infant Edward Herbert was, he tells us, the question, 'How came I into this world?' The reaction of his audience seems to have been immediate: 'but for this, as I was laughed at by the nurse, and by some other women that were then present, so I was wondered at by others, who said, they never heard a child but myself ask that question'. 1 This first recorded response was destined to be repeated: the laughter from some-like Walpole, Gray and Lady Waldegrave in the eighteenth century who, having discovered the MS of Herbert's autobiography and reading it aloud 'could not get on for laughing and screaming'-and the wonder from others, who have seen in Herbert a kind of adult prodigy, an unexpected and eccentric figure going his own distinctive way in an age of which he is, as it were, both a flower and a thorn in the side. Herbert was born at Eyton on the Severn in 1582, of a famous family which had held the Welsh Marches for over two hundred years. He was the eldest son of Richard Herbert of Montgomery Castle and Magdalen, daughter of Sir Richard Newport. His younger brothers, of whom there were six, were to include George Herbert, the priest and poet, and Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels at the court of James I. He entered University College, Oxford, in 1595 and remained there until 1600. During this time his father died and his mother obtained wardship of her eldest son; by her arrangement he was married to a cousin some years older than himself, Mary, daughter of Sir William Herbert of St Julian's. She died in 1634, having borne him two sons, Richard and Edward, and two daughters, one of whom died in infancy. In the early years of this marriage, Herbert's mother lived with them in a house they had taken in Oxford, while Herbert pursued his studies. In 1600 the

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household, now a growing family, moved to Londo1�, though Herbert continued his academic studies, learning Italian, French and Spanish, and mastering the lute, on which he became very expert. He was one of the many new knights (there were some sixty others) invested 'upon carpet consideration' by James I on his accession in 1603. He was also Member of Parliament for Merioneth, and in 1604-5 appointed Sheriff of Montgomery. The chivalrous order of Knight of the Bath seems to have fired something in his imagination for he took his knightly vows with astonishing seriousness: 'they take an oath never to sit in place where injustice should be done, and they shall right it to the uttermost of their power; and particularly ladies and gentlewomen that shall be wronged in their honour, if they demand assistance, and many other points, not unlike the romances of knight errantry'. 2 In his autobiography he describes the dashing figure he cut at his investiture, and goes on to relate subsequent encounters in which this stamp of honour proved itself in the defence of distressed ladies (whether they demanded assistance or not), in retrieving stolen ribbons on a sword's point, and in barking out challenges to knaves and brigands because, as he says, 'I thought myself obliged thereunto by the oath'. His hankering now for a less quiet life and the urge to sow some wild oats (the old Queen Elizabeth, he tells us, once touched him on the cheek and said it was a pity he had married so young), led him to obtain a licence to travel abroad. Leaving his wife and children in the country, he set out for France in 1608, with Aurelian Townshend as his companion. While in France he was introduced to and became the intimate of the Montmorency family, visiting the Duke de Montmorency, Grand Constable of France, at his castle at Merlou. When the Duke moved to Chantilly he left Herbert at Merlou with the freedom of the estate and the stables, which doubtless benefited Herbert's accomplishments in horseriding, the use of arms, and in singing and playing the lute. He was rapidly turning himself into the complete cortegiano, the courtier-soldier, the heir of Sir Philip Sidney, and he was received with great courtesy by both Henry IV and his divorced Queen. After some eight months at Merlou and Chantilly, he returned to Paris, and lodged in the house of 'that incomparable scholar Isaac Casaubon '. The experience of an intimate acquaintance with the 'Politiques' of Merlou and with the humanist Casaubon in a France striken with religious dissension was to have,

Herbert's Career and Writings

3

as we shall see, a lasting effect on Herbert 's general outlook and disposition. Returning to England early in 1609, he presented himself to James at court, and continued his studies while living with h�s family. In 1610 he fought-like that earlier exemplum of the complete gentleman, Sir Philip Sidney-in the Low Countries, assisting the Prince of Orange in the siege of Juliers, but also rather straining his claims by issuing challenges on nice points of honour and, as his own picture of himself at least conveys, behaving with irrelevant bravado and posturing heroism. The admiration of the ladies at court, who had, he is sure, heard of his exploits abroad, involved Edward Herbert in a number of verbose and illegal duels, few of which actually drew blood, though one of his affairs of honour and the heart (in which he protested his complete innocence) led to an attempt by a jealous husband to assassinate him. In 1614 he served again with the Prince of Orange against the Spanish in the Netherlands; after a spell of action, he left the army and travelled south to Cologne, visiting the Prince and Princess Palatine at Heidelberg, and continuing to Ulm, Augsburg, Venice, Florence and Rome. On arriving in Rome, he tells us he called upon the master of the English College, evidently with the intention of testing the ground in this centre of the Catholic faith. He was assured that 'men who gave no affronts to the Roman Catholic religion, received none', and in reply Herbert says: 'I thought fit to tell him that I conceived the points agreed upon on both sides are greater bonds of amity betwixt us, than that the points disagreed on could break them; that for my part I loved everybody that was of a pious and virtuous life, and thought errors on what side soever, more worthy pity than hate '. 3 On his way back from Rome he attended lectures, particularly those of the Aristotelian Cremonini, at the University of Padua, visited Milan and Turin, and was commissioned, in an atmosphere a of masked balls, 'dancing and fir ladies ' ('it was now in the time of Carnival '), by the Duke of Savoy to lead four thousand Protestants from Languedoc into Piedmont to fight in the Duke 's service against Spain. Having made the gates of Lyons, Herbert was interrogated and brought before the governor to confront the new edict that no soldiers were to be raised in France, on pain of death. Since he had not actually raised any soldiers, Herbert felt confident enough. A brisk argument with the governor led to a short imprisonment, from

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which Herbert was released through the good offices of an old friend, Sir Edward Sacl